North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “Yes … yes, of course!”

  “He has attacks … looks like tabes … but not tabes … the developments will show … very painful … besides he’s kind of psychotic, definitely, then he’s dangerous … rages … he wasn’t violent before … now he is … with his wife, with his little girl, with everybody, with you if he sees too much of you … I’ve given him the usual sedatives … then injections … and finally opium … in syrup … his heart’s giving out too … he’ll ask you to auscultate him … his wife Inge does all she can … I tell her … not too much medicine … we never know in these cases, do we? … Kracht will tell you … ah yes, I’d forgotten! … you haven’t seen her! … in the other tower over there! … Marie-Thérèse von Leiden, the old man’s sister … the other tower … Baronin Marie-Thérèse! … she doesn’t see her brother, or her nephew over there, or especially her niece Inge! … she lives by herself, everything she needs, she gets it herself in Moorsburg, she does her own cooking, afraid of being poisoned … she only goes out on Thursdays … to Moorsburg … and on Sunday to play the organ … maybe you’ll go to church … Pastor Rieder! … anti-Nazi! … she plays pretty well … you can hear her playing the piano in her tower, she’ll invite you, she’s very nice when she wants to be … she talks French, brought up in Switzerland … all the young ladies of good family in those days …”

  He sums up:

  “Now you know everything … watch out for the Kretzers … any hostility, Kracht will phone me …”

  “Splendid, my dear Harras, I understand …”

  “And my little paper … don’t forget!”

  “Your little paper is my only thought!”

  “Glad to hear that! … Good old Céline!”

  A spell of ho-ho’s! … we’re sooo funny! … we shake hands …

  “All my apologies, Madame Céline! forgive me! do forgive me!”

  I go down with him … to see him off … it’s all right with him … Kracht is out front with two big suitcases, bulging …

  “You’re not taking the documents, Harras?”

  “Never fear! all this is food! chickens! butter! hams! From you I have no secrets!”

  “Harras, you’re a real friend!”

  They stow away his enormous suitcases … he starts the engine … the clutch! Hitler salutes …

  “You’ll remember, Céline?”

  “Sure thing! … and take it easy!”

  Kracht shakes hands with me … the first time … he’s not a mixer … he goes up to his place … and me to my tower … there’s the car in the distance …

  And farther … much farther … a lot of little ping pings! … their “passive defense” … no warnings here … here it’s with a bugle … they’ve told me … Hjalmar the village beadle makes the rounds … he’s older than old von Leiden … when it’s an emergency, he beats the drum … we’ve only had one emergency alarm, a mistake … a German plane from the field nearby had crashed on top of Platzdorf … Platzdorf is halfway between Moorsburg and us …

  Le Vig came up to our room … not very encouraging what we’d heard about this Zornhof, the manor and the farm and the von Leidens … and this Kracht, the SS pharmacist and chief flatfoot … or the personnel of the Dienstelle … Harras had got us off his hands … the long and the short … better deal in Grünwald … but then again maybe not… maybe we’d be better off in Zornhof … when you’ve got no choice but to do as you’re told, you can only hope, you’re an animal …

  That’s how it is with people today … the coming sputnik has got them all down … any old mine shaft, pit-gas or not! anything! they’ll settle for anything, but not for the sputnik! … hell! they’ll “volunteer” to load the little carsl … they’ll demand their turn! … all those people have been riding pretty high since ‘44 … the party’s Over! … the gangsters are through! … ourselves there in Zornhof, we were stuck … at everybody’s mercy … all those people around us, prisoners, local Krauts, Russians or Polacks had the darkest intentions … our goose was in bad shape! … Ditto in France, where all our brethren were waiting for us, in Brittany and Montmartre, to grind us into shreds … really gay! little Esther ° had the whole world with her, we had the “whole world against us … little Esther Loyola made her movie in the attics of Autredam … nobody asked us to make any movie … the clink and silence! … all-out propaganda in favor? imposture! … you got to show the other side, the shame and the ruin …

