Banco: The Further Adventures of Papillon (2 page)

When we had climbed up to the edge of the plateau where the village of El Dorado begins, we almost stopped; and then slowly, very slowly, we went on. I heard Picolino draw his breath, and, like him, I breathed in very deeply, forcing the air right down into the bottom of my lungs and letting it out gently, as though I were afraid of living these wonderful minutes too fast, these
first minutes of freedom
.

The broad plateau opened in front of us; to the right and left were houses, all bright and clean and surrounded by flowers. Some children had caught sight of us, and even though they knew where we came from, they approached us, not unfriendly at all; no, they were kind, and they walked beside us without a words They seemed to understand how grave this moment was, and they respected it.

In front of the first house there was a little wooden table where a fat black woman was selling coffee and
are pas
, corn muffins.

“Good morning, lady.”

“
Buenas dias, hombres!
”

“Two coffees, please.”

“
Si, senores
.” And the good fat creature poured us two cups of delicious coffee; we drank standing, there being no chairs.

“What do I owe you?”

“Nothing.”

“How come?”

“It’s a pleasure for me to give you the first coffee of your freedom.”

“Thank you. When’s the next bus?”

“Today’s a holiday, so there’s no bus; but there’s a truck at eleven.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

A black-eyed, light-skinned girl came out of a house. “Come in and sit down,” she said with a lovely smile.

We walked in and sat down with a dozen people who were drinking rum.

“Why does your friend loll out his tongue?”

“He’s sick.”

“Can we do anything for him?”

“No, nothing: he’s paralyzed. He’s got to go to the hospital.”

“Who’s going to feed him?”

‘‘Me.’’

“Is he your brother?”

“No, my friend.”

“You got money, Frenchman?”

“Very little. How did you know I was French?”

“Everything gets known here in no time. We knew you were going to be let out yesterday, and that you escaped from Devil’s Island, and that the French police are trying to catch you to put you back there again. But they won’t look for you here; they don’t give orders in this country. We are the ones who are going to look after you.”

“Why?”

“Because...”

“What do you mean?”

“Here, drink a shot of rum and give one to your friend.”

Now a woman of about thirty was taking over. She was almost black. She asked me whether I was married. No. If my parents were still alive. Only my father.

“He’ll be glad to hear you are in Venezuela.”

“That’s right.”

A tall dried-up white man spoke up--he had big, staring eyes, but they were kind--”My relative didn’t know how to tell you why we are going to look after you. Well, I’ll tell you. Because unless he’s mad--and in that case there’s nothing to be done about it--a man can be sorry for what he’s done, and he can turn into a good man if he’s helped. That’s why you’ll be looked after in Venezuela. Because we love other men, and, with God’s help, we believe in them.”

“Why do you think I was a prisoner on Devil’s Island?”

“Something very serious, for sure. Maybe for having killed someone, or for a really big theft. What did you get?”

“Life.”

“The top sentence here is thirty years. How many did you do?”

“Fourteen. But now I am free.”

“Forget all that,
hombre
. As quick as you can, forget everything you suffered in the French prisons and here in El Dorado. Forget it, because if you think about it too much you’ll feel ill will toward other men and maybe even hate them. Only forgetting will let you love them again and live among them. Marry as soon as you can. The women in this country are hot-blooded, and the love of the woman you choose will give you happiness and children, and help you forget whatever you have suffered in the past.”

The truck arrived. I thanked these kind, good people and went out, holding Picolino by the arm. There were about ten passengers sitting on benches in the back of the truck. They left us the best seats, next to the driver.

As we lurched along the potholed track, I thought about this strange Venezuelan nation. Neither the fishermen of the Gulf of Paria, nor the ordinary soldiers of El Dorado, nor the humble workingman who talked to me in that thatched mud hut had had any education. They could hardly read and write. So how did they come to have the charity and nobility to forgive men who had done wrong? How did it come about that the heads of the penal settlement of El Dorado, both the officers and the governor-- educated men, those--had the same ideas as the simple people, the belief in giving every man a second chance, whoever he is and whatever he’s done? That generosity could not have come from Europeans; so the Venezuelans must have got it from the Indians.

We arrived in El Callao. A big square, music. Of course: it was July 5, the national holiday. All the people in their best clothes made up a motley crowd, typical of tropical countries where so many colors are mixed--black, yellow, white and the copper of the Indians, whose race always shows in the slightly slanting eyes and the lighter skin. Picolino and I got out, along with some passengers from the back of the truck. One of them, a girl, came up to me and said, “Don’t pay: that has been looked after.” The driver wished us good luck, and the truck set off again. Holding my little bundle in one hand while Picolino gripped the other with the three fingers he had left, I stood there wondering what to do. I had some English pounds from the West Indies, a few hundred bolivars * [ * A bolivar is worth about a quarter in U.S. money.] given me by my math pupils at the penal settlement, and some raw diamonds found among the tomatoes in the vegetable garden I had made.

The girl who had told us not to pay asked me where we were going, and I told her my idea was to find a little boardinghouse.

“Come to my place first; then you can look around.”

We crossed the square with her, and in a couple hundred yards we reached an unpaved street lined with low houses; they were all made of baked clay, and their roofs were thatch or corrugated iron. At one of them we stopped.

“Walk in. This house is yours,” the girl said. She must have been about eighteen.

She made us go in first. A clean room with a floor of pounded earth; a round table; a few chairs. A man of about forty, medium height, with smooth black hair, Indian eyes, and the same light reddish-brown skin as his daughter. And three girls of about fourteen, fifteen and sixteen.

