North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “My niece … she’s brought you some milk …”

  Now I know … we have at least two friends! … Cillie von Leiden and the hunchback … not bad in our situation … or, come right down to it, no matter where and when, peace, dead calm, wars, convulsions … so many vaginas, stomachs, cocks, snouts, and flies you don’t know what to do with them … shovelsfull … but hearts? … very rare! in the last five hundred million years too many cocks and gastric tubes to count… but hearts? … on your fingers! …

  Me and my philosophies! the main thing was to find out what was going on … certainly something more than food cards …

  Frau Kretzer is deep in the shadow, far from the candle … I dive in … I’m fed up!

  “Frau Kretzer, our cards?”

  She bursts into tears, she sobs …

  “They’re in Berlin!”

  And to make sure we won’t say any more, she shows us her two sons’ tunics again, she’s brought them along on purpose, she shows us the bullet holes and the caked blood in the light … she’s moved closer … of the candle … and her face too in the light … how drawn with grief! … she’d showed us before! … if she’s still alive she must have it down to a T, this act with the tears and the tunics …

  But where could she be now? … La Kretzer? … east of the Urals? … east of Lake Baikal? … people who seem to be well informed tell me this Prussia is all Tartar now … all these people I’m talking about must be ghosts, inevitable … to tell the truth, they were even then … even little Cillie there, with her delicate profile in the candlelight …

  Right then around the table, ghosts or not, in addition to conning the cards, they were drinking a bit of coffee … they offer us some … oh, not real coffee! … ersatz, pale and lukewarm … Marie Thérèse has finished with the future, she’s shuffling …

  “Well? … well?”

  I ask.

  “A naked man is coming! … a stark-naked man!”

  And she laughs … a droll future!

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes, that’s all! and flames! … oodles of flames!”

  How original!

  “And now won’t you come to my place … do me the favor …”

  She invites us …

  “You need books … French books for Madame Céline … my brother’s library is right next to my room, you’ll see, you can take your pick … he doesn’t read any more …”

  The séance is closed … Mostly, I think, she wants to talk to us without Kretzer and the little girl … why not? … something to tell us … Cillie and Madame Kretzer leave first … we hear them on the stairs … we’re left alone with the aunt and the little hunchback … good … now she can talk …

  “You’re being invited to dinner tomorrow evening at the farm … all three of you of course … at my nephew’s … you’ve seen him … the cripple … you know his wife too, Inge …”

  “Yes, yes … of course …”

  “You’ll get to know them a lot better! the Landrat will, be there too … Harras would have been invited too if he hadn’t gone off God knows where …”

  “We’re overjoyed!”

  Then, tight-lipped:

  I haven’t been invited!”

  She sighs … then she goes on …

  “Maybe her mother will be invited … you’ll see her! … her mother … that is, her adoptive mother … Countess Thor von Thorfels … they’re from Königsberg … authentic nobility … but not Inge! no! certainly not! possibly a bastard … an adopted child, but no more! a delicate situation, you see … Thor von Thorfels, the father, was a philanderer … His bringing her home to his wife … I ask you … is that any reason why Inge should have it in for them all? … because of her dubious birth? … you see the situation … be on your guard!”

  Okay, so Inge was an adoptive daughter … why should they mix us up in it? the foibles of the nobility! … Inge dangerous? hm … the old lady had excellent connections if she wanted to get rid of her!

  Our friend Marie-Thérèse, if I understood right, was the true heiress, and the future Countess von Leiden! … we go to see her pad … not on our side of the manor … the other tower, on the steppe side … pitch-dark on the stairs, we take Bébert in his bag … one flight … the other wing, the other tower … another flight … here we are … two big Louis XV chandeliers … she lights all the candles … our heiress wants for nothing … a very attractive boudoir, you might say a retrospective exhibition of family portraits and small pieces of antique furniture … but no bric-a-brac, not a junk shop like Fretorius’s place … oh no … excellent taste … even the local peasant embroideries are interesting … this Marie-Thérèse is a person of refinement, her rooms are very pleasant … her windows, not slits like ours, open out on the plain … a grandiose spectacle … at least a hundred searchlights are in action over Berlin … painting the sky … lighting it up all the way to us … the usual alert, the sky and the clouas one luminous panorama from horizon to horizon … the Apocalypse so long announced … the Sino-Russian-Yankee shindig won’t need any searchlights! … you can junk the accessories! … well, up there with this Thérèse we were expecting confidences … that’s what we’d come for …

