Our sad experience! … hell, ever since Montmartre! … oh well, this is Denmark, we’ll see … as I’ve told you, just as I’d been thinking, this Great Belt was very calm, the sea was tourist-blue … a healthy swell, though, just enough to put a pretty crest of foam on the waves … the gulls are circling around them … just the thing for a poster, irresistible … actually the gulls aren’t just pecking at the foam, they’re diving at the propellers, at the eddies, and especially at the portholes of the galley, the peelings, the scrapings … all the stuff that floats, scatters far and wide … out there in the foam … in the swell … as far as the horizon with its enormous clouds climbing up to the sky … the crossing will take a good hour, I figure … I knew the far shore where we’d be landing, Korsör … everything in due time, I’ll show you the place … now the ticklish part, getting off the ferry, the whole train passes over the joint, each car gives a little jump … the passengers have been taking the air during the crossing … I see the nurses, no intention of showing ourselves! … quick, back to our kitchen, all aboard! … about seventy miles to Copenhagen … still on our two chairs in the back of the kitchen car … absolutely somnambulistic from exhaustion, I’ve told you, I see that Lili’s nodding, but this is no time to give in … or for Bébert to come out of his bag, she’s holding it on her knees … I think we must have dozed off once or twice … since Flensburg without knowing it, without realizing, and hell! we mustn’t! … we ought to be adjusting ourselves to this … if you see what I mean … this atmosphere of peace … you can tell by the way we’re rolling, smooth as silk! … hee hee! … isn’t it funny? … no! … it’s not funny! … people like us from rue Girardon … passage Choiseul … and Bezons, et cetera, we’re not at peace at all … no more in Denmark than in Bavaria or anywhere else … absolutely made to be tortured … hell, I can’t even count the journalists who’ve come around and stolen hours of my time, and the Television, driving me up the wall with their O Maaître! … with their trailer and their hundreds of mikes … and vanishing as they came … gone forever … to tell you the truth, the whole world is howling because the arena has gone out … that’s where they want us … Petiot started the ball rolling, not to mention Cousteau and Landru and Vaillant … and even people who don’t exist yet, embryos in incubators, who’ll evolve into worse rippers and manglers than anything known up to now … we’ll see … you get the picture, with a dib and a dab I’m trying to give you an idea of their lowdown ways … ever since Journey it’s been a scramble … who could steal more from me, plagiarize more, stuff himself fuller … the whole stinking horde! … since 1933, it seems to me, I’ve been feasting them all, they’re at the table, at my table, and always asking for more … and more! they guzzle and swill and they never, never admit it … guests you might say, except that I never invited them, and they think it’s owing to them … and in addition, not satisfied, they’ve done everything in their power since 1933 to have me skinned, drawn, and quartered … expunged, to fix it so they exist and I’ve never existed! … the villainy of those scavengers! since 1933 it’s been going on, since 1933 I’ve been protesting, the pillaged host! you’ll say it’s their right, okay, but later on they’ll say: “the stupid bastard never even knew it!” that’s where I draw the line! I’m sorry, my indignation … it sticks in my craw, one trifling remark and I caught fire … forgive me! … back to our train, I mean our kitchen car … I’ve told you, springs and comfort like before the war, you couldn’t even feel the tracks … and they refused us nothing … all we had to do was help ourselves, the fat cook kept telling us … take this! take that! I accept a cup of coffee, so does Lili, for Bébert it’s pâté … he dives in … yum! yum! … perfectly at home! … think I’ll take a chance on looking out … lift up the blind … I knew the landscape … farms like in Normandy … except for the pastures … up there the land is so barren, the grass so rare that the cattle never get out of the barn … the winter’s so long, implacable, practically all year round … for two months it’s almost possible if they hurry, fling themselves on their impossible soil, absolutely hysterical, and make it yield, yield come hell and high water, their own technique, everything, wheat, cattle feed, spuds, beans … and the payoff, wait, is that everything has the same “Baltic” taste … absolutely insipid … codfish, strawberries, beans, asparagus, a hundred percent interchangeable … same “Baltic” taste … luckily, in two hundred years the waves and the wind will have “reclaimed” the whole place, wiped it out, melted it down … Denmark, Tivoli, prisons, monarchy, and agriculture, all those horrors … I know whereof I speak! … two years they kept me in a cell for no reason at all, for the hell of it, one good thing at least, they’ll never ask me to send them a tourist … still, I’m not so sure, some people are perverts, there were guys in the galleys that didn’t have to be, that liked to suffer in a big way, crazy about dying under the whip … and in the snazzier, richer classes, take the motorists, their only dream is to buck a stone wall, uproot the biggest plane tree … and spill their guts in the bushes! … faster! oh, faster! …
