North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “Mine too?”

  Le Vig was even less convinced than me … the “man from nowhere” wasn’t himself any more …

  “Why, of course, my dear Le Vigan! Yours too!”

  He saw we had our doubts …

  “Just a minute … I’ll ring them now …”

  A young lady … telefon! Polizei! he’s connected … heil Hitler! he starts in … in an undertone … the facts … and then our names … Le Vigan, Lili, and me …

  “There … that does it …”

  He hangs up …

  “You’ll have them in fifteen minutes!”

  There are times when an “in” with authority is very pleasant … blinking blubbering blazes! when you’ve got hyenas on your ass, there’s no place like the lion’s mouth … better than being torn to pieces by rats, relations, friends … and inamoratas … here in this underground Reichsgesundt, one thing at least, we had time to think … we didn’t on rue Lepic … Oh, not that I expected it to last … a week or two … what we need now is some sleep! but Harras wants us to eat first … he’s got plenty … he sends two smiling young ladies to bring us all we need … the smiling young ladies come back with platters of sandwiches … heaping! … and no black bread! … white bread and butter! … the works! … I see them … sandwiches … sandwiches … and then nothing …

  Talk about sleep, did they wake us up! … “attention! … attention! achtung!” … all the loudspeakers in every cellar, office, corridor … enough to smash your eardrums and the whole tunnel … attention to what? … Le Vig had dropped off in his chair … our “security” hadn’t lasted very long! … nor their comfort! …

  “Sounds bad, Ferd!”

  From up top, from die surface we could hear “whee-whee” … wailing sirens … and oh yes, the precise rat-tat-tat of small arms fire … they must be shooting … at what? …

  “Le Vig! … Where’s Lili? … you seen her?”

  She’d been in the other easy chair …

  “She went out with Bébert!”

  Christ, he’d let her go!

  “And you didn’t stop her?”

  “What about you?”

  Right … I should have been on my guard, tired or not … Lili’s mania for going out at any cost, forbidden or not, she didn’t give a damn … the wayward lass … she’d done it in Sartrouville, taken Bébert out for a walk by the Seine at eleven o’clock at night … the Germans were across the river on reconnaissance … naturally, her and her flashlight … they’d fired … zing! zing! we were leaving next day with the ambulance and the infants and the fire pump and the town records … seven trucks … Sartrouville … Saint-Jean-d’Angély … that incident of the Germans firing from the opposite bank … had given her a big kick … I’d given her a piece of my mind … to hell with my mind! … here now I’m sure she went out just because it was forbidden … and with Bébert … I grab my canes … Le Vig follows me … a staircase … the corridor … we climb … the tunnel … ah, just as I thought! isn’t this lovely! all hell burst loose! the air full of sirens! wheeee! an air raid? … I don’t hear any bombs … but xing! and rat-tat-tat! street fight? maybe it’s parachutists, real ones, not downs like us … sounds like rifles … right near … I start yelling …

  “Lili! … Lili! …”

  There she is!”

  Ah, she’s alive!

  “You hurt?”

  “Of course not … but Bébert won’t come out!”

  I yell some more:

  “Won’t come out of where?”

  There! There! that hole!”

  I hobble to the place … hell, Lili has her “torch”! blazing! … practically a searchlight! it lights up the whole park … people come running, at least ten … they look in the hole, between the bricks, under the brambles … ten “landsturms” with beards … Lili ignores them … she calls Bébert … he must be in that hollow … under the brambles … Harras! … here he comes … lucidly! … high good humor … and in a different bathrobe, orange and violet … he collects them! the truck he’s brought back from Lisbon … he could open a store! anyway we hand him a good laugh! … he points to the searchlight beams in the clouds, racing back and forth! crossing out the sky! full-scale alert! Lili and the Volkssturm started the whole thing! how deliriously comical! … how French! …

  “Ah, dear Madame! ah, my dear Céline! … Madame with her little lamp has alerted all the flach in Berlin! … ho-ho! … the ack-ack guns … they’re going, to fire! you’ll see! … ho-ho! … ho-ho!”

