Banco: The Further Adventures of Papillon

But, before I leave Henri Charrière to tell his own story, perhaps I may be permitted to say a word about the translation. I had followed Papillon’s wild success; I had watched the splendid time the author was having (Papillon in a sledge with Brigitte Bardot, Papillon with an immense cigar and a diamond ring, Papillon in a dinner-jacket, painting Paris red) with delight and with admiration for his iron resistance; but I had been afraid that fame and wealth might alter his style and complicate my task. Not at all: as soon as I looked into Banco I recognized exactly the same voice: here and there a slightly more literary turn of phrase, here and there a literary allusion, but not the least change in the essential Papillon. So I made no alteration in the techniques I had adopted for translating his earlier book: of these the only one that seems to call for any explanation is my use of a somewhat archaic Americanized slang, particularly in the dialogue. This seemed to me the only way of rendering Papillon’s equally archaic argot; and in the few cases where even American would not quite yield the liveliness of the French, I comforted myself with the proverb from Papillon’s own country: ‘If you cannot have thrushes to eat, then you must make do with blackbirds.’

PATRICK O’BRIAN

1: First Steps into Freedom (#ulink_4ea85169-e9f4-5b3c-80f4-656d202d6737)

‘GOOD luck, Frenchman! From this moment, you’re free. Adios!’

The officer of the El Dorado penal settlement waved and turned his back.

And it was no harder than that to get rid of the chains I had been dragging behind me these thirteen years. I held Picolino by the arm and we took a few steps up the steep path from the river-bank, where the officer had left us, to the village of El Dorado. And now, sitting here in my old Spanish house on the night of 18th August 1971, to be exact, I can see myself with unbelievable clarity on that pebbly track; and not only does the officer’s voice ring in my ears in just the same way, deep and clear, but I make the same movement that I made twenty-seven years ago – I turn my head.

It is midnight: outsidé, the night is dark. And yet it’s not. For me, for me alone, the sun is shining: it’s ten o’clock in the morning and I stare at the loveliest shoulders, the loveliest back I have ever seen in my life – my gaoler’s back moving farther and farther away, symbolizing the end of the watching, the spying, the surveillance that had gone on every day, night, minute and second, never stopping for thirteen years.

A last look at the river, a last look beyond the warder at the island in the middle with the Venezuelan penal settlement on it, a last look at a hideous past that lasted thirteen years and in which I was trampled upon, degraded and ground down.

All at once pictures seemed to be forming against the mists raised from the water by the blazing tropical sun, to show me the road I had travelled these thirteen years, as though it were on a screen. I refused to watch the film; I caught Picolino by the arm, turned my back on the weird picture and led him quickly up the path, first giving myself a shake to get rid of the filth of the past for good and all.

Freedom? Yes, but where? At the far end of the world, way back in the plateaux of Venezuelan Guiana, in a little village deep in the most luxuriant virgin forest you can imagine. This was the south-east tip of Venezuela, close to the Brazilian frontier: an enormous sea of green broken only here and there by the waterfalls of the rivers and streams that ran through it – a green ocean with widely-scattered little communities with ways and customs worthy of biblical times, gathered round a chapel, where no priest even had to talk about love for all men and simplicity because that was the way they lived naturally, all the year round. Often these pueblitos are only linked to others, as remote as themselves, by a truck or two: and looking at the trucks, you wondered how they ever got so far. And in their way of life these simple, poetic people live just as people did hundreds and hundreds of years ago, free from all the taints of civilization.

When we had climbed up to the edge of the plateau where the village of El Dorado begins, we almost stopped; and then slowly, very slowly, we went on. I heard Picolino draw his breath, and like him I breathed in very deeply, drawing the air right down into the bottom of my lungs and letting it out gently, as though I were afraid of living these wonderful minutes too fast – these first minutes of freedom.

The broad plateau opened in front of us: to the right and the left, little houses, all bright and clean and surrounded by flowers. Some children had caught sight of us: they knew where we came from. They came up to us, not unfriendly at all; no, they were kind, and they walked beside us without a word. They seemed to understand how grave this moment was, and they respected it.

There was a little wooden table in front of the first house with a fat black woman selling coffee and arepas, maize cakes.

‘Good morning, lady.’

‘Buenos dias, hombres.'

‘Two coffees, please.’

‘St, señores.’ And the good fat creature poured us out two cups of delicious coffee: we drank them standing, there being no chairs.

‘What do I owe you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘How come?’

‘It’s a pleasure for me to give you the first coffee of your freedom.’

‘Thank you. When’s there a bus?’

‘Today’s a holiday, so there’s no bus; but there’s a truck at eleven.’

‘Is that right? Thanks.’

A black-eyed, light-skinned girl came out of a house. ‘Come in and sit down,’ she said with a lovely smile.

We walked in and sat down with a dozen people who were drinking rum.

‘Why does your friend loll out his tongue?’

‘He’s sick.’

‘Can we do anything for him?’

‘No, nothing: he’s paralysed. He’s got to go to hospital.’

‘Who’s going to feed him?’

‘Me.’

‘Is he your brother?’

‘No; my friend.’

‘You got money, Frenchman?’

‘Very little. How did you know I was French?’

‘Everything gets known here in no time. We knew you were going to be let out yesterday: and that you escaped from Devil’s Island and that the French police are trying to catch you to put you back there again. But they won’t come and look for you here: they don’t give orders in this country. We are the ones who are going to look after you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because…’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Here, drink a shot of rum and give one to your friend.’

Now it was a woman of about thirty who took over. She was almost black. She asked me whether I was married. Yes, in France. If my parents were still alive. Only my father.

‘He’ll be glad to hear you are in Venezuela.’

‘That’s right.’

A tall dried-up white man then spoke – he had big, staring eyes, but they were kind – ’My relation didn’t know how to tell you why we are going to look after you. Well, I’ll tell you. Because unless he’s mad – and in that case there’s nothing to be done about it – a man can be sorry for what he’s done and he can turn into a good man if he’s helped. That’s why you’ll be looked after in Venezuela. Because we love other men, and with God’s help, we believe in them.’

‘What do you think I was a prisoner on Devil’s Island for?’

‘Something very serious, for sure. Maybe for having killed someone, or for a really big theft. What did you get?’

‘Penal servitude for life.’

‘The top sentence here is thirty years. How many did you do?’

‘Thirteen. But now I am free.’