It was a tough journey, particularly for Picolino. Six hundred miles and more; twenty hours of driving, not counting the stops. We spent a few hours in Ciudad Boll var, and then having crossed the splendid Orinoco on a ferry, we tore along, the truck racing like crazy, driven by a man with nerves of steel; which was just as well.
The next afternoon at four o'clock we reached Caracas. And there I was in the big city. The movement, the crowds, the coming and going of thousands and thousands of people, sucked me right in.
1931, Paris. 1946, Caracas. Fifteen years had passed since I had seen a genuine big city. A lovely city, Caracas, beautiful with its one-story colonial houses; and it stretched right down the valley with the Avila mountains rising all round it. A city three thousand feet up, with an everlasting spring, neither too hot nor too cold.
"I trust you, Papillon," said Dr. Bougrat's voice in my ear, just as if he were there, watching us drive into this huge, swarming city.
Crowds of people everywhere, of all colors from the darkest to the lightest, without any complexes about race. All these people, black, brick-red or purest white, were alive with a happiness that went to my head in the first moments.
With Picolino leaning on my arm, I walked toward the middle of the city. Big Chariot had given me the address of an ex-con who kept a boardinghouse, the Pension Maracaibo.
Yes, fifteen years had gone by and a war had shattered the lives of hundreds of thousands of men of my age in a great many lands, including my own country, France. Between 1939 and 1945 they, too, had been prisoners, or had been killed or maimed. But I was thirty-nine. I was young and strong.
How beautiful it is, a great city! And it was only four o'clock now. What must it be like at night, with its millions of electric stars? Yet we were still only in a working-class district, and a pretty tough one, at that. I'd spend a little money for once. "Hey there, taxi!"
Sitting beside me, Picolino laughed and dribbled like a kid. I wiped his poor mouth; he thanked me with shining eyes, trembling, he was so moved. For him, being in a town, a great capital like Caracas, meant above all the hope of finding hospitals and doctors who could turn the wreck he had become into a normal man once more. The miracle of hope. He held my hand, while outside the streets went by and then still more streets with people and still more people, so many of them they entirely hid the pavement. And the cars, and the horns, and the siren of an ambulance, the clang of a fire engine, the bawling of the hawkers and the newsboys selling the evening papers, the shriek of a truck's brakes, the ting-a-ling of the trolleys, the bicycle bells- all these shouts and the deafening noise around made us feel almost drunk. The din destroys some people's nerves, but it had the opposite effect on us; it woke us up and made us thoroughly understand that we were right back in the crazy rhythm of modern mechanical life-and instead of being tensed up we felt wonderfully happy.
It wasn't surprising that the noise struck us most. For I'd known silence for fifteen years, the silence of the prisons, the silence of the penal settlement, the more than silence of solitary confinement, the silence of the bush and of the sea, the silence of the little remote villages where happy people live.
I said to Picolino, "We are coming into a foretaste of Paris- Caracas, a real city. Here they'll make you well, and as for me, I'll find my right path and work out my fate; you can be sure of that."
His hand squeezed mine; a tear ran from his eye. His hand was so brotherly and affectionate that I held on to it so as not to lose that marvelous contact; and since his other arm was dead, it was I that wiped away my friend's tear.
At last we reached the place run by Emile S., the ex-con, and settled in. He wasn't there, but as soon as his wife, a Venezuelan, heard we were from El Callao, she grasped what we were and gave us a room with two beds right away, and some coffee.
Having helped Picolino take a shower, I put him to bed. He was tired and overexcited. When I left he made violent signs; and I knew he meant to say, "You'll come back, won't you? You won't leave me in the lurch, all by myself?"
"No, Pico! I'll just spend a few hours in the town: I'll be back soon."
And here I was in Caracas. It was seven o'clock when I walked down the street toward the Plaza Simon Bolivar, the biggest in the city. An explosion of light everywhere, a magnificent pouring out of electricity, neon signs of every color. What enchanted me most were the advertisements in colored lights, flaming dragons that came and went like will-o'-the-wisps, flashing on and off like a ballet run by a magician.
It was a splendid square, with a huge bronze statue of Simon Bolivar on an enormous horse in the middle of it. He looked terrific, and the statue showed how noble he must have been. I walked right around him, the man who set Latin America free, and I could not help greeting him in my bad Spanish, speaking low so no one would hear, "_Hombre!_ What a miracle it is for me to be here at your feet-at the feet of the Man of Freedom. A poor bastard like me, who has been fighting all the time for that freedom you personify."