I’m cutting loose again, I’m going to lose you, but I’ve got a feeling that maybe I’ll never finish this book, it’s all very well writing a chronicle of exploits that were important twenty … thirty years ago … but what about the things of today? … everybody in my age group is gone except for a few relics who’ve lost track, who quibble scribble and shoot the shit from one driveling rag to the next, about the Cognac Prize° in Garganne,° about Renegade-Eichmann in Sekout-the-Ridiculous, a man has only one life, that’s not much, especially when I feel the Fates scratching at my thread, kind of toying with it … that’s right! which doesn’t alter the fact that you’re waiting for me and that instead of chronicling in good order I’ve forgotten where I’m at … no! … we’re having our coffee … and I’m about to risk it, to get up and take a look at the country … I’ve done it! just a glance … same plain … a few plowed fields … no fires … no ruins … naturally it can still happen, but they haven’t suffered yet … neither has the roadbed or the tracks … our train is running like a charm … at this rate we’ll make Copenhagen in about an hour … the Red Cross officer won’t be back to see us … I’ve got a hunch … his kindness to us can cost him plenty, taking us on, us and our kids! he’ll have to explain, some bastards they must be, his superiors up there in Sweden … “neutral” … enough said! … anyway, we’ve had a good break … our Red Cross man was okay … there’s always a slight chance, very slight, in the midst of the worst calamities … in Ablon, when I was a kid, during the floods, you know, in 1910, you only had to hug the shore with your boat and you could make it upstream safe and sound … half an inch off course and … bingo! … you’d find yourself in Choisy, caught like a top in the whirlpools … with your keel in the air! … good-bye! hey, that’ll do! … that’ll do! … I look some more … still the plain … maybe we’ll stop … that’ll be Roskild … their Chambord … a Chambord all in brick! … they’re short on stone in this country … and on everything else! … but these eternal rascals! they make the best of it, they call their mackerel sardines and their turnips artichoke hearts! … don’t let me lose you en route, our kids are settled, but what about you? what’ll you do if I lose you up here? … don’t worry, I won’t! … half an hour from Roskild to Copenhagen at this rate … our train runs through Roskild without whistling … it’ll be dark when we get there … fine! darkness is just right when you’re done up like us … let’s face it, in tarps and strings … we’ve got our capes, they save us … but in the light they’d be bound to notice … hey! … we’re slowing down … half a second … we’ve stopped! just time to say good-bye to our angelic cook and bingo! … my two canes and out we go! … the whole station, I see, is like in France, on “passive defense” … blue lights … maybe they’ve been bombed … or only a precaution? … say, they don’t let the grass grow, here’s somebody now … they’ve spotted me … another Red Cross officer … he comes straight up to us �
�� “Bonjour, Docteur! … pleasant trip? … and to you, Madame, my respects!” … a Dane, to judge by his accent … and his get-up … weird uniform! … folding brandenburgs with the ends hanging down … cute, straight out of an operetta … not exactly the time or place … he must be here for some reason … the right man at the right time, I guess he’s thinking … I won’t contradict him … I see that nobody’s getting out … is this stop just for us? … the train’s going on to the port, the Malmö ferry … I know the place … anyway, they’ve only stopped for the three of us, Lili, me, and Bébert … our little cretins are all set, no need to worry about us any more, now that they’re Swedes, slobbering, deaf and dumb, but Swedes … here thirty years later I’m thinking about them, wondering if they’re still alive, hell, they’re grown up now … maybe they’ve stopped slobbering, maybe their hearing’s fine, perfectly reeducated … no hope for the old folks … but kids, anything can happen … when I think of all the children we’ve left … one place or another … especially since Sartrouville … talking about Sartrouville, I wonder what became of little Stéfani! nothing wrong with her, strong as an ox, she was exactly a week old when I took her to Issoudun in the ambulance, just in time for the disaster she never knew about, the whole neighborhood crushed and