Papillon (33 page)

Just before we lit the fuse, Pablo alerted a group of Colombians. “If you want to make a break, there’ll be a nice hole in the wall in a few minutes.”

That’s good, I thought. The police will concentrate on the last ones through.

We lit the fuse. A terrific explosion shook the whole area. The tower fell. There were cracks over the whole wall, wide enough to see the street on the other side, but not one wide enough to let a man through.

I was finally forced to admit that all was lost. Obviously it was my fate to return to Cayenne.

The confusion that followed the explosion can’t be described. More than fifty policemen filled the yard.

Don Gregorio had a pretty good idea who was responsible. “Well, Frenchie, I think this was your last try.”

The head of the garrison was wild with exasperation: he could hardly order someone to hit a cripple lying in a wheelbarrow. I wanted to protect the others, so I declared in a loud voice that I had done it all by myself. Six guards were stationed in front of the wall, six in the prison yard, and six outside in the street. They stayed until the masons had repaired the damage. Fortunately the guard who fell with the tower was unhurt.

Three days later, at eleven in the morning on October 30, twelve white-uniformed guards from the
bagne
arrived to take possession of us. Before we left, there was a short official ceremony: each of us had to be identified. They had brought our descriptions, reports, photographs, fingerprints—the whole lot. Once they had verified our identities, the French consul stepped up to sign a document from the judge of the district—the official charged with giving us back to France. All of us were astonished at the friendly way we were treated by the guards. No animosity, no harsh words. The three in our group who had been there longest knew several of the
bagne
guards and joked with them like old buddies. The head of our escort, Commander Boursal, was worried about my condition. He looked at my feet and said he’d have them examined on the ship: there was a good orderly aboard.

We were put in the bottom of the old tub’s hold, but the worst of it was the suffocating heat and the “bars of justice” to which our chains were attached. Only one interesting thing happened on the trip: the boat had to pick up coal in Trinidad. In port, a British naval officer demanded that our irons be removed. Apparently it was against British law to chain a man on board ship. I took advantage of the incident to slap a British officer in the face. I was trying to get myself arrested so they’d take me ashore. But the officer said, “I’m not going to have you punished for what you just did. Where you’re going you’ll get punishment enough.”

Clearly, I was fated to go back to the
bagne
. It was very sad; eleven months of escapes, all that struggle, and all for nothing. But in spite of everything, my return to the
bagne
—no matter what happened there—could never wipe out the beautiful moments I had experienced.

We had just left Trinidad, which brought back memories of the incomparable Bowen family, and we passed near Curaçao, where that great man, Irénée de Bruyne, served as bishop. We must also have skirted the territory of the Guajiros Indians, where I’d known love in its purest and most spontaneous form. They saw things with the clarity of children, those Indians, and they were rich in human understanding and simple love.

And the lepers of the Ile aux Pigeons! Those wretched convicts with their terrible scourge, who still had the nobility to help us!

And, finally, the spontaneous goodness of the Belgian consul and Joseph Dega, who, without knowing me, constantly risked everything on my behalf! These people had made the
cavale
worth doing. Even though it was a failure, my escape was also a victory because of the way these extraordinary people had enriched my life. No, I didn’t regret any part of it.

Now we were back on the Maroni and its muddy waters. It was nine in the morning and we were standing on the
Mana’s
bridge. The tropical sun was already burning the earth. We were sailing gently up the estuary I had left with such urgency. My comrades and I were silent. The guards were glad to be back. The sea had been rough during the trip, and they were happy to be in calm waters.

November 16, 1934

There was a wild crush at the landing. Perhaps everyone was just curious to see men who had been unafraid to make such a long trip. Also it was Sunday, and we were providing some distraction for people who didn’t get much of it. I could hear people saying, “The one who can’t walk is Papillon. That one’s Clousiot. There, that’s Maturette....” And so on.

In the penitentiary camp six hundred men were lined up in front of their barracks. Guards stood beside each group. The first one I recognized was François Sierra. He was leaning from an infirmary window and looking straight at me. He was crying and making no attempt to hide the fact. It was plain that his grief was real. We were brought to a halt in the middle of the camp. The chief warden picked up a loudspeaker:

“Transportees, I hope this is proof that it is useless to try to escape. There is no country that will not arrest you and return you to France. Nobody wants any part of you. So it’s better to stay here quietly and behave. What lies in store for these men? A heavy sentence in solitary on Saint-Joseph and then internment for life on the lies du Salut. That’s what their escape got them. I trust you get the idea. Guards, take these men to the disciplinary quarter.”

A few minutes later we were in a special cell in the maximum-security section. As soon as we arrived, I asked them to look after my swollen feet, and Clousiot complained of the plaster cast on his leg. We could give it one more try. As if they’d ever send us to the hospital again! François Sierra arrived with his guard.

“Here’s the orderly,” the guard said.

“How goes it, Papi?”

“I’m sick. I want to go to the hospital.”

“I’ll try to get you in, but after what you did there it’ll be just about impossible. Same goes for Clousiot.”

He massaged my feet, rubbed them with ointment, checked Clousiot’s cast and went on his way. We couldn’t talk because of the guards, but his eyes were so full of sympathy that I was touched.

“No. Nothing doing,” he told me the next day when he came to give me another massage. “Want me to get you into a communal cell? Do they chain your feet at night?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s better you go into a communal cell. You’ll still be chained, but you won’t be alone. It must be terrible for you to be in isolation at a time like this.”

It was. Isolation was harder to bear than ever. I was in such a sorry state that I didn’t even need to close my eyes to have my mind wander in either the past or the present. And not being able to walk made it that much worse.

