Rigadoon

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “Doctor! Doctor, there they are!”

  They’d gotten off long ago! her brats, she was talking about … she’d been too busy with her coughing fits … she hadn’t seen a thing … she’s heartbroken … they’d crawled out from under their tarps … safe bet that nobody’d helped them …

  “They’re coming! … they’re coming!”

  “They won’t bite you!”

  Her and her hemoptyses! … pretty weird …

  “I haven’t anything to give them, Doctor!”

  Neither have we, that’s for sure … at least a week since our last loaf of bread … completely conked and punchdrunk and having to listen to this bullshit! … I ask you! … what I’m thinking about is ourselves, the condition we’re in, the trip ahead of us … what trip? anyway, another little case of “chin up, kid!”! … I’ll be seventy pretty soon … it must have been about 1896 when I heard those words of encouragement for the first time … “chin up, kid!” it was my uncle, we were walking across the Carrousel, he was coming in the opposite direction on his way to open his shop on rue des Saint-Pères … me and my mother were going to rue Drouot … her shop … rue de Provence … where she mended lace … from gate to gate the Carrousel is enormous … no time to chew the fat … my mother wasn’t in the mood, neither was I … I didn’t need his “chin up, kid!” … I was doing all right by myself … I guess my prick of an uncle thought young men should sprint to work … I should get into the habit … I assure you my mother and I weren’t dawdling … it was quicker by omnibus, but it cost five sous for the two of us …

  I’m losing you again! … ah, this exasperating habit old people have of jerking off with their childhood, every insignificant detail, every time they peed on the floor, their whooping cough and chicken pox, their shitty diapers … I see them every day in the paper, photographed back, front, and profile, so pleased with themselves, moldy flesh, dewlaps, sagging temporals, ripe for vivisection and so pleased to be getting so much attention, celebrities as admired as the Kidnapper of Greasy Street or superstar Brilliantine … formidable governors of something or other … flamboyant marshals of Blarney … I’d put them all on the slab … let them exhibit their pineals, pancreases, prostates, show us what a disemboweled bigmouth looks like inside, his true self, his essential nature …

  Come on! back to our chronicle … I’m losing you again … my head, you know, the brick … that’s no reason … I was talking about photographs, narcissism, the arrogance of the stiffs-to-be … oh, it’s not just liquor, cars, and vacations … the crux is photography, that’s what’s sent man, the whole human species back to the troglodytes and then some … every day you can see their pictures, ecstatic hams, open your daily paper, any self-respecting gorilla would be ashamed … cave paintings … entirely handmade! … wouldn’t be so bad … give the Lumière brothers something to be ashamed of … but now look around you and in your daily paper … those mugs in glasses! that fringe of curls! … I’m a fine one to talk! … with so much to be forgiven for! … first of all my three dots! … my so-called stylistic renewal! Cousteau, l’Huma, Sartre, the Lodges, the Archbishop have taken to their sickbeds over them … and that pipsqueak runt Vaillant° that got the Goncourt for valiantly assassinating me, he’s soft in the balls and I’m still waiting for him, which is why I never go out any further than my garden, here in the garden of Meudon, Seine-et-Oise …

  Oh, how they hate me! enough to burst their Rolandics, their whole cortex … the whole lot of them, feminine and neuter! … I’ll never be plagiarized and counterfeited enough!

  “Does he still exist?”

  “Him? … impossible! they shot him twenty years ago! …”

  Each man to his dream, his ideal! … an “ex,” that’s what I am, I don’t exist! … I have the nerve to speak of justice! … you won’t catch my “pale feet”° going up there to see those ten Nobel blockheads and telling them to pay me an annuity … two annuities! one for the novel! another for Peace! … all my “pale feet” think about is massacring me, offering up my carcass to the Great Idol…

  In my condition at my age I can’t leave anything out … I owe you an accounting, never mind if I digress a little! …

  But back to business, Odile’s kids were there, they’d crawled out from under their tarps … and shinnied down off their flatcar by instinct … they’d come to Odile, their little mother … their little mother was looking glum …

  “I can’t move any more, Doctor … I’ll stay here …”

  She was telling me …

  “But what if they come back?”

