Papillon (49 page)

Tonight
la mangeuse d’hommes
really earned its name. Two men hanged themselves and one suffocated by stuffing rags in his mouth and up his nose. Cell 127 was near where the changing of the guard took place, and I could sometimes hear snatches of the guards’ conversation. This morning I heard them discussing the events of the night. That’s how I knew what had happened.

Another six months passed and I carved a handsome “14” into the wood. I had a nail which I used only for this purpose, hence every six months. I took stock and was glad to report that both my health and morale were good.

Thanks to my journeys among the stars, I rarely had long bouts of depression. Also, Celier’s death was a great help in getting me through my moments of crisis. I would say to myself: I’m alive, I’m living, and I must continue to live, live now to live free again someday. The man who balked my escape is dead; he’ll never be free. If I get out at thirty-eight, I won’t be old. And the next
cavale
will work, that I know.

One, two, three, four, five and turn; one, two, three, four, five, another turn. For some days now my legs had been black and my gums were always bleeding. Should I report sick? I pressed my thumb against my calf and the thumbprint stayed. It was as if I were full of water. For the last week I hadn’t been able to walk ten or twelve hours a day; six hours, even with a rest period, tired me out. I usually cleaned my teeth by rubbing them with the rough soapy towel, but now it hurt my gums, making them bleed. And yesterday a tooth fell out just like that, an incisor in the upper jaw.

This last six months wound up with a real revolution. Yesterday we were told to stick our heads out of our cells and a doctor came by and lifted everybody’s upper lip. Then this morning, after only eighteen months in my cell, the door opened and I was told:

“Come out. Stand up against the wall and wait.”

I was the man nearest the door. About seventy of us filed out. We were told to turn left, and I found myself at the tail of a line moving toward the opposite end of the building and out into the yard.

It was nine o’clock. A young doctor in a short-sleeved khaki shirt was sitting at a small wooden table in the middle of the yard. Near him stood two convict orderlies and an infirmary guard. I didn’t recognize any of them. Ten armed guards kept us covered, and the chief warden and the head guards watched in silence.

“Everybody strip,” the head guard called out. “Hold your clothes under your arms. First man. Your name?”

“X …”

“Open your mouth, spread your legs apart. Remove these three teeth. Apply some iodine, then methylene blue, and give him ascorbic acid twice a day before meals.”

I was last.

“Name?”

“Charrière.”

“That’s interesting. You’re the only one in good shape. Did you just arrive?”

“No.”

“How long you been here?”

“Eighteen months today.”

“Why aren’t you as thin as the others?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ll tell you. Either you eat better or you masturbate less. Open your mouth, spread your legs apart. Two lemons a day, one in the morning, one at night. Suck the lemons and rub the juice into your gums. You have scurvy.”

They cleaned my gums with iodine, painted them with methylene blue and gave me a lemon. Left about-face and, last in line, I returned to my cell.

That was a real revolution, having sick cons go all the way into the yard, into the sun, to see a doctor face to face. Nothing like it had ever happened before at Réclusion. What was going on? Was it possible that a doctor had at last defied the inhuman regulations? That doctor, whose name was Germain Guibert, later became my friend. He died in Indochina. His wife sent me word in Maracaibo, Venezuela, many years afterward.

Every ten days we went into the sun. Always the same prescription: iodine, methylene blue and two lemons. I wasn’t getting worse, but I wasn’t getting better either. I twice asked the doctor for Cochlearia and twice he refused me. This made me mad; I still couldn’t walk more than six hours a day and my legs were still black and swollen.

One day, as I was waiting my turn, I noticed that the spindly little tree I used for shade was a non-bearing lemon tree. I broke off a leaf and chewed it; then, without thinking, I broke off a twig with a few leaves on it.

When the doctor called me, I stuck the branch up my rear end and said, “Doctor, I don’t know if it’s because of all those lemons you’ve been giving me, but look what’s growing out of my ass.” I turned so he could see the little branch sticking out.

The guards broke out into guffaws, but the head guard said, “Papillon, you’ll be punished for not showing the doctor the proper respect.”

“Not at all,” the doctor said. “You can’t punish him if I don’t lodge a complaint. So you don’t want any more lemons? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Yes, Doctor. I’ve had enough damn lemons. They aren’t doing me any good. I want to try the Cochlearia.”

“I haven’t given it to you because I have very little and I’ve been saving it for the sickest men. However, I’ll give you a spoonful a day, but you have to have the lemons as well.”

“Doctor, I’ve seen the Indians eat seaweed. There was the same kind on Royale. There must be some here too.”

“That’s a good idea, Papillon. Yes, I’ve seen the kind you mean down by the edge of the water. I want you to distribute some daily to all the men. Did the Indians eat it cooked or raw?”

“Raw.”

“Very good. Thank you. And, Warden, make sure this man isn’t punished. I’m counting on you.”

“Yes, Captain.”

It was a miracle. To go into the sun for two hours every ten days and wait for the doctor, to watch the others file by, see faces, say a few words … Who would have dreamed that anything so glorious could ever happen? It wrought the most fantastic transformations: the dead rose and walked in the sun; men buried alive spoke a few words. It was like breathing a bottle of oxygen and feeling life flow back into us.

