North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “She’s got to stay at the farm! … and eat, drink, and sleep … nothing else … not allowed to see anybody!”

  Hell! … if that’s the way they want it, I suppose well live! … I’d find out more from somebody else … Marie-Thérèse in her tower, the heiress, the sister of the old whipping boy who’d ridden off to war, remember? … she’s still very talkative … to Lili at least, real pals! … she’d moved everything out of her pad, all her furniture and her bed … the whole floor over there in the other wing … was one enormous studio … she played for Lili for hours, and Lili made up new dances for her … her brother’s library next door was full of music … practically unknown … symphonies, fugues, adagios, and ballets … by very obscure composers at some petty German court and performed only once in Berlin or The Hague … they could have spent months and years working them up … they were both delighted … they’d have had plenty of time to watch the hordes coming in from the east … west … and south … across the plains and the horizon … coming and going … Slovenes … Tartars … Kurds … pillaging … in tanks … on horseback … in carts … and wheelbarrows … and moving on … to make room for other races and legions! … they could have seen the whole thing from their pad … well Marie-Thérèse’s pad … through the bay windows … the fields … and beyond the fields the horizon … sky and more sky … I’ve got to admit … to my shame after all the trouble I had up there … there was a kind of enchantment in looking at those vast spaces, those ochre-colored fields … a charm … you can kill the hours … you’ve got to be rich and easy in your mind to go in for the horizon … when you’re hunted, it’s the six feet in front of your nose that you’ve got to worry about … at the most!

  So, we-won’t talk to the countess any more! … okay! … but where did that ruling come from? … interesting to know … orders from whom? … Berlin? … Moorsburg? … the Landrat? … maybe Inge? … pissed that I hadn’t brought her anything? … Wohlmuth the Apotheke had seemed to expect me to ask for this and that … or maybe some other reason? … maybe things had been getting worse since he’d turned in his gun? Léonard and Joseph would know … the pigpen boys knew everything … good and bad … through the servants … they managed to speak Russian with the maids … the easiest part of foreign languages is malignant gossip … the “language barrier” disappears … the worst kind of jibberjabber comes through if it’s hateful enough … hate communicates at will … secrets … declensions … tenses … and what have you …

  Had the Landrat come around in person? that was the question … maybe the old girl would tell us … as long as she didn’t hit us on the head … with the Opera Ball and the Drags and Sarah Bernhardt …

  But how could I get hold of her? … the forbidden countess … we could ask in the kitchen … we go over … the diesel’s still pounding away … so loud that … hell! … we don’t say a thing … too tired, let’s go home! … by the road … the housewives will see us … let them! … it’s shorter than the bypaths … here’s the yard! the barn! … looks like they’re expecting us … I put it to them straight …

  “Has the Landrat been here?”

  “He’s been here all right! … and he’ll be back! … Does that bug you?”

  Rotten mentality! … they’ve got a question of their own too …

  “Well? … what about the heaters?”

  “Okay … okay … all taken care of!”

  Let them think what they please!

  “In the cupboard?”

  “Sure thing!”

  “Say, there’s something else in that cupboard! … we know all about it!”

  “Lucky you! … what?”

  “Look … you’ll find it!”

  There’s darning cotton …”

  “Darning cotton hell! … there’s liquor!”

  “We don’t drink!”

  “All the more reason! … bring it over here! … we’re thirsty!”

  “You don’t say!”

  “Harras has got everything! not just cigarettes! … pineapple! cans this big!”

  He shows me …

  “Bring them here! … you’ll find them! … and anisette! … and cognac! … whole crates! … no risk, hell never come back!”

  They’re sure… and they insist!

  “Not so easy!”

  “Sure it’s easy… but there’s something else … ticklish … we’ll tell you about it … very ticklish!”

  So they’ve got something to tell me … and they want something … very suspicious of Léonard … Joseph at least, you could see him, you could get a squint at him … Léonard always had his back turned … staring into the barn … at the darkness … obviously these worker-prisoners … certainly members of the local “resistance” … weren’t going to confide in anybody … especially not us! … what could they have to tell us?

  “Bring the liquor and you’ll find out! … the main thing is you shouldn’t be here!”

  Double talk!

  “Come back tomorrow with the stuff!”

  “What stuff?”

  “Everything! … you’ll find it! … way back on the left … the false bottom! … push hard!”

  They knew plenty! … and they were rushing us … did that mean Harras was coming back? or something else?

