At the very beginning, after she left Maracaibo for the port of Caracas, where she was to take the boat, she had a foreboding that she was going to fail: everything seemed to conspire to prevent her from leaving for France. Just as she was boarding the Colombie she noticed she was missing one of the necessary visas. A race against time to get it in Caracas, tearing along that dangerous little road I knew so well. Back to the port with the paper in her bag and her heart beating for fear the boat should leave before she got there. Then a terrible storm broke out, bringing landslides down over the road. It became so dangerous that the driver lost his head and turned back, leaving Rita there alone in the storm by the side of the road, among the landslides. She walked nearly two miles in the downpour and then by a miracle found a taxi that was returning to Caracas; but at the sight of the landslides it turned back for the port. And from the port she could hear ships’ sirens. In her panic she was sure it was the Colombie leaving.
Then when she reached her cabin at last, weeping with joy, there was some accident aboard and the ship could not leave for several hours. All this gave her a very uneasy feeling, as if the events were expressions of fate.
Then the ocean: Le Havre, Paris, and without a stop, Marseille, where she stayed with a woman she knew, who introduced her to a municipal councilor, who wrote her a cordial letter to a friend of his called Henri Champel, who lived at Vals-les-Bains in the Ardèche.
Then the train and the bus again, and it was not until she reached these wonderfully kind Champels that Rita could draw breath and begin to organize her search. Even then she was not at the end of her difficulties.
Henri Champel took her to Aubenas, in the Ardèche, where Maître Testud, the family lawyer, lived. Ah, that Testud! A heartless bourgeois. In the first place he told her my father was dead--just right out, like that. Then on his own initiative, without consulting anyone, he forbade her to go and see my father’s sister and her husband, my uncle and aunt Dumarche, retired teachers who lived in Aubenas. Many years later they welcomed us with open arms, indignant at the thought that because of this wretched Testud they had not been able to put Rita up and so to get in touch with me again. The same thing with my sisters: Testud refused to give their address. Still, Rita did manage to get this stony heart to tell her where my father had died--Saint-Peray.
The journey to Saint-Peray. There Henri Champel and Rita found my father’s grave and learned something else as well. After having been a widower for twenty years he had married again--a retired schoolmistress--when I was still in the penal settlement. They found her. The family called her Tante Ju, or sometimes Tata Ju.
A fine woman, said Rita, and with such a noble character that she had kept the memory of my mother alive in this new home. In the dining room Rita had seen big photographs of my mother, whom I worshipped, and of my father. She had been able to touch and fondle objects that had belonged to her. Tante Ju, who now suddenly came into my life--although at the same time I felt I already knew her--had done all she could to let Rita feel the atmosphere she and my father had wanted to keep alive--the memory of my mother and the continual presence of that vanished little boy who was still Riri to my father.
November 16 was my birthday, and every November 16 my father used to weep. Every Christmas there was a chair left empty. When the gendarmes came to tell them their son had escaped again, the Charrières almost kissed them for having brought such wonderful news. Because although Tante Ju did not know me, she had already adopted me in her heart as if I were her own son, and both she and my father shed tears of joy at hearing what was for them news of hope.
So she had received Rita more than kindly. Only one shadow: Tante Ju had not given her the address of my two sisters. Why not? I thought quickly. No doubt about it: she wasn’t sure how they would take the news of my reappearance. Since she did not say to Rita, “Hurry over and see them at such-and-such a place; they’ll be wild with delight to know their brother’s still alive and doing well, and to meet his wife,” she must have had her reasons. Maybe Tante Ju knew that neither my sister Yvonne nor my sister Hélène nor my brothers-in-law would care to be visited by the wife of their brother, the escaped jailbird, sentenced to life for murder. No doubt she did not want to take the responsibility for disturbing their peace.
They were married and they had children, and probably these children did not even know of my existence. Take care, she must have said to herself. It seemed to me that although throughout my fourteen years in the clink I had lived with them and through them, they, on the other hand, must have spent those fourteen years doing their best to forget me or at least trying to blot me out of their daily lives. So all my wife brought back was a little earth from my father’s grave and a photograph of the tomb where just four months before my father had been laid to rest forever.
Still, through Rita’s eyes (for Champel had driven her everywhere) I did see the bridge of Ucel once more, the bridge of my childhood. I listened as she told me every detail about the big primary school where we had lived in the flat over the classrooms. Once again I could see the war memorial opposite our garden, and the garden itself, where a splendid flowering mimosa seemed to have kept itself in full bloom so that Rita, whose eyes drank in the garden, the memorial and the house, should be able to say to me, “Nothing, or almost nothing, has changed; and you’ve so often described the scenes of your childhood that I did not feel I was seeing something new but rather that I was coming back to a place I knew already.”
Often in the evenings I would ask Rita to tell me some part of her journey all over again. At the hotel life went back to what it had been before. But deep inside me something inexplicable had happened. I had not felt this death as a fortyyear-old man in the prime of life feels when he hears of the death of a father he has not seen for twenty years, but like a boy of ten--like one who lives with his father, disobeys him, plays truant and then, on coming home, hears of his death.
