North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “All this belongs to you?”

  Hell, I’ve got a right to ask …

  “Oh yes! and it goes much farther!”

  I can see they’re really rich … my curiosity amuses her … I’ll amuse her some more …

  “Madame, let me tell you something … I got myself into this damnable fix, and not just myself but my wife and my friend too, with my boundless curiosity! … not through ambition or self-interest! … that’s why you see us here, wanted by every conceivable police force, lamp post and wolf pack … for poking my nose into things that were none of my business! …”

  Inge was no dope … I hadn’t told her anything new …

  “In that case, Doctor, indulge your curiosity! ask me anything you like! I’ll tell you … don’t be afraid … we never know how to please you … the least we can do is tell you what’s none of your business!”

  “Exacdy, Madame!… I admit it!”

  “All right … first the sawmill … on the lakeshore … I’ll show you … sixty workers … all convicts … three of them are murderers … rejected by the army … as unworthy … the bibels have the Bible! … these are real criminals, nothing like the ‘objectors’ … you’ll see them … the lake belongs to us too … it’s pretty big, twelve miles to Moorsburg … you’ll see the little boats … the boats belong to my father-in-law … they’re old, like him … well need new ones … we have another sawmill a little farther on … we won’t go there today … will that do? … precise enough?”

  “Yes, Madame …”

  But wouldn’t Countess Thor von Thérfels like to say something? … no! she’s sulking … her daughter notices if …

  “But Mother, you’ve got much bigger lakes!”

  “I should think so!”

  “And ten times more woods!”

  “Definitely, Inge! Definitely!”

  No more … the charabanc stops, here we are! I’d thought we’d never make it … I know the forests of the tropics, everybody knows them now, everybody travels, you can’t get à rise out of anybody … time was when a pith helmet turned the trick … Brazza couldn’t hold a candle to you! … nowadays the falls of the Congo are good for a weekend at the most … in those days you felt you were imprisoned forever in the damp shade, a welter of lianas, roots, and snake ponds … up there it was different, the shade was dry … and yellow … that carpet of needles … all in all, this forest was too beautiful, too sumptuous … same with the lake, too limpid, too blue … it’s all so poetic, symphonic, profound, so horribly German … that you’ll never get away from it either! … I’m not saying you’ll ever go there! … either to the Congo or Prussia! … the advantage of this great carpet of sequoia needles was that it absorbed the sound, you couldn’t hear the bacchanalia of bombs on Berlin … the surface of the lake shuddered a bit … the banks … the rushes vibrated … vibrated …

  “Doctor, all this belongs to us … those loggers too! … you see them?”

  I saw them all right! … those convicts weren’t sawing … they were pushing enormous tree trunks, rolling them down to the water … others down below were tying the trunks together … I got it … as a kid I was crazy about lumber rafts … I watched them from the locks at Ablon as far as the Pont-au-Change … the watermen were always within an inch of going overboard … strength and judgment … it seems they came from Morvan … where were (hey going? I never found out … these characters didn’t look much like watermen … I’ve hung around the sand quarries, I know the work … Inge sees what I’m thinking …

  “You think they’ll get there?”

  “Where?”

  “Moorsburg! …”

  “They may … not so sure …”

  “There’ll be others …”

  That makes them both laugh … the daughter and the mother … who’d been sulking … my sharp answer! … but what about the Revizor? and the beadle? … and the pastor? this might be the time to find out! … Inge asks one of the convicts … graying hair … no … he doesn’t know … they haven’t seen a thing … you can’t get anything out of these people … we don’t tell them “goodbye” or “good luck” … myself later on in jail, I only wanted one thing: to be left alone … I could understand that feeling … Leon Bloy on his deathbed demanded the Holy Ghost or the Cossacks! … I know a damn sight more about it than he did … and I demand “the superbomb and the Chinese!” I’m joking … no joking on that forest road … we joggled and jolted from hole to hole for another hour or two … all four axles squeaked something awful … oils and fats were the nightmare of that war … axles, pistons, bearings! … burned out, cracked, melted! … in the air, under the sea … this carriage of ours, the springs and axles were fed up … they were bellowing … well, sort of a soft bellow …

  After a while the trees aren’t so tall … no more sequoias, pines … suddenly, I hadn’t been expecting it, Inge orders: Halt! … the driver stops … “come with me!” … she’s got something to tell me … “just you!”

  “I want to show you our châlet!”

  What’s the sense in that?

  “You’ll see! come with me! … you, stay there! … Madame and Monsieur Le Vigan!”

  Another caper! … I get out of the carriage … she leads me down a path! .. .another path! … she’s got a thing about paths!…. this one leads between pine trees … what’s this going to be? … say, not badl… a large cottage, all of wood, spic-and-span, scrubbed and polished, cleaner than their farm … she goes ahead …

  “Come along!”

  We go in … really luxurious, much better than the farm … wall-to-wall carpeting, leather cushions, enormous divans, and enormous shelves fall of bottles! …

  “Raus! get out!”

  A brutal command! … to somebody … who … I don’t see a soul … but I hear somebody making tracks … servants in the other room?

  “I don’t want to see them! … they’ll come back when I’ve gone! they always come back!”

