‘No, thanks.’
Very close to me on my right one of them sat down and it was then that I saw my first leper’s face. It was horrible and I made an effort not to turn away or show what I felt. His nose, flesh and bone, was entirely eaten away: a hole right in the middle of his face. I mean a hole, not two. Just one hole, as big as a two-franc piece. On the right-hand side his lower lip was eaten away, and three very long yellow teeth showed in the shrunken gum: you could see them go into the naked bone of the upper jaw. Only one ear. He put his bandaged hand on the table. It was his right hand. In the two fingers that he still had on the other he held a long, fat cigar: he must certainly have rolled it himself from a half-cured leaf, for it was greenish. He had an eyelid only on his left eye: the right had none, and a deep wound ran upwards from the eye into his thick grey hair. In a hoarse voice he said, ‘We’ll help you, mate: you mustn’t stay in Guiana long enough to get the way I am. I don’t want that.’
‘Thanks.’
‘They call me Jean sans Peur: I’m from Paris. I was better looking, healthier and stronger than you when I reached the settlement. Ten years, and now look at me.’
‘Don’t they give you any treatment?’
‘Yes, they do. I’ve been better since I started chaulmoogra oil injections. Look.’ He turned his head and showed me the left side. ‘It’s drying up here.’
I had an overwhelming feeling of pity and to show my friendliness I put my hand up towards his left cheek. He started back and said, ‘Thanks for meaning to touch me. But don’t ever touch a sick man, and don’t eat or drink out of his bowl.’ This was still the only leper’s face I had seen – the only one who had the courage to bear my looking at him.
‘Where’s this character you’re talking about?’ The shadow of a man only just bigger than a dwarf appeared in the doorway. ‘Toussaint and the others want to see him. Bring him over.’
Jean sans Peur stood up and said, ‘Follow me.’ We all went out into the darkness, four or five in front, me next to Jean sans Peur, the rest behind. In three minutes we reached a broad open place, a sort of square, which was lit by a scrap of moon. This was the flat topmost point of the island. A house in the middle. Light coming out of two windows. About twenty men waiting for us in front of the door: we went towards them. As we reached the door they stood aside to let us go through. It was a room some thirty feet long and twelve wide with a log fire burning in a kind of fireplace made of four huge stones all the same height. The place was lit by two big hurricane lamps. An ageless man with a white face sat there on a stool. Five or six others on a bench behind him. He had black eyes and he said to me. ‘I’m Toussaint the Corsican: and you must be Papillon.’
‘Yes.’
‘News travels fast in the settlement; as fast as you move yourself. Where have you put the rifle?’
‘We tossed it into the river.’
‘Where?’
‘Opposite the hospital wall, just where we jumped.’
‘So it could be got at?’
‘I think so; the water’s not deep there.’
‘How do you know?’
‘We had to get in to carry my wounded friend into the boat.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘A broken leg.’
‘What have you done about it?’
‘I’ve split branches down the middle and put a kind of cage round his leg.’
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In the canoe.’
‘You said you’d come for help. What sort of help?’
‘A boat.’
‘You want us to let you have a boat?’
‘Yes. I’ve got money to pay for it.’
‘OK. I’ll sell you mine. It’s a splendid boat, quite new – I stole it only last week in Albina. Boat? It’s not a boat: it’s a liner. There’s only one thing it lacks, and that’s a keel. It hasn’t got one: but we’ll put one on for you in a couple of hours. There’s everything there – a rudder and its tiller, a thirteen-foot iron-wood mast and a brand-new canvas sail. What’ll you give me?’
‘You name a price. I don’t know the value of things here.’
‘Three thousand francs, if you can pay it: if not, go and fetch the rifle tomorrow night and we’ll do a swap.’
‘No. I’d rather pay.’
‘OK, it’s a deal. La Puce, let’s have some coffee.’
La Puce, the near-dwarf, who had come for me, went to a plank fixed to the wall over the fire, took down a mess-tin shining with cleanliness and newness, poured coffee into it from a bottle and set it on the fire. After a while he took it off, poured coffee into various mugs standing by the stones for Toussaint to pass to the men behind him, and gave me the mess-tin, saying ‘Don’t be afraid of drinking. This one’s for visitors only. No sick man ever uses it.’
I took the bowl, drank, and then rested it on my knee. As I did so I noticed a finger sticking to its side. I was beginning to grasp the situation when La Puce said, ‘Hell, I’ve lost another finger. Where the devil can it have got to?’
‘Here it is,’ I said, showing him the tin. He picked off the finger, threw it in the fire and gave me back the bowl.
‘It’s all right to drink,’ he said, ‘because I’ve only got dry leprosy. I come to pieces spare part by spare part, but I don’t rot – I’m not catching.’
I smelt burning meat. I thought, ‘That must be the finger.’
Toussaint said, ‘You’ll have to spend the whole day here until the evening ebb. You must go and tell your friends. Carry the one with the broken leg up to a hut, empty the canoe and sink it. There’s no one here can give you a hand – you know why, of course.’
I hurried back to the others. We lifted Clousiot out and then carried him to a hut. An hour later everything was out of the canoe and carefully arranged on the ground. La Puce asked for the canoe and a paddle as a present. I gave it to him and he went off to sink it in a place he knew. The night passed quickly. We were all three of us in the hut, lying on new blankets sent by Toussaint. They reached us still wrapped in their strong backing paper. Stretched out there at my ease. I told Clousiot and Maturette the details of what had happened since I went ashore and about the deal I had made with Toussaint. Then, without thinking, Clousiot said a stupid thing. ‘So the break’s costing six thousand five hundred. I’ll give you half, Papillon – I mean the three thousand francs that I have.’
‘We don’t want to muck about with accounts like a bunch of bank-clerks. So long as I’ve got the cash, I pay. After that – well, we’ll see.’
None of the lepers came into the hut. Day broke, and Toussaint appeared. ‘Good morning. You can go out without worrying. No one can come on you unexpectedly here. Up a coconut-palm on the top of the island there’s a guy watching to see if there are any screws’ boats on the river. There’s none in sight. So long as that bit of white cloth is up there, it means no boats. If he sees anything he’ll come down and say. You can pick papayas yourselves and eat them, if you like.’
I said, ‘Toussaint, what about the keel?’
‘We’ll