Papillon (30 page)

“No,” said the Breton, “it seems fair to me. You escaped from the
bagne
together. Besides you wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t asked to be let off in Colombia. But thanks all the same for asking our opinion. I hope to God you succeed—if you’re caught, it’s certain death.”

“We know,” Clousiot and Maturette agreed.

The warden spoke to me the next afternoon. He’d found someone. He wanted to know what supplies we wanted in the boat.

“A barrel with twelve gallons of fresh water, fifty pounds of cornmeal and six quarts of oil. That’s all.”

“Good God!” the warden exploded. “You can’t go to sea with only that!”

“I sure as hell can.”

“You’re a brave man, Frenchie.”

So it was settled. Then he added coldly, “Believe it or not, I’m doing this both for my children and for you. You deserve it because you have courage.”

I thanked him.

“How can we arrange this so no one will know I’m involved?”

“You won’t be involved. I’ll leave at night when your assistant’s on duty.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Tomorrow I want you to take one of the policemen off night duty. Then, in three days, take another one off. When only one’s left, install a sentry box facing the cell door. On the first rainy night the guard will take shelter in the sentry box and we’ll go out the rear window. The only other thing you have to do is short-circuit the lights on the wall. The way to do that is to take a yard of brass wire weighted with stones at either end and throw it over the two wires connecting the lights on the wall with the utility pole. As for the fisherman, see that he attaches the boat by a chain and that he forces the padlock himself so I don’t have to waste time doing it. Also the sails should be ready to hoist and there should be three paddles to get us out into the open.”

“But the boat has a small motor.”

“Ah, so much the better. Have him leave the motor running as if he were warming it up, and then go to a nearby café for a drink. When he sees us coming, he should stand by the stern of the boat in a black oilskin.”

“What about the money?”

“I’ll cut your bills in half. I’ll pay the fisherman his seven thousand in advance. I’ll give you the halves of your bills ahead of time, and the other halves will be given you by one of the Frenchmen staying behind. I’ll tell you which one.”

“I see you don’t trust me. That’s not good.”

“No, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but you might not do the short-circuit right. Then I don’t pay you, because without the short-circuit, we can’t get out.”

“O.K.”

Everything was ready. Through the warden I paid the fisherman his seven thousand pesos. For five days there had been just one guard, and the sentry box was installed. We waited only for the rain, but it wouldn’t come. The bars had been cut with a saw donated by the warden. The cut was well disguised and, in addition, it was hidden by a cage which housed a parrot who had learned to say
“Merde.”
We were in torment. Each night we waited, but no rain. At this time of year it was unbelievable. The smallest cloud beyond our window filled us with hope, then nothing. It was enough to drive you nuts. We had now been ready for sixteen days; sixteen nights of watching with our hearts in our mouths. One Sunday morning the warden came for me in the yard and took me back to his office. He gave me a packet of the half bills and three thousand whole pesos.

“What goes on?”

“Frenchie, my friend, tonight’s your last chance. You leave for Barranquilla tomorrow morning at six. You get only three thousand pesos back from the fisherman because he spent the rest. If God means it to rain tonight, the fisherman will be waiting for you, and when you take the boat, you can give him the rest of his money. I trust you.”

It didn’t rain.

At six in the morning eight soldiers and two corporals accompanied by a lieutenant handcuffed us, and we set off for Barranquilla in an army truck. We did the hundred and ten miles in three and a half hours. At ten o’clock we were in the prison called the “80,” Calle Medellin, in Barranquilla. So much effort to avoid going to Barranquilla, and there we were all the same! It was an important city, the biggest port in Colombia, situated inland on an estuary of the river Magdalena. Its prison was big too: four hundred prisoners and nearly a hundred guards. It was organized like a European prison, with double walls more than twenty-five feet high.

We were received by the prison’s general staff and the director, Don Gregorio. The prison had four yards, two on one side, two on the other, separated by a long chapel which was used for mass as well as the visitors’ room. We were put in the yard for the most dangerous prisoners. When they searched us, they found my twenty-three thousand pesos and the arrows. I thought it was my duty to warn the director that they were poisoned—it didn’t exactly help our reputations.

“These Frenchies even have poisoned arrows!”

Barranquilla was the most dangerous stage of our adventure. From here we’d be turned over to the French authorities. Yes, Barranquilla was crucial. We had to escape from here no matter what the cost. It was all or nothing.

Our cell was in the middle of the yard. And it wasn’t a cell; it was a cage. It had a cement roof resting on thick iron bars with the toilets and washstands in one corner. The other prisoners—about a hundred of them—were in cells recessed into the four walls, their grills opening onto the yard, which was about sixty by a hundred and twenty feet. At the top of each grill was a sort of metal overhang to keep the rain from coming into the cells. We six Frenchmen were the only occupants of the central cage and we were exposed night and day to the view of both prisoners and guards. We spent the day in the yard, from six in the morning until six at night. We could enter or leave the cage whenever we wanted. We could talk, walk about, even eat in the yard.

Two days after our arrival the six of us were taken to the chapel, where we found ourselves in the presence of the director, some policemen and seven or eight newspaper reporters and photographers.

“You are escaped prisoners from the
bagne
in French Guiana?”

“We never said we weren’t.”

“What were your crimes?”

“That’s of no importance. What is important is that we’ve committed no offense on Colombian territory and that your country has not only refused to let us start a new life but has played bloodhound for the French government.”

“Colombia doesn’t want you in its territory.”

“And we don’t want to remain. We were arrested on the high seas; we weren’t trying to come here. In fact, we were making every effort to get as far away from here as possible.”

