Rigadoon

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Now I could get a good look at this Englishman, they’d hoisted him way up top, the captain on the bridge … I hadn’t really looked at him … believe me, I’m not making it up … a face all in profile, a Polichinelle … a Punch, they’d have said in their country … not a friendly face, vicious in fact, but amusing … and our Felipe? … he was there, he wasn’t saying anything … he’d had his piece of cheese … I tell him …

  “Felipe! … Hamburg! … Brandenburg!”

  “Certo!”

  All he cared about, I knew, was getting back, that he was late! … okay! … we were ready to go … I let the others tighten the ropes, consolidate the edifice … I’ve told you, there were at least thirty of them … maybe fifty … they were going to push … at least three miles, I think, through Hanover … the ones that were staying … the platforms were all full of them … didn’t seem happy about it … far from it! … they were even insulting us … they’d gotten up, they were running … looking for more trucks like us, to get through Hanover with … sure if we didn’t shake a leg, if we let them catch us … they’d grab us and finish us off! … they were madder than hornets … to see us leaving ahead of them … why hadn’t we waited for them? … the Englishman, Mr. Punch, didn’t say a word … he didn’t look very happy up there on his throne of knapsacks and semi-mattresses and crockery … he rolls, he pitches, he catches himself, by the skin of his teeth … this street isn’t carriageable any more … too many shell holes … and further on big mounds of rubble … this city is smashed up worse than Berlin … our truck’s getting ahead even so … they’re all pushing, but by fits and starts … depending on the shell holes … I egg them on! … can’t they see that mob? … the mob is making time! … they’ve found all the trucks they needed! … four … five … six! … I’ve got a sense of danger! … I yell at them in German … I show them what’s coming after us …

  “Schnell! … schnell! … mörderer!”

  And then in French:

  “Murderers! murderers! quick!”

  In other words an alert … they’re not chasing us to give us the time of day! … five … six carts … I’m not dreaming! … they should look! …

  “Push! … push! … suffering catfish, push!”

  I don’t know if they understand me … if they’re French … or Latvians … or Moldavians … I’ve given up trying to find out … anyway, up bump and down shell hole and through rubble heaps I think we’re almost gaining on the posse…

  From this moment on, I warn you, my chronicle is a little jerky, I myself, who lived through what I’m telling you, have trouble getting it straight … I was talking about “comics” … even in the comics you’d have a hard time finding a sudden break like that in the continuity, balloons, and characters … a double-barreled shambles … take my word for it! … so brutal that all of a sudden nothing was there … and I myself … telling you about it twenty-five years later … I hem and haw, I’m all balled up … too many bits and pieces! … you’ll have to forgive me …

  “Stop spluttering! … just tell us what happened!”

  Right you are! well, at that exact moment they caught up with us! … our pursuers … raving mad … and their four five jampacked hand trucks! … a balcony had fallen plunk in the middle of the street … and blocked us … off a house that was still standing … not all of it, only the front! but what a balcony! forged iron! … I hadn’t seen this house from a distance … house is too much said! just the front and the walls on one court … I remember saying: “this is it, we’re fucked! … they’ll tear us to pieces!” at that exact moment wham! a bomb! … not a little one, a big splasher … thump! and another one, nearer … I guess we all panicked … we fugitives and our pursuers … Ill say it again: I guess … I don’t know, I can only imagine … I’m not sure, I’m not the fainting kind, but there I was kind of stunned … pain, but not bad, and blood … on my neck … I’m bleeding, yes, blood from my cerebrum … no! my medulla … I think … anyway, that area … I know I tried to stay lucid … I thought about Lili … and Bébert … but as if they’d gone away somewhere … far away … and me too, still further … in a different direction! that’s all I can honestly remember … that bomb … where’d it come from? … and the blocked street … and the shell holes … and all the junk and rubble … pretty near twenty-seven years ago …

  I says to myself: Lili, I’ve found you, you’re here! … and so’s Bébert! … oh, but the sirens … all those sirens! as many as in Berlin … you’d think they were finished around here, they’ve wrecked the whole place! … well, pretty near … wheee! … another alert … from one end of the moonlight to the other … I forgot to tell you … what a moon! … wheee! … wham! … boom! bombs … more bombs … what was there left to smash? hey, Felipe? … where was he? I ask Lili … Felipe answers, I hadn’t seen him … but he was right there, two steps away …

  “You stopped a brick!”

