Death on the Installment Plan

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  With Courtial, I’ve got to admit … I can’t deny it … it was one holy mess from morning to night … a perpetual rat race … He played some rotten tricks on me … he was as sneaky as thirty-six bedbugs. It was only at night that I had any peace … Once he was gone I did what I felt like … I made my own plans … Until ten in the morning when he came back from Montretout I was the boss … And that’s a good deal. Once I’d fed my pigeons, I was absolutely free … I always took a little rake-off on the sales of the Genitron … We had a racket with the returns … some of it was for yours truly … I put it aside … and I got something out of the balloon flights too … It was never more than twenty, twenty-five francs … but to me, for pocket money, it was a fortune!

  The old crocodile would have been glad to know where I stashed my dough away … my cute little nest egg … He could look till doomsday … I was very careful … I’d learned a thing or two … My little treasure never left my pocket, actually it was a special pocket, carefully pinned, inside my shirt front … You couldn’t say we trusted each other very much … I knew all his hiding places … he had three … One was under the floor … another behind the gas meter (a loose brick) … and a third right there in Hippocrates’ head! … I dipped into them all … He never counted … In the end he began to have his suspicions … But he had no call to complain … He never gave me a penny in wages … And what’s more, I fed him … Supposedly out of “general’” funds … The stuff wasn’t too bad … and plenty of it … He realized that he couldn’t say anything …

  In the evening I didn’t cook, I went all by myself to the Automatic on the corner of the rue de Rivoli … I took a bite standing up … I’ve always liked that best … it only took a minute … Then I went roaming around … I had my little circuit … rue Montmartre … the post office … rue Etienne-Marcel … I’d stop by the statue on the Place des Victoires and smoke a cigarette … It was a majestic square … I liked it fine … A quiet place to think things over … I’ve never been so happy as in those days on the Genitron … I made no plans for the future … But the present didn’t seem too rotten … I’d be back by nine o’clock …

  I still had plenty of work … There was always patching on the Enthusiast … bundles that were late in getting off … and letters for the provinces … So then about eleven o’clock I’d go out under the arcades again … That was the interesting time … Our neighborhood was full of whores … They did it for five francs … or even less … Every three or four columns there was one with one or two customers … They knew me well from seeing me all the time … Sometimes they were good company … I took them up in our office when there was a raid … They hid in between the files, eating up the dust … waiting for the cops to go away … We had some hot brawls in the investor’s corner. I was entitled to all the ass I wanted … thanks to my eagle eye, because I watched all the approaches from my mezzanine … at the critical hour … When I saw the cops coming … they all piled in through the little side door … I was the gang’s lookout … What people don’t know won’t hurt them … We expected the bulls a little before midnight … Sometimes I had ten or twelve of these tomatoes in the shambles on the second floor … We doused the candle … You couldn’t make a sound … We heard their size tens passing on the flags and doubling back … The girls were scared stiff … They were like rats skulking in the corner … Later on we relaxed … The best part of it was the stories … They knew all about the Galerie … everything that went on … under the arches … in the attics … in the back rooms … I found out all about the business people in the neighborhood … all the ones who had themselves buggered … all the miscarriages … all the cuckolds … between eleven o’clock and midnight … I heard all about des Pereires, how the lowdown swine would get flagellated at the Etruscan Urns at Number 216 in the alley across the way … near the exit of the Comédie Française … he liked a good shellacking… you could hear him bellowing behind the velvet curtains … and it cost him twenty-five francs a throw … cash on the line, naturally … and he seldom went a week without getting himself whipped three times in a row!

