Guignol's Band

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “Listen!… Listen!… That’s just my luck!… But how do you know about it, half-pint?”

  “Heard about it at the Boss’s place, the Leicester!… They came back two days ago! Boro and Delphine… Boy, did they eat!… Were they hungry!… You can’t imagine!… They gobbled up everything!”

  “What did they say?”

  I had to know.

  “Cascade said that he never would’ve thought it of you!”

  “So they told everything!…”

  “Absolutely everything!”

  “Then where did they go?”

  “Go see!… Ah! They sure fixed you all right!…”

  “Fixed me?… Ah! Wait, take it easy!”

  “They gave you the works all right! Naturally!… You weren’t there!… Go see Cascade!”

  Ah! I could see what he was up to… Just wait awhile, wise guy!… I say nothing!… I act dumb… So I leave the restaurant with him… In other words, I’m taking a risk… all or nothing!… Outside we head for Cascade’s, we’re walking side by side… he’s so tiny he’s half-running to keep up with me… towards Buckingham Palace… our direction… I take a look around… I’m on the lookout… Got an idea… there’s nothing in front of the gate… Good!… Farther on, about two hundred yards… Suddenly I grab him by the back of the neck… Ah! You little joker!… I carry him straight into a corner, the squirming fish!… Hanging from my left fist!

  “Listen, Ten-Paw!”… I shake him… “Who’s paying you?” I ask.

  “Paying me?… Paying me?… No one!”… he’s twisting and struggling… he’s yelling…

  “It wasn’t Cascade who sent you?…”

  I put him down on his feet.

  “Cascade doesn’t send anyone!… Get that, you big dope!… He settles things himself… But here’s the way he talked… ‘Ferdinand’s not what I thought he was!… I took him in, in full confidence!… As a very serious young man… Ferdinand’s double-crossed us!… He came to my house like a friend!… Sent by Raoul!… Poor Raoul!… He’s acted like a skunk!… Especially after being sent by Raoul!’… That’s what hurts him… Sent in confidence by Raoul!… ‘He’s acted like a skunk!’”

  He hadn’t minced words.

  “You can imagine how Boro piled it on!… You weren’t there!… So go there!… ‘You’re quite right, Cascade!…’ Oh! the trimmings!… ‘A little criminal!’… They were talking about you!… ‘He bashed poor Claben on the head!… He swiped all the dough!… He set the joint on fire!… He ran away!…’ Those are their very words!”

  “Ah! Say listen!…”

  Hearing that gives me palpitations! What a crime! Ah! They’re strangling me!

  “What? They dared, those fairies?… Ah, the damned lousy skunks!… Ah! Just let me find them!… So that’s exactly what they said?”

  “In front of everyone there!…”

  No doubt about it.

  “And what about you, you little rat?…” I ask…

  I grab him by the throat…

  “What about you? What’d you come around for?…”

  We were still in the doorway… He struggles around, he’s playing innocent.

  “Ah! I was pimping I swear!…” he gasps… “I never lie to you, Ferdinand!…”

  He’s protesting… he’s groaning… wailing…

  “I know you’re wounded, Ferdinand! I know you’re wounded! I wouldn’t want to hurt you!… Never!… I swear!… I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you!… It’s just for your good, believe me, pal!… They’re a mean crowd at the Leicester!… Watch out!… They’ve got it in for you!…”

  “Watch out for what?…”

  “I don’t know… I don’t know…”

  Good, all right! I let him alone… We walk past the shops… I keep still… all right… I’m on the watch… Ah! I’m suspicious!… The son-of-a… Just wait, you little runt!… I was thinking… You won’t get away with that stuff!… I act dumb too, since that’s the game!… I play along… there!… So go there!… ‘You’re quite right, Cascade!’… Oh!

