does your friend loll out his tongue?’
‘He’s sick.’
‘Can we do anything for him?’
‘No, nothing: he’s paralysed. He’s got to go to hospital.’
‘Who’s going to feed him?’
‘Me.’
‘Is he your brother?’
‘No; my friend.’
‘You got money, Frenchman?’
‘Very little. How did you know I was French?’
‘Everything gets known here in no time. We knew you were going to be let out yesterday: and that you escaped from Devil’s Island and that the French police are trying to catch you to put you back there again. But they won’t come and look for you here: they don’t give orders in this country. We are the ones who are going to look after you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because…’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Here, drink a shot of rum and give one to your friend.’
Now it was a woman of about thirty who took over. She was almost black. She asked me whether I was married. Yes, in France. If my parents were still alive. Only my father.
‘He’ll be glad to hear you are in Venezuela.’
‘That’s right.’
A tall dried-up white man then spoke – he had big, staring eyes, but they were kind – ’My relation didn’t know how to tell you why we are going to look after you. Well, I’ll tell you. Because unless he’s mad – and in that case there’s nothing to be done about it – a man can be sorry for what he’s done and he can turn into a good man if he’s helped. That’s why you’ll be looked after in Venezuela. Because we love other men, and with God’s help, we believe in them.’
‘What do you think I was a prisoner on Devil’s Island for?’
‘Something very serious, for sure. Maybe for having killed someone, or for a really big theft. What did you get?’
‘Penal servitude for life.’
‘The top sentence here is thirty years. How many did you do?’
‘Thirteen. But now I am free.’
‘Forget all that, hombre. As quick as you can forget everything you suffered in the French prisons and here in El Dorado. Forget it, because if you think about it too much you’ll be forced to feel ill-will towards other men and maybe even hate them. Only forgetting will let you love them again and live among them. Marry as soon as ever you can. The women in this country are hot-blooded, and the love of the woman you choose will give you happiness and children, and help you forget whatever you have suffered in the past.’
The truck arrived. I thanked these kind, good people and went out, holding Picolino by the arm. There were about ten passengers sitting on benches in the back of the truck. In their kindness these humble people left us the best seats, next to the driver.
As we lurched wildly along the bumpy, pot-holed track, I thought about this strange Venezuelan nation. Neither the fishermen of the Gulf of Paria, nor the ordinary soldiers of El Dorado, nor the humble working-man who talked to me in that thatched mud hut had had any education. They could hardly read and write. So how did they come to have that sense of Christian charity and nobility of heart that forgives men who have done wrong? How did they manage to find just the right encouraging words, helping the ex-convict with their advice and what little they possessed? How did it come about that the heads of the penal settlement of El Dorado, both the officers and the governor – educated men, those – had the same ideas as the simple people, the idea of giving the man who is down his chance, whoever he is and however bad the thing he’s done? Those were not qualities that could ever come from Europeans: so the Venezuelans must have got them from the Indians.
Here we are in El Callao. A big square: music. Of course: it is 5th July, the national holiday. People dressed in their best clothes, the motley crowd of tropical countries where all sorts of colours are mixed – black, yellow, white, and the copper of the Indians, whose race always comes out in the slightly slanting eyes and the lighter skin. Picolino and I got out, as well as some passengers from the back of the truck. One of them, a girl, came up to me and said, ‘Don’t pay: that has been looked after.’ The driver wished us good luck and the truck set off again. With my little bundle in one hand and Picolino holding the other with the three fingers he had left, I stood there wondering what to do. I had some English pounds from the West Indies and a few hundred bolivars (one bolivar is worth about ten new pence) given me by my mathematical pupils at the penal settlement. And a few raw diamonds found among the tomatoes in the kitchen-garden I had made.
The girl who had told us not to pay asked me where we were going and I told her my idea was to find a little boarding-house.
‘Come to my place first: then you can look around.’
We crossed the square with her and in a couple of hundred yards we reached an unpaved street lined with low houses; they were all made of baked clay, and their roofs were thatch or corrugated iron. At one of them we stopped.
‘Walk in. This house is yours,’ said the girl. She must have been about eighteen.
She made us go in first. A clean room with a floor of pounded earth; a round table; a few chairs; a man of about forty, medium height, smooth black hair, the same colour as his daughter’s; Indian eyes. And three girls of about fourteen, fifteen and sixteen.
‘My father and my sisters,’ she said, ‘here are some strangers I have brought home. They’ve come from the El Dorado prison and they don’t know where to go. I ask you to take them in.’
‘You’re welcome,’ said the father. And he repeated the ritual words, ‘This house is yours. Sit down here, round the table. Are you hungry? Would you like coffee or rum?’
I didn’t want to offend him by refusing so I said I’d like some coffee. The house was clean, but I could see from the simple furniture that they were poor.
‘My daughter Maria, who brought you here, is the eldest. She takes the place of her mother, who left us five years ago with a gold-prospector. I’d sooner tell you that myself, before you hear it from someone else.’
Maria poured coffee for us. Now I could look at her more closely, seeing she had come to sit down next to her father, right opposite me. The three sisters stood behind her. They looked closely at me, too. Maria was a girl of the tropics, with big black almond-shaped eyes. Her jet-black curling hair, parted in the middle, came down to her shoulders. She had fine features, and although you could make out the drop of Indian blood from the colour of her skin, there was nothing Mongolian about her face. She had a sensuous mouth: splendid teeth. Every now and then she showed the tip of a very pink tongue. She was wearing a white, flowered, wide-open blouse that showed her shoulders and the beginning of her breasts, hidden by a brassière that could be seen under the blouse. This blouse, a little black skirt and flat-heeled shoes were what she had put on for the holiday – her best. Her lips were bright red, and two pencilled lines at the corners of her huge eyes made them seem even larger.
‘This is Esmeralda [Emerald],’ she said, introducing her youngest sister. ‘We call her that because of her green eyes. This is Conchita; and the other is Rosita, because she looks like a rose. She is much lighter coloured than the rest of us and she blushes at the least thing. Now you know the whole family. My father’s name is José. The five of us are the same as one, because our hearts beat all together. And what’s your name?’
‘Enrique.’ [Henri: in Spanish they say Enrique.]
‘Were you in prison long?’
‘Thirteen years.’
‘Poor