Death on Credit

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Hearing these remarks, the farmers and sightseers began to get suspicious. They shoved off, plenty worried. New complaints came in! The cops dropped in again… but there wasn’t much they could say about our phalanstery… The kids had nothing wrong with them… none of them had taken sick… We’d only lost our seven rabbits… A rough case of epizootic! Maybe it was the climate… or the food… Finally the cops went away… Not long after that our cunning little pioneers got fed up of our Spartan fare… They griped something awful… They were insubordinate… They had to build up their strength, didn’t they?… They’d have eaten the whole county… They found a way… It was their idea… One day they came home with three bunches of carrots… and the next day a crate of turnips. A ton of beans! All for the soup! The chow was looking up!… Then came a dozen eggs and three pounds of butter and some bacon… It’s perfectly true, we were out of all those things!… This looting wasn’t for the hell for it, it wasn’t from wickedness!… Mme des Pereires couldn’t hardly go out any more since we’d started our intensive farming, she was busy all the time with the “circuits”, patching them up so the juice would go through… She only got to Persant once a week. At table nobody batted an eyelash… We dived right in!… It was a case of “compelling circumstances”!… The next day they brought home an old hen!… All plucked… It turned into soup fast… As banquets go, we could have used a little wine… We didn’t exactly suggest it… nevertheless and regardless we had wine on the table the following days… several different vintages… Where the kids found all that we didn’t ask!… We let well enough alone… A wood fire is mighty pretty but not very convenient. It’s a nuisance to keep up, it burns too fast, you’ve got to keep stirring it up… They found some briquettes… They hauled them through the fields in a wheelbarrow… We had a beautiful fire… But it was getting risky!… We counted on our potatoes to straighten everything out… our honour and all that!… To dodge the worst reprisals!…

  We went out to look at the spuds, we watched them like gems, we dug one up every hour… to see what was going on!… We started the wave machine up again… It was purring almost day and night!… It used up a lot of gas, we didn’t see much progress… The spuds the kids brought home, their hot vegetables, were always a good deal better-looking!…

  Des Pereires had noticed that. He was more puzzled than ever… In his opinion our wire wasn’t right… The conductivity wasn’t as good as we’d originally thought… or needed… That was perfectly possible.

  * * *

  We went back to the Big Ball… Only once, just to look in… We shouldn’t have! Some reception we got! Agathe, the maid, wasn’t there any more, she’d gone off with the town drummer, a married man with children!… They’d shacked up for the sheer hell of it… Moral turpitude, they put the blame on me! Everybody was down on me in the village and environs… when the whole lot of them had fucked her!… So help me! They said I’d debauched her! They wouldn’t have anything to do with either of us… They refused to gamble with us… They wouldn’t listen to our Chantilly “starters”… They were laying their bets with the barber across from the post office!… He’d taken over our whole system, envelopes, stamps and all…

  Those people at the Big Ball knew plenty more about our smelly ways!… They knew, in particular, that we were living off the land!… All those chickens that had disappeared for twenty kilometres around… Same with the butter and carrots!… We were the gypsies!… They didn’t say it in so many words, because they were hypocrites… But they made some mighty pointed remarks about buckshots in the arse that certain people had coming to them… about a bunch of no-goods that would certainly end up in the pen, amen and so be it!… Well anyway, disagreeable remarks… We left without saying goodbye… It was a good two-hour hike back to Blême… Time enough to meditate on our cool welcome!…

  Things weren’t doing so hot… Our affairs weren’t cooking with gas… Des Pereires knew it… I thought he was going to talk about it… but he talked about entirely different things on the road… About the stars again and the heavenly bodies… about their distances and satellites… about the magical dances they spin while we’re mostly asleep… About constellations so dense you’d take them for clouds of stars…

  We’d been walking quite a while… he was getting winded… He always got too excited when he got talking about the sky and the cosmogonic trajectories… It went to his head… We had to slow down!… We climbed up on a bank… He was panting… We sat down.

  “You see, Ferdinand, I can’t manage it any more… I can’t do two things at once… when I used to be always doing three or four… Ah, it’s no joke, Ferdinand!… It’s no joke!… I don’t mean life, Ferdinand, it’s time I mean!… Life is ourselves, it’s nothing… Time is everything!… Look at the little stars of Orion… You see Sirius? Right next to the Snake?… They pass… they pass… They’re heading over yonder to join the great galaxies of Antiope…” He was done in… his arms fell back on his knees… “You see, Ferdinand, on a night like this I could have located Betelgeuse again… a night for vision, a really crystalline night!… Maybe with the telescope we still could… It’s the telescope I’m not likely to find so soon!… Ah, Christ, what a stinking muddle when I think of it!… Can you imagine, Ferdinand! Can you imagine! Say, you really went for it, didn’t you?”

