keep alive-the memory of my mother and the continual presence of that vanished little boy who was still Riri to my father.
November 16 was my birthday, and every November 16 my father used to weep. Every Christmas there was a chair left empty. When the gendarmes came to tell them their son had escaped again, the Charrieres almost kissed them for having brought such wonderful news. Because although Tante Ju did not know me, she had already adopted me in her heart as if I were her own son, and both she and my father shed tears of joy at hearing what was for them news of hope.
So she had received Rita more than kindly. Only one shadow: Tante Ju had not given her the address of my two sisters. Why not? I thought quickly. No doubt about it: she wasn't sure how they would take the news of my reappearance. Since she did not say to Rita, 'Hurry over and see them at such-and-such a place; they'll be wild with delight to know their brother's still alive and doing well, and to meet his wife,' she must have had her reasons. Maybe Tante Ju knew that neither my sister Yvonne nor my sister Helene nor my brothers-in-law would care to be visited by the wife of their brother, the escaped jailbird, sentenced to life for murder. No doubt she did not want to take the responsibility for disturbing their peace.
They were married and they had children, and probably these children did not even know of my existence. Take care, she must have said to herself. It seemed to me that although throughout my fourteen years in the clink I had lived with them and through them, they, on the other hand, must have spent those fourteen years doing their best to forget me or at least trying to blot me out of their daily lives. So all my wife brought back was a little earth from my father's grave and a photograph of the tomb where just four months before my father had been laid to rest forever.
Still, through Rita's eyes (for Champel had driven her everywhere) I did see the bridge of Ucel once more, the bridge of my childhood. I listened as she told me every detail about the big primary school where we had lived in the flat over the classrooms. Once again I could see the war memorial opposite our garden, and the garden itself, where a splendid flowering mimosa seemed to have kept itself in full bloom so that Rita, whose eyes drank in the garden, the memorial and the house, should be able to say to me, 'Nothing, or almost nothing, has changed; and you've so often described the scenes of your childhood that I did not feel I was seeing something new but rather that I was coming back to a place I knew already.'
Often in the evenings I would ask Rita to tell me some part of her journey all over again. At the hotel life went back to what it had been before. But deep inside me something inexplicable had happened. I had not felt this death as a fortyyear-old man in the prime of life feels when he hears of the death of a father he has not seen for twenty years, but like a boy of ten-like one who lives with his father, disobeys him, plays truant and then, on coming home, hears of his death.
Rita's daughter Clotilde arrived. She was over fifteen, but she was so frail and slight you would have said she was twelve. She had long, thick, black, curling hair down to her shoulders. Her small jet-black eyes sparkled with intelligence and curiosity. Her little face was not that of a girl but of a child that might still be playing at hopscotch or with a doll. There was immediate sympathy between us.
When she appeared, something new came over me-the wish that she should be happy and that she should look upon me, if not as her father, then at least as her surest support.
Now that Rita was back again, I did the shopping later, at seven. And now I took Clotilde with me; she led Minou and Carlitos carried the baskets. Everything was new for her, and she wanted to see it all at once. When she found something unexpected she piped up loud and clear to know what it was. What struck her most was the Indian women with their long shimmering robes, painted cheeks, and shoes decorated with huge, many-colored woolen pompoms.
That in the midst of this hurrying, shouting crowd she felt completely protected, moved me deeply and filled me with a hitherto unknown feeling-the feeling of a father's love. 'Yes, Clotilde, go forward into life with a trusting, easy mind; you can be sure that until the end I shall do everything I can to keep your path clear of thorns.'
And we would go happily back to the hotel, always with something amusing to tell Rita about what had happened to us or what we had seen.
12 I Become a Venezuelan
I know perfectly well that what the reader expects is my own personal adventures and not a history of Venezuela. Forgive me if I feel I should mention certain important political events that happened during the time I am writing about; they had a direct influence on my life and on the decisions I took.
For many people Venezuela is just a country in South America (most aren't quite sure just where), a country exploited by the Americans as if it were a kind of oil- producing American colony. This is far from true.
To be sure, the oil companies did once have very great weight; little by little, though, the Venezuelan intellectuals have set the country almost entirely free from the influence of American policy.
At present Venezuela is completely independent politically, as it has proved at the United Nations and elsewhere. One thing all its political parties have in common is a great zeal for Venezuela 's freedom of action with respect to all foreign countries. Thus, ever since Rafael Caldera came to power, we have had diplomatic relations with every country in the world, whatever their political regimes.
It is true that economically Venezuela depends on its oil, but it has succeeded in selling the oil at a very high price and in making the oil companies hand over as much as 85 percent of their profits.
Venezuela has other things besides oil, such as iron and other raw materials; and Venezuela has a vast resource of men whose aim is to free their country entirely from all forms of economic pressure. Men who have begun to prove that Venezuela can set up a democracy as good as any other, respected and preserved.