The _pension_ was a quarter of a mile from the square, and I went back twice before I found Emile S. He said Chariot had written to tell him we were coming; we went out to have a drink so we could talk quietly.
"It's ten years now I've been here," Emile said. "I'm married, with a daughter, and my wife owns the pension. That's why I can't put you up for nothing; but you'll only pay half price." The wonderful solidarity of ex-cons when one of them is in a jam! He went on, "Is he an old friend, that poor guy with you?"
"You've seen him?"
"No, but my wife's been telling me about him. She says he's an absolute wreck. Is he senile?"
"Far from it, and that's what's so terrible. His mind is as clear as a bell, but his tongue and his mouth and his right side down to the waist are paralyzed. That's the way he was when I first knew him in El Dorado. Nobody knows who he is or whether he's a con or a detainee."
"I can't see why you want to drag this stranger around with you. You don't even know if he's a regular fellow or not. And then on top of that, he's a burden to you."
"I've realized that, these eight months I've been looking after him. In El Callao I found some women who took charge. Even so, it's not easy."
"What are you going to do with him?"
"Get him into a hospital if I can. Or find a room-rough, if need be, but with a shower and a toilet-to look after him until I can find a place for him somewhere."
"You got dough?"
"A little, but I've got to be careful; because although I understand all they say, I speak Spanish badly and it's not going to be so simple to make things work out."
"You're dead right, it's not easy here-more people wanting work than there are jobs. But anyhow, Papi, don't you worry; you can stay in my place the few days you'll need to find something."
I got the message. Emile was generous, but he was unhappy about the whole thing. His wife must have drawn a pretty picture of Picolino with his tongue lolling out and his animal grunts. She must have thought of the impression he would make on the boarders.
Tomorrow I'd carry his meals up to our room. Poor Picolino, sleeping there next to me in your little iron bed. Although I pay for your room and board, they don't want you. People who are well don't like to see the sick. But don't you worry, pal. Even if I'm not as gentle as the El Callao girls, you'll always have me by you; something better than a friend-a crook who's adopted you and who'll do everything he can to keep you from dying like a dog.
Emile gave me several addresses, but there was no job for me anywhere. And twice I went to the hospital to try to get Picolino in. Nothing doing. According to them there were no empty beds; and his papers, saying he'd been let out of El Dorado, were no help at all. Yesterday they asked me how he came to be under my care and why, and what was his nationality and so on. When I told the little cunt of a clerk that the chief of El Dorado had put him in my charge and that I had undertaken to look after him, this is what the bastard answered: "Well then, since he's been let out because you agreed to take care of him, all you have to do is keep him where you live and have him treated there. If you can't do that, you ought to have left him at El Dorado."
When he asked for my address I gave him a false one. I didn't trust the jackass, a perfect example of the petty official who wants to throw his weight about.
I moved Picolino; I moved him quick. I was desperate, both for him and for me. I felt I couldn't stay at Emile's any longer; his wife was moaning about having to change Picolino's sheets every day. I did wash the dirty places every morning as well as I could in the washbasin, but they took a long time to dry and it was soon noticed. So I bought an iron and dried the places I had washed with it.
What was to be done? I couldn't be sure. One thing was certain-I had to find an answer quick. Now for the third time I'd tried to get him into a hospital with no result. It was eleven o'clock when we came out. Since that was the way things were, we'd have to set about it properly; I decided to devote the whole of that fine afternoon to my friend. I led him to the Calvario, a wonderful garden filled with tropical plants and flowers on a little hill plumb in the middle of Caracas.
Sitting there on a bench and admiring the splendid view, we ate _arepas_ with meat in them and drank a bottle of beer. Then I lit two cigarettes, one for Pico, one for me. It was hard for Picolino to smoke; he drooled on his cigarette. He felt this was an important moment and that I meant to tell him something that might hurt him badly. His eyes were full of anxiety and they seemed to say, "Speak, speak right away. I can feel you've taken a big decision. Tell me; I beg you to tell me." Yes, I could read all that in his eyes as plain as if it was written. It made me wretched, and I hesitated. At last I brought it out. "Pico, it's three days now I've been trying to get you into a hospital. There's nothing to be done; they don't want you. You understand?"
"Yes," said his eyes.
