Papillon

by Henri Charrière

  Then one day Juliette saw me as I was moving the coconuts I’d stored in her yard. “Tell me, Papillon, when are you getting to work on your coconut oil? I don’t see why you don’t make it here in the yard. You’ve got a sledgehammer to open them with, and I can lend you a big pot for the pulp.”

  “I’d rather do it in the camp.”

  “That’s funny. The camp isn’t very convenient.” She paused and then said, “Want me to tell you what I think? I don’t think you’re making coconut oil at all.” I froze. She went on, “Why would you want it when I can give you all the olive oil you can use? The coconuts are for something else, aren’t they?” Large drops of sweat rolled down my face. I was waiting to hear the word escape. I could hardly breathe.

  “Madame, it was to be a secret, but your curiosity forces me to tell you. However, all I’m going to say is that I picked them out for their shells. I was going to make something as a present for you. That’s all there is to it.”

  It worked. She said, “Papillon, you shouldn’t go to all that trouble for me. I forbid you to spend your time and money making me something extravagant. I thank you sincerely, but you mustn’t do it.”

  “That’s for me to decide.” Whew! I asked her for a pastis—something I’d never done before. Luckily she didn’t notice my unease. God was on my side.

  It rained hardest during the afternoon and evening. I was afraid the water would seep down through the thin layer of earth and lay bare the matting. Matthieu was forever having to replace the earth. I was certain it was flooded underneath, so we pulled back the matting and found that the water had almost reached the top of the coffin. It was a critical moment. Not far away was the grave of two children, dead for many years. We lifted off the tombstone; I crawled in and hacked away at the cement with a miner’s pick on the side nearest my raft’s grave. I had no sooner cracked the cement and prodded the earth with the pick than a great gush of water streamed in. It was the water from my flooded grave. I climbed out as it was reaching my knees. We replaced the stone and made it fast with some white mastic that Narric had found. With this operation we had got rid of half the water in our tomb.

  That evening Carbonieri said, “We seem to have nothing but trouble with this cavale.”

  “Come on, we’re almost there.”

  “Let’s hope so.” We were getting very nervous.

  The next morning, as a cover-up, I went down to the quay and asked Chapar to buy me five pounds of fish. I told him I’d pick it up at noon. Then I walked over to Carbonieri’s garden. As I came near, I saw three white caps. What were three guards doing in his garden? This was most unusual. Were they making a search? I’d never seen three guards around Carbonieri before. I waited almost an hour. Then I had to find out what was going on. Casually I walked down the path that led to the garden. The guards watched me come. When I was about forty yards away, Matthieu put the white handkerchief on his head. I breathed again and just had time to pull myself together before I reached them.

  “Good morning, gentlemen. Good morning, Matthieu. I’m here for the papaya you promised me.”

  “I’m sorry, Papillon, but somebody stole it this morning while I was getting the poles for my beans. I’ll have some more ripe ones in four or five days; they’re already turning yellow. Gentlemen, don’t you want some lettuce, or tomatoes, maybe some radishes for your wives?”

  “Your garden is very well tended, Carbonieri. My congratulations,” one of them said.

  They accepted the lettuce, tomatoes and radishes and left. I made sure to leave before them, taking two heads of lettuce with me.

  I passed by the cemetery. The rain had washed away the earth, leaving the tomb half uncovered. I could see the matting ten steps away. Only the good Lord had kept us from being caught this time. The wind blew like mad every night, roaring over the plateau and sometimes bringing gusts of rain. It was ideal weather for a cavale.

  The six-foot piece of wood—the most important one and damnably cumbersome—joined its brothers. I slid it into place and it fitted like an angel. Bourset ran back to camp to find out if I’d received it. He was so relieved to know all had gone well, it seemed as if he’d been worried it might not arrive.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked him. “Do you think somebody’s onto us? Have you told anybody about this?”

  “No, certainly not.”

  “But something’s eating you. What is it?”

