“Wollen sie uns nicht führen?” “Wouldn’t you like to guide us?” “Yes! … yes! … ja! … ja! …” glad to! … seems to amuse them … ja! ja! ja! the kids know the way! … the corridor, the ticket window, which platform? … just got to follow them … Picpus says we’ve done the right thing … he can’t move his arm … he can’t speak either, he’s yelled too much, he whispers …
“Gonna rub him out? What’s his name again?”
“Harras!”
“Never heard of him! … SS?”
“Gilt-edged! SS doctor …”
“You got a rod?”
“They took it at the customs …”
“Here’s a pineapple! … English!”
Takes this band grenade out of his pocket … slips it into my duffel coat … no time to protest, I’ve got it … I can feel it, it’s heavy …
“You know how to use it?”
“No!”
“It’s simple … you pull the pin and you heave … you got five seconds! … you split … best quality … everything sky-high! … the guy! … the joint! everything! throw it and run! … three! four! five! that’s all the time you got … fie down! if you’re standing, you’re through! Understand?”
“Oh, yes!”
I understand all right… he doesn’t stay put, he tags along with us and the kids … but this time it’s the right way! we pass the same stations … then we change … once … twice … squeezed, compressed, but not as much … ah! here’s Grünwaldl everybody out! … Picpus, us, the kids … we surface … this is the place … Fliegerallee, a sign … a lot of cottages on both sides in among the trees … but they’ve had it! … semi-windows and drain pipes all hanging out … roofs upside-down … our address is 16 … on the right… we’re quite a crowd with our Hitler Youth …
“You haven’t lost it?”
Picpus doesn’t trust me! thinks I left it in the subway …
“Calm down … feel it!”..
He feels it…
“You got it straight? the pin? … you heave! you lie downl at the same time!”
My only worry is it’ll go off before we get there … in our faces … 27? that must be across the way … the door with the two guards … on the other side … the red sign: “Reichgesundt” … that’s it!
“Beat it, Picpus!…you see the sign …”
He sees it … so do the kids … and the yellow and gold swastika, another sign, this is the place all right…
“Sehen sie? … see?”
Mostly they see the two guards who motion us to clear out … wait a miaute! … my paper … I wave it … they let me go over, but alone …
“Professor Harras?”
I want to see him .. .an officer comes ont from under the trees … I introduce myself …
“Ich bin ein Arzt von Paris”—I’m a doctor from Paris …”
“Gut!… Gut!.. .wer sind die da?”
He means the kids that are following us … and Lili and Le Vig …
“My wife Lili..,. my friend Le Vigan …”
I don’t want him to separate us …
“Gut! gut!”
And the kids? he asks me …
“Gawks!”
That’s enough for him … “Weg! weg!” He shoos them away … they beat it … Picpus too … nobody left … his weg! weg! is magic … just the three of us … now what’ll he say?
“At your service! I am informed … you were at the Steinbock Hotel…”
I see he can speak French when he wants to … and that he was expecting us … In a dictatorship … even in ruins … they know all about you before you arrive … so there’s no need to explain … suits me … we follow him … first through an enormous garden, no, more of a park … full of scattered “rubble … more villas, I guess … what’s left of them … and parts of steles and statues … covered with brambles and barbed wire … ah, a big greenhouse, but the glass is all gone … we go in … the officer steps very gingerly … maybe it’s mined … I’d ask him … but what’s his rank in the SS? … Sturmführer or something-or-other … he’s not talkative … I’d like to get rid of a certain object … but where?… wouldn’t want it to go off … should I mention it to this SS-man? … he must know it’s in my pocket … more rubble … piles of bricks … now we’re at the mouth of a tunnel … that’s where they must live … I take a look at this SS-man, immaculate, spruce, polished … a comfortable grotto, I expect … I’ve seen a lot of them in Germany, quite inhabitable … I don’t say anything, but I’m sure … well see … “vorsicht!” he says … careful! “minen” … they put in mines in case of an attack … they could probably blow the whole place sky-high, tunnel and all … Luckily this sturmführer hadn’t searched my pockets! … good impression if he sees Bébertl but he’ll have to surface, show his head … he finally obliges … I think it over … I’ve got more than the pineapple … plenty more … a small Mauser, a razor, two shaving sticks, three boxes of matches, a slice of bacon … and that’s not all! … amazing the crap you take with you when you’re thrown out of your home … all the stuff you need to live, even very meagerly … later in Sigmaringen Mattey, the minister of agriculture, gave us a little lecture… I was thinking of sneaking away to Switzerland … “Listen carefully, Doctor, certain essentials … you won’t make it through the woods without them … a knife and matches … to cut branches and light a fire! eating can always wait … but one cold night without fire, you’ll catch your death …” Mattey was right … fire’s the soul of life, even a tiny little fire, three twigs … same as in bicycle racing, no wheel no Tour de France! … the knife is okay … so are the matches, but the pineapple