embraced like two brothers. Tears came into our eyes, we were so moved. We gazed at one another.
'A far cry from the Place Blanche and the clink, pal, huh? But where the hell have you come from? You're dressed like an English lord: and you've aged much less than me.'
'I'm just out of El Dorado.'
'How long were you there?'
'Over a year.'
'Why didn't you let me know? I'd have got you out right away, signed a paper saying I was responsible for you. Christ above! I knew there were some hard cases in El Dorado, but I never for a moment imagined you were there, you, a buddy!'
'It's a miracle we should meet.'
'Don't you believe it, Papi. The whole of Venezuelan Guiana is stuffed with convicts making a break. And as this is the first bit of Venezuelan territory you come across when you escape, there's no miracle in meeting anyone at all between the Gulf of Paria and here-every last son of a bitch comes this way. All those who don't come apart on the road, I mean. Where are you staying?'
'With a decent fellow named Jose. He has four daughters.'
'Yes, I know him. He's a good man, a pirate. Let's go and get your things: you are staying with me, of course.'
'I'm not alone. I've got a paralyzed friend and I have to look after him.'
'That doesn't matter. I'll send a donkey for him. It's a big house and there's a Negrita who'll look after him like a mother.'
When we had found the donkey we went to the girls' house. Leaving these kind people was very painful. It was only when we promised to come and see them, and said they could come and see us at Caratal, that they calmed down a little.
Two hours later we were at Charlot's 'chateau,' as he called it. A big, light, roomy house on a headland looking out over the whole of the valley running down from the hamlet of Caratal almost to El Callao. On the right of this virgin forest was the Mocupia gold mine. Charlot's house was built entirely of hardwood logs from the bush: three bedrooms, a fine dining room and a kitchen; two showers inside and one outside, in a perfectly kept garden. All the vegetables we had at home were growing there, and growing well. Besides a chicken run with more than five hundred hens, there were rabbits, guinea pigs, two goats and a pig. All this was the fortune and the present happiness of Charlot, the former crook and safecracker, specialist in very delicate operations worked out to the second.
'Well, Papi, how do you like my shack? I've been here seven years. As I was saying in El Callao, it's a far cry from Montmartre and the clink! Who'd ever have believed that one day I'd be happy with such a quiet, peaceful life? What do you say, pal?'
'I don't know, Charlot. I'm too lately out of stir to have a clear idea. It sets me back a little, seeing you quiet and happy here at the back of beyond. As far as I'm concerned, you see, I don't feel up to it yet.'
When we were sitting around the table in the dining room and drinking Martinique punch, Big Charlot went on, 'Yes, Papillon, I can see you're amazed that I live by my own work. Eighteen bolIvars a day means a modest life, but one not without its pleasures. A hen that hatches me a good brood of chicks, a rabbit that brings off a big litter, a kid being born, tomatoes doing well… all these little things we despised for so long add up to something that gives me a lot. Hey, here's my black girl. Conchita! Here are some friends of mine. That one's sick; you'll have to look after him. This one's called Enrique, or Papillon. He's a friend from France, an old-time friend.'
'Welcome to this house,' the black girl said. 'Don't you worry, Charlot, your friends will be properly looked after. I'll go and see to their room.'
Charlot told me about his break-an easy one. When he first got to the penal colony he was kept at Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, and after six months he escaped from there with another Corsican called Simon and a detainee. 'We were lucky enough to reach Venezuela a few months after the dictator Gomez died. These open-handed people helped us make a new life for ourselves. I had two years of compulsory residence at El Callao, and I stayed on. Little by little, I took to liking this simple life, you know? I lost one wife when she was having a baby, and the daughter, too. Then this black girl you've just seen, Conchita, she managed to comfort me with her real love and understanding, and she's made me happy. But what about you, Papi? You must have had a cruelly hard time of it; fourteen years is a hell of a stretch. Tell me about it.'
I talked to this old friend for more than two hours, spilling out everything these last years had left rankling in me. It was wonderful for us both to be able to talk about our memories. But, oddly, there was not a single word about Montmartre, not a word about the underworld, no reminders of jobs that were pulled off or misfired, nothing about crooks still at large. It was as though for us life had begun when we stepped aboard La Martiniere, me in 1933, Charlot in 1935.
Good Chianti, excellent salad, a grilled chicken, goat cheese and a delicious mango, all put on the table by the cheerful Conchita, meant that Charlot could welcome me properly in his house, and that pleased him. He suggested going down to the village for a drink. I said it was so pleasant where we were I didn't want to go out.
'Thanks, my friend,' my Corsican said-he often put on a Paris accent. 'You're dead right: we are comfortable here. Conchita, you'll have to find a girl friend for Enrique.'
'All right: Enrique, I'll introduce you to friends prettier than me.'
'You're the prettiest of them all,' CharIot said.
'Yes, but I'm black.'
'That's the very reason why you're so pretty, poppet. Because you're a thoroughbred.'