A journalist from a Catholic newspaper said, “The French, like the Colombians, are almost all Catholics.”

“You may be baptized Catholics, but the way you act is hardly Christian,” I said.

“What do you have against us?”

“You collaborated with the authorities who were out for our necks. You did their work for them: you seized our boat with everything we owned—a gift, I might add, from the Catholics of Curaçao, represented by their noble bishop, Irénée de Bruyne. You weren’t willing to let us try to rehabilitate ourselves, and, still worse, you prevented us from going anywhere else—to a country that might be willing to take that risk.”

“You hold this against us Colombians?”

“Not the Colombian people, but their police and their judicial system.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That if there’s a will, all errors can be corrected. Give us a chance to sail to another country.”

“We’ll try.”

Once back in the yard, Maturette said, “Well, well! Did you get that? Let’s have no illusions this time,
mecs
! We’re in the soup all right, and it’s not going to be easy to get out.”

“Well, friends, I don’t know whether we’re stronger going it together or not. But remember you’re all free to do what you think best. As for me, I’ve got to get out of here, and that’s that.”

I was called to the visitors’ room on Thursday, where a well-dressed man of about forty-five was waiting for me. I looked at him hard. He had an uncanny resemblance to Louis Dega.

“Are you Papillon?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Louis Dega’s brother, Joseph. I read about what happened in the newspapers.”

“Thank you.”

“You saw my brother over there? You know him?”

I described Dega’s odyssey in detail right up to the moment we separated at the hospital. Then he told me he had learned via Marseilles that his brother was on the Iles du Salut. He also told me there were about a dozen Frenchmen in Barranquilla who had come here with their women to seek their fortune. They were all pimps. In a special quarter of the town about twenty ladies carried on the distinguished French tradition of skilled prostitution. From Cairo to Lebanon, from England to Australia, from Buenos Aires to Caracas, from Saigon to Brazzaville, you found the same men and the same women practicing their specialty. So much for that.

He also told me that the Barranquilla pimps were worried: they were afraid our arrival might disturb their peace and endanger their flourishing trade. If one or all of us escaped, the police would immediately go after them, even if they were in no way involved. In the process the police might uncover a lot of things, such as false papers and invalid or expired visitors’ permits. A few would be in serious difficulties if they were discovered.

He gave me all kinds of information, then added that he was at my disposal for anything I had in mind and would come to see me in the chapel every Thursday and Sunday. I thanked this stalwart friend, who was to give proof many times over that he was a man of his word. He also told me that, according to the newspapers, France had received permission to have us extradited.

When I got back to the cell, I gave them the news. “Gentlemen, let us cherish no illusions. Our extradition is on the books. A special boat is coming from French Guiana to take us back. In addition, our presence here appears to be a source of anxiety to some French pimps who have a nice business going on in this city. Not the man who just came to see me. He couldn’t care less what happens to them, but his colleagues are afraid that if one of us escapes, they might all be in trouble.”

Everyone laughed—they thought I was joking. Clousiot mimicked, “Dear Mr. Pimp, may I please have your permission to escape?”

“It’s not funny. If any of the pimps come to see us, we must send them away. O.K.?”

“O.K.”

As I’ve already mentioned, there were about a hundred Colombian prisoners in our yard. They were far from stupid. There were clever thieves, distinguished forgers, ingenious and spirited crooks, specialists in assault and battery, narcotics smugglers and a few specially trained assassins. In this part of the world the services of these assassins were in demand by the rich, the politicians and successful adventurers.

There was great variety in the color of their skin: from the black of the Senegalese to the tea color of the Martinique Creoles, from the brick red of the Indians with their straight, almost purple hair, to pure white. I made some contacts among them and tried to size up their desire or ability to make a break. Most of them were like me: they expected, or already had, long sentences and therefore were always ready for a
cavale
.

There was a walk along the top of the four walls that enclosed our yard; it was brightly lit at night, and at each of the four corners there was a small tower for the guard. So, night and day, there were four guards on duty, plus one more at the door to the chapel. This guard wasn’t armed.

The food was adequate, and several prisoners sold food, coffee, or fruit juices—orange, pineapple, papaya, etc.—they got from the outside. From time to time they were the victims of assaults executed with amazing speed. Too fast for them to see it coming, a large napkin would be tied over their faces to keep them from crying out, and a knife held against their backs or necks, ready to plunge in at their slightest move. Before they knew what had hit them, they’d be cleaned out. Then they’d be given a sharp whack at the nape of the neck and the napkin removed. And that would be the end of it. No one ever mentioned it again. Sometimes, though, the “shopkeeper” would put away his goods—somewhat like closing shop—and go looking for his assailant. If he found him, there was always a battle with knives.

Two Colombian thieves came to me with a proposition, and I listened carefully. It appeared that some of the policemen doubled as thieves. When they were on duty in the town, they alerted their accomplices to come and go to work.

My visitors knew them all and explained that during the coming week it would be very likely that one of these policemen would be stationed at the door of the chapel. I should get hold of a revolver during visitors’ hours. The policeman-thief could easily be persuaded to knock on the back door of the chapel, which opened on a small guardhouse. There were never more than six men in it. They’d be taken by surprise, and with the revolver in my hand, they wouldn’t stop us from reaching the street. After that it would be a simple matter to get lost in the heavy traffic.

I didn’t like the plan much. For me to hide a revolver, it would have to be a very small one, hardly big enough to intimidate the guards. Or one of them might have the wrong reaction and I’d be forced to kill him. So I said no.