Papillon (46 page)

“What do you think?”

“My brother-in-law was especially nervous because of the size of the piece and the fact that it looked too much as if it were for a raft. He thought he saw more than he actually saw.”

“That’s what I think. Let’s forget it. When we get to the last piece, make sure Bébert Celier is not around when you leave. Take the same precautions with him you would with a guard.”

I spent that night gambling for very high stakes and won seven thousand francs. The less attention I paid to the game, the more money I won. At four-thirty in the morning I left for work, though I actually turned the job over to the black from Martinique. The rain had stopped and I crept through the dark to the cemetery. I couldn’t find the shovel, so I had to move the earth back with my feet. When I went down to fish, the sun was already shining bright. I went to the southernmost part of Royale, where I was planning to launch the raft. The tide was high and the sea rough; it was clear that it would be hard to get away from the island without being tossed back onto the rocks. I started to fish and right away caught a lot of rock mullet. In no time I had over twelve pounds. So I stopped and cleaned the fish in the sea. I was very uneasy, and tired from the long night of gambling. I sat down in the shade and tried to pull myself together. I told myself that the tension that had been building up for three months was soon coming to an end and, thinking about Celier, I decided I had no right to kill him.

Then I went to call on Matthieu. The grave could easily be seen from his garden. There was some earth on the path which he said he’d sweep off at noon. I passed by Juliette’s and gave her half my fish.

She said, “Papillon, I had a bad dream about you last night. You were in chains and all covered with blood. Please don’t do anything foolish. I’d suffer too much if something happened to you. See, the dream upset me so much I haven’t washed yet or even combed my hair. I looked through my binoculars to see where you were fishing, but I couldn’t find you. Where did you catch these?”

“On the other side of the island. That’s why you didn’t see me.”

“Why do you go so far away where nobody can see you? What if you were carried away by a wave? There would be no one to save you from the sharks.”

“Oh, you’re exaggerating!”

“You think I’m exaggerating? Well, perhaps. But I forbid you to fish on that side of the island. If you don’t obey me, I’ll see that your fishing permit is taken away.”

“Come, be reasonable. If it’ll make you any happier, I’ll let your houseboy know where I’m going fishing.”

“All right. But why do you look so tired?”

“Because I am tired. And I’m going back to the camp to sleep.”

“O.K., but I expect you for coffee at four o’clock. You’ll come?”

“Yes, madame. I’ll see you later.”

Juliette’s dream! That was all I needed! As if I didn’t have enough real problems....

Bourset told me he was sure he was being watched. We’d been waiting fifteen days for the last piece—the one five feet long. Narric and Quenier insisted there was nothing wrong, but Bourset was still afraid to make it. If it hadn’t needed five joints that had to fit exactly, Matthieu could have made it in the garden. But it was into this plank that the five ribs of the raft had to be fitted. Narric and Quenier were repairing the chapel, so they were able to come and go from the shop with all kinds of material. Sometimes they even used a small wagon pulled by a buffalo. We had to take advantage of this opportunity.

Against his better judgment, Bourset started to make the piece. Then one day he said he was sure someone had moved it when he wasn’t there. He still had to make one of the joints, and we decided he should do this and then put the piece under his workbench. He was to lay a hair on it to tell us if anyone touched it. He finished his work and left the shop at six o’clock, making sure that no one was left except the guard. The plank and hair were in place. At noon I was in the camp waiting for the eighty men to come out of the shop. Narric and Quenier were there, but no Bourset. A German came up to me and handed me a carefully sealed letter. I could see it hadn’t been opened. I read: “The hair is gone; someone has touched the board. The guard is letting me stay to work during the siesta. I told him I had to finish a little rosewood box I’ve been working on. I’ll take the board and put it with Narric’s tools. You tell him about it. He must leave with the board at three sharp. Maybe we can steal a march on the guy who is taking such an interest.”