  “My good friends, never say anything in front of that Kretzer woman … or Kracht … or the rest of them … you brought back a loaf of bread … I saw it … never fear, the others saw it too … and honey! … be careful! … I’m extremely careful myself … those people over there, my own brother and my uncle … they’ve got their eye on me … they have their spies … everywhere! … isn’t little Cillie delightful? pretty as a picture, I’m very fond of her, she’s fond of me too, I think, but even so, she tells them everything she sees … when she brings your milk, shell look at everything … I hope you’ have no weapons …”

  “No … oh no, Mademoiselle!”

  It is a pleasure to me to show you my home … I take it as an honor … but you mustn’t stay long … Those people in the office have seen you … let me tell you in a few words what you ought to know … my brother downstairs with his little Polish girls indulges in perversions … he’s very old … eighty-four, it can’t be helped … he’s reverted to babyhood with those little girls, he urinates on them, they urinate on him, that’s their way of playing! … I even have to admit … I’m not afraid … that they whip him! he’s lived too long, that’s all! … nurses would be worse! … we’ve had nurses, they stole everything! … these little girls, all they want is sugar and cookies … I’m telling you all this very briefly, I have to … you mustn’t stay long … my brother and his little girls … trifles! … Harras? … your friend Harras … that’s more serious, I don’t think much of him! … he hasn’t shown you everything … you’ll find out! … I know him! … I almost married him … Simmer too, almost … but not quite! … in 1912! … we know each other! … Inge, something else again … she captured my nephew! … this evening you’ll be going to the farm, so be it! … don’t mention me! … that woman hates me, I don’t like her! … she’s not bad-looking, I grant you, but her soull how she got the Torfelses to adopt her … no one knows! Harras perhaps … in any case she will never be the Countess von Leiden … she’s a baroness through my nephew, nothing morel … I’d have to die, I don’t want to!”

  “Come, come, Mademoiselle!”

  What an absurd idea! oh! ah! ah!

  “A woman is never a philosopher, never! don’t you agree, Doctor! … men, no matter what degraded sensual pigs they are, are first of all philosophers! … for women it’s a waste of tune!”

  “You’re perfectly right, Mademoiselle! rest assured, we won’t say a thing … and we speak German so badly … silence will come easy to us …”

  “You understand me so well. Doctor … Harras knows all these things, oh yes! so does the Landrat! … they amuse themselves with that woman! … and how many more! but there’s only one heir! myself!”

  “Obviously!”

  Perfect agreement …

>   “No one ever comes up here! neither she nor my crippled nephew! certainly not! he’s very ill, you’ll see … and embittered … he leads her a life! … oh, she deserves it, a living hell! … she’ll tell you about it, let her talk! … even so, she will inherit nothing! … neither the tide nor the estate! if she speaks to you, I haven’t said a thing, I don’t exist!”

  “Of course not!”

  “The little girl is due to inherit … very well, let her! … after me!”

  Hell, this old bag goes on and on … but haven’t we got our troubles too? … coupons, for instance … she’s talked about herself enough! she won’t let go! … but what about us … okay … I’ll risk it… I ask her …

  “Your coupons? … Simmer is keeping them, didn’t you know? … he detests Harras and the whole SS … and you too! Inge can get them for you if she wants to, if she wants to bother …”

  Inge, the dangerous niece, getting herself laid by the two of them … and a thousand outers! … who cares? … but our coupons! … ah, Messalina! ah, Zomhof!

  “You’ll see, Doctor! … you’ll see!”

  “Many thanks, Mademoiselle … we won’t see a thing!”

