Papillon (21 page)

At six o’clock we came to the last border outpost. We recognized it from the barking of dogs and the bright lights in the little house. Thanks to Antonio’s masterful tactics, we managed a successful detour and walked the rest of the night without taking precautions. The path was narrow, but the lack of grass underfoot showed that it was used. It was about twenty inches wide and skirted the brush next to the beach, which was about six feet below us. From time to time we saw the hoofprints of horses and mules. Antonio sat down on a large root and motioned me to do the same. The sun was beating down hard. My watch said eleven, but when I stuck a small stick in the ground it made no shadow. It must therefore be noon. I reset my watch. Antonio emptied his pouch; he had seven leaves left. He gave me four and kept three. I went off into the brush and came back with a hundred and fifty Trinidad dollars and sixty florins. He was startled. He reached out and touched the bills, unable to understand how they could look so new and why they hadn’t gotten wet. Holding them in his hands, he thanked me, thought for a long time, took six bills of five florins each and gave me back the rest. I insisted, but he wouldn’t take more. At that point he seemed to change his mind: he had decided previously that we should go our separate ways; now he seemed to want to continue with me another day. After that he’d make a half-turn and go on alone. O.K. We swallowed a few egg yolks and lit a cigar after a half hour’s struggle to get a fire going by rubbing two stones together and igniting a handful of dried moss. Then we set off.

We’d been walking three hours when we saw a man on a horse coming straight at us. He was wearing an enormous straw hat, boots, something that resembled a long leather slip instead of pants, a green shirt and a faded green jacket. He was armed with a beautiful carbine and a huge revolver hung from his belt.

“
Caramba!
Antonio, my son!” Antonio had recognized the rider from far away. The big bronzed cavalier dismounted and the two men slapped each other lustily on the shoulder. (This was the typical greeting of the region, I learned later.)

“Who is that?”

“A companion in escape, a Frenchman.” “Where are you going?”

“As near to the Indian fishermen as we can. He wants to go through the Indians’ territory and into Venezuela to get back to Aruba or Curaçao.”

“The Guajira Indians are bad people,” the man said. “You’re unarmed. Take this.” He handed me a dagger with a polished horn handle in a leather sheath. We sat by the side of the path. I took off my shoes; they were bloody. Antonio and the rider talked very fast, and I could tell that they did not approve of my plan for crossing Guajira. Antonio motioned that I should get up on the horse and that I should hang my shoes over my shoulder to let my bleeding feet dry out. The rider got back on his horse and I climbed on behind. I had no idea what was going on. We galloped all that day and the following night. From time to time we stopped; he’d pass me a bottle of anisette and I’d take a swallow. When the sun rose, he stopped. He gave me a piece of cheese as hard as a rock, two biscuits, and six coca leaves. To carry them, he made me a present of a waterproof bag which I attached to my belt. He threw his arms around me and slapped me on the shoulders the way he had Antonio. Then he got back on his horse and galloped off.

I walked on until one in the afternoon. The bush ended, there wasn’t a tree to be seen. The sea shimmered silver under the burning sun. I walked barefoot, my shoes hanging over my left shoulder. As I was deciding whether to lie down, I saw far away five or six trees—or perhaps they were rocks—set back from the beach. I tried to figure the distance: six miles or so. I took out a large piece of leaf and, chewing away, set off again. An hour later I was able to identify the five or six shapes: they were huts with thatched roofs of straw or some kind of light-brown leaf. Smoke was coming out of one of them. Then I saw people. They saw me. I could hear their voices and saw them gesturing in the direction of the sea. Then I saw four boats coming in to shore and about ten people getting out. Everybody gathered in front of the houses and looked in my direction. The men and women were naked except for small loincloths. I approached slowly. Three of the men were leaning on bows, the arrows in their hands. They made no motion of either hostility or welcome. A dog let out a bark and rushed at me in a fury. He bit my calf and tore off a piece of my pants. When he lunged again, a small arrow from somewhere nipped his rear (I learned later it was shot from a blowpipe); he ran off howling and disappeared into a house. I limped on—for he had given me quite a bite. I was now perhaps thirty feet from the group. Not one of them moved or spoke, and the children hid behind their mothers. Their bodies were splendid: bronzed and well muscled. The women had firm, hard breasts with large nipples. There was only one with sagging breasts.

