Papillon

by Henri Charrière

  “Where’s the clerk?” the warden asked.

  “He’s on his way, chief.”

  I saw Dega coming, handsomely dressed in white with a buttoned jacket. He and the guard accompanying him each carried a big book. One by one we stepped out of the line and were given our new classification: “Prisoner in solitary so-and-so, transportee identification number X, you are now solitary, identification number Z.”

  When it came my turn, Dega walked up and hugged me.

  The warden asked, “Is that Papillon?”

  “Yes, sir,” Dega said.

  “Good luck in solitary. Two years pass quickly.”

  SOLITARY

  The boat was ready. Of the nineteen of us, ten were to go in the first lot. I was called. Dega said crisply, “No, he goes on the last trip.”

  I was astonished at the way the bagnards talked. There seemed to be no discipline; they didn’t give a damn for the guards. Dega came over and we started talking. He knew all about my escape. He had heard it from some men I’d known in Saint-Laurent who had come to the islands. He didn’t say he was sorry for me; that would have been beneath him. What he did say was, “You deserved to succeed, my boy. But you’ll make it next time!” He didn’t say “Chin up.” He knew I didn’t need it.

  “I’m the chief clerk and I’ve got an in with the warden. Take care of yourself in solitary and I’ll send you tobacco and food. You’ll have everything you need.”

  “Papillon, let’s go!” It was my turn.

  “Good-by, everybody. Thanks for your kind words.”

  I stepped into the boat. Twenty minutes later we docked at Saint-Joseph. I took note of the fact that we had only three armed guards aboard for six rowers and ten solitaries. It would have been a cinch to take over the boat.... At Saint-Joseph we were met by a reception committee headed by the warden of the penitentiary on the island and the warden at the Réclusion. As we entered the large iron gate with “Réclusion Disciplinaire” written above, I realized that this prison was no joking matter. The gate and the high surrounding walls obscured at first a little building marked “Administration-Direction” and three other buildings marked A, B and C. We went into Direction. It was cold.

  We were lined up in two rows and the warden said, “Réclusionnaires, as you know, this prison is for the punishment of offenses committed by men already condemned to the bagne. Here we don’t try rehabilitation. We know it’s useless. We try to break you. We have only one rule: keep your mouth shut. Absolute silence. If you get caught trying to ‘telephone,’ you risk an even heavier sentence. Unless you’re seriously ill, don’t ask to go to the infirmary. You’ll be punished for an unwarranted medical call. That’s all I have to say. Oh, one thing more—smoking is strictly forbidden. All right, guards, let’s get going. Search them thoroughly, then put each one in a cell. Don’t put Charrière, Clousiot and Maturette in the same building. Mr. Santori, will you see to this, please.”

  Ten minutes later I was locked up in my cell—number 234 in Building A. Clousiot was in B, Maturette in C. We said a mute good-by. Each of us understood that if we ever wanted to get out of here alive, we would have to obey their beastly rules. I watched them go, my companions of our long cavale, proud and brave comrades who never complained and never regretted what we’d brought off together. The fourteen months of our struggle for freedom had forged an unbreakable bond between us. I felt sick at heart.

  I looked around my cell. It was hard to believe that a country like mine, France, the cradle of liberty for the entire world, the land which gave birth to the Rights of Man, could maintain, even in French Guiana, on a tiny island lost in the Atlantic, an installation as barbarously repressive as the Réclusion of Saint-Joseph. Imagine one hundred and fifty cells, back to back, their four thick walls pierced only by a small iron door with a wicket. Painted above each wicket was the warning: “Do not open this door without special permission.” On the left was a wooden bunk with a wooden pillow, just like Beaulieu. The bunk folded back and hooked to the wall; there was a blanket, a cement block in the corner to sit on, a hand broom, a mug, a wooden spoon, and a metal sheet hiding a pail attached to it by a chain so that it could be pulled outside the cell to empty it, and pulled back in when you needed to use it. The cell was nine feet high. Its ceiling was made of iron bars as thick as streetcar tracks, so close together that nothing of any size could get through. Above that was the actual roof of the building, about twenty-two feet above the ground. Above the cells and looking down on them was a walk a yard wide with an iron railing, where two guards paced back and forth from opposite ends, stopping when they met and turning to retrace their steps. There was a little light at the top, but at the bottom of the cell you could barely see even in broad daylight. I started immediately to walk, waiting for the whistle to signal the lowering of the bunks. To avoid the slightest noise, both prisoners and guards wore slippers. I said to myself, “Charrière, you’re here in number two thirty-four; try to live for two years without going crazy. That’s seven hundred and thirty days. It’s up to you to give the lie to that Réclusion nickname—la mangeuse d’hommes.”

