Death on Credit

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “Never mind, angel pudding, you don’t know them!… You don’t know what they’re capable of?… I deal with them every day, I know what we’re up against… I’ve seen backers… and inventors too, I know what I’m talking about… I’ve been handling them for forty years!… And now I’m caught between two fires!… Ah! Exactly!… I don’t want to be crushed! Fleeced! Drawn and quartered!… Just when things start popping!… At that very moment! Oh no, hell no, not on your tintype!… Hell’s bells!… The pen in one hand, Ferdinand. Quick! And in the other the scales! And across my knees a carbine! That’s it! There’s Courtial for you!… To the life! Justice! Respect! Presence!… I’ve seen my brilliant inventors! As sure as I’m here talking to you… create marvels… absolutely stupefying wonders! Throughout my long career! And nearly always… take it from me… for beans! For cheese! For glory! For less than nothing!… Genius is left to rot!… That’s the exact truth!… It doesn’t sell! It goes begging! It’s gratis pro Deo. Cheaper than matches… But suppose you try to be nice, with your heart on your sleeve! You want to do something for them, an unprecedented kindness! Sure! You believe in this bozo’s song and dance! You want to encourage the scientist… Dress the martyr’s wounds… you come around in all innocence, bringing a small sardine… The martyr jumps sky high! It’s an affront… Everything’s changed… revolutionized!… Everything collapses! A flash of lightning and hell opens!… Your genius turns jackal! Vampire! Leech! The hounds are unleashed… carnage! An atrocious massacre! To get the money out of you they disembowel you on the spot!… Crucify you! Vaporize you! No quarter given! The soul is forgotten! Nothing counts but gold! Gold! So be careful!… Take it easy, take it easy, pal! You want to search the depths? Why, for a hundred francs divided up wrong, I know those zebras, they’d blow up the terrestrial globe!… That’s right… so help me… I’m not exaggerating! I’m in a good position to know!… To our documents! To our documents, Ferdinand! Keep your powder dry! Letter-perfect documents! Notarized! Initialled! Deposited before noon with Maître Van Crock on the Rue des Blancs-Manteaux! An excellent notary! In triplicate… Our share first! And stipulated in capitals! Airtight! Oleographic! No dubious arguments! No underhanded wangling! No, never! Oh providential padre, you’ll soon have plenty to dive with! Ah, the poor innocent! He hasn’t the faintest idea!… Diving bells!… Why, before the month is out, they’ll be bringing in three or four a day! What am I saying?… A dozen! And meeting our specifications!… Six hundred metres?… Twelve hundred?… Eighteen hundred?… I’m not the least bit worried! Oh no, I won’t breathe a word… No snap judgements!… I’ve got to be impartial!… I don’t want to seem prejudiced!… I’ll wait for the day of the trials… Very well!… But unless my memory deceives me, I’ve already written some very well-documented articles on that very question… Let’s see!… Maybe I’ll remember the exact dates… It was before we were married!… Around ’84 or ’86… Just before the Amsterdam Congress… the Submersible Exhibition… Maybe I can lay hands on them… They must be around somewhere… I explained it all… It was in the Supplement… Say, it all comes back to me!… It was in The World Upside Down… I can see that bell plain as day!… Reinforced of course… with triple bolts… and double-guaranteed walls and a ferromagnetic top!… So far it’s perfectly simple!… Cushions threaded to the thousandth of a centimetre around the ballast… That’s it! Irido-bronze rivets… absolutely impervious to the action of the sea water!… Not a single acid spot after years in the water!… Tempered in chlorido-sodium! A galvano-plastic overstress on a centrifugal pin!… A simple matter of computation!… The factors involved are child’s play… Radio-diffusible lighting with a Valadon projector!… My word, all it takes is a little spunk and initiative!… No need to bat your brains out!… A big circular prehensible grab will do the trick… That may be a little more ticklish!… I’d attach it to the outer face!… How about ‘23–25’?… That’s an excellent calibre… Retrobascule valves for still greater security!… The drop chain is simple!… A Rotterdam-Durtex with three-centimetre links… And if they want something even stronger… to be absolutely on the safe side… the guaranteed maximum! They can take special cable plaited from copper and rope, a ‘28–34’ while they’re about it! See what I mean?… Rastrata is tops! I haven’t any shares in the firm! Reinforced pneumatic hood… the Lestragone patent… And about portholes?… Ah!” He was assailed by doubt. “If I were in their shoes, I’d steer clear of that packing they turn out in the arsenals… that Tromblon-Parmesan stuff… It hasn’t worked too well on submarines! It’s a flop!… They haven’t told the whole story! At the ministry of course they defend it tooth and nail… but I’ll stick to my guns!… I foresaw it… At medium pressures it does all right… Up to twenty kilos to the square centimetre, all right… But starting with ‘twenty tenths’?… It’s tissue paper, my boy!… The fish pass right through it… That’s my opinion and you won’t make me change it… Anyway, they’ll think of that… I’ve no right to influence them!… I won’t even mention my article! Certainly not!… Hell! I will too! Sure I’ll quote it!… In toto… After all it’s my duty… Don’t you agree, Irène darling? And you, Ferdinand? Don’t you think I ought to speak out? After all it’s a critical moment!… It’s now or never!… I’m in this thing! I’m in charge! I’ve got to tell them what I think, haven’t I? Today, and not in ten years! My opinions are worth something, aren’t they?… But enough phrase-mongering!… It’s all very well to give advice, to play the sage, the academician, the know-it-all!… But it’s not enough!… Not by a long shot!… I’ve always done my share!… Here!… There! Everywhere! Irène can bear me out!… I’ve never sidestepped a danger!… Never!… By what right?… Why, I’ll go down in their contraption myself!… Maybe not the first try, but certainly the second!… Nobody can stop me!… It’s my duty!… My right! Obviously! I’d even say it was indispensable… My eye, my authority, will be their only real security! Make no mistake!”

