North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Little by little, Roger fills me in … and proves to me that submitting any of my white elephants to the Figaro immobilier ° or the television, or even the corner bar … even on a ten-foot pole … would be a very risky business, much riskier than murdering three shepherdesses, two retired colonels, and a postman!

  Roger’s not kidding, I’ve seen reporters come out here and run away screaming dropping everything! briefcases, cameras, hats! … beside themselves! in a panic!

  Of course I know all that … since rue Lepic I’ve known that I’m not at the end of my troubles! the crux of my hard luck is that all the “strong” are against me … a few of the “weak” are on my side, but I’d rather they kept quiet, they’ll only make more trouble for me … but suppose somebody wanted to snap up one of my ballets!… if I can spare it! … wouldn’t that be nice? … or better still, do a movie of Journey … long wait ahead of me! … you’ve got to have a butter-and-egg man up your sleeve! … hell! … they’re all “anti” … and how!

  Roger knows it, admits it, deplores it … same with the Encyclopedia, ° though Achille publishes it …

  “Never! never!… maybe … maybe? … when he’s dead!”

  I call on you to judge, just the immediate future, with prices sky-rocketing the new franc, only three months of summer, the coal consumption! … we’ll see! tons! … I’d chuck it all, my novels and the rest … and think about retiring … hell, I’m pretty much entitled! work … work … for bosses, for my patients, for the glory of France … as far back as I remember, ever since grammar school … high time for me to take it easy! … a son of the people ° twenty-five times more than you know who, 75 percent disability, why wouldn’t I throw in the sponge? …

  “Don’t get discouraged, Ferd! In a way, yes, you’re right! Yes yes! storms, hurricanes! but you bore people with your complaints! the giants of the pen … all of them … when they wake up in the morning and look at themselves in the mirror, they ask themselves: ‘Am I more of a bore than yesterday? or less?’ … they keep tabs! you’re blackballed from the movies … yes! … expunged from TV! … called every name in the calendar by Cousteau, Juanovici, Thorez … and the ‘poor of Emmaus’ … and in Neuilly and on Avenue des Ternes … wherever the spirit bloweth … in Montmartre, in every urinal, salon, and clip joint … Arago, Roquette, Bois de Boulogne … but give up? are you going to give up?”

  “No, Roger, never!”

  “Have you thought of the comics?”

  Well, no, I hadn’t …

  “Comics, heavens alive! … more important than the atom bomb! … the super-sensation of the day! … Renaissance, bah! … The quattrocento is out … phooey! … comics! comics! in ten years there won’t be anything else … a oneway trend! … Sorbonne, high school, grade school! … you’ve never tried?”

  “No … no, Roger, but maybe I could learn …”

  He saw, that I wasn’t quite convinced …

  He insists …

  “Take Achille, you know him, you know how young he is? … recently, I mean! … how forward-looking! … well, he’s given up his TV! … he spends hours on end in the toilet, hypnotized by the comics! … they put him in to do his business and they’ve got to tear him off the seat, he’s stuck, he won’t move … you know how tight he is? …

  “A prodigy!”

  “Well, get this! he robs the errand boys! … he swipes their newspapers! … for the comics!”

  “Say! That’s something!”

  Roger’s no idle talker … man of action! …

  “How much have you got there?”

  “About a thousand pages …”

  He was talking about this same manuscript … North …

  “Can it take illustrations?”

  “I think so … sort of …”

  “How much more to come?”

  “About the same, I think …”

  “I’ll get you an artist … there must be one who’ll take it on … your fortune! … but get this, Ferdinand! … three four pictures a chapter … ‘contracted’ chapters … three lines to fifty of yours … you understand?”

  “Are you kidding? … do I understand the package-label style! … you’ll see … Roger! … you’ll see if I’m with youth and the future! Achille won’t ever go out again! he won’t ever leave his office, or his bed, or the crapper!”

