Death on Credit

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  The old lady wasn’t acting up much since we’d come back. She just sat there crying, huddled against the door. Once in a while she let out a hiccup, followed by the same two or three laments… She said to me…

  “I’d never have expected it, Ferdinand!… Oh, it’s too much!… Too much misery, Ferdinand!… I haven’t the strength!… No!… I can’t go on!… I can’t believe it!… I can’t believe it’s true, Ferdinand!… What do you think?… Is it really true? Do you think it’s true?… Oh no, it can’t be!…” She was really stunned… She was out for the count… she was all dazed and cross-eyed… But when that cop started again, calling us criminals in his stupid bumpkin accent… that stirred her up!… Worn-out as she was, she bridled at the affront!… Christ!… She bounded like a tiger!… She was on form again!

  “What’s that? What’s that?” she flung at him… “I don’t quite follow you… What’s that you say?…” She shoved her face into his… “What’s that you’re telling me?… That I did him in?… Why, you’ve been drinking, my good man!… You’ve got a nerve!… Or are you crazy, the whole lot of you?… What’s that? You’re accusing me?… Of killing that scoundrel?… That gallows bird?… I’ll remember that one… Oh, it’s rich… I’ll have to write it down… That stinker who’s been my misfortune… and nothing else but… He’s the murderer… He’s been murdering me for years… Vampire? He’s the vampire!… And not just once! Not ten times!… Not a hundred times!… But a thousand times!… Two thousand!… Why, he was murdering me every single day before you were even born!… I ran myself ragged for that man!… Tore my guts out!… I went hungry for weeks on end so they wouldn’t take him away to Rungis!*… All my life, you hear?… Tortured! abused!… That’s right… crushed. Yes, all my life for that skunk!… I did everything in my power to save him!… Everybody knows that!… Why don’t you keep your questions for them, for the people who know!… Who know us… who saw what I did?… Go to the Palais-Royal!… Go to Montretout!… They know me!… They know all I did… all I went through!… Ferdinand can tell you!… He’s young, but he understands!… I performed miracles, Monsieur, to keep him from falling back into the gutter!… Miracles!… And dishonour!… That was his nature!… He wallowed lower than a pig if you turned your back for half a minute!… He fell into every cesspool… He couldn’t help it!… That’s right!… I’m not afraid to say it!… He was a dungheap!… I’ve nothing to hide!… Anyway, everybody knows it!… He had no shame, Heavens above!… Every evil instinct!… Every last one! The vilest! Things you gendarmes are too young to understand!… You’re even too young to hear about them!”

  She looked the cops up and down!… Her hair was loose, it fell down over her eyes in scraggly grey wisps… She was sweating hard… She reeled a little, she sat down.

  “You fellows think it’s decent the way he ended up?… Is that all you’ve got to say?… Treat me like a whore?… That’s my reward!… If you knew about the debts! Ah? That’s news to you?… He didn’t give a good goddamn!… Bills, bills, bills!… You go pay them, you old crab! And always new ones pouring in!… Break your back, that’s what you’re good for!… Double-talk! Cock-and-bull stories! Sleigh rides! Hokum! Liquor!… That’s how he lived! That’s all he knew! Swindling and low living! He hadn’t an ounce of feeling!…” She was convulsed with misery, bellowing between spasms!…

