Death on the Installment Plan

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Through my window I can see Paris … spread out below me … And then it begins to climb … toward us … toward Montmartre … One roof pushes the next, sharp, cutting, bleeding in the light, streets blue, red, and yellow … Lower down, the Seine, pale mists, a tugboat buffeting the current … with a tired wail. Still farther off, the hills … Everything looks alike … The night will take us in. Is that my concierge banging on the wall?

  I must be in pretty bad shape for her to come up … Mother Bérenge is too old for all those stairs … Where can she be coming from? … She crosses my room ever so softly … She doesn’t touch the floor. She doesn’t even look to right or left … She leaves by the window, out into the void … There she is, off in the darkness above the houses … there she is, over there …

  D … F … G-sharp … E … Shit! Isn’t he ever going to stop? That must be his pupil starting in … When fever spreads through you, life gets as flabby as a barkeeper’s belly … You sink into a muddle of entrails. I hear my mother rubbing it in … She’s telling Madame Vitruve the story of her life … Over and over again, to make it clear what a time she’s had with me. Extravagant … irresponsible … lazy … nothing like his father … he so conscientious … so hardworking … so deserving … so unlucky … who passed on last winter … Sure … she doesn’t tell her about the dishes he broke on her bean … Oh no! D … C … E … D-flat! That’s his pupil, in trouble again … skipping sixteenths … he’s tangled up in the teacher’s fingers … He’s skidding … he can’t straighten out … his nails are full of sharps … “Watch that beat!” I roar.

  My mother doesn’t say a word about how he used to drag her through the back room by the hair. The place was really too small to argue in …

  Not one word about all that … nothing but poetry … Yes, we lived in cramped quarters, but we loved each other so. That’s what she was saying. Papa was fond of me, he was so sensitive about every little thing that my behavior … so much to worry about … my alarming propensities, the terrible trouble I gave him … hastened his death … all that grief and anguish affected his heart. Plop! The fairy tales people tell each other … they make a certain amount of sense, but they’re a pack of filthy stinking lies … The stinking bitches get so het up filling each other full of bullshit that they drown out the piano … I can puke in peace.

  Vitruve is no slouch at telling whoppers either … she lists her sacrifices … Mireille is her whole life … I can’t catch it all … I’d better go to the can to vomit … probably a touch of malaria too … brought it back from the Congo … I’m pretty far gone in all directions …

  By the time I get back to bed, my mother is in the middle of her courtship … the days when Auguste rode a bike … not to be outdone, the other one goes on shamelessly … about her desperate efforts to save my reputation … at Linuty’s … Oh no! I can’t stand it! I sit up … I’m at the end of my rope … I can’t move … I just lean over and vomit on the other side of the doss. If I’ve got to be delirious, I’d rather wallow in stories of my own … I see Thibaud the Troubadour … He’s always in need of money … He’s going to kill Joad’s father … Well, at least that will be one father less in the world … I see splendid tournaments on the ceiling … I see lancers impaling each other … I see King Krogold himself … He has come from the north … He had been invited to Bredonnes with his whole court … I see his daughter Wanda, the Blonde, the Radiant … I wouldn’t mind jerking off, but I’m too sticky … Joad is horny in love … Oh well, why not … I’ve got to get back … A sudden surge of bile … The effort makes me bellow … This time my old bitches can’t help hearing … They come in and patch me up. I throw them out … in the hallway they start shooting the shit again. After the way they’d been running me down, the tide changes … they discover my good points … they’re dependent on me for a good many things … Better be realistic … they’d been overdoing it … After all, who brings home the bacon? … My mother wasn’t making much, working for Monsieur Bizonde, the famous trussmaker … Not enough to get by on … It’s hard at her age to make ends meet on a commission basis. And who keeps Madame Vitruve and her niece going with his clever ideas? … Suddenly a new wave of suspicion. They begin to hedge …

  “He’s a scatterbrained brute … but good-hearted …” You’ve got to admit that. Yes, of course. There’s the rent and groceries to think about … Mustn’t exaggerate. They hasten to put each other’s minds at rest. My mother is no workingwoman … She says that over and over again, it’s her litany … She’s a small businesswoman … Our family ran itself ragged for the glory of small business … We’re no drunken workers, up to our ears in debt … Oh no! Certainly not … There’s a big difference and don’t forget it … Three lives, mine, hers, and most of all my father’s were ground down by sacrifice … Nobody even knows what became of them … they paid our debts …