  It made me good and sore too to hear such stories … I was beginning to see why we never had a penny in the till … what with the knout and the ponies, no wonder we couldn’t make ends meet …

  The one who told the best stories was Violette. She wasn’t young anymore, she came from the North, she never wore a hat, she had a triple bun like a flight of stairs, and long “butterfly” pins. She was a redhead, she must have been forty … Always in a tight-fitting black skirt, a tiny pink apron, and high-laced white shoes with “spool” heels … She had a weakness for me … We all died laughing listening to her … she was a wonderful mimic. She had new ones every time … She wanted me to bugger her … She called me her “ferryboat” because of the way I bucked her … She was always talking about “her” Rouen … she’d been there for twelve years in the same house, hardly ever going out … When we went down in the cellar, I lit the candle for her … She sewed on my buttons … that was a job I hated … I tore off a good many … because of my struggles pushing that handcart around … I could sew anything at all … but not a button … never! … I couldn’t stand them … She wanted to buy me socks … she wanted me to look nice … I hadn’t worn any in a long time … Pereires didn’t either, to tell the truth … When she left the Palais-Royal, she hiked up to La Villette … the whole way on foot … for the five-o’clock trade … She’d do pretty well up there too … She didn’t want to be shut up in a house anymore … From time to time, though, she’d spend a month in the hospital … She’d send me a postcard … She’d hurry back. I knew her way of tapping on the windowpanes … We were good friends for almost two years … until we left the Galerie … Toward the end she was jealous, she had hot flashes … she was hard to get along with.

  When vegetables were in season, we piled them in … I did them up in mixtures with chopped bacon … He brought in salads … beans by the basket … from Montretout. Bunches of carrots and turnips, and even peas …

  Courtial went in for sauces. I’d learned all that from his cookbook … I could make any kind of stew, I knew all about browning and simmering … It’s a very convenient method … You can dish it out all week. We had a powerful Sulfridor gas heater … slightly explosive … in the backroom-gymnasium … In the winter I made pot-au-feu … It was me that bought the meat, the margarine, and the cheese … We took turns bringing home the liquid refreshments …

  Violette liked to take a snack around midnight … She liked cold veal on bread … But all that ran into money … On top of our wild expenses.

  I argued against it … I predicted the most dire disaster … it was no use. We had to have a try at his perpetual-motion contest. It was a hurry-up scheme … We expected quick results. The situation was desperate! … The admission fee was twenty-five francs … The first prize was twelve thousand smackers, the winner to be selected by a “grand jury of the world’s foremost authorities” and in addition there was a second, consolation prize … four thousand three hundred and fifty francs … We were no pikers!

  We had customers right away … a flood … a tidal wave … an invasion! … Blueprints! … dissertations! … enormous monographs! … illustrated theses! … We ate better and better! But we weren’t easy in our minds … Far from it! I was dead sure we’d be sorry … that we were in for every kind of headache and no kidding … that we’d pay through the nose for every cent we took in … for our beautiful dreams of two … three … maybe five thousand francs … that we were cooking up a mess of indignation that would come down on our noodles … and pretty damn quick.

  Models of every description were entered in the contest … every taste, trend, craze was represented … There were pumps, dynamic flywheels, cosmo-terrestrial tubes, pendulums for dynamos … calorimetric clocks … sliding refrigerators, reflectors of Hertzian waves … You only had to reach into the pile, you were sure to get your money’s worth … After two weeks
the screwball contestants began to come around … in person … They wanted news … Ever since the contest started, they’d been on tenterhooks. They besieged the joint … They hammered on our door … Courtial appeared in the doorway … he made them a long speech … He put them off for a month … He told them one of our financiers had broken his arm while taking a walk on the Riviera … but he’d be better soon and would hurry back … he wanted to bring his mezuma in person … Everything was all right … just this little hitch … It wasn’t a bad line … They left … but they were disgruntled … They moved away from the window … spitting their bile in all directions … some of them in solid lumps … something like tadpoles … Courtial had certainly stirred up a mean gang of maniacs … they were really dangerous … He himself began to have misgivings, but he wouldn’t admit it … instead of admitting his mistake, he took it out on me …

  After lunch, while waiting for me to worry the coffee through the strainer, he’d squeeze the end of his nose … he’d make little drops of grease ooze out. They came out like worms, then he’d squash them between his filthy, pointed nails … That was some schnozzola he had … a regular cauliflower … wrinkled … browned … and wormy … Besides, it was getting still bigger … I told him so.

