Banco: The Further Adventures of Papillon Read Free Page A

used to sleep. He’s gone, so you can have his place. We’ll look after the sick man while you go to work. Don’t thank us; we’re giving you nothing--the room’s empty in any case.”
    I didn’t know what to say. I let them take my little bundle. Maria got up and the other girls followed her. She had been lying: I could tell the room was in use, because they brought out women’s things and put them somewhere else, but I pretended not to notice anything. In the room there was no bed, but something better, something you often see in the tropics--two fine wool hammocks. A big window with just shutters--no glass-- opened onto a garden full of banana palms.
    As I swung there in the hammock I could hardly believe what had happened to me. How easy this first day of freedom had been! Too easy. I had a free room and four sweet girls to look after Picolino. Why was I letting myself be led by the hand like a child? I was at the world’s end, to be sure; but I think the real reason I let myself be managed was that obeying was the only thing I understood after being a prisoner for so long. I was just like a bird that, when you open the door of its cage, doesn’t know how to fly anymore. It has to learn all over again.
    I went to sleep without thinking about the past, exactly as the humble man of El Dorado had advised me.
     
     
    I had just breakfasted off two fried eggs, two fried bananas covered with margarine, and black bread. Maria was in the bedroom, washing Picolino. A man appeared in the doorway; he was wearing a machete in his belt.
    “ Gente de paz ,” he said. Men of peace, which is their way of saying, I’m a friend.
    “What do you want?” asked José, who had had breakfast with me.
    “The chief of police wants to see the men from Devil’s Island.”
    “You don’t want to call them that. Call them by their names.”
    “Okay, José. What are their names?”
    “Enrique and Picolino.”
    “Señor Enrique, come with me. I am a policeman, sent by the chief.”
    “What do they want with him?” Maria asked, coming out of the bedroom. “I’ll come, too. Wait while I dress.”
    In a few minutes she was ready. As soon as we were in the street she took my arm. I looked at her, surprised, and she smiled at me. When we reached the little administrative building, there were more police, all in plain clothes except for two in uniform with machetes hanging from their belts. A black man with a gold-braided cap presided over a roomful of rifles. He said to me, “You’re the Frenchman?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where’s the other?”
    “He’s sick,” Maria said.
    “I command the police. I’m here to help you if you need it. My name’s Alfonso.” And he held out his hand.
    “Thanks. Mine’s Enrique.”
    “Enrique, the chief administrator wants to see you. You can’t go in, Maria,” he added, seeing she was about to follow me. I went into the next room.
    “Good morning, Frenchman. I am the chief administrator. Sit down. Since you’re in compulsory residence here in El Callao, I sent for you so that I could get to know you. I’m responsible for you.” He asked me what I was going to do--where I wanted to work. After we had talked a while he said, “If there’s anything at all, come and see me. I’ll help you work out as good a life as we can manage.”
    “Thank you very much.”
    “Oh, there’s one thing. I must warn you that you’re living with very good, honest girls; but their father, José--he’s a pirate.”
    Maria was outside, at the station door, settled into that attitude Indians adopt when they are waiting, neither moving nor talking to anyone at all. She was not an Indian, but because of that little drop of Indian blood she had, the race came out. We took another way back to the house and walked through the whole village, her arm in mine.
    “What did the chief want with you?” Maria asked, calling me by the familiar pronoun for the first time.
    “Nothing. He told me I could count on him to