Rigadoon

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “Our luggage will be coming later …”

  I tell them … been a long time since we had any luggage … now at the reception desk the clerk gives me a card to fill out, he doesn’t seem surprised to see me, he doesn’t ask for any papers and I don’t show him any … I see we’ve got the same idea … what’s going on doesn’t exist. A tacit agreement … fine! don’t upset any applecarts! … I know this desk clerk speaks French, I’ve often stopped here … I’m sure he recognizes me even if I’m not very presentable … suits me, the less talk the better! a man takes us up to our room, he has the key, he opens … immense, sumptuous, with two beds … I open the window … and then three more windows … we’re on a terrace, with a view of the whole set, Neiham across the way, the little port I told you about, really theatrical, big bars with juke boxes, tough dance joints all along, one side of the port, I mean, as far as the big channel and the customs house … makes you think of Saint-Vincent, Le Havre in the old days … the same customers drunk as lords, same ladies, and sailors and merchant seamen, all in a knot, tourists with vices, queers and turd eaters … anything people can do to the sound of the accordion between three and four in the morning … rush hour for the folks with peculiar tastes … take it from me, I know what I’m talking about … yes indeed! … at least one thing that no tourist will ever see … the paddywagons coming in after the raids … much less hear … the shellacking … biff! bang! wah! the wholesale massage … waaah! the howling! just about every night in season … two three busloads … and bing! and bang! sobering them up! maybe you don’t know it, that prison is high, hollow, and resonant like a cathedral … wham! waah! ooh! … nothing missing but the organ … Christ, here they come! … another paddywagon! … let ‘em out! … two years of solitary I had in the Vesterfangsel, Pavilion K, I’m not putting you on … it’s the same all over, any town, the truth is in prison, outside it’s all chitchat, drawing-room splutter, everything’s gratis, nothing’s paid for … it took the Temple° to show what the nobles were really made of … Moscow, America, Carpentras, same difference … twenty-four hours in the clink in any of those places and you’ll know the whole story, twenty years as a tourist and you’ll come home squarer than the day you were born … I’m talking to you like this, taking the liberty, higgledy-piggledy … no order, too much of a hurry! … I’ve just turned sixty-seven, my wild ass’s skin” is well shrunk, I should have been dead long ago, I’ve done everything possible in that direction … applaud! … if I thought I gave lots of people a pain, I’d have enough reason to hang on, but it’s not even true! … a telephone call now and then, curiosity …

  “Wouldn’t you be the man who wrote this … or that … long long ago … under the name of Céline?”

  I don’t answer, I hang up … Achille can take care of them … he’s got the Pléiade, that’s what the Pléiade is for …

  Profuse relics, museum of by-gone authors …

  Only three of us in that crowd are alive, I’ve told you which, “Lacquer Lock,”° “Walking Bust,”° and me that won’t answer … fancy that, the “Pléiade” … three alive, all the rest dead! … the most compact of graveyards … which shows you what a finagler Achille is, when he’s seven hundred he’ll be thinking up new schemes … “contracts” he calls them …

  Hey there, I’m losing you! O, hideous ravages! … the young blat, the old run it into the ground … take your pick! … we were in this high enormous room, three windows on the terrace … it’s dark outside … I whisper …

  “Lili, listen!”

  She listens … she agrees with me that this room is bugged … and certainly has holes in the walls … and we’ve got something under Bébert in his bag … I haven’t told you yet … something perfectly harmless, but none of anybody’s business, you’ll see … microphones, I’m thinking, who put them there? the Krauts? the Danes? … both, of course! and a lot of other people! … a new caper, I’m thinking, something I’m not used to yet … I’d learn … took me two years to learn and I came out in bad shape … flat on my ass! … I hear on the radio about all the trouble they’re taking in Tel Aviv to welcome their dear Jewish brethren that are arriving from all over, Patagonia and Alaska, Montreuil and Capetown, all so persecuted, tongues hanging out, heroes of labor, of deforestation, of the hammer, bank, and sickle … the trouble they take to give their dispersed brethren the right kind of reception! Committees of affectionate welcome, tears unlimited, wreaths of azaleas, gifts in kind and cash, choruses and kisses … shit! it’s kind of different around here! … “Oh, how vile you are! … why doesn’t somebody finish you off?” relations, friends, courts, executioners, all doing their damnedest! … we’ll make you pay for coming back! for daring! … why didn’t the Boches finish you off? … tear off the bit of flesh that’s still sticking to your bones … that’s all the “Committee of Native-Born Frenchmen” can do for you … I know what I’m saying … I say that Israel is a real fatherland that welcomes its children home and my country is a shithouse … on my word as a volunteer, seventy-five percent disability, médaille militaire, and all … in addition, by your leave, a writer, a terrific stylist, the living proof: they put me in the “Pléiade” with La Fontaine, Clément Marot, du Bellay … not to mention Rabelais! and Ronsard! … just to show you that I’m not worried … in two three centuries I’ll be helping the kids through high school…