  It made him laugh to think of it… I didn’t answer… I didn’t feel like gilding his pill any more… When he got his optimism back, he always did something idiotic… He went on talking about one thing and another…

  “Ferdinand, you see, my boy… I wish I were somewhere else!… Somewhere completely different!… Somewhere!… I don’t know…” He made some more gestures, he described parabolas… He moved his hands through the Milky Way… high, high up in the atmosphere… He discovered another twinkler… a little thing to explain… He wanted to talk some more… but he couldn’t… His words scraped too hard… His chest was bothering him… “Autumn gives me asthma!” he said… So then he was quiet… He dozed off for a while… huddled up in the grass… I woke him on account of the cold… maybe half an hour later… we started off again very slowly.

  * * *

  Nobody has ever seen kids thrive like ours… growing so fast, getting so strong and muscular… since we’d been eating with no holds barred!… We had enormous stews, we really put it away! And all the brats were on wine!… They wouldn’t take any reprimands or advice!… They said we shouldn’t worry about them, they were doing all right!…

  Our headache was Mésange… supposing one of the little thugs knocked her up!… Sometimes she’d get a dreamy look that boded no good!… Mme des Pereires had it on her mind… She marked crosses on the calendar to show when she was due.

  All day long our pioneers sniped and snaffled around in the barns and farmyards!… They got up again at night when they felt like it… It depended on the moon… They told us a certain amount… Our agricultural labours were mostly in the morning… When it came to bringing home the bacon, our little angels had become remarkably enterprising and ingenious… They were everywhere at once, in everybody’s fields… But nobody ever saw them!… They played Indians for real!… They were crafty… After six months of scouting and fancy trailing in every kind of terrain, they’d learnt to get their bearings by dead reckoning, they could do it in their sleep… they knew the most labyrinthine pathways, the most secret hideouts!… The position of every clod of earth!… Better than the native hares!… They’d catch them by surprise!… That’ll give you an idea!

  Without them, I don’t mind telling you, we’d have starved!… We were stone broke!… They stoked us to the gills, it gave them a kick to see us get fat! All they ever heard from us was compliments…

  Our old cutie was champing at the bit… She’d have liked to say something… It was too late!… The food problem comes first… With the kids gone we’d have croaked!… The country is merciless… We never issued a word of command! The in
itiative was all theirs!… Raymond’s father, a lampman on the railway in the Levallois sector, was the only one who came to see us the first winter… It was easier for him because he had a railway pass… He hardly knew his Raymond… he’d got so big and strong… the kid had always been frail, now he was a champ!… We didn’t tell him the whole story… Raymond was a wonder, for swiping eggs he was in a class by himself… He’d snatch them out from under the hen… without making her squawk!… The velvet touch… The father was the honest kind, he wanted to settle his debt… Now that his kid was so husky, so perfectly built, he talked of taking him back to Levallois. He thought he looked well enough!… We wouldn’t hear of it… We put up stiff resistance!… We made him a present of his dough, he still owed us three hundred smackers… on the sole condition that he’d leave the kid with us until he’d learnt all there was to know about agriculture!… That kid was worth his weight in gold… We sure didn’t want to lose him!… And he was glad to stay with us… He wasn’t looking for a change… So our life was getting organized… We were detested for twenty kilometres around, they hated us tooth and nail, but tucked away all by ourselves in Blême-le-Petit it was hard for them to catch us red-handed!…

  The old cutie got fatter than anybody else on the fruits of the kids’ larceny! So she couldn’t say a thing!… Her field didn’t feed her! Or her hat! Or her pants! She heaved some comical sighs after sipping her brandy… She couldn’t get over it the way little by little she’d got used to this unspeakable piracy!… She’d taken to drink… maybe from repressed sorrow… A nip… another… and pretty soon she couldn’t do without her pousse-café!… “Let fate take its course!” she sighed… “Seeing as you’re no good for anything.” She was talking to Courtial.

  We stored our victuals in our attic, in our basement, and in a corner of the barn!… The kids had contests to see who could bring back the most in a day!… We could have held out six months… gone through several honest-to-God sieges… We were fixed… Groceries, beer, margarine! Absolutely everything!… But we were eighteen at table, sixteen of whom were growing! A crowd like that can put it away, especially when “stationed” in the country!…

  Two of our pioneer girls, aged eleven and twelve, had brought home pretty near fourteen cans of petrol for the boss’s motor! He was beaming! The next day was his birthday, the other kids came back from Condoir-Ville, seven kilometres away, with a big basket of babas, éclairs and wafers… all kinds of cream buns and an assortment of apéritifs! In addition, to make it even funnier, they brought us stamped receipts!… That was really sharp!… They’d paid cash for the whole business… our clever little angels! They were swiping money now in the open fields!… Where it doesn’t lie around! It was kind of miraculous! This time again we didn’t say boo. We’d lost our authority. But those little tricks leave traces… Two days later the cops came around asking for big Gustave and little Léone… They hauled them off to Beauvais… We couldn’t protest… They’d got themselves pinched picking up a billfold!… It was a common, ordinary trap!… On a window sill!… An ambush if ever there was one!… A report had been made on the spot… There’d been four witnesses!… The thing couldn’t be denied… and it couldn’t be fixed!… The best was to make a show of surprise, amazement… horror! We made a show.

