London Bridge

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  She starts gasping and choking… She spilt too much in her rage… “Cop? Cop?” she stutters… “Hey, I’m not the one who squealed… Not me…”

  The other two down in the mouth… she’s landing them in deep shit. “Don’t talk in riddles! Spit it out! Go on!” I give her an order, right there with her back to the wall… she turns red… she trips over her tongue… “Wait, you’re wrong… You’re wrong!… You don’t get it.”

  “I don’t get it? Shit! For the past hour you’ve been talking in riddles! Ah! You old sow! You’re rotten to the core, that’s what you mean! You’ve got to think hard! You don’t have a clue! You’d like to squeal on me, end of story! You’re a stoolie, you bitch! You’re a stoolie, out with it!…”

  I’d hooked her with live bait. Such a big show-off, she was getting her back up, especially in front of Virginia. But she wound up looking like a jerk. “Fish around! Fish around! You hooker!”

  I had the upper hand.

  “Say, Ten-Paw,” she was bouncing back… “Say, why don’t you clue him in… tell him who came to get me… Ah! Get on with it, I want him to hear right away… Go ahead, tell him… Quit stalling!”

  She plants herself in the middle of the salon, working her feather boa like a kite…

  “Go ahead, tell him, screw the bastard!”

  She didn’t want to be beaten. But the other guy wasn’t in the mood to talk.

  “Well, Matthew, that’s who, you little chump! If you want to know. Now you know what you’re running away from? Now do you have just a wee little idea of the tight squeeze you’re in? Sink in, huh, does it? Really? Ten-Paw, tell him whether I’m lying!…”

  “No, it’s right on the money… it’s true…”

  “You can see the writing on the wall, shit yes! You can see you don’t stand a chance in hell!”

  Ten-Paw backed up her story… A person could swear by it…

  “You’re bluffing, lovey-dovey… You’re bluffing, go on…”

  I was getting her dander up…

  “Ah! If you’d seen how happy Matthew was… ‘OK,’ he goes to me, ‘I understand, they’re together, the pair of them, him and the Chink’…”

  “How’d he know?”

  “You can ask him that one yourself… He makes me come down, he does, he sends me over his mutt Mollesbam, the guy with the Cinzano-red hair… I had a little chat with Pretty Peach, Jongkind’s old lady, the Dutchman, you’ve met Pretty Peach, right? Mollesbam too, with his pince-nez… He goes to me: ‘Curlers! Room 115!’… He doesn’t explain why or what… The guy’s a brute… can’t expect him to show any manners… Deputy Constable’s what he goes by… So you better believe I obeyed!… In my situation… they’ve known me over at the Yard for twenty years. ‘Did you get your VD shot?’ That’s how they talk to me… ‘I’m going to run you in…’ ‘Fine, Mr Constable, sir…’ Never an extra word… my pound… my two pounds on the table… my payoff… ‘Goodbye!… Madame Curlers! You’re still beautiful!…’ I know them, that’s their private joke… Hello!… Goodbye! So long!… Go to hell! I don’t like them, they don’t like me either… I fork over… And we’re quits!

  “Now I’m not too hot about room 115, that’s where they ask their questions. I’ve never had any trouble myself… Just listen to this, I once had three pimps, and let me tell you they were thugs… I didn’t squeal on a single one… not over at Scotland Yard any more than back home at police headquarters in Paris, and I really had reason to… I switched houses four-five times… switched sidewalks… towns too… even respected the pub owners, although they’re lousy bastards one and all!… So a slob like you putting me down really bugs the hell out of me!… Follow me? The idea that I’d go shooting my mouth off to the cops!… You’ve got a screw loose up there, you dumb shit! I really think you’re nuts talking such crap! It’s damn true! You’re right, Ten-Paw!… Now if they call me, of course I go, I’m not about to keep them hanging around! It’s nothing at all for them to wake me up! ‘Get your ass down here, tramp!’ I run! Otherwise I’m behind bars! And in a snap! A woman on her own! Just try it! But I’m not nuts about room 115! I know what I’m talking about! And I don’t like Matthew either!… He comes on like an old pal. I prefer lousy SOBs! I prefer his constable, the brute!… I walk in… he lays into me point-blank…