Rita’s daughter Clotilde arrived. She was over fifteen, but she was so frail and slight you would have said she was twelve. She had long, thick, black, curling hair down to her shoulders. Her small jet-black eyes sparkled with intelligence and curiosity. Her little face was not that of a girl but of a child that might still be playing at hopscotch or with a doll. There was immediate sympathy between us.
When she appeared, something new came over me--the wish that she should be happy and that she should look upon me, if not as her father, then at least as her surest support.
Now that Rita was back again, I did the shopping later, at seven. And now I took Clotilde with me; she led Minou and Carlitos carried the baskets. Everything was new for her, and she wanted to see it all at once. When she found something unexpected she piped up loud and clear to know what it was. What struck her most was the Indian women with their long shimmering robes, painted cheeks, and shoes decorated with huge, many-colored woolen pompoms.
That in the midst of this hurrying, shouting crowd she felt completely protected, moved me deeply and filled me with a hitherto unknown feeling--the feeling of a father’s love. “Yes, Clotilde, go forward into life with a trusting, easy mind; you can be sure that until the end I shall do everything I can to keep your path clear of thorns.”
And we would go happily back to the hotel, always with something amusing to tell Rita about what had happened to us or what we had seen.
12
I Become a Venezuelan
I know perfectly well that what the reader expects is my own personal adventures and not a history of Venezuela. Forgive me if I feel I should mention certain important political events that happened during the time I am writing about; they had a direct influence on my life and on the decisions I took.
For many people Venezuela is just a country in South America (most aren’t quite sure just where), a country exploited by the Americans as if it were a kind of oil-producing American colony. This is far from true.
To be sure, the oil companies did once have very great weight; little by little, thoug
h, the Venezuelan intellectuals have set the country almost entirely free from the influence of American policy.
At present Venezuela is completely independent politically, as it has proved at the United Nations and elsewhere. One thing all its political parties have in common is a great zeal for Venezuela’s freedom of action with respect to all foreign countries. Thus, ever since Rafael Caldera came to power, we have had diplomatic relations with every country in the world, whatever their political regimes.
It is true that economically Venezuela depends on its oil, but it has succeeded in selling the oil at a very high price and in making the oil companies hand over as much as 85 percent of their profits.
Venezuela has other things besides oil, such as iron and other raw materials; and Venezuela has a vast resource of men whose aim is to free their country entirely from all forms of economic pressure. Men who have begun to prove that Venezuela can set up a democracy as good as any other, respected and preserved.
The young people in the universities long for nothing but social justice and the radical transformation of their country. They are full of faith, and confident of succeeding without undermining the foundations of real freedom-confident of bringing happiness to the whole nation without falling into a dictatorship either of the extreme right or of the extreme left. I believe in the young people of this country: they will help make it a nation that can be held up as an example, both for its truly democratic régime and for its economy, because it must not be forgotten that its huge resources of raw materials will soon be completely industrialized. When that happens, Venezuela will have won a great battle--and Venezuela will win it.
Venezuela is also an ideal country for the kind of tourism that must develop in the coming years. Everything is in its favor--its beaches of coral sand, shaded by coconut palms; its sunshine, which surpasses all other countries’; its fishing of every kind in a sea that is always warm. Venezuela also offers a lower cost of living than other countries; islands by the hundred; a welcoming, hospitable people without the least trace of a color problem. And within an hour’s flying distance from Caracas you can find the Indians, the lake villages of Maracaibo, or the Andes with their everlasting snow.
In short, Venezuela is so rich in resources that the country doesn’t really need a politician at the helm so much as a good accountant, who will use the profits from oil to build factories and so increase the labor market for all who need or want work.
1951... Once again, as I remember this date, I have the same feeling I had then--the feeling of having nothing more to tell. You tell about storms and shooting the rapids of a swollen river; but when the water is calm and peaceful you feel like closing your eyes and resting on the placid current. Then rain comes pouring down again, the streams rise, the quiet water grows rough, the flood carries you away, and even if you longed to live in peace from everything, outside events have such an effect on your life that they force you to follow the current, avoiding the reefs and shooting the rapids in the hope of finding a quiet harbor at last.
After the mysterious killing of Chalbaud at the end of 1950, Perez Jiménez seized power, although he hid behind Flamerich, the figurehead president of the junta. The dictatorship began. First sign: the suppression of freedom of speech. The press and the radio were throttled. The opposition went underground, and the terrible political police, the Seguridad Nacional, went into action. The Communists and the Adecos (the members of the Acción Democrática, Betancourt’s party) were hunted down.
Several times we hid them at the Vera Cruz. We never closed our doors to anyone at all, never asked for any man’s identification. I was only too glad to pay my tribute to these followers of Betancourt, whose régime had set me free and given me asylum. We ran the danger of losing everything, but Rita saw that there wasn’t anything else we could do.
