Rigadoon

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  He stands up …

  “My respects, madame!”

  He bows.

  “Good luck, my friends!” … that’s for Le Vig and me.

  A little pat for Bébert … he leaves … with his baton under his arm … the way he came, same door … I’m kind of wondering … never mind! our two cops aren’t wondering at all! they know the scenario! same car with the blurred windows … they put us in … actually they help us! … same road … back to the station, I think … no problem! …

  “The train ought to be ready!”

  Says our tricolor cop … he must know … I ask him:

  “You coming with us?”

  “What did you think? … the more the merrier!”

  We’re riding along … here’s the station! … the square … no reception committee … Captain Siegfried? evaporated! the raspberry stationmistress? … her three children? maybe the trains evaporated too … no! … there it is, all made up … our cops weren’t lying! … a sign! Sigmaringen … “special” for us … nobody else! … we get in quick and settle down, we and our cops … no other passengers … a tiny coke locomotive, had time to see it … same kind of train, wood and tin, as up there, our fish train … oh well, Ulm-Sigmaringen is only seventy miles … barring accidents we’ll be there about six … or seven.

  “We’ll be there for dinner!”

  He’s thinking about dinner! … anyway no planes upstairs … a few little “booms” but far away … shaking us up, pretty bad in fact, but not as bad as the fish train … nothing to complain about … and what they’d said at the brewery … I’m telling you all this helter-skelter … I’ll straighten it out later … the station … the cops … Rundstedt … the brewery … and back again … now for a laugh … Mademoiselle de Lespinasse ceased to make judgments … impressions! from that point on she only had impressions! … my impression was that we’d been kidnapped, Le Vig, Lili, me, and Bébert … kidnapped! … we’ll find out later on … maybe …

  Esteemed reader, forgive me, the affairs of the Congo have arranged themselves more or less, the gains pocketed, the losses lamented, the raped are sick in bed … what a dearth of copy! … the journalists are frantic, stirring up, reviving the most evaporated rumors … whipping by-gone celebrities to make them yap, anything to liven up the season, the torpor of the bars, the casinos going bankrupt in this rain that’ll never stop … even me here in my obscurity, don’t get the idea that they leave me alone, peace-loving and down at heel as I am, to live out my difficult last days … hell no! … here’s one now, a skirt! … here comes another, in pants! … here come ten of them! … and what questions! …

  “Oh, have pity! … Oh, Maître! … Oh, would you?”

  “What?”

  “What you think of the taenia …”

  “All the good in the world!”

  “His marriage! … whom do you see him marrying? … his ideal woman in your opinion?”

  “Mistinguett!”

  “Your reasons, Maître!”

  “They’ll be happy in his jar, united in formaldehyde, cozy … she a stiff, soon a skeleton … he, don’t forget, is only a ring … detached from the tapeworm’s tape … he can only crawl, wriggle … at the very most! in seats of pants, toilet bowls, on bedside rugs … best he can do! … a tragic fate! I can prove it: his convulsions under the microscope … he takes the form of a face with two kinds of eyes, globulous, divergent …”

  “You think so, Maître?”

  “I am … harumph! … a parasitologist! doctorated! don’t forget it!”

  “You’re cruel!”

  “No! … the life of the taenia is horrible … I admit … I forgive him everything! … if he migrates from our rectal ampulla, he can only … via the Sorbonne, betrayals, café terraces, plagiarisms, and mutations … end up in the toilet bowl … or on rare, privileged occasions, in a five-percent formaldehyde solution behind the bar … waiter! my friends here would like to try it! …”

  “And supposing he marries Mistinguett’s skeleton, Maître?”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I will answer no more questions … dear gossip-mongers, get out!”

  “A question! … just one! one more! … have you any friends? many?”

  “No! scared shitless, the whole lot! canaries! … all of them!”

  “Not one?”