  “‘Do you know the Colonel? Don’t lie, Curlers!…’

  “I know colonels, and in every shape and size too, you better believe it! Some are phoneys, some the real thing! I’ve had whole slews of them! Cocks of the walk! Cons! Cards! I don’t remember each and every one… A few slipped my mind… and majors too, and lieutenants, at your service! And the privates, I go to him, ‘With all due respect, I’ve stopped counting!…’ And he thinks to himself… ‘She takes me for some idiot…’ I know how his mind works… You’ve got to give him a straight answer… You know he speaks good French… ‘Yes, but I mean, the Colonel… the one who dabbles in inventions… doesn’t that ring a bell, Curlers?’ He lets me think it over… ‘Run through your mind… the one who’s with Ferdinand out in Willesden…’ He didn’t have to say it twice. Now you know I’m never one to ask questions. ‘Nope, doesn’t ring a bell, Inspector, sir.’

  “‘What about Sosthène de Rodiencourt? Don’t you know that guy? You were standing kerbside this morning when he was doing his Chinaman act in Piccadilly!… You’re not going to deny it, are you?’

  “‘Yes, I was there, Inspector, sir, I had a good laugh, I admit, but I don’t know the man…’

  “‘Be careful, Curlers,’ he then says to me real serious… He motions me closer… because this is some big secret… I can say no more.. Ah! You can see that it’s true! Hand me the big glass of brandy! I’m doing too much talking! And you’re not doing any at all!… I don’t know the Colonel, can you imagine! The Chinaman neither. And you call me a liar! And the other guy over there calls me a liar too! But I’m the only one not lying! The only one who loves you! You also, my love blossom! I’m just crazy about you!…”

  She went back to pawing up the girl.

  “Fuck off!” I go to her. “It’s all over your face, you’re lying. He’s the one who sent you!…”

  “Ah! You sap, the things that come out of your mouth! You’re really sticking it to me! You’re making me so sick I won’t be able to stand the sight of you any more!… And here I defended you! I answered back, ‘Inspector, sir, you’ve got to be putting me on… Ferdinand mixed up in espionage? That’s really too wild and I don’t believe a word! A lummox like him, a butterfingers who’s goofy in the head because he’s been trepanned they say, a guy who can fall on his face just by walking down a street and needs to be scraped off the sidewalk – I really can’t picture him as a spy. I can’t vouch for the Chink. I don’t know what he’s up to. But your Ferdinand’s bonkers! His time’s running out, he’s a poor devil, on the skids… the pimps over at Cascade’s felt sorry for him… He landed here dead broke, still convalescing… everybody’ll tell you the same… piss-poor… a down-and-out nutcase… Fantômas* in person! Take the word of a woman of experience!… If he’s a spy, then I’m a cardinal…’ You can see how I stuck up for you… ‘He’s freaky… sort of nuts, because of his head… he’s still got a bullet lodged inside… maybe two…’ I threw in… ‘He gets these attacks… All the men’ll tell you the same… the women too… they know him down at the Leicester…’ Didn’t I do right?”

  “Yeah! Yeah! You did right!…”

  “I couldn’t push it too far… otherwise he’d have said: ‘She’s got her finger in the pie!…’ ‘He was in the hospital in Hazebrouck back in France with Roger, Cascade’s brother, the guy who was executed by firing squad…’ Didn’t I do right to mention all that?”

  “Yeah, you did right, a terrific job…”

  All three turned their eyes on me. They weren’t so sure. Virginia was trying to keep up… she was mostly confused… Too much slang for her… But she was pretty scared… She suspected this was pretty awful news for us…
Seeing them so close up gave her the jitters, that trio of faces, all three riveting us with their stares…

  “Go on! Clear off! You heard me!… I’m calling the police…”

  “Don’t bother, they’ll come on their own! Come on! Let’s beat it! Get a move on!…”

  They got up… this time they do leave, they don’t fight the issue… It’s dark outside now. They’ve drunk the bottles dry, downed every last drop of whisky… they hold it pretty well… they walk out on their own feet more or less!