  “A guy named Bébert Celier seems to be taking a little too much interest in us. I think he saw Narric put a piece of our wood under his workbench, then transfer it to a barrel of lime and carry it off. His eyes followed Narric to the door of the shop. That’s why I’m worried.”

  So I said to Grandet, “Bébert Celier is in our case. He can’t possibly be a stoolie, can he?”

  “He’s one of the boys in the Public Works Service. You know the kind: African battalion, camisard, one of those bullheaded soldiers who’s been in every military prison in Morocco and Algeria. He’s a fighter, dangerous with a knife, a passionate lover of young boys and a gambler. He’s never been a civilian. Conclusion: he’s a loser and a dangerous one. The bagne is his life. If you have any real doubts, take the bull by the horns and kill him tonight. Don’t give him time to squeal.”

  “We’ve got no proof he’s a stoolie.”

  “True,” Grandet said. “But we’ve go no proof he isn’t. His kind of bagnard don’t like cavales. They don’t like anything messing up their well-ordered lives. They might not be stool pigeons about anything else, but about cavales, who knows?”

  I consulted Matthieu. His advice was to kill Celier that night. In fact, he volunteered to do it himself. I made the mistake of saying no. The idea of killing someone, or allowing someone to be killed, on the basis of appearances alone revolted me. What if Bourset was imagining things? Fear might make him invent heaven knows what.

  I asked Narric, “Have you noticed anything funny about Bébert Celier?”

  “Me? No. I carried the barrel out on my shoulder so the turnkey at the door couldn’t see inside. We figured that if I stood just in front of him until my brother-in-law arrived, the Arab would see I wasn’t in a hurry and he’d trust me enough not to look inside the barrel. But later on my brother-in-law did tell me he thought Bébert Celier was watching us pretty closely.”

  “What do you think?”

  “My brother-in-law was especially nervous because of the size of the piece and the fact that it looked too much as if it were for a raft. He thought he saw more than he actually saw.”

  “That’s what I think. Let’s forget it. When we get to the last piece, make sure Bébert Celier is not around when you leave. Take the same precautions with him you would with a guard.”

  I spent that night gambling for very high stakes and won seven thousand francs. The less attention I paid to the game, the more money I won. At four-thirty in the morning I left for work, though I actually turned the job over to the black from Martinique. The rain had stopped and I crept through the dark to the cemetery. I couldn’t find the shovel, so I had to move the earth back with my feet. When I went down to fish, the sun was already shining bright. I went to the southernmost part of Royale, where I was planning to launch the raft. The tide was high and the sea rough; it was clear that it would be hard to get away from the island without being tossed back onto the rocks. I started to fish and right away caught a lot of rock mullet. In no time I had over twelve pounds. So I stopped and cleaned the fish in the sea. I was very uneasy, and tired from the long night of gambling. I sat down in the shade and tried to pull myself together. I told myself that the tension that had been building up for three months was soon coming to an end and, thinking about Celier, I decided I had no right to kill him.

  Then I went to call on Matthieu. The grave could easily be seen from his garden. There was some earth on the path which he said he’d sweep off at noon. I passed by Juliette’s and gave her half my fish.

  She said, “Papillon, I had a bad dream about
you last night. You were in chains and all covered with blood. Please don’t do anything foolish. I’d suffer too much if something happened to you. See, the dream upset me so much I haven’t washed yet or even combed my hair. I looked through my binoculars to see where you were fishing, but I couldn’t find you. Where did you catch these?”

  “On the other side of the island. That’s why you didn’t see me.”

  “Why do you go so far away where nobody can see you? What if you were carried away by a wave? There would be no one to save you from the sharks.”

  “Oh, you’re exaggerating!”

  “You think I’m exaggerating? Well, perhaps. But I forbid you to fish on that side of the island. If you don’t obey me, I’ll see that your fishing permit is taken away.”

  “Come, be reasonable. If it’ll make you any happier, I’ll let your houseboy know where I’m going fishing.”

  “All right. But why do you look so tired?”

  “Because I am tired. And I’m going back to the camp to sleep.”