One man had an especially noble bearing; he had fine features and was obviously superior to the rest. I went straight to him. He was not holding a bow. He was as tall as I and his hair was well cut. It hung down to his eyebrows and to his earlobes on the sides, so black it looked purple. His eyes were steel gray. There was no hair on his body. His bronzed thighs were well muscled and his legs beautifully proportioned. He was barefoot. I came to a stop about ten feet in front of him. He took two steps forward, his eyes looking directly into mine. The examination lasted two minutes. His motionless face with the hooded eyes was like a bronze bust. Then he smiled and touched my shoulder. That was the signal. Everybody came and touched me, and a young Indian girl took me by the hand and led me into the shade of one of the huts. All the others followed and sat in a circle. One of the men handed me a lighted cigar; I took it and smoked it. They all laughed at the way I smoked, for they—women as well as men—held the burning end in their mouths. The girl pushed up my pants leg. The bite had stopped bleeding, but a piece of me the size of a quarter was missing. She pulled out all the hairs, and once the skin was smooth, she washed the wound with sea water which another young Indian had brought. Then she squeezed the wound to make it bleed. Still not satisfied, she scratched each pore with a piece of sharpened steel. I made an effort not to flinch, for everyone was watching. Another young Indian girl wanted to help, but she was pushed away. For some reason everybody laughed. I gathered that the one dressing my wound wished to make it clear to the other girl that I was her property; this is what had made them laugh. Then she cut my pants well above the knee, prepared a poultice of seaweed on a stone and laid it on the wound, holding it in place with strips of cloth she ripped from my pants. Finally satisfied with her labors, she motioned me to get up.

I stood up and took off my jacket. It was then that she noticed the butterfly tattooed at the base of my neck. She examined it closely; then seeing there were more tattoos, she took off my shirt to see the rest. Everybody crowded around. On the right side of my chest I had a guard from Calvi; on the left, the head of a woman; just above the waist a tiger’s head; on my spine, a crucified sailor, and across the kidneys, a tiger hunt with hunters, palm trees, elephants and tigers. To get a better look, the men pushed the women aside, touched me and examined each tattoo minutely. The chief expressed his opinion, then everyone else gave his. From that moment on it was clear that I’d been adopted by the men. The women had adopted me the minute the chief smiled at me and touched my shoulder.

We went into the largest of the huts and I was completely taken aback. The hut was made of brick-red earth. It was round, with eight doors, and in a corner hung a cluster of hammocks made of brightly colored wool. In the middle of the hut was a highly polished flat, round rock and around it smaller round rocks to sit on. Several double-barreled shotguns, a sword and a great variety of bows hung from the walls. There was also a turtle shell big enough for a man to lie in and a chimney constructed of identical stones without cement. On a table a split gourd held two or three handfuls of pearls. I was handed a wooden goblet filled with a fermented fruit juice; it was bittersweet and very good. Then I was brought on a banana leaf a five-pound fish cooked over the coals. I ate slowly. When I had finished the delicious fish, the Indian girl took me by the hand and led me to the beach so that I could wash my hands and mouth in sea water. When we returned, we all sat down in a circle, the young Indian girl at my side with her hand on my thigh, and tried through words and gestures to get to know each other.

Suddenly the chief rose, went to the back of the hut, returned with a white stone and started to draw on the table. First he drew naked Indians, then the village, then the sea. To the right of the Indian village he drew houses with windows, and men and women wearing clothes. The men carried guns or sticks. To the left, another village, men with guns and hats and ugly faces, their women also wearing clothes. I looked closely at the drawings. The chief noticed that he’d forgotten something and traced a path from the Indian village to the hamlet on the right and another path to the village on the left. To indicate their location in relation to his own village, he drew on the right side—the Venezuelan side—a round sun with rays shooting out in all directions; on the Colombian side, a sun on the horizon cut by a wavy line. His intention was clear: the sun rose on one side and set on the other. The chief examined his work with pride and everybody took turns looking at it. When he saw that I understood, he took his stone and covered the two villages with lines, leaving his own intact. I gathered that he was telling me that the men in the two villages were bad and that only his village was good. As if he needed to tell me!