Narric and Quenier agreed. Just before everybody was back in the shop, two men would start a fight outside the door. This task was allotted to two of Carbonieri’s people—Corsicans from Marseilles named Massani and Santini. They didn’t ask why, which was fine. Narric and Quenier would be first in line and they would take advantage of the incident to run in, then out, carrying a mixture of stuff as if they were in a hurry to get to work and the fight couldn’t concern them less. We were all agreed that this was our last chance. If it succeeded, I wouldn’t make a move for a month or two because it was clear that someone—or several people—knew that somebody was making a raft. It would be up to them to find out who and where.

It was now two-thirty and the men were getting ready. There were thirty minutes between roll call and the time the men actually filed off to work. Bébert Celier was in the middle of the twenty rows of four men each.

Narric and Quenier were in the first row, Massani and Santini in the twelfth, Bébert Celier in the tenth. It looked like a good setup, because when Narric was picking up his odd lengths of wood along with our board, others would still be going in. Bébert would be almost at the workshop door. When the scuffle broke out, everybody would turn around, Bébert included, and there’d be lots of shouting and shoving. And so it went. By four o’clock it was all over. The board was under a heap of stuff in the chapel. They hadn’t yet been able to get it out of there, but it was well hidden.

I went to see Juliette; she wasn’t home. On my way back I passed the Administration Building and saw Massani and Santini standing in the shade, waiting to be put in the dungeon. We had expected that.

I walked up to them and asked, “How much?”

“Eight days.”

A Corsican guard said, “How about that! Two Corsicans fighting each other …!”

I went back to camp. Carbonieri and my friends were walking on air—they congratulated me on the way I had organized the operation. Narric and Quenier were pleased too. Everything was going great. I slept through the night even though I was asked to play poker. I pretended I had a headache. Actually I was just dead tired but overjoyed that success was around the corner. The most difficult part was behind me.

The next morning Matthieu put the board in the hole in the wall. The cemetery guard was raking the paths near our tomb. It would be risky to go too near it now. Every morning at daybreak I took a wooden bucket and replaced the earth on the grave. I tidied the path with a broom, then hurriedly hid the pail and broom in a corner and returned to work.

It was now exactly four months since we had started to prepare this
cavale
and nine days since we’d finally got the last piece for the raft. The rain had stopped except for a little at night. All my attention was turned to the next two stages: first getting the damned board out of Matthieu’s garden, then fitting it into the raft. This could only be done during the day. Then, escape! But that had to wait until the raft was launched and packed with the coconuts and our supplies.

I brought Jean Castelli up to date. He was delighted to know that I was this near the end. He remarked, “The moon’s in the first quarter.”

“I know. At midnight there’ll be no problem. The tide goes out at ten in the evening, so the best time to put the raft in the water will be between one and two in the morning.”

Carbonieri and I decided to hurry things up a little. We’d make the final assembly the next morning. That night, escape.

The next morning I walked from the garden to the cemetery and jumped over the wall, carrying a bucket in my hand. While I was clearing the earth away from the top of the matting, Matthieu was moving the stone out from the wall to get at the board. Then together we lifted the matting and placed it to one side. The raft seemed to be in perfect condition. A little dirty, but that didn’t matter. We took it out in order to have room to fit the last piece in, then we set in the five ribs, banging them into their grooves with a stone. Just as we were finished and about to put the raft back in its place, a guard appeared with a carbine in his hand.

“Don’t move or I shoot!”

We dropped the raft and put up our hands. I recognized the guard. He was the one from the workshop.

“Don’t try anything funny. I’ve got you. Admit it and at least you’ll save your skin. It’s hanging by just a thread right now—I’d really like to pump you full of lead. All right, get going. Keep your hands up.”

As we passed the entrance to the cemetery, we met an Arab turnkey. The guard said to him, “Thanks for your help, Mohamed. Come by tomorrow morning and I’ll give you what I promised you.”