  We’d drink our mud and wait for the horde of lunatics to come back … those feverish Archimedeses … for them to begin cussing us out … lurching into the joint … On these occasions Courtial would light into me and try to humiliate me … That seemed to relieve him … He’d start in out of a clear sky … “One of these days, Ferdinand, I’ll have to teach you something about certain major trajectories … certain essential ellipses … You don’t know one thing about Gemini … or even the Big Dipper! Not a solitary thing! … I noticed it this morning when you were talking to that little louse … It was pitiful, shocking … Just imagine if some fine day one of our contributors, in the course of an interview, were to ask you a few questions about the Zodiac and its signs? … about Sagittarius … What would you have to say? Nothing, or just about. Nothing at all would be better… We’d be discredited, Ferdinand! And under the sign of Flammarion … That’s right! It’s too much! It’s a howling mockery! Your ignorance! What’s the sky to you? A hole, Ferdinand! One more hole! There you have it. That’s what the sky is to Ferdinand!” He clutched his head in both hands … He’d swing it from left to right, he couldn’t get over it … as if, sitting there with me, such a revelation, such an aberration, had suddenly become just too painful … as though he couldn”t stand it another minute … He sighed so loud I could have knocked his block off.

  “But let’s get down to more pressing business,” he’d snap out … “Hand me fifteen or twenty of those files. At random. Just reach in. I’m going over them right away … I’ll annotate them tomorrow morning. We’ve got to get started, dammit. And don’t let anybody disturb me, that’s the main thing. Put a sign over the door: ‘Preliminary meeting of the Prize Committee’ … I’ll be up on the second floor, do you hear me? … As for you, it’s a nice day … go drop in on Taponard … Ask him how our supplement is coming along … First pass by the Insurrection. But don’t go in. Don’t let them see you. Just look into the back room and see if Formerly’s there … If he’s gone, go ask the waiter, but absolutely on your own hook … you understand … not a word about me … how much Siberia won last Sunday in the fourth of the Drags. Don’t come back the front way. Slip around through the rue Dalayrac … And whatever you do don’t let anybody disturb me … I’m not home to a million … I want to work in absolute silence and quiet …” He went up and settled down in his Tunisian office. He’d eaten too much and I knew damn well he was going to sleep … I still had addresses of small-town notables to make out … and letters to finish … I left the shop and sat down under the trees across the way … I hid behind the kiosk. The idea of going to the printer’s didn’t appeal to me … I knew in advance what he’d say … I had more urgent things to attend to. I had the two thousand labels and all the wrappers to stick for the next issue … if the printer released it … which we couldn’t bank on … We’d taken in money in the last two weeks … the money orders for the contest … But we owed a lot more! … Three rent bills … gas bills for the last two months … and especially the shipping office …

  As I was laying low out there, I saw the procession of contestants coming … They stormed the shop … They jumped up and down in front of the showease … They shook the door in their fury … I’d taken the handle with me … They’d have broken the whole place down … They exchanged information … and indignation … They hung around a long time … grumbling outside the door … Four, five hundred yards away, I could hear the hum … I gave no sign of life … I didn’t show myself … They’d have all come galloping … They’d have drawn and quartered me … At seven o’clock new ones were still turning up … That punk up there in his sook must still have been sawing wood … Unless he’d shoved off … at the sound of the pack … through the handy little door on the street side …