He took a damp cloth and wiped the table. When it was dry, he put the stone in my hand to indicate that it was my turn. My drawing was more complicated than his. I drew a man with bound hands flanked by two armed men who were looking at him, then the same man running and the two men running after him, their guns pointed at him. I drew this scene three times, each time putting more space between me and my pursuers. In the last one the police had stopped and I was running to their village, which I identified by drawing the Indians and the dog and, standing in front of everybody, the chief with his arms held out to welcome me.

My drawings must have been pretty good because after a long discussion with the men, the chief opened his arms as in my picture. They had understood.

That same night the Indian girl took me into a hut where six women and four men were living. She hung a magnificent hammock of colored wool, so big that, crosswise, two could sleep in it comfortably. I lay in the hammock lengthwise while she installed herself in another one crosswise. Then I changed my position to crosswise and she came and lay down next to me. She touched my body, my ears, my eyes, my mouth. Her fingers were long and fine, but they were very rough and covered with small scars from the cuts made by the coral when she dived for oysters. When I stroked her face in turn, she looked at my hand with astonishment that it was so smooth. We spent an hour in the hammock, then we got out and went to the chief’s hut. They had me examine the shotguns, twelve- and sixteen-bore from Saint Etienne. There were also six boxes of ammunition.

The Indian girl was of medium height, with gray eyes like the chief’s, a fine profile and braided hair that fell to her hips. Her breasts were beautiful, high and pear shaped. The nipples were darker than her bronzed skin and very long. Her kiss was a bite; she didn’t know how to kiss our way. I soon taught her. She wouldn’t walk at my side but behind me, and there was nothing I could do about it. One of the huts was uninhabited and in poor condition. With the help of the other women, she repaired the roof of coconut-palm leaves and patched the walls with the red earth. They had a wide variety of cutting tools: knives, daggers, machetes, hatchets, hoes and forks with iron teeth. They also had cooking pots of brass and aluminum, watering cans, casseroles, a grindstone, an oven, metal and wooden barrels. Their hammocks were of pure wool with braided fringes and vivid designs in blood red, Prussian blue, canary yellow and a waxy black.

The house was soon ready and she started to fill it with contributions from the other women: an iron ring on three legs for cooking over the fire, a hammock large enough for four adults, glasses, tin pots, casseroles, not to mention a donkey harness.

We had been caressing each other for two weeks, but she refused absolutely to go any further. I was mystified because, after all, she was the one who had started it. But when the moment came, she wouldn’t. She never wore anything but her small loincloth which hung from her slender hips by a narrow cord. Her buttocks were entirely bare. Without ceremony, we installed ourselves in the little round house. It had three doors: one in the center—the main one—and two others facing each other. The three doors formed an isosceles triangle and had strict uses: I was always to come and go by the north door, she by the south. I was never supposed to use hers or she mine. The big door in the center was for our friends, and neither she nor I was to use it unless we were with visitors.

It was only when we had moved into the house that she let me take her. I won’t go into details, but she was an ardent mistress with intuitive skill; she enfolded me like a vine. When we were alone, I would comb and braid her hair. She loved me to do this and her face glowed with happiness. But there was fear in it, too, fear that someone might discover us, for she gave me to understand that a man was never to comb his wife’s hair, or rub her hands with a pumice stone, and he must not kiss her mouth or breasts in certain ways.

So Lali—for that was her name—and I installed ourselves in our house. She never used iron or aluminum pots and never drank from a glass, and she cooked everything in the earthenware pots the Indians made themselves. We washed under the spray of the watering can and went to the bathroom in the sea.