and the pin are excess … I could see this thing in my pocket blowing us to kingdom come … did this SS-man suspect? … so careful to keep us on the little path … he was definitely afraid of mines … but what about my pocket? … This park was enormous, rocks, clumps of trees … mostly stripped … I looked to the right and left … some waterhole to drop my gadget in … I’d seen several little ponds, full of muck and weeds, just right … but much too far from the path … I didn’t want to blow anybody up! … what if it went off in this SS-man’s face? … I’d get it too! Why can’t he just take us to Harras, that’s all we wanted … Even if he is a super-Nazi, Harras is the understanding type, philosophical, easygoing, not one of those punctilious narrow-minded bastards, Party brutes … gorillas with armbands … he’ll understand our situation … I hope! … if he doesn’t we’re cooked … the cops on our tail and off to the clink! we’ve attracted enough attention! first this Faustus! … up on his toes and heil! and thieving Ivan … we hadn’t missed a trick … and the pictures! and Picpus! a time comes, after two or three manhunts the whole world is fuzz … Hanas … Harras was our last chance … another little path! … this park was endless … where was he taking us? … ah, I see a shell holel …with water in it… lots of water … people bathing… naked men… a whole crowd of them! …
“A swimming pool for the Finns …”
Can they all be Finns? … a big isba next to the pool, their sauna … they go in, they scald themselves, they come out and quick, they dive …they keep comingl … another! … another! … While the SS-man tells us how tonic these baths are, he takes them himself, etc., etc. … I slip my pineapple out of my pocket and put it down on the slippery edge of the pool … I push it … gendy … plop! it sinks … if it blows up it’ll be in the water … I hope it’s a dummy … no use worrying now … is there anything I haven’t been accused of? even today in 1960 … in every club … café terrace … party … latrine … absurdities! …The Convention! bloodthirsty I admit…. heads hanging by a hair, thundering threats … was nothing … kid stuff … well, there in that park we were safe for a while … we thought … Reichsgesundheitshammer Grünwald … I don’t think anybody saw me ditching that toy … maybe it was a dummy? … the main thing is I haven’t got it any more … say, the SS-man? … I look around … gone! … I look again … that takes the pastry!
thin air! … oh, here’s a fat man coming toward us … a very very fat man in a bathrobe … I hadn’t recognized him … it’s him! and nobody else! he’s just come out of the isba …
If it isn’t our dear friend Céline!”
Really cordial…
“My respects, Madame!”
I hadn’t recognized him, Harras in person … I introduce LeVig…
“Monsieur Le Vigan, the famous actor!”
Le Vigan bows … delighted! delighted! … well, now we’re really compromised, Nazified to the hilt… so what? … with him at least you know where you’re atl President of the Reichsgesund … must be a colonel at least!… I’ve seen him in uniform, yes, only a colonel… he’s not too bald for a “professor” of his age … he’s the friendly, energetic type, shrewd common sense, a state of mind unknown in France: depth with good humor … serene wisdom with spells of buffoonery … what was he in command of here? … a cellar under the brambles? a tunnel? … Führer, I believe, of all the practitioners in the Reich, Gross Reich, and protectorates … the whole lot! … faith healers, homeopaths, and even “felchers,” ° health officers, detectors of epidemics … give you an idea of the power he had, this smiling opulent Harras! sure he could do something … find us some little job far away, maybe with the “felchers” … detecting dead rats deep in the valleys of Moravia … I could see us very well as “felchers” … or looking for “suspicious lice” in Herzegovina … we’d be sitting pretty … while it lasted … with Harras I could speak out … Just then the sound of a brass band comes out of some hole, the tunnel I think …
“My dear Harras! twenty-five more cities retaken! Rostov finally belongs to somebody! … and Sebastopol!”
“And yourself, my dear Céline?”
“We don’t exist any more, Professor! … your police don’t think we’re ourselves! unrecognizable! … phony pictures! you recognize us, don’t you?”
“Foolishness … I’ll straighten it out …”
I congratulate him on looking so well … seems to be in great shape!
“You’re in want, Céline … you’re in want because you choose to be …”
And he guffaws!
“You’re in Berlin … and you don’t come and see me!”
I don’t see what there is to laugh about, but anyway, with him so jovial, our troubles are over! not that we haven’t managed pretty well, all in all! … still that laugh of his was a bit too much … laughing didn’t come so easy to us since we left Montmartre … the mirth had dried up … this Harras was a scream! … well anyway, with this beamish boy we’d sleep and eat, and he’d take care of the police … I wasn’t thinking only of myself, there was Lili, Le Vig, and Bébert…
“Did you hear? We’ll eat and he’ll take care of the pictures!”
I shake Le Vigan, he’s dreaming, I give him the lowdown …
“Yes, pal … right you are …”
“Look at his bathrobe!”
