Banco: The Further Adventures of Papillon (9 page)

J ojo put on a sorrowful air. “Papillon, you disappoint me. Use your noggin. If a guy turned up here, not carrying these tools, what would he have come for? That’s the question everybody would ask--all these eyes that watched you coming into the village through the holes in the wails and the tin roofs. With you loaded as you were, no questions. Do you get it?”

“I get it, man.”

“It’s the same for me, since I’m carrying nothing. Suppose I turn up with my hands in my pockets and I set up my table without doing anything else: what are the miners and their girls going to say, eh, Papi? This old French type is a professional gambler, that’s what they’re going to say. Well now, you’ll see what I’m going to do. If I can, I’ll try and find a secondhand motor pump here in the village; otherwise I’ll send for one. And twenty yards of big piping and two or three sluices. A sluice is a long wooden box with divisions, and these divisions have holes in them. You pump the mud into it, and a team of seven men can wash fifty times more earth than a dozen working the old-fashioned way. And it’s still not looked upon as machinery. Then as the owner of the pump I get twenty-five percent of the diamonds; and what’s more, I have a reason for being here. No one can say I live off gambling, because I live off my pump. But since I’m a gambler
as well
, I don’t stop gambling at night. That’s natural, because I don’t take part in the actual work. You get it?”

“It’s as clear as gin.”

“There’s a bright boy. Two
frescos
, Señora.”

A fat, friendly old light-skinned woman brought us glasses full of chocolate-colored liquid with an ice cube and a bit of lemon swimming in it.

“That’ll be eight bolivars,
hombres
.”

“More than two dollars! Hell, life is not cheap here.”

Jojo paid. “How are things going?” he asked.

“So-so.”

“Is there any loot or not?”

“Men in plenty. But very, very few diamonds. They found this place three months ago, and since then four thousand men have come rushing in. Too may men for so few diamonds. And what about him?” she said, jerking her chin toward me. “German or French?”

“French. He’s with me.”

“Poor soul.”

“How come, poor soul?” I asked.

“Because you’re too young and too good-looking to die. The men who come with Jojo never have any luck.”

“You shut your trap, you old fool. Come on, Papi, let’s go.”

As we stood up, the fat woman said to me by way of good-bye, “Look out for yourself.”

Of course, I’d said nothing about what José had told me, and Jojo was amazed that I did not try to find out what there was behind her words. I could feel him waiting for the questions that didn’t come. He seemed upset and he kept glancing at me sideways.

Pretty soon, after he had talked to various people, Jojo found a shack. Three small rooms; rings to hang our hammocks; and some cartons. On one of them, empty beer and rum bottles; on another, a battered enamel bowl and a full watering can. Strings stretched across to hang up our clothes. The floor was pounded earth, very clean. The walls of this hutch were made of planks from packing cases--you could still read Savon Camay, Aceite Branca, Nestlé’s Milk. Each room was about ten feet by ten. No windows. I felt stifled and took off my shirt.

Jojo turned, deeply shocked. “Are you crazy? Suppose somebody came in? You’ve got a wicked face already, and now if you go and show your tattooed hide, man, it’s as if you were advertising the fact that you’re a crook. Behave yourself.”

“But I’m stifling, Jojo.”

“You’ll get used to it--it’s all a matter of habit. But behave yourself, almighty God: above all, behave yourself.”

I managed to keep myself from laughing: he was a priceless old fart, that Jojo.

We knocked two rooms into one. “This will be the casino,” said Jojo, with a grin. It made a room twenty feet by ten. We swept the floor, went Out to buy three big wooden crates, some rum and paper cups to drink out of. I was eager to see what the game would be like.

I didn’t have to wait long. Once we had been around a number of wretched little drinking joints, to “make contact,” as Jojo put it, everyone knew that there would be a game of craps in our place at eight that evening. The last joint we went to was a shed with a couple of tables outside, four benches and a carbide lamp hanging from a covering of branches. The boss, a huge, ageless redhead, served the punch without a word. As we were leaving he came over to me and, speaking French, he said, “I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to know. But I’ll just give you this tip. The day you feel like sleeping here, come along. I’ll look after you.”

