But now let’s be serious … my syringe … my syringesl am I finally going to sterilize them?
“Le Vig! … come with me!”
We’ve got to cross the park … it’s already dark … the farmyard … I knock at the kitchen door … and the door at the foot of the stairs … I pound! … nothing! … silence! … okay! … they don’t feel like answering … to hell with them! well try the barn … our two friends … they’ve got to be there! … sure thing! … their voices … “Hi!” … we , can’t see their faces … no candle … anyway they haven’t lit it … they say something, we can’t hear them very well on account of the pigs … putting on a concert … hungry? … scared?… are they grunting! must be a thousand of them … Leonard’s got something to tell me, he whispers in my ear, but very loud …
“You haven’t forgotten us?”
“Oh no! … no! … thinking about you the whole time!”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Thinking isn’t enough!”
Kind of rude it seems to me … I was supposed to bring this … and that! … I hadn’t had time! …
“We’ve got something to tell you …”
What’s this going to be … the pigs are grunting louder and louder … I ask him, I’m interested …
“Don’t worry about the pigs … you just take care of us before there’s trouble!”
Kind of menacing …
“You wouldn’t have a candle? … or a Primus?”
I know they’ve got both …
“No!”
“I’ve got to boil my syringe…”
“What for?”
“Old man von Leiden … and the Revizor … we’ve found them out on the plain …”
“Yes, we know … with the gendarme … let ‘em croak! … what about us! don’t we exist?”
“Of course you exist … I’ll get you everything you want!”
“When?”
“Right away! quick trip to the manor! but first boil my syringes! … ten minutes!”
Why not? … if they insist … I can’t see them … they’re whispering again … about us for sure … will they or won’t they? … yes! … they’re willing … Joseph goes back into the bam … for the Primus … he’s got it … he pumps … he pumps … and he lights it … fine … a little water …
“Ten minutes!” I tell them … “Not two! wait till we get back!” …
The Primus gives a bit of light … I can see them a little … I look at them, no need to whisper any more … Joseph asks me …
“They in bad shape?”
“Yes, bad!”
“Bring rum and gin and pernod … as much as you can find! and all the cigars!”
“Why?”
“Harras is coming back!”
Very well informed …
“Will do!”
“We’ll remember you!”
These two shit-ass punks … their way of remembering us is bound to be something sweet! … anyway, with one comeback and another, the syringes boiled a while … not ten minutes but at least five… that’ll do! … I’d better take them with me …
“Wait for us … well be right back … I’ll return your pot …”
Back through the yard … the gravel walk through the woods …
Le Vig asks me …
“What do you think?”
“Nothing!”
It’s not as dark as in the barn, the clouds give off a little light … pink and pale green … nice for a country fair … the peristyle … and the drawing room … now for the camphorated oil … two ampuls each …
“Lili, the candle!”
She’d been waiting for us … everything we needed … well, pretty near … my box of ampuls … but no alcohol or cotton … quick, two ccs. each … they’re no better than before … but at least they’re breathing … a slight fever, I’d say … I should have bought a thermometer in Moorsburg … I should have done a lot of things in Moorsburg! … I ask Lili … “Are they hungry?” No, not hungry! … they’ve vomited … ah, the meat! … the water! good reason! … maybe they’d vomit some more … we’d see, we had the whole night ahead of us … right now my job was to dive into the cupboard and take the liquor and cigars … do what those greasers wanted … stuff them to the gills! … damn shame, wasting it on those goops! … but it couldn’t be helped … what could they have to tell me?
“Le Vig, get me a sack … downstairs!”
“What kind of a sack?”
“A beet sack! a big one, empty!”
“What are you going to put in it?”
“Everything! … quick!”
He finally gets started …
“You, Lili, go up to the heiress’s … to her library … bring down a geography book! … a big one with maps! … especially Denmark! hurry!”
Lili never takes long about anything … the only trouble is she’ll ask me what I want in Denmark … I’ll tell her to keep it under her hat and she will … Le Vig comes up with two enormous sacks … good for him! … I’m going to give those shifty brutes a big blowout, get them good and stinko … waah! … throwing up like the old geezers! … I’ve got a hunch they know something … right now my only chance is a little trick … we’ll see … those two oilcans knew the contents of that cupboard better than I did … I’d never really searched it, only my daily quota of Luckies and not for us! … I’d liberated five six cartons in all …
“LeVig! … lift!”
I show him the panel at the back … he pushes up … it slides … we look in! man! … the supplies! … enough for ten twenty years! … boxes and cartons! … Harras hadn’t been globetrotting through the air for nothing! … but underneath! what’s underneath? … our two blatherskites knew! … a whole basket of champagne! … we can’t bring them all this! … a case of pernod! … okay! … cigars! … Havanas! … a whole shelf! … plus, lower down, cans of sardines! … and caviar! … and hams! … we hadn’t seen anything! … but they knew! Ali Baba’s cupboard! we’d only grazed the surface … and not for ourselves … for ourselves nichts! nix! … you can say that again! … all for Kracht! and under coercion! … if anybody asks us … a little Navy Cut for the bibels’ kitchen all right! I admit it … clean breast!