  The bombers I meant … they don’t stop to see if it’s worth the trouble …

  The kids come closer, there’s no difference between girls and boys … all bundled up in woolen rags … about fifteen of them … no need to look twice, they’re wrecks … drooling, limping, lopsided … cretins out of an asylum, definitely … of course we have examples that live to a certain age and make honorable careers for themselves, or even get to be bigshots, dictators, and hell’s bells! … right then the problem was to get those kids something to eat … Odile could have bestirred herself … we had a right to be tired! … lovely, her deciding to sit tight and spit blood, convenient! what about us? … wasn’t I losing blood? I suppose my cracked skull was nothing! … plus, I repeat, my 75% disability … when Petzareff° can say as much and produce a grade-school certificate, he’ll have a right to talk … some of those idiots were certainly missing … she’d have dropped them en route … too sick … measles supposedly … these survivors were a selection, so to speak … anyway, they were hungry … we had nothing to give them … parts of words came out of them … they looked at us and Odile … but they were speaking to us … I tell Lili: “show them Bébert” … she takes him out of his bag … ah, now they’re interested … they laugh … I mean they screw up their noses and drool even more … they want to play with Bébert! … no! … mustn’t! … but Bébert wants to play with them … so bad that he miows … and the kids cry … let’s get this over with! … easy to say! … this place we’d come to was something, the big basin in front of us, all those boats bottomside up, and on the right the city, well something with smoke coming out of it, ruins … maybe worse than Hanover, flatter than Ulm … well, this basin I was telling you about… it was about the size of the Pool of the Swiss … you know … in Versailles …

  To tell you the truth, these kids, so feebleminded, so dribbling and drooling, couldn’t ask us for anything … we could only see they were trying to tell us something … there wouldn’t be any more slaughterhouses if the officials in charge took a look at the eyes of the feebleminded … naturally wars go on and on … the same brutes keep it up on both sides … like the Goncourt Prize … judges, candidates, both sides do their best and it’s not good enough … “they’re not made for it …” our little snotnoses weren’t made to exist but here they were and they were hungry … I was feeling kind of “abstract” myself … not so much fatigue as shock, that clout with the brick … Felipe had seen it … and loss of blood, my ear … my pants were full of blood too … I wasn’t dreaming … clotted, I might add.

  “Let’s go, Felipe!”

  “Go where?”

  “Look for something to eat!”

  He’s willing, but where? … I explain … over there, other side of the harbor … the city actually! … all he can see is a lot of smoke! … everything’s hidden … he doesn’t look very enthusiastic, he’ll come though … me, I’ve got the staggers from head to foot, but I’m determined … Odile’s determined too, determined not to move, her cough is too bad …

  “Oh no, Doctor, I can’t … I want to die right here … take the children, please!”

  Damn! … I’m sicker than she is! … hemoptysis? … big deal! … the Great Cardinal spat blood all his life … which didn’t prevent him from screwing every duchess in sight and sitting on Europe! … so hard that she’s still groaning under his weight … Europe I mean … deformed, dis
heveled … this hemoptysis jazz is the bunk! … and instead of the Great Cardinal all we’ve got is a lot of jerks! …

  “Let’s go!”

  Chin up, kid! I’ve told you about this basin the size of the Pool of the Swiss and all these ships with their noses in the muck and their propellers in the air, a most indecent position … I see there’s practically no wind … funny so close to the sea … charred smell… naturally, like everywhere else in Germany but here in addition burnt asphalt, a blue mist … like our streets in the old days when they were mending them …

