Banco: The Further Adventures of Papillon - Henri Charriere

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of the matter is lacking.

      

      The facts, then: in 1931 Henri Charrière, alias Papillon, was sentenced to transportation for life and he was taken away with some hundreds of others in a prison-ship bound for South America, for French Guiana. Here he found himself in an appallingly tough and savage world where corruption, terrorism, sodomy and murder were commonplace; he was well equipped for survival in this world, being as tough as any man there, perfectly loyal to his friends and perfectly uncompromising in his hatred of the official establishment, and in time he could have carved out a respectable place for himself. But he had no intention of staying; he had sworn not to serve his unjust sentence, and forty-two days after his arrival he made a break. With two companions (one broke his leg in escaping) he made his way down the Maroni river in a crazy boat; at a remote lepers’ island they changed boats and so rode out to sea, sailing under the broiling sun day after day until at last they reached Trinidad. On and on to Curaçao, where the boat was wrecked; on to Rio Hacha in Colombia, where the wind failed them and they were taken prisoner. Another break, this time with a Colombian friend, and eventually Papillon reached hostile Indian territory, alone and on foot. They took him in, gave him two wives, and then, when at last he would stay no longer, a bag of pearls. Back to Colombia, only to be arrested and imprisoned once more, and, after several abortive breaks, handed over to the French authorities. Then solitary confinement on the Île Saint-Joseph—a deeply moving account of the silence, the heat and the utter loneliness of that dim, timeless, underground cage—two years of it. When at last it was over and he was out in the light again, he began to make a raft for another break; but a fellow convict informed upon him, and having killed the informer he went back to solitary—an eight years’ sentence cut to nineteen months for rescuing a little girl from the sharks. Another attempt to escape; transfer to Devil’s Island and then the final break at last, riding two sacks of coconuts through the shark-infested sea to the mainland. A new boat and a new series of adventures brought him, by way of British Guiana (and a new wife), to Venezuela and to the Venezuelan penal settlement at El Dorado, where he was held on the charge of being a rogue and a vagabond. But a coup d’état in Caracas brought the promise of release, and the last pages of the book show Papillon, equipped with genuine papers at last, and dressed in good civilian clothes, ready to walk out into freedom after thirteen years of being in prison or on the run. That is where the present volume starts, and from now on his story is told in his own infinitely more living words.

      But, before I leave Henri Charrière to tell his own story, perhaps I may be permitted to say a word about the translation. I had followed Papillon’s wild success; I had watched the splendid time the author was having (Papillon in a sledge with Brigitte Bardot, Papillon with an immense cigar and a diamond ring, Papillon in a dinner-jacket, painting Paris red) with delight and with admiration for his iron resistance; but I had been afraid that fame and wealth might alter his style and complicate my task. Not at all: as soon as I looked into Banco I recognized exactly the same voice: here and there a slightly more literary turn of phrase, here and there a literary allusion, but not the least change in the essential Papillon. So I made no alteration in the techniques I had adopted for translating his earlier book: of these the only one that seems to call for any explanation is my use of a somewhat archaic Americanized slang, particularly in the dialogue. This seemed to me the only way of rendering Papillon’s equally archaic argot; and in the few cases where even American would not quite yield the liveliness of the French, I comforted myself with the proverb from Papillon’s own country: ‘If you cannot have thrushes to eat, then you must make do with blackbirds.’

      PATRICK O’BRIAN

       1: First Steps into Freedom

      ‘GOOD luck, Frenchman! From this moment, you’re free. Adios!’

      The officer of the El Dorado penal settlement waved and turned his back.

      And it was no harder than that to get rid of the chains I had been dragging behind me these thirteen years. I held Picolino by the arm and we took a few steps up the steep path from the river-bank, where the officer had left us, to the village of El Dorado. And now, sitting here in my old Spanish house on the night of 18th August 1971, to be exact, I can see myself with unbelievable clarity on that pebbly track; and not only does the officer’s voice ring in my ears in just the same way, deep and clear, but I make the same movement that I made twenty-seven years ago – I turn my head.

      It is midnight: outsidé, the night is dark. And yet it’s not. For me, for me alone, the sun is shining: it’s ten o’clock in the morning and I stare at the loveliest shoulders, the loveliest back I have ever seen in my life – my gaoler’s back moving farther and farther away, symbolizing the end of the watching, the spying, the surveillance that had gone on every day, night, minute and second, never stopping for thirteen years.

      

      A last look at the river, a last look beyond the warder at the island in the middle with the Venezuelan penal settlement on it, a last look at a hideous past that lasted thirteen years and in which I was trampled upon, degraded and ground down.

      All at once pictures seemed to be forming against the mists raised from the water by the blazing tropical sun, to show me the road I had travelled these thirteen years, as though it were on a screen. I refused to watch the film; I caught Picolino by the arm, turned my back on the weird picture and led him quickly up the path, first giving myself a shake to get rid of the filth of the past for good and all.

      Freedom? Yes, but where? At the far end of the world, way back in the plateaux of Venezuelan Guiana, in a little village deep in the most luxuriant virgin forest you can imagine. This was the south-east tip of Venezuela, close to the Brazilian frontier: an enormous sea of green broken only here and there by the waterfalls of the rivers and streams that ran through it – a green ocean with widely-scattered little communities with ways and customs worthy of biblical times, gathered round a chapel, where no priest even had to talk about love for all men and simplicity because that was the way they lived naturally, all the year round. Often these pueblitos are only linked to others, as remote as themselves, by a truck or two: and looking at the trucks, you wondered how they ever got so far. And in their way of life these simple, poetic people live just as people did hundreds and hundreds of years ago, free from all the taints of civilization.

      When we had climbed up to the edge of the plateau where the village of El Dorado begins, we almost stopped; and then slowly, very slowly, we went on. I heard Picolino draw his breath, and like him I breathed in very deeply, drawing the air right down into the bottom of my lungs and letting it out gently, as though I were afraid of living these wonderful minutes too fast – these first minutes of freedom.

      The broad plateau opened in front of us: to the right and the left, little houses, all bright and clean and surrounded by flowers. Some children had caught sight of us: they knew where we came from. They came up to us, not unfriendly at all; no, they were kind, and they walked beside us without a word. They seemed to understand how grave this moment was, and they respected it.

      There was a little wooden table in front of the first house with a fat black woman selling coffee and arepas, maize cakes.

      ‘Good morning, lady.’

      ‘Buenos dias, hombres.'

      ‘Two coffees, please.’

      ‘St, señores.’ And the good fat creature poured us out two cups of delicious coffee: we drank them standing, there being no chairs.

      ‘What do I owe you?’

      ‘Nothing.’

      ‘How come?’

      ‘It’s a pleasure for me to give you the first coffee of your freedom.’

      ‘Thank you. When’s there a bus?’

      ‘Today’s a holiday, so there’s no bus; but there’s a truck at eleven.’

      ‘Is that right? Thanks.’

      A

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