The young people in the universities long for nothing but social justice and the radical transformation of their country. They are full of faith, and confident of succeeding without undermining the foundations of real freedom-confident of bringing happiness to the whole nation without falling into a dictatorship either of the extreme right or of the extreme left. I believe in the young people of this country: they will help make it a nation that can be held up as an example, both for its truly democratic regime and for its economy, because it must not be forgotten that its huge resources of raw materials will soon be completely industrialized. When that happens, Venezuela will have won a great battle-and Venezuela _will_ win it.
Venezuela is also an ideal country for the kind of tourism that must develop in the coming years. Everything is in its favor-its beaches of coral sand, shaded by coconut palms; its sunshine, which surpasses all other countries'; its fishing of every kind in a sea that is always warm. Venezuela also offers a lower cost of living than other countries; islands by the hundred; a welcoming, hospitable people without the least trace of a color problem. And within an hour's flying distance from Caracas you can find the Indians, the lake villages of Maracaibo, or the Andes with their everlasting snow.
In short, Venezuela is so rich in resources that the country doesn't really need a politician at the helm so much as a good accountant, who will use the profits from oil to build factories and so increase the labor market for all who need or want work.
1951… Once again, as I remember this date, I have the same feeling I had then-the feeling of having nothing more to tell. You tell about storms and shooting the rapids of a swollen river; but when the water is calm and peaceful you feel like closing your eyes and resting on the placid current. Then rain comes pouring down again, the streams rise, the quiet water grows rough, the flood carries you away, and even if you longed to live in peace from everything, outside events have such an effect on your life that they force you to follow the current, avoiding the reefs and shooting the rapids in the hope of finding a quiet harbor at last.
After the mysterious killing of Chalbaud at the end of 1950, Perez Jimenez seized power, although he hid behind Flamerich, the figurehead president of the junta. The dictatorship began. First sign: the suppression of freedom of speech. The press and the radio were throttled. The opposition went underground, and the terrible political police, the Seguridad Nacional, went into action. The Communists and the Adecos (the members of the Accion Democratica, Betancourt's party) were hunted down.
Several times we hid them at the Vera Cruz. We never closed our doors to anyone at all, never asked for any man's identification. I was only too glad to pay my tribute to these followers of Betancourt, whose regime had set me free and given me asylum. We ran the danger of losing everything, but Rita saw that there wasn't anything else we could do.
Then again, the hotel had become something of a refuge for Frenchmen in a jam-for Frenchmen who had reached Venezuela with little in their pockets and who did not know where to go. They could eat and sleep at our place without paying while they were looking for a job. Our service became so famous that in Maracaibo they called me the Frenchmen's consul.
In the course of these years something very important to me happened, something almost as important as my meeting with Rita-I renewed my ties with my family. As soon as Rita left, Tante Ju wrote to my two sisters. And all of them, both my sisters and Tante Ju, wrote to me. After twenty years the great silence was coming to an end. I trembled as I opened the first letter. Would they reject me forever, or would they…?
Victory! These letters were a cry of joy-joy at knowing I was alive, earning an honest living and married to a woman Tante Ju described with all the kindness she had felt. Not only had I found my sisters once again, but I had also found their families, who now became _my_ family.
My elder sister had four fine children, three girls and a boy. Her husband wrote himself to say that his affection had remained unaltered and that he was more than happy to know I was free and doing well. Photos and still more photos, pages and still more pages told the story of their lives and of the war and of what they had had to go through to bring up their children. I read every word, weighing and analyzing so I could understand their story thoroughly and savor all its charm.
After the great black hole of the prisons and the penal settlement my own childhood came to the surface: 'My dear Riri,' wrote my sister. Riri… I could hear my mother calling me and see her lovely smile. It seemed that from a photo I had sent them my family decided I was the image of my father. My sister was convinced that if I was like him physically I must be like him in personality. Her husband and she were not afraid of my turning up again. The gendarmes must have heard about Rita's journey in the Ardeche, because they had gone to ask about me, and my brother-in-law had replied, 'Yes indeed, we have news of him. He's very happy and he's doing fine, thank you very much.'
My other sister was in Paris, married to a Corsican lawyer. They had two sons and a daughter, and he had a good job. The same cry: 'You are free, you are loved, you have a home, a good position and you are living like everybody else. Well done, little brother! My children, my husband and I bless God for having helped you to come out a winner from that terrible prison into which they threw you.'
My elder sister offered to take our daughter so she could go on with her studies in France. But what warmed our hearts most was that not one of them seemed to be ashamed of having a brother who was an ex-convict who had escaped from the penal settlement.
To round off this influx of wonderful news, I managed to get hold of the address of my friend Dr. Guibert-Germain, the former doctor of the settlement, who had treated me as one of his family when I was on Royale, inviting me to his house, and protecting me from the screws. It was thanks to Dr. Guibert-Germain that the solitary confinement at Saint-Joseph was done away with; and it was thanks to him that I was able to get myself transferred to Devil's Island and escape. I wrote to