  He tells me … I don’t know, but it hurts bad … same place, between my head and my neck … Felipe’s mistaken, the brick stopped me, hit me between my head and my neck … I can get up, I think, that’s the main thing … we certainly ought to be getting on … wheee! ah, they’re still at it! mostly in the south … and flames, sparks, far away on the horizon … swirling flames, I’ve told you … flames coming down from every ruin … leaping into the air … and back down again! … like an egg on a jet of water … except here it was green … and red … but what can be burning? … roasted leftovers? … and what was the sense in coming back, the “fortresses” I mean, to stir up dead fires? … and drop God knows how many bombs … thousands! … I don’t get it … those people must have money to burn … so rich they don’t know what to do … wheee! … just for the hell of it, I guess … and what illumination! … that moon! straight out of the opera! … plus the searchlights of the “passive defense” … sweeping the clouds … an enchantment! … a spectacle not to be missed … I saw the bombing of the Renault factory in Issy in 1943 … I’ve seen tropical tornadoes, Cameroons 1918, all the huts flying away, and not little ones, as big as my house, in the lightning … and crammed full of merchandise … but next to this return of the “fortresses” in force and these avalanches of bombs, it was nothing … in another vein I’ve seen something memorable that will never be seen again: the big cavalry maneuvers at Camp Cercottes in 1913, deployment in extended order, wheeling movements … seven divisions! … with trumpets! … the hero of the future will be tied to a pole, immobilized, gagged, and shot out into the stratosphere … once around the globe, barely time to take a leak! and whoops! home again! … the more times around, the more of a hero he’ll be!

  But now back to business … on this road where we are you can see as clear as day … really bright moonlight … like a mild late-autumn sun … wheee! say, that’s quite a show they’re putting on! … there! … there! … shrapnel! … in the clouds! and in between … bursting shells … really a grandiose panorama … in my opinion! … and all this to music! … I was looking for a tune … an accompaniment … I ask Lili … “don’t you hear something?” … sure! … she hears the sirens … that’s all! … but this music … nobody else? … Felipe? … he listens … he doesn’t hear any music either, only a lot of bombs and sirens … wheee! how come? … I’m no musician … far from it … I’m getting melodies … I’d go so far as to say magnificent melodies …

  But a musician is something else … if I was a musician, I’d know … in all these years naturally I’d heard a lot of concerts … big ones and little ones … if I was the society type I’d be an authority … I’d give world-shaking opinions … stockbrokers would invite me to dinner … there of course I knew what was what … echoes … of faint strains … were coming to me … from this side and that side! … memories sprouting! piles of them! same as an old toad covers himself with pimples if you barely touch him … right here now I’m in shock, stunned! … I’m not saying a word, but my mouth is full of blood … it must be all over
my shirt and pants too … Felipe says it was a brick … all right, call it a brick! … in the confusion when our pursuers … and their six hand trucks … caught up with us, hell bent on making us pay for our head start … the explosion had broken it up … buried all those lunatics under five and a half stories of bricks … so why wouldn’t there be one for me? Felipe’d seen it … we were all together … a wonder the others hadn’t been hit! … I’ve got to admit I wasn’t feeling right … not just the brick, not just that clout between my head and neck … also further up by the left ear … not imaginary, medically certified, two three opinions and counter-opinions … first in 1916 and then later at the Ryshospital in Copenhagen … skull and otic cone in bad shape … God knows I’m used to it! … whistles … drums … jets of steam … okay! … but a melody! a melody! … and as I’ve said, magnificent! as magnificent as the panorama … a symphonic melody, so to speak, just right for this ocean of ruins … wild ruins … this “fiery surf” … pink … green … and little crackling clusters … the souls of the houses … far … far away … dancing … I tell Lili:

  “Don’t move, I’ve got it!”

  “Why would I move? but you, are you in pain?”

  Ah, I don’t want to talk about my head! … an adapter, that’s what I needed! … and right away! … all full of memories! grotesque memories … in snatches! … you can’t have grandiose melodies without counterpoint!

  Terrible pain from temple to temple! … it never stops! forgive me! … I won’t complain … my shirt was clinging to my back … right! I didn’t mean to talk about it … such dramatics! this “me me” chronicle! … Europe’s falling to pieces? my shirt! the ridge of my back! me! wheeng! wheee! wheee! sirens still blowing somewhere … I’m imitating the music … too bad I have no talent! … wheeesh! listen! … I need another ear, the one I have left is no use at all … maybe at the piano, groping … from key to key … later in Copenhagen up there, two years in the clink, I had time … I composed grandiose melodies for myself, still in memory of Hanover, symphonies so to speak, and hummed them to myself … like this, inside my mouth … boom! … wham! … wheee! I was all alone, I wasn’t bothering anybody … the guards were used to it … my time in the clink, two years, Pavilion K, Vesterfangsel … seeing I was in Denmark they had to put me someplace …

  Here now, up above where I’m writing, I hear phonograph records through the floors, movements of symphonies, I think, I don’t ask … I listen, I keep quiet … I don’t want to hum like up there in solitary in the Vesterfangsel … it’s ballet dancers, I think, not tongues of flame like in Hanover … so they tell me, I don’t know them … I know their studio … I’ve gone up two three times … at night … I’m not the society type, what I don’t know I don’t know … still as down at heel and scrupulous as ever … he holds his tongue … I hold my tongue … your highborn man doesn’t hesitate, he barges right in! … nothing can stop him! … proclaims his opinion! judges! … and to hell with what you think! the highborn man doesn’t know how to do anything … but highborn he is, thunderbolt, omnipotent! … and that’s that! … whisper so nobody can hear you! … one peep and you’re through!