  I see our dogs here, God knows we treat them gently, but they’re always worried, always wondering what we’re going to do next … same with us in Zornhof … here our dogs so old now … and his nibs out there in the Argentine …

  Le Vig is talking to himself … “honest to God! … honest to Goal”… it’s getting under his skin … he never sleeps downstairs any more, at the end of the corridor, he won’t sleep any place but here, in our straw … his corridor’s pretty dangerous … now Iago’s gone, the rats do as they please, start families, fight, bring home ducks and devour them alive … even his cell is hopeless … those intrepid rodents have walked off with two of his towels and a pair of pants … no way to wash, all the buckets are over at the farm … Lili still manages … up at Marie-Thérèse’s place …

  Le Vig’s dozing in the straw … I don’t guess he knows what he’s saying … I strike a match to look at his eyes … wide open, fixed… the lids don’t move … he keeps repeating … “honest to God!” … never anything else … sound asleep with his eyes open … not bad! … I wish I could sleep that way … like a somnambulist … I close my eyes all right, but I keep mulling, I see things … things that have happened … they make me laugh … oh yes! … I classify … I don’t sleep … here I’m telling you a little … I keep most of it to myself … the social set are different … they talk the whole time and don’t keep anything to themselves, except a few crimes … a little poison in somebody’s soup … that they really can’t confess … except with the statute of limitations in their pocket … but by that time who’s interested? … at the table, in the drawing room, they’re always talking, they’re on the stage … even in bed! … the only time they act natural is in the crapper … and at their last gasp … pretty near …

  I’m talking to myself, I admit, like Le Vig … I know I bumble, if s my way … right now I’m in a joking mood, I’m talking nonsense …“comics, comics,” Roger would say … no! no! not at all! it’s my age! … Being accused of everything … you think they care what they say? … denounced by this one and that one! … traitor! … rapist! … forger! … when I think it over very calmly, I’d say they were a good deal crazier than I am … a thousand proofs! … but one thing: they can sleep … that’s my torment, my rack … the difference between happy and unhappy people is how much they sleep … Le Vig there with his eyes wide open … he was asleep … I strike another match … he doesn’t even blink … he doesn’t give a damn! … “Honest to God! honest to God!” … always the same thing … what I’m thinking honest to God, is that it’s all over … time to make tracks … but which way? … where to? I’ve told you about Denmark up there … not next door! Denmark was a long way! how many miles? and
where’ll we get the boat? Warnemünde? … Rostock? … in peacetime … but at present? … I can’t go asking when the trains leave … Rostock! … what’s it like now? … but not a word to Le Vig … or to Lili … they’ll find out soon enough …

  When the trains leave? … ridiculous! … in the first place, what station? and the boats? … where do they sail from? … I couldn’t see us asking … who? an extra trip to Moorsburg? … that delightful trek … maybe there weren’t any more trains … to judge by the bombs we heard, there couldn’t be very many … I remembered Rostock … but what state was it in now? … maybe it was all one crater … I could ask the one-armed sergeant, he probably knows, I think he comes from around there … he’s always talking about Heinkel’s … the engines … let’s see, I collect my memories … I’d traveled quite a lot for the League of Nations … I’d often gone from Denmark to Berlin … via Rostock … but was Rostock still there? … Le Vig’s asleep … with his eyes half closed … I whisper to Lili …

  “Did we take a map with us?”

  “No … no … I don’t think so … a map of what?”

  “Never mind … “

  No time to start talking …

  “Go to sleep!”

  I’ll think this out by myself … Rostock, the factories … the one-armed sergeant doesn’t rave all the time, you can get him to talk about other things than the ghastly von Leidens … I think … he has his moments of sanity … if the diesel isn’t pounding too hard and there aren’t too many “objectors” around, maybe I can get a few words out of him … about the Rostock-Warnemünde problem … I’d taken that little ferry, half wood, half steel … half stagecoach, half submarine … a long time ago … the sergeant ought to know … I was half asleep but on the qui-vive … the only way … through the window slit a ray of light…

  “Le Vig! get up!”

  No nonsense! … I shake him, he jumps, he gets up, he follows me … we’re early, so much the better! quick! the peristyle and the road! … our housewives see us pass! … they sever sleep … the bitches! … the curtains move … the geese … two gaggles … come out to see us … cackle! cackle! … the church … and two steps farther on the Tanzhalle … their diesel isn’t running yet … the sergeant’s shaving, surprised to see us … I go “sh-sh!” … I don’t want anybody to hear us … he gives me a sign that the cook has gone out … fine! … I’ll make it quick!

  Is the train still running to Rostock?”

  “Three times a week!”

  Finally somebody that knows!