“My father and my sisters,” she said, “here are some strangers I have brought home. They’ve come from the El Dorado prison, and they don’t know where to go. I ask you to take them in.”

“You’re welcome,” the father said. And he repeated the ritual words, “This house is yours. Sit down here, around the table. Are you hungry? Would you like coffee or rum?”

I didn’t want to offend them by refusing, so I said I’d like some coffee. I could see from the simple furniture that they were poor.

“My daughter Maria, who brought you here, is the eldest. She takes the place of her mother, who left us five years ago with a gold prospector. I’d just as soon tell you that myself, before you hear it from someone else.”

Maria poured coffee for us. Now I could look at her more closely, because she had taken a seat next to her father, right opposite me. The three sisters stood behind her. They looked closely at me, too. Maria was a girl of the tropics, with big, black, almond-shaped eyes. Her jet-black curling hair, parted in the middle, fell to her shoulders. She had fine features, and although you could detect the drop of Indian blood from the color of her skin, there was nothing Mongolian about her face. She had a sensuous mouth and splendid teeth. Every now and then she revealed the tip of a very pink tongue. She was wearing a white, flowered, wide-open blouse that showed her shoulders and the beginning of her breasts, covered by a brassiere that was visible under the blouse. This blouse, a little black skirt, and flat-heeled shoes were what she had put on for the holiday--her best. Her lips were painted bright red, and she had penciled two lines at the corners of her huge eyes to make them seem even larger.

“This is Esmeralda [Emerald],” she said, introducing her youngest sister. “We call her that because of her green eyes. This is Conchita; and the other is Rosita, because she looks like a rose. She is much lighter than the rest of us, and she blushes at the least thing. Now you know the whole family. My father’s name is José. The five of us are the same as one, because our hearts beat all together. And what’s your name?”

“Enrique.” *
 
[* Enrique is the Spanish form of Henri.]

“Were you in prison long?”

“Fourteen years.”

“Poor thing. How you must have suffered.”

“Yes, a great deal.”

“Papa, what do you think Enrique can do here?”

“I don’t know. Do you have a trade?”

“No.”

“Well then, go to the gold mine. They’ll give you a job.”

“And what about you, José? What do you do?”

“Me? Nothing. I don’t work--they pay you very little.”

Well, well, well. They were poor, sure enough; yet they were quite well dressed. Stiff, I couldn’t very well ask him what he used for money--whether he stole instead of working. Wait and see, I said to myself.

“Enrique, you’ll sleep here tonight,” Maria said. “There’s a room where my father’s brother used to sleep. He’s gone, so you can have his place. We’ll look after the sick man while you go to work. Don’t thank us; we’re giving you nothing--the room’s empty in any case.”

I didn’t know what to say. I let them take my little bundle. Maria got up and the other girls followed her. She had been lying: I could tell the room was in use, because they brought out women’s things and put them somewhere else, but I pretended not to notice anything. In the room there was no bed, but something better, something you often see in the tropics--two fine wool hammocks. A big window with just shutters--no glass-- opened onto a garden full of banana palms.

As I swung there in the hammock I could hardly believe what had happened to me. How easy this first day of freedom had been! Too easy. I had a free room and four sweet girls to look after Picolino. Why was I letting myself be led by the hand like a child? I was at the world’s end, to be sure; but I think the real reason I let myself be managed was that obeying was the only thing I understood after being a prisoner for so long. I was just like a bird that, when you open the door of its cage, doesn’t know how to fly anymore. It has to learn all over again.

I went to sleep without thinking about the past, exactly as the humble man of El Dorado had advised me.

I had just breakfasted off two fried eggs, two fried bananas covered with margarine, and black bread. Maria was in the bedroom, washing Picolino. A man appeared in the doorway; he was wearing a machete in his belt.

“
Gente de paz
,” he said. Men of peace, which is their way of saying, I’m a friend.

“What do you want?” asked José, who had had breakfast with me.

“The chief of police wants to see the men from Devil’s Island.”

“You don’t want to call them that. Call them by their names.”

“Okay, José. What are their names?”

“Enrique and Picolino.”

“Señor Enrique, come with me. I am a policeman, sent by the chief.”

“What do they want with him?” Maria asked, coming out of the bedroom. “I’ll come, too. Wait while I dress.”

In a few minutes she was ready. As soon as we were in the street she took my arm. I looked at her, surprised, and she smiled at me. When we reached the little administrative building, there were more police, all in plain clothes except for two in uniform with machetes hanging from their belts. A black man with a gold-braided cap presided over a roomful of rifles. He said to me, “You’re the Frenchman?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s the other?”

“He’s sick,” Maria said.

“I command the police. I’m here to help you if you need it. My name’s Alfonso.” And he held out his hand.

“Thanks. Mine’s Enrique.”

“Enrique, the chief administrator wants to see you. You can’t go in, Maria,” he added, seeing she was about to follow me. I went into the next room.

“Good morning, Frenchman. I am the chief administrator. Sit down. Since you’re in compulsory residence here in El Callao, I sent for you so that I could get to know you. I’m responsible for you.” He asked me what I was going to do--where I wanted to work. After we had talked a while he said, “If there’s anything at all, come and see me. I’ll help you work out as good a life as we can manage.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Oh, there’s one thing. I must warn you that you’re living with very good, honest girls; but their father, José--he’s a pirate.”

Maria was outside, at the station door, settled into that attitude Indians adopt when they are waiting, neither moving nor talking to anyone at all. She was not an Indian, but because of that little drop of Indian blood she had, the race came out. We took another way back to the house and walked through the whole village, her arm in mine.