Death on Credit

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  They went back down to the concierge… They raised hell… Things were getting rough. So then Antoine and the boss’s wife began going out all the time, they did their drinking on the outside, they ran up terrible bills in every joint in the neighbourhood… I didn’t breathe a word about all this at home… They’d have blamed it all on me… They’d have thought I was at the bottom of all the mess!

  The main thing was the jewel case!… That solid-gold Sakya-Muni… I didn’t let him run around, he didn’t get out much! I kept him very carefully way down in the bottom of my pocket… and fastened with three safety pins. I had stopped showing it to people, I didn’t trust anybody any more… I was waiting for the boss to come back.

  In the shop Robert and I took it easy… Antoine hardly did a lick of work. After their parties he and the old bitch would come in and kid around with us. We turned the whole place into a shambles. Meanwhile in the afternoon they’d saw wood for hours… We were one happy family… as thick as thieves and twice as sticky!…

  But one night the axe fell! We hadn’t bolted the door… It was dinner time… There was a lot of bustle on all the landings… So one of our enraged liquor suppliers, the meanest of the lot, comes dashing up the stairs, four at a time!… We didn’t hear him until it was much too late! He opens the door, he comes in… He finds the two of them in bed! Antoine and Her Fatness!… He begins to yap like a dozen seals!… His eyes were all bloodshot… He wanted to murder Antoine on the spot! He was brandishing his big hammer… I thought he was going to emboss him one…

  It was true, we owed him plenty… for at least twenty-five bottles… white… rosé… cognac and even vinegar… It degenerated into a pitched battle… It took eight of us to handle that gorilla… We called in all our friends… Antoine was bleeding like a stuck pig. He had two enormous shiners… a blue one and a yellow one…

  From downstairs in the court he went on threatening us. He was delirious. He called us every name in the book: “Crooks!… Scum!… Cocksuckers!…”

  “You just wait, you layabouts! You’ll hear from me!… Sooner than you think, you bastards!… You’ll see when the police get here!”

  Things were getting sticky!…

  * * *

  The next day, in the afternoon, I say to Robert: “Listen, kid! I got to go out. They came around again from Tracard’s this morning asking for their brooch, it should have been delivered at least a week ago!…” “OK,” he says, “I got to go out too… I’ve got to meet up with a pal on the corner outside the Matin…”

  The two of us race down the stairs… Neither Antoine nor the boss’s wife had been home for lunch…

  When we get to the second-floor landing, I hear her coming up… All out of breath, red in the face, incandescent… They must have been eating too much…

  “Where are you going, Ferdinand?”

  “Just a little errand… On the boulevard… to see a customer!”

  “Oh, don’t go!” she said. She seemed put out… “Come back upstairs a minute!… I’ve got something to tell you.”

  “OK…” I go back upstairs with her… Robert runs off to his appointment.

  The minute we get in she closes the door, she locks everything, she pushes both bolts… She steps in ahead of me, she goes into the bedroom… She motions me to come in too… I come closer… I wonder what’s going to happen… She starts feeling me up… She blows up my nose… “Ah! Ah!” she goes. That excites her… I pet her a little too…

  “Oh, what a little pig! I hear you look through keyholes… Is that right?… Oh!… Tell me it isn’t true…”

  With one hand she starts massaging me underneath… “I’m going to tell your mama. Oh what a little pig!… Oh, sweet little pig!…”

  She begins to gnash her teeth… She begins to wriggle… She clutches me… She sticks in her tongue, a real lowdown kiss… I see stars… She makes me sit down beside her on the bed… She flops down backwards… Suddenly she hikes up her skirts…

  “Touch me!” she says. “Touch me down there!”

