North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “You’ll be happy with the Kretzers, they’ll take care of you …”

  Inge passes us on to these Kretzers … Harras had warned me … not very prepossessing either of them … he was “executive clerk” of the Dienstelle … the rural annex of die Reichsgesundt … in case Grünwald was wiped off the map, in case it went out of existence altogether, even the caverns … oh, perfectly possible …

  In the end Inge, her name was Inge, talks to me just a little … about the farm … the difficulties … I couldn’t imagine! … they’d only stayed at the farm because of the gasoline shortage and the air raids in Berlin … this yard was so foul … the puddles and the stench of the silos … had we noticed? and worst of all; it doesn’t rain enough, nothing grows! … this drought since the beginning of the war … we’re doing all right … I see! can ask her:

  “You have two Frenchmen here, I believe?”

  “Yes, two … one for the pigs, Joseph … the other for the gardens, Léonard …”

  I don’t see anything funny … she laughs …

  “Those two don’t like us!”

  The cripple interrupts …

  “Don’t be a nitwit! They hate us! … how can you expect French people to like us? … why not the Poles? … or the Russians? … or the Chinese? … enemies! they want to kill us all, don’t they, Harras? … and these people, what are they doing here?”

  “Now now … come along! angry man! you just haven’t slept well …”

  Inge thinks he’s gone too far, that we might be offended …

  “My husband is in a bad humor! … very bad! … you know him, Harras, he was in pain all night! forgive him! abominable humor!”

  He rejects the abominable humor! … he sticks to his guns …

  “No! … no! I know what I’n saying! … all these people are spies! … saboteurs! that’s what they’ve come here for! you nitwit!”

  “Come, come! go lie down! you’re being rude! … I’ll see our visitors out … Harras, if you please …”

  And to us:

  “You must forgive him! the sight of you brings on his jealousy! I can’t always be giving him injections!”

  “Oh, of course not!”

  I understand perfectly … so does Harras … we leave … As we pass the barn, the two Frenchmen, Joseph and Léonard, motion to me … they want another smoke … “okay! okay!” these two, I see, we’re in luck, they’re willing to tolerate us … I oblige … Camels? … Navy Cut? okay! … we leave the farm, the Kretzers were just coming to get us … as affable as can be! they bow to Inge von Leiden … we get warm handshakes … he’s weird, pre-1914, pince-nez and lustrine sleeves … Madame is the nervous housewife type, doesn’t seem stupid, pretty keen actually, but a bitch … she wears the pants … okay! … the trick for us, since we’re going to be dependent on her for victual? is to get her not to mind us … he’s got an armband and a swastika in his buttonhole, but he cuts no ice … she does the talking and deciding … they show us our pad again, we’ve seen it, the tower room with the folding bed, the basin and pitcher … ah, and a chromo of Frederick … I hadn’t noticed … Fredericks all over the place … more Fredericks than Hitlers! … downstairs in the old man’s room at least five! … I’d forgotten to tell you … They insist on our looking through our slit, the beautiful park, the walk designed by Mansard … the leaves falling so gracefully, the enormous ash trees … autumn … lots of titmice … getting cool… we haven’t come here for the fun of it … we’re here for the cure … I think about those cigarettes for Léonard and Joseph …

  “You’ll be coming often, Harras?”

  “As often … as long as we have gas …”

  He has more to say:

  “Be that as it may, there’s something I’d like you to dunk about, colleague, you’ll have plenty of time!… for me! medical and historical … for me! … I’ll speak to you about it after dinner … I’ll be dining at the von Leidens oyer at the farm … you will eat downstairs with the young ladies of the Dienstelle … you’ll meet them … and Monsieur and Madame Kretzer! … oh yes, and Kracht! remember that name, Kracht! … my confidential agent here! … I don’t trust the others, not one bit! … he phones me every day … if you have any complaints … tell him … nobody else!”