“Thanks,” the old dog replied. “Don’t worry, chief, I’ll be there. But doesn’t Bébert Celier owe me something too?”

“You work it out with him,” the guard said.

So I said to him, “Was Bébert Celier the one who ratted on us, chief?”

“I didn’t say so, did I?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s just good to know.”

Still aiming his carbine at us, the guard said, “Frisk ’em, Mohamed.”

The Arab found my knife inside my belt, then took Matthieu’s.

“Mohamed,” I said to him, “you’re pretty sharp. How’d you catch on to us?”

“I climbed a palm tree every day to see how you were doing with the raft.”

“Who told you to do it?”

“First it was Bébert Celier, then Bruet, the guard.”

“Let’s go,” the guard said. “That’s enough talk. You can put your hands down now. Get moving.”

The four hundred yards to the warden’s were the longest road I’d ever walked. I wanted to die. All that struggle only to get caught like a pair of half-assed idiots. My God, but you’re cruel to me! Our arrival at the warden’s was a great occasion. As we were nearing the Administration Building, we kept meeting guards who fell into step with our guard. By the time we arrived, there must have been seven or eight of them.

The Arab had run ahead to give the warden the news. He was standing at the door with Dega and five guards. “What’s going on, Monsieur Bruet?”

“I just caught these two red-handed. They were hiding a raft that looked to be about finished.”

“What have you got to say for yourself, Papillon?”

“Nothing. I’ll talk at the interrogation.”

“Put them in the dungeon.”

I was put in a cell with a blocked-up window near the entrance to the building. The cell was dark, but I could hear people talking outside.

Things moved fast. At three o’clock we were taken out and handcuffed. A kind of tribunal had been set up consisting of the head warden, his second-in-command and the head guard. Another guard served as clerk. Dega sat at a little table to one side, pencil in hand, ready to take down our statements.

“Charrière and Carbonieri, listen to Monsieur Bruet’s allegations: ‘I, Auguste Bruet, head guard and director of the workshops on the Iles du Salut, accuse the two
bagnards
, Charrière and Carbonieri, of the theft and misappropriation of material belonging to the State. I accuse the carpenter, Bourset, of complicity. I think I can also implicate Narric and Quenier. I wish to add that I caught Charrière and Carbonieri red-handed as they were violating the grave of Madame Privat, which they used as the hiding place for their raft.’”

“What have you got to say?” the warden asked.

“In the first place, Carbonieri had nothing to do with it. The raft was designed to carry only one man: me. I only asked him to help me lift the matting off the grave. Carbonieri is not guilty of theft or misappropriating material belonging to the State, or of complicity in an escape since there was no escape. Bourset was a poor bastard who was operating under pain of death. As for Narric and Quenier, I hardly know them. They had nothing to do with it.”

“That’s not what my informant told me,” the guard said.

“Your informant was Bébert Celier. He might have been trying to get even with someone by implicating him falsely. Besides, how can you trust a stoolie?”

“All right,” the warden said. “You are officially accused of theft and misappropriation of material belonging to the State, of defiling a grave, and attempting to escape. Sign here.”

“I’ll sign only when you’ve added my statement about Carbonieri, Bourset, Narric and Quenier.”

“All right. Write it up.”

I signed. I can’t really tell you what happened after that. I was out of my mind. I barely ate, I couldn’t move, I smoked constantly, one cigarette after another. Luckily Dega kept me well supplied with tobacco. Every day I had a morning walk in the sun in the yard of the maximum-security compound. The warden came to see me. The funny thing was that, although he would have been severely censured if the escape had succeeded, he wasn’t angry with me at all.

Smiling all the while, he told me that his wife had said it was perfectly normal for a man to try to escape unless he had gone to pot. With great cleverness he tried to get me to admit Carbonieri’s complicity. I think I convinced him. I explained how it was practically impossible for Carbonieri to refuse to help me when I needed to remove the matting.