  One, two, three, four, five and turn. One, two, three, four, five and turn. The guard just passed over my roof. I didn’t hear him come. Suddenly he was there. The light came on, but very high up; it hung from the top roof twenty feet above. The walk was lighted, but the cells remained in the dark. I walked. The pendulum was back and swinging. Sleep in peace, you members of the jury who condemned me to this place; sleep in peace, for I do believe that if you had known what you were really doing, you would have pulled back. It was going to be difficult to keep my imagination from wandering. Almost impossible. Better to direct it toward less depressing subjects than to try to suppress it altogether.

  The blast of a whistle announced that we could let down our bunks.

  A deep voice said, “For the new men: Now you can let down your bunks and lie down if you want to.” He said, “… if you want to.” Therefore I kept on walking; it was too crucial a moment to sleep. I had to get used to this cage. One, two, three, four, five; right away I picked up the rhythm of the pendulum: head lowered, hands clasped behind my back, the length of the paces exactly right, a pendulum swinging back and forth, interminably. It was like sleepwalking. At the end of the five steps I didn’t even see the wall but grazed it on the turn in this marathon without beginning or end.

  It’s a fact, Papi: la mangeuse d’hommes is no joke.

  It was a weird effect when the guard’s shadow hit the wall. If you lifted up your head to look at him, it was even worse: you felt like a leopard in a pit being watched by the hunter who’d just caught you. It took me months to get used to that awful sensation.

  One year equals three hundred and sixty-five days, two years, seven hundred and thirty days, unless one’s a leap year. I smiled at the thought. One day more wouldn’t matter much. The hell it wouldn’t! One day more is twenty-four hours more. And twenty-four hours is a long time. And seven hundred and thirty days each made up of twenty-four hours is one hell of a lot more. How many hours does that make? Can I figure it in my head? No, I can’t; it’s impossible. Why, of course, it’s possible. Let’s see. A hundred days, that’s twenty four hundred hours. Multiplied by seven—it’s easy—it makes sixteen thousand eight hundred hours, plus the thirty remaining days times twenty-four, which makes seven hundred and twenty hours. Total: sixteen thousand eight hundred, plus seven hundred and twenty, which makes, if I haven’t made a mistake, seventeen thousand five hundred and twenty hours. My dear Mr. Papillon, you have seventeen thousand five hundred and twenty hours to kill in this cage with its smooth walls especially designed for wild animals. And how many minutes? Who gives a shit! Hours is one thing, but minutes? To hell with minutes. Why not seconds? What does it matter? What matters is that I have to furnish these days, hours and minutes with something, all by myself, alone! I wonder who’s on my right, on my left, behind me. If those cells are occupied, the men in them must be wondering who
just moved into 234.

  I heard the quiet thud of something falling into the cell. What could it be? Could my neighbor be agile enough to throw something through the grill? I tried to figure out what it was. I could just make out something long and thin. Then as I was on the point of picking it up, the thing started to move toward the wall. I jumped back. As it reached the wall, it tried to climb up but fell to the ground. The wall was so smooth it couldn’t get a grip. I watched it try three times; when it fell on the fourth attempt, I squashed it under my foot. It was soft. What could it be? I got down on my knees to see it as best I could and made out an enormous centipede over eight inches long and wider than two fat fingers. It was so disgusting I couldn’t bring myself to pick it up and throw it into the pail. Instead I pushed it under the bunk with my foot. I’d do something about it tomorrow, in the daylight. I was to see plenty of centipedes; they fell from the upper roof. When I was lying down, I learned to let them walk over my naked body without disturbing them. I had learned what a tactical error could cost. One sting from the revolting beast and you had a terrible burn for almost six hours and a raging fever for twelve.