  “Where from?”

  “Moorsburg-Rostock” …

  All I wanted to know … I explain …

  It’s for my wife … she wants to see the sea … she’s never seen the Baltic … Le Vig hasn’t either …”

  “Oh, perfekt! good idea!”

  He’s all for it! … Thanks! … we shake hands and leave … Le Vig asks me …

  “What do you want in Rostock?”

  “You’ll see, pal … you’ll see … but keep quiet!”

  “Your idea about the Baltic?”

  “Oh, one of my ideas!”

  “Ah, an idea man!”

  “You can say that again!”

  Back on the road … the housewives are on their doorsteps … the geese are busy in the ponds, they’ve stopped cackling … the manor! … we haven’t been long … Lili asks me what we’ve got for her …

  “Nothing … but there’s something you could get for me …”

  She’s willing … what? … I don’t want to say anything in front of Le Vig … he blabs in his sleep! the little hunchback knocks …

  “Mahlzeit frühe!”

  She’s come to tell us that our mahlzeit is right away!

  Thank you! thank you! we’re coming!”

  What time can it be? … so early, their conclave? why? the lukewarm-water soup … must-be some reason … ah announcement? … that they’d been seeing too much of us … Lili, Le Vig, and me … in Zornhof … and that the bibels … or the housewives … had complained … that we should stay at the manor and never go out? or maybe news of Harras? … we could imagine anything … dogs are like that … worried … what’s going to be done to them, they can always imagine … which makes me forget the cigarettes, damn! … no time to go to the cupboard! down our stairs to the dining room … they’re all at the table … hm? heil! heil! … the Führer’s still on the wall, his enormous portrait … but something new! … the Kretzer sons’ tunics are hanging on the frame, one on each side … ragged and riddled … the mother’s idea … no objection … no … but it’s queer … Kracht is there in his place … he doesn’t look much like the Führer any more … he’s letting his moustache grow… he’s dropped the misplaced eyebrow effect! … a big brush! … he’s squirming in his chair … impatient … what about? … for us to finish our soup … we dish it out … two ladles full … a feast … two lumps of bread in lukewarm water … and maybe a spoonful of rice … Frau Kretzer clucking away … her bantering mood … I don’t understand everything she says, she’s talking too fast … it’s about us! about us again! … what are they cooking up for us! … I listen very carefully … no! … it’s not us … she’s talking to the secretaries … the bookkeepers and typists … whatever she’s saying, it’s a scream! … she’s laughing like a hyena! … sounds like a zoo! … what the?! … everybody … all the typists and bookkeepers … they’re all looking down … Kracht taps his dish … couldn’t he tell her to shut up! … we’re used to her laugh … her hysterics … but this is too much … more exasperating than usual … worse than the bomb blasts that are shaking the echoes and windowpanes … I bet they can hear her on the other side of the park … oh, that doesn’t faze her! … her husband gesticulates at her … he jiggles her elbow … she couldn’t care less! … she’s having a fit and nobody’s going to stop her! … she’s got something to tell us! news! and what news! … “By order of the Kanmumdantur”! … the Gypsies are going to entertain us! and we’ll all go! … they’re going to sing and dance for us at the Tanzhalle! … officially organized by “Strength Through Joy” … to lift our morale … they’ve noticed that ours was low … they take care of everything at the Chancellery! … at least so our Kretzer claims! … she knows the details! … the Gypsy men in sashes and folderols and the women in flounces! … their native dances! … all for our entertainment! … to lift our morale! … tambourines, castanets, and guitars! … Frau Kretzer mimes them all … nobody dares to look at her … I think she’ll pass out in the end … she’s done it two or three times, she’s epileptoid … the secretaries and bookkeepers are wounded veterans, they’ve got nothing to worry about, but even so, theyfre leery of Kracht … if she starts chewing out the Führer under his own portrait … she’s done it before … and they seem to laugh … it could end very badly … but she doesn’t give a shit! she wanted to tell us all about it! … her old man kept jiggling her elbow … no use! … it would be at the Tanzhalle, I’d seen the stage, not very big and cluttered up, they’d clear it off … the Gypsy men would sing … six parts … and their women, the chair menders, would dance … the fandango … there’d be acrobatics too, boys and girls … and then at the end a special attraction … fortunetelling … cards, coffee grounds, crystal globe … and maybe an owl! … they’d told our fortunes upstairs … all very sinister … prison … Nobody there at the table, I must say, was exactly thrilled at this “Strength Through Joy” program … official or not … only la Kretzer was roaring with laughter! … harder and harder! … hex chair was jolting the table … the glasses were knocking together, tinkling … and there she goes! a flying leap! … she’s under the frame! under Adolf! … she grabs her two sons’ tonics, she unhooks them … and at the same time she bellows “festspiel! festspiel!” I translate: “festival! festival!” … and she collapses … I was expecting it … I’d seen her this way before … stiff as a board … the end of her fit … with her two tunics in her arms … they’d taken her up to her r