  Comics? … Comics? … an artist? I’m not really convinced … he won’t find one … some obliging “comer-backer” … the ones I know have denounced me from every direction, they’re scared vicious … comics, though … I read them as a kid … in seven colors … Les Belles Images, 10 centimes … but even contracting my book to the limit, I don’t quite see how it could sell considering the present state of the newsstands and bookstores … all puking up returns … the public’s in such a hurry, so blasé, so alcoholic, so tired … they don’t read any more … oh, maybe some little fruit story? … madness in the nursery? … the confessions of a sexhilarated governess? … which makes me look pretty sick with my tales of flames, phosphorus, and earthquakes …

  I was telling you about Inge, the cripple, the bibelforschers, the Kretzers, our mahlzeit of lukewarm water soup in the tall gloomy dining room under the portrait of the guy who was to set himself on fire a few months later … heil! heil! all the others pretended to like the soup … like us … they asked for more … like us … they had to, the typists and bookkeepers … a display of optimism and high morale … Kracht, the SS pharmacist, Herr Kretzer, director of the Archives-in-Hiding, his wife the nervous weeper, and the three of us … we all took second helpings of that splendid succulent soup! … you wouldn’t get us to turn it down! … the little hunchback too … she smacked her lips … she’d stopped going to Berlin, she’d stopped bringing back fish, she hadn’t seen her parents in months … their impregnable bunker had taken a haymaker … cracked, split, and splattered … with her parents in it! … good subject to steer clear of … The lukewarm soup in the dishes rippled and trembled … tiny little waves … from the pounding and clobbering … of Berlin, I’ve told you about it, seventy miles away! not just the soup, the glasses of water too and the portrait of Adolf … in its gilt frame … we weren’t getting any more “communiqués,” but we could tell by the soup and the glassware that it was coming closer every day … the Russian armies, I guessed … most of the ruckus came from the east … probably catching Berlin in a pincers movement … they’d be here pretty soon … they’d send their reconnaissance … maybe a tank … When you’ve been listening to bombs for a while, you end up thinking you’re important and that all the armies in the world are converging on Zomhof … hamlet, huts, and cowflop … you go nuts very fast … better concentrate on the tobacco in the cupboard … I dove right in … Luckiest Navy Cut! … Craven! … not for myself, of course, for the others, every day two three packs … you get into the habit … I distributed them … six cigarettes for Kracht in bis holster, on the hatrack where he’d told me … naturally they were all in the know … tobacco! sniff! sniff! … exactly what he wanted, I’m no sap, for me to dip into the cupboard and everybody to know … if Harras came back, we’d see!… as long as I was helping myself for Kracht, why not for messkits … the SS guard in charge of the dance-hall kitchen knew all about it too … he preferred Navy Cut … oh yes, and our grocery woman too, for our bread and ersatz honey … every evening five or six Camels … I could afford it … it would take me at least three years to run through the stock … not to mention the rest of it, the cognac, caviar, pernod, chianti … I didn’t know exactly how much, anyway plenty! … nobody else seemed to have touched die stuff, I certainly wasn’t going to give the show away … they’d have taken that cupboard by storm! … at the rate I was going, three four packs a day and a few cigars, the war would be over before I was finished …

  As I was saying, at the dinner table, at the mahlzeit ceremony, the secretaries and Kracht took second helpings of soup, same as us … we didn’t make faces, certainly not, they … well, just a lit
tle … For maximum zeal Kracht starts shrinking his moustache … thinner than the Führer’s … three hairs … the whole table commented, not out loud, but worse, in whispers …

  Consuming the lukewarm soup wasn’t enough … we had to converse too … every day we had to show perfect morale … comment on the news … Frau Kretzer was our gazette … where did she get the dope?… she never told us … the latest news: their Revizor, ° the Inspector General for Brandenburg, had left Berlin three weeks ago, he must have got lost … and they couldn’t stir a finger without him, the Dienstelle accounts just had to wait … not a trace! … he was supposed to be coming via Moorsburg … maybe he’d been detained somewhere … but where? … by whom? …

  Quick, another subject … when Frau Kretzer wasn’t crying she was cutting up, horsing around in a way that was kind of embarrassing, for the men, I mean … this time it was about the covered wagon in our park … had the gentlemen gone to see? and what did they think of it? … the Gypsy girls … so pretty! … eyes like glowing coals! what did the bookkeepers think? … and Kracht? not the one who had come up to our tower, that foul-mouthed virago who had kicked Le Vig and me out … no! … different ones! charming little girls … precocious! … curves! … lascivious! … absolutely Oriental! … and the breasts on them!

  “Did you resist, Kracht?”

  He hadn’t been there …

  “Oh yes you were!”

  The secretaries laughed, they’d seen him … he protested …

  “Nein! nein!”

  “Ja! … ja!… ja!”

  He defied them to prove it! the Kretzer bitch kept at him …

  They call each other every name in the book … there’ll be dishes flying in a minute!

  I step in … Kretzer is dangerous!