  I put my hand between her thighs…

  “Go ahead!” she insists… “Go ahead, angel dumpling!… Go ahead!… Call me Louison! Your Louison! You slimy little pig! Call me… You will, won’t you?…”

  “Yes, Louison!” I say…

  She sits up, she kisses me again. She takes everything off… blouse… corset… shift… I see her all naked… her bush so voluminous… spread out all over the place… It was too much… I was sick to my stomach… She grabs me by the ears… She pulls me down to her pussy… She bends me with all her might… My nose is in a hell of a state… It’s red, it dribbles, it’s all runny, it’s all over my eyes… She makes me kiss it… It twitches under the tongue… it oozes… it’s like a dog’s muzzle…

  “Go on, little love!… Go on, don’t be bashful!…”

  She manhandles me, she pesters the life out of me… I’m up to my ears in marmalade… I’m afraid to sniff too hard… I’m afraid of hurting her… She’s shaking like an apple tree…

  “Bite me, sweet little puppy!… Bite into it! Go ahead,” she encourages me… She’s heaving like mad! She lets out little squeals… I plunge in deep… it smells like eggs and shit… My collar is strangling me… the celluloid… She pulls me out of the pit… I come up for air… My eyes are as if covered with varnish, even my eyebrows are all sticky… “Get undressed!” she orders me. “Take all that stuff off! I want to see your cunning little body!… Quick. Quick! You’ll see, you little rascal!… You a virgin? Tell me, angel! You’ll see how I’m going to love you up… Oh, what a nasty little pig… I’ll teach you to look through keyholes!…”

  She billowed and writhed while waiting for me!… The whole bed was zigzagging… She was a regular vampire… I didn’t dare take off too much. Just the choker that was killing me… and my coat and vest… She hung them up beside the bed, on the back of the chair… I didn’t want to take everything off… the way Antoine did… I knew my arse was shitty and my feet coal-black… I could smell myself… To keep her from insisting, I started up again as fast as I could… I played the ardent lover, I climbed, I squeezed, I grunted… I charged like Antoine, but much more gently… I felt my cock sailing all around… I was lost in the foam… my dick was lost… I didn’t dare use my fingers, though that’s what I should have done… I scrabbled around in her moustache… Finally it slipped right in… all by itself… She squashed me against her tits! She was having a hell of a good time… It was stifling… it was like a furnace… She wanted me to work harder… She didn’t beg for pity like with that bastard… Oh, no, she wanted me to be more brutal…

  “Deeper, angel! Deeper, don’t be afraid! My, what a big fat one you’ve got!… Ah… ah… you’re ripping me apart, you big thug… Oh, rip me… rip me good!… Are you coming?… Oh, say yes!… Oh, oh! You’re killing me… you little bastard! My big little skunk! Isn’t it good?” And bam, I ploughed into her… I was done in!… I lay down on the job… She blew in my face… I had a noseful… from her licking too… garlic… Roquefort… they’d been eating sausage…

  “Come good, little pet! Oh, come!… We’ll die together!… Don’t get out, little treasure!… Put it all inside!… Don’t worry about me…” She swooned, she began to list… She turned over almost on top of me… I felt my spunk coming… Suddenly I say to myself: “Cheese it, kid.” I was out cold, but just the same… One two three… I wrench myself loose… I pull it out… It gushes all over my belly… I try to squeeze… I get a handful… “Oh, what a little beast!…” she hollers. “Oh, what a slimy little toad!… Come quick and let me clean you up!…” She goes for my pecker… She makes a meal of it… She likes the sauce… “Oh, what delicious little cum!…” she squeals. She goes looking for it all over my balls… She pokes into the folds… She’s really thorough… She’s going to swoon again… She’s down on her knees, clinging to my legs, she contracts, sh
e relaxes… Fat arse and all, she’s as nimble as a cat. She forces me down on her again…

  “I’ll bugger you, you little louse!…” she says roguishly. She sticks two fingers into my arse… She forces me. What a scrimmage!… The bitch, the way she’s steamed up, she’ll be at it all day!…

  “Oh,” it suddenly occurs to her. “I’ve got to take a douche!…” With one jump she was out of the room!… I hear her pissing in the kitchen… She’s rummaging under the sink… “Wait for me, angel!” she sings out… I’ve had enough… I jump into my suit… I grab the door, I push it open, I’m on the landing!… I take the stairs four at a time… I take a good deep breath… I’m out in the street… It’s time to think things over. I catch my breath… I walk slowly towards the boulevards.

