The trapdoor over the shaft fitted to within a sixteenth of an inch. When we were resting, we could leave the room door open-not a thing could be seen. As for the hole in the garage wall, we covered it on the garage side with a huge wooden panel with handyman's tools hung on it, and on the house side with an inmense Spanish colonial chest. So when Paulo had to have someone come to the house, he could do so without worrying at all. Gaston and I just hid in our first-floor bedroom.
For two days there had been nonstop torrential rain, and the tunnel was flooded. There was close to a foot of water, so I suggested that Paulo should go buy a hand pump and the necessary piping. An hour later it was set up. Pumping as hard as we could (another form of exercise) we sucked up the water and poured it down the drain. A long, tough day's work for nothing.
December was coming nearer. If we could be ready by the end of November with our little room dug out and shored up, under the bank, that would be perfect. And if the Thermit specialist appeared, there was no doubt Father Christmas would cram our stockings to the brim. If the Thermit specialist did not turn up, then we'd decided to work with the electric welder. We knew where to find a set complete with all its fittings. General Electric turned out some terrific models. We'd buy it in another town much more safely.
The tunnel crept on. On November 24 we reached the foundations of the bank. Only three yards to go and the room to make-about twelve cubic yards of earth to bring out. We celebrated with champagne, genuine brut from France.
'It tastes a little green,' Auguste said.
'All the better. That's a good sign-it's the color of dollars!'
Paulo summed up what there was left to do. Six days for bringing out the earth if there's not too much of it. Three days for the casing. Total, nine. 'It's November twenty-fourth today, so that brings us to December fourth. That's the big day, and we'll be sitting pretty. The bank shuts at seven in the evening on Friday, so we go into action at eight. WTe'll have the whole of Friday night, all day Saturday, Saturday night and the whole of Sunday. If all goes well, we ought to be able to leave the hideout at two in the morning on Monday. That makes fifty-two hours of work altogether. Everyone agreed?'
'No, Paulo, I don't agree at all.'
'Why not, Papi?'
'The bank opens at seven for the cleaners. At that moment the whole thing may turn sour: at seven in the morning, that is to say not long after we've left. This is what I suggest: we finish the job by six on Sunday evening. By the time we've shared it out, it'll be about eight. If we leave at eight, that will give us at least eleven hours' start if the thing blows up at seven, and thirteen hours if it holds tight till nine.'
In the end everybody fell in with my suggestion. We drank our champagne, and as we drank it we put on records Paulo had brought-Maurice Chevalier, Piaf, the Paris of the little dance halls… – Sitting there with his glass, each of us dreamed of the great day. It was there, so close you could almost touch it with your finger.
Your bill, Papi, the bill you've got there engraved on your heart, you'll be able to collect on it in Paris pretty soon. If all goes well and if luck's with me, I'll come back from France to El Callao and fetch Maria. My father: that would be for later on. Poor, wonderful Dad! Before I go and embrace him I'll have to bury the man I was, the hustler… – It won't take long once I've had my revenge and I'm fixed up properly.
It was two days after our champagne celebration that the thing happened, but we didn't know it until the day after that. We'd been to look at a General Electric welding-and-cutting set in a neighboring town. My pal and I, dressed very properly, set out on foot and joined up with Paulo and Auguste in the car about a mile away.
'We've deserved this trip, boys. Breathe it in, breathe it in deep; this is the wonderful air of freedom!'
'You're dead right, Paulo; we've certainly deserved it. Don't drive too fast; let's have time to admire the countryside.'
We split up and stayed in two different hotels, spending three days in this charming port stuffed with ships and swarming with cheerful, motley crowds. Every evening we all met. 'No nightclubs, no brothels, no girls off the street; this is a business trip, men,' Paulo said. He was right.
Paulo and I went to look at the set, taking our time about it. It was terrific but it had to be paid for in cash and we didn't have enough. Paulo wired Buenos Aires and fortunately gave the address of the hotel in the port where he was staying. He decided to take us back to the villa and then return by himself a day or two later to get the dough and the welder. We drove back, thoroughly set up by these three days of holiday,
Paulo dropped Gaston and me at the corner of our little road as usual. The villa was a hundred yards away. We were walking calmly along, pleased with the idea of seeing our masterpiece of a tunnel again, when all at once I grabbed Gaston's arm and stopped him dead. What was going on outside the villa? There were cops, a dozen people milling around, and then I saw two firemen heaving earth out of the middle of the road. I didn't have to be told what had happened. The tunnel had been discovered!
Gaston began to tremble as though he had a fever, and then with his teeth chattering he stammered out, 'They've smashed our beautiful tunnel in! Oh, the shits! Such a beautiful tunnel!'
