Serpentine Page 8

  And the letters! Charles began writing the moment Félix left each Saturday, as he was usually interrupted in mid-anecdote by the guard’s knock, and they continued daily, often two or three each day. Scrawled in a cramped hand, filled with grammatical errors, they were nonetheless remarkable—spiced with quotations from Freud and Nietzsche and Jesus Christ and Lord Buddha. In the main they were repetitious plunges into the waters of introspection, mixed with continual thanksgiving for the new friendship. Very soon Félix came to realize that he was to be more than a visiteur. “Every day I thank God for sending you in answer to my prayers,” wrote Charles. “You are my brother, my lover in the purest sense that men can have for one another, my father, my salvation … All my life I have desired a contact that was not only ‘social’ according to the laws of society, but ‘human.’ Man to man. Human to human. I think this is in our stars … P.S. The next time you come, please bring me anything by Jung. I have not read him, but I know I will like him.”

  After a few months, Félix understood the priest’s caution about being “overwhelmed” by Charles, and he deliberately skipped two Saturdays. Then Félix wrote his demanding young prisoner friend a letter, commenting that he never knew when Charles was “playing games” or, more crucially, when he was telling the truth. “There is a continuing tone of self-pity and bathos of which I am growing weary,” wrote Félix.

  By return post, express, came an enormous letter from Charles with alternating layers of anger, fear, threatened suicide, and worship. “Please do not abandon me like everyone else,” he implored. “You are the most important factor of my life. I know I dream too much and take leave of reality. But I swear to you I am perfectly aware of reality. After all I have endured, after all the sordid paths I have traveled, don’t you think I recognize reality? True, there is a certain flexibility in my mind that wants to escape now and then through a fanciful spirit. I come back on earth only when it is necessary. But this gives me strength. I am not a ‘double personality.’ Don’t worry … Ah, Félix, perhaps I am just a simpleminded person who is condemned to the slag heap of life. Perhaps I am retarded. On the other hand, perhaps I can touch your soul. Perhaps I can make my mark on the world.”

  Félix gave in and resumed his Saturday visits. The subject of Sobhraj the Tailor was discussed and dissected regularly. How should he be approached? How should the news be broken that his son was in prison and desperate to have the tailor send love and, one day, enough money to fetch him back to Saigon?

  The drama captured Félix’s imagination. It did not seem possible that a human being could exist in modern times without some country awarding him citizenship. If Charles’ father was indeed Indian, and he seemed to be, then surely that nation’s government would accept him. Félix took the matter to the Indian Embassy in Paris, presenting Charles’ dossier and a life history which he and the youth had prepared together. It was a bare bones account of Charles’ wartime birth, early life, and enforced odyssey over half the world. A polite consular official studied the file and asked for time to check further. When Félix returned, the answer was negative. If Charles Sobhraj had been born on Indian soil, then his citizenship would have been assured. But since there was no birth certificate, and no recommendation from the Vietnamese Government, then nothing could be done. As he spoke, the consul’s face darkened, as if he were venturing into a fearful, forbidden landscape. Then he abruptly ended the meeting, begging the press of work.

  Félix was also troubled. Was something the matter?

  The consul gestured to the dossier. “This man,” he said, “someday he will meet his destiny in India.” He almost shuddered, as if receiving a mystical foretaste of the prisoner’s future. Félix wanted to know more. He began a question, but the consul cut him off. “Please,” ordered the consul, “I cannot explain it. But I feel it.”

  On his business letterhead, Félix wrote an eloquent letter to Sobhraj the Tailor. He did not hide the truth. The tailor’s son was in Poissy Prison, serving a long sentence for robbery and theft. But Félix believed there were extenuating circumstances. Could any other chapter have been expected in a biography so assaulted by unusual forces? “I think you will find that he is a changed young man,” wrote Félix. “He is highly intelligent, he has spent his time in prison reading everything he can get his hands on, currently he is taking a course in law. He loves you very much, and he is deeply sorry for whatever trouble he caused you.” Félix let it go at that. He did not think it politic to raise the matter of Charles’ desired return to Saigon and the need for the tailor to send money.