  Polish women, I think … now she turns to me …

  “Doctors! Doctor! forgive me! will you ask Mathias …”

  “Mathias?”

  I’ve forgotten …

  “You know, in Moorsburg … the druggist … remember?”

  “Oh yes! oh yes! whatever you say, Madame! the Apotheke!”

  Still another drug?

  “I’d forgotten! … those little paper napkins … for ladies … you know … menstrual …”

  “Oh yes, Madame!”

  “Here we call them ‘Kamelia’ with a k … you’ve got the same thing in France, but with a c … three packages, if he has them … if he says he hasn’t, you say: ‘Oh yes, you do!’ He’s got them … he’s saving them for someone else … and my lipstick … and my powder … he knows what kind … and if he says no … really no … tell him I’ll send Kracht … he’ll hand them over! … got it straight? Mathias Hase … right by the statue …”

  “Certainly, Madame, first thing tomorrow!”

  “Then let’s get back to the carriage … don’t you want to kiss me?”

  “Yes, of course, Madame!”

  I kiss her … she kisses me … and put we go … good friends … we haven’t been long … they haven’t stirred from the carriage … they haven’t done anything and haven’t seen anything … I ask them … neither the Revizor nor Hjalmar nor the pastor … Lili has seen an animal over there … close to the edge of the pine woods … she points … yes! … she’s right … we all look … a fox, looking back at us … getting along on three legs, as best he can … escaped from a trap … Inge explains … traps all over because hunting’s prohibited … without traps there wouldn’t be a single duck, goose, or chicken left… devastation! … not just here, all over Germany …

  “Now you know …”

  “Certainly, Madame!”

  The fox makes for the woods … we watch him limping away … we’re going in the other direction … the road isn’t so bumpy now … the wheels aren’t making so much noise
… here she goes! as soon as the axles pipe down, Countess Thor starts up … I’m expecting the Elysée! … no, not at all! … this time it’s Brandenburg … but not of today, of long ago when she was young … the customs, the marriages of the noble families … this one and that one, his rank and functions … and the scene, the garrisons, the artillery of the Guard, the school of gunnery, the firing range … the countess knew Brandenburg like a book, not just her native Pomerania! … I listened … I listened … but not very closely … she was on my left side, I couldn’t hear very well … I was dunking about Moorsburg … the Apotheke by the statue … should I go? … or not? … Mathias Hase? … better think it over … what with joggling and jolting we finally got there … the park … the bibelforschers’ isba … our peristyle Kracht can’t be far off, herehe is! … “bonjour! heil! pleasant ride?”… mostly very glad to be back … it could have ended worse … twenty years later I still think so, it could have ended worse … I didn’t say anything … I thought about it all night … but I didn’t say anything … either to Lili … or Le Vig …

  We weren’t very keen on that trek to Moorsburg, four miles on foot … but as long as I’d promised … I’d go see this Apotheke! … the drugs? well, certainly not the first time … curare … cyanide … Dolosal … we’d see about that later … but the lipstick, powder, and “Kamelia” … okay … I’d get them right away … before I asked for anything else I’d better get acquainted with this Mathias Hase … right by the statue … getting to Moorsburg was simple, straight across the plain, you couldn’t go wrong! … follow the milestones … anyway we’d see it in the distance, we knew what it looked like … better start early, about five, nobody to see us off … Iago lets Le Vig by … we meet in the peristyle and off we go! one …two! one … two! … slowly … especially me with my limp … very quiet all around … the gypsy wagon … the isbas … nothing stirring … not even the geese! … we’re doing all right … slow but sure … Bébert curled up in his bag, he’s used to it … cats don’t think much of the crazy things we do, but when they know it can’t be helped they lie still, they roll up … Coming on … one two! … one two! … daybreak … the sky’s black already … black and yellow … even before dawn! … smut … Christ, is he tedious, you’ll say! … he can’t stop! … those squadrons in the air couldn’t stop either, dropping their horrors on horrible Berlin! … their stinking hardware! … not only Fortresses … Mosquitos … Marauders … all kinds!

  If he didn’t have his three dots … what he calls his style, take it away! he’d be read a little more! … since Journey he’s been unreadable! … Journey … well, in a pinch! but now he’s so befuddled … and looks it … he’s not even presentable on television … Monsieur Petzareff has just canceled an ‘interview’ with him … that proves it! … in the nick of time!… it would have been a disaster!… France lost again! … Juanovici is in jail, but Petzareff has his eye peeled, he doesn’t miss a move of„the anti-everythings! … and he never even graduated from school! the ‘Honors and Profits’ battalion …”

  Charming words, I grant you … still quite a way to go … a few people … out there … all those yellow and gray fields stretching out to the Urals … a few people … not too far away … no use asking them what they’re doing … they’re working … on some kind of buildings, I think … bricks and tiles … I’d better watch my step … no good losing you on the road to Moorsburg … All of a sudden two men jump out of a ditch on one side … two men about as ragged as we are … sacking, rags, and strings … they talk to us in French …

  “Where you going?”

  “Moorsburg!”

  “Oh, you’re the ‘collabos’?”