Then again, the hotel had become something of a refuge for Frenchmen in a jam--for Frenchmen who had reached Venezuela with little in their pockets and who did not know where to go. They could eat and sleep at our place without paying while they were looking for a job. Our service became so famous that in Maracaibo they called me the Frenchmen’s consul.
In the course of these years something very important to me happened, something almost as important as my meeting with Rita--I renewed my ties with my family. As soon as Rita left, Tante Ju wrote to my two sisters. And all of them, both my sisters and Tante Ju, wrote to me. After twenty years the great silence was coming to an end. I trembled as I opened the first letter. Would they reject me forever, or would they... ?
Victory! These letters were a cry of joy--joy at knowing I was alive, earning an honest living and married to a woman Tante Ju described with all the kindness she had felt. Not only had I found my sisters once again, but I had also found their families, who now became my family.
My elder sister had four fine children, three girls and a boy. Her husband wrote himself to say that his affection had remained unaltered and that he was more than happy to know I was free and doing well. Photos and still more photos, pages and still more pages told the story of their lives and of the war and of what they had had to go through to bring up their children. I read every word, weighing and analyzing so I could understand their story thoroughly and savor all its charm.
After the great black hole of the prisons and the penal settlement my own childhood came to the surface: “My dear Riri,” wrote my sister. Riri... I could hear my mother calling me and see her lovely smile. It seemed that from a photo I had sent them my family decided I was the image of my father. My sister was convinced that if I was like him physically I must be like him in personality. Her husband and she were not afraid of my turning up again. The gendarmes must have heard about Rita’s journey in the Ardèche, because they had gone to ask about me, and my brother-in-law had replied, “Yes indeed, we have news of him. He’s very happy and he’s doing fine, thank you very much.”
My other sister was in Paris, married to a Corsican lawyer. They had two sons and a daughter, and he had a good job. The same cry: “You are free, you are loved, you have a home, a good position and you are living like everybody else. Well done, little brother! My children, my husband and I bless God for having helped you to come out a winner from that terrible prison into which they threw you.”
My elder sister offered to take our daughter so she could go on with her studies in France. But what warmed our hearts most was that not one of them seemed to be ashamed of having a brother who was an ex-convict who had escaped from the penal settlement.
To round off this influx of wonderful news, I managed to get hold of the address of my friend Dr. Guibert-Germain, the former doctor of the settlement, who had treated me as one of his family when I was on Royale, inviting me to his house, and protecting me from the screws. It was thanks to Dr. Guibert-Germain that the solitary confinement at Saint-Joseph was done away with; and it was thanks to him that I was able to get myself transferred to Devil’s Island and escape. I wrote to him, and one day I had the immense happiness of receiving this letter:
Lyons, 21 February 1952
My dear Papillon,
We are very glad to have news of you at last. For a long while now I have felt sure you were trying to get in touch with me. When I was in Jibuti my mother told me she had received a letter from Venezuela, although she could not say exactly who had sent it. Then, very recently, she sent me the letter you wrote through Mme. Roesberg. So after a fair amount of trial we have managed to find you again. Since September 1915, when I left Royale, a good many things have happened.
.... And then in October 1951 I was posted to IndoChina; I am to stay there for two years, and I leave very soon, that is to say on 6 March. This time I am going by myself. Perhaps when I am there, and according to where they send me, I may be able to arrange for my wife to come out and join me.
So you see that since the last time we met I have traveled a fair number of miles! I retain some pleasant memories of those days; but alas I have not been able to get in
touch with any of the men I used to like asking to the house. For quite a long while I did hear from my cook (Ruche), who settled at Saint-Laurent; but since leaving Jibuti I have had no word. Still, we were very pleased to know that you were happy, in good health and comfortably established at last. Life is a strange thing; but I remember you never gave up hope, and indeed you were quite right.
We were delighted with the photograph of you and your wife--it shows that you have been really successful. Who knows, perhaps one day we may come and see you! Events move faster than we do. We see from the photograph that you have excellent taste: Madame seems charming, and the hotel has a very agreeable look. My dear Papillon, you must forgive me for still using this nickname; but it brings back so many memories for us!
.... So there you have some idea of our doings, old fellow. We often talk about you, you may be sure, and we still remember that stirring day when Mandolini poked his nose into a place he should have left alone. * [* This was Bruet, the warder who found the raft in the grave in Papillon.]
My dear Papillon, I enclose a photograph of both of us; it was taken at Marseitle, on the Canebière, about two months ago.
And so I leave you, with all kinds of good wishes and hoping to hear from you now and then.
My wife and I send our kind regards to your wife and our best wishes to you.
A. Guibert-Germain
And following that, a few lines from Madame Guibert-Germain: “With my best compliments on your success and kindest wishes to you both for the New Year. Greetings to my protégé.”
Banco: The Further Adventures of Papillon Page 21