  Together, Félix and Charles waited impatiently for an answer. Every Saturday, Charles’ first question was, “Did my father write?” and for three months the answer was a sorrowful shake of the head. Fearing the letter had gotten lost, Félix wrote twice more. Still no reply was sent.

  Disappointment turning easily into anger, Charles wrote a letter of passionate denunciation to the tailor.

  Dear Papa:

  It’s really too sad that you are my father, that I was born of your flesh. Why is it sad? Because when a father has a son, he has the duty to love him, educate him, then help that son build a future. In all history, isn’t that the traditional duty of a father? But you, you pray to God, and you go to your temple, but where is your conscience? If you have one, it must be heavy.

  You gave birth to a son, and you ignored him, left him worse than a dog, worse than the lowest beast … You are not my father anymore. I renounce you. Live in your abundance, eat your rich food like a lion. As for me, I only ask for water and bread. They fortify me every day and give me that strong will to strengthen me and harden my goal. I want to make you suffer, suffer again and again, like a man with cuts all over his body. I will make you regret having failed the duties of a father. Fortune I will have—even without you. It will help me to pile stones on your head.

  You will remember and you will regret having ignored me all these years. I have stayed more days of my life in prison than out, and the fault is yours … I want this to live in you like a cancer … One day you will take notice of me, but by then it will be too late … Charles.

  He slipped the letter to Félix and asked him to mail it—unread. It was the most important letter he had ever written, said Charles, an exorcism. Félix was troubled by the unconcealed raw hatred on the young prisoner’s face.

  On the last visiting day before Christmas, 1966, Félix hurried into Poissy with gifts for Charles. He watched contentedly as his demanding new friend discovered some sweets, a new box of writing paper, books on English drama and American literature, and a world atlas. Even though books were not allowed in prison, Charles had somehow managed to persuade the guards to give permission. “There’s one thing more,” said Félix routinely, casually handing over a letter festooned with foreign stamps and exotic cancellations.

  Charles held the long-awaited letter from his father tightly, but he could not bring himself to open it. “What does it say?” he asked. “I don’t want to read it.”

  Don’t be childish, ordered Félix. Read it. And read it all. Don’t stop in the middle, for the sun comes out at the end after a minor squall. Sobhraj the Tailor had delivered himself of a rambling summation of his son’s history, including a harsh memoir of Charles’ abortive return to Saigon under the work contract: “While he was here, he had some girl friends, he stole many things from home and sold them on the street to enjoy the girls. Once he took the automobile and made an accident for which I had to pay $200. I criticized him every time, but he was too young and he thought his father was rich.” In 1964, the tailor went on, he had cabled Song in Marseilles to tell her that he would be in Paris again and would like to see his son. Song claimed she did not know his whereabouts. At that time, Charles was conducting his crime wave that concluded with his Poissy incarceration.

  At this, Charles was touched. His father had come again to Paris to see him! If he had only known the tailor was in Paris, then perhaps he would not have been waltzi
ng about the city stealing coats and cigarettes and briefcases at knife point. The letter was concluded with a fatherly sigh: “Since you tell me in your letters that Charles is a good boy now and wants to come to Saigon, it is all right with me, if we can overcome the problem of passport and nationality … But I do want to know just what is his idea in returning here. I don’t like people who wander around the girls all the time. Man must work and earn and get married and stand on his own feet.”

  But Charles’ elation at finally receiving the letter quickly turned to gloom. Fate had played a perverse trick. The bitter letter of damnation he had written was probably in the tailor’s hands by now, and any inclination he might have had to help his son was surely washed away. Félix had one more Christmas gift. “I didn’t mail this,” he said, handing over Charles’ letter to his father.

  “I thought you might want to reconsider what you said.”