  And now my mother knocks herself out trying to recapture those lives of ours … she’s reduced to her imagination … they’ve disappeared … our pasts as well. Whenever she has a free moment, she tries to put things back on their feet … but inevitably they collapse again …

  She flies into terrible rages if I even begin to cough, because my father had a chest like a bull, good strong lungs … I can’t stand the sight of her anymore, she gives me the creeps. She wants me to share in her fantasies … I’m not in the mood. One of these days I’m going to do something bad! I want to have my own fantasies … C! E! A! the pupil is gone. The pianist is relaxing … Doing a berceuse … I wish Emilie would come up … She comes every evening to straighten out … She hardly says anything … I forget she’s there … Ah, here she is! She wants me to take some rum … The drunks next door are bawling again …

  “He has a high fever … I’m terribly worried,” my mother repeats for the hundredth time.

  “He’s so kind to his patients,” yacks Vitruve.

  At that point I was so hot I dragged myself to the window.

  On a long tack across the Étoile my gallant ship glides through the dusk … under full sail … she is heading straight for the Hôtel-Dieu … The whole town is on deck, still and calm. All those dead—I know them all … I even know the helmsman … He’s my buddy … The pianist has caught on … He’s playing the tune we need: “Black Joe” … for a cruise … to catch the wind and weather … and the lies … If I open the window, it will be cold … Tomorrow I’m going to kill Monsieur Bizonde, who keeps us going … the trussmaker, in his shop … I want him to travel … he never goes out … My vessel groans and pitches over the Parc Monceau … She’s slower than last night … She’s going to hit the statues … Two ghosts go ashore at the Comédie Française … Three enormous waves carry off the arcades of the rue de Rivoli. The siren screams against my windowpanes … I close my door … A roar of wind … My mother appears with her eyes popping out … She scolds me. Misbehaving as usual. Vitruve comes running … More good advice. I rebel … I give them hell … My fair ship is limping. Those females can wreck the infinite … She’s off course, it’s shameful … Nevertheless she heels over to port … there’s no more graceful craft afloat … My heart follows her … Those bitches would do better to run after the rats that are fouling the rigging … She’ll never make that tack with her ropes so taut … got to slacken them … let out three turns before the Samaritaine! I shout all that out over the rooftops … My room is going to sink. I’ve paid for it, haven’t I? Every last cent. With my lousy rotten existence … I shit in my pajamas … What a mess! Things are bad. I’m going to founder at the Bastille. “Ah, if only your father were here” … I hear those words. I explode. It’s her again. I turn around. My father, I say, was a skunk! I yell my lungs out … “There was no lousier bastard in the whole universe! from the Galeries-Lafayette to Capricorne …” At first she was stupefied. Transfixed … Then she gets hold of herself. She calls me the lowest of the low. I don’t know which way to look. She bursts into tears. She rolls on the carpet in anguish. She rises to her
knees. She stands up. She comes at me with the umbrella.

  She hauls off and gives me a couple of cracks full in the face. The handle breaks in her hands. She bursts into tears. Vitruve throws herself between us. She never wants to see me again. That’s what she thinks of me. She sobs so hard the whole place shakes … All my father left behind him was his memory and carloads of trouble. Memory is an obsession with her. The deader he is the more she loves him. Like a she-dog that can’t get enough … But I won’t put up with it … I’ll protest if it kills me. I repeat that he was a sneak, brute, hypocrite, and yellow in every way. She starts up again. She’s ready to die for her Auguste. I’ll smash her face. Hell! I haven’t got malaria for nothing. She upbraids me, she lets herself go, she has no consideration for the state I’m in. I’m in a blind rage. I bend over and lift up her skirt. I see her calf as skinny as a poker, without any flesh on it. her stocking all sagging, it’s foul … I’ve seen it all my life … I puke on it, the works …

  “Ferdinand, you’re out of your mind!” She backs away, gives a start and runs for it. “You’re out of your mind!” she cries again from the stairs.