  Up there anyway, where I was telling you, it was three … maybe four notes … on that platform of shards and plaster … the remains of the real one, in Hanover-North … there, I can tell you, we had nothing left … our last rags and knapsacks had disappeared in the smashup! the cave-in! seven hand trucks under the torrents of bricks, two three house fronts and forged-iron balconies! … ah, moonlight! you’ll never see such settings and tragedies in the movies! … much less on the stage! … they tell us that Hollywood is dead! … they can say that again! how can the movies deliver after what’s happened for real! … which is why I personally can’t even look at a photograph! … to translate is to betray! right! to reproduce, to photograph, is to putrefy! instantly! … anything that existed makes you sick to look at! … therefore transpose! … poetically if you can! but who tries? … nobody! … look at Goncourt! … that was the end! … “they ceased to transpose” … what were the crusades for? … the crusaders transposed themselves! … now they get themselves ejected from their sixteenth floor in Passy by air-conditioned super-jet direct to Golgotha … seven minutes … get their pictures taken on the Mount of Olives … Monsieur as Joseph … Madame as Mary … the children? angels naturally … home again for cocktails … now that every man and his wife has a motor on his ass and can go wherever he likes, without legs, without a head, he’s nothing but a balloon, a half portion of air … he won’t even pass away, he’s done it already …

  Oh, you say to yourself: this old fool, what a bore he is! … all right, I admit it, I’m talking too much … back to my three notes … quick! I’m not putting on … but you see … I need them for my Hanover panorama! … before that brick hit me and scrambled my brains, I hadn’t a care in life … I let my head buzz any way it liked, without order or pretention … I let it trumpet any old way, I didn’t bother about the music … but now, like it or not, I’ve got to! … I’d even call it a melody … can you imagine? untrained, untalented, forced to bumble snatches of melody … but something else! my canes! … lost them both in that fool explosion … when everything fell down on us, well anyway, the house front … I think, I’m not sure …

  “Felipe, my good friend! … Felipe!”

  I tell him about it … he’ll find my canes! I’m sure he will … because we’ve got to keep on going … on the other track … the last one they’ve got at this Hanover-North … they tell me a certain train will be passing through … we’ll see! … no lack of passengers! … people like us and soldiers … Krauts and Hungarians, I think … not talking very loud, whispering … they’re looking around same as us … far … near … the little fires … what’s left of the houses … the colors … we all look like Pierrots, all covered with flour in the bright moonlight … Felipe brings me my two canes, they weren’t far away … good! … good! … but my grandiose melody? … just what I need in these ruins … this ocean of fire, this fiery surf from end to end of Hanover … I can hear the tune in my head … pretty sure the tune is right … but the notes? … the exact notes? hell, mere reminiscences … I admit it … but what of it? … comforting music after the tornado …

  Believe it or not, but after that night in Hanover I wondered if I had the notes I wanted or … were they too high? or too low? …

  “But the man is gaga, it said so in Paris-Match! dribbling, drooping! he was shitting in his pants!”

  I’m letting you interrupt me … but the truth remains the truth … through myriad adventures, amusing and much less amusing moments, I kept wondering if I had my musical setting … oh, I have no great pretentions … three four notes … pleasure notes, so to speak … that’ll do! …

  I finally made up my mind … I went upstairs … where the young ladies are, the ballet dancers … at eleven o’clock at night … I was positive, I’d heard it! … enough of it anyway … three … four notes … nobody up there at eleven o’clock at night … I knew what I wanted … symphonies! … I thumb through the records … a big pile! … believe it or not, I find it in half a second … the one I need … yes! … no! … yes! now for a keyboard! at the other end of the studio … thinking about it so long, maybe … I poke around on the keys … I’ve got it! … pretty near right … yes! yes! … where’s the A on the keyboard? … I’ve got it! … the tune! … a miracle! twenty years you’ve been racking your brains, and damned if you haven’t got it! … stupid and unmusical as you are! … I go back down, I’ve got my four notes … G-sharp! G! A-sharp! … B! Got to remember them. I should have had them there in Hanover.