  “Ten-Paw, I’ve got confidence!” I tell him… “All things considered… all in all… you’re absolutely right!… I’m going back!… I want to see them all!… It’s settled!… You’re sure there won’t be any hard feelings?… Do you guarantee it?… You know I’m frank and regular!… I don’t like lies!… Look me straight in the eyes!…”

  He was too small.

  I lift him up again from the ground… so he can look me straight in the eyes… He stares at me… and I talk to him.

  “Ten-Paw, now listen to me! I didn’t steal anything! I’m telling you that now! You can believe me! I didn’t touch the old guy!… Do you believe me? You believe me? I’m all clear!”

  “Ah!” he says…

  Total blank!

  He doubts it… he doubts… I see it’s bothering him… he’d have liked me to be guilty…

  “I just swiped two sovereigns that’d fallen out of his bag! That’s all I admit to and that’s the size of it!… You’ll tell them! It’s very simple!”

  I put him down again.

  He takes me by the arm… He understands… I see he’s glad that he’s bringing me back… After all, in spite of everything… that I’m ready to go back to the Leicester…

  Ah! I’m suspicious of him!…

  “Say, how’d you find me?…”

  I ask him the same question again.

  “Just like that, you know… by accident!… I was passing by!…”

  Sure, sure, I think to myself!… Just wait, shorty! Accident, my arse!

  He’s hanging on to my arm, he’s tiny… We keep going… He gives me the latest gossip as we walk… the news at the Leicester… that two more men have left… Philippe and Julien… that they’ve joined up in Dunkerque… that they’ve left two more girls… that dough’s been rolling in galore… that Angèle didn’t know where to put it… that she’d already bought something like seven blue foxes and a three-quarter-length sable coat… That as for him, Ten-Paw, he wasn’t going to go dragging around in the kitchens of clubs!… Not by a long shot!… Even with trick cards!… The others can have it!… Ah! No more of that!… that he was going to go into business too… into the hustling racket!… that with times as they were he’d make a pile in no time! Boy, and how! That he’d already taken up the big matter with Cascade about a little sister!… That he’d mentioned it to him… that he had more than enough to treat himself to one… That he hadn’t said yes or no… Not too bad-looking a one who made out all right…

  “You’re going to be kind of short for a pimp!… You’ll hide under the bed!…”

  I couldn’t keep from saying it.

  “Short! Short!” he exclaims!… “Listen, you cluck! Can’t I have a piece like anyone else? Ah! Gravy! Greetings! There’s a war on!…”

  Ah! He was dead set on it!

  “Tail, that’s the business!”

  That’s it! And with enthusiasm!… He was jumping and skipping like that, holding on to my arm, all jolly at the thought of it!… At the thought of a radiant future!…

  “Cash! And no questions!…”

  Besides there were going to be widows!… That was understood too… Cascade had spoken to him about it… He was counting on it… A widow!… Maybe two!… Bargains!… There’d never been such a boom!… It was really the perfect business!… Whore galore!… Velvet!

  A nasty little stinker!

  So gabbing away like that we came to the Mall, the big avenue in front of the Palace… Buckingham Palace… a fine bridle path… We sat down there on a bench… under a tree… I feel like letting some people go by… to look at them…

  “You see?” he says… “That’s where the King is!”

  I still remember his remark.

  “It’s not as nice as the Louvre!” I answ
er.

  “That’s a matter of taste, their kings liked it!… London’s not Paris!…”

  We argue about it awhile.

  “Our kings had a swell set-up too… Say, I’ve seen the Louvre!”

  But I stuck to the Louvre! He’d never convince me!

  “Listen, I know something about it!”

  I start going into detail.

  “Ah! And what paintings! Millions of them in a row!”

  “What was the name of our last one?”

  He asks me a question. I never remember!

  “Louis XVI!”

  What the hell.

  “You’re educated, pal!” he answers back, but that immediately annoys him.