He spoke an odd sort of French, but from his accent I realized he was a Corsican. “You a Corsican?”

“Yes. And you know a Corsican never betrays. Not like some guys from the north,” he added, with a knowing smile.

“Thanks. It’s good to know.”

Toward seven o’clock, Jojo lit the carbide lamp. The two blankets were laid out on the ground. No chairs. The gamblers would either stand or squat. We decided I shouldn’t play that night. Just watch, that’s all.

They started to arrive. Extraordinary mugs. There were few short men: most were huge, bearded, moustachio’d types. Their hands and faces were clean, and they didn’t smell, but their clothes were all stained and very nearly worn out. Every single one of the shirts, though, was spotlessly clean.

In the middle of the cloth, eight pairs of dice were neatly arranged, each in a little box. Jojo asked me to give each player a paper cup. There were about twenty of them. I poured out the rum. Not a single guy there jerked up the neck of the bottle to say enough. After just one round, three bottles vanished.

Each man deliberately took a sip, then put his cup down in front of him and laid an aspirin tube beside it. I knew there were diamonds in those tubes. A shaky old Chinese set up a little jeweler’s scales in front of him. Nobody said much. These men were exhausted: they’d been laboring under the blazing sun, some of them standing in water up to their middies from six in the morning till the sun went down.

Ha, things were beginning to move! First one, then two, then three players took up a pair of dice and examined them carefully, pressing them tight together and passing them on to their neighbor. Everything must have seemed in order, because the dice were tossed back onto the blanket without anything said. Each time, Jojo picked up the pair and put them hack in their box, all except for the last, which stayed there on the blanket.

Some men who had taken off their shirts complained of the mosquitoes. Jojo asked me to burn a few handfuls of damp grass, so the smoke would help to drive them out.

“Who kicks off?” asked a huge copper-colored guy with a thick black curly beard and a lopsided flower tattooed on his right arm.

“You, if you like,” Jojo said.

Out of his silver-mounted belt, the gorilla--for he looked very like a gorilla--brought an enormous wad of boilvar notes held in a rubber band.

“What are you kicking off with, Chino?” asked another man.

“Five hundred bolos.”
Bolos
is short for “bolivars.”

“Okay for five hundred.”

And the craps rolled. The eight came up. Jojo tried to shoot the eight.

“A thousand bolos you don’t shoot the eight with double fours,” said another player.

“I take that,” Jojo said.

Chino managed to roll the eight, by five and three. Jojo had lost. For five hours on end the game continued without an exclamation, without the least dispute. These men were uncommon gamblers. That night Jojo lost seven thousand bolos and a guy with a game leg more than ten thousand.

It had been decided to stop the game at midnight, but everyone agreed to carry on for another hour. At one o’clock Jojo said this was the last crack.

“It was me that kicked off,” said Chino, taking the dice. “I’ll close it. I lay all my winnings, nine thousand boilvars.”

He had a mass of notes and diamonds in front of him. He covered a whole lot of other stakes and rolled the seven first go.

At this terrific stroke of luck, a murmur went around for the first time. The men stood up. “Let’s get some sleep.”

“Well, you saw that, man?” Jojo said when we were alone.

“Yes, and what I noticed most were those tough mugs. They all carry a gun and a knife. There were even some who sat on their machetes, so sharp they could take your head off in one swipe.”

“That’s a fact, but you’ve seen others like them.”

“Still and all... I ran the table on the islands, but I tell you I never had such a feeling of danger as tonight.”

“It’s all a matter of habit, mac. Tomorrow you’ll play and we’ll win; it’s in the bag. As you see it,” he added, “which are the guys to watch closest?”

“The Brazilians.”