  “Not one! … less than one … anything as long as the lightning doesn’t strike them! … their beloved selves … it should strike me! …”

  “You’re embittered, Maître, sorrow …”

  Curses! they’ll never leave …

  “No! I’m a biologist, I tell you, that’s all! … only biology exists, the rest is hot air! … all the rest! … in the world dance marathon … the ‘Gametes Ball’ … the blacks and yellows always win! … the whites are always the losers, ‘make-up base,’ painted over, effaced! … politics, speeches, bullshit! … only one truth! biology! … in half a century, maybe sooner, France will be yellow, black around the edges …”

  “And the whites?”

  “Folklore, striptease, jinrikisha …”

  “Has anyone ever told you you were nuts, Maître?”

  “Ten times a day for thirty years!”

  “Do you expect to be hanged?”

  “It’s too late, I couldn’t take it, I’d break into pieces! …”

  “Into rings, Maître! … into rings!”

  Hee hee … so funny! the imps! they’ve wasted fifteen minutes of my time! … they beat it! oh well! … they’ll do for a page … more or less …

  Did you see and hear those people? so rude! the nerve of them! … they’ve wasted hours of my time … maybe more! … with their grotesque questions! … their hogwash about races … white, yellow, and black! … what do they take me for? an encyclopedia? … that’s what lecturers are for … and to entertain archbishops, well-fed vénérables, bankers, and “small shareholders” … my business is to stay with you! … get back to you in Ulm! … remember? that’s where we were with our two cops, the tricolor and the Kraut, in the train … another dodge to make us confess … this crime and that crime … Lili, me, Bébert, and Le Vig …

  “Sigmaringen!”

  “You were there! you left!”

  Obviously … it was a mistake to go showing our faces in Berlin … and still further north! … right! … I admit it, ridiculous … but under the circumstances mightn’t you have done something even stupider! … telling about it now, it’s simple! … “we’re all of us so wise after the event!” no doubt about that! … commentaries, philosophy! … we laugh ourselves sick! myself here twenty years later, I know where I’m going … not hard to make you laugh! … the game’s over … the ball has stopped rolling … nothing else going to happen? … go on! full speed ahead! … grist for your baloney mills? … no! no! no!

  We’re in this train, reserved entirely for us … no other passengers, no need to talk … just look at the fields, the roadbed, rocks, and thickets, two … three farms … way in the distance … but what’s going to happen? where are they taking us? are they real cops? … we’ll find out at the end of the line … maybe … this coke rattler is making pretty good time … plenty of smoke though! … we’ll be pitch-black when we get there … who cares! … the jolting bothers me more … but nothing to complain about, not as bad as the Warnemünde, anyway it’s no time to saw wood, I’ve got to think … what’ll we find? … Restif, I hope … our two cops, the Kraut and the other one, they must know … maybe we won’t find anybody … neither at the Löwen nor the Bären … transferred? … escaped? … how do I know? … Restif must still be there … him and his “Valiance” commando … if they’d left we’d have heard about it … he and his men, they were going to reconquer all of France in less than a month, the citadels and ports, the whole works … serious operation, pretty ticklish … they probably hadn’t completed their preparations yet … Marion° had told me: it’ll take them at least a year! … there’d been twenty Z-days already … and t
wenty counter-orders … hold everything! today they’d call it suspense … basic Franco-pidgin … we’re not very talkative, sitting there with our two cops … easy to see why … we were definitely expecting some infernal machine on the tracks … or all of a sudden from the air … after all, we’d been traveling … so to speak … for months … east … north … zigzagging from switch to switch, bombed roadbeds, local rattlers, special trains … we had a right to feel kind of tired … which didn’t prevent us from finding out that this was only the beginning … that we still had plenty of surprises ahead of us … funny and not so funny … even some musical surprises, I’ll tell you about them … just then I was getting ready to ask the cops a question …

  “Raumnitz?”

  “He’s there, you’ll see him!”

  Restif and Raumnitz … somebody that knew us at least … our train’s rolling along … clattering some … but not bad … a bit of a roller-coaster effect … ups and downs … ah, here we are … we’re pulling in … very slowly … a big sign … Sigmaringen … the cops weren’t lying … I recognize the platform … hell, I’ve paced it often enough! and the waiting room … oh, it’s Restif! in person! … right at our door …

  “Don’t move! bonjour! bonjour! keep your seats! Raumnitz wants to see you! he’s coming! …”

  Our two cops … the tricolor and the Boche … they know all about it… they get up, they leave us …

  “Good-bye! … bon voyage!”