  Around the “Minus” ° we talked it over … what to do … what not to do under any circumstances … just about everything! … what we’d observed, one or the other of us … our impressions … not so hotl .. .well, we’d see in the morning … meanwhile a couple of leftovers … Lili had saved two slices of black bread from dinner … so had I … Le Vig had some celery and bread pulp … we pool and share … the spiders come and look, they thread down from the ceiling they give us the eye … and zzz! they roll back up again … curiosity! … true, we’ve moved in on them … Le Vig thinks hell have a look downstairs, in his cell, but he wants me to go along … okay! … all three of us in that case … we leave Bébert … we take a candle … we pass the rooms where the Dienstelle secretaries live … we don’t see much, only a bit of light under each door … whisperings … and radio voices … there’s no juice … battery radios … the Dienstelle ladies must have little parties, all by themselves in the ever rung … a time for everything, even for minding your business … we keep on going … down the big stairs … we call Iago … advance notice … it’s okay, he growls but not much … he’s hardly heard us … he lets us by … on to the cell … As many spiders as in our place … we pass Iago again … and we’re back on our ticks … we try to forget our worries … and sleep … but this is the worrying hour! the world of the Greeks, the tragic world, worried every day and every night … same difference for outlaws … the new world, the communo-bourgeois, sermonizing, Tartuffian, automobilistic, alcoholic, gluttonous and cancerous world, has only two anxieties: ass and bank account … the rest is fluff! Prolos and Plutos united! Perfect harmony! … us there, hunted beggars, no business sleeping … our business was thinking of slip-ups … what we should and shouldn’t have said … deep thinking … a very small slip-up can throw you … Le Vig down in his cell must have been thinking pretty hard too … Bébert was the only nonthinker, up to us to wear out our gray matter … one animal to another, he was happier than we were … I drop the talk, I lie still … I’d like Lili to sleep a little … I can he awake for hours … I’m used to it, I listen to the clatter in my ears … I know how to wait for daylight … the slit up there turns gray … then pale … you can’t expect much more, this is September … it must be about six … I won’t wake Lili … I’ll go see Le Vig … but what about coffee? I’ll ask him … where? … at the farm? … maybe hell know … I go down barefoot … Iago again … sleeping flat on the stone … he growls a bit… he lets me pass …

  Le Vig’s awake too … I ask him if he’s thought about coffee … he’s thought about it all right! … well go see! … not to the farm, out there in the corridor … there’s some kind of a secret kitchen, he’s sure, second or third door … we bang, we knock … he has designs, there are four of them, three Russian women and one of the old man’s kids … nobody answers … Iago growls … our knocking … the others must get it delivered to their rooms … secretive bitches, everybody for himself! … and the old man … he has his kitchen in the cellar! … rolls … sure as shit they all get rolls! … But Le Vig now … what did he use for light? matches! … he shows me, he gives me a box … he’d got to bed on three matches … we had the candle too, but it’s dangerous! … lucky we didn’t go up in flames! … But now we’re looking for rolls … an idea, maybe they’ve got some at the farm! … Le Vig gets dressed … well, his shoes … we hadn’t undressed in a long time … doesn’t take him long, we’re outside, it’s cool in the park … first bend in the walk we run into some convicts … they look like convicts … a dozen of them p
utting pine logs in place … what are they doing? who are they? … I’ll ask them … too late, a soldier butts in, a real soldier SS … middle-aged … he asks me what I want … who we are … not friendly … I tell him we live in the manor house, up there in the tower … French refugees … we’re going over to the farm to see if we can’t get something hot … he softens … glad to give us some coffee but they had theirs at four o’clock, him and his convicts … none left … he turns the can upside down, he shows me, not a drop! … four o’clock their reveille! … he reaches into his pocket and comes up with an enormous black steel watch … half past six! … even on our best behavior, nose to the grindstone, we’re all loafers … the only real workers are convicts … up before dawn … these fellows were really slaving … we could see … building some kind of an isba, at least a hundred by a hundred, all out of pine logs … propped up on joists! they must have a sawmill … I ask the SS-man … not here, the other end of the village next to the dance hall … Tanzhalle! … seeing the SS-man is thawed, I ask him who they are … “Gospel Workers” … I’d heard of them … so that’s what they are! … big-bellied carpenters, “conscientious objectors” … if they’d been French they’d have been shown where they got off with their Bible and objections … I say to the SS-man …

  “Hitler is good! . . … in France, kapout!”