Le Vig thinks I’m nuts …
“You’re not going to bring them all that?”
He sees me piling it into the sack …
“I’m leaving some …”
The cupboard is still three-quarters full … at least! … there’s plenty! … but let’s get going! … can’t keep those bastards waiting! … I’ve got a feeling they’re dangerous … I didn’t think so at first, but now I see they’ve got something up their sleeve …
“Okay, let’s go!”
We each pick up a bag … I only take one cane … I can manage if we go slow … we know the park like a book … even groping in the dark … the path through the trees … I see a candle … in the Gypsy wagon, over on the right … no light in the isbas … up in the sky still the v-r-r-r of the Fortresses … and the long beams in the clouds … the search-fights … and way off in the distance the fires … pink … that’s not Berlin any more, can’t be anything left of it … they must be clobbering the shell holes … I’ll spare you the booms! and boo-ooms! I’ve given you plenty of those … the tedious thunder! … and the trembling of the leaves and copses … all that … the thundering and trembling went on for six eight months … day and night … the leaves, I say … the cobbles too … in the yard … the manure pit … the barn …
“That you?”
“Yeah! … we’ve got it!”
I tell them … I’m not wasting any time …
“Get the candles!”
A little tiny one … and matches …
They see we haven’t come empty-handed!
“Say! … Say!”
They knew there was plenty … but not this much! … champagne! … port wine! … foie gras! … absinthe! …
“
That’s not all! There’s more to come!”
“Well, blow me down!”
They empty the sacks! … what a display! … they look at the bottles, the labels …
“That’s not all! … there’s plenty left! … isn’t there, Le Vig?”
“Sure! … another cupboard!”
That’s an exaggeration …
“Say! … say!”
It’s even more than they thought … they sit down … Léonard puts his arm around Joseph’s neck … they do a jig … they’re delighted …
“What a haul!”
They can’t get over it …
“What do you think of it?”
They ask questions …
“Is it genuine absinthe?”
Léonard doesn’t want to be cheated …
“Seventy percent! can’t you read, damn it?”
“Right! … sure, we can read! there’s more, you say?”
Léonard doesn’t want to irritate me …
“You want us to bring you more?”
We’re talking in the dark with the candle out …
“Yes! yes! … but don’t call us … we’ll know it’s you … just chuck it all over there …”
The pile of straw on the left …
They’re still suspicious … hell, so am I! … they should croak!
“You’ll bring more?”
“Sure!”
I hear Joseph rummaging in his pocket … he’s looking for a corkscrew …
“I’ll open it!”
Pop! he’s got it out! … yum! he’s tasting it!
“Good stuff?”
“Yeah!… the real thing!”
Time to get out of there … now Leonard’s tasting … myum!
“Okay, Léonard, speak up … this secret … we’re waiting … you’ve been stalling long enough!”
Time for a showdown, it seems to me …
“Spit it out!”
“Well, you see, it’s not so simple … we’re getting out of here too …”
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere!
“You and Joseph?”
“Yes!”
What direction? … hell, that’s their business … do they want to drink and smoke it all up before leaving … is that their idea? … no … they want to take the bottles with them! … how and where? … with a wheelbarrow? … their business! … but what do they want of us? … to bring them sacks of pernod?
“Listen, you two! … you three! … don’t leave your wife at the manor … tomorrow the Gypsies are putting on a comedy for the Landrat and the von Leidens …”
“I thought it was canceled …”
“Hooey! … the whole village is going! … and Kracht! … counter-order from Berlin! … they’ll all be there!”
“Berlin?”
“Yes! … yes! … stick with Kracht … they’re doing it at the bibelforschers’, their sawmill … you know … the Tanzhalle … be there all three of you! show yourselves! … and don’t leave before the end! … not before the end! … that’s what we had to tell you!”
“I thought they’d postponed it …”
“No! I’ve just told you, it’s tomorrow night! … stick with Kracht! … and now beat it! … you won’t have time, for another trip … they must have seen you from the Gypsy wagon … they see everything! … don’t come back! … on your way by tomorrow … with your messkits … hide a box in your pants …”
“Of what?”
“First cigars! … just chuck them in … it won’t make any noise … on the left …”
“Only cigars?”
“Yes, to begin with … after that well see … You won’t tell anybody?”
“No! … never!”
