North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  She sighs at the thought of the forest …

  “I don’t know how many acres, Doctor! … my husband knew! … and wolves! … and bears! … you’ll see!”

  All of a sudden she starts laughing …

  “You’ll come and see it with me! … you’ll enjoy yourselves! … all three of you! … with Inge! … with Cillie! … Marie-Thérèse will come too! … you will come, won’t you?”

  “Certainly! Certainly, Madame!”

  We could hardly refuse … it gave her so much pleasure … I could see the three of us in Pomerania! … okay … okay … time will tell …

  “Oh, but we don’t know each other!”

  True … very true …

  And out with the bewitching memories! … the whole repertory! … we’re stuck! … France! … Paris! the enchantment of the Bois de Boulogne! Avenue des Acacias! the Grand Prix! … the battle of flowers … my responses are okay, I know those things, I share her enthusiasm … but the Elysée, I flunk, never been there! … the President of the Republic … the grand ball at the Opera … the Neuilly fair … ah, there I come in again! … and what a wonderful time Madame la Comtesse had everywhere! … and my! the Moulin Rouge! … Heaven! Hell! … the Abbey of Thélème! ° … what? … why? … her husband, the late Count Thor von Thorfels, had been president of the Léon Bourgeois ° Committee for North Germany … which accounts for everything! … ah, Monsieur Léon Bourgeois! ° … what distinction! … what delicacy! what eloquence! … it brings the tears to her eyes! … the happy hours! … ah, Paris! … paradise! … everywhere! they went everywhere! … even to the Flea Market! what delightful little things they bought, we’d see them at her home in Pomerania! knickknacks! … portraits! … the count was wild about the Flea Market! … we’d see those souvenirs with our own eyes … a whole floor of the castle was furnished “à la Parisienne” … oh yes, the countess knew Europe, all the big cities! … and the spas! … tolerable cities, one might live in them … but to live, really, with joie de vivre, only one city! … we were in perfect agreement! … ready to weep with her … not for exactly the same reasons … but pretty near …

  “You don’t know Königsberg?”

  I confess …

  “We deeply regret it!”

  “You’ll see! … so gloomy! … the sea frozen over six months a. year! … and the forests! … mine, Doctor! … the deer! … the bears! … all mine!”

  I could see that the countess was afraid of her castle … and the forests … and Königsberg …

  “Worse, Doctor! … worse! … they’re fighting up there! … yes! … farther up, I believe! … near Memel … I hear the artillery! … my domestics say it’s ours! … what do you think? … I hear it … especially at night! … ours? … theirs? my guards tell me anything that comes into their heads!”

  “Madame la Comtesse, here too! …”

  I wasn’t going to tell her to listen … it was better to let her talk about the Flower Market … the Cours-la-Reine … and Versailles … still with Monsieur Bourgeois … the fountains! … the countess was lost in a dream! … and to think that the three of us had come all the way from Paris to this abominable Zornhof! … a miracle! … she saw us at the Elysée with her, at the Opera thirty years before! the mad spell of Paris isn’t so much in the songs … shadows cast by gas lamps, alcoholic refrains … as in the hearts of despairing elderly exiles, far away … the course of events … in Königsberg … Oklahoma … the Caribbean … we were in perfect agreement! … of course we’d go and see her! … a promise! … Kracht had given me ample warning: whatever you do, don’t cross her! … sure she was kind of comical, but her castle existed … not in the least imaginary! … neither were the deep forests … or the wolves, etc. … perfectly true! … the fighting too, around Mèmel … the Russians coming closer … At that table, that feast I should say, nobody else could get a word in … not even the Landrat! … she had the floor, and that was that! … the Landrat had a few things to say, yes indeed! … she wouldn’t let him … bitte! bitte! … if you please! … a cutting little gesture, meaning to keep stilll and listen! …The precious powdered colonel with the shotgun in his lap … took second helpings of chicken and turkey, with plenty of gravy … he drank out of three glasses at once … Rhine wine, bordeaux, and kirsch … but he couldn’t say what he wanted to, she didn’t let him … bitte! bitte! … he slavered and jiggled, he shook his chair … and demanded to speak! … to me! to me! he wanted to speak to me! he pointed his finger at me … sie! sie!