I make him feel it … super-toweling! must be from London or America! … where’d he get it? … he makes no secret …
In Lisbon! Anything you want! I’ve more down there in the bunker, just say the word …”
Heart of gold, Harras! naturally we’d help ourselves … why not? … sure he was a Nazi… but when I consider after all these years how many people helped themselves … piled up billions with the Jews and the Nazis and aren’t any the worse for it, I can see we were stinking virgins … wait till Juanovici ° gets out of quarantine, he’ll have a few tales to tell! … take the Duchess, just because she toppled the throne with her ass they pay her pretty near three hundred millions for her story … so you can imagine what the valiant and trusty Monsieur Joseph …
Hey there, I’m flying away! I’m losing you! As incoherent a jackass as X or Y! … drunk on Words! … so where were we? with Professor Harras in that big Reichskammer park … you don’t say! Hey, look at that! another palace, gutted, falling apart … covered with woodbine and coils of barbed wire … The Parc Monceau is pretty messy, but this is something! little piles of statue heads like somebody’d been bowling … in the plaster and in the sand … all that must have been on purpose, ruins used for camouflage … I ask Harras …
“You going to blow us up?”
“On the fourteenth of July, Céline! The fourteenth of July! not before!”
“Ah! for Adolf’s birthday!”
No use pussyfooting with him! … quite the contrary … he saw us as we were, ultra-defeatist … as long as we spoke French, we could say what we pleased … our function was to be absurd, we could go the limit! … our nature was to be absolutely debile, gaga, hopeless, he was in love with everything connected with France … our goofy behavior, our incendiary ravings, no importance whatever! trifles! childishness! … our mean digs! the picaresque tradition … our prodigious “historicism” redeemed it all! … ach, was nun? … we, the last repositories of the “plaisir de vivre”! we had every license … The Teuton is the last customer on the planet who was willing to put up with anything we said or did … his army was undoubtedly the last and only that was ready to die for us … we showed him our true natures! The future doesn’t concern us, you’ll say … the future belongs to the young! … I wish them luck! … Harras, the Boche, the hundred-percent Nazi, didn’t take us for Hitlerites! certainly not! … all he asked was that we speak French … if we’d been slightly Jewish, slightly Negroid, with a dash of Spanish, heavens above! why not? or the whole United States! what of it? … he wasn’t simpleminded, he didn’t wear blinders … for instance, there in the park, he shushed me, he wanted me to listen to the planes passing by …
“Not German! not German at all! … Listen, Céline!”
We listened.
“Musik!”
A purring pleasant to the ear! … nothing like their Heinkels! pitiful hardware! … we could hear for ourselves … I finally had a chance to ask him what he was doing …
“I travel, my dear colleague … I travel … twice a month to Lisbon … little meetings with the other side, see what they have to say … exchange of views … have they seen any typhus? … are we having any trouble in the East? … No, never! … all the meat is vaccinated! … on their side! … on our side! ho-ho!”
Something else to laugh about!
In your opinion, my dear colleague, what can be done to end these wars?”
“A new virus!”
“I haven’t got one! … neither have they! Ho-ho-ho!”
I could see he wasn’t taking things too hard …
Where did I meet this Harras? … I’ll make a clean breast! … at a film showing on the Champs-Elysées … a highly technical film about typhus in Poland … typhus is my little specialty … but I’d been seen at that picture! … the coffins I received after that! … there my fatal mistake was exhibiting something more or less serious to the common herd! … rear ends, yes! more and more enormous tits!… fine! sumptuous banquets! supercarsl super-catch-and-groan … ideal! just so you steer clear of anything serious!
What I liked about Haïras was that the rest of them were small fry, he at least was important … as long as we were in his “Commando,” he’d show us everything … not just his shell-hole sauna! and his statue-head bowling alley! … was the rest underground? … yes! … yes! … yes! … anything that interested me …
We follow him … a tunnel … under the wreckage … ah, an entirely different style from Faustus’s hanging gardens … from outside you couldn’t see a thing … we follow Harras … a cave … a little light … another … offices tucked away in the walls … an enormous room furnished like New York, but at least sixty feet underground … typists too, just like America, cute, in pants …
“What do you say, Céline?”
“It’s the New Europe!”
But that’s not all… more offices … two floors down … you can hear the ventilators … more smiling typists … Harras strides through like a pasha, answering with little heils … still in his fluffy
bathrobe … lemon and sky-blue … another little staircase … the library! … a whole floor of records … next door another grotto with the catalogue … this is what the Chancellery must be like … eighty feet underground … that’s why we hadn’t seen anything … Adolf must be still deeper … but hold on! the cop and his visas?
“Harras, my dear colleague … just a second … would you look at our photos?”
I hand them over…
“Do you recognize us?”
He looks at them … he looks at us …
“Well of course … I recognize you … but a stranger, especially a polizei would find it difficult…”
“But our residence permits?”
“Good old Céline! always worried! … it’s nothing … nothing at alll … I’ll telephone … after our tea … they’ll send them over …”
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