North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “You’ll have a stroke, forget about them, they were shot!”

  “You think so? you think so?”

  “I’m positive!”

  “That’s good! in that case I’ll take a rest!”

  He stretches out full length on the straw …

  “You see there’s nothing to worry about up here … no rats …”

  “But say, Simmer … maybe …”

  “Maybe what?”

  “Some caper!”

  “And Harras? don’t you think …?”

  Nothing you can say to him … he’ll calm down …

  “And the geese? … and the nettles? … somebody put those nettles there! did you see that uprising?”

  “Yes! of course! somebody engineered it!”

  “You see? … you agree with me!”

  “Of course I do, Le Vig!”

  He’s much better off than downstairs … I let him doze … he dozes …

  “Say, Le Vig, the sky’s pink now! … all pink! good sign!”

  “You think so? You think so? …”

  He hasn’t the strength to doubt … he falls asleep …

  We’re waiting … Lili, Le Vig, and me … after a tormented night … oh, not the rats, they’d been fairly quiet … two three scurryings over the straw … nothing more … Bébert hadn’t even moved … Le Vig had slept a bit, not much, Lili had slept some too, I think … myself I’m wondering … plenty to wonder about … I could manage without sleep … what we’d do first thing in the morning … at dawn I poke Lili …”

  “You going upstairs?”

  She didn’t get it …

  To see Marie-Thérèse?”

  “Not before ten!”

  “Sooner! … right away!”

  “I wouldn’t want to disturb her …”

  “No! no! … go on! … I’m asking you to!”

  Through her we’d find out if the Russians were in Berlin … she’d had news, I don’t know how … but I’m pretty sure … Lili goes up … it must have been eight o’clock … she had a pretext, her dancing … all the same, eight o’clock was early …

  Le Vig and I were wondering what Marie-Thérèse would tell her … certainly not the whole story … meanwhile there’d been heavy traffic on the stairs since daybreak … chatter … kids’ voices … little girls … must have been the old man’s Polish chicks … running up from the peristyle to the second floor balcony … laughing … about what? … no way of knowing … kids laugh about everything … if the Tartars wore there cutting people’s heads off, they’d be in stitches … the Gypsy kids were there too, boys and girls … coppery brown and oiled … in their big sisters’ dresses … shortened, with the waist around their shoulders … and castanets, just to get our goat … the whole floor, tat-tat-tat-tat … Marie-Thérèse has plenty of reason for being awake … I say to Le Vig: “something’s going on!”… this invasion … our kids and the Gypsies, this snake dance from peristyle to attic … if they’re taking such liberties and arguing in every kind of Choctaw, something must have happened! … Kracht would have known, he’s not here … Lili’s taking her time … could she be dancing up there? … had Marie-Thérèse kept her for breakfast? … the time was passing …

  We’d been waiting at least an hour … the children were running and tumbling … plus the castanets … never a let-up … all barefoot … and screaming in every dialect! … up and down! …

  Ah, at last! … somebody on the balcony up above, or rather the footbridge leading to the other tower … we could have gone up there too … is it Lili? … yes, it’s Lili all right … well? what’s the news? … well, it was worth waiting for! … this sarabande of brats, the kids from the Gypsy wagon and the little Polish whipping girls, were making preparations for the old man’s departure … yes, he was leaving … all of a sudden he’d made up his mind! … with Iago gone, he’d taken back his war horse … and now he was off to the wars! … to fight the Russians! … up and at ‘em! … the battle of Berlin! … hundreds of Russians would bite the mud of the plains before they’d touch him! … the funniest part was his sister up there, Marie-Thérèse … she was all for it! … you couldn’t argue with him … just one word? … sister or not, he was out of control … even in early childhood when he threw a tantrum, his governesses had run for dear life, he tried to put their eyes out … in the end, when they wanted him to finish his soup they all put on masks like fencers … now at the age of eighty it was the Russian Army … he was going out to meet them, he’d challenge their general and cut his ears off! … and all the rest of them! … ears and heads! … no parry for that thrust! … zzzt! … he’d whetted his saber all by himself, the blade had little notches in it! oh, those Russian heads! … his notched razor! … nothing could block it! … Marie-Thérèse could see their heads flying through the skyl right over us! … over the church! … he’d send them back to us from Berlin! … ah, the Russian Army! … all those heads! …

  “Yes … yes, brother!”

  What he was going to do to those Russians! … challenge them to hand-to-hand combat! … bunch of lily-livered stinking sewer snakes! … and that goes for their general and their tsar!

  “Yes, Hermann!”

  The Russians know me! from way back! the Rermenkampf ° Horde, August 1914! … Tarmenberg! °

  Were they going to defy him now? … those rats! coming to Zornhof? … they’d come in coffins!

  “Yes, Hermann, but you won’t be alone!”

  “Oh yes, I will! … alone! … now that Hindehburgs gone! … alone against them all! single-handed!”

  “Oh brother, how right you are! let me embrace you! … don’t hesitate for one moment!”

