North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Fun or not, we’re going to crash! … plow up the fields! … but we’re getting there! … down a long hill … no more fields … ruins … on the right and left! … cobbles … I know the place … Grünwald … the gutted villas, the dangling balconies … here we are! … this is us! Reichsgesundt … on the ball now! these chicks might try a vanishing act! … Harras is hefty but quick … he jumps down from his seat … another jump! … he opens the door …

  “Stay there all of you! wait!”

  He orders lieutenant Otto to go get somebody … Frau … some name I don’t know … the frau comes out … I’d never seen her, graying, plumpish, in a blue uniform … not an encouraging face … I gather from what they say that she’s in command of something … Harras introduces our two young ladies … half a second they throw themselves on their knees … down on their knees again! imploring … same scene as in Felixruhe … this woman in blue, maybe the head laundress, speaks to them in their language, Polish … they answer with sobs, no more whoopie … still on their knees … there! there! … they motion toward the car, they’ve got something therel’there! … something they want to show her … no! … not … in back! farther back! … farther? … in the trunk? … what’s this? … they didn’t have a thing! … nobody saw them put anything in the trunk … we all go over … the whole bunch and Lieutenant Otto and all the Volkssturms and the frau and us … wouldn’t want the girls to do a fadeout! some business opening this trunk! … six bolts … three tires … we take it apart … what can they have hidden … in the bottom of the trunk? … ah, that’s it! a bundle! a big one! rags! … and inside a kid all muffled up! … sleeping! … a boy! … they’d slipped him in without anybody noticing … some punishment! … he doesn’t complain … all tied up in rags and string … he starts laughing when he sees us …

  “How old is he?”

  The girls don’t know … I’d say three … three and a half …

  “Who’s he belong to?”

  “He’s my brother!”

  Harras cuts her short …

  “They’re lying! all of them! always! … never fails, colleague …”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Thomas …”

  Thomas looks at us … we palpate him … we turn him over … we auscultate him … heart all right, no ganglia, no rickets, healthy kid … our feeling him makes him laugh … we look down his throat … nothing … the frau talks Polish to him, very gently … he laughs some more … a friendly kid … at us too … he points … he wants something … what? we look … in the bottom of his nest… in the trunk … a doll’s arm … that’s it! he wants it! … he walks off with it … he walks pretty well for his age, three, three and a half … he goes where he’s told, obedient … a little wobbly … he’s had quite a trip! … he walks around barefoot on the gravel, he holds out his doll’s arm to us … to the frau majordomo … and to Harras, and then to the Volkssturms … he wants us to play tool with all that bouncing he must have some bruises … we pick him up and feel him again … two three little black-arid-blue marks, nothing! strong kid! … Harras thinks enough is enough, the girls have cried enough, they should get up and take their kid away … they should all beat it!

  “Frau Schwartz! bitte!”

  Ah, that’s it … Schwartz … her name is Schwartz … she should take them away …

  “Goodbye, Thomas!”

  Our trip to Felixruhe hasn’t been a total loss … we’ve brought back some help …

  “I came back fast, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, pretty fast …”

  “But now it’s all over … it was necessary!”

  Anyway, I’ve got to admit, we didn’t come to grief …

  “Otto, if you please … butter brötschen! … sandwiches … platters … the works!”

  “This way, Madame!”

  I could see that Le Vig wanted to talk to me …

  “Later … later …”

  Yes, I grant you, anybody can recognize a fever, a cough, diarrhea, these obvious symptoms are for the general public … but only the subtler signs are of interest to a clinician … Fm getting to an age where, though I’m not a moralist, not at all, the recollection of petty crummeries, thousands and thousands of them, parallel and contradictory, gives me food for thought … which reminds me that I’ve been chided quite a lot for going on about my misfortunes, making a fuss … “Bah! the conceited ass, you’d think he had a monopoly on certain difficulties!” … Leaping lizards! yes and no! … how many insulting letters do I get every day? seven or eight… and letters of fulsome admiration? … almost as many … did I ask for either? no! never! … an anarchist I am, was, remain, and I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks! of course I’m not the only one who’s had “certain difficulties”… But what have the others done with their “certain difficulties”? … they’ve used them, at least as much as the opposite camp, to smear me with! exposed, vulnerable as I was … a perfect target for every possible kidney punch … you can imagine whether they took advantage! … this side and the other side! … alleged enemies … come and get it!