  “Oh no!” the old lady screeches as if somebody’d taken a bite out of her arse… “Nothing doing!… I’d sooner cut the rope! As I live and breathe! This is the pay-off! Never, you hear me! I’ll never let you go down! Haven’t you made an arse of yourself long enough! Go down in that contraption! You’re not a fish, are you?… Let the lunatics dive! It’s their business, not yours!… Certainly not!”

  “Lunatics! Lunatics! You don’t have a grain of sense! Where’s your logic?… Didn’t you pester the life out of me to make me go up in the air? Yes or no? Weren’t you all for the balloon? You were nuts about it, out of your mind! ‘The Enthusiast! The Enthusiast!’ You couldn’t think of anything else… And I’m not a bird!…”

  “Bird, bird! Now you’re insulting me! You’re picking a fight!… All right! I see what you’re up to, you dog!… I know, you want to clear out! You want to go gallivanting around again!…”

  “Where? On the bottom of the sea?…”

  “Bottom of the sea, my foot!…”

  “Oh, leave me alone! Leave me alone, Irène! How do you expect me to think? You’re always screwing everything up! With your idiotic outbursts!… Your insane frenzies!… Let me think in peace and quiet!… The circumstances, it seems to me, are solemn enough!… Ferdinand! You hold down the shop! And whatever you do, don’t say another word to me!”

  He was giving orders again… He was recovering his tone, his colour… and his crust for that matter… He started whistling his charmer’s tune, the ‘Sole mio’ of happier days…

  “Yes, I’d better go out! Take a breath of air… You’ve still got a hundred francs, haven’t you, kid?… I’ll go and pay the telephone bill!… That’ll give me a chance to stretch my legs!… It’s high time they turned it on again… Wouldn’t you say so? We need it!…”

  He hung around the doorstep… He was undecided… He looked out towards the arcades… He started off to the left… that probably meant the Insurrection. If he’d gone right, it would have been the Urns and his cat-o’-nine-ta
ils… As soon as things begin to look up a little, all people can think of is piggishness.

  * * *

  The sale of that number was a real orgy, there’s no getting around it… They came in a steady stream!… They took the joint by storm… Even after nine at night subscribers came around asking for their supplement… All day long it was a riot!… The shop shook under the weight of the mobs… The doorstep was all worn down from their trampling!… Des Pereires harangued them!… He’d stand on the counter, handing out papers by the armful… I was running around the whole time… pestering the printer… chasing back and forth… with the hod. The cart was too slow on the Faubourg Montmartre… I’d bring the copies back in batches as they came off the press…

  The old cutie made up the wrappers for shipment to the provinces… That was important too!… The diving-bell contest was being talked about far and wide… It was getting to be an event!…

  Naturally Uncle Édouard heard about it! He dropped over to the Galeries… He came in through the side door… He was mighty glad our rag was picking up!… He’d been worried… He expected me to be out on my arse again… looking for another job!… And just then our popularity skyrocketed… We really had the wind in our sails! It was terrific!…