  “It was me! Me that saved his house to the bitter end! If I hadn’t fought for it, it would have been sold centuries ago! He couldn’t control himself!… The dirty bastard took advantage of my being so sick just then that I didn’t know what was going on!… He unloaded… he drank it all up!… He sold us out bag and baggage! Ask if it’s not true… if I’m a liar!… He never spared me anything! Never! He couldn’t!… It was second nature with him!… He had to torture me!… All for his whores! For his vices!… His horses!… His races! His damn foolishness!… His drinking, and I don’t know what else!… Generous?… He gave to strangers!… It was all the same to him, as long as it went out fast!… It slipped through his fingers!… I could be on my deathbed, he didn’t care!… That’s what he always wanted!… Thirty years it went on!… Thirty years I put up with it!… Thirty years isn’t five minutes!… So now I get accused!… After all the vilest affronts!… After all I’ve suffered!… Oh no, it’s too much!…” The enormity of the thing sent her into hysterics again! “What’s that? What’s that? It can’t be! So now he disfigures himself… He shoves off!… He makes hash of himself! And I’m the guilty party? My oh my, that takes the cake!… It’s enough to make your hair stand on end!… What a filthy business! To the very end that stinking rotten clown has poisoned my existence!… You can say that again!… But I’m not going to take it lying down!… I’m still here!… It’s up to you! Hold the fort, you old mule! There won’t be anything left! Not a crumb! Nothing but debts! Nothing but debts! He doesn’t give a damn! As long as he can spend!… He took everything I had!… Ferdinand knows all about it! He saw how the land lay!… He saw how I toiled and struggled and racked my brains to the very last minute!… so as not to leave Montretout!… So as not to come to this stinking hole!… And bury myself with his potatoes!… All in vain!… He was dead set on disaster!… Ferdinand knows that too!… I’ve wasted my life!… I’ve lost everything for that jack-in-the-box!… That unbelievable scoundrel! My position, my career! my profession, my friends! Everything!… My parents!… Nobody wanted to see us any more!… Except a bunch of cut-throats! A gang of crazy hoodlums! Escaped from the bughouse!… I ruined my health!… First my operation! And I’ve aged twenty years in the last six months!… Before that I never had anything wrong with me!… I didn’t know what a cold was!… I could digest anything!… I had a stomach like an ostrich!… But what with one disaster after another!… That’s all he ever brought home!… And there was never an end to it! We’d hardly finished one!… Whoops!… He’d dream up another! Loonier than the last!… It undermined my resistance! That’s not hard to understand! I was operated, it was bound to happen!… They warned me at Péan’s: ‘Don’t keep on with that kind of life, Mme des Pereires!… It’ll turn out very badly!… Take it easy!… Take care of yourself!… Avoid worry!…’ Ah, go shit in your hat! It got worse from year to year! Never a moment’s peace… Nothing but lawsuits, summonses!… Green papers… yellow papers!… Creditors at every door! Persecuted!… That’s the life I’ve had… Persecuted day and night! Exactly! Hunted like a criminal!… For his sake! Always for him!… Who could bear up under that?… I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in twenty years! If you want to know! That’s the honest truth!… Everything’s been taken away from me!… My sleep, my appetite, my savings!… I’ve got such flashes I can’t stand up!… I can’t take a bus any more!… I’m sick to my stomach right away!… Any time I try to hurry, even on foot, I see stars!… And now they tell me I’m the murderer!… That’s the prize package! My advice to you is to think it over before you say such things!…”

  She led them out under the arch, the four cops and the sergeant… She went up to the body… she lifted the trouser leg…

  “You see those socks?… Take a good look!… Well, he’s got the only pair!… There’s not another in the house!… The rest of us haven’t got any!… Never did! Neither Ferdinand nor the kids!…” She hiked up her own trousers to show the cops!… “I’m barefoot myself!… Go on, see for yourself!… We always went without just for him!… For him and nobody else! He took everything!… We gave him everything we had!… He had everything!… Always did!… Two houses!… A magazine… at the Palais-Royal!… Motors!… Thousands of gadgets and infernal gizmos!… God knows how much they cost!… The skin off your arse!… The whole works! Just to satisfy his whims!… I can’t even begin to tell you… I never crossed him! Don’t worry, that’s not why he bumped himself off!… He was spoilt!… He was rotten! That’s right! Rotten!… You want electrical contraptions?… All right, son, here you are!… You think we should go to the country?… OK, we’ll go!… You want some
more potatoes?… Sure, go right ahead!… It never stopped!… Never a moment’s doubt! It was cut-and-dried!… His Highness couldn’t wait!… Wouldn’t you want the moon by any chance?… Splendid, my love, you’ll have it!… Always more fancy ideas… new crazes!… You couldn’t be more indulgent with a six-month-old baby!… He had everything he wanted! Before he could even open his mouth! Ah, that was my weakness!… Well, I’ve got my punishment!… Ah, if I’d only known!… If I’d known what you people were going to say when I saw his face blown to pieces!… Believe me, I’d never have brought him back! I don’t know how the kid felt about it!… But as far as I’m concerned, take it from me, I’d have sooner chucked him in the ditch! Then you wouldn’t come around maligning me!… That’s where he ought to be!… The rotten filthy scum! That’s all he deserves! I don’t give a shit about going to prison!… It’s all one to me!… I won’t be worse off than anywhere else!… But Christ almighty Jesus, no! Hell, no! I’m not such a sucker!…”