  “O.K., but I expect you for coffee at four o’clock. You’ll come?”

  “Yes, madame. I’ll see you later.”

  Juliette’s dream! That was all I needed! As if I didn’t have enough real problems....

  Bourset told me he was sure he was being watched. We’d been waiting fifteen days for the last piece—the one five feet long. Narric and Quenier insisted there was nothing wrong, but Bourset was still afraid to make it. If it hadn’t needed five joints that had to fit exactly, Matthieu could have made it in the garden. But it was into this plank that the five ribs of the raft had to be fitted. Narric and Quenier were repairing the chapel, so they were able to come and go from the shop with all kinds of material. Sometimes they even used a small wagon pulled by a buffalo. We had to take advantage of this opportunity.

  Against his better judgment, Bourset started to make the piece. Then one day he said he was sure someone had moved it when he wasn’t there. He still had to make one of the joints, and we decided he should do this and then put the piece under his workbench. He was to lay a hair on it to tell us if anyone touched it. He finished his work and left the shop at six o’clock, making sure that no one was left except the guard. The plank and hair were in place. At noon I was in the camp waiting for the eighty men to come out of the shop. Narric and Quenier were there, but no Bourset. A German came up to me and handed me a carefully sealed letter. I could see it hadn’t been opened. I read: “The hair is gone; someone has touched the board. The guard is letting me stay to work during the siesta. I told him I had to finish a little rosewood box I’ve been working on. I’ll take the board and put it with Narric’s tools. You tell him about it. He must leave with the board at three sharp. Maybe we can steal a march on the guy who is taking such an interest.”

  Narric and Quenier agreed. Just before everybody was back in the shop, two men would start a fight outside the door. This task was allotted to two of Carbonieri’s people—Corsicans from Marseilles named Massani and Santini. They didn’t ask why, which was fine. Narric and Quenier would be first in line and they would take advantage of the incident to run in, then out, carrying a mixture of stuff as if they were in a hurry to get to work and the fight couldn’t concern them less. We were all agreed that this was our last chance. If it succeeded, I wouldn’t make a move for a month or two because it was clear that someone—or several people—knew that somebody was making a raft. It would be up to them to find out who and where.

  It was now two-thirty and the men were getting ready. There were thirty minutes between roll call and the time the men actually filed off to work. Bébert Celier was in the middle of the twenty rows of four men each.

  Narric and Quenier were in the first row, Massani and Santini in the twelfth, Bébert Celier in the tenth. It looked like a good setup, because when Narric was picking up his odd lengths of wood along with our board, others would still be going in. Bébert would be almost at the workshop door. When the scuffle broke out, everybody would turn around, Bébert included, and there’d be lots of shouting and shoving. And so it went. By four o’clock it was all over. The board was under a heap of stuff in the chapel. They hadn’t yet been able to get it out of there, but it was well hidden.

  I went to see Juliette; she wasn’t home. On my way back I passed the Administration Building and saw Massani and Santini standing in the shade, waiting to be put in the dungeon. We had expected that.

  I walked up to them and asked, “How much?”

  “Eight days.”

  A Corsican guard said, “How about that! Two Corsicans fighting each other …!”

  I went back to camp. Carbonieri and my friends were walking on air—they congratulated me on the way I had organized the operation. Narric and Quenier were pleased too. Everything was going great. I slept through the night even though I was asked to play poker. I pretended I had a headache. Actually I was just dead tired but overjoyed that success was around the corner. The most difficult part was behind me.

  The next morning Matthieu put the board in the hole in the wall. The cemetery guard was raking the paths near our tomb. It would be risky to go too near it now. Every morning at daybreak I took a wooden bucket and replaced the earth on the grave. I tidied the path with a broom, then hurriedly hid the pail and broom in a corner and returned to work.