  “Remember, education’s not everything! The thing that counts in life, see, is natural intelligence!… And I’ve got it! I can flatter myself about that! That’s the main thing! I’ve known women who knew five and six languages! I wouldn’t have wanted them as kitchen maids!… Stuck up! That’s all!… Swell-headed!… Just look at the suckers… They’re often educated, eh?… You never saw anything so dopey!… Proof!… You ought to see the way they pass their time in the clubs!… I can tell you about that!… They play! They lose! And I win!… My boy, the hell with them I tell you!… What does a king do for a good time?… ‘I’m a-off to war!’ he announces… ‘I’ll be right back!… The other guys are getting killed for me!…’ He gets there around noon!… He has a swell lunch in his tent stuck in the back of the woods… He’s in the lines!… The photographers come along! They take a photo of the guy! On a horse! In a car! And I go home!… Nice chap! Greetings, ladies and gentlemen! Ah! Nice majesty! Badaboom! A hundred and three cannon shots! We’ve won! You see him in all the magazines!… Like you, pal! Hurrah! and God Save the King!… You think the King worries?… I’ve always known… It’s natural! They got life too soft!… I’d take it easy too, in his place!… You too!… If you were spoilt like them!… You’d just fiddle around, it’s only natural! If you were king!… You just lap it up, can’t help it!”

  He was doing all the talking… I wasn’t saying anything… Suddenly he asks me, “Say, d’you know Big Fatso?… Ever heard him give out at Cascade’s?… If I Were King!… He sure knows how to sing it!”

  I’d stopped listening to him… he was wearing me out… I was feeling pooped again… especially my head… What excitement in the last two weeks!… In my state it was murderous…

  “Ferdinand, you’re not staying here?… You said you were coming!… Aren’t you? Come along!”

  That was right after all.

  “Come on! Let’s go!… We’ll take the Tube! You’re too tired, you’re groggy!”

  That was quite true.

  “You see?”… he points to the lawns in the distance… “The sparrows are happy… for them it’s the feed bag everywhere… it’s the berries everywhere!… That’s the sparrow’s life!… You see the advantage!… Say, you know I like birds!… I’d have a big birdcage if I had the dough! Like at the zoo! Have you seen the one here? Cockatoos! The rainbow! All colours!… It’s beautiful! It’s more beautiful than the paintings in your Louvre!… Real rainbows!… Hurry up!… They’ll be gone!… We’ll have to drop in at the Ping-Pong.”

  “You think so?” I ask him again… “You really think it’s serious?… That I ought to go back to the Leicester?… Maybe it’s better not to see them again?”

  “Ah! Be careful, Ferdinand!… You know Cascade, he’s a decent guy!… But if he sees that you’re giving him a runaround!… That you’re afraid of explaining things!… Ah! He’ll really think there’s something fishy about you! Ah! There’ll be hell to pay!… Ah! He’ll get pretty mean! Boro won’t have any trouble filling him with his hokum! Ah! They’ll step all over you! Since you’re not there!”

  He was set on my making up my mind… on our taking the Tube… both of us… he insisted terrifically… Ah! He’s working on me, he’s making me groggy… right there in front of the station I was still hesitating…

  “Oh!” I say… “Ten-Paw, I’m not going!”

  I changed my mind.

  “You’re making a mistake Ferdinand!… You’re making a mistake!”

  Ah! It griped him that I’d said no!… I saw his stubborn little mug… I gave in a little… I took two or three steps… I stopped… People were looking at us on the pavement… at the midget, the two of us arguing… I entered the station… He didn’t let me catch my breath… He rushed to the ticket window…

  “Come on, Ferdinand!… Let’s go!… Here’s your chance!… It’s better to go!… Afterwards you’ll be glad!… Stop worrying!… Shake a leg!”

  I follow him… I go along… I’m giving in because I’m tired, that’s the truth… It was Baker Street station… He gets the tickets… We’re pushed into the elevator… smothered in the rush… suddenly I feel anxious!… My heart had been racing away since the night before… the morning… since Greenwich, in fact… now it’s charging! Cooped up that way in the lift! I’m palpitating! Palpitating! An awful burst!