  “Oh, forgive me, Doctor … hunted men are perceptive … perceptive …”

  Another gale of laughter …

  “You’ve seen the sandwiches, haven’t you?”

  I wasn’t going to deny it, neither was Le Vig … an enormous platter! at least a hundred thick butterbrots! … under a crystal cover … better served than in Grünwald! …

  “They are for you … if you’ll do me the honor! … I believe you don’t drink beer … lemonade? … orangeade? … do have some!”

  “Oh, certainly…”

  To tell the truth … it’s not butter in these sandwiches … looks like she’s not getting anything from the farm …

  “You know, Monsieur Le Vigan, they are wretched wartime sandwiches!”

  “Goodness me, Mademoiselle! delicious! if only Madame Kretzer … !”

  “My own coupons, you know! until last month I went to Moorsburg … my brother lent me their tilbury … I always did my own shopping … now, it seems, they have no horses … all in the fields … Kratz brings me what I need … he can go to Moorsburg … actually, I prefer it … not a long way to Moorsburg, four miles, but the road isn’t safe, far from it! the last few times I wasn’t easy in my mind … alone on that road …”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, you know, loiterers … all sorts! … deserters … prisoners … refugees from the East … marauding bibelforschers … prostitutes from Berlin! … they have their camp near here at Katteln … the police can’t be everywhere! … our police are submerged! … so is the Landrat! Kracht has nothing to fear, he’s armed! … I can’t call out the army for my shopping, three pinches of ersatz tea! Kracht brings me real tea, candles too … the SS have everything! … for a year now we’ve had nothing … you must have noticed? no lamps, no electricity, no coal, not even peat … everything requisitioned for Berlin … you’ve seen their searchlights? … everything for the clouds! … that’s why they leave us in the dark! … they amuse themselves painting the sky white! … and they never bring a plane down! … I’ve told Simmer! and Kratz! … they’re useless too! I’ll give you a package of candles, you can’t see in your tower, can you? … I’ll give you some honey too, real honey from the pastor’s hives … by the way, have you seen him?”

  “We went to see him, he wasn’t at the parsonage …”

  “He never is! … always at the hives, running after the swarms … they’re always on the move! he’s comical! … they’ve told you?”

  “Yes, the bibels at the Tanzhalle …”

  “They haven’t told you everything! oh no! I will! … and speak to the beadle! … you know him?”

  “Yes, the spiked helmet!”

  “Bugle and drum … the drum is the ‘full-scale alarm’ … but you can see for yourself … if there are more searchlights in the clouds it’s ‘full-scale’ … you can hear the Fortresses as well as he can!”

  True, they grazed the church steeple … they could have obliterated Zornhof years ago … you could tell how close they were by the sound of die engines … the manor house never stopped trembling … not just the windowpanes, the walls! those aerial factories heading for Berlin … Hjalmar just had time to beat his drum! and then the flames went up … yellow … orange … blue … giant tongues from cloud to cloud … mammoth torpedoes! … our spiked helmet knocked himself out … drumming under the windows! … he was afraid, that’s all … he shivered on the drum! … my impression was that it gave him pleasure … Marie-Thérèse too, same thing … if the whole manor had fallen down on top of us, they’d have enjoyed it … the Boches and Bochesses have a certain taste for catastrophes … same as the Frogs for good wines … lords and gluttons … dangerous stinkers the whole lot … me, I’ve been equally pampered on both sides … I’ll still be telling you when I’m a skeleton, the way they took a powder in ‘40 and came back to rob me and throw the book at me and erect statues to themselves … now you see it now you don’t! I’ll tell you the whole story in my Memoirs …

  “Your Memoirs? Where are they?”

  “Wait! … the mugs who steal them will be a thousand times trickier than my gangsters in Montmartre and Saint-Malo … tall order! … I tell you all these little nothings! … I’m not afraid! … I know you’re in sympathy! … up there in Zornhof all those people including Thérèse the heiress struck me as horribly dubious … but what choice … it was them or nothing! … back to France? … Villa Saïd? … the Dental Institute? ° … my friends the devoted stoolies? … very cock-softening!