"On the other hand, we can't go to the French consulate without the risk of them asking the Venezuelans for an extradition order." He shrugged his good shoulder. "Listen: you've got to get well, and to get well you've got to be treated. That's the main thing. But you know I haven't got enough money to have you looked after. So this is what we'll do: we'll spend the evening together, and I'll take you to the cinema. Then tomorrow morning I'll take you to the Plaza Bolivar without any papers on you. There you lie at the foot of the statue and you don't stir. If they want you to stand or to sit up, you refuse. It's dead certain that after a minute they'll call a cop and he'll call an ambulance. I'll follow in a cab to see what hospital they take you to. Then I'll wait two days before coming to see you, and I'll come in visiting hours so as to mix with the crowd. The first time maybe I won't talk to you, but as I go past your bed I'll leave you some cigarettes and a little money. Okay? You agree?"
He put his good arm on my shoulder and looked straight into my face. His expression was an extraordinary mixture of sadness and gratitude. His throat contracted; he made a superhuman effort to force his twisted mouth to bring out a hoarse sound very like "Yes, thank you."
Next day, everything happened just as I had foretold. Less than a quarter of an hour after Picolino lay down at the foot of the Bolivar statue, three or four old men sitting under the shade of the trees told a cop. Twenty minutes later an ambulance came for him. I followed in a cab.
Two days later-no difficulty about mingling with the visitors-I found him in the third ward I went through. A piece of luck: he was between two very sick patients and I could talk to him a while without any risk. He was flushed with joy at seeing me, and maybe he jerked about a little too much.
"They look after you all right?"
He nodded yes.
I looked at the chart at the foot of his bed. "Paraplegia or malaria with secondary complications. To be checked every two hours." I left him six packs of cigarettes, matches and twenty bolivars in change.
"Bye, Pico!" Seeing his desperate and imploring eyes I added, "Don't worry, pal; I'll come back and visit you." I mustn't forget that I'd grown absolutely necessary to him. I was his one link with the world.
I'd been in Caracas for two weeks, and the hundred-bolIvar notes were disappearing fast. Fortunately I had decent clothes when I got to Caracas. I found a little room, cheap, though still too dear for me. There were no women anywhere on the horizon, but the girls of Caracas were lovely to look at, intelligent and full of life. The difficulty was getting to know them. This was 1946, and it wasn't the custom for women to sit in a café alone.
A big city has its secrets. To be able to take care of yourself, you have to know them; and to learn them, you have to know the teachers. And just who are these teachers of the streets? A whole mysterious tribe with their own language, laws, customs and vices, their own ways of managing to make enough to live on for twentyfour hours every day. Earning a living, as honestly as possible: that was the problem, and it wasn't easy.
Like all the others, I had my own little ways, often good for a hearty laugh and far from wicked. For example, one day I met a Colombian I'd known in El Dorado.
"What are you doing?"
He told me just then he was earning his living by running a lottery for a magnificent Cadillac.
"Hell, so you've made your fortune already? You must have, to own a Cadillac."
He choked with laughter, then he explained the job. "The Cadillac belongs to the director of a big bank. He drives himself, gets there at nine on the dot and parks like a good citizen a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards from the bank. There are two of us. One-not always the same, so we don't get spotted-follows him to the door of the bank where he sits on his ass all morning. If there's a hitch, a whistle you can't mistake for anything else; it's only happened once. So between the time he gets there and the time he goes, which is around one, we put an elegant white streamer on the Cadillac, with red letters saying, 'On sale here: tickets that may win you this Cadillac. Winning numbers the same as the Caracas lottery. Draw next month.'"
"Man, that's a better-than-average racket. So you sell tickets for a Cadillac that isn't yours? Christ, what a nerve! What about the pigs?"
"They're never the same; and seeing as there's no vice in them, it never comes into their heads that maybe the deal's a swindle. If they get a little too interested we give them a ticket or two and off they go, dreaming perhaps they'll win a Cadillac. If you want to make a little money with us, come along and I'll introduce you to my partner."
"You don't think it stinks a little, duping the poor?"
"Never on your sweet life. The tickets cost ten bolivars, so it's only well-off folk that can afford them. So there's no harm done."
Once the partner had checked me out, there I was, all involved with this knavery. It's not very elegant, but you have to eat, sleep and be, if not well dressed, at least clean. And I had to hold on to my reserve as long as possible-the few diamonds I'd brought from El Dorado and two five-hundred-bolivar notes that I hoarded like a miser in my _plan_-a short aluminum tube that I shoved up my ass for safekeeping-just as if I were still in the clink. I'd never left off carrying my _plan_ inside me, for two reasons: my hotel was in a pretty rough part of the town, where I might be robbed; and if I carried money in my pocket, I might lose it. In any case, I'd been storing this tube up my ass for fourteen years now, so a year more or less didn't make much difference, and that way I was easy in my mind.