  However, it was a distraction. If a centipede fell when I was awake, I’d torment it with the broom, or I’d amuse myself by letting it hide from me; then a few moments later I’d go find it....

  One, two, three, four, five.... Complete silence. Doesn’t anybody snore here? Anybody cough? The heat is suffocating and it’s night. It must be hell during the day! It seemed I was destined to live with centipedes. When the water rose in the dungeon at Santa Marta, they came in large numbers, but they were smaller. The same family, however. At Santa Marta we had the daily flooding, but at least we could talk, shout, sing, or listen to the screams of the ones who were going nuts. It wasn’t the same. If I had to choose, I’d take Santa Marta. You’re crazy, Papillon. Over there, there was a unanimous opinion that the most a man could stand was six months. Here there are lots who have to do four and five years and even more. It’s one thing to give a man that sentence; it’s quite another to serve it. How many kill themselves? I don’t see any way to do it. Yes, I do. It wouldn’t be easy, but you could hang yourself. You could make a cord out of your pants and tie one end to the broom. Then, by standing on the bunk, you’d be able to slip the cord around one of the bars. If you got flush with the wall, the guard might not see the cord. And immediately after he’d passed by, you’d let yourself go. By the time he came around again, you’d already be cooked. And besides, he’d be unlikely to hurry down to your cell to unhang you. How could he open the cell door? He couldn’t. It says on the door: “Do not open this door without special permission.” So, nothing to worry about. Anyone who wants to kill himself has all the time he needs before the “special permission” unhooks him.

  All this may not be very interesting to people who like action and confrontations. You can skip these pages if you’re bored. However, I feel obligated to describe as faithfully as possible my first impressions of my new cell and my reaction to those first hours of entombment.

  I’d been walking a long time. My ears picked out a murmur in the night—the changing of the guard. The first guard was a tall, bony man; the new one was small and fat. He dragged his slippers. I could hear them scraping along two cells before mine and two after. He wasn’t 100 percent silent like his comrade. I went on walking. It must be late. What time? I wondered. Tomorrow I’d get back some sense of time. I had to open the wicket in my door four times a day; that would give me an approximate idea. During the night, knowing when the first guard came on duty and the length of his watch, I’d be able to figure out the time by when the second came on, then the third, and so on.

  One, two, three, four, five.... I automatically resumed my endless walk and, with the help of fatigue, took flight into the past. To fight the darkness of my cell, I sat down in the full sunlight of the beach with my tribe. The boat Lali was fishing from rocked on the opal sea about two hundred yards offshore. I dug my feet into the sand. Zoraima brought me a large fish cooked over the coals and wrapped in a banana leaf to hold in the heat. I ate with my fingers, and she watched me as she sat cross-legged in front of me. She was happy to see that the big flakes separated neatly from the fish, and she read in my face how good it tasted.

  I was far away from my cell. I hadn’t heard of the Réclusion, or Saint-Joseph, or the islands. I rolled on the beach and cleaned my hands by rubbing them in the coral sand—so fine you would have said it was flour. Then I walked to the sea to rinse my mouth in that wonderfully clear and salty water. I cupped the water in my hands and splashed it on my face. As I rubbed my neck, I realized how long my hair had grown. When Lali came back, I’d have her cut it. I spent the whole night with my tribe. I undid Zoraima’s loincloth, and there on the sand, in full daylight with the sea breeze caressing us, I took her. She moaned with love as she did when she felt special pleasure. Perhaps the wind carried this amorous music to Lali. Perhaps she saw us and knew we were making love. Yes, she must have seen us, for the boat was coming back to shore. She stepped out, smiling. On the way back she had untied her hair and shaken the wet strands with her long fingers to dry it in the glorious sun. I went up to her. She put her right arm around my waist and pulled me up the beach toward our hut. As we walked, it was clear what she was thinking: “What about me?” In the house she pushed me down on a folded hammock and, once inside her, I forgot that the world existed. Zoraima came in when she knew our lovemaking was over. Sated with love, we lay naked on the hammock. She sat down next to us and tapped her sister’s cheek with her fingers, repeating a word that must have meant something like “glutton.” Then she rearranged my loincloth and Lali’s with a gesture of tender modesty.

  I spent the entire night in Guajira, not sleeping a wink. I didn’t even lie down. I just kept on walking in a kind of trance, transported to a delicious day I’d lived six months before.