  Not a bad thing to know … when you’re a hunted man, the tiniest speck of information can save your neck … this Kracht didn’t exactly appeal to me … but the mugs on those Kretzers! … we’d see when Harras had left … And this work of his? … history and science? … what was the point? something to tire us out … fatigue is a great luxury, punishable and very rightly so … your galley slave falls asleep, his oar gores him in the belly, out come his guts … serves him right! … if you’re hated, if millions and millions of disembowellers are hot on your trail, there’s only one thing you can do: never sleep!

  Our situation was much too serious for sleep! I’d read it in all the papers! … we were really out on a limb …

  But where were we? Zornhof! I’ve got you back! Our first dinner at the Dienstelle board … the manor house dining-room, not very cheerful … we could hardly see each other … the shade of the big trees … two candles at the ends of the table … the secretary ladies are friendly enough, but less than in Grünwald … only one tries to talk to us, a little hunchback … ah, here’s Kracht! … the bookkeeper introduces us … he’s wearing an SS uniform … he’s a pharmacist in civilian life … now he’s SS leader of Zornhof … he’s been on the Eastern Front, now he’s resting … not repulsive … but not very outgoing … he seems to believe in his thing … really the first Nazi that’s something like what they’re supposed to be like, a stubborn thickhead … ferocious? probably … not old, about thirty … amusing,” a Nazi Homais! … ah, he’s talking! … we listen … I translate for Lili and Le Vig … the news, the communiqué …

  “Say … the plot … ask him …”

  Le Vigan wants to know … not the right question, it seems to me … but Kracht has heard him …

  Traitors exist! yes! … they will be punished!”

  Very simple … he repeats in German so the whole table can understand … they all go ja! ja! sicher! certainly! … Monsieur and Madame Kretzer too … Kracht has to report the “table talk”… the others know … as for the meal, I don’t see much … la Kretzer asks for our coupons … Lili hands them over … and now, what will it be? … a young lady brings in a soup tureen … we each get three ladlesful of some insipid lukewarm liquid … I don’t see the secretaries touching it or the Kretzers or Kracht … they most be putting us on … well see about the next course … there isn’t any next course! … Madame Kretzer says mahlzeit in a loud voice and gets up … everybody gets up … Heil Hitler! … that’s it! … they put back their chairs very carefully and off they go … where to? … the office? … their rooms? … we ask for a little scrap for Bébert … scrap of what? … here comes the little scrap! … half a potato in some kind of gravy … ! don’t say a word … Le Vig does … out loud …

  “That what you gave your coupons for, Lili? … I’m starved! … What about you?”

  “Yes, well tell Harras …”

  “Harras doesn’t give a shit! look at his bay window! … he’s shoveling it in right now! You’re dreaming Ferdie … they’ve got everything at the farm, did you see those geese! … not for us! … there were sandwiches in Grünwald … that’s why they threw us out! to come here and starve!”

  He was shouting …

  It’s a setup, Ferd! where are your eyes? all in cahoots! the cuckold, Harras, the whore, and the Landrait … perfect harmony! … listen to me! … when we left Baden-Baden we shouldn’t have fallen for that shit! … north! east! and south! no! we go back to France!”

  “Le Vig, you’re delirious! in France they’d skin you alive!”

  He thinks it over …

  “Okay, Ferdinand, you’re right … I admit it … that’s why they treat us like this … they know!”

  “Well anyway, how
’s your room?”

  “My room? It’s a beaut … come!”

  I follow him … to the basement … the little staircase … a long corridor … his “room” is a cell, bars and all … past the kitchen, on the left … kitchen? well, sort of, we never saw anybody in it …

  “Say, that mastiff …”

  “I see him, he’s not growling …”

  “But he doesn’t look very friendly …”