  The hope for treasure is real magic! There’s nothing like it!… At night after my errands, when I came back from the Automatic, I’d have more bundles to tie up… until eleven o’clock… Violette gave it to me straight:

  “You’re working too hard! You’re a sap! You think they appreciate it?… If you knock yourself out, who’s going to take care of you?… Not your boss, I bet!… Buy me a menthe, kid!… I’ll sing you ‘The Girl from Mostaganem’… It’ll drive you crazy, you’ll see!…” For that little number she’d hike up her skirt front and back… She didn’t wear any panties, so it was a real belly dance… She’d do it right out in the open… in the middle of the Galerie… The other floozies would come running… usually with three or four customers each… Bums, arseholes, bankrupt peepers… “Do your stuff, Suzy! Don’t piss crooked!” She sure threw her twat around… You could see it bobbing up and down!… The crowd clapped and cheered, that Tunisian dance of hers was some excitement… It always drew a crowd. When it was over, I’d buy her her menthe… We’d all end up at the Insurrection…

  Violette’s stand was over by the scales, behind the thickest column, in the Galerie d’Orléans… It didn’t take her two minutes to do a job… If she hooked a real sucker, she’d take him up to the Pelican only a few steps away… across from the Louvre… The room cost two francs… She liked her Pernod straight… We’d get her to sing her song:

  The enchanted Orient came

  And sat in my caravansar-ee…

  His arse was bare and from his belly

  A great big eye looked out at me.

  That didn’t do my work for me… Sometimes she’d hang around chewing the fat for hours… When I wanted to get rid of her, there was only one way.

  “Let’s go in!…” I’d say… “Come on, kid! You can help me tie up some bundles.”

  “Let me suck just one more!… Wait for me, little chickadee… I got to finish my night’s work…”

  I could never count on her!… Right away she’d look for the back door… She’d chicken out… Except for sewing on buttons, which was her weakness, I never got any real work out of her… She faded the minute I brought it up… It was sure-fire.

  * * *

  Hardly a week later the plans and solutions began to pour in at a terrific rate… about a hundred a day. Our rules had specified ad libitum… They hadn’t let hard reality faze them… They’d given their fancy free rein!… All in all, at first glance, their expositions and plans were as dopey as they come… Our geniuses had really knocked themselves out!…

  On the ballistic side their ideas were wild! But some of the detail was good!… We’d get something out of it… Generally speaking, when they used small sheets of paper, the size of the writing paper they give you in cafés, it was almost always to advertise some colossal device, a bell bigger than the Opéra… and when the plans were enormous, sprawled over eighteen octavo pages, you could bet they were selling some little sounding device about twenty centimetres long.

  In that hobby parade there was everything you could ask for! Every imaginable system, invention and subterfuge for treasure-hunting… Some of the caissons suggested were shaped like elephants!… Others were more like a hippopotamuses… The majority, as we might have expected, looked like fish… Some had a human aspect… regular people with faces… One, the inventor told us, was actually his landlady, a very faithful likeness, with eyes that would shine when they got down below two thousand feet, revolving in concentric circles… to attract all the fauna of the deep seas…

  In every postbag a fresh load of brilliant solutions turned up!… They were somersaulting all over his desk… All we had to do now was wait for our padre. He’d promised to be back the last Thursday of the month!… It was all arranged and settled… We were right there at our posts… He was supposed to bring us ten thousand francs… an advance on our share!… That would give us a chance to pay our most urgent debts in the neighbourhood, to get the telephone turned on, and to run some beautiful pictures in an “extra-special number” devoted entirely to the diving bell!… Already the big dailies were talking about us in connection with salvaging submarines, not just recovering the fabulous treasures of the deep… It was the year after the Farfadet disaster…* The excitement hadn’t died down… We had a sure chance of winning the gratitude of the nation!…

  But all those prospects didn’t turn the old cutie’s head!… In fact she was looking pretty glum! She wanted to see that priest again before taking another step… Sometimes she’d ask me a dozen times an hour if I didn’t see him coming… at the far end of the Galeries… And what about the boss?… Where could he be keeping himself again?… Painting the town?… Wasn’t he down in the cellar?… No?… He’d been out since morning… All sorts of people were asking for him!… It was getting worrisome… “Wait a minute!” I tell the old lady. “I’ll look in at the Insurrection…” I’d hardly stepped out when I see his nibs taking it easy, strolling through the gardens… making eyes at the nursemaids… without a care in the world… He’s whistling, the stinker! He’s got his arms full of bottles… I hightail it over to him…

  “Well, well, Ferdinand! You look mighty anxious… Is the house on fire?… Is something wrong?… Has he turned up?”