  “The three of us will go over …”

  I mean me and Lili and Le Vig …

  “Well tell you if they’re good-looking …”

  Then we’d be posted … mostly I wanted to find out if the insolent slut who’d been up to our tower was a man or a woman… I’d get her to come out of her wagon … and tell us some more about the “black house” … and our future … Gypsies get around, but I didn’t think they had any Lucides … tobacco’s better than gin, better than butter, better than gold in fact … when you want information … the sulkiest sour-puss will open up if you take out a pack … no words needed! … and a box of matches … if you’re going to play the tempter, you’ve got to know what you’re doing … First we put Bébert in his bag, I didn’t want to leave him with the Kretzers … or the little Polish elves … or the bookkeeper … just a suspicion … that they’d do away with him! … those people didn’t like animals, they didn’t want any dogs or cats on the farm … except Iago downstairs … he was useful, to haul the old buzzard around and exhibit bis ribs, to show that famine reigned at the manor …

  We get up … goodbye all around … they give us heil! heil! …

  The wagon’s not far … a hundred yards to the left … Christ! … the “conscientious objectors” are building another isba! … they’re indefatigable! … ah, there’s the wagon right next to it! … absolutely cockeyed-looking and patched all over … every color, speckled yellow … purple … pink … camouflage effect … on purpose? … but what’s it like close up? … we go over … an old man’s looking at us out of a little window … he opens up …

  “What do you want?”

  He speaks French … he must know who we are … kinky white hair … not friendly … he speaks German, but funny German, not the Gypsy accent … he hisses … in German and French …

  “Fas follen chie? … fous êtes franchais?”

  “Yes … yes … that’s us!”

  “Ponjour!”

  I pull out the Luckies! … Virginia tobacco! … I had them ready …

  “Ah, allumettes! franchaiges too?”

  Must be from Auvergne …

  I hand him the box … he can keep them … he calls into the wagon.

  “Zénoné! … Laïka … Sinül!”

  The three of them … and a lot more … come to the windows … to look at us … they must have been working in back … usually Gypsies work in the open, not these … I see, they’re repairing chairs … to judge by the voices … men and women … there must be a lot of them … is that Hungarian they’re talking? … or Czech? … ah, I see the faces … especially the women … young, I’d say … but not pretty! … la Kretzer didn’t look very hard! yes, the Oriental type, as far as I can see, but very run-down … messy hair … messy and oily … not irresistible in the least … worse than the Russian maids … the Russian women are overworked too … but their skin holds up … no matter how much they dig and hoe, outdoors in every kind of weather, sleet, wind, and sun … not these Gypsies! … you’d think they’d been daubed with sulfur … the men too, and swarthy besides … the old geezer wore earrings … the women had no jewelry … I don’t think they all spoke the same language … anyway they were packed in … I didn’t see our fortuneteller … were they all repairing baskets and chairs? … I ask them … they don’t speak German … only the old man … sprechen nicht! that’s all they know, and gestures … nein! nein! they must be forbidden to speak German … don’t they ever get out of their wagon? … the call of nature? … and their grub? … I didn’t see any cook pots … do they all sleep on top of each other? … are they worse … or better housed than us? they haven’t got much more light, that’s for sure … right against the isba and under those big trees … But where’s the entrance to this wagon? … on the other side? … not so sure that it’s chairs and baskets … could they be doing something else? … none of our business, they’ll just throw us out! … But if they talk through the blinds, maybe they’ll open them a crack … I take another look at this wagon … it’s long … at least thirty windows … a monument! … and cockeyed … three four sections … lots of wheels! with balloon tires … it runs on motors! two of them! an enormous wood-burning engine in back … comics Roger wanted! … a picture of this would do it! four little chimneys … must be their kitchen … I hadn’t seen everything yet … on the other side more portholes … and enormous hooks … about twenty … One of the Gypsy girls appears … to see what we want … oh, very friendly! … big smile … teeth missing … she shows us a tambourine … she bangs on it … pom! pom! … she must be a dancer! … ja! ja! … well go and see her … once more around … really a weird contraption, patched all over … tin, wires, string … and painted pink, yellow, and green … plus designs … symbols … arabesques … I’ll ask the old man … if he’s still there … oh yes, same window … he doesn’t hear me, he’s not listening … he’s playing the fiddle … not bad … Gypsy style, but not bad … they must be rehearsing … well see them at the “Strength Through Joy” show … at the Tanzhalle … we make friends through the window … the rest of them, the girls, are sullen … except the dancer with the tambourine tike old man looks at Lili’s hand, he feels her fingers … “cholie bague!” pretty ring! rupies! rupies! … me rupies too! … he hadn’t shown us, he’d turned it around, palm side up … a ruby! and an emerald! … he shows us the next finger, a sapphire … and on his little finger a “blue tiamont” … he exhibits them all! … “how mooch your rupy, pretty lady? you no vant sell?” and in a whisper “dey steal it!” I can see this old-timer does more than play the fiddle, he’s a jeweler too …