  “Ja! ja! hier auch! Here too!”

  And he pats bjs big Mauser … joyfully! … we laugh! … we’re friends …

  “Heil! Heil!”

  I put it to him …

  “We’re going over to the von Leidens, maybe they’ve got some coffee …”

  “Sicher! sure, thing!”

  That does it … we go … across the park and the barnyard … the barns on the left, the pigsty … and the big beet silos that smell so bad … the cement walks around the manure pond that smells even worse … they’ve put everything into this yard … plus geese, ducks, and chickens … probably so they can look out from the house and see what goes on … I don’t see our “compulsories,” the two Frenchmen, Léonard and Joseph … I hear Russian songs … women and children … barefoot … and men in boots … they cross the yard … they motion to us … they shout something … friendly? … no, they look angry … but enthusiastic! … must be going out to spade and hoe … out there on the plain … all you can see is mounds of potatoes … little ones, big ones, long ones … all the way to Moorsburg … the whole horizon … that’s where they’re going … who are they? Harras had told me … all Russians picked up in the Ukraine … brought here as so-called volunteers … whole; villages … Ivan at the Steinbock was a volunteer too, from Siberia … and the “bibelforscher” convicts? fat … Le Vig notices it too … big bellies! … and strong! the stuff they lift, we’d be out flat! who were the isbas for? another complication … for Finnish doctors, “collaborators” like us … coming here to rest … maybe the ones from Grünwald? … Harras had told me, I’d listened with half an ear … the truth is our war had spawned all over Europe … later on in Copenhagen I saw whole cells full, whole floors jampacked with traitors, every age and color, Belgians, Yugoslavs, Lithuanians, Latvians, stateless heretics, Mongols on the mother’s side, father from Asnières, the tutti-frutti ragtail of a hundred conquering armies and supply trains, all in a muddle … here now I was wondering if these colleagues were going to build another hot-cold sauna … that’s it! Le Vig was positive! this time I had no hand grenade to slip into their swimming pool … One thing I wanted to know … who fed these convicts?

  “Come! … well go ask the SS-man …”

  He tells us … they’re doing all right … everything they need in the kitchen of the Tanzhalle … he eats with them … macaroni, celery, carrots, cabbage … all they want … nothing like our mahlzeit! … once in a while they even throw in a goose or a chicken for the taste … where do they get them? … I ask …

  “They find them on the roads … run over! …”

  Not bad! an item to remember! … there’s no traffic on the roads … for the moment we’re looking for a bit of coffee … we tell him: we’re going to the farm … the park with its gracious walks is freezing! and damp! our teeth chattering so bad we can’t talk … we say goodbye to the SS-man … he reminded me of Passage Choiseul with its wash boilers full of noodles … the only dish allowed, plain boiled noodles … no smell … kitchen smell is the terror of lace-makers! … I was raised, I can say, my whole childhood and adolescence, in sweat and boiled noodles … the bibelforscher, for different reasons, got the same diet … the SS-man hadn’t invited us, but maybe he would later on … I didn’t say anything to Le Vig, but he was certainly thinking along those lines … ah, here we are at the farm … at the kitchen door … we knock! hard! … no answer! … like at the manor … all right, well drop in on the son … we take the litüe staircase … if we’re thrown out, we’re thrown out … what’ll we say? … that we’ve come to apologize for yesterday, they’d invited us and we’d got the date wrong … put up a front … I smell coffee! … something! … real coffee! … maybe they’ve thought of us … don’t make me laugh! … knock! knock! … we knock some more … herein! the little drawing room … they’re sitting at a little square table … the’cripple and Inge … laying out cards … Nicholas is there too … the Russian giant that totes young von Leiden, he’s standing behind his chair … they’re telling fortunes.