  “You understand me, sister! I embrace you! … and now to the saddle! … tonight corpses! and more corpses! look at the church clock! … heads! … heads! you’ll see them passing! Tartars, you asked for it! … look, sister! … this plain will be red! … all red! all the way to the Oder!”

  “Yes, brother, I shall be looking! …”

  She at least was all for it, she understood him, she had never contradicted him! and now: to horse! out by the peristyle! … we’d help him into his saddle … all three of us go down with his sister … and the little barefooted Polish girls … the whole village must have known where he was going … but nobody had bothered to show up … except three bibels from the stable … I was talking about his horse … beg your pardon, his mare! … Bleuette! Why the French name? … there she was, all saddled … outside the peristyle … a bibelforscher was holding her … holding her properly … the man knew his horses … they hadn’t worn her down too bad on the farm … though plowing is hard work … not the thing for a half-bred! … here comes the Rittmeister, fully outfitted, spurs, epaulettes, brandenburgs, Iron Cross … and schapska! … he pats himself to see if he’s got everything … yes, it’s all there! … and his stirrups? … he likes them short … plenty of oats? … oh yes, two bags! … and the nose bag?… he’s got it! … one of the bibels holds the stirrups for him … no! he brooks no help! … one hand on the pommel and heave! … he’s in the saddle … good posture … “straight, relaxed, without stiffness” … strictly “regulation” … I know … a very different story from the riders I see every day crossing the Saint-Cloud bridge … or in the Bois de Boulogne, desperate, clutching the horse’s neck … their “seat” isn’t right … they don’t, move with the horse … they ride on their balls … a ghastly sight! … before 1914 you’d have died in a dungeon if you’d dared to show yourself like that … knees all bunched up, elbows in the air …

  Nowadays you can get away with anything anything goes … Silence! … quiet on the set!

  But I’m taking you all over the place … I’m getting lost myself! … could I be losing my manners? … present, past, I take every liberty! … at my age I say to myself: hell! why not? I won’t be able to write forever, suppose I left something out! … Nimier promised me the other day: when they put you into “comics” they’ll cut this an
d that! … the rabble will inherit the earth! Nietzsche … my word, we’ve got to that point already! … do you know of anything lower than French Television? impossible! … never a Wednesday without some horrible nondescript incompetent plagiarizing me shamelessly and proclaiming … the all-fired crust! … that I’ve ceased to exist!

  As you can imagine, I don’t own a TV set… but Lili’s got one!

  Okay! … back to Brandenburg, looking out on the plain … that infinity of beets … potatoes … furrows … furrows … and the Rittmeister in the saddle … funny how few people have come to see him off! … nobody from the farm or the offices … sure they know but they don’t come around … the Kratzmuhls must be in their apartment … and Inge von Leiden? and Kracht? … you’d think they’d want to see the old whipping boy riding off to war … they’re peeping all right, I wonder from where … we don’t hide … the Rittmeister … straight in his saddle … gets going … at a walk … the little Polish girls wave goodbye … goodbye … and make faces … they stick out their tongue at him … they’re having a fine time … they throw handfuls of pebbles after him … he’s out there at the end of the park, studying his map … he’s not looking at the kids, he’s orienting himself … with a compass too … a great big one on a chain … he spurs his horse to a trot … a canter … he’s pretty far away when he starts trotting on the bias … he wheels about! he turns toward us with saber upraised! … he salutes us! … Le Vig and I come to attention! … military salute! … the kids around us explode… they run away laughing and squealing … and throwing stones at us too … they think we’re as funny as the old screwball! … in the end there’s only the three of us looking at the plain … Lili, Le Vig, and me … and Bébert in his bag … the old man has trotted off southward … he stands out against the horizon … not so much him as his mare Bleuette, all white against the clouds …

  I’ve told you, the clouds are all black and sulphur-yellow over toward Berlin … we don’t talk, we wait … I expect the others to come down and ask us what we’re doing there … and what about la Thor von Thorfels? usually so talkative … not a trace! nobody! nobody asks us a thing … nobody asks us if the old man is really gone … not a word … or at the mahlzeit that evening … or later … nothing …

  “Say! wasn’t that something! … say! wasn’t that something!”

  All our misanthrope could think of … over and over … staring into space …

  “Say! … wasn’t that something!”

  The Rittmeister riding off to war had made a big impression …

  “Say! … wasn’t that something!”

  Our old baboon’s saber salute still had him jiggered … this wasn’t getting us anywhere … ah, but suddenly an ideal … he comes to …

  “Ferdie! Ferdie! … go see Inge!”

  “Why me?”

  “You’re in good with her!”

  “You’re crazy!”

  I wasn’t going to argue with him … he’d taken it into his head that something had happened between us in the woods … he couldn’t believe that she’d taken me out there for nothing … which entitled me to ask her what had become of Harras …

  “What for?”

  He’d brought us here, hadn’t he? … nobody else! … where was the stupid bastard? … she knew! … the rotten Nazi! … when was he coming back?

  “Okay, then all three of us