  “Listen, midget!” I say… “Listen, are you really sure?”

  It’s going down… down…

  “Don’t be silly, Ferdinand!… Don’t be silly… All you’ve got to do is explain!… If you don’t go, they’ll believe everything!… You don’t realize what can happen!…”

  Squeezed together like that in the coop! We come right out on to the platform… he’s still holding me by the arm.

  “Mustn’t get lost!” he says… “Mustn’t get lost!…”

  So there we are waiting for the train… squeezed among the people. I don’t know why… they’re all stifling me!… I can’t breathe any more!… They’re all there against me! I free myself… Ah! I free myself… I take three steps forward to the edge of the track… And there opposite? Who do I see? Who’s that there?… There facing me?… Ah! Excuse me! Ah! My eyes pop!… His raglan!… His soft felt!… His mug!… It’s Matthew! Matthew! There on the other platform!… Matthew looking straight at us!… My blood turns!… I stop breathing!… I stop moving!… I stand there hypnotized… he looks at me!… I look at him! Ah! But I’m thinking!… I’m thinking fast!… It’s the midget! There against me!… It’s him!… It’s the double-crosser!… “Good!… Good!… Good!…” It’s getting ready by itself!… My scheme… I concentrate… concentrate… Not a word… calm and collected… People are talking all around us… They’re waiting for the train like us… We hear the train roaring… it’s coming!… There in the darkness… in the hole… at my right… Good!… Good!… Good!… The train’s approaching. It’s roaring fiercely, crashing in, swelling up… Brrr! Brrroom… Good! Good! Good!… It’s near… I look at Matthew opposite… I feel the midget against me… he’s got me by the arm… he doesn’t want to lose me! “BRRRR!…” the locomotive emerges and “Tweet!… Tweet!” the whistle… Bop! I hit him with my arse! The midget! Up in the air!… The thunder lets loose, passes below! Whistle! Whistle! Whistle!… They’re all yelling! All around! The whole station!… I pull clean back! I’m magnetized! That’s just the word!… Positively!… I’m lifted up!… I’m light as a feather! I get going!… I’m snapped up by the exit!… the stairway! I’m sucked up!… I’m flying off!… It’s instinct! Flight!… The whole corkscrew!… The four flights… I shoot up! A whirlwind! I don’t feel them!… A mile a minute!… I’m being sucked up!… I’m so light I’m not touching the stairs!… I’m a bird of fear!… I shoot from the cage into the street!… Running!… Running!… I’m galloping! I cross a street… two!… Three!… I’m a bird of fright!… I’m off like a shot!… Another street… a square… another avenue… a park… I turn around… I’m swooping in circles… I graze the ground… just graze it… speed!… A ball of fire!… I knock people over!… Another square!… I go all around it… I slow up… oof!… I stop… My tongue’s hanging out… It’s over!… I’m going to faint!… But no!… I sit do
wn on the kerb!… Right under a tree!… They’ve lost me!… I look up at the street sign! It says Berkeley Square… a swell neighbourhood… oof!… Limousines and landaus are passing one another… It must be around six o’clock… a rather busy hour… It’s the way to Regent Street. The parade of elegance… I catch my breath a little… I’m seized by anxiety again… I start thinking… my heart’s twinging again!… It’s attacking me… it’s banging at my ribs… and then my head starts acting up… I can’t rest any more… I’m buzzing… tingling… overheated… it’s my common sense wobbling and wavering… I can’t see anything… and then I see everything!… I’m not me any more!… It is me!… I shook him up, the dirty midget!… Up in the air, Ten-Paw!… Up in the air!… Ah! Say, you there!… Say! He’s bashed up right this minute! Wham! The tough guy! Matthew there opposite! Watching! Staring! I still see the cop!… Umbrella and all!… Ah! Popeyed!… He hadn’t come alone!… Ah! Sure and certain!… Ah! Ten-Paw, the rotten little jerk! Finagling little rat! Sh! Sh! Not another word! Shit! Now Cascade!… All mine! Claben too! Ah! It’s not possible! Everything’s getting mixed up!… It’s all fire!… It’s flaming!