Conchita's big eyes sparkled with love and pleasure; it was easy to see she worshipped Charlot.
Lying quietly in a fine big bed I listened to the BBC news from London on Charlot's radio: but being plunged back into the life of the outside world worried me a little-I was not used to it anymore. I turned the knob. Now it was Caribbean music that came through: Caracas in song. I didn't want to hear the great cities urging me to live their life. Not this evening, anyway. I switched off quickly and began to think over the last few hours.
Had we purposely avoided talking about the years when we both lived in Paris? No. Had we purposely not mentioned the men of our world who had been lucky enough not to be picked up? No again. So did what had happened before the trial no longer matter?
I tossed and turned in the big bed. It was hot; I couldn't bear the heat anymore and walked out into the garden. I sat down on a big stone, from where I could look Out over the valley and the gold mine. Everything was lit up down there. I could see trucks, empty or loaded, coming and going.
Gold: the gold that came out of the depths of that mine. A lot of it, either in bars or turned into bills, would give you anything on earth. This prime mover of the world, which cost so little to mine, since the workers had such miserable wages, was the one thing you had to have to live well. Charlot had lost his freedom because he had wanted a lot of it, yet today he hadn't even mentioned the stuff. He hadn't told me whether the mine had much gold in it or not. These days his happiness was his black girl, his house, his animals and his garden. He had never even referred to money. He had become a philosopher. I was puzzled.
They caught Charlot because a guy by the name of Little Louis tipped off the police; and during our short meetings in the Sante Charlot never stopped swearing he would get Louis the first chance he had. Yet this evening he had not so much as breathed Louis's name. And as for me-Christ!-I had not said a word about my cops, or Goldstein, or the prosecuting counsel, either. I should have talked about them! I hadn't escaped just to end up a cross between a gardener and a day laborer.
I had promised to go straight in this country, and I'd keep my word. But that didn't mean I had given up my plans for revenge. You mustn't forget, Papi, that the reason you're here today is that the idea of revenge kept you going for fourteen years.
His little black girl was very pretty, all right; but still I wondered whether Big Charlot wouldn't be better off in a city than in this hole at the far end of creation. Or maybe I was the square, not seeing that my friend's life had its charm? That was something to chew over.
Charlot was forty-five, not an old man. Very tail, very strong, built like a Corsican peasant fed on plenty of good, healthy food all his young days. He was deeply burned by the sun of this country, and with his huge straw hat on his head, its brim turned up at the sides, he looked terrific. He was a perfect example of the pioneer in these virgin lands, and he was so much one of the people and the country he did not stand out at all. Far from it: he really belonged.
Seven years he'd been here, this still young Montmartre safecracker! He must certainly have worked more than two years to clear this stretch of plateau and build his house. He had to go out into the bush, choose the trees, cut them down, bring them back, fit them together. Every beam in his house was made of the hardest and heaviest timber in the world, the kind they call ironwood. I was sure all he earned at the mine had gone into it, because he must have had help and must have paid for the labor, the cement (the house was concreted), the well, and the windmill for pumping the water up to the tank.
That well-rounded young Negrita with her big loving eyes: she must be a perfect companion for this old sea dog on shore. I'd seen a sewing machine in the big room. She must make those little dresses that suited her so well.
Maybe the reason Charlot hadn't gone to the city was that he wasn't sure of himself, whereas here he enjoyed a life with no problems at all. You're a great guy, Charlot! You're the very picture of what a crook can be turned into. I congratulate you. And I also congratulate the people who changed your way of seeing what a life can or ought to be.
But still these Venezuelans are dangerous, with their generous hospitality. Kindness and goodwill turn you into a prisoner if you let yourself be caught. I'm free, and I mean to stay that way forever.
I'd better watch it. Above all, no setting up house with a girl. A man needs love when he's been cut off from it for a long time, but fortunately I'd had a girl in Georgetown two years before, my Hindu, Indara. So I was not so vulnerable as if I'd come straight from jail, as Charlot had. Indara was lovely and I was happy with her; but it wasn't for that I had settled in Georgetown, living there in clover. If the quiet life is too quiet, even though it's happy, it's not for me: that I know very well.
Adventure! A man needs adventure to feel alive, alive all through! That was why I left Georgetown and why I ended up at El Dorado. And that was why I was where I was today.
Okay. The girls were pretty, full-blooded and charming, and I certainly could not live without love. It was up to me to avoid complications. I must promise myself to stay there a year, since I was forced to do so anyway. The less I owned, the easier I'd be able to leave this country and its enchanting people. I was an adventurer, but an adventurer with a shift of gear-I must get my money honestly, or at least without hurting anyone. Paris, that was my aim: Paris one day, to present my bill to the people who put me through so much suffering.
I was calmer now, and my eyes took in the setting moon as it dipped toward the virgin forest, a sea of black treetops with waves of different heights-but waves that never stirred. I went back to my room and stretched out on the bed.
Paris was still a great way off, but not so far that I wouldn't be there again one day, walking the asphalt of her streets.