crumbled, all around her, waves of bombers, the house in flames, she in her cradle, not a scratch! we went to get her and take her back to Sartrouville, they had her in the Town Hall, absolutely unharmed … I wonder what’s become of her … naturally we never had any news of our seventeen slobbering infantile wrecks … maybe they’re Olympic ski champions now … or boxers … no call to laugh … with kids anything is possible, old fogies nothing … anyway we’re here on the platform with our new Red Cross man … kind of surprising, I must say … in the first place how did he know we were coming? who notified him? … the same monkeyshines as in Germany, where we could never be anywhere, even perfectly camouflaged, in tunnels clogged with soot or under cataracts of bombs … without some Ostrogoth coming around and striking up a conversation … here I’d hardly set foot on the platform when this character shows … can he be of assistance? … all he wants … in the first place where were we going? … my turn to be curious! … “are you on alert like this every night? …” no, he says! pissed-off! he’s lying … two tracks further on, in the blue light, I see two three teams of workmen … digging and ramming … it was just like that in Ulm … and in Rostock … I’m curious, I want to see what they’re doing! … they’re working by acetylene lights … I see they’re very thin and they all look terrible, all of them, they’re not young and they’re pale and cadaverous … the Germans strip them bare … I’m thinking … like in Paris … yes, of course, but later when the Krauts were gone they still looked the same way, pale as ghosts in sub-zero weather … and with hardly any clothes, practically naked … having themselves a health cure in stir … I’m not making it up … enough of my reflections! … here we are on the platform … Lili, me, and Bébert … and this peculiar Red Cross man … Danish he is, he’s told us so, he speaks French and English, he asks me where I’m going in Copenhagen … he says he can put us up, plenty of room, a whole floor … oh no! not so fast! much obliged! … straight from the shoulder: “Hôtel d’Angleterre!” there and no place else! if he’d care to drive us … he’s got his car … splendid! two minutes … Vesterbrogade! … here we are! … the main business street, makes you think of rue Sainte-Catherine in Bordeaux … at this end the Main Square … Konges Ny Tow … Bordeaux again … provincial, an overgrown small town … takes a bit of adjusting, it’s a life we’d forgotten not so much because it’s provincial as because the streets are the same as before, with sidewalks, normal shop windows, no ruins, the kind of thing I thought we’d never see again … we’re strangers in this world … no business here any more … it’s dangerous to be in the streets like this … for us … real streets like before, with sidewalks and shop windows … it’ll be worse when there are people around and it’s light … at this end the Main Square … Konges Ny Tow, with the statue of the king in the middle, on horseback, Christian, I think, the Fourth … at the other end the theater … just like Bordeaux, same style, but not so successful … better than the Châtelet, though! … the canal across the way … man, is that picturesque! … looks like a small port, plenty of color, on one side the dives with the big numbers, reminds you of rue Bouterie in the old days, same pimps and whores and fags … further on the docks, the ocean liners … all that practically at the door of the hotel, a marvel for tourists … a hundred times better, if you ask me, than rue de Lappe or Harlem-by-night … I know what I’m saying, I got to know that town well, the bright and the seamy, every daybreak for two years I heard them unloading the haul from the raids under the big vaults of Vesterfangsel prison, every night, two three paddywagons full of pimps and streetwalkers, squares and their wives, dykes … all in a heap! … and did they get a shellacking! man! massaged to a pulp! the whole vault vibrated with their howling, and that building wasn’t made of paper, and the windows, a wonder the panes didn’t fall apart … so bad that even the prisoners in shackles like me, condemned to death, waited for them, knew exactly when to expect them, their only entertainment, the massage when the raids were brought in, the howling … always about three o’clock … Kloken tre! Ny Ham … this little port, haven of every vice, right in front of the Hôtel d’Angleterre … you’ll tell me I’ve lost the thread! … not at all! … I know exactly where we were … at the station … on the platform, with this baroque Red Cross man … time to watch my step …
“Hôtel d’Angleterre if you don’t mind …”