  * * *

  They arrested our Lucien, the curly head, four days later!… On pure hearsay! Something about a chicken coop!… The following week they came for Glass-Eye Philippe… But there were no proofs against him, they had to return him to us!… Even so it was a hecatomb! It was getting pretty plain that those hicks, always so slow to make up their minds, had finally sworn to wreck our whole business… They hated our guts!… Actually they were threatening to burn the whole house down with us in it!… Eusèbe had tipped us off… To be roasted like rats, wouldn’t that be nice?… They wanted to stop our racket…

  The old cutie was the first to feel the fury of the insurgent populace… They’d run her out of the market in Persant… She’d tried to do a little business, to pass off a whole basket of lovely “second-hand” eggs… It didn’t wash! They’d recognized where they came from… They got mean, they were delirious with hate and rage!… She beat it out of there fast! In another minute they’d have beaten the shit out of her… She was in a terrible state when she got home!… Right away she cooked herself up a big coffee pot full of her mixture, a concoction of verbena and mint plus pretty near a third of Banyuls… She was developing a taste for strong stuff… especially distilled wines… sometimes she even drank liniment!… That set her up quickly… It was a mixture recommended by a number of midwives at the time… they said it was the best thing for night nurses…

  We were all gathered round her, talking about this assault, examining the consequences!… The bottles were out on the table… In comes the sergeant!… Right away he starts abusing us… He tells us not to move.

  “We’ll come and get you at the end of next week! This circus has been going on long enough! We’re fed up and then some! You’ve been given plenty of warning!… On Saturday we’re taking you up to the county seat! We’ve got a clear case against the whole lot of you!… If I catch a single one of your little gallows birds on the loose… If they set foot outside this village… they’ll be picked up immediately! Immediately! Understand?… Have I made myself clear?…”

  It seems the public prosecutor had enough evidence against us to put us in the pen for twenty years!… Courtial, Madame and myself! There were plenty of charges!… Kidnapping!… Moral turpitude!… Obscene practices!… Illegal gambling… Fraudulent tax returns… Vice… Burglary!… Abuse of confidence!… Nocturnal marauding!… Concealment of minors!… Anyway a whole waterfall, a complete assortment!… That sergeant was giving us a pain in the neck!… Only Mme des Pereires, though shaken at first – what would you expect? – perked up pretty soon… She didn’t bat an eyelash… She bounced up like one man!… She stood right up to him… She leapt to her feet with an impetus so violent, so bristling with indignation, so fired with rage, that the sergeant wavered under the charge!… He couldn’t believe his ears!… He blinked… She had him hypnotized, there’s no other word for it… She answered in terms that nobody could have refuted! That dumb farmer couldn’t have imagined… She came back at him, she accused him of personally fomenting the whole yokels’ rebellion!… The whole abominable jacquerie! He was the guilty party… Flummoxed! Lashed! Flayed! He was trembling in his boots… Contemptuous and sardonic, she called him a “poor bastard”!… He was on the defensive… He hadn’t one word to say for himself… She put her hat on… High above him she swayed from side to side, glaring like a cobra!… She forced him backwards… she threw him out. He skedaddled like a canary. He climbed onto his bicycle and rode away, zigzagging all over the road… He reeled through the night with his little red lamp… We watched him disappearing… He couldn’t keep straight.

  * * *

  One of our campfire girls, Camille, for all she was a smart little number, got nabbed three days later in the garden of the presbytery in Landrezon, a stinkhole on the other side of the forest. She was just slipping out of the kitchen with a parmesan cheese, a couple of crawfish and some sloe gin… two bottles… She’d taken everything she could lay hands on… Plus the altar cruets… That was the most serious, they were solid silver!… She’d been caught in the act!… They’d all chased her… They’d cornered her on the bridge… Poor little kitten, she’d never be back! They’d locked her up in Versailles!… That snake-in-the-grass postman hurried over with the news… He’d gone out of his way!… Our situation was getting cock-eyed… a mean balancing act… You didn’t need to be very smart to realize at that point that all the kids in our phalanstery were sunk… one by one they’d be caught foraging… even if they were ten times as careful… even if they went out only at night…

  We tightened our belts, we were more and more cautious… We didn’t have much margarine or oil or sardines… we were nuts abou
t sardines… It was the shortage of tuna fish and sardines that really got us down… We couldn’t make any more French fries!… We holed up behind the blinds… We watched the approaches… We were afraid some hayseed would try to pick us off in the dusk… They came around now and then… They passed outside our windows on bikes with their guns… We had a blunderbuss too, an old double-barrelled shotgun… and a police pistol… The former tenant had left them… They were still hanging in the kitchen, on a nail over the fireplace.

  One night when there was nothing to do and we couldn’t even go out, des Pereires took down the old blunderbuss… He started cleaning it… running a rag dipped in kerosene through the two barrels with a string… working the trigger… I could feel the state of siege coming…

  * * *

  We had only seven left… four boys, three girls… We wrote to their parents, asking if they wouldn’t like to take them back… our agricultural experiment had been disappointing in certain respects… unforeseen circumstances obliged us to dismiss some of our pupils temporarily…