  It was now exactly four months since we had started to prepare this cavale and nine days since we’d finally got the last piece for the raft. The rain had stopped except for a little at night. All my attention was turned to the next two stages: first getting the damned board out of Matthieu’s garden, then fitting it into the raft. This could only be done during the day. Then, escape! But that had to wait until the raft was launched and packed with the coconuts and our supplies.

  I brought Jean Castelli up to date. He was delighted to know that I was this near the end. He remarked, “The moon’s in the first quarter.”

  “I know. At midnight there’ll be no problem. The tide goes out at ten in the evening, so the best time to put the raft in the water will be between one and two in the morning.”

  Carbonieri and I decided to hurry things up a little. We’d make the final assembly the next morning. That night, escape.

  The next morning I walked from the garden to the cemetery and jumped over the wall, carrying a bucket in my hand. While I was clearing the earth away from the top of the matting, Matthieu was moving the stone out from the wall to get at the board. Then together we lifted the matting and placed it to one side. The raft seemed to be in perfect condition. A little dirty, but that didn’t matter. We took it out in order to have room to fit the last piece in, then we set in the five ribs, banging them into their grooves with a stone. Just as we were finished and about to put the raft back in its place, a guard appeared with a carbine in his hand.

  “Don’t move or I shoot!”

  We dropped the raft and put up our hands. I recognized the guard. He was the one from the workshop.

  “Don’t try anything funny. I’ve got you. Admit it and at least you’ll save your skin. It’s hanging by just a thread right now—I’d really like to pump you full of lead. All right, get going. Keep your hands up.”

  As we passed the entrance to the cemetery, we met an Arab turnkey. The guard said to him, “Thanks for your help, Mohamed. Come by tomorrow morning and I’ll give you what I promised you.”

  “Thanks,” the old dog replied. “Don’t worry, chief, I’ll be there. But doesn’t Bébert Celier owe me something too?”

  “You work it out with him,” the guard said.

  So I said to him, “Was Bébert Celier the one who ratted on us, chief?”

  “I didn’t say so, did I?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s just good to know.”

  Still aiming his carbine at us, the guard said, “Frisk ’em, Mohamed.”

  The Arab found my knife inside my belt, then took Matthieu’s.

  “Mohamed,” I said to him, “you’re pretty sharp. How’d yo
u catch on to us?”

  “I climbed a palm tree every day to see how you were doing with the raft.”

  “Who told you to do it?”

  “First it was Bébert Celier, then Bruet, the guard.”

  “Let’s go,” the guard said. “That’s enough talk. You can put your hands down now. Get moving.”

  The four hundred yards to the warden’s were the longest road I’d ever walked. I wanted to die. All that struggle only to get caught like a pair of half-assed idiots. My God, but you’re cruel to me! Our arrival at the warden’s was a great occasion. As we were nearing the Administration Building, we kept meeting guards who fell into step with our guard. By the time we arrived, there must have been seven or eight of them.

  The Arab had run ahead to give the warden the news. He was standing at the door with Dega and five guards. “What’s going on, Monsieur Bruet?”

  “I just caught these two red-handed. They were hiding a raft that looked to be about finished.”

  “What have you got to say for yourself, Papillon?”

  “Nothing. I’ll talk at the interrogation.”

  “Put them in the dungeon.”

  I was put in a cell with a blocked-up window near the entrance to the building. The cell was dark, but I could hear people talking outside.

  Things moved fast. At three o’clock we were taken out and handcuffed. A kind of tribunal had been set up consisting of the head warden, his second-in-command and the head guard. Another guard served as clerk. Dega sat at a little table to one side, pencil in hand, ready to take down our statements.

  “Charrière and Carbonieri, listen to Monsieur Bruet’s allegations: ‘I, Auguste Bruet, head guard and director of the workshops on the Iles du Salut, accuse the two bagnards, Charrière and Carbonieri, of the theft and misappropriation of material belonging to the State. I accuse the carpenter, Bourset, of complicity. I think I can also implicate Narric and Quenier. I wish to add that I caught Charrière and Carbonieri red-handed as they were violating the grave of Madame Privat, which they used as the hiding place for their raft.’”