  An enormous dog but very skinny … lying on his side on the tiles, it didn’t look as if they gave him much to eat … in all regimes certain creatures are singled out for austerity, for virtue … the defenseless and the animals … he growled a little as we passed … was he going to eat us? … in addition to starving him, as a demonstration of virtue old von Leiden, the Uhlan major, took him every day oh a tour of the estate, himself on a bicycle, the dog on the leash … to let everybody see that Iago was starving, that life was no joke at the manor … I could see us one day, all three of us harnessed to something, demonstrational workers … after that dinner, lukewarm soup and hell, we hadn’t far to go … nothing skinny about the secretaries, actually they were on the plump side, it sure wasn’t from the soup! … they must make up for it in their rooms, locked tight, on sauerkraut and big fat sausages … the transparent soups were for us! … in the first place the balcony outside their rooms smelled too good, they must be cooking something, tasty little stews! all over the house there was some little smell … really appetizing … except in the dining room … say, even here in this basement corridor I smell something … we hadn’t noticed it at first … I poke Le Vig … “Let’s go see!”… you had to push through a big heavy door … two doors … there was something on a wood fire … a kitchen four times the size of our tower … we’d thought the place was empty … it was going full steam, three stoves, kettles as big as houses! … two women with bare feet and two little girls tying up legs of lamb … larding them! … they don’t mind us, it makes them laugh … that we’ve located their kitchen! … later I found out … the kids were part of the crew that entertained the old man, he had a whole crowd up there, Russian and Polish … the old geezer was eighty, he’d been horseback riding only last year … now he had a different sport, he went down on all fours and the kids rode him … “giddyap, horsie! they whipped him with his riding whip! … till the blood came! … he loved it! … all around his study! faster! faster! … los! … into the next room … “witches! witches!” he yelled at them, with his bare old ass! …

  He had a lot of books down there … and upstairs too, in the other tower … his sister Marie-Thérèse’s quarters, I’ll tell you about her … the dungeon, the other wing of the manor … Paul de Kock … Dumas Père and Fils … Murger … Paul de Kock was his favorite now … he wouldn’t read anything else … I heard all this from Inge … After his sessions on all fours he collapsed, he’d lie there for hours with his ass all red and his tongue hanging out … the old swine liked to suffer, but not to go without good food! … the downstairs kitchen, the one on Le Vigs corridor operated just for him, he wouldn’t eat anything from the farm … he didn’t trust them … a little something in the stew …

  Anyway Frau Kretzer had taken our food cards, not very many coupons, it’s true, but something a little margarine … half a pound of leberwurst… I say to Lili:

  “Get them back! well find something … there must be a food store … or in Moorsburg! … ask nicely …” with Lili I don’t have to worry, she’ll never offend anybody … and nobody’ll ever give her anything … if she doesn’t get them, Le Vig can try … meanwhile we’re famished! … if only Harras would get back! … from his grubfest with the legless bastard and Inge and the Uhlan … I’ll tell him what I think of their Reich hospitality … the Uhlan Landrat is with them … seems he speaks French … we didn’t get to hear much … he didn’t deign … ah, here comes somebody … voices … we’ll see … sure, the whole bunch! … the cripple’s with them, a Russian prisoner’s carrying him, a colossus, the cripple’s hanging on to his neck, his two stumps around his waist … the cripple surveys us from his crow’s nest … he asks us in German:

  “You all right, you French folk?”

  I answer quick:

  “Couldn’t be better!”

  I don’t want Le Vig to speak first … they’re all a bit flushed … especially the Landrat … he speaks to us for the first time … and in French …

  “You’ll be taking walks, I presume?”

  “Oh yes, Monsieur le Landrat, with your permission …”

  “You have it! You have it! … You don’t know Zornhof?”

  “No, Monsieur le Landrat!”

  “The baroness will show you …”

  An excursion is planned then and there … she’ll show us around! … we’ll see magnificent sights … the beauties of Prussia … and especially the big forest, nothing like it in all Europe! … sequoias! unique! … giant trees! … seven thousand acres! … two sawmills … we can see the trees in the distance …

  Fact! we can barely see them … yes, these von Leidens are a hundred percent not to be pitied … genuine lords of the manor, enormous estates … the lukewarm-water mahlzeit meals are absolutely intentional, on purpose! one look at their bellies! even the cripple has a paunch … I don’t want Le Vig to get excited, if he blows his top it’ll be worse than Baden-Baden … where’ll we go if they throw us out?