  But the woman that came up to our place … I still don’t know what she was … a man with a wig? … and so rude … wonder if he knows her … and what she does in addition to cards and table turning … a fink for sure! I ask him …

  “Oh, she dell vortune …”

  He laughs … he won’t say any more … they’re all yacking inside! … in Russian … and German … and Spanish too, I think … Oh, they didn’t ask us in … all one tribe? or several? … how many of them? … this bus is long and wide, but even so, don’t they ever come out? … I ask them …

  “Don’t you
ever come out?”

  “Oh yes! … yes, Monsieur! … all together!”

  I’d like to see them all together …

  “When do you come out?”

  “Oh, I don’t know!”

  Blarney! … I’ll ask Kretzer, she’ll know … what’s true and what’s hot air … one thing is sure, they’re oily, they’re filthy, and they’re Gypsies, which makes them sworn enemies of the Reich, dyed-in-the-wool traitors, so how come nobody bothers them? … “travel permit” stamped and signed, Kracht showed me … more than we’ve got! … and when they leave their wagon, what do they do? … Gypsies or not, Hungarians, Walachians, or what have you, what do they do? … repair beehives? … we didn’t see any on their hooks … not a beehive, only chairs and a few baskets … eyewash if you ask me …

  “Goodbye, grandpa! We’ll all come to the show!”

  “Yes, come … it’ll be peautiful, choli!”

  “Okay, grandpa!”

  We shake hands … only one woman comes to say goodbye, the one with the tambourine … she even blows kisses at us! … she must be the dancer … she’s got castanets too, not just a tambourine … she gives us a roll of the castanets, out through the window … trrr! trrr! I say to Lili: “see if you can borrow them!” … Lili doesn’t feel like it … I insist … Esmeralda calls the others for the laugh, she thinks Lili doesn’t know how to play them … pretentious hussy! … she wants them all to give us the raspberry … oh no! Lili slips the strings over her fingers and trrr! damn sight better than her! … show them what a real artist can do! … runs! … trills! … pizzicati! lightly! lightly! … they’re flabbergasted … at every window … applauding! they’re wild! … “encore! … encore!” they want more … the old man too … he’s shouting … really appreciative … more, more! … piano! … piano! … and forte! … forte! … furioso! … he must be the conductor! anyway, he’s a connoisseur … the whole forest echoes … trrr! a really magnificent echo for those tiny castanets … the bibelforscher carpenters, who don’t go in for amusement, all the time toting their logs and going back for more, stop work and come over … those heavy-duty convicts put down their picks, their planes, their tools, and listen to Lili … trrr! … trrr! … quite a crowd, it seems to me … maybe we ought to be shoving off … how right I was! … here’s Kracht crossing the little road … and farther away, a lot farther, I see Cillie von Leiden, and two Russian women, their servants, I think … golly! … a lot of people! … and Inge … all coming out of the woods, leaving … and more people in the distance … no idea what they are … but little Cillie, the two servant girls, and Inge, I’m sure! … where can they have been? … an ideal maybe inside the wagon while we were talking outside! … maybe the four of them had been having fun in the wagon! they hadn’t come to the manor … I don’t say anything to Lili … Kracht was there on our account … to see what we were up to … and bring us back to the table … he didn’t want us there chewing the fat … tomorrow! … tomorrow … we’d all go with them to gather willow switches … an expedition … stems and twigs … to mend the chairs with … not just us … the whole Dienstelle would come, typists, bookkeepers, cashiers, and the Kretzers … the whole office staff … plus Kracht! … by the little brooks on the other side of the plain … they’d bring back whole carts full … Kracht explains … they can’t be left alone, they slip away, pilferers born, and come back with geese, turkeys, and ducks, even cows! … once they get loose, everything disappears! okay, so tomorrow well be on duty with the fourteen bookkeepers, to watch them cut … they can’t have too many eyes on them … even so, they’ll always manage to make off with something … you’ve got to search them when they get back … the women take home dozens of eggs in the flounces of their petticoats, between their legs, in bags … even counterfeit English pounds! … where do they find them? … they must drop from the sky …