  “You’re all dead in your collection! …” no! … three of us are still alive! … “Lacquer Lock” and “Walking Bust” … and your humble servant who isn’t very steady on his pins, I admit … come on now! let me catch up with you and no more fooling around! … “Lacquer Lock” never fools around, much less “Walking Bust” … that’s their strength … especially, you can imagine, in the Pléiade! …

  We were in this, I’ve been telling you, beautiful room with three windows, two enormous beds … perfect silence … you think that would make us sleep? … certainly not! … fatigue be damned! you hear a little sound, a scratching, something … no! nothing! … I go over to the window to look … there’s a bit of light in the sky, in the clouds I mean … two three searchlights … from far in the distance … two beams … a discreet alert, kind of … without sirens … no planes either, I think … I guess they had a curfew … sure they were “occupied,” but still very discreetly … later on we saw the Germans, whole truckloads, and more on foot and on bicycles, the armies from Lapland, Tromsö, Narvik, Bergen … the retreat, same old story, nothing to be surprised at, Ypres in 1919, Maisons-Laffitte in 1940, dazed bedraggled flesh, lost their shoes, dragging their puttees, using their guns for crutches … up here the only decorative troops were the Hungarians with the tall red hats … and the Bavarian mountaineers with their hunting horns and beautiful packs of hounds … I think they were all supposed to get reorganized at a camp near Lübeck … a lot of them got lost on the way, I ran into some in prison, stragglers, deserters, mostly picked up in waiting rooms … waiting rooms are the last hope of defeated armies … if Napoleon had had waiting rooms in Poland, he’d have put his army together again, he’d have retaken Moscow for sure … but you’re loyal, you haven’t left me, here it’s coming on dawn … at Zornhof too I thought we’d get a chance to rest awhile … you saw what happened … in Rostock and then again in Ulm … seemed to me we were entitled … not any more, I’ve stopped believing in anything, all I’m sure of is that it’s settled once and for all … Berlin, Ulm, Frankfurt, or Copenhagen … that we were made to be dished out in small pieces … by one side … or the other … even now, here in my pad at Meudon, I’ve still got the same feeling … look at the petitions and posters … and to cap the climax only two steps from where I was born, 13 Rampe du Pont, Courbevoie … I can hear what you’re saying … “things are taking a turn for the better! …”

  “Not at all, if you ask me!”

  “Then what do you hope for?”

  “The Chinese in Brest!”

  Okay! … I’m old, I’m raving, it’s my right… but no
right to lose you … we were up there in Denmark to admire … the prowesses and sublime ingenuities of their Resistance, filmed with sound track … the whole infernal “occupation” … there at the moment I didn’t see a thing … no foaming Teuton hordes … later on I was told about them, massacres, robberies, rapes … I was even treated to two versions, the official version and the prison version … the stage and the wings … one as crazy tall as the other … Teutonic hordes? … King Christian X knew a thing or two about that, he spoke only German, he tüas only German, absolutely, undeniable, Glücksburg, Hesse, Holstein … not to mention his dronnin! … I was in his Bastille … and not for the weekend! and I’ve always wondered if it wasn’t an order from Himmler that put me there … you’ll compliment me on my imagination … granted … but worse things have been seen, much worse … and I can assure you the future will be ten times lovelier … the Chinese in Brest, the whites on jinrikishas, not sitting down! no, between the shafts! … let all Gaul and all Europe with it, Yids included, change color, they’ve griped the world long enough! … with their blue, pretentious, Christianemic blood!

  I’m running away with myself, I’m forgetting you … not at all! … I’m guiding you … it’s light now, well, pretty near … knock knock! “come in!” … a flunkey … he’s brought our breakfast … he knew we were going out … yes, but I hadn’t ordered anything … an extra-complete breakfast on a great big tray, English-style, porridge, toast, ham, tea … coffee! … I’ve told you, they’re spoiling us … luckily we’d kept very quiet all night, sure they were listening … one way or another … plus three books of coupons for everything … bread, butter, meat … Danish coupons … bröd … smör … this flunkey talked French…

  “You can get fish on the open market, smoked salmon … and coffee … and clothing … you’ll see when you go out … you know, I presume …”

  I knew all right! … Emporium of the North … Ilium … Vesterbrogade … what I didn’t know, they taught me later … we were on our way out … “you take the bag” … I tell Lili … “I’ll take my two canes, don’t worry, I’ll manage …” first we’d take a look at the news … they’ve got everything down there, newspapers, the bank, the desk clerk, information, I’ve told you it was practically like peacetime … with one little difference … that none of this is for us, that we’re completely out of place … superfluous, dubious individuals, worse than in Boche country, and there already we were hanging by a thread … here it’s like a theater … we’ve dropped in and there’s no part for us … and pretty soon it’s all going to disappear, fold up: the sets, the streets, the hotel, and us underneath … see what I mean? … it’s hard to know what’s what when you’ve stopped sleeping … it’s still very early … the papers are all in Danish or German … with Danish you’ve got to catch on that they’ve turned nicht into ikke … once you dig that you’re okay … kind of a dialect … the Wehrmacht communiqué … always the same … okay … okay … this desk clerk has known me a long time, he certainly knows the score … what wind has brought us …

  “Doctor, over there, you see him?”

