Papillon (25 page)

He said that he and Zato would watch over Lali and Zoraima and that Zoraima’s child would always hold a place of honor in the tribe—if it was a son, of course. “I don’t want you to go. If you stay, I’ll give you the beautiful Indian girl you met at the celebration. She is a wonderful girl and she loves you. You can stay here with me. I’ll give you a big hut and all the cows and cattle you want.”

I left this extraordinary man and returned to the village. Lali was silent during the entire trip. She sat behind me on the chestnut, her thighs chafed by the saddle. Zoraima rode behind with an Indian. Zorrillo had left for his village by another road. It got cold as night fell so I handed Lali the sheepskin jacket Justo had given me; she let me put it around her without a word. She accepted the jacket but no more. The horse broke into a fast trot, but she wouldn’t hold onto me. Once back in the village, I went to pay my respects to Zato. Lali took the horse home, tied him to the hut and placed a bundle of hay in front of him without removing his saddle or bit.

When they are sad, the Indians—and particularly their women—have closed faces. Not a muscle moves; their eyes may be swimming with tragedy, but they never cry. They may sometimes let out a moan, but that is all.

That night, in my sleep, I must have moved and jabbed Zoraima in the belly, for she cried out with pain. I didn’t want this to happen again so I got up and lay down in another hammock. It hung very low, and as I got into it, I had the impression someone had been tampering with it. I pretended to be asleep. Lali sat down on a tree stump and watched me without moving. A moment later I smelled Zoraima’s presence (she was accustomed to scenting herself by crushing orange blossoms and rubbing them on her skin; she bought these in little bags from an Indian woman who passed through the village from time to time). When I woke up, both girls were still there, motionless. The sun was up; it was nearly eight o’clock. I led them to the beach and stretched out on the sand. Lali remained seated; so did Zoraima. I stroked Lali’s breasts and her belly; she was as still as marble. I pulled her down next to me and tried to kiss her; her lips were closed tight. Later the fisherman came for Lali. One look at her face was enough: he turned around and left. I was deeply troubled and didn’t know what to do except caress them and kiss them to show that I loved them. They remained silent. It upset me that they should feel such grief at the thought of living without me. Then Lali almost raped me, giving herself with a kind of despair. Why? What was behind it? It could only be one thing; she wanted me to make her pregnant too.

That morning, for the first time, I caught a hint of jealousy between Lali and Zoraima. We were lying on the beach in a protected hollow. I was caressing Zoraima’s breasts and belly and she was biting my ears. Lali arrived, took her sister by the arm, passed her hand over her sister’s swollen belly, then over her own slender flat one. Zoraima got up as if to say, “You’re right,” and gave her place to her sister.

Each day my women prepared my food but ate nothing themselves. They had not eaten for three days. I took the horse and almost committed a serious error—my first in more than five months. I left for the sorcerer’s without first asking his permission. I realized it halfway there so, instead of going straight to him, I passed back and forth in front of his tent at a distance of some two hundred yards. He finally saw me and made a sign for me to come in. I explained as best I could that Lali and Zoraima had stopped eating. He gave me a kind of nut which I was to put in our drinking water. I went home and placed it in the big earthen jar. They drank from it several times but still didn’t eat. Lali also stopped fishing. Then, after four days of fasting, she stupidly swam two hundred yards out from shore and returned with thirty oysters for me to eat. Their silent grief was so disturbing that I had almost stopped eating too. This went on for six days. Then Lali took to her bed with a fever. During the six days she had sucked a few lemons and that was all. Zoraima ate once a day at noon. I didn’t know what to do. I sat down next to Lali. She was stretched out on a hammock I had folded in two to make a kind of mattress and was looking fixedly at the roof. I looked at her, I looked at Zoraima with her bulging belly, and without quite knowing why, I started to weep. For me? For them? Who knows? I wept, and great tears ran down my cheeks. Zoraima saw them and began to moan, then Lali turned and saw them too. With one motion she got up and sat between my legs, all the while moaning gently. She kissed me and caressed me. Zoraima put an arm around my shoulder, and Lali started to talk; she moaned and she talked and Zoraima answered back. She seemed to be reproaching Lali for something. Lali took a piece of brown sugar as big as her fist, dissolved it in water and swallowed it in two gulps. Then she went out with Zoraima and I could hear them pulling on the horse. I went out and found him saddled, the bit between his teeth, the bridle over the pummel of the saddle. Zoraima gave me the sheepskin jacket, and Lali placed a folded hammock on the saddle. Zoraima was the first up and sat far in front, almost on the horse’s neck; I sat in the middle and Lali in back. I was so confused that I set off without telling anyone good-by, without even speaking to the chief.

Lali pulled back on the reins, perhaps thinking we were going to the sorcerer’s. But no, she pulled the reins again and said “Zorrillo.” So we were going to Zorrillo’s. Hugging my waist as we rode along, she kissed me several times on the back of the neck. I held the reins in my left hand and caressed Zoraima with my right. We arrived at Zorrillo’s village just as he was returning from Colombia with three donkeys and a heavily laden horse. We went into his house. Lali spoke first, then Zoraima.

According to Zorrillo, this was their story. Up to the moment I had cried, Lali believed that I was just a white man who didn’t really care about her. She knew that someday I would leave, but it was deceitful of me not to tell her. She said she was deeply disappointed because she had thought she was capable of making a man happy, that a happy man didn’t leave home, and that there would be no reason to go on living after such a calamity. Zoraima said more or less the same thing, but in addition, she was afraid her son would turn out like his father: a silent man and a false one, who made such difficult demands on his women that for all that they were ready to give their lives for him, they were unable to understand him. Why was I running away from her as if she were the dog who had bitten me the day I arrived?

