Banco: The Further Adventures of Papillon by Henri Charrière Page B

necklaces of real pearls from Margarita Island, some nuggets of virgin gold, a few watches, leather or expanding metal watch straps, and a good many alarm clocks. Mustafa’s jewelry shop.
    Behind the table was an old Arab with a pleasant face. We talked awhile; he was a Moroccan and he’d seen I was French. It was five in the afternoon, and he said to me, “Have you eaten?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Nor have I. I was just going to. If you’d like to share my meal... ?”
    “That would be fine.”
    Mustafa was a kind, cheerful guy. I spent a very pleasant hour with him. He was not inquisitive, and he didn’t ask me where I came from.
    “It’s odd,” he said, “in my own country I hated the French, and here I like them. Have you known any Arabs?”
    “Plenty. Some were very good and others were very bad.”
    “It’s the same with all nations. I class myself among the good ones. I’m sixty, and I might be your father. I had a son of thirty who was killed two years ago--shot. He was good-looking; he was kind.” His eyes brimmed with tears.
    I put my hand on his shoulder; this unhappy father so moved by the memory of his son reminded me of my own--he, too, retired in his little house in the Ardèche, must have his eyes fill with tears when he thought of me. Poor old Dad. Who could tell where he was, or what he was doing? I was sure he was still alive--I could feel it. Let’s hope the war had not knocked him about too much.
    Mustafa told me to come to his place whenever I felt like it-- for a meal or if I ever needed anything: I’d be doing a kindness if I asked him a favor.
    Evening was coming on: I said thank you for everything and set off for our shack. The game would be beginning soon.
    I was not at all on edge about my first game. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Jojo had said, and he was quite right. If I wanted to deliver my trunk filled with dynamite at 36, quai des Orfèvres and to deal with the others, I needed dough, plenty of dough. I’d be getting my hands on it precious soon; that was a certainty.
    As it was a Saturday, and as the miners religiously took their Sundays off, the game was not to begin before nine, because it would last until sunrise. The men came crowding to the shack, too many of them to get inside. It was impossible to find room for them all, so Jojo sorted out the ones who could play high. There were twenty-four of them: the rest would play outside. I went to Mustafa’s, and he very kindly lent me a big carpet and a carbide lamp. As the big-time gamblers dropped out, they could be replaced from outside.
    Banco, and banco again! On and on: every time Jojo rolled the dice, so I kept covering the stakes. “Two to one he won’t shoot six with double threes . - . ten with double fives...” The men’s eyes were ablaze. Every time one of them lifted his cup an eleven-year-old boy filled it with rum. I’d asked Jojo to let Miguel supply the rum and the cigars.
    Very soon the game heated up to boiling point. Without asking his permission, I changed Jojo’s tactics. I laid odds not only on him but also on the others, and that made him look sour. Lighting a cigar, he muttered angrily, “Quit it, man. Don’t squander the jack.” By about four in the morning I had a pile of bolivars, cruzeiros, American and West Indian dollars, diamonds and even some little gold nuggets in front of me.
    Jojo took the dice. He staked five hundred boll vars. I went in with a thousand.
    And he threw the seven!
    I left the lot, making two thousand bolIvars. Jojo took out the five he had won. And threw the seven again! Once more he pulled out his stake. And seven again!
    “What are you going to do, Enrique?” Chino asked.
    “I leave the four thousand.”
    “Banco alone!” I looked at the guy who had just spoken. A little thickset man, as black as boot polish, his eyes bloodshot with drink. A Brazilian for sure.
    “Put down your four thousand bolos.”
    “This stone’s worth more.” And he dropped