  Charles threw his arms around Félix and wept, joyously.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “I didn’t know your mother lived in France,” said Félix during one of his Saturday visits with Charles. It was the dead of winter, 1967, and the prison walls were as cold as ice. The two men huddled under blankets. In his last letter, the tailor had mentioned Song in Marseilles.

  “I was afraid to tell you,” said Charles. Had Félix known at the beginning that his star prisoner had a flock of relatives on French soil, then perhaps he would have spent his visiting privileges on another, less well-connected inmate. But now that the news was out, and convinced that their relationship was cemented, Charles was not only willing but anxious for Félix to meet his exotic mother. “Go see her the next time you are in the South of France on holiday,” suggested Charles. “Ask her anything you want. She will confirm all that I have told you.”

  Soon thereafter, Félix planned to go to Marseilles and informed Charles that he would call Song. Quickly a letter rushed from Charles’ pen to Félix. “You are at last going to see my mother,” he wrote. “She will tell you things about my youth that I did not want to tell you. They are not pleasant to remember. It’s not that I do not believe in your ability to understand them, they are simply memories that cannot come from my mouth. Any happiness I have had in my life has always been short—and I am afraid your friendship will be the same. I am always waiting for the return of unhappiness. It always comes back to me.”

  Félix telephoned Song from Paris, introduced himself as a friend of Charles, and said he would visit her in a couple of days. He did not reveal that the young man was in prison. Presumably Song did not know, for Charles had not enjoyed contact with her for more than two years.

  When Félix rang the bell at the lemon-colored villa on the outskirts of Marseilles, the door was opened by a hauntingly familiar copy of Charles. It was André, the half-brother who had worshiped “Chariot” from their young years together in Dakar. Charles was eight years older, but they could have passed for twins. André showed the visitor to the living room, a cramped salon with vibrant splashes of color and eclectic decor. Perfume and incense made the air almost sickly sweet. Stuffed teddy bears and kittens were tossed on sofas and chairs. The walls were covered with polychromatic paintings of the saints and on an end table rested the three monkeys who would not hear, see, or speak evil. Several family photographs spilled from shelves and tables, but there was not a single memento of Charles, the lost son.

  “This is my mother, Madame Darreau,” said André, gesturing toward Song, a frightened-looking woman in her mid-forties who was clinging fanatically to a faded youth. Her dyed hair was an unbelievable black, cut in the bangs of Cleopatra, and her slit skirt was glued to her thickening body. She sat on the edge of a daybed that was occupied by a man in pajamas, seemingly in distress. “And this is my father,” continued André.

  Félix was taken aback. The man on the daybed seemed more vigorous than Charles had described him. Younger, too. The former French officer, now retired and a semi-invalid, surprisingly took command of the meeting, firing questions at Félix as if interrogating a suspect. Who are you? What is your business? What do you want from us?

  Félix responded patiently to each inquiry, his courteous nature and wholesomeness filling the room with legitimacy. He explained his role of visiteur in Poissy, thus his meeting with Charles. Song gasped and crossed herself. “Mon Dieu,” she said, “I knew it would happen.” From his bed, Darreau directed Félix to tell more about the prison. The detailed account indicated that Félix was truthful, that he had considerable knowledge about the law and its violators.

  Suddenly Darreau leaned forward and whispered in Song’s ear. She nodded in agreement. The sick man then sprang spryly from his bed and extended his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid we’ve played a little trick on you.” The man was an impostor, a detective from the Marseilles police. Madame Darreau had called and asked for protection. She knew that Charles had friends in the Paris underworld, and she was afraid that Félix might be one of them with plans to rob her. Félix threw back his head and laughed. The wolf was impersonating Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. This whole family was more than a little eccentric.

  Beyond its curiosity value, the visit to Song was valuable to Félix because it gave him a notion of how to obtain a legal identity for Charles. Since Song was legally wed to a former French military officer, perhaps there was some way for Charles to slip through a loophole into the family unit. But at a government office in Paris, Félix received a brusque “Non.” Just as he was about to leave, dejected, the clerk asked him to wait. Finding a lawbook, the clerk pored over it, stopping finally at a section that seemed relevant.