  “That’ll do! Come over here! You can tell all that to the judge! First answer my questions!… We’ve heard enough talk!… You say you don’t know the gun he killed himself with?… But you brought it back… And the kid? Had he seen it?… He’d rammed it into his head, eh? That’s how you found it, isn’t it? The two of you pulled it out, eh?… How did it happen according to you?…”

  “Why, I never said that, I never said I didn’t know the gun!… It was up there over the fireplace… We’d all seen it the whole time!… Ask the kids!…”

  “Pipe down! I’ve had enough of your idiotic remarks… Let’s get down to brass tacks… name and destination… First the victim!… Date, place of birth… What was his name anyway?… Courtial?… Courtial what?… And where was he born?… Reputation? Occupation?…”

  “His name wasn’t Courtial at all!…” she answered point-blank… “It wasn’t even des Pereires!… Or Jean! Or Marin! He made that name up!… It was like everything else!… One more invention! A lie!… What a liar he was!… Always! Everywhere! Still!… His name was Léon… Léon-Charles Punais!… That’s his honest-to-God name!… It’s not quite the same, is it?… Like me, my name is Honorine Beauregard, not Irène! That was just another name he dug up for me!… He had to change everything!… I can prove it!… I’ve got the proof all right!… I’m not trying to pull the wool over your eyes. I never go anywhere without it!… I’ve got my family register!… I’ll go and get it… He was born in Ville-d’Avray in 1852… 24th September!… That was his birthday! I’ll go over and get it for you… It’s in my handbag… Come with me, Ferdinand!…”

  The sergeant was writing it out… “Escort the prisoners!” he ordered the two bulls… We passed in front of the wheelbarrow… We came back again. “Can we take it in now?…” one of the cops asked… he shouted from under the arch.

  “Take what in?…”

  “The body, sergeant!… There’s people all around it!”

  He had to think it over…

  “OK, bring it in!… Put it in the kitchen!” So then they took him out of the wheelbarrow… They lifted him very gingerly… They carried him in… They laid him down on the tiles… But he was still all crooked… He wouldn’t unbend… The old lady went down on her knees to look at him up close… She was sobbing hard… Her tears flowed in rivers… she caught hold of me with her handcuffs… She was overcome with grief… You’d honestly have thought she’d just noticed there was nothing left of him but hash…

  “Oh! Oh! Look, Ferdinand!… Look!…” She forgot the family register… she forgot about getting it… she just slumped there…

  “Oh God, he hasn’t any head!… He hasn’t any head, Ferdinand! My darling! My darling! Your head!… It’s gone!…” She implored, she dragged herself to the gendarmes’ feet… She crawled between their boots… she rolled on the floor!…

  “A placenta!… It’s a placenta!… I know… His head!… His poor head!… It’s a placenta!… Have you seen it, Ferdinand?… Do you see?… Look!… Oh! Oh! Oh!…” she screamed like her throat had been cut…

  “Oh! All my life!… Oh!… All my life!… Oh! Oh!…” More and more piercingly.

  “I didn’t do it, Messieurs… It’s not me, how could it be?… I swear it!… I swear it!… I gave him my whole life!… To bring him a little happiness!… To make him comfortable!… He needed me!… Day and night… believe me!… I’m not lying! Tell them, Ferdinand… Tell them if it isn’t true… All my sacrifices!… He hasn’t any head!… Oh, why are you all against me?… There’s nothing left for him!… Good luck!… Good luck!… He says… the poor darling… good luck!… Oh God! You saw it?… It was written!… It was him, wasn’t it?… It’s written in his writing! It wasn’t me! Good luck! That’s him! All by himself! You can tell his handwriting! Oh! it wasn’t me!… It’s obvious!… Isn’t it obvious?…”

  She’d thrown herself full length on the ground… Her whole body hit the packed earth… She pressed close to Courtial… She was shivering… She still spoke to him…