  Odd at this time of day, some kind of Swedish officer … in khaki …

  “He’s just arrived from Berlin …”

  A man in his forties … not the least bit rumpled or dusty, I’d even say neatly dressed and freshly shaved! …

  “Count Bernadotte! Red Cross! … on his way back home … been to see Hitler in Potsdam!”

  Why is he telling us this? … I didn’t ask him … what the hell do we care? … going back to Sweden? our kids are up there now … got there ahead of him! … let’s attend to our own problems! of course we haven’t slept, but we’re pretty well used to that since Montmartre … not very noticeable, though … anyway not in critical moments … pretty quiet around here, no danger, nobody seems to be up except the desk clerk and this Bernadotte … I’m talking about the big lobby … the bank is still closed … haven’t they had any alerts? … yes, twice! … a bomb … they’re “occupied” … you can tell because they’re all “resisters” … I found out later … the hard way … the Vikings are rough customers, in prison, to the prisoners, I mean … there outside the door the desk clerk is waiting for me to say something … I don’t say a word … little by little it’s getting lighter … we can see the theater on the right, at the far end of the square … the other end it’s the French Embassy … the Germans haven’t gone in …if only it could stay like this, locked, with seals! … but the war would be over sometime and the French Embassy people would be back … the Danes can be putrid enough, but they’ll never be as crummy as what comes out of France … to us, I mean … there in the dawn outside the hotel I had a hunch that all sorts of entertainment was in the making, give you something to laugh about … maybe you’ll visit Denmark as a tourist, you’ll see the place, it’s worth your trouble … you’ll recognize it easy … Kongsnutord, Royal Square … Christian IV … this equestrian statue … the streetcar loops around it, big long cars, yellow … like in Brussels … I say to Lili … “let’s go see …” I know what I want to see, not the city! … I’ve never told you about the stuff I had stashed away … or Harras or Restif or Le Vig … certain objects and papers at the bottom of the musette bag … oh, certain people suspected it, no doubt about that! … I cleared out just on time, you can imagine that I wasn’t going to exhibit anything in that grandiose room … sure to be holes all over and voyeurs and microphones … I knew what I was looking for, a really isolated place … I was pretty sure I remembered … not Hellerup … but all the same that park is very quiet, you seldom see a soul … an enchanting park, I can say without exaggeration, between the little port and the streetcar line, amazing flowerbeds and foliage of a diversity that I’ve never seen anywhere else … well, this park doesn’t attract anybody, and that’s a fact … you’ll easily find the little yacht basin, right at the streetcar terminus … I was thinking about it there on the sidewalk outside the Hôtel d’Angleterre … but Lili’d have liked us to go straight to the “Groenland,” the big store down the block … in the window she’d seen some of those sealskin suits, with high boots, embroidered in every color … marvelous … incidentally the last they had … after that it was the same as the rest of the world, the Greenlanders took to dressing like everybody else, half white-collar stiff, half plumber…

  I show Lili by my watch … I tell her … that it’s not even seven o’clock and the “Groenland” isn’t open … this Count Bernadotte hasn’t budged … he’s out on the sidewalk same as us, he doesn’t look at us, he’s staring straight ahead … he’s not looking at anything … he can’t be waiting for the streetcar … maybe a taxi? … ah, here it comes! … clank! clank! … the Number 11 … I’ve told you, all yellow, “Hellerup,” our car! … the first, I think … “come on, Lili!” … I climb in, not so easy, I must say … oh well! … so does Lili, with Bébert in his bag … I forgot to tell you, I’d arrived in Denmark with Boche money, the desk clerk had put me wise …

  “Change all that! never mention it to anybody! they’ll throw you in jail!”

  This racket with “hot” money that had to be changed right away! … they pulled it on me a dozen times … a ritual swindle … he changed it quick into Danish crowns, enough for the streetcar and even for the hotel, it seemed to me … luckily I had other ideas … he asked me at the same time if I had a weapon on me … and if I had a bank account … it’s his business to be curious… but he knew enough already …

  Not many people in the car … a few couples sitting there minding their business … “two to Hellerup” … two in Danish is to, not zwei! … three is tre … not drei! … these other people are rocking and jiggling same as us … all directions! … these tracks are in bad shape, but better than Hamburg! … or Brussels for that matter! … and in Berlin the tracks aren’t even there any more! hee hee! or the ones on rue du Quatre-Sept embre! … I knew them well! … Les Lilas! anyway, all Europe needs to be made over! … what I feel like
is a good laugh! hee! hee! … I stop myself … I force myself to hold it in! I’d explode! … absolutely! I stuff my fist in my mouth … that’ll do! … I’ll make it to Hellerup … to laugh or not to laugh! the rest is hot air! … this whole vehicle squeaks … and clank! clank! we’re getting there! … oh yes, I know … I remember … this is where we get out! … and then a little way on foot … to the edge of the woods … well, the tall brambles, the bushes … there I know it’s deserted … I’ve been there often enough … no! I’ve gone wrong! … it wasn’t like this … it must have been further up … we must have missed the path …