Dream inherited from the past II, 2025

Stéphane Foucaud   New & remarkable Artists

If "God is my only judge," then he had abandoned me, for the frigate on which we were about to embark was named "Danaé." The future convicts were following the same route as the slave traders of old, and it led them inexorably to the penal colony on the Isle of Pines, in New Caledonia. The unspeakable depravity of our guards, nicknamed "the correctors," perfectly complemented this paradisiacal landscape in which a penal colony had just been established. How could hell possibly grow there?

Accustomed to being chased by the police in the upscale neighborhoods of Paris, my only crime had been instinctively following a group of fleeing men. My little occupation as a "sausage catcher" (collecting cigar butts and cigarette butts) didn't sit well with the state officials, who had been taxing tobacco since the 17th century. Ambushed along with the entire group, I was lumped in with this gang of thugs and then locked up with eighty other men in one of the cages on the frigate's lower deck.

In my misfortune, however, I observed that our prison remained the most manageable of all. In the others, the law of the strongest prevailed, especially during the distribution of food rations, which amounted to little more than an ounce of salted beef and some bread. The prisoners' savagery provided the guards with ample pretext to hasten their downfall through beatings and the confiscation of bowls and spoons. Conversely, in our cell, we employed a system of drawing lots to divide the ill-proportioned and poorly distributed food. We also used the edge of our spoons, sharpened against the bars, to cut out more equitable portions.

Scurvy began to take its toll on the prisoners. Their corpses fed the sharks. For one hour a day, we were allowed out on deck, thus escaping the stale air of the cells, the stench of which reached its peak after the 6 p.m. bean soup. As we rounded the Cape of Good Hope, one of us threw himself overboard. The military called this an "escape." Diving ten leagues from the coast… I would have preferred the term "suicide." Besides, no one ordered a longboat to be lowered to retrieve the unfortunate man.

We set sail in 1871 and arrived in 1872, after one hundred and forty-seven days at sea. I didn't even have time to experience forced labor, as I was thrown into the cell of the "savages next door," the very same people who, from the beginning of the journey, had harbored their jealousy toward our united crew. Our method of survival, which had relied on magnanimity, had been perceived as treason by our enraged neighbors. Certainly more disciplined, it's true that we were less bullied by the examiners. They conspired to offer me "compensation" by beating me and calling me a "mignard" (homosexual) in order to whitewash their actions.

I immediately took up residence at the bottom of a hole sealed by a perforated metal plate. It was impossible to lie down completely; I slept in a semi-upright position. The stone and concrete structure included a small excavation in the floor, presumably for relieving myself. Traces of the previous occupant were evident in the engraving of small sticks on the walls, a way of keeping track of time, and in the presence of hair and fingernails on the floor, perhaps the result of the devastating effects of scurvy. A few plants clung to the rough rock, despite the lack of light. I never imagined I would one day have to eat them, or even that centipede scurrying along the wall. No food had fallen to the ground in ages; the guards occasionally came to urinate on me to check if my body was reacting. I avoided being buried alive by making a few movements each day.

Then one day, three wounded birds fell at my feet, clearly having forced their way through the metal grating of the trapdoor. In the following days, fish and tubers reached me. From the depths of my cell, I could see my provider's hand as he poured the contents of a gourd down my throat. I recognized it as that of a native. Over time, he began to watch me eat as if I were an animal he had just tamed, occasionally uttering a few words in his dialect, which sounded full of kindness.

He was certainly unaware of the charges against me. Was I guilty only in the eyes of my own people? Was torture forbidden in his culture? Was I an experiment? Was this his way of provoking the prison authorities? Would he set me free? The clanging of metal, mingling with the clatter of convicts in the distance, gave me my answer. Breaking the lock of my underground prison with his adze, Nyii ("Sun" in Kwényii, the language of the Isle of Pines) pulled me from this waking nightmare and presented me to his tribe as "Bwa Kakaraa" (very white). He had just successfully completed his rite of passage into adulthood by accomplishing something extraordinary.