  I see the news has got around … and pretty far from the manor …

  “We’re prisoners!”

  An important distinction! I ask them how they’re doing … oh, not so bad … their boss is a farmer … sheep and poultry … he’s gone off to the Eastern Front … they run the farm … the farmer’s wife sleeps the whole time … there’s nothing to do on the farm … practically all the animals are dead … two epizootic epidemics in a row …

  There’d be nothing to eat if wie didn’t …”

  They loot for themselves and the farmer’s wife …

  “We’ve got everything we need … but we better not get caught!”

  No doubt about that!

  “If they catch us, ping! … you’ll be shot too, but not for the same reasons!”

  It’s too funny! … we’re in stitches!

  “Going to eat at the Landrat’s?”

  “No, we haven’t been invited!”

  “You know him?”

  “A little …”

  “Well, give him our best wishes!”

  Okay … we start off again … only a few steps when somebody shouts halt! halt! somebody in the ditch … on the other side of the road … a German cop … he motions us to come over … papier! … here … I show him my Erlaubnis … gut! … gut! he sees we’re not tramps … he asks me where we’re going, the three of us so early in the morning … very friendly … to see the druggist Mathias Hase! gut! … gut! … perfectly natural … while we’re at it, I ask him if he hasn’t seen the pastor … or the beadle … or the Revizor? no! but he’s been looking for them too … if we hear anything, would we please let him know … a message at the pdst office … in his name … Gendarme Hans … sure thing! … he can count on us! … we’re pals … time to shove off … how many miles? … two more … we can’t claim to be going very fast, but well get there … there’s Moorsburg up ahead … the church … we sit down in die grass … Bébert’s business … he knows it’s, no time for monkeyshines, that he’s got to behave … he comes right back and gets into his bag … off again … the first houses … it’s not eight yet … the people are up … they watch us pass … I wouldn’t say hostile, just surprised … ah, I remember the place now … this one-horse town with five six Place Vendômes … at least as big! … where Frederick drilled his troopers … the Apotheke? … let’s see … it’s not this square … no statue of Fontane … ah, here we are! … this is the one! … and the druggist … the name we’re looking for: Mathias Hase … fine! … I walk in … the kids have spotted us already … they collect on the sidewalk across the street … it’s going to be like Berlin … the Hitlerjugend in the subway … here’s the druggist … he apologizes, he doesn’t speak French … white smock, little goatee … very polite … I introduce Lili, Le Vig, and Bébert … he offers us a little pick-me-up … who does ha take us for? … “no, thank you!” … not even a glass of water! … he asks us if everything’s all right in Zornhof ? … if we’re pleased with the von Leidens …

  “Delighted, my dear Apotheke! perfect hosts!”

  But the villagers … don’t we find them rather crude?

  “Oh, certainly not! charming! and so refined! so touchingly attentive!”

  I can see this Mathias is fishing … he thinks he’ll get a gripe out of me … he can keep on trying …

  I look him over … about my age, no youngster … we’ve made enough conversation, I’ll show him my “permit” … no! … no! he takes offense! he knows all about it! … he’s been expecting us! … he’s got a tic … after every sentence a twitching … painful like … at the corners of his mouth: mgü! mgü! … and then right away a smile …

  “Can I help you, Doctor? … whatever you wish … just ask for it!”

  Hell, I won’t ask him for anything at all! … oh yes! lipstick, face powder, and three packages of “Kamelia” …

  “For Countess von Leiden?”

  “Of course!”

  “Nothingelse, Doctor?”

  “Danke! … danke! … thank you!”

  Obliging little goatee, no dice! … absolutely nothing else! … Kamelia, lipstick, face powder …

  “Monsieur l’Apotheke, well be back, a little stroll around town, but now tell me …”

  I ask him what I owe him …

  “L
ater! … later, as long as you’re coming back! Plenty of time! … visit our city! … you can’t get lost, all the streets lead back here … to the statue! … you’ve heard about it! … the statue of Fontane! … Fontane, you know the name? … it’s French and German! … Huguenot! … you know his story?”

  I see he wants to tell it … in these situations it’s best to sit down and not look bored … to tell the truth, I was born so curious I’d climb the Eiffel Tower with my two canes to find out some bit of foolishness … he knows plenty about Fontane, the von Leidens’ favorite writer … it was worth the delay, anyway maybe our food cards had expired … and us so short on lebewurst! … or maybe they were for some other month … at certain times anything you do will get you into trouble … it’s better to sit tight … so why not Fontane? … he came from right around here, one of these houses … we should read Wanderings in Brandenburg, his masterpiece … okay! Hase knew his life, every detail … quite a character! … this Fontane was in France during the war of 1870 … crazy idea! … and better still! … the “Fifis” of Domrémy had caught him visiting the house of Jeanne d’Arc! … the “Resistance” of the day … a tourist during the “Terrible Year”! … and that wasn’t the end of it! … they accused him of being a traitor and a renegade, damn near shot him … but Providence knows its business, he was pardoned by Gambetta in person and set free … he came back here to end his days, madder than a hornet … up there on his pedestal in a frock coat he didn’t show it … but thanks to Hase we know …