  Anyway, there was no hurry … I had time to think a while … It had been years since I left Berlope’s … and little André … The little stinker must have grown … He must be working someplace else … for other bosses … Maybe he wasn’t even in ribbons anymore … The two of us had come around here together quite a few times … right here by the fountain, on the bench on the left … waiting for the cannon to go off at noon … It was a long time since we’d been apprentices together … Hell! Doesn’t a kid grow up fast! I looked around to see if little André might be somewhere around … One of the salesmen had told me he was working in the Sender quarter … as a junior clerk … Sometimes I thought I recognized him under the arcades … and then no, it wasn’t him … Maybe he wasn’t close-cropped anymore … his dome, I mean, like in those days … Maybe he’d lost his aunt … He was bound to be someplace, chasing after his pittance … and his fun … Maybe I’d never see him again … maybe he’d gone for good … swallowed up, body and soul, in the kind of stories you hear about … Ah, it’s an awful thing … and being young doesn’t help any … when you notice for the first time … the way you lose people as you go along … buddies you’ll never see again … never again … when you notice that they’ve disappeared like dreams … that it’s all over … finished … that you too will get lost someday … a long way off but inevitably … in the awful torrent of things and people … of the days and shapes … that pass … that never stop … All these assholes, these pests … all these bystanders and extras strolling under the arcades, with their pince-nez, their umbrellas, and their little mutts on the leash … you’ll never see them again … Already they’re passing … they’re in a dream with the others … they’re in cahoots … soon they’ll be gone … It’s really sad … it’s rotten … all these harmless people parading along the shop fronts … A wild desire took hold of me … I was trembling with panic … I wanted to jump out on them … to plant myself in front of them … and make them stop where they were … Grab them by their coats … a dumb idea … and make them stop … and not move anymore … stay where they were, once and for all … and not see them going away anymore.

  Maybe two three days later Courtial was called to the police station … A cop came to notify him … That happened fairly often … It was kind of a nuisance … But things always straightened out … I’d brush his clothes with great care for the occasion … He’d reverse his cuffs … Then he’d go off to clear himself … He’d be gone a long time … He always came back delighted … He had confounded them … He knew all the laws by heart … he had all the alibis up his sleeve, all the dodges of the chase … But this little joke wasn’t so funny … It wasn’t in the bag by a long shot … Those low perpetual-motion characters were pestering the commissaires … The one on the rue des Francs-Bourgeois was getting a dozen complaints a day … and the one on the rue de Choiseul had lost all patience … he was completely exasperated … he was threatening to raid us … He was new, they’d put
him on in January … the old one, who’d been so obliging, had been transferred to Lyons … The new one was a bastard. He’d warned Courtial that if we started any more contest rackets, he’d issue a warrant that wouldn’t be any joke at all … He wanted to make a name for himself with his vigilance and zeal … He came from some one-horse town at the end of the world … He was full of beans … Hell, he didn’t have to pay our printer’s bill, our rent, and the rest of it … All he wanted in life was to terrorize us … We didn’t even have the phone anymore … They’d stopped it, I kept having to run over to the post office … It had been cut off for the last three months … Inventors with complaints had to come in person … We’d stopped reading our mail … There was too much … We’d been getting too nervous with these legal threats … When we opened a letter, we just took out the banknotes … We let the rest ride … It was each man for himself … It’s easy to panic! …

  Courtial could say what he pleased … The Choiseul commissaire had spoiled his appetite, this was a real ultimatum … He’d come back white as a sheet …

  “Never, I tell you, never, Ferdinand! Never in all the thirty-five years I’ve been laboring in the sciences! … crucifying myself! yes, that’s the word … to educate … to elevate the masses … never have I been treated like that scum treated me … It surpasses all indignation! That greenhorn! … That whippersnapper! … What does that crumb take me for? … A crooked cabdriver? … A ticket speculator? The blackguard! The insolence! He wants to raid us! Like a whorehouse! Raid, raid, that’s all he can talk about! All right, let him come, the jackass! What will he find? Ah, it’s easy to see that he’s new. A greenhorn in the region! A provincial, I tell you! Must be a hayseed! Ambitious, that’s what he is, the damn fool! Trying to show imagination! He can’t control himself! Imagination! Ah, this will cost him more than it will me … That’s right, dammit … The fellow on the rue d’Aboukir! He thought he’d come around! He had to have his raid! He came! He looked! They turned the whole place inside out! The rotten scum! … They wrecked the joint and then they left … Veni, vidi, vici! The stupid bastards! That was two years ago. I remember all right. And what did that two-bit Vidocq * find … papers and plaster … My boy, they were covered with rubbish! The despicable bedbug! It was pitiful … They’d dug all over! They hadn’t understood a word … The crawling cockroach! … Ah, the cocksuckers! … the poor bedraggled nitwits! … The legal donkeys … Shitass donkeys if you ask me …”