  “No!” I say… “He’s not there!…”

  “He won’t be long!…” he says calmly… “Anyway, here’s some Banyuls… and a bottle of Amer Picon!… Some anisette! And biscuits!… How do I know what the priest likes?… What booze do priests drink anyway?… Everything, I hope…” He wanted to celebrate the success of our venture. “I sincerely believe, Ferdinand, that we’ve hit the royal road… Ah yes! Things are shaping up!… I was looking at the plans this morning!… My oh my, what a shipment again! A torrent of ideas, my boy!… Once the avalanche has subsided… I’m going to do some big-time sorting!… On one side everything that looks promising… and on the other, the stuff we’d better forget… He wouldn’t be able to do that… I expect him to give me carte blanche! No hit-or-miss methods!… It takes knowledge! We’ll talk it over this afternoon!… And that’s not all, you know! There’s the question of surety. I can’t go into this thing with my eyes closed! Oh no! That would be too easy! Not at my age! Certainly not!… First of all a bank account! That’s the main thing!… And two hundred thousand on the line! And joint signatures… him and me! I send for the builders!… We place the order!… Then we can talk!… We’ll know where we are!… After all we’re not babes in the woods!” Still, a shadow of doubt grazes his mind…

  “You think he’ll be pleased with all this?…”

  “Ah!…” I say… “I’m positive…” I hadn’t the slightest doubt.

 
And so, chatting away, we get back to the office… We wait another little while… Still no priest in sight! It was getting kind of sticky!… Mme des Pereires was all wrought up, she was trying to make a little order… so the place wouldn’t look too much like a barn… It was a terrible shambles even in normal times, and now with this rush there wasn’t an inch of space anywhere!… An enormous dungheap! A sow wouldn’t find her young… Rubbish in full eruption… absolutely sickening… from floor to roof… torn papers, disembowelled books, putrid manuals, manuscripts, memoranda, all reduced to streamers… clouds of flying confetti… The bindings all ripped, thrown in all directions… Those hoodlums had even made off with our beautiful statues!… They’d decapitated Flammarion! They’d stuck blotting paper on Hippocrates, lovely violet moustaches… After an inconceivable lot of trouble we managed to extricate three chairs, the table and the big armchair from the mess. We threw out the customers… We cleared a space to receive the holy man in…

  On the stroke of half-past five, only half an hour late… there he comes… I spy him coming down the Galerie d’Orléans… He was carrying a black briefcase, stuffed to the gills… He comes in… We greet him. He puts his load down on the table… Everything’s OK! He mops his brow… he must have been walking fast… He catches his breath… The conversation starts up… Courtial takes over… The old lady goes up to the Alcazar… she comes back with a few folders, the most remarkable!… Quite a neat little assortment!… She puts them down beside his briefcase… He seems satisfied… He leafs vaguely through them… picks out one or two at random… He doesn’t seem terribly interested… We wait… we’re afraid to stir a muscle… for him to say something… We breathe with care… He rummages through a few more pages… Then he screws up his whole face… A nervous tic!… And then another! A hideous grimace! Lord, it’s an attack! A regular convulsion comes over him… He takes the whole load of papers and throws them into the showcase… Then he clutches his head… He rubs it with both hands. He kneads it, he ruffles it… He pinches himself, he massages his chin… and his fat cheeks, his nose too, and his ears… A satanic convulsion!… He gouges his eyes, he scrapes his scalp… And then all of a sudden he leans over… He bends down and there he is on the floor… Plunging his head into the papers… He sniffs at the piles… He grunts, he puffs and blows… He picks up a whole armful and… whoops!… He tosses them up in the air!… He flings them at the ceiling… It all comes raining down… papers, folders, plans, pamphlets… They’re all over… We can’t see each other… Once… twice… and then he does it again! All the time howling with joy!… Jubilant!… He squirms… he digs in again… The people collect outside the door… He turns his briefcase upside down… He takes out more newspapers, a lot of clippings, whole armfuls… He scatters them too… In among them, I see them all right… there’s a lot of banknotes… I see them in with the papers… I see them flying away… I dive to pick them up… I know how it’s done… Just then two toughs come charging up… They bang into the door with their shoulders… They push the crowd aside. They barge in. They jump the padre. They collar him from behind, they rough him up, they knock him over, they pin him to the floor… Ah, the poor bastard’s suffocating! He crawls under the table, groaning… “Police!” they inform us… They pull him out by the dogs… They sit on the poor guy…