  When I got to the Ambigu, I finally sit down! I pick up a newspaper from the pavement. I’m just beginning to read… I don’t know why… I feel my pocket… I did it without thinking… A sudden inspiration… I feel again… I can’t find the bump… I feel the other… Same result! I haven’t got it any more!… My jewel case is gone!… I look for it harder and harder… I feel all my linings… My pants… inside… outside… nothing doing!… I go to the can… I undress completely… I turn everything inside out… Nothing!… I’m not blind!… The blood boils in my veins… I sit down on the steps again… I’m cooked!… And good! I’m really screwed!… I pull out my pockets again… And again!… But I’ve given up hope… I remember perfectly. I’d pinned it all right… Way in the bottom of my inside pocket. I’d felt it before going out with Robert!… The safety pins were gone!… They hadn’t come out all by themselves!… All of a sudden I remembered the funny way she’d held me by the head the whole time… And on the other side of the chair… she’d been working with one hand… It all came to me in waves… Fright, terror welled up in me… straight up from my heart… It pounded worse than thirty-six truck horses… My whole head shook… That didn’t do any good… I began to look again… The case couldn’t have fallen!… It couldn’t have slipped out the way I’d pinned it!… Impossible!… Safety pins don’t open so easy!… And there were three of them!… They don’t come open all by themselves! To make sure I wasn’t dreaming I ran back towards the Place de la République… When I got to the Rue Elzévir, there was nobody home!… They’d all gone out… I waited on the stairs… until seven o’clock, to see if they’d come in… Nobody came…

  I tried to put things together… words… snatches of talk… incidents. It all came to me little by little… Suppose Antoine had engineered it? And what about little Robert?… Maybe they were both in on it… in cahoots with the bitch… When I stood up, I couldn’t feel my two legs… I went down the street like I was drunk… The people noticed me… I stayed a while in the little tunnel by the Porte Saint-Denis. I was afraid to come out… I saw the buses in the distance, swaying in the heat… I felt dizzy… I didn’t get back to the Passage until late… I said I had a bellyache… That stopped them from asking questions… I had such cramps I didn’t sleep all night… Next day I was out at the crack of dawn, I was in such a hurry to know…

  * * *

  When I got to the shop, I took a good look at all three of them… They didn’t seem to be thinking anything… neither the bitch… nor Antoine… nor the kid!… When I told them the pin had been lost, they gaped at me!… They were flabbergasted…

  “What’s that, Ferdinand? You’re sure? Have you taken a good look at home?… Turn your pockets inside out!… We haven’t found anything here!… How about it, Robert? You didn’t see anything?” It was the kid who swept!… “You’d better sweep again…”

  The way they talked, they seemed so savage, so villainous that I began to bawl… I could see them in the mirror, making little signs to each other… Antoine avoided looking at me… He kept his back turned, he pretended to be cleaning his emery stone… She went on blowing hot air… trying to trip me up, to make me contradict myself.

  “You don’t remember at Tracard’s?… Didn’t you say you were going there?… Maybe you left it there?… Are you sure?…”

  I was floundering in the soup… What a vicious rotten trick!… There wasn’t a thing I could do… I was cooked… Nobody’d believe me if I told the truth… What was the use?

  “The boss will be back the day after tomorrow… Try to find it before then!… Robert will help you!…” She was full of ideas… Any way you looked at it I was screwed!… If I went into details, they’d call me an impostor, a horrible abject monster… trying to wriggle out by slandering the boss’s wife, so good, so kind… Had I no shame?… What colossal gall… what a preposterous calumny… what monumental villainy… I didn’t even try to defend myself… I didn’t even feel like it any more… I couldn’t eat… My head was all stuffed up… my mind, my mouth, my whole face…

  My mother thought I was looking odd, she wondered what ailment I could be coming down with… My guts were all tied up with fear… I wanted to disappear… to get so thin there’d be nothing left…

  My father made caustic remarks… “You wouldn’t be in love by any chance? It wouldn’t be spring fever?… You got pimples on your arse?…” He took me off to one side and asked me: “You wouldn’t have a dose of clap?…” I didn’t know which way to squirm.