  I stagger and fall flat. I hear her limp all the way down. The window is still wide open … I think of Auguste, he liked boats too … He was an artist at heart … He had no luck … he drew storms now and then on my blackboard …

  The maid is still there beside my bed. “Lie down here in your clothes,” I say. “We’re cruising … My ship has lost all her lights over the Gare de Lyon … I’ll give the captain a receipt, so he’ll come to the Quai d’Arago when they set up the guillotines … the quay of morning …”

  Emilie laughs … she doesn’t get it … “Tomorrow,” she says. “Tomorrow …” And she goes back to her kid.

  Then I was really alone!

  Then I saw the thousands and thousands of little skiffs returning high above the Left Bank … Each one had a shriveled little corpse under its sail … and his story … his little lies to catch the wind with.

  The last century—I can talk about it, I saw it end … It pulled out by the road past Orly … Choisy-le-Roy … Rungis, where my aunt Armide lived, the eldest of the family …

  She talked about all sorts of things that nobody remembered. The day we picked for our visit was a Sunday in the fall, before the hardest months. We wouldn’t be back until spring for the surprise of finding her still alive …

  Old memories stay with you … but they’re delicate, fragile … I’m sure we took the horsecar in front of the Châtelet … We and our cousins would climb up to the top deck. My father stayed home. My cousins would joke; we’d never find Aunt Armide in Rungis, they said. All alone in the house without a maid, she was sure to have been murdered, and what with the floods we probably wouldn’t be notified until it was too late.

  So we’d jog along to Choisy along the river. It took hours. That gave me a little fresh air. We’d be taking the train back.

  When we got to the end of the line, we’d have to hurry. Over the big cobblestones … my mother would tug at my arm to make me keep up … We’d meet other relatives, also on their way to visit the old lady. My mother would have trouble with her bun, her veil, her straw hat, and her hairpins and hatpins … When her veil was wet, she’d chew at it in irritation. The avenues on the way to my aunt’s were full of chestnuts. ] couldn’t pick any up, we hadn’t a moment to lose … Beyond the road there were trees, fields, an embankment, clods of earth, and then the country … farther still, countries unknown … China … and after that nothing at all.

  We were in such a hurry to get there that I made in my pants … To tell the truth I was in such a hurry all through my childhood that I had shit on my ass until I was drafted … We were all wringing wet by the time we got to the first houses. It was a sweet little village, I realize that now; with quiet little nooks, winding lanes, moss, all picturesque as hell. The fun was over when we reached her gate. It squeaked. My aunt had sold “ready to wear” at the Carreau du Temple for close on fifty years … All her savings had gone into her cottage in Rungis.

  She lived at the back of one room, beside the fireplace, always in her armchair, waiting for people to come to see her. She kept the blinds drawn on account of her eyes.

  Her cottage was in the Swiss style; that was all the rage in those days. Out in front there were some fish pickling in a smelly pool. A little more walking and you’d be at the door. Then darkness swallowed you up. You touched something soft. “Come closer. Don’t be afraid, little Ferdinand …” That meant smooching. I couldn’t get out of it. It was cold and prickly and then kind of warm at the corner of her mouth; the taste was awful. Somebody lighted a candle. The relations huddled together and began to gossip. It gave them a kick to see the relic kiss me … I was sick to my stomach from just that one kiss … and from walking too fast. But when she began to talk, they all had to shut up. They didn’t know how to answer her. My aunt conversed only in the imperfect subjunctive. Old-fashioned. It cramped everybody’s style. It was time for her to be moving along.

  There had never been a fire in that fireplace behind her. “The draft was never quite sufficient …” The real reason was economy.

  Before we left, Armide offered little cakes. Dry-as-dust cookies taken from a tightly covered receptacle that was opened twice a year. Everyone declined of course … they weren’t children anymore … The cookies were for me, Ferdinand! … To show my pleasure and appreciation I had to jump up and down for joy … My mother pinched me, that was my signal to perform … I ran out into the garden, always the little imp, and spat it all out to the fish.

  Everything that’s washed up was there in the darkness, behind my aunt, behind her armchair. There was my grandfather Leopold, who never came back from India, there was the Virgin Mary, Cyrano de Bergerac, Félix Faure, Lustucru,* and the imperfect subjunctive. That’s how it was.