“Well done! That’s how you can tell a man--the way he spots the ones who may turn lethal from one second to another.”

When we had locked the door (three huge bolts) we threw ourselves into our hammocks, and I dropped off right away, before Jojo could start his snoring.

The next day, a splendid sun arose fit to roast you--not a cloud or the least hint of a breeze. I wandered about this curious village. Everyone was welcoming. Disturbing faces on the men, sure enough, but they had a way of saying things (in whatever language they spoke) so there was a warm human contact right away. I found the enormous Corsican redhead again. His name was Miguel. He spoke fluent Venezuelan with English or Brazilian words dropping into it every now and then, as if they’d come down by parachute. It was only when he spoke French, which he did with difficulty, that his Corsican accent came out. We drank coffee that a young brown girl had strained through a sock. As we were talking he asked, “Where do you come from, brother?”

“After what you said yesterday, I can’t lie to you. I come from the penal colony.”

“Ah? You escaped? I’m glad you told me.”

“And what about you?”

He drew himself up, six feet and more, and his redhead’s face took on an extremely noble expression. “I escaped, too, but not from Guiana. I left Corsica before they could arrest me. I’m a bandit of honor--an
honorable
bandit.”

His face, all lit up with the pride of being an honest man, impressed me. He was really magnificent to see, this honorable bandit. He went on, “Corsica is the paradise of the world, the only country where men will give their lives for honor. You don’t believe it?”

“I don’t know whether it’s the only country, but I do believe you’ll find more men who are fugitives on account of their honor than because they’re just plain bandits.”

“I don’t care for town bandits,” he said thoughtfully.

In a couple of words I told him how things were with me; and I said I meant to go back to Paris to present my bill.

“You’re right; but revenge is a dish you want to eat cold. Go about it as carefully as you can; it would be terrible if they picked you up before you had had your satisfaction. You’re with old Jojo?”

“Yes.”

“He’s straight. Some people say he’s too clever with the dice, but I don’t believe he’s a wrong ‘un. You’ve known him long?”

“Not very; but that doesn’t matter.”

“Why, Papi, the more you gamble the more you know about other men--that’s nature; but there’s one thing that worries me for you.”

“What’s that?”

“Two or three times his partner’s been murdered. That’s why I said what I did yesterday evening. Take care, and when you don’t feel safe, you come here. You can trust me.”

“Thanks, Miguel.”

Yes, a curious village all right, a curious mixture of men lost in the bush, living a rough life in the middle of an explosive landscape. Each one had his story. It was wonderful to see them, wonderful to listen to them. Their shacks were sometimes no more than a roof of palm fronds or bits of corrugated iron, and God knows how they got there. The walls were strips of cardboard or wood or sometimes even cloth. No beds; only hammocks. They slept, ate, washed and made love almost in the street. And yet nobody would lift a corner of the canvas or peer between the planks to see what was going on inside. Everybody had the utmost respect for others’ privacy. If you wanted to go and see anyone, you never went nearer than a couple of yards before calling out, by way of ringing the bell, “Is anyone home?” If someone was, and he didn’t know you, you said, “
Gente de paz
,” the same as saying, I’m a friend. Then someone would appear and say politely, “
A delante. Esta casa es suya
.” Come in; this house is yours.

A table in front of a solid hut made of well-fitting logs. On the table, necklaces of real pearls from Margarita Island, some nuggets of virgin gold, a few watches, leather or expanding metal watch straps, and a good many alarm clocks. Mustafa’s jewelry shop.

Behind the table was an old Arab with a pleasant face. We talked awhile; he was a Moroccan and he’d seen I was French. It was five in the afternoon, and he said to me, “Have you eaten?”

“Not yet.”

“Nor have I. I was just going to. If you’d like to share my meal... ?”

“That would be fine.”

Mustafa was a kind, cheerful guy. I spent a very pleasant hour with him. He was not inquisitive, and he didn’t ask me where I came from.