  “He laments!” … ‘sbodkins, I tell you, it’s not over! the Wailing Wall is solider than ever! two thousand years! … behold and wonder! … the Wall of China is a good deal older! … and the day it falls you’ll all be under it, powdered brick! …

  But let’s not lose you again! … we were in Grünwald … fruit juice, sandwiches, mineral water … caviar … marmalade … chicken … so good to us! … what was behind it? … but those divans were so puffed up, so bloated with cushions, that even with ihy rotten headache I couldn’t help falling asleep …

  It must have been two three hours later that Harras turned up …

  “Colleague, forgive me for waking you, if s necessary! … you do forgive me! Your degree! … I need it! I’d forgotten! your doctor’s degree! … a copy! … a photostat for the Ministry! for your license to practice! … I’ll run off the photostat! myself! right away! … we need it for tomorrow!

  “Perfect, Harras! … perfect!”

  He’s wearing a big thick bathrobe, green and red … I jump … he’s spoken in an undertone … I see Le Vig has disappeared … guess he’s gone to bed … Lili’s here, asleep … I rummage in the bag where I keep our papers … quite an archive … ah, here it is! … my degree! … 1924! … the back is covered with, police, seals … all those different places! “rolling stone!” … all I’ve gathered is trouble … I don’t make friends easy …

  “Well go to the laboratory …”

  “Where?”

  “Lower down … two floors … quiet now!”

  He doesn’t want to wake Lili … I didn’t know that laboratory … where can he be taking me now? … forebodings … if I get any more suspicious I’ll stop moving altogether …

  “Very well, Harras … let’s go…”

  “Lili, I’ll be back, I’m going two floors down with Monsieur Harras … take pictures … I’ll be back right away …”

  “Not very trusting!” Harras remarks …

  “No, my dear colleague, no trust at all …”

  Ho-ho! … I’ve made him laugh again …

  “You can talk down below! no mike down there! … not a single mike! … good old Céline!”

  Good old Harras! I can’t aggravate him … I can only be funny … he leads me down a little corridor … an elevator … two floors down … a big room full of machines … X-ray type …

  “Harras, you remind me of Ali Baba! … deep caverns … treasures! are there any more? I want to see everything!”

  “Certainly, Céline! certainly! but first your degree … allow me …”

  We’re in front of the machine … click! … doesn’t take long … click! click! click! … three times! my certificate and the police stamps …

  “Here you are, Céline, my untrusting friend! You see, I’m giving it back! … in no time!”

  Thank you … thank you …”

  I fold it up again … in four … in eig
ht … I put it into one of my musette bags … I’ve got four of them slung over my shoulder … I never leave them, never, I sleep with them … you realize of course that in times of disaster everybody gloms everybody else’s papers … leave your birth certificate on a table or a chair, you’ll never see it again … some other zebra someplace has stepped into your shoes, he’s you … from where I’m writing, my hangout here in Bellevue, I can see … the panorama … at least a hundred thousand houses, a million windows … how many of the people in there are hypocrites with papers that don’t belong to them? … not the people they’re supposed to be? … swiped other loves and other birthplaces? … and won’t be themselves when they die? take four, five more holocausts and a really first-class atomic one, everybody’ll have glommed everybody else’s papers, nobody’ll be himself any more … you’ll have fifteen … twenty-five Destouches, doctors of medicine … yellow red … Alsatian … Berber … your serious … decisive, profound transmigrations are based on the lifting of papers and if possible … the perfect transference! … on theft followed by murder plus the dismembering of the “original”! vanished without trace! silence! … how many silences on every floor? … armies of phony papers! … the whole panorama as far as Sacré-Coeur … who’s going to knock on a thousand doors … ?

  “Are you really yourself?”