  I let the relic kiss me once again before leaving … And then hurried departure; out through the garden at breakneck speed. In front of the church we ditched some cousins, the ones who were going to Juvisy. In kissing me they gave off every known smell, rancid breath between beard and shirt front. My mother’s limp was worse from sitting still a whole hour, her leg had gone to sleep.

  When we came to the cemetery at Thiais, we’d dash in for a minute. There were two more of our dead at the end of one of the lanes. We scarcely looked at their tombs and lit out like thieves. We’d catch up with Clotilde, Gustave, and Gaston after the crossroads at Belle-Épine. My mother was dragging her bad leg and bumping into things. She even sprained her ankle once trying to carry me just before the grade crossing.

  In the darkness our only thought was to reach the big apothecary jar at the pharmacy. That was on the main street, it meant we were saved … Against a background of raw gaslight gusts of music flew from the clattering doors of the wineshops. We felt threatened and quickly crossed the street. My mother was afraid of drunks.

  The inside of the station was like a box, the waiting room was full of smoke, with a rickety oil lamp dangling from the ceiling. Huddled together around the little stove, the travelers hawked and coughed and sizzled in their heat. There’s the humming of the train, it crashes in like thunder, you’d think it was tearing the whole place apart. The travelers shake themselves, break into a run, and storm the carriages like a hurricane. We’re the last two. I get a good clout to teach me not to play with the door handle.

  At Ivry we have to get out; we take advantage of our day out to drop in on Madame Héronde, the seamstress. She mends all our lace, especially the old things that are so fragile and hard to dye.

  She lived in a shack at the far end of Ivry, on the rue des Palisses, in the middle of the fields. This was a good chance to stir her up a little. Her work was never ready on time. The customers were ferocious; nowadays nobody would dare to gripe the way they did then. I used to see my mother in tears almost every night over the seamstress and the lace that never came back. If our customer got peeved about her torn
Valenciennes, she wouldn’t be back for a whole year.

  The plain beyond Ivry was even more dangerous than the way to Aunt Armide’s. No comparison. Sometimes there were toughs. They’d insult my mother. If I turned around, I’d get a smack. When the mud got so soft and mushy that your shoes came off in it, it meant we hadn’t far to go. Madame Héronde’s shack was in the middle of an empty lot. Her mutt heard us and began to bark like mad. We caught sight of the window.

  Our visit always came as a great surprise to Madame Héronde; she couldn’t get over it. My mother upbraided her, unloaded her grievances. Finally both of them burst into tears. There was nothing for me to do but wait and look out … as far as possible … across the plain, heavy with darkness, that stretched out as far as the banks of the Seine and ended in a long cluttered line of housing lots.

  Our seamstress did her mending by the light of an oil lamp. The smoke choked her and the light was ruining her eyes. My mother kept after her to have gas put in. “It’s really indispensable,” she said again as we were leaving.

  Mending tiny little insets, pieces as delicate as spider webs, she was certainly ruining her eyes. It wasn’t only self-interest that made my mother say these things, but friendship as well. I never visited Madame Héronde’s shack when it wasn’t dark.

  “They’re installing it in September,” she said every time. It was a lie to make my mother leave her alone … my mother thought well of her for all her faults.

  My mother was in mortal terror of thieving seamstresses. Madame Héronde had no equal for honesty. She never did us out of a single penny. And yet she was poor as a churchmouse and we entrusted her with treasures! Whole chasubles of Venetian lace, such as you wouldn’t even see in a museum nowadays. When my mother spoke of her later on in the family circle, it was with enthusiasm. It brought tears to her eyes. “She was a real fairy, I’ve got to admit. It’s too bad she couldn’t keep her word. She never delivered anything on time, never once …” The fairy died before the gas was installed, of fatigue, carried off by the flu, and also no doubt by the sorrow of having a skirt chaser for a husband … She died in childbirth … I remember her funeral well. It was at Le Petit Ivry. There were only the three of us, me and my parents, her husband hadn’t bothered! He was a handsome man, he drank up every cent he ever owned. He spent whole years at the bar on the corner of the rue Gaillon. We saw him there for at least another ten years every time we passed. And then he disappeared.