  I look around for a sign … something to find our way by if we get lost … same as in Oddort, nothing! … a stationman? … not a trace … it was an emergency station they’d thrown up outside the city, not made to last… all wood … good view of the harbor, the boats, etc. … I’ve told you that at least twenty times … propellers in the air … I’m going on seventy, it’s remarkable enough if I don’t drool as much as my little cretins … especially the frantic way I work, rewriting ten times, twenty times … as stubborn as Achille, me for art, him for profit… only natural if I were plumb gaga … especially after that clout with the brick! … I’ve told you that too, fifteen … twenty times … about that locomotive in the clouds I’m not really sure … to hell with being sure! did the taenia have any proof that I was getting money from the Germans? … did that prevent him from saying so in Les Temps Modernes? to make perfectly sure I’d be shot … hell, no! … or that little epilo-cretin Vaillant from bragging about machine-gunning me on my stairs? and Cousteau in Rivarol! just as slanderous, maybe even more rabid, when already he was going around with the whole works … rectum and attachments … under his arm … did he think twice? certainly not! which proves that cancer is horrible but that jealousy wins out! … Q.E.D… . and explains why all these people, right, left, and center, are absolutely the same and all one to me … envious sadists, absolute cowards, and to cap the climax, “idols of the youth” … I’m not speaking of the rank-and-file, the hordes in the gallery, balcony, and orchestra, the jerks of the bars, boudoirs, and salons … it seems to me there are sewage farms where the shit is so well mixed and diluted that they sell it to us in the form of leeks, carrots, and celery, extremely appetizing … seems there’s some shady business afoot out there … I wouldn’t be surprised … think of the brilliant careers of all those people that looted me … everything! furniture and manuscripts … leaving me to die in the ditch … the dazzling honors! commanders of everything under the sun! … and the funerals! all France in tears! that’s why I love the Figaro, its boring obituaries, those pompous columns, it’s their Temple so to speak … Brisson° wasn’t born in vain …

  No wind, I’ve told you … thick smoke going straight up … funny so close to the sea … I find you where I left you … outside Hamburg … well, the ruins of Hamburg … like other authors I absent myself now and then … just long enough for a short résumé, a roll call of shadows and aspects … in short, an inventory … I don’t ask you where you’ve been … we’re back again and that’s that … I’ve told you the sea was right there … gulls and terns gliding right over us … want to know who we are, I suppose … and darting away to the soot clouds, the ruins … since then I’ve found out what they were curious about … curious to see if we were dead … or dying … if you’re dying, they peck at your eyes, they scoop them out and gobble them up, conjunctiva, retina, and all… which goes to show that sharks, squids, and lampreys only get the inferior cuts … arms, guts, legs … I’m good and sick of being a loser! neither a shark nor a seagull, my job is getting those kids something to eat … a special brand of kids … Lili wants to go too … fine! … Odile will stay put, she doesn’t want to move … her idiot kids, I wonder how many of them can walk … more or less … maybe some of them have criminal instincts … well, there’s nothing for them to set fire to! … Odile tells me they’re peaceful .. . not mean at all, more on the affectionate side … she ought to know them, she’s had plenty of time … all the same she wants to get rid of them! … she shows me again, a little blood, she spits, she wants me to examine her! … that can wait! … first things first … these little cretins haven’t had any milk since Leipzig, if they’d arrived on time, in Oddort I mean, they wouldn’t need a thing! … Odile didn’t know … I wasn’t going to tell her … so let’s go!

  “Follow me! … follow my canes!”

  The ones Felipe had made for me, thick white pine … oh, kids are always ready for an adventure … even these dotty droolers … staggering, reeling, worse than me … tripping themselves up for no reason at all, some pebble … not a whimper! no, they’re laughing! … I don’t know if we’ve got far to go, I can’t see the city at all, too much soot, too much smoke … I’ve told you this basin was about the size of the Pool of the Swiss … piffle! … much bigger! … I’m sure now that I get a good look …

  Felipe’s got something to say, he’s got himself some information … all he cares about is the train to Magdeburg … his boss! … his brickyard … and he’s a week late …

  “Your Magdeburg isn’t there any more … burned down! wiped out same as here! off the map!”

  He doesn’t believe me.

  “Si! si! … si!”

  He argues.

  But his Magdeburg express won’t be leaving until midnight … he’s got plenty of time.

  “We’ll go get a tarp, Felipe! … a big piece!”

  I don’t want him to think, he was made to obey … I look at these kids … how many? … about twelve … these survivors of the Breslau-Hamburg trek … they’re not fat and they’re not pretty, but they’re not sad either … the little lepers up there in Rostock weren’t crybabies either … sadness like everything else has got to be learned, it comes with life, it takes time … your old man has tears in his eyes, it’s chronic, all he does is cry … he cries because he’s going to be crated and everybody else will be sticking around, having fun …

  “Okay, kids! let’s go!”

  I want them to follow me … I’m the guide … nuts or not, this “chin up, kid” energy will always be with me … what you learn in childhood sticks … the rest is all beer and skittles, repetitions, fatigue, bowing-and-scraping contests.