I never did … even after all these years I’m not telling you their names … I could … their real names, I mean …
Memory and discretion … that’s me! …
I expected them to talk about our expedition, etc. … our finding the old man … and the Revizor … I thought they’d talk so much that I’d have to squelch them … not a word! at the table … the mahlzeit … or at the sawmill, or the one-armed sergeant and the bibelforschers … silence! … not even La Kretzer in her room … like nothing had happened … that Kretzer bitch so keen on gossip! … zero! … they must have some reason … nobody brings it up … nobody asks if the two of them are feeling better or if they’ve had a good night … same for the heiress in her tower, and she was pretty kindhearted … she seemed to be fond of her brother, she’d given us blankets for him, but she hadn’t come down to see him … no! … same with the Revizor, nobody’d asked if there was any hope of recovery … and the Kretzers, had every reason to take an interest, he’d come to check their accounts … the Dienstelle ledgers … you’d have expected a glimmer of curiosity … no! not a word! … and her so hysterical, always on the lookout … they simply left us … Lili, Le Vig, and me … to take care of the patients … our headache! … Kracht, I’ve got to admit, showed a little more concern … he knew I was running out of camphorated oil … so was Germany … none to be bad at Mathias’s in Moorsburg or in Berlin … but he had some “cardiazol” in his private stock … cardiazol was dangerous … an effective heart stimulant, but too violent … still, if I couldn’t get any oil, cardiazol was better than nothing … even provided by Kracht? … I was wondering … hell! … why always so suspicious? … I prepare the solution and my syringe, I give them both shots … they’re in really bad shape … kerflooey … if we hadn’t turned up … with the gendarme … the wild women would have finished them … well, they weren’t much better off … they must have quite a few fractures … in the head, the legs, the chest … I could see little trickles of blood … but I couldn’t palpate them too much! … too painful … what was the use? … the best I could do was keep their hearts beating more or less … cardiazol … Kracht’s … in very small doses … first injection … I auscultate them … no bad reaction … we can go fill our messkits, well see what they have to say over there … if it’s true that the Gypsy festival is on again … if they’re getting the hall ready …
“Let’s go, Le Vig! … you, Lili, stay here, we won’t be long … don t move, don’t go anywhere … look and listen … make sure they’re breathing all right … if you hear them gasping or if they call … run over and get me … you know where, at the Tanzhalle!”
Not a soul in the park … on the road a few housewives … chewing the fat … they know us … they don’t look at us … the geese know us too … they poke around in their ponds, stirring up the muck … they don’t even come out to the road to insult us, they don’t flap their wings … total indifference! … we go by … here’s the Tanzhalle … quick, our messkits! … I ask the cook … “you getting ready for tomorrow? … I only had to look … die whole place is full of bibelforschers and they’re not lying down on the job … the whole lot of them moving out crates and big tool boxes and power drills! … and raking and sweeping and what-have-you! … mountains of crap! the junk had been piling up for years … and there hadn’t been any dancing for years either … this Tanzhalle had been used for everything … barracks, supply room, shooting gallery, sawmill, bowling alley … they’ll need at least two days to straighten it out …
“Expect to be ready by tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? … hell! this evening!”
All right with me … they haven’t said a word about the Revizor, or about Uhlan von Leiden … but they know, that’s for sure! … I wasn’t going to bring it up … we leave … “guten tag! so long!” … we pass the housewives again … same mugs, looking somewhere else … they don’t see us …
At the manor we get right back to our two stiffs! they’re no worse … but they should have recovered consciousness and they haven’t … they’ve taken a lot of punishment, but with the cardiazol they should at least open their eyes … or even change sides … I ask Lili … no! … they’ve shat in their pants, that’s all … they’ve taken a spoonful of water … but no fo
od … I try to give them a bit of soup … no! they refuse … I couldn’t call it cussedness … it’s their stomachs … well, they can wait … we’ve got other things to do … not just take care of these capricious wrecks … our mahlzeit, heil! … but first the barn, our worrisome palookas, those bandits of the pigsty … gadzooks, plenty of activity! … when I compare what I am now, pretty near as doddering as old man von Leiden, the errant Uhlan, I say to myself: it’s happened so quickly! … life has been hard on me! … of course it could have been worse … in Buchenwald or Montrouge ° … well see what happens next! …
We get the cigars … two boxes each, the long kind, Havanas … no trouble stowing them inside our belts, we haven’t put on weight … Le Vig has tight-fitting pants à la Gauloise, he’d be in fashion now … me, big baggy ones, corduroy, pre-1914, “ditchdigger-ardsr style … but the bottoms of the legs are gone, I left them in the beets when I was crawling … room for three boxes in my belt … so has Le Vig, but two’s enough … here we are at the barn … I throw our boxes in where they told me, way in back, over the pigs … the pigs don’t grunt, they’re asleep … the geese are asleep too, around the manure pit… it’s never been so quiet … we’ve got rid of our Havanas, now for the mahlzeit! … now we’ll hear something … if they haven’t decided to button up … after all we’ve brought them back the Uhlan … and the Revizor! … that ought to rate some comment … we’d put the hundred wild women to flight … who were ready to devour both of them … all three! … I’m counting Bleuette … all of which was abominable, exhausting, and dangerous … I’m not expecting gratitude or effusions! no! … just one word: bravo!
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