  “You! youl ruhe! ruhe! quiet!”

  For the old bag to shut up! … the infernal talking machine!

  “Here! here! … sie! … you!”’

  He takes a paper out of his pocket … he wants me to read it! sie! sie! … at once!

  Aha! I read … I’d suspected as much … “permit to practice”! … Erlaubnis … is that what we’re celebrating? this feed, all these people? for me? … and the little tricolor flags? the Landrat almost affable … the old screwball from Königsberg with her forests and her passionate friendship … all this for me? … true, Harras had told me I’d get it in the end, after months, maybe years … that the Berlin offices were absolutely hostile … anti-Nazi, anti-French, anti-collabo, anti-everything … “The times have changed” … you’ll say … “other nations other notions!”… not at all! … my balls! … it’s the same right here! twenty years later! only yesterday the French Television played a trick on me … as stinking dastardly rude as the worse Teutons! … you’ve got to admit, certain people are exceptional at the piano, at the guitar, at bowling … others in mathematics, painting, or crossword puzzles … my special gift, in every camp, is getting myself excommunicated … a subhuman, absolutely discombobulating jerk … take the Television only the day before yesterday! … they come around, some interesting idea … one look at me, they decamp in terror! … take down their cameras, put away their film! … they don’t even apologize! … not a word! … to show you what we’ve come to! “the rabble will inherit the earth!” … Nietzsche foresaw it … and here we are! … Ministers, Satraps, Dien-Pen-Hu all over the place! … leaks ° and pink panties! …

  Griping again? … only making things worse for myself! … up there in Zornhof, Brandenburg, was I going to gripe about the ministers? … and their offices on Wilhelmstrasse? … was I going to protest? give somebody what for? they’d have purged me … just like that! … La Croix ° would have been glad … Malraux too … and plenty more! … I’d have never come back from Brandenburg … prepurged by the Nazis! … my carcass to the beets! … so frau the man who is right!

  “Lesen sie! Lesen sie doch! read it!”

  He insisted … Erlaubnis … “Permit valid until December 30” … comical these checks on the future! impudence! imposture! … who’ll be alive? where’ll we be on December 30? … fine … fine and dandy! … All these people around the table had a kind of family resemblance … faces to throw tomatoes at… they must have had some idea … it seemed to me … some little idea in addition to the Erlaubnis … the banquet is in full swing … they offered us everything … naturally we didn’t refuse, but we didn’t take much … that’s irritating! … the Landrat is irritated all right! … he asks Lili what she’s got in her sack … a hiker’s knapsack …

  “Our cat Bébert, Monsieur!”

  “Would you be so kind as to show me that cat?”

  Lili opens the sack … Bébert sticks his head out …

  “Is he pedigreed? … can he reproduce?”

  I tell him the cat has been spayed …

  “In that case the animal must be destroyed! … you know our ‘ordinances’ … animal incapable of reproduction!” …

  And he makes the gesture of catching Bébert by the tail and bam! against the wall! …

  Lili doesn’t say a word, she puts Bébert back in his bag … “goodbye, Monsieur” … and gets up and leaves the table … she leaves the room … not a peep out of anybody … except the Landrat who thinks it’s fu
nny … a scream! … ha-ha! Le Vig and me don’t say a word … time to lie low … we think we’ll leave too … but politely! … first the apologies! … for ourselves … for Lili … she’s very very tired … nervous … I keep an eye on the Landrat … what’s he going to do? … they’re all nuts … but he’s got a gun in addition … he could perfectly well shoot us down … what’s he got to fear? … Harras warned me … as impulsive as the cripple! … we back out of the room … maybe they’ve all arranged between them to rub us out right there … boom! … is that the idea of the banquet? … but so many people have been out to execute us for so long that maybe these aren’t the ones yet … maybe it’ll be somebody else … rain check! … reasons? … motives? … fiddle my sticks! who cares? you’re neatly marked … you’ll protest another day, in another life! … the hunted little rabbit and the brave bull … you expect them to stand up and say there’s been a misdeal? … that they’re being sacrificed by mistake? … Cut the comedy, let’s be serious! …

  Very slowly and discreetly … one step … another … toward the door and the stairs … Simmer sees us …

  “Come, come, Doctor! … you’re not leaving us? … your health!”