So there I was right back on the road of the condemned. But hadn’t I managed to get away once—and sail toward freedom, toward the joy of being a man again, and toward my revenge too? For I mustn’t forget the debt I owed that trio—Polein, those pigs of policemen, and the prosecutor. As for the trunk, there was no need to hand it over to the police at the entrance to Headquarters. I would do it myself, dressed as an employee of Wagon-Lits-Cook, with the fancy company cap on my head. There would be a big tag on the trunk saying, “Commissioner Benoit, 36 Quai des Orfèvres, Paris (Seine).” I’d carry it up to the briefing room myself, having fixed it so the alarm wouldn’t go off until I’d left. It couldn’t possibly fail.

Finding this solution took a great load off my mind. As for the prosecutor’s tongue, I had plenty of time to work that one out. In fact, it was as good as done. I’d tear it out in small pieces; that’s what I’d do.

But, meantime, I had to heal my feet so I could walk as soon as possible. I wouldn’t go before the tribunal for three months, and in three months a lot could happen. One month to get walking again, one month to make arrangements, then good night, gentlemen. Direction: British Honduras. But this time nobody would get his hands on me.

Yesterday, three days after our return, I was carried into the communal cell. There were forty men there, awaiting their fate. Among their crimes were theft, looting, arson, murder, attempted murder, attempted escape, escape and even cannibalism. There were twenty of us on each side, all chained to the same fifty-foot-long iron bar. At six in the evening each man’s left foot was shackled to the bar. At six in the morning the shackles were removed, and we could spend the whole day sitting, walking about, playing checkers, and talking things over in what we called our “promenade”—a sort of alley six feet wide that went the length of the room. There wasn’t time to be bored during the day. I had constant visits from people who wanted to hear about the
cavale
. They went out of their minds when I told them that of my own free will I had abandoned my tribe of Guajiros, and Lali and Zoraima.

“What the hell do you want, man?” a guy from Paris asked. “Métros? Elevators? Movies? Electricity? With high-tension wires for working the electric chair? Or did you want to take a bath in the fountain in the Place Pigalle? Are you crazy, man?” the guy continued. “You had two chicks, one more stacked than the other. The whole lot of you spent your time running naked through the woods; you ate, you drank, you hunted. You had the sea, the sun, warm sand, you even had the pearls and oysters free, and you couldn’t think of anything better to do than give it all up? And for what? Tell me. So that you can dodge cars in the streets, so that you can pay rent, pay your tailor, your electricity and telephone bill, and if you want a secondhand wreck of a car, you steal or else work like a dog for somebody just to make enough to keep from starving? I don’t get it,
mec
! You were in heaven and you willingly return to hell where, on top of the usual problems, you have to keep all those cops off your tail. It’s true you’re still full of that fresh French blood and you haven’t had time to lose your faculties. I’ve had ten years in the
bagne
and I don’t understand you. Anyway, you’re welcome here, and since I can see you want to start all over again, you can count on us to help you. That’s right, isn’t it,
mecs
?”

The
mecs
agreed, and I thanked them all.

I could see that these were men to be reckoned with. Because of the way we were jammed in together, it was hard to hide the fact that I had a
plan
. At night, since we were all chained to the same bar, it was easy to murder someone. All you had to do was slip a little something to the Arab turnkey during the day so he wouldn’t quite close your shackle at night. Then when night came, the would-be killer did his bit, came back to his place, lay down quietly and closed his shackle. Since the Arab was indirectly an accomplice, he kept his mouth shut.

I’d now been back three weeks. The time had gone quite fast. I was beginning to walk a little, holding onto the bar in the passageway between the rows of bunks. Last week, at our interrogation, I caught sight of the three hospital guards we’d knocked out and disarmed. They were clearly delighted to see us back and expressed the fervent hope that we might all find ourselves together in some secluded spot where they could return the compliment. After our
cavale
they had been severely punished: their six months’ holiday in France had been canceled, along with their supplementary colonial pay for a year. You might say that our reunion was not exactly cordial. We thought it wise to report this to our interrogators.

The Arab behaved better. He spoke only the truth without exaggerating and skipped over the role played by Maturette. The examining judge kept trying to find out who had provided us with the boat. We didn’t help our cause when we told him the unlikely story that we had made a raft ourselves.

Because we had assaulted the guards, he said he would try his best to get Clousiot and me five years and three for Maturette.

“And since your name is Papillon, I think I’ll clip your wings so you won’t be flying off again very soon.”

Only two months to go before I went before the tribunal. I was angry I hadn’t put the small poisoned arrows in my
plan
. Maybe if I’d had them, I could have made it from the disciplinary quarter. However, I was making daily progress, walking better and better. François Sierra never missed his morning and evening visits to massage my feet with camphorated oil. He was a great help, both to my feet and to my morale. Thank God for true friends!

I’ve already mentioned that our long
cavale
had given us great prestige among our fellow convicts. I was certain that we were safe and ran little risk of being killed for our money. Most of the men wouldn’t have tolerated it, and I had no doubt that if anybody tried, he’d be killed straight off. Without exception, everybody respected us; they even felt a certain admiration. And since we had dared to knock out the guards, they figured we’d do anything. It was an interesting sensation to feel safe.

Every day I walked a little longer, and Sierra left a little bottle with me so that my friends could massage my feet and the muscles of my legs, which were atrophied from long disuse.

“They ate the wooden leg!” “A little wooden-leg stew, please!” Then a voice imitating a woman’s: “Waiter, a piece of well-done
mec
without pepper, please!”

It was a rare night one of these strange phrases didn’t shatter the silence. Clousiot and I wondered what it was all about.

I got the key to the mystery one afternoon when one of the men involved told me the story. His name was Marius de La Ciotat and he was a safecracker (like me). When he learned that I knew his father, Titin, he decided to talk to me.