  “Delighted, my dear Harras! aren’t we, Lili, aren’t we, Le Vig? magnificent trees those sequoias! two hundred feet! I’ve seen such forests in California, but in Europe … I didn’t know …”

  “You’ll see! … you’ll see, Céline … the baroness will be only too glad …”

  This Simmer, I notice, is powdered and lipsticked … manicured nails … would he be a bit of a fag? … of course that wouldn’t prevent him from doing what has to be done to the baronin … strict pederasts are very rare, they mostly have scads of children, model fathers and grandfathers … this Simmer … I never saw so many rings, an enormous cabochon and a signet ring with his arms and all amethyst and a big cameo on his little finger … plus three Iron Crosses … religious too, a long gold chain across his chest with a Holy Ghost at the end … I found out later on … they were all loaded … they’d get along fine with refugees of the same class, well-heeled Carbuccias ° for instance, or Gallimards or Lavais, but us there so emaciated and bedraggled, why hadn’t we been hanged? the real iron curtain is between the rich and the down-and-outers … between people of equal fortune, ideas don’t count … when you take a good look, your opulent Nazi, an inhabitant of the Kremlin, directors of Gnome et Rhone … asshole buddies … they exchange wives, gargle the same Scotch, traipse around the same golf courses, buy and sell the same helicopters, and open the hunt together … breakfasts in Honolulu, soupers in Saint-Moritz! … the rest is eyewash! … blarney! filthy sweaty tramps, butt-picking bellyachers, back where you belong! that’s what they think of us for sure! … the four of them and the cripple on the giant’s back … one look at us, you can see the beginning of a snarl … I ask the big bruiser’s name …

  “Nicholas!”

  Harras tells me where he comes from, the ends of the East, wounded prisoner, Harras himself had brought hirirback to work on the farm and the Dienstelle … and all he does is carry the cripple …

  As long as they’re here they want to show us the barns … we go back through the park with them … really comforting, you can see it yourself, the way certain people manage, the way they make the best of revolutions, wars, earthquakes … always some cozy setup … everything’s falling apart? so what? never fear! … life goes on! … a month … a year … and presto! … here they are again … in another racket a thousand times as cushy … you’ll see after the “atomic” shindig! … ants, termites, compound ashes! you’ll find them comfortably settled in climatized tunnels, the basement of Kilimanjaro … private! this Nicholas now, the colossal wounded prisoner, he’d come from outermost trans-Caspia just to carry
the cripple around! … the von Leidens, rest assured, wanted for nothing! or Nicholas either! … no virtue for him … virtue was for us and Iago! … I can bet that carrier-nurse had double rations … I wait till we get out of the barn to have a word with Harras alone … fat chance! … he’s got something to tell me … urgent! … he takes me to another drawing room … hadn’t seen it … Louis XV … not bad … six windows overlooking the plain … down below, the little pond, the one you saw from Le Vig’s … and geese … and more geese … and another pond full of reeds …

  “This plain … all the way to the Urals, Céline!”

  He’s told me that already …

  “Yes, the Urals … but first Berlin! … air raids … you’ll see … the whole place in flames!”

  “Soon?”

  “Oh, eight ten days! … here you’re out of danger …”

  “Think so?”

  “They won’t bother with Zornhof … the essential these days is to be small enough, not worth a bomb!”

  “And we aren’t?”

  “No! … or the von Leidens or Madame or her father or the Kretzers …”

  “Has the old man got a sister?”

  “Yes, in the other tower … you won’t see her, except in church on Sunday, at the organ … well, right now I don’t know, things change, maybe she’s getting flighty … but one thing will never change: she can’t abide her brother … the Rittmeister! or the cripple! or Inge!”

  “All right, Harras, I understand, the bombs won’t kill us, but what they give us to eat here certainly will …”

  “True, Celine, very true! … but you’re better off than in Paris! … don’t forget that! … never forget it! all those people, Kretzer, the Landrat, old man von Leiden, the son, the sister, the office girls, the whole gang, aren’t worth the rope … I know, I know! … but you’re better off than in Berlin, that’s the main thing! … Berlin will be one raging fire, very soon!”