  Was this Charles Gurmukh Sobhraj born on Vietnamese soil at the time when it was called French Indochina? Félix nodded.

  Was this man’s mother a natural born citizen of French Indochina? Again, a nod.

  The clerk spoke guardedly. There existed a rarely invoked clause that pertained to citizens of French Indochina who had to evacuate that country after France’s withdrawal. Such persons were entitled to full French citizenship, provided they established permanent residence in France.

  Suddenly everything was easy. Félix engaged a lawyer, collected assorted documents and travel papers from Song, then went before a civil tribunal. The judge studied the criminal record of Charles and commented that he was not precisely the kind of citizen that France desired. Nevertheless, as this man’s mother was a legitimate citizen of what was once a French colonial territory, then her issue was entitled to membership in the community of Napoleon, Rousseau, and Voltaire.

  “I was holding my breath through it all,” said Félix, when he told Charles the extraordinary news. The prisoner sat numbly on the visiting room bench, slowly shaking his head in disbelief. Almost twenty-five years old, he at last possessed what most men are given the moment they are born—a legal identity. Félix intruded on Charles’ happiness. There were two strings attached. First: Charles would not be permitted to live within the city of Paris for a restricted period after release from prison, due to the several crimes he had committed there. Second: Charles would be liable for service in the French military, like all the sons of the country.

  At that, Charles grimaced. He had no desire to spend two more years in another kind of prison. Félix suggested that he not worry. Everything was at least a year away. Charles must complete his prison sentence before any new bridges would be crossed. With emotion, Charles threw his arms around Félix. “I don’t know what to say except ‘thank you,’” he said weeping. “I promise never to let you down, Félix. I feel my life is finally beginning.”

  Another year crept by, Charles counting the days until late 1968, when he would be eligible for release. He used the time productively. Continuing to study, he taught himself German so that he could more fully comprehend Nietzsche, the philosopher of whom he had become enamored. “It really is true that nature divides the strong and the weak,” he wrote. “There are people who are weak from the moment they leave their mother�
�s breast. They are condemned. I believe I am in the category of the strong.”

  And he wrote letters. Flowing from his cell in astonishing numbers, he slipped most of them out of prison through the good offices of the chaplain, or Félix. From the confines of his cell, Charles planned his future life. He took elaborate measurements of his body and dispatched them to Saigon, requesting his father to sew half-a-dozen new suits, enclosing a photo of the modish fashion cut from a French magazine. “They should be ready for the day of freedom,” he told his father. Several times a week he wrote anew to Félix, analyzing and reanalyzing himself in the light of some new notion born in the reading of his philosophy books. “Cher Félix,” he wrote on May 10, 1968, “I have put myself on the couch, and here is a psychoanalysis of the patient: Subject is naturally sensual, but he is also intellectual and spiritual, and these go counter to his nature. The sensual vs. the spiritual, a struggle as old as time and destined to continue! Subject went through his first love, which was not satisfying. This love was only in the heart, not physical. Now, when subject has relations with a woman, he throws up an ‘auto defense’ to think bad things about the woman. An unconscious fear of new rejection (like his mother). Hmmmmm … an interesting case, don’t you think?”

  Félix knew little of Charles’ reputation inside prison and his relationship with the other prisoners. But from time to time, there were splinters of troubling news. In his first year inside Poissy, Charles had been a loner, spending his time reading and writing, occasionally practicing karate with studied showmanship to keep homosexuals away from him. Then Charles was seen in clusters of foreign prisoners, usually Oriental, men whose dossiers contained crimes ranging from murder to trafficking in narcotics and stolen passports. Tactfully Félix suggested that such liaisons were perilous to a man who professed to be on the side of love, God, and reality. “I play chess with them,” said Charles testily. “I’m not a student sitting at the feet of master criminals.”