Click, click, many, many clicks, and one Thursday morning at nine all the cell doors opened. Everybody was to stand in his door.
“Réclusionnaires,”
a voice called out, “the governor’s inspection.”

With five colonial officers in his train—probably all doctors—a large, elegant man with silver-gray hair moved slowly down the corridor, stopping at each cell. I could hear someone tell him each man’s sentence and crime. Before he reached me, they had to lift up a man who hadn’t been able to keep standing.

An officer said, “That man’s a walking corpse!”

“They’re all in terrible shape,” the governor replied.

The group had now reached me. The warden said, “This man has the heaviest sentence at Réclusion.”

“What’s your name?”

“Charrière.”

“Your sentence?”

“Eight years. Three for theft of material belonging to the State, et cetera, and five for murder, sentences to be served consecutively.”

“How much have you done?”

“Eighteen months.”

“How’s his conduct been?”

“Good,” the warden said.

“His health?”

“Fair,” the doctor said.

“What have you to say for yourself?”

“That the life here is inhuman and unworthy of the French people.”

“How so?”

“Absolute silence, no going outdoors and, until recently, no medical attention.”

“Behave yourself and maybe you’ll be pardoned if I’m still governor.”

“Thank you.”

From that day on, by order of the governor and the chief doctor, who had come from Martinique and Cayenne respectively, every morning we had an hour’s walk and a swim in a kind of pool made with big blocks of stone to keep the sharks out.

Every morning at nine, in groups of a hundred, we walked down for our swim. The guards’ wives and children were told to stay home so we could go down stripped.

This had been going on for a month, and a dramatic change had come over the men’s faces. The hour in the sun, the swim in salt water, being able to talk for an hour each day, all had transformed this herd of morally and physically sick men.

One day I was among the last going back up after our swim when I heard the desperate shrieks of a woman followed by two revolver shots.

“Help, help, Lisette’s drowning!”

The screams came from the quay, which was no more than a cement ramp leading down to the water where you got into the boats. More screams followed.

“Sharks!”

Then two more shots. Everybody had turned in the direction of the noise. Without thinking what I was doing, I pushed a guard aside and ran, naked, toward the quay. Standing there were two women screaming to wake the dead, three guards and a few Arabs.

“Jump in the water!” one of the women shouted at me. “She isn’t far. I can’t swim or I’d go. You pack of cowards!”

“Sharks!” a guard called out and shot again.

A little girl in a blue dress was being carried off by a gentle current. She was heading straight for the
bagnards’
cemetery. The guards kept on shooting. They must have hit a few sharks, for the water around her was boiling.

“Stop shooting!” I yelled and threw myself into the water. With the help of the current and vigorous kicking to keep the sharks away, I made quick time to the little girl, who was being kept afloat by her dress.

I wasn’t more than thirty or forty yards away when a boat from Royale appeared. It reached the little girl before me and she was pulled out of the water, then me. I wept with anger. I had risked my life for nothing.

At least that’s what I thought. But a month later, as a reward, Dr. Guibert was able to get my sentence in solitary suspended for medical reasons.

T
HE
R
ETURN TO
R
OYALE

I
T WAS A KIND OF
miracle to be back on Royale. I had left it with an eight-year sentence. Because of the attempted rescue I was back nineteen months later.

All my friends were there: Dega, who was still clerk; Galgani, still the postman; Carbonieri, who had been acquitted; Grandet; Bourset the carpenter; the “wheelbarrow boys,” Narric and Quenier; Chatal in the infirmary—my accomplice in my first
cavale
—and Maturette, who was an infirmary aide.

All the bandits of the Corsican
maquis
were also there: Essari, Vicioli, Césari, Razori, Fosco, Maucuer and Chapar. All the headliners of the yellow press from 1927 to 1935 were there.

Marsino, the man who killed Dufrêne, had died the week before of an illness. That day the sharks had had a choice morsel. They had been served up one of the greatest experts on precious stones in all of Paris.

Also Barrat, nicknamed “La Comédienne,” the millionaire tennis player from Limoges, who had killed his chauffeur and the chauffeur’s intimate friend, his too intimate friend. Barrat was head of the laboratory and pharmacist at the Royale hospital. One facetious doctor claimed that the only way you got into the hospital was by
droit de seigneur
.

My arrival back on Royale was like a clap of thunder. It was a Saturday morning when I returned to the building of the “hardened criminals.” Almost everybody was there and they all welcomed me with open arms. Even the
mec
of the watches, who hadn’t spoken since that famous morning when he had almost been guillotined by mistake, came over to say hello.

“Well, boys, everybody okay?”

“Okay, Papi. Welcome back.”

“Your place is still here,” Grandet said. “It’s been empty since the day you left.”

“Thanks. Anything new?”

“One good thing.”

“What?”

“Last night the punk who spied on you from the top of the palm was found murdered. A friend of yours must have done it, knowing you wouldn’t want to see the devil alive, and wanting to spare you the chore.”

“I’d like to know who it was so I can thank him.”

“Maybe he’ll tell you someday. They found the rat at roll call this morning with a knife in his heart. Nobody saw or heard a thing.”