  No surprise to them … here’s Raumnitz with his two dogs …

  “You can get out! … this way please, I want a word with you …”

  He doesn’t greet us or shake hands … cold reception … no questions … I see that he’s aged … yellow … wrinkled … I know him, he doesn’t drink or take drugs … something must have happened … ravaged … looks ten years older … and we’d left only six months ago … on this Brandenburg zigzag … naturally things can happen in six months, and not just to us! the time only passes for us! how can other people have trouble? nothing happens to other people, nothing, all they’ve got to do is pity us, comfort us, weep over our misfortunes, shower us with gifts … so we step out … we cross the platform with Raumnitz and his dogs … the waiting room … here we are … it’s empty … six chairs, that’s all … the Major closes the door … now what? … he sits down … we’re all ears …

  “Well, doctor! … during your absence decisions have been taken … for you and for others …”

  He’s lost the thread … oh yes!

  “Sigmaringen evacuated … must be! … quickly … three days … special train for you … you and Restif and his men …”

  “Major, all we do is travel … we’ve come a long way …”

  “I know … I know … but it’s necessary!”

  “Where to, Major?”

  “I can’t tell you, but pretty far … it’s all arranged … you see … you’re expected …”

  Le Vig stands up … his arms outstretched … his head drooping … there he goes again! … Christ crucified! …

  “Major, I can’t move another inch! … I can’t go anywhere! … kill me! kill me! …”

  He’s sobbing …

  “No, of course not! … not you, Monsieur Le Vigan! at any rate not right away! … you wish to go south, I believe … still south, is it?”

  How did he know?

  “Oh yes, Major! … Rome! … Rome! …”

  Perfect agreement …

  “Tomorrow, Monsieur Le Vigan! … via the Brenner … Rome! satisfactory?”

  And how! tears of joy! … the sooner the better! …

  “Ah, Ferdinand! and you, Lili! forgive me! I couldn’t go on! … I put in a request … up there!”

  He’d doublecrossed us, the skunk! … where had he put in this request? To who?

  “Harras!”

  “You bastard! at least you could have …”

  “Alone, Ferdinand! … I wanted to be alone! you understand? … you forgive me?”

  “Alone in Rome?”

  “Yes, Ferdinand! yes! I’ve got to be alone!”

  He goes into his Christ pose … right there in front of us … tears and all … contrition, bitter grief, the same old dodge … I’d seen him like that in Grünwald with his two cuties … the two Polish broads, remember? … praying together and all …

  “Lili, you’ll take care of my Bébert? … you know how I love him …”

  He puts out his right arm … very slowly … he holds it over our heads …

  “Le Vig, I see you’re giving us your blessing …”

  I hadn’t time to tell him what I thought of him … Raumnitz cuts me off …

  “Doctor, you’ll take another train, the one you came on has pulled out! … ha ha ha! … the Ulm express!”

  He’s laughing … unusual for him, very unusual …

  “Now you’ll have something else … something you don’t know yet!”

  I’m not really listening, I’m thinking of Le Vig … food for thought … his Rome caper … he didn’t want to be with us any more … okay! … he wanted to see the sun … true, we hadn’t seen much of it, but was that a reason to drop us … plunk! … like a hot potato! … I couldn’t believe it …

  “Doctor, if you please …”

  “Yes, Major … yes!”