  “What have you come for?”

  Peevish right away … just what I expected.

  “Petit frühstück? breakfast? …”

  I was going to say rolls … I saw a whole big basket full … he doesn’t let me finish …

  “Frau Kretzer is in charge of you … not us!… not here!”

  His wife Inge is gentler … she explains …

  “Forgive him! … he’s worn out … he’s been in pain all night! … I’ve sent my daughter Cillie over … with the milk … for you … you’ll find it…”

  She chucks us out, to be sure, but more politely … what we want is coffee! milk? we’ll see …

  “Okay, but the cards?”

  Le Vig is furious …

  “What about the cards?”

  “What do they say?”

  “They say you’re getting out of here! On the double!”

  Quick on the uptake that stinking cripple! we split, we don’t say goodbye … We’re down in the ygrd again … back where we started …

  “There must be a bakery someplace … or a grocery store … or a bar.”

  “We can try …”

  Where could it be? … from the yard we see a steeple … if it were France we’d find something around the church … we go that way … not a soul in the street… only geese, whole flocks … they all look alike … they rush us, beaks forward, necks on the horizontal … cackle cackle! we get by … their rage is over … off they fly … to the big ponds … deep, muck and sand … I said street, more like a road … wide as an avenue … everything is big in that country, enormous hamlets … lanes like avenues … this village was really impressive, the’ road’s as wide as the Champs-Elysées … thatched Huts, but three four times as big as ours … really outsized … plains that have no reason to end … every little rise you see another! and another! … Harras had made a joke of it, a Boche kind of joke, but very true …

  “You see this plain, this sky, this road, these people! … sad, aren’t they? … Russian! … sad! … as far as the Urals! … and then some!”

  … a hamlet … a hollow … another hamlet … geese … plowed fields … we at least had a landmark, the steeple, the clock … nine … we head that way … have they got a food store? … it must be open … two three dogs bark at us … I see that this extra-wide road circles around Zornhof, but in two parts … it forks at the first huts and comes back together at the end … and goes on straight as a die … on and on … landscapes like this are made for Russian music, bands with sleigh bells … Cossack regiments receding into the distance … but that steeple? … ah, he
re’s the church! nothing like Felixruhe, this church isn’t coming apart … perfect condition … and a whole bevy of kids cleaning up … scrubbing the pews … girls and boys … having a helluva time! … not surprised to see us! … they make motions … a game they want to play … them on one side of the pulpit and us on the other … to see who can scrub more and faster … on with the housecleaning!… teach us some Russian … I listen … Russians and Boches … some Poles too … all together … making war on each other, but not our war … they’ve got the right spirit though … they want us to come into their war … and learn their war cries … lourcha! ° lourcha! that seems to be for us … I step in … where’s the pastor? … I ask the ones that speak German … “He’s out with the bees” … ah, at the hives … we leave them … in fact we run … got to, they’re throwing things … every thing in sight, brooms, buckets, brushes! … at us! they don’t like us any mote, we won’t play … that must be the parson age right there … that house … neat, freshly painted, win dows open wide … little girls looking out … happy as larks … laughing … I ask them where the pastor is … they understand us …

  “Where’s the pastor?”

  “With the bees.”

  “Out there?”

  We point to the garden …

  “No … no … far … far …”

  They’re cleaning up the parsonage same as the others in the church … but this bunch aren’t so rough … they don’t throw their brooms and brushes at us, they could, we’re right under them … at least four to a window … they ask us to come up … oh, they’re a little suspicious all the same … later on, in prison, I met German soldiers who’d fought the Russians in the forests east of Trodjem, they’d captured some girls, very dangerous chicks, sharpshooters … their trick … perched up in the trees they could recognize an officer six thousand feet away, dressed exactly like the men, all in white, it didn’t help … they never missed! ping! one shot, bull’s-eye! … instinct! the female knows … same with she-dogs … who’s in command! … take Joan of Arc at Chinon … Charles VII in disguise …