The selling of the lottery tickets lasted more than a fortnight, and it would be going on still but for the fact that one day a very eager customer bought two tickets and examined every detail of this marvelous car he dreamed of winning. All at once he straightened up and cried, "But doesn't this car belong to Dr. Fulano, the bank director?"
Without batting an eyelid, the Colombian replied coolly, "Just so. He put it into our hands to dispose of like this. He reckons a lottery will bring him in a better price than a straight sale."
"Odd…," said the customer.
"But above all, don't mention it to him," the Colombian went on, still very calm. "He made us promise to say nothing, because he'd find it awkward if it was known."
"I can't understand it; it's really most unusual for a man of his kind."
As soon as he'd got far enough away, moving in the direction of the bank, we whipped off the streamer and folded it up. The Colombian vanished, carrying it, and I went to the door of the bank to tell our partner we were breaking camp. Inside myself I was laughing like a hyena and I couldn't help hanging around near the door so I could catch what I expected would be the sequel. It came off, all right. Three minutes later, there was the director together with the suspicious customer. He was waving his arms wildly and walking so last I knew he was in a real fury.
They saw there was nobody left around the Cadillac, and surprised, no doubt, they came back slower, stopping at a café to have a drink at the bar. As the customer hadn't recognized me, I went in, too, to hear what they would say, for the laugh.
"By God, that was a nerve! Don't you think that was an infernal nerve, Dr. Fulano?"
But the owner of the Cadillac, who, like all good Caraqueflos, had a sense of humor, burst out laughing and said, "When I think that if I had walked by they might have offered me a ticket for my own car! And that sometimes I'm so absentminded that I might actually have bought it. You must admit it makes you laugh."
Naturally enough, that was the end of our lottery. The Colombians vanished. For my part, I'd made close to fifteen hundred bolivars, enough to live on for over a month; which was important.
The days went by, and it was not at all easy to find anything worthwhile to do. This was the period when Pétain's supporters and the men who had collaborated with the Germans started reaching Venezuela from France, on the run from the justice of their own country. Since I didn't know enough about the possible distinction between collaborators and Pétainists, I lumped them all together under the label of ex-Nazis. So I did not associate with them.
A month went by and nothing much happened. At El Callao I had never thought it would be so hard to get myself going. I was reduced to selling coffee pots from door to door; they were supposed to be specially designed for offices.
You look rather foolish walking about the streets with a coffee pot in your hand; and I was doing just that when I bumped into Paulo the Boxer, an old Montmartre acquaintance.
"Why, what do you know? You must be Paulo the…"
"And you're Papillon?"
He grabbed my arm and towed me into a café.
"Well, talk of coincidence-this is a coincidence, all right."
"What are you up to, walking around the street with that coffee pot?"
"I'm selling them: it's a goddamn disaster. What with getting it out and shoving it back again, the box tore just now." I told him how things were with me and then I said, "How about you?"
"Let's drink our coffee. I'll tell you somewhere else."
We paid and stood up; I reached for my coffee pot.
"Leave that where it is. You won't want it anymore, I give you my oath."
"You don't think so?"
"I know it, man."
I left the vile pot on the table and we went out.
An hour later, in my room, after we had tossed memories of Montmartre to and fro, Paulo came to the point. He had a big job in a country not far from Venezuela. He knew he could rely on me. If I agreed, he'd take me on as one of his team.
"It's as easy as falling off a log-it's in the bag, man! I tell you very seriously, there are going to be so many dollars you'll need an iron to flatten them so they don't take up too much room."
"And where is it, this prodigious job?"
"You'll know when you get there. I can't say anything before."
"How many of us will there be?"
"Four. One's already on the spot. I came here to fetch the other. You know him, by the way. He's a friend of yours: Gaston."
"Right. But I've lost touch with him."
"Not me," said Paulo, laughing.
"You really can't tell me any more about the job?"
"Impossible, Papi. I've got my reasons."
I thought quickly. Placed as I was, there wasn't much choice. Either I went on dragging about with a coffee pot or some other goddamn nonsense in my hand or I took up the adventurous life again, with the possibility of making a bundle and making it quick. I'd always known that Paulo was a sober, reflecting type, and if in his opinion there had to be four of us, then that meant this job was serious, too. Technically, it would be a fancy piece of work. And that, I must admit, tempted me, too. So what about it, Papi-banco?
"Banco!"
The next day we set off.