  I’m going to repeat myself a little, can’t be helped … few things to say about Felipe … going back to Magdeburg to knead more bricks … admit it’s a crazy world! … and hysterical because he’s late! … wonder what we’ll find in Hamburg … bricks and stiffs … I see there’s no wind … funny so close to the sea … charred smell … naturally, like everywhere else in Germany, but here in addition burnt asphalt … like our streets in the old days when they were mending them … I can see our flatcar companions, they’re all down on the roadbed … are they whispering to each other! … probably about my kids … fact … a lot of cripples … I shouldn’t have taken them, but their Odile doesn’t want them and these other people, these people from God knows where, won’t even go near them … I bet they’d chuck them in the drink …

  Besides, you know, there’s my head, that brick! … ten times … fifteen times I’ve told you! … about that locomotive in the clouds, I’m not so sure … to hell with being sure! … was the taenia sure I was getting money from the Germans? did that prevent him from saying so in Les Temps Modernes to make sure I’d be shot! … hell, no! and Cousteau (of Rivarol and Propaganda), same accusations! already rotting with cancer, going around with his anus under his arm, condemned to death for working for the Staffel, consequently extra well informed, didn’t he swear he’d met me in all the most sinister offices? … nobody else had taken any money, only me … but Cousteau? how’d he wriggle out of it? … him and a hundred others! … a thousand! … one of the screwiest is Vaillant… the literary midget … eating his heart out because he didn’t succeed in murdering me on my stairs … he’d heard me going up and coming down … but, hell, I’m still waiting for him … him and other “Idols of the Youth!” … Paris-Meudon is no distance at all! … a
short taxi ride … ten francs … I’m never out … but what about the taenia while we’re at it, why didn’t he provoke the Boches, he’d have been in stir, he wouldn’t have had to suffer like he says he does from running around free … he had all the Nazis, full house, at the Sarah-Bernhardt! … he could have come out on the stage and said: you Teutons, I hate you, pillagers, torturers, you’ll soon be driven out! bravo! … and chopped up fine! and roasted … there’s my Sartrian vengeance! my word of honor as a taenia! hurrah for Free France!

  I think he’d have had what he’s asking for, they’d have thrown him in the clink … still, I’m not so sure they’d have taken him seriously … you’ve got to be taken halfway seriously before a French or even a German prosecutor … which is why it seems to me that as long as all these people … right left or center … haven’t been jailed … and even then!!! … they can only be regarded as partly nuts and partly paid for … I’ll tell you about the rank-and-file later …

  Now we’re on the edge of Hamburg, out to seek our fortune … so to speak! … up there on the embankment certain sounds are reaching us … muffled explosions … some bombs make up their minds … long after the raids, sometimes after months … years … of “suspense” … but where’s our Felipe? … I didn’t see him … had he split? … no! he’s three-quarters hidden in the folds of an enormous tarp … actually he was underneath, I couldn’t see him … damnation! I’m still thinking about the taenia! I can’t tell you this in the right order! it’s the brick and my head … But alas too late, poor Taenia! you’ll forgive me! … if you don’t, I can’t help it! a slight escapade! … the first time is tragic, the second time is grotesque … alas! alas! I was telling you about these delayed-action bombs … we’d better be prepared for the worst … I’m following Felipe with his tarp rolled up on his head … the little cretins don’t understand my French but they’re only too glad to follow me … reeling, staggering … we were just as idiotic as they were … they knew as much as we did … they at least had come out of an asylum, where we came out of nobody knew … drooling and wobbling as bad as they did from gutter to gutter, heading for the city, well, the smoke and ruins up ahead … anyway gives us time for reflection … let us then reflect! … no tears or lamentations, no! I’m not asking anybody to weep for me! to hell with condolers, they can get lost! quick! … and stop weeping! crocodilers! … memories, that’s what I need … I can’t remember anything … so many things and people … I lose my way … like Felipe there under his tarp … crushed, lost … I’ll find him again for you … first my memories … all mixed up … Baden-Baden … Le Vig … Restif … Harras … Moorsburg … Zornhof … I’m sure of those … the others, I’d need to sleep, then they’d come back to me … in snatches … one way or another …