Henri Charrière - Banco - the Further Adventures of Papillon

In the late afternoon I often went fishing, to add to our daily rations. That evening I had hauled out a huge _robalo_, a kind of big sea bream, and I was sitting on the beach, scaling it in no particular hurry and admiring the wonderful sunset. A red sky means hope, Papi! And in spite of all the flops I had had since I was let out, I began to laugh. Yes, hope must make me live and win: and it was going to do just that. But exactly when was success going to come along? Let's have a look at things, Papi: let's add up the results of two years of freedom.

I wasn't broke, but I didn't have much: three thousand bolivars at the outside, the sum total of two years on the loose.

What had happened during this time?

One: the heap of gold at El Callao. No point in brooding over that: it was something you gave up voluntarily so the ex-cons there could go living in peace. You regret it? No. Okay, then forget the ton of gold.

Two: craps at the diamond mines. You nearly got yourself killed twenty times for ten thousand dollars you never cashed in on. Jojo died in your place: you came out alive. Without a cent, true enough; but what a terrific adventure! You'll never forget all those nights, keyed up to the breaking point, the gamblers' faces under the carbide lamp, the unmoved Jojo. Nothing to regret there either.

Three: the tunnel under the bank. Not the same thing at all; there really was no luck about that job. Still, for three months you lived at full blast twenty-four hours a day. Even if you got no more out of it than that, you don't have to be sorry for yourself. Do you realize that for three months on end, even in your dreams, you felt you were a millionaire with never a doubt about getting your hands on the dough? Doesn't that mean anything? Of course, just a trifle more luck might have given you a fortune; but on the other hand you might have been much more unlucky. Suppose the tunnel had caved in while you were at the far end? You'd have died like a rat or they would have caught you like a fox in its earth.

Four: what about the pawnshop and its refrigerators? No complaints, except for the Public Works Department of that damnable country.

Five: the plot. Frankly, you were never really wholehearted about that business. These political jobs and those bombs that might kill anybody-it's not your line. What it really comes to is that you were taken in first by the sales pitch of two very nice guys and then by the promise of being able to carry out your plan. But your heart wasn't in it, because you never felt it was quite legit to attack the government that had let you out.

Still, on the credit side you had four months of fun with the musketeers, their wives and the kid; and you aren't likely to forget those days full of the joy of life.

Conclusion: You were unjustly imprisoned for fourteen years and almost all your youth was stolen from you. But you've been free the last two years, and in those two years you've had countless experiences and terrific adventures. You've had wonderful love; you've known men of every kind who've given you their friendship-men you've risked your life with; and after all this, do you still keep moaning? You're broke, or nearly broke? What does that matter? Poverty's not a difficult disease to cure. So glory be to God, Papil You're fit, which is the really important thing.

Let's wipe it all out and begin again, gentlemen. The chips are down! Make your last bets-this is it! Banco lost, banco again: banco again and again and again. Banco right along the line. But let your whole being thrill and quiver, singing a song of hope that one day you'll hear, "Nine on the nose! Rake it in, Monsieur Papillon! You've won!"

The sun was almost touching the horizon. Red in the evening, that meant hope. The breeze had freshened, and with a calmer mind I stood up, happy to be free and alive; my feet sank in the wet sand as I went back toward the house, where they were waiting for what I had caught for the evening meal. As I walked back, I gave myself over to all the colors, the countless touches of light and shade playing on the crests of the little waves stretching out forever. They stirred me so deeply, what with my remembering past dangers overcome, that I couldn't help thinking of their creator, of God. "Good night, Big Guy, good night! In spite of all these flops, I still thank You for having given me such a beautiful day full of sun and freedom and, to finish it off, this marvelous sunset!"

One day, when I was making a quick trip to Caracas, a friend introduced me to a former Paris model who was looking for someone to help her in a new hotel she had just opened at Maracaibo. I very willingly accepted the job of being her man Friday. She was called Laurence; I think she had come to Caracas to show a collection, and then decided to settle in Venezuela. Six hundred miles lay between Caracas and Maracaibo, and that suited me fine; it was always possible the police might reopen their inquiries into our coup d'etat.

A friend gave me a lift, and after fourteen hours' driving I had my first sight of Lake Maracaibo-they call it a lake, although in fact it is a huge lagoon nearly a hundred miles long and sixty wide at the broadest point, and it is joined to the sea by a channel about eight miles across. Maracaibo lies to the north, on the west bank of the channel, which is now linked to the east bank by a bridge. In those days, though, if you came from Caracas, you had to cross on a ferry.

This lake was really extraordinary, dotted with thousands of derricks. It looked like a huge forest stretching away out of sight, a forest whose trees, all exactly lined up, allowed you to see as far as the horizon. But these trees were oil wells, and each oil well had an enormous pendulum that went to and fro all day and all night, never stopping, perpetually pumping up the black gold from the bowels of the earth.

A ferry ran nonstop between the end of the Caracas road and Maracaibo, carrying cars, passengers and goods. During the crossing I hurried from one side to the other, absolutely fascinated by the iron pylons rising from the lake; and as I stared at them I thought that twelve hundred miles from here, down at the far end of the country in Venezuelan Guiana, the Good Lord had stuffed the ground with diamonds, gold, iron, nickel, manganese, bauxite, uranium and all the rest, while here He had filled it with oil, the motor of the world-with such enormous quantities of oil that these thousands of pumps could suck away day and night without ever sucking it dry. Venezuela, you've got no call to blame the Lord!

The Hotel Normandy was a splendid villa surrounded by a carefully kept garden full of flowers. The lovely Laurence welcomed me with open arms. "This is my kingdom, Henri," she said, laughing.

She had opened the hotel just two months before. There were only sixteen rooms, but all were luxurious and in the best taste, each with a bathroom fit for the Ritz. She had designed all the interior herself, from the bedrooms to the staff bathrooms, taking in the drawing room, terrace and dining room on her way.

I set to work, and it was no laughing matter being Laurence's right-hand man-she was under forty and she got up at six to see to her guests' breakfast or even make it herself. She was tireless, and all day long she hurried about, seeing to this and that, supervising everything, and yet still finding time to look after a rose bush or weed a garden path. She had grasped life with both hands; she had overcome almost impossible difficulties to set this business going; and she had so much faith in its success that I was seized with a will to work almost as consuming as her own. I did everything I could to help her cope with the hundreds of difficulties that kept cropping up. Money difficulties, above all. She was in debt up to her neck, because to turn this villa into something like a luxury hotel she had borrowed every penny.