I replied, “Lali, what would you do if your father were sick?”

“I would walk on thorns to take care of him.”

“What would you do if you had been hunted like a dog and then the day came when you had a chance to get even?”

“I’d look for my enemy everywhere, and when I found him I’d bury him so deep he wouldn’t even be able to turn around in his hole.”

“Once you had accomplished this, what would you do if you had two wonderful women waiting for you?”

“I’d return on a horse.”

“That’s what I will do.”

“What if I’m old and ugly when you return?”

“I’ll return long before you’re old and ugly.”

“Yes, water ran from your eyes, and you can’t do that on purpose. You may go when you wish, but you must leave in full daylight, in front of everybody and not like a thief. You must go as you came, at the same time in the afternoon, covered with clothes. You must say who is to watch over us night and day. Zato is our chief, but we must have another man to watch over us. You must tell them that the house will stay your house and that no man except your son—if it is a boy in Zoraima’s belly—is ever to enter it. Zorrillo must come the day you leave so that he can tell us all the things you’ll be saying.”

We spent the night with Zorrillo. It was a deliciously warm and tender time. The sounds and murmurs that came from these daughters of nature were so full of love that I was very moved. We went home on the horse, but slowly, for the sake of Zoraima’s belly. I was to leave eight days after the new moon so that Lali would know if she were pregnant. During the last moon she had not seen blood. She wanted to be sure; if there were still no blood during this moon, then she would know she had conceived. Zorrillo was to take my clothes. I would dress in his house after making my farewell speech “Guajira-style,” meaning naked. On the eve of my departure the three of us would go to the sorcerer’s to learn whether I was to leave my door open or closed. Our slow return—slow for Zoraima’s belly—was not at all sad. It was better for them to know I was leaving than to look abandoned, objects of ridicule in the eyes of the village. After Zoraima had given birth, she would go out with a fisherman and find lots of pearls for me. Lali would fish longer hours to keep herself busy. I was sorry that I’d learned no more than a dozen words in Guajiro. I could have told them so much, things that can’t be told through an interpreter.

We reached home. The first thing I had to do was see Zato and try to explain how sorry I was that I had gone without speaking to him first. Zato was as noble as his father. Before I opened my mouth to speak, he placed his hand on my neck and said “
Uilu
[Quiet].” The new moon was due in twelve days. With the eight days I had to wait after that, it would be twenty days before I could set off.

As I was looking at the map once again and studying ways to bypass the various villages, my mind went back to what Justo had said. Where indeed would I be happier than here? Here I was loved by everybody. Wasn’t I asking for trouble by returning to civilization? The future would tell.

The next three weeks were beautiful. We became certain that Lali was pregnant and that there would be two and maybe even three children awaiting my return. Why three? She told me that her mother had twice had twins. We went to the sorcerer’s. No, we were not to close the door; we were only to place a branch across the opening. The hammock the three of us had slept in was to be stretched across the ceiling of the hut. Lali and Zoraima were to sleep together since they were now as one. Then he had us sit near the fire; he threw in some green leaves and left us in its smoke for ten minutes. We returned to our house to wait for Zorrillo. He arrived that same evening. We spent the whole night talking to the Indians around the fire in front of my hut. With Zorrillo as interpreter, I said something friendly to each of them, and each replied. As the sun rose, I retired with Lali and Zoraima. We spent the day making love. Zoraima straddled me the better to feel me in her; Lali coiled herself around me and, deep inside her, I could feel her beating like a heart.

It was the afternoon of my departure. I spoke, and Zorrillo translated:

“Zato, great chief of this tribe that welcomed me so warmly and gave me so much, I ask your permission to let me leave you for many days and nights.”

“Why do you wish to leave your friends?”

“Because I must punish the people who hunted me down like an animal. I have found refuge in your village, I have eaten well, I have had noble friends, and wives who filled me with happiness. But I must not allow this to change me into an animal who, once he’s found a warm refuge, stays in it the rest of his life for fear of being hurt. I am going to face my enemies and return to my father who needs me. I leave my soul here, in my wives Lali and Zoraima and in the fruits of our union. My hut belongs to them and the children soon to be born. I hope that if anyone forgets this, you—Zato—will remind him. And in addition to your personal vigilance, I ask that the man called Usli watch over my family day and night. I have loved you all and always will. I’ll do everything I can to return soon. Should I die, my thoughts will fly to you, Lali and Zoraima and my children, and to you, the Indians of Guajira, who were my family.”

I went back into my hut, followed by Lali and Zoraima, and put on my khaki shirt and pants, my socks and boots.

For a long time I sat gazing at the idyllic village where I had spent over six months. This Guajira tribe, feared as much by the other tribes as by the whites, had been a haven where I could catch my breath, an incomparable refuge from the wickedness of men. There I had found love, peace, tranquillity and nobility of spirit. Farewell, Guajiros! Be grateful that your vast lands are free of civilization. Your way of life has taught me something of great importance to my future: it is better to be a savage Indian than a judge with all his honors.

Good-by, Lali and Zoraima, incomparable wives, so close to nature, so spontaneous. I will surely come back. When? How? I don’t know, but I promise myself I will return.

As the afternoon came to an end, Zorrillo got on his horse and we started for Colombia. I had on a straw hat and walked, holding my horse by the reins. Each of the Indians hid his face with his left arm and held out his right. This was to show me that they didn’t want me to go, that it made them sad. The right arm was extended to try to keep me with them. Lali and Zoraima walked with me for about a hundred yards. I thought they were going to kiss me when suddenly they turned, sobbing, and ran toward the hut without looking back.