… It’s all growling inside my head!… Like over there! I’m in a fever!… My arse on the kerb! Ah! Frozen like that I’m going to cool off!… Like over there! Ah! Providence! Ah! I’m saved! Ah! It’s getting better! Sitting on the stone! Hurray for the St Johns! Hurray for the firemen! But it won’t last long!… I got off to a bad start!… I think of my folks!… My mother in France in her shop mending lace… I get a headache thinking of Mamma… ruining her eyes that way under the big gas lamp… and the customers never satisfied… I’d let the customers have it!… I’d teach them how to behave!… And my father at the Coccinelle transcribing addresses!… That he’ll never finish!… And my pals in the trenches, the dumb dopes, getting it smack in the puss… it’s an avalanche, thunder, and me there like a murderer! Shit!… I could see the whole damned set-up… it haunted me, set my head spinning… I didn’t dare move… “Ferdinand! Ferdinand!” I said to myself. “You’re the victim of a plot!… And no denying it, they’re out to hurt you!… Your head hurts!… That proves it! Are you a decent guy? That’s the question that staggers me… Did Claben do you any harm?… So you robbed him just to drink? No one has any proof!… Ten-Paw either!… He’s in the Tube now!… He’s even smaller!… That’ll teach him to double-cross!… It was horrible of him… Ferdinand, you’re going to pay for everything!… Matthew’s got a perfect right!… He’s on duty!… No doubt about it! He’s looking for you… he has a right to!… He’s got the police behind him!… He’s on the lookout!… that’s his job! Criminal matters! Punishment tra-la-la! Oh you riffraff! It all works out!… My youth knocking me around again! Plaguing me! Sickening me! It’s all there in a heap! Shaking me! The people from the Passage du Vérododat! The busybodies! The neighbours! And lots more! They’re accusing me! They’re involving me! The nerve! And lots more! The self-examination!… You’ll see what people are like… they won’t want to look at my mother any more!… How she’s going to cry and weep!… “A deserter, Madame! An uninteresting young man!… in fact, a monster! A bandit!… And his poor father!… He should have boarded him somewhere!… Not in La Roquette!… In prison with the hoodlums! This wouldn’t have happened to you, Madame!… He deserted in London!… He was wounded!… He was crazy!… A drunkard!… A sex maniac!… He was a liar!… He masturbated in every corner!… He was often caught… He had vile instincts! He was failed three times when he came up for his primary-school diploma!… What rings under his eyes!… Everyone remembers it!… The way he spoke to his mother!… They were weak with him!… He stole four rolls!… How they deprived themselves for him!… It was worthwhile!… He robbed his employer!… And then he enlisted!… Then he had a little courage!… He left in September… mentioned three times in the military dispatches!… And then the military medal!… Brave at the beginning… it didn’t last… afterwards he lost everything!… Courage and everything else! All his good resolutions!… He didn’t want to die any more!… He was just a little delinquent!… I always said so!… And the military medal!… Just hotheaded!… A basically criminal nature!… They arrested him in London!… They locked him up!… They put him through torture!… He deserved it! He lost his head!… He started admitting… They plucked his eyes out!… Men who knew him well! People who were sick and tired of his criminal instincts!…” I could hear the voices going in and out of the gates!… They reached my ears!… Right on Berkeley Square! All I could hear was those voices… I didn’t even hear the cars… They were real voices… and even some English voices among them… with the accent… everything… “Watch your step! Watch your step! Bloody murder!… Bloody murder!…” muted… among the other voices!… With a bit of music among the street echoes… Murder! Murder! Oh! I’ve got to act fast!… Things look very bad, Ferdinand!… They’re going to catch you!… They’re going to jump on your neck like Delphine in the tunnel…