  Like going to the Louvre to detect the forgeries … good , joke! …

  Let’s be serious … I was telling you about the “photo-scope” … he’d given me back my degree …

  “Céline, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the Reich administration is extremely meticulous … I’m sending an application to the ‘Interior’… for your license to practice … the minister has to pass on it … well, everyone … pay close attention, Céline … every single one of those bureaucrats at the Ministry of the Interior is anti-Nazi! … the minister too! and all the clerks! absolutely! same as all actors are anti the play they’re putting on! they abominate it! … every theater! … absolutely! … the same rage! … a hundred percent anti! you know all that!”

  “Well?”

  They’ll do everything in their power to mislay your file … and your license to practice! … a month … two months … a year…”

  “As long as nobody’s listening … that’s what you said, Harras, didn’t you? really … nobody?”

  “No! … no! … go right ahead! … do you good … no microphones here! … not installed! … not yet! … but soon!”

  “Well, Harras, since you’re giving me leave, I’d be glad to know how your Reich manages to survive …”

  “Same as all strong states, Céline! … war on all sides! … plots on all sides! … this Reich owes its survival to hatreds! … hatreds between marshals! … Air Force against tanks! … it’s not new with Hitler! … Navy against the Nazis! … the Interior against Foreign Affairs … a hundred other camarillas against another hundred … Athens, Rome, Napoleon … same thing … we know all that, Céline!”

  “Certainly, Harras! … but even so, a time comes when you need a few fanatics …”

  The fanatics are in Monsieur Goebbels’s Signal! ° … very few on the street …”

  “And in the, Army …”

  “The Army, you see, is the arena … in the arena you’re expected to die … am I right?”

  “Obviously!”

  “Well, listen to me, Céline, I’ve spent two winters at the front … in Poland … and then in the Ukraine … medical major … and then colonel … I’ve seen a lot of soldiers die of wounds, cold, disease … tell you they died happy? maybe happy it was overt … no more! … we need different soldiers, different men! … long and the short! … you tool … your last soldiers died in ‘17, ours tool . . today the Russians are still back in ‘14 … those somnambulating soldiers … that get themselves killed without knowing it … but it won’t last … you’ll see them in another war! … they’ll know! … our soldiers rushed into the fray in ‘14, French versus Boches! … now they want to watch … the Circus, sure, but from the stands … voyeurs the whole lot of them! … perverts!”

  “Undoubtedly, my dear Harras … the Montluc ° crowd for instance in his time …”

  Tap! Tap! Tap! … the door …

  The gray-haired supervisor … she wants to speak to him … he goes out … they whisper … she seems disgruntled … him, not at all… is! ts! ts! … he calms her down …

  I’ll take a look!”

  He tells me about it …

  “The woman is scandalized!… the Race, my dear colleague, the Race! … she’s an old maid! …”

  I drop Montluc … let’s look into the scandal! … the Race? … where? … who? … what? … I’ve got my little idea … the narrow corridor again and two elevators … straight to Le Vig’s office, his garçonnière …

  “Monsieur Le Vigan! are you there?”

  “I should think I’m here! and not alone!”

  A firm reply!

  “Splendid!”

  Harras knows … he’s delighted, or so it seems …

  “May I come in?”

  “Please do … push hard …”

  Harras pushes … and I see … we see … our Le Vigan in pink pajamas, flat on his back smiling … and our two little Polish chicks on their knees praying, under a crucifix on the wall … they’ve found a crucifix! …

  “You see, gentlemen, faith is faith! … certain barbarians can’t rest until they’ve desecrated the altars! pillaged the holy places! certain men are of another race, Professor Harras! they gather the lambs! … they save! look at me, Professor Harras! I save! I am one of those!”

  We look at him … pink pajamas … he’s pulled himself up, he’s standing on the sofa … speaking exalts him …

  “Professor, in this damp dungeon what do you find? … a sanctuary! … these little orphan girls are praying! for the end of all defeats, victories, deluges! This dismal repair, cradle of innocence! … Jesus!”

  A tirade …

  Sure as shooting, their little Thomas, all bundled up in blankets, was sleeping in an easy chair … all this doesn’t bother Harras in the least! … one thing he notices …

  “You see, Céline, the rascal! wasn’t I just talking about nature? … those pink pajamas are mine, I didn’t dare to wear them, the supervisor gave them to him! … very becoming!”