  Gorloge, who was late wherever he went, had come back by a route of his own, he had dawdled from one town to the next… He arrived on a Wednesday, we’d been expecting him since Sunday… The next morning when I went to work, he was in the kitchen, sharpening his files. I stood behind him for quite a while… in the hallway, I was afraid to move… I waited for him to speak to me. I had a shitless lump in my throat. I’d forgotten what I meant to say. He must have been told by then. I hold out my hand just the same. He kind of squints at me from the side… He doesn’t even turn round… He goes back to his work… I wasn’t even there any more… So I run into the shop. I was so scared I left half my collection in the bottom of the closet so as to get out faster… Nobody called me back… They were all there in the room, concentrating on their tools… I left without a word… I didn’t even know where I was going… Luckily I was used to that… I walked along in a dream… On the Rue Réaumur I was in a terrible cold sweat… On the big terrace I went from one bench to another… In spite of everything I tried to go into a shop… But my hand trembled so on the door handle I never made it inside… I thought everybody was following me…

  I spent hours like that… the whole morning. And the afternoon too, the whole time from one bench to another and so on, as far as the Square Louvois… always leaning against the house fronts… I couldn’t walk any more. I didn’t want to go back to Gorloge’s… Even my parents were better than that… It was just as awful… but at least it was nearer… Only a step from the Square Louvois… It’s funny when you’ve got no place to breathe in but places that are all equally horrible…

  I walked around the Bank of France once, twice, very slowly, with my disgusting junk… Then suddenly I pulled myself together and went back to the Passage… My father was on the doorstep… obviously waiting for me… The way he told me to go upstairs left no room for doubt… The storm was on… He began right away to stammer so bad and so loud that steam came out instead of words… I couldn’t understand a thing… Except that he was blowing off rockets… His cap was buffeted by the storm… It flew in all directions… He rained blows on it… He jammed it down on his noodle… His face swelled up still worse… absolutely crimson… with livid furrows… He changed colour. He went violet…

  I was fascinated. Was he going to turn blue?… And then yellow? I was so drenched in his fury that I couldn’t feel anything… He picked up something on the sideboard. He brandished it with a view to break it… I thought he was going to tear the whole place to pieces… He bit his tongue so hard, so furiously, it swelled up like a stopper, a big lump of meat, wedged into his mouth and like to burst… But it didn’t… He put down the hot plate… He gagged�
� He couldn’t go on…

  Suddenly he dashed out, he headed for the street, he ran through the Passage. I thought he was going to fly away, he was so blown up… so irresistible… so horrible…

  My mother stayed with me… She trotted out the whole fool story, every detail of the disaster… And all her own little ideas… her timeworn certainties…

  Monsieur Gorloge had been there, he had talked to them for two hours… He knew all about it… He’d told them everything… he had prophesied the whole future. “That child will be your ruin!… He’s corrupt to the marrow!… A wretch… I trusted him!… He was beginning to get ahead…”

  Those were his parting words… Mama had been scared he’d turn me in… that he’d have me arrested right away… She hadn’t dared to answer… As far as she was concerned, there were no two ways about it… I’d been taken in… Why didn’t I own up right away… at least that I’d lost it… instead of prevaricating… and turning my boss against me… That was the least revolting possibility!… They’d pay him back little by little… and in any case my parents… That was already settled!…

  “Who set you such an example?…” she asked me in tears. “What did you do with the pin?… Come, tell me, my boy! We won’t eat you!… I won’t say a word to your father!… I swear I won’t!… There, you do trust me? We’ll go see her together… If you gave it to a woman! Tell me right away, before he comes home! Maybe she’ll give it back in exchange for a little money?… Do you know her well?… Don’t you think so?… That way it’ll all come out all right in the end! We won’t say a word to anybody!…”

  I waited for her to calm down a bit, then maybe I’d be able to explain… Just then my father comes in… He hadn’t cooled off at all. He begins to pound the table and bang at the partitions as hard as he can!… With both fists! All the time letting off jets of steam… When he stops for a second, it’s only to kick at the furniture! His anger lifts him up, he’s like a horse galloping through the air! Bashing into the walls… The whole place is shaking… What an onslaught, the sideboard capsizes… From blast to crash the scene went on all night… He’d bounce into the air in his fury and fall on all fours!… He barked like a mastiff… Between fits and frenzies they bellowed the pros and cons… It was no time for me to try to say anything…