  “Courtial, I implore you! Courtial, speak to me!… Tell me, my angel!… Why did you do it?… Why did you do such an awful thing?… Eh? Tell me, my dumpling, my treasure!…” She turned towards the cops…

  “It’s him! It’s him! It’s a placenta!…” She threw another fit… She started eating her hair… she was bellowing so loud we couldn’t hear each other in the room… The snoopers at the window climbed up on each other’s backs… She bit right into her handcuffs. She flailed around on the floor, possessed. The gendarmes picked her up by brute force, they carried her into the barn… She yelled like a stuck pig… She clutched the door… She fell… she charged back against it… “I want to see him!… I want to see him!” she screamed… “Let me see him!… They want to take him away!… Murderers!… Help, help! My angel! My angel!… Not you, Ferdinand! Not you!… You’re not my angel!… I want to see him!… Have pity!… I want to see him!…” This went on for an hour. They had to go back and take off the handcuffs… Then she calmed down a little… They didn’t take mine off… though I promised to behave.

  * * *

  In the afternoon another cop came out on a bicycle… He’d been sent specially from Persant… He told the sergeant again that we mustn’t touch anything… that the prosecutor was coming… and not the inspector… Those were the orders from above… He also told us to get the kids’ stuff ready, they’d all be leaving next day, first thing in the morning… They were expected in Versailles at a juvenile welfare home, the SPCC… Those were the orders!… By ten a.m. there wasn’t to be one kid left on the premises!… Two special people were coming from Beauvais to get them… to take them to the station…

  We passed the orders on to the brats who were out in the yard… after all, we had to let them know that the game was up… dead and buried!… They didn’t exactly get it… They tried to figure out what was going on, where they were being taken… They wondered if the whole thing wasn’t a gag… I tried to explain that our show was over!… The record was busted!… They didn’t get it!… I told them the judge had sent orders to close up shop!… And send the “New Race” home! That they were closing down our “wave” farm too!… They were good and sick of it!… That they were a lot of savages!… Perfectly ruthless! That it was finished!… That they were looking for their parents!… And this time they’d find them!…

  It was all Greek to them!… They weren’t used to being treated like kids any more… They were too emancipated!… They’d forgotten about obedience and those kinds of things!… It wasn’t much trouble collecting their duds!… Actually they had nothing but their bones and their trousers!… They had a few “bent” shoes that were never the right size. Half the time they only wore one… Mostly they went barefoot!… All the same they managed to collect a whole pile of junk… thousands of nails, hooks, bird traps, slings, ends of string, nooses… shears, spiral springs, whole sets of graters, razor blades fastened to long sticks… two comple
te crowbars… Only Dudule had nothing… He worked with his fingers… The kids thought they were being taken somewhere where their equipment would come in handy… They didn’t realize!… Though I’d told them a dozen times… They didn’t take the whole thing very seriously… though they’d seen the old man with his face blown off! They could hear the old lady wailing behind the door… But that didn’t frighten them any more…

  “If you ask me,” said Dudule, “I betcha we’ll be back on Thurs­day!…”

  “You don’t know them, kid!” I said… “And for Christ’s sake don’t pull any rough stuff!… They’ll lock you up for life!… They’ve got terrible sweatboxes!… Watch your step, behave!… Keep your traps shut, the whole lot of you…” Even Mésange thought she was smart: “Aw go on, Ferdinand! That’s a lot of bullshit! They’re sending us away so we won’t see the funeral!… It’s bullshit!… We’ll be back on Sunday!… When it’s all over!…” I’d have asked nothing better… They packed all their little odds and ends… There was an argument about dividing up… They all wanted the rubber bands… the big thick ones… They could peg a sparrow every time!… They took lots of wire… pretty near two rolls… It was plenty heavy!… But hell, there was still a whole trunkful in the shed!…

  The two lady social workers turned up earlier than we expected… Kind of like nuns. No coifs, but high-necked grey dresses, both exactly the same, and fingerless gloves… and funny voices, too soft and very insistent… It wasn’t dark yet…

  “So here we are, my dear children…” said the skinnier of the two. “We’ll have to hurry a little… I hope you’ll all be very well behaved!… We’ll have a lovely trip together…” They lined them up two by two… But Dudule was all by himself in front… It was certainly the first time they’d ever been put in order… They asked them all their names…