At this very moment this guy with a pig's face you could tell a mile off was watching us. But the whole situation seemed so comic to me I burst out in such cheerful, genuine, open laughter that if the pig had had some slight doubt about us, it passed off right away. Taking Gaston's arm I said out loud in Spanish, 'What a fucking great tunnel those robbers have dug!'
And slowly we turned our back on our masterpiece and walked away from the road-no hurry and no hitch. But now we had to get moving quick. I asked Gaston, 'How much have you got on you? I've nearly six hundred dollars and fifteen hundred bolivars. What about you?'
'Two thousand dollars in my _plan_,' said Gaston.
'Gaston, the best thing to do is for us to part right here in the Street.'
'What are you going to do, Papi?'
'I'll go back to the port we came from and try to get a boat for no matter where-straight for Venezuela, if possible.'
We could not embrace one another there in the open street, but Gaston's eyes were as wet with emotion as mine as we shook hands. There's nothing that makes such a bond between men as the experience of danger and adventure.
'Good luck, Gaston.'
'Same to you, Papi.'
Paulo and Auguste went home by different roads, the one to Paraguay, the other to Buenos Aires.
I managed to get on a boat for Puerto Rico: from there I took a plane to Colombia and then another boat to Venezuela.
It was only some months later that I learned what had happened. A water main had burst in the big avenue on the other side of the bank and the traffic was diverted into the streets running parallel. A huge truck loaded with iron girders took our road, passed over our tunnel, and plunged its back wheels into it. Shrieks, amazement, police; they grasped the whole thing in a moment.
7 Carotte: the Pawnshop
In Caracas it was Christmas. Splendid lights in all the big streets, cheerfulness everywhere, carols sung with the Venezuelans' marvelous sense of rhythm. For my part I was rather depressed by our failure, but I wasn't bitter. We'd gambled and we'd lost, but I was still alive and freer than ever. And then after all, as Gaston said, it had been a lovely tunnel!
Gradually the atmosphere of these songs about the Child of Bethlehem seeped into me; and easy in my mind, my heart peaceful again, I sent Maria a telegram: 'MARIA, MAY THIS CHRISTMAS FILL THE HOUSE WHERE YOU GAVE ME SO MUCH JOY.'
I spent Christmas Day at the hospital with Picolino, sitting on a bench in the little hospital garden. I'd bought two _hallacas_, specialties they make only at Christmas, and they were the most expensive and the best I could find. I also had two little flat bottles of delicious Chianti in my pockets.
It was a Christmas of two men brought back to life, a Christmas ablaze with the light of friendship, a Christmas of total freedom-freedom even to splash money about as I had done. The snowless Christmas of Caracas, filled with the flowers of this little hospital garden: a Christmas of hope for Picolino, whose tongue no longer hung out now he was being treated, who no longer dribbled. Yes, a miraculous Christmas for him, since he distinctly-and happily-pronounced the word 'Yes' when I asked him if the _hallacas_ were good.
But Lord above, how hard it was to make a new life! I went through some very tough weeks, yet I did not lose heart. I had two things in me: first, an unshakable confidence in the future, and second, love for life. Even when it would have been more sensible for me to be worrying, a mere trifle in the Street would make me laugh; and if I met a friend I might spend the evening with him, having fun like a twenty-year-old.
Dr. Bougrat gave me a little job in his beauty-products laboratory. I didn't earn much, but enough to be well dressed, almost elegant. I left him for a Hungarian woman who had a little yogurt factory in her villa; and it was there that I met a pilot whose real name I won't mention because at this moment he's in command of an Air France jet. I'll call him Carotte.
He was working for the Hungarian woman, too, and we made enough to be able to have some fun. Every evening we'd stroll around the Caracas bars, and we often had a drink or two at the Hotel Majestic, in the Silencio district. It has vanished now, but at that time it was the only modem place in the city.
It was then, during one of those periods when you think nothing fresh can possibly turn up, that a miracle took place. One day Carotte vanished, a little while later he came back again, from the United States, with a plane-a little observation plane with two seats, one behind the other. A wonderful gadget. I asked no questions about where it came from; the only question I did ask was what he was going to do with it.
He laughed and said, 'I don't know yet. But we might be partners.'
'To do what?'
'It doesn't matter what, as long as we have fun and make a little dough.'
'Okay. We'll look around.'
The sweet Hungarian woman, who couldn't have had many illusions about how long our jobs would last, wished us good luck; and then began an utterly demented and extraordinary month.
Oh, the things we did with that huge great butterfly!
Carotte was an ace. During the war he used to fly French agents out of England, land them by night in fields guarded by the Resistance and fly others back to London. He often came down with no more guidance than torches held by the men who were waiting for him. He was completely reckless, and he dearly loved a laugh.