  “Restif will explain it all in the train …”

  I couldn’t quite see Restif explaining … it wasn’t his way, never had been … maybe you remember … Restif had his school in Sigmaringen … but nobody attended his classes … except the men of his commando, the ones that were supposed to reconquer France … those were the days of the lists and secret tribunals … Strasbourg was occupied by the blacks … Restif was going to put an end to all that, first liberate Strasbourg, then the whole of France, like some kind of Jean d’Arc, and chuck all the English into the sea …

  Now we can laugh! right now, December 1960, there are new lists going around in addition to the old ones … names have been added to names … the first listmakers have all died! … of prostate, fibromas, or strokes, and their successors, the new listmakers, are wondering if they ought to change the names, if maybe those people are dead, if it’s not their sons, cousins, nieces who were on the wrong side … very hard to mete out justice with lists twenty … thirty years old … the Chinese won’t have anything to do, nobody to purge, much as they’d like to, there won’t be any Frenchmen left, they’ll all have been murdered … Restif had started long before the war … maybe you remember, the Roselli sisters° in the Métro … and Barrachin° in the Bois de Boulogne … political affairs … he never talked about his technique, if you brought it up, he walked away … what he liked to talk about was History … especially Greek history, but without the murders and sacrifices … Marion gave a course in history, for him and his men … never a word about massacres … but what about this famous technique? nothing to it! … Marion had gotten him to explain it … operation in two steps … step one, harpoon your man, push his head back! … step two, sever his carotids … both of them! … in short, the guillotine in reverse! but quicker! that was the whole trick! harpoon the victim and fsss! two steps, one movement! … head back, two jets of blood! … that’s all! oh yes, the weapon! … a very fine sickle! a razor … fsss! not a cry, not even a hiccup …

  So there was a black army in Strasbourg? … they’d stepped into a trap, fine! … they’d be liquidated! … Restif didn’t boast, that was Sigmaringen chitchat … Restif never boasted …

  “Doctor, if you please … your train will be over there …”

  Raumnitz speaking …

  “What train?”

  He explains … a “special strategic” train … and then what? … going where? … no name given! … this didn’t look so good! … coal-burning engine … no soot! no smoke cloud! … Le Vig must have known all this, all these advantages, this “special strategic” tourism … he’d dropped us all the same! … must be some plot … cooking up since Moorsburg … to ship
the two of us, Lili, me, and Bébert, off someplace … and him, Le Vig, the Christ, to the sun in Rome! … supposedly … Restif must have known more, but I’ve told you, absolute discretion … I’d have welcomed some news of Marion, Bout de l’An,° Brinon° … and this one and that one … but I thought I’d better not ask … memory is a privilege … lightnings and a thousand deaths to anybody who starts murmuring maybes … nobody wants your maybes! maybe? … there’s only one truth! on one side! … only one church! … worried? in doubt? … the like of us? … cyanide!

  “Doctor, I believe you can …”

  I guess he’s trying to tell us the train’s there … I’d heard a locomotive … Restif motions to me … yes, that’s it … Lili’s ready … Le Vig doesn’t look, doesn’t move, his head in his hands … he’s not leaving, he’ll be leaving tomorrow … we go out on the platform, Lili, me, and Bébert … not exactly what we’d been expecting … three big freight cars … gray … “eight horses, forty men” … every army in the world, the same … our car … door half open … right! this is it! … Raumnitz leads the way … this train with three freight cars has come from Constance … we get in … the usual freight car, I see … thick layer of bedding, hay and straw … this one’s for men … I don’t see any stalls … here come the men … with Restif … his whole “commando,” at least thirty of them, “Milice” equipment, capes, potato masher hand grenades, Mausers … they whisper among themselves, pass in front of us, and settle down in the corners … they’re still whispering … we’d better get settled too … Restif must know what this is all about … I’ll try to get it out of him … no whistle! … we’re moving! … nobody’s seen us off … neither the Major nor Le Vig … no need to prod Restif … glad to talk, he’d only been waiting for the train to pull out … plenty on his mind! …

  “Doctor, I see you’re not surprised, you’ve been around, but this time they’re overdoing it … couldn’t say anything in front of them … you know how they are! … but now we’re moving, okay! nothing to lose now! … neither have they, take it from me! … I know them inside out! … I’ve worked for them … full time! … so have my men! … the Boches can’t pull the wool over my eyes! oh no! … I know what they’re up to before they do! … you want to know where we’re going … they won’t tell you … God-forsaken hole that’s lost its name, they’ve taken it away, scratched it off all the signs! … painted it over! … you won’t find it anywhere … not even at the station … this station we’re going to … Oddort, it used to be called … now it isn’t called anything … and I know why …”