oom … she’d stayed there for weeks in a kind of lethargy … would it be the same now? … but this time nobody moves, they stay put … they don’t even look at her, stretched out under the portrait of Adolf … but she sees them, she sees they don’t give a damn! … ah, Madame! … she starts kicking the floor with her heels! both heels! … clitter clatter! … oh, so we don’t care? … we think she’s funny … we’ve already been vibrated enough by the floor and the walls, the thudding of the bombs, and now she comes along with her clitter clatter! … she hikes up her skirt to kick better … and harder! to raise her legs higher! … boom! boo-oom! … and bash in the floor! … she rips her skirt … top to bottom! zzzz! … her legs are all bare! … ripping mad! … she runs out with her two tunics under her arm … through the back door … nobody moves … but right away she comes back! … she’s not through! … something special to say to us! … “sie! sie! franzosen!” we’d murdered her sons! … I hadn’t thought of that! … is there anybody I haven’t killed? … her beloved sons! … Hans! … Kurt! … we’d done it … all three of us and our cat! … thieves, traitors, saboteurs! … absolutely! and murderers! the murders I’ve committed … in France, in Germany, all over! … Bougrat’s ° a rookie, Pétiot’s a piker, Landru’s an apprentice crack-wiper … next to the three of us … we hadn’t stopped at her two sons … every known crime! we’d wiped out whole cities … and railroads … all the misfortunes of Germany! … we were behind them! … same difference right here! those characters who came up to my place on rue Gitardon to rob me and piss etcetera on the floor, were meaning to hang me from my balcony for all Paris to see, Anti-France in person, the most abject of all envelope-takers and sellers of the Maginot line … this side, that side … in certain situations they see you the same way: responsible for everything … seems to be some mistake … you’re kind of surprised, you wonder who’s nuts … and then you get used to it … they need somebody … responsible for everything? … sure, why not? … when the Kirghizes come to Courbevoie you’ll still find certain people bellowing under a hundred myriatons of rubble and sewage … under the expert direction of Petzareff: he’s the one! he’s the one all right! they need somebody and you’re him! … up there in Zornhof … those Prussians in the middle of a war … it was only natural … this lunatic accusing me of everything … what with her grief over her two sons … but now, twenty-five years later and in my own family, it’s a little funnier … and no chicken feed the crimes they accuse me of! murdering my mother! … and I’d better not say different! … I know what’s behind it … they stole everything from my mother’s place … very sure of themselves! “he’ll never come back!” … same with my furniture in Montmartre … if I tried to get it back, they’d rub me out! the law of the underworld! … four Commanders! … bandits and moving men! “tally ho! he’ll never be back!” same joyride with my beautiful works … “go to it, kid! … lousy rotten incompetents, help yourselves! … he’ll never be back! … take everything he’s got, ya slugs! … storm the bastion! … get in there, you shits! nobody’ll notice … nobody’ll know! hell never be back!” … up there in Zornhof I’d kind of suspected … but now I know … Frau Kretzer in her hyena fits saw the truth! … my whole hounded future! … and it’s not over yet! … she sticks out her tongue at us … way out! … and thumbs her nose! … she’s too comical! … they can’t hold it in … they all start laughing! … like hyenas! like her! even her husband! … nobody takes her seriously any more! … except Kracht! … he’s fed up! he wants her to get out! raus! … raus! in the doorway she makes her shitting-cow sound … plop! wet and heavy! raus! raus! … that’ll do! … Kracht pushes her out … her husband helps … they lock the door … same shitting-cow noise from behind the door … plop! squash! … no! … it’s not her! … no! … it’s something else! it’s coming from somewhere else! … from up in the air! … and especially from the walls … sounds like they had the hiccups … carloads of bombs … the scrunchers are making progress … we and our troubles! … chicken feed! … I’ve got to tell you … I haven’t mentioned it … that up in that tower, under the straw, the vibration … we can feel it … gets worse every night … Kretzer’s through, she’s gone, we wait … Kracht’s going to comment … no … he just sits there, perfectly calm … he doesn’t say a word … ah, a little cough! … ah! what’s it going to be?