I could give him other addresses … no intention! … but from the platform of this station up to their waiting hall it’s a long climb, for me at least … even taking it slow, step by step … I’m thinking it over … what I’ll do at the Hôtel d’Angleterre … and especially the look on their face when they see me … I must have changed a good deal … the desk clerk knew me well … they’re sure to be “resisters” … and they’re sure to turn me in before I know what hit me … to who? … to the Devil, the King, the Embassy, the Pope, anybody they can think of! … God knows we’re used to it! … if I’m not arrested, slandered, threatened with everything under the sun … I feel funny … to tell the truth, ever since Journey I’ve kept my distance, made people hate me worse and worse, done my damnedest … that way I don’t have to be nice to anybody, except Achille, I’ve been treating him pretty well … since his “centenary”…
But let’s not lose you! back to our Danes! you’ve observed no doubt that those people never make war … their business is supplying … both sides … toward the end they come out for the winner, and that does it! … from one day to the next! … that gives them everything, the kitty and the glory! ready for the new crop of tourists! … we’d picked a bad time, ahead of the game, so to speak … between two acts … we’d just have to put a good face on it … but what face? tourists enchanted to revisit our dear old Denmark? … none of our business what they’re up to … we’re here to admire everything, especially their “Resistance in technicolor with commentary … filmed under the iron heel …” the frothing Teutonic horde … the same climate as here of course, but much funnier because they were all Germans, especially King Christian, né Glücksburg, Hesse, Holstein, a total Boche … I’ve been in his prisons, and not for the weekend either … worst possible treatment, the darkest dungeons, and I’ve always wondered if it wasn’t on Himmlers orders … most unlikely, you’ll say! … granted … still, worse things have been known to happen, stuff that no-body’d believe … but nothing compared to what you’ll see later on … for instance, take the little romance between your cleaning woman, white, and your postman, black … dominated blood, dominant blood! … that does it! … let your sumptuous chiefs of state keep their monopoly on the Vacuous Gesture, on their horse guards and trumpets! I could have said a yellow postman … even more triumphant! those are the things our princes never mention,
too absorbed in their blithering obfusticating blah-blah … white blood’s the loser! … and here we are in Brazil! … the Amazon! … Turkestan! … aviation and moon rockets are a lot of ballyhoo, hokum for the grandstand …
In the year 2000 there won’t be any whites left … nothing to get excited about … I agree! I’m telling you all this higgledy-piggledy, in a few lines … now back to business, quick! I’ve told you what it’s been like since that brick in Hanover … I screw myself up, I straighten myself out as best I can, it’s a reflex, my sense of duty, same as in the war, in a way … I mean war the way it used to be, when they fought for real and not by hearsay … all that’s as dead as a doornail, make way for the janissaries, the hundred percent racist Balubas, the fellaghas … and the Viet decapitators … that’s where the Power is, then the bank presidents will rest easy, good manners will be reborn, and all the little teenage delinquents will come running to help the old folks, to sweep and dust for them … hey there! I’d better calm down, this laughing fit … remember? … ever since that crack on my temple in Hanover … my temple … the brick … I’ve got to put my head in order! … and stop laughing!
We were in this character’s car, practically at the Hôtel d’Angleterre … this character mumbles something … I answer: Hôtel d’Angleterre! I say … he should take us there! … not someplace else! … I’m good and sick of it! of being deflected! … don’t worry, I know the way! … this street is Vesterbro … gade … after Radhusplatz … they seem to be on alert … haven’t heard any sirens though … and nothing in the sky, no purring, no searchlights … nothing blinking at the windows … the houses and streets don’t seem to have suffered … their “Ilium” department store is the same as before, chock -ful of truck, I even had time to notice a whole parade of wedding dresses … and sports outfits … maybe it’s only the window! … if our joker doesn’t try to pull a fast one, if he takes us directly, we’ll be there in a second … right! … here we are! … Konges Ny Tow … the royal theater back there on the right … there’s a bit of moonlight but not enough to admire it properly … there aren’t very many really fine squares … you can count them on your fingers, try it yourself, one or two in Paris … about the same in Rome … well, you’ll see this one later, there’s not enough moonlight… in the center, I know, the king in bronze on horseback, one of their “Christians” … any agency will tell you which … anyway we’re here … Hôtel d’Angleterre! … four porters at attention … the best of service, I see … we’ve nothing for them to carry …
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