  Le Vigan looks at us … he’s the one that’s surprised … that we find all this perfectly natural … What now? the rest of the act! the outstretched arms! and the expression, the face of Christ!

  Harras concludes:

  “He’s seduced the supervisor!”

  No answer from me … he can seduce the whole world and then some if he wants to bother … but this supervisor is a very grim individual … rabid Nazi … Polish? … I ask Harras …

  “All I know is she comes from Brno, Moravia, Gross Deutschland … you don’t know Bmo? Brno’s everything! Nazi! Sudeten! Austrian! Russian! … and anti-everything! and Polish! … now she’s with us … she does very well in the laundry … runs it very strictly … and she likes pink pajamas … a fanatic? … maybe … we’ll see! … let’s get back to Le Vigan…”

  “Monsieur Le Vigan, you must smoke?”

  “I certainly must!”

  “An artist like you! chain-smoker myself! to forget my worries! … you’re an admirable Christ!”

  Le Vig jumps down from his divan, drops his pose … here he is with a cigarette, legs crossed, social … the two Polish prayer girls … they’re not praying any more … they get up too… they come and sit down. With Le Vig … they want to smoke! … Harras gives them a pack … two packs … of Luckies … happy, happy! … giggles! … their hair has been washed, natural wave, long, very long … and they’ve fixed up their rags very prettily, you wouldn’t recognize the grimy slovens! … charming! … Esmeraldas! must be Le Vigs advice … I can see them on the Place du Tertre ° … Harras has an idea …

  “Colleague, a word with you later … a slight change … you,
my friends, don’t smoke too much! a little, yes! … make yourselves plenty of sandwiches!”

  He shakes hands with Le Vigan … he kisses the two girls … and Thomas, who’s waking up in his chair … he takes me upstairs … next floor … another empty office … he closes the door carefully …

  “Céline, we’re leaving tomorrow morning … well tomorrow midday … you understand, I presume?”

  “Of course …”

  “I can’t trust that old maid … if she debauches poor Le Vigan, they’ll hear about it at the Chancellery … of course it’s not so bad! but why ask for trouble? … there’s been enough scandal! … the girls are all right, but that old lunatic! especially my pink pajamas! that I never wear! all that at the Chancellery, don’t you see, with comments! … you see me trying to explain! … and the crucifix! …”

  Impossible, Harras! impossible!”

  Sure thing, at noon next day … the big Mercedes … another farewell scene, hugs and kisses all around … the little Polish girls and Le Vigan crying … all very sad … the supervisor’s crying too … the Volksturms too … used to us already … the typists trot out loaded with bouquets, chrysanthemums, ivy … daisies, why not wreaths? … we pile into the Mercedes … we tear ourselves away from the embraces … Harras starts up … and off we go! … not the same road as Felixruhe … direction northeast … there’s the sign, Moorsburg a hundred kilometers, can’t go wrong, right fork, northeast … this must have been a good road, but all cracked up now … dangerous in fact … luckily Harras doesn’t drive fast … we pass through a suburb … two suburbs … fields … beets … alfalfa … not very hilly … almost flat … at fifteen mph we won’t break anything … we can hear the sirens … faintly, far away … alert … all clear … bombs too … bombs, the heart of war! … booom! oo-oo-oo

  “In two weeks it’ll be serious … you won’t see it!”

  I hadn’t said anything … I was thinking about his Moorsburg … lovely place it must be and some reception we’d get even with our big bouquets … I don’t care for the sticks and I know why … every stranger’s suspect, what could we look forward to? … and in Prussia? in France it would have been a lot worse, that’s for sure! … Moorsburg? … Harras’s high protection wouldn’t do us much good … probably make them bate us worse … did Harras have any illusions? I doubt it … he was getting rid of us … he had no choice … this place we’re headed for is a God-forsaken hole … he shows me on the map: Zornhof … a name to remember: Zornhof … map or no map, we were headed for disaster … not bad if we were extras, just extras … in two weeks the heavy bombing would start in again … he assured me … I couldn’t see why … our troubles were real …