  And Marie-Thérèse begs us to stay…

  “To the health of your cat Bébert!”

  We sit down again … but we’d hardly picked up the thread of the conversation … two three affable words … when I hear Lili calling us … from the yard outside … and at the same time cackle! cackle! two three cackles! … hundreds! … and then some! from all directions! … all the geese on the farm! … the revolt of the geese! … a gas! … we look out … thousands of geese! … not just from the farm … from all over! furious! … and not a farmer! not a workman in sight! only geese! … they couldn’t have come of their own accord! … all together! … an organized rally! somebody must have driven them! … somebody had brought in nettles! the whole yard was full of nettles … piled high! … mountains of nettles! … while we were sitting there chatting … those nettles hadn’t grown there … somebody had moved them in … to make the geese invade the yard … and stuff themselves! and keep us from getting out! … a conspiracy! … ah, the Landrat’s throwing a fit … stamping! … a plot against him! deliberate! … it seems he’s even more detested than us! … first prize! … we don’t get anybody shot, he does! and not just some riffraffity prisoners for no reason at all, Boches too, even soldiers on furlough … the guests were having a fine time … this intermezzo, the geese packing away nettles all over the yard! … and the Landrat so mad! scarlet, ready to bust! … intolerable! cackle! cackle! … they were mad too … because Lili was trying to get through their nettles with Bébert in his bag … I call out to her … “wait, we’re coming! …” but the Landrat wants to be first! … it wasn’t just the von Leiden geese, they’d come from every farm in the neighborhood! … who’d brought them? this army? one thing for sure, they didn’t want us disturbing their feast … as mean as a French family eating lunch … ferociously touchy! … a tight spot! … nobody … countesses, Rittmeister, Landrat or SS Kracht … could get through! … cackle! cackle! … and they needed to! … the outhouse! … and Inge and her cripple! … he went out on top of Nicholas, pickaback … they’d seen the riot from upstairs, the geese storming the nettles! … too risky! luckily this wasn’t the only outhouse! … two more in the garden … on the opposite side, facing the northern plain … Inge leads everybody out that way, they’re all peeing in their pants, they can’t hold it … Inge knows the way … the kitchen garden … no geese there … everybody goes! … first the ladies … then the Landrat … cursing … cursing … “donner! donner! thunder!” he’d wet his pants … you’ve probably noticed that after the first half-century practically everybody gets leaky, they can’t keep it in … hence, the cruelty of long drawn-out meals and drinking sessions … ships and apartment houses are the same … everything starts to leak … sphincters, bladders, drain pipes, bowels … the half-century is merciless for ladies and gentlemen … worse for dogs and cats! … with them it comes sooner! … five … six years …

  Le Vig, Lili, and me … we had a little time … those piles of nettles, all that cackling … the geese hadn’t come on their own, someone had put them up to it … from every pond in the vicinity … who? why? … against Simmler? … against the vop Leidens? … the amazing part was that we hadn’t done it, as a general rule it was always us … even, now, twenty years later, they don’t have to look far … the dogs keeping people awake with their harking, the cats meowing like mad, my parrot conversing … the factory down below with its unholy racket and smells, the cars that climb up on the sidewalk and squash mothers and children … they don’t have to look for the culprit! … now, after twenty years, I’m used to it … up there in Zornhof, Brandenburg, I wasn’t really … now after twenty years it all seems normal I’m used to being accused of anything that comes up … Le Vig got used to it right away, practically no effort … but he’s so prodigiously gifted! … a born actor … “Le Vig,” you could say, “you killed your mummy!”… that turned the trick … he’d change before, your eyes … into a monster facing the Assizes … the look, the bearing …“now you’re Javert! … now you’re Valjean!” ° … total metamorphosis … that’s what all the hams who weren’t “cut out for it” could never forgive him … they’d have had him the in stir, very wise of him to cross the ocean … so far away … if he wanted to be guilty, guilty he was in half a second … he brought you the whole scene, court-martial, scaffold, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées … and you felt so sad for him … believe me … anything he wanted!… up there I found it bard to feel guilty … no talent in that direction … and now after twenty years of bitter hardship since Zornhof! … I’m still not ready to confess! … I’m just not gifted!