  The light went out and I could see daylight begin to invade the shadows of the cell, chasing away the floating mist that enveloped everything around me. Then came the sound of the whistle and the bunks slamming against the wall; I even heard my neighbor’s hook as he fixed it to the ring. He coughed and I heard the sound of water. How did you wash in this place?

  “Guard, please, how do you wash in this place?”

  “Réclusionnaire, I’ll excuse you since you’re new. But remember, you get punished for talking to a guard. To wash yourself, you stand over the pail and pour from the pot of water with one hand as you clean yourself with the other. Didn’t you unfold your blanket?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll find a towel inside it.”

  How about that! You can’t even talk to a guard. Not for any reason. Not even if you’re in pain, or about to croak, or if you have a heart attack, or appendicitis, or an attack of asthma. You can’t call for help even if it’s a matter of life or death? It’s incredible. On the other hand, it’s not really so incredible. It would be too easy to create a disturbance when you were at the end of your resistance, when your nerves had snapped. Just to hear voices, just to have somebody speak to you even if he only said, “Go ahead and croak, but shut up.” But it’s a sure thing that out of the two hundred and fifty poor bastards here, someone will provoke some kind of dialogue to let off—like a safety valve—the intolerable pressure in his head.

  No psychiatrist could have thought up these cages; no doctor would have so disgraced himself. And certainly no doctor was responsible for the regulations. But the two who did plan this place—the architect and the bureaucrat—and worked out the details of the punishment must have been loathsome monsters, vicious and cunning psychopaths wallowing in sadistic hatred for the prisoners.

  From the dungeons in Beaulieu and Caen, as deep as they were, there was a chance that echoes of the tortures and the horrible treatment inflicted on the prisoners might filter up and eventually reach the public’s ear. The proof of this was that, when they’d taken off my handcuffs and thumbscrews, I saw real f
ear on the guards’ faces—even if it was only the fear of troublesome complications.

  But here, in the Réclusion, where only officials of the Administration knew what was going on, they were safe.

  Clack, clack, clack, all the wickets opened. I moved over to mine, risked putting my eye to it, then stuck my head out a little, and finally put my whole head out in the corridor. There, on my left and my right, was a whole multitude of heads. Obviously, the minute the wickets opened, everybody did what I’d done. The one on my right looked at me without a trace of expression. Brutalized by masturbation, probably. His blank idiot’s face was wan and sweaty. The one on my left asked quickly, “How long?”

  “Two years.”

  “I have four. I’ve done one. What’s your name?”

  “Papillon.”

  “Mine’s Georges, ‘Jojo l’Auvergnat.’ Where’d they get you?”

  “Paris. What about you?”

  He didn’t have time to answer. The guards carrying the coffee and bread were two cells away from mine. He pulled in his head; I did the same. I held out my mug and they filled it with coffee and gave me my bread. But I wasn’t quick enough: as they closed the wicket, the bread rolled onto the floor. In less than fifteen minutes silence had returned. At noon we got soup with a piece of boiled meat. At night, a bowl of lentils. For two years the menu changed only at night: lentils, kidney beans, split peas, chick-peas, white beans and rice with fat. The noon meal was always the same.

  Every two weeks we put our heads out and a con with barber’s shears cut our beards.

  I’d been here three days. I began to worry. At Royale my friends had told me they’d be sending me food and tobacco. I hadn’t received anything yet, and furthermore, I couldn’t see how such a miracle could be brought off. I wasn’t surprised I hadn’t received anything. The cigarettes didn’t matter; it would be dangerous to smoke, and besides, it was a luxury. But food was vital. The soup at noon was only hot water with two or three green leaves floating around and a little piece of meat weighing perhaps four ounces. At night we got a ladleful of water with a few dried peas or beans swimming about. To be honest, I didn’t so much suspect the Administration of not giving us proper rations as I did the cons who prepared and distributed the food. This occurred to me because some nights there was a little guy from Marseilles who doled out the vegetables and his ladle went right down to the bottom of the pot, giving us more beans than water. The others did just the opposite. They stirred a little, then skimmed the water off the top. Lots of water, few beans. This undernourishment was very dangerous. To keep up your morale, a certain degree of physical strength was essential.