  Close your lovely eyes…

  For the hours are short!…

  Close your lovely eyes!…

  Curlers is a ball of fire… when she stops singing, she starts spouting…

  I want your heart!… I want your heart…

  And so doing she walks out onto the front steps… wailing into the night…

  I want your heart!… I want your heart…

  They walk down the steps. They don’t say goodbye… They don’t care about us any more… they’re arguing… I can hear them through the darkness… who’ll be the one to push the cart, who won’t… At last it’s settled, they’re off… you can hear the creaking…

  Then they don’t give a shit, they start cranking away…

  It’s the dark waltz!…

  You can still hear them off in the distance… crystal clear… and then it’s over…

  *

  Ah! I tell myself things’ll work out! Unsettling impressions… all the nail-biting, the exhaustion… they shake up your head in the end… and your spirits… you don’t know what’s happening to you any more… you start thinking all kinds of crap, that’s all there is to it… Best get some shut-eye, that’s absolutely for sure… My mind’s made up… I take charge…

  “Let’s call it a night!… up to bed, kids! Let’s forget about those troublemakers! They came over to get smashed, that’s all! Stinking hell-raisers! Small-time hoods! Let’s get some rest!”

  I kiss Virginia again! I help her up the stairs.

  “He won’t be back,” I go.

  I meant the Colonel…

  “He won’t be back till tomorrow morning…”

  Another one of my impressions.

  Poor Virginia, she couldn’t take any more… that trio had rattled her something terrible with their malarkey…

  “Darling!…” she called me… “Darling!…”

  Poor little dove… Pale too, and queasy… on practically every step she felt sick to her stomach…

  Sosthène says to her: “Suck some ice! With a drop of crème de menthe!…”

  That was one solution.

  “Oh no! Oh no!”

  Didn’t want to…

  I kiss her, undress her, she was ill, limp and lifeless… a child.

  “There!” she goes… “There!”

  Along her ribs… stabbing pains. She wasn’t real swollen, you noticed it just a little bit. And that’s all. No mistake, it seems. The doctor she’d gone to see on Sternwell Road nearby had been totally positive on that score.

  “Come back and see me in a month, and don’t do anything reckless, no bicycle-riding, no tennis!”

  She wasn’t exactly jumping around. She felt better on her back. I kept glancing at her belly. Ah! All the rotten breaks came my way! It bummed me out.

  “Poor Ferdinand! Poor Ferdinand!”

  She was the one who felt sorry for me, but all in fun, seeing the down-in-the-mouth look on my face… Ah! What a mess I was in! Ah! I’d botched things up good! I kiss her again two-three times. I tuck her in, kiss her.

  “Goodnight! Goodnight!…”

  She looked like a kid herself to me! Old she wasn’t, with a room still full of dolls, teeny cutesy cradles thick with streaming ribbons… Ah! It felt so strange seeing Virginia like that, I kept watching and watching her… I’d never have believed this before… She didn’t have the same effect on me… but my love for her was mighty strong all the same… I loved her almost more than before… We couldn’t stay together like this all night long. What if the old man walked in suddenly! I kiss her one more time… “Goodnight!” And then I go up to our room with the twin beds.

  The other wise guy’s been in bed for an hour already!… I barge in, spunky, perky as hell, all confidence.

  “So tell me now, Sosthène! No bad dreams? Did you kiss the blues goodbye?”

  I wanted to clear up a few things.

  “Stop worrying yourself sick! Curlers is a booze-soaked carcass! Who spouts total crap! Ain’t worth a hoot, dear Sosthène! A big fat zero! Kiss her goodbye!”

  All of a sudden I was upbeat. Feeling responsible for a lot of people’s welfare! I had to take a stand! Straighten out the situation! Get everybody out of this jam! Turn this back into the cushy set-up it once was, with room for Sosthène too! I owed my life to the guy! So he said anyway! Let’s put our rotten luck behind us! Let’s all get out of this mess together! I didn’t want life to bug him any more! I wanted him to take advantage of this chance! The days of pain and sorrow were history! Now we were going to have some fun! Whoop it up! Get a terrific bang out of the good life! I could see a bright future ahead of us! Wonderful! Just like that, off the top of my head for no reason, my mood had flipped around because I’d had enough, that’s all, and all things must come to an end! When you’re young you’re flaky, like a spoilt little birdie you flitter back and forth between gloom and sunshine, between laughter and tears, you can always see patches of blue through the blackest twisters.

