Here lies the will that never dies. Who knows the secrets of the will and its strength? What we call God is nothing but the great Will which orders all things according to the nature of its purpose. Man does not surrender to the angels, nor to death completely, except through the weakness of his fragile will.
Joseph Glenville
What breaks us in everyday life? All those ordinary things that eat away at us with their banality and monotony and that make us cry from the inside one in a while. In some place, in some time and for some people, that was Malaria, mosquitoes, Sodomy, Cholera, solitary confinement, sharks, guillotine and death. And hope. For escape. For Freedom.
For one man, prisoner no. 54345, the alleged murderer of a certain Marseille pimp, ex-soldier and forger. All those terms you read above were everyday life for 15 years. His name is Charriere. Henri Charriere. Yes, that's "The Butterfly". The one for whom no one on the planet would change. And who I respect as the epitome for a Man. Example number one. All he had was hope that, as they often remind us, never dies.
And that verse that Glenville tells us about, the will that doesn't die even when you see your best years go down the sewer pipes in Cayenne's solitary confinement. No, not that he's missing all of his teeth. Almost no hair. That Malaria takes it's toll. That he's been caught six times trying to escape. That he's been talking to himself for five years in an isolation cell, alone with his mind, his friends cockroaches and rats. Not even that is enough to break Henri the "Butterfly" who has reached the age of fifteen inmate years in Guyana and as an old convict has a rare privilege because he is left to die on Devil's Island, the last station for people turned into numbers. Well, old in a way. He was 38 years old although when he looked in the mirror he recognized an old man who in Marseilles could pass as 75.
One thing the authorities didn't count on, was that he was Henri Charriere. There is obviously a spark in his brain that makes him forget the dead friends for whom he dug holes for quick burial in the Kayenne swamp. Those who disappeared without a trace during escape attempts and those who went crazy in solitary confinement after a year or two, the same place he was for five years. However, Henri does not go alone. There are a few who are willing to take the risk alongside him. Rene, Louis, Pascal, guys that still dream of freedom.
That day is coming. Everything is going according to plan. The escape succeeds. Seventh in a row. Will this be the last? The end of the agony. Maybe. They end up in the village where the French colonial authorities settle down the leprous inhabitants of the colony. Who knows, lepers might somehow help the escapees. But here comes the test. The test that freezes the blood and kills in amid sentence. A fine gentleman who appears to be an authority in the village, although he has only two fingers left on his cigar hand, cynically offers Henri the cigar he is smoking among the leprous remains that were probably once tongue and lips. Failure to accept the unwritten codes in the hell of Guyana means death. Quick death. Whether because of that or otherwise, Henri casually takes the cigar and takes a deep, uicy smoke. Never mind. Without fear. The triumph of humanity fills the lepers eyes that hardly even see with tears. There are those people. Who do not abhor lepers. And who shares a cigar of cheap tobacco. With a man who is falling apart. They are given a boat and the friends run away. Not for long though. Fate shits at their doorstep once again. They catch them. That's the seventh time. Back in isolation.
That's the end. Henri Charrier and company count the last days on that island. And for the most stubborn, the curtain falls once again. That's that then.
Well, no. Henri is already looking at the sea. Again. Yes, there is no end, no beginning, the horizon blows away all the pains and blackness that have plagued him for 15 years. Wanted to know what freedom is? That is his domain. If someone knows, he knows. The "Butterfly". Number 54345. Who packs a bag of coconut shells. One jump. Oblivion or liberty.
Unspecified day in 1946. Every morning, someone wakes Señora Rita Charriere on the coast of Venezuela. He has such a habit. Gets up at dawn. She is that emotional harbor to him.
It's Henri. The real story of the "Butterfly". A happy ending? Yes. Rita, three children, life in freedom, and the book that contributed to the hell of the Penal Colony being outlived by Henri himself.
Written by him.
Despite everything.
Until the last breath, Mon Ami.
(Roger Mortis 009)
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