  Where are you headed? … I don’t know … bad to worse! … what can I say to these obstinate bellowing hordes?

  To sum up, we had the impression that everything was going from bad to worse … Gypsies, the von Leidens, more bombs on Berlin from day to day, the pastor disappeared, the sky blacker and blacker … visions of escaping? of course, but where to? … and how? … I’ve told you, I had my little idea … but I didn’t talk about it … Lili suspected … I’d have to let Le Vig in on it though and Lili would have to bring down the maps … we were at the end of the corridor, in the barred cell next to the kitchen …

  Knock! Knock!

  “Herein! Herein! Come in!”

  “Kracht!”

  He announces himself …

  “Well, Kracht?”

  Surprise! … Madame Inge von Leiden is calling for us at ten in the morning … Lili, Le Vig, and me and Bébert … to take us on an outing! If it’s agreeable to us …

  “Delighted! certainly, Kracht!”

  In a charabanc … we’ll go to the lakes … well see the sequoias … the famous forest … those tall trees … the only ones in Europe … Kracht knew all about it, he gave me the details … the forest wasn’t as big as Madame Thor von Thorfels’s, but even so, we’d see, enormous! … and no sequoias in Pomerania! … a forest unique in Europe! … the only other is in America … trees doomed to extinction, too gigantic for this day and age, six hundred feet high … I could see they wanted to flamdoodle the countess … and us too … because she had no sequoias on her fabulous estate … these trees grew here! here and nowhere else! we were in for it! the forest, the sawmill, the lakes! … and naturally la Thor von Thorfels wouldn’t spare us for the thousandth time the story of her social activities, the battle of flowers, the Grand Prix … the nights at the Opera … all in all the same sentiments, the same memories as Madame von Dopf, just about …

  “Splendid, Kracht! … We’ll be ready!”

  Here now as I write, what can have become of them all? … nobody knows … oh, they pretty much expected it … they weren’t really taken in by the official tararaboom and heil! … but even so … ourselves not at all! … only I’ve got to admit I never thought they’d
keep hunting us so long … two whole generations! … pretty near forty million children, dopes and dopesses … things have changed since Caesar! “They promise, they laugh, and that’s all!” hell! they don’t forget one, thing! …

  Hypocrites, fakers, crumbs!

  They tell me it’s completely out of date to write: “At ten o’clock the countess’s charabanc drove up …” Damn it all! can I help it if I’m going out of date? … what happened happened! … we were completely out of date too … Lili, Le Vig, me, and Bébert … we were ready on time! … at the end of the peristyle! … the heiress Marie-Thérèse, her brother the Rittmeister, as tremulous as usual, his little Polish girls with bare feet, and Kracht in uniform were there too, but they’d come to see us off … make sure that everything went all right … and say goodbye and come back soon! … We had three big baskets crammed full! … rolls, ham, sausage, honey … everything … mineral water, beer, wine … were we going to pick up some more people on the way?… maybe … I knew we were supposed to stop somewhere … but pick somebody up? … I didn’t think so … It would have been a nice day when we set out except that the sky was painted from one horizon to another … tar and sulphur … especially in the south and north … roughly, it seemed to me, from Berlin to Rostock … the earth was still rumbling, the whole plain, no worse but no less … of course you get used to being vibrated and shivered and sprayed with soot, but even so this painting from the air gives everything … fields, brooks, trees, manor, charabanc and horses, the countesses young and old … a crazy look that makes me wonder where we’re going … picnic under the sequoias? … it’s dark enough already! … I really can’t see what we’re going for … we know enough about the place already! … their airfield, their one-armed sergeant with the robin, the rats, the sunken airplane … so what’s the point of this outing? … to give us pleasure? … I have my doubts! … all these provisions, these mounds of sandwiches, this chicken, this jam, this picnic deep in the woods … what have they got up their sleeve? … time will tell! … a pinch of powder in the sausage? … hm … perfectly possible … I whisper to Lili … we have to wait… everything isn’t ready … the servant girls run over to the farm … they’ll be back … with coats and blankets … chilly out there … so it seems … while I have the chance I ask Kracht … I don’t mince my words … nobody can hear us … the far end of the peristyle …