  All right! Now to bed, I’m full of laughs, tell him a few jokes to cheer him up a little in advance, so that he’ll eat up our brand-new chance and snatch a little taste right now.

  No go. He keeps scowling, burrows his head in his pillow! And here I am, busting my butt, going all out, whipping myself up. I even tune out the humming in my head, all my energy poured into puns, madly hopping from subject to subject. I pump myself up, put on a happy face, stifle the voice of gloom and doom. He baulks, turns thumbs down, doesn’t even want to crack a smile. He thinks the fact the Colonel’s still out is a bad omen.

  “Is not! Is not!” I reassure him. “He’s at his club, that’s all. He’s out on a binge, he’s got the right… he’s bored stiff at home constantly surrounded by his family… banging away at his gas masks… He wants a little breath of fresh air. He’ll come back one of these days… on a binge, so look out! I can see him right this second, plastered, drunk as a skunk over at the Kit-Cat Club… at the Windmill Theatre… two-three clubs, a piece of ass… pussy and poker!… British style… ‘Champagne! Champagne!…’ Sly and slick in his dinner jacket… He’ll come back by cab… just open your eyes every morning… maybe with a soldier boy… a Tommy tops! Maybe he’s getting plugged… Can’t rule it out! There’s a war on! And how! There’s a war on!… Sure, you can see it in the fact he’s depraved.”

  I was thinking about the scene with his niece, the servants…

  “One hell of a sex maniac if you ask me!”

  Ah! I wasn’t crazy about the guy.

  So we kept chatting on like that about him until we finally fell asleep… All the same we were pooped… It must have been going on one o’clock! Tick-tock… Tick-tock… I wake up… it wasn’t anything special… just the clock’s plain old tick-tock… I’ve put up with lots of other kinds of noise. My nerves no doubt probably.

  “Hey!” I yell… “You going to give it a rest?”

  I was really ticked off, my own voice made me jump… Ah! I’m screwy, I swear! But Sosthène wasn’t asleep… I found him sitting up – he couldn’t breathe right, gasping for air, smothering!

  “You sick too?” I ask him.

  In a foul mood I was, he was getting under my skin with his fits, and now they were coming on him at night to boot! We had enough work cut out for us during the day… I was already tying myself in knots to steer clear of catastrophe… The least we could do is get a little sleep…

  I ask him: “Don’t you want me to open the window?”

  “
If you like, I can’t take it any more.”

  “Can’t take what any more?”

  “When will you understand!…”

  Big sigh! He was down in the dumps, that was all.

  “You’re stubborn,” he adds.

  “Stubborn about what?”

  He starts bawling, the whole routine, head in his hands… a grand performance. He sobs away.

  “Ah! What a fine mess! Aren’t you ashamed? You’re falling to pieces! You’re scared, say it! Say that you’re scared!”

  I head straight for the jugular!…

  “No, I am not afraid!” he protests.

  “Are too! You’re scared shitless! Admit it!…”

  “I am not scared shitless!”

  I was riling him on purpose… I kept at it: “That lama of yours is really terrific! As terrific as my balls!”

  This rubs him the wrong way.

  “You’ve got it easy, you little slob!”

  I knew his game.

  “OK, that’s enough, you going to drop it? You want out, right? You want out? You’re going to go cry to the Colonel! Ah! You’re really too rotten for words!”

  “Send me off to my death right now!”

  I was putting him in a huff. He was hopping up and down on his mattress, hammering away at it with his fists!

  “I do what I want, damn! I do what I want!”

  “But I’m not sending you off to do anything at all!”

  “You are so! You are! You’re the one! You’re crafty! You want to see me dead… You want revenge for the mercury!”

  “Ah! Unbelievable! You slay me, you bastard! I’m already in a tight enough spot as it is without going around killing more people!…”

  “You will so! You will! I can see you… I can see right through you!” Some insinuations…

  He was bitching and moaning, refused to get anything through his thick skull…

  “I’m not the one who woke you up, am I, you rotten blabbermouth! That shows you right there! Clear as day! You’re the instigator! You know I’m in enough of a mess with Virginia… cos she might be pregnant…”