  “My dear Madame Céline … the liberty … I’m told you’re a dancer? … do you still dance?”

  “When I find a place … to dance in … in Baden-Baden we had one, but in Berlin …” !

  Just then the beadle, on purpose it looks like … fit to bust! starts blowing his bugle! … a double alarm! … down under the window …

  “When I find a place …”

  If you will do me the honor … you may come here, my dear Madame, my hardwood floor will be quite satisfactory, I think … I’ll have the carpet rolled up … and there, you see, my piano! you’ll be able to hear it … they don’t drop bombs every day!”

  How droll! … We laugh too, Le Vig and me …

  “It will give me pleasure to play for you … anything you like …”

  “But Monsieur your brother?”

  “It’s none of Monsieur my brother’s business! we have plenty of scores, you have only to choose … my mother had three pianos, I kept the Steinway … I tune it myself, we used to play the harp … my father sang… the tuners don’t come any more all my mother’s scores are next door … the next room!

  Can you hear me?”

  “Yes! … yes! … yes!”

  In the end they were shouting … Marie-Thérèse is red in the face … louder than the dram and the motors of the Fortresses … Marie-Thérèse throws in an extra decibel …

  “The tuners don’t come from Berlin any more! well manage! … you’ll choose! … I have everything, I think! all the ballets!”

  She wants us to look at them this minute … she leads the way … two steps … a door …

  “On the right German and English … books … French over there, and music … you see? … you have only to choose …”

  “Well come back tomorrow if you like …”

  A short rest … no use shouting any more, Spikehat must have come into the house … onto the stairs … the racket he’s making drowns out everything … all our voices and the reverberation of the bombs and the Fortresses … he doesn’t want to stay outside with his bugle and drum … I get to thinking … some monkey business! I’m sure Marie-Thérèse eats something else beside margarine sandwiches … everybody here stuffs in his own room … smells on every floor … stews … chickens … roast lamb … turkey … the worst in the basement, Le Vigan�
��s corridor, those kitchens we couldn’t get into … Virtue is for us and Iago, their Great Dane … in addition he has to cart the old boy around, every morning he pulls the whipping Rittmeisters bicycle around the village, so the women and prisoners can see that Iago’s all skin and bones and doesn’t mind … the circuit of Zornhof twice every morning … to show that life is no joke at the manor, that the “great directive” is being observed: “Go without everything!” Everybody can see that Iago goes without! a bone and a chunk of bread once a week, no more! … and he works hard, pulling the old man twice around the village, through ditches and mudholes, under the whip lash! … gyup! … it’ll happen to us one of these days … idle mouths to feed! … pulling something … helping with the beets? … taking the cows out? … one thing we knew already, that we really had very little to eat … if there’d been any choice, I’d have chosen to be a bibelforscher … nobody asked us … not even to go back to France and get ourselves blotted at Villa Saïd, with our organs in our mouths, to show us we’d been wrong … not … we had no choice at all! … no usé getting miffed when things go bad … so what? suppose at that same moment I’d been on rue Girardon … what would my eyes have beheld? … four Commanders of the Legions of Honor walking off with my furniture! … does the sight of this prowl astonish you? … four moving vans … hell, you can’t escape! … all with big Colts … let’s not be naïve! man has been identically the same for five hundred million years! … cave or skyscraper, he wont change a jot! the gibbon is motorized? so what? airborne? to rob you and murder you quicker! progress! guided missiles! … Zornhof, Berlin, or Montmartre, our number was up … accursed flesh! … all total wars, Revolutions, Inquisitions, smash-ups, constitutional pirouettes are magnificent opportunities, a windfall for a good many people … Me, for instance, on rue Girardon, the way my pad and everything in it was annexed … you’d think they’d have put up a little plate: “Here dwelt and was looted, etc. …” I’ll have a long wait! … am I going to get steamed up about it? hell, no! for all I care, de Gaulle can put Cousteau in the cabinet! … make him Minister of Justice! where else will he find such zeal for reopening Villa Saïd and roasting everybody who’s in favor of the Amnesty! he’ll even have to put a damper on those fanatics!