  I join in the laugh … why not?

  “The Volkssturm in the park mistook Madame for a parachutist! did you hear them? they fired into the bushes! two of them are wounded! ho-ho! ach! perfect idiots our militiamen! … scared stiff of Madame … and the cat! … they alerted the flach …”

  God’s truth … up in the clouds at least a hundred search light beams … north … south … east … looking for planes …

  “Our flach is idiotic too … as dumb as the Volkssturm! … why don’t they light up the holes? … over here! … over there! … Bébert isn’t in the sky! … is he, my dear colleague? … he’s under those bricks … I’ll give the flach a ring … they’re not far… Potsdam … they can do it … they’ve got a tower! … and a searchlight … for patrols … you know the place? … Sans Souci? ° …”

  “Telefon, Otto! … telefon!”

  Otto’s the officer from before … I see he’s got a big coil on his shoulder … he comes out … he unwinds … Harras takes the receiver …

  “Hier! … Hier Harras!”

  Harras talks … it must be rich … and he’s talking about us … to somebody in the flach … too funny! … ach! … ach! ho-ho! … the SS officer takes away the phone and the wire … right away the beams come down … from the clouds … on top of us … they slant down … first one … then three … then the whole lot … we can see fine … better than broad daylight … even through the bushes … a white light … even the soldiers are white and the piles of bricks, and Harras … in his bathrobe he looks like an enormous snowman, dazzling white … I ask him:

  “Are they going to fire on us now?”

  “Not yet! Not yet!”

  Hilarious! …

  Bébert intrigues him … where can he be? … damn feline! hell, there he is, right there! behind a tree … pleased as Punch … Lili had him on the leash … one jump … gone … another jump through the brambles … he looks at us … he’s got something … a rat! … the rat was still warm … he’d caught him by the neck … Harras looks at the rat, turns it over…

  “This one didn’t die of plague!”

  He’s got an idea:

  “Suppose we decorate Bébert?”

  With Bébert his toilette comes first! … he leaves us the rat … he starts with the tip of his tail… lick lick! one paw … then the other …

  Dumb Volkssturm alerting the whole flach … maybe, but Lili’s to blame too with her “torch” … Now Bébert’s putting on an act with his meticulous toilette … his nose, his ear … under the flach searchlights zeroed in on him and his rat…

  “He’s going to pass it over his ear …”

  One of the beavers announces …

  “If he does, it’s going to rain!”

  That’s the question! … this is important! the Volkssturms all agree … he finally does! … he does it again! … he even bends it! once! … twice! … shadow of a doubt! he’s done it!

  “Leutnant Otto! telefon!”

  Otto comes back with the coil … Harras is all abubble … he notifies them over there at the flach that it’s going to rain, that Bébert has bent his ear, that we’ve had enough of their searchlights, they should put them out … they comply … only the little “torch” … we go back down to our caverns … our sandwiches and easy chairs … a big thick bathrobe ready for each one of us … same super-Turkish as Harras … same as him red and yellow with flowers … we take off our duffel coats … whew! just time for a sandwich or t
wo … we could do with some sleep … even Bébert …

  Our papers were there, I’d forgotten, on each armchair, signed and stamped …

  Sleep … sleep … sure! … we’re half asleep already … Okay … but then a little worry … another … a thought …

  “Le Vig … Le Vig …”

  I whisper …

  “Did he tell you anything?”

  “No, but he will …”

  “Why? What makes you … ?”

  “My little finger!”

  Meanwhile we were pretty well off in this Reichsgesund basement … caverns on caverns, shower rooms, air-conditioned, neon lighting … matter of grub, all we needed, sandwiches, sandwiches, beet salad and porridge … drink department, only water and fruit juice … no beer … anyway, we were doing all right … considering who we were, what hung over us, I’d have settled for twenty years … life underground is like life in a submarine, you’ve got to pass under the pole, mat’s all … and come up right! … I could see us coming up very badly … no confidence … I didn’t ask Harras any questions … I could see he’d put us in “reserve” offices, deeper down than the others … no beds, but enormous sofas, must be from Lisbon too … he didn’t ask anything of us, only to speak French and correct his mistakes … he really didn’t speak badly, but he aimed at perfection, like Frederick …

  I’m really too old, my friends, and this war has been going on too long … I’m so fond of Versailles! that’s where I’d have liked to end my days …”

  At about noon we went up to take the air, we surfaced, but not for long, with Lieutenant Otto … Bébert too … à little walk … zigzagging between the rolls of barbed wire … a look at the Finnish baths, the bare-naked colleagues, who waved and smiled at us … they weren’t sore with me about the pineapple … did they suspect? … we took the path back in Lieutenant Otto’s footsteps: mines all over! … delectable park! … this time it wouldn’t be the flach! this time the boomboom and the flames would be us! … and goodbye! Back in the basement after our zigzag promenade we’d have a pleasant little chat with the young ladies, the secretaries … but never a word about the fronts, or the planes or politics! … we’d talk about Bébert, his little ways, had he caught any more rats? … the girls also spoke of the people who’d lived here up top before the war … all gone … the first families of Grünwald … the air raids, the ruins … To seem to be doing something I looked at the telegrams … it was all right with Harras … another cellar … the teletype never stopped … two cases of typhus near Tzara-Plovo … one case of “biliary” at Salamis … practically nothing … compared to the epidemics in ‘17 … same thing, Harras told me, on the enemy side … though they had India and the whole Near East! … they were tearing their hair out too … even with the valleys of the Euphrates … where even before Moses every time somebody set up an army the lousiest plagues descended! and here now the teletype: “Zero”! Before ‘18, the worst ferocious mystical cohorts, three four volleys you’d have peace! partly from thirst … three cans of water! … you’d find them all rotting away … now, no soap! … jackals fighting each other! … armies, millions of men in the desert, fresh as a daisy! even in stinking oases, putrid swamps, not a single case! give you an idea of the gloomy thoughts of the Russo-Yankee-Anglo-Boche “High Authorities” in Lisbon … “we’ve done too much inoculating, this war will never end!” … all alas agree! to show you that Harras had plenty of time on each trip to buy everything in sight, sofas, cushions, blankets, chickens en gelée, enough to hold out a hundred years in the cellars of the Gesundt … he was perfectly willing to talk shop … our epidemistic point of view … nothing virulated any more! … God’s truth! war by massacre makes a lot of noise but solves nothing! … when the microbes lose interest … endless conflicts, balloon juice … even an atomic war, I guarantee, will never end without microbes … from the depths of silence the virus attacks your monster army, two three weeks and there’s not a man on his feet, all puking … out flat! … their souls and guts … howling for Peace! there you’ve got something decisive, the real stuff I that’s what they were waiting for in Lisbon … how would all this end? … napalm, gas, sulfur … chickenfeed! the genuine eighteen-carat plague was played out! how could this rotten war … 1944 … ever end? … the viruses of the ages had let us down! marshals can do a lot, unleash lightnings and cataclysms … but they can’t stir up a microbe … the emperors can get together … make each other presents of so many tons of meat and soldiers, so many cities, provinces, cradles, hospitals, displaced persons, and charnel-houses that it’s really something new … new faces, new massacres … but that doesn’t stop the war! microbes on strike, the war goes on! millions and caillions under arms, ready for anything! … billions of useless fleas … two cases of typhoid in Zagreb! … one case of chickenpox in Chicago! … ‘twould daunt the bravest heart! even in the Vardar valley, where in twelve centuries no conqueror has ever kept an army on its feet, now hygiene, antisepsis … not one dead rat … not one komitadji ° with fever … fine fix, humanity … it’s not the marshals or diplomats that dictate peace, it’s fleas and rats … and now they’re washed up! … Well, Lili, mè, Bébert, and Le Vig, we had a little something extra, those warrants on our ass! not just from Paris, from Berlin too! … Harras to the contrary … I could see he wanted to talk to me, something was holding him back … All the same in those basements, after three days, we were feeling better … fuck the teletype! … plenty of sandwiches and mineral water, every comfort, deep soft sofas, three Turkish bathrobes apiece, and I’ve got to admit, perfect peace … but it couldn’t last… Taking advantage of the loudspeaker … military music and “news” … Harras whispers to me …

  “Tomorrow, Céline, well go and see a village not far from here …”

  I wasn’t going to ask him what for … we go back down to our pad … I tell Lili and Le Vig that we’re going on a trip next day … we expect the worst … we talk it over … what’s he got up his sleeve? … to get rid of us? …

  Seven o’clock in the morning we’re ready … he’d said seven … we could have slept some more … not exactly delighted with this expedition …

  Dot of seven Harms turns up in full uniform, dagger, decorations, braid, and boots …

  “I look silly, don’t I, colleague? … necessary where we’re going! Ho-ho!”

  Too funny for words!

  “You’re going to have us shot?”

  “Oh no, not yet!”

  That’s something … life goes on! … an enormous car … no wood burner … gas! … he takes the wheel … September … beautiful day … their countryside turns red in September … the leaves … getting cooler already … he doesn’t drive fast … we cross the whole of Grünwald, avenues of blasted villas … another park … and then meadows … and then big gray fields … where nothing grows … looks like ashes … not a friendly landscape … two … three trees … a farm in the distance … in between a peasant, hoeing, I think … Harras slows down and stops, he’s going to say something …

  “My friends, you’re going to see an old Huguenot village … Felixruhe … that’s the road, on the left … you’re not too tired? … three miles, no more!”

  “No! … No! … No!”

  We’re full of beans … Felixruhe, here we cornel … narrow road! … room for his Mercedes, but barely! … half a minute, here we are … looks like a Norman hamlet, Marcouville or some such, but really beat up, more holes than walls and roofs … brambles and moss coming out the doors and windows … scraps of thatch …

  “This is the Huguenot hamlet!”

  We can’t get to the other side, there’s a tiny little river in between … the bridge won’t take cars, too worm-eaten … a lot of people collect … from every hole, from the roofs and huts, from the fields … old people, especially women, and kids … the rest must be digging beets or mobilized … they’re all barefoot … and yapping … they come close … they touch the car … the windows … Harras doesn’t like
that … pfooey! pfooey! they should beat it! … he lets go the wheel … we’re out on the road … what have we come here for? … sight-seeing? …

  “It’s not Huguenots any more, you know! … all Poles! … you’ve heard them … the Slavic invasion! like your Berbers in Marseilles … naturally! … all Berlin to the Poles! … naturally! … travels of the nations! … this way! that way!”

  He points east, he points west …

  “You, it’s that way! … south! … north! …”

  He’d never have said such things in Grünwald … even joking … here he was in extra good humor … as though relieved of some anxiety … about what? …

  “Now, my dear sir, and you, Madame, if you don’t mind, you’ll wait here for us … I have two words to say to your husband … all these Poles are thieves, but they’re also afraid of their shadow, fortunately! … stay here in the car, they won’t come near you … two words to say to your husband, five minutes …”

  Nothing to do but follow him … it’s a mania with all those politicos … two words in private … a little stroll … maybe you’ll come back, maybe you won’t … I always ask them …

  “What now?”

  I see his enormous Mauser … but then the rod is part of his uniform …

  “No, no! not yet, Célinel Ho-ho! … just talk to youl impossible in Grünwald! all stool pigeons in Grünwald! maybe you’ve noticed?”

  “The young ladies?”

  “Of course! and the microphones! haven’t you found any?”

  “I didn’t look …”

  “Microphones all over! … under the tables! … every table! … every chair!”

  We hadn’t said anything improper … Lili, Le Vig, or me … nothing they weren’t welcome to listen to … what did we have to say? … nothing, except wondering what they were going to do to us … perfectly natural … in this sleigh ride we’d got into … Meanwhile where was he taking me? … the narrow road was widening out … almost an avenue … not like our hamlets at all… grandiose! … the same mud huts on both sides, ramshackle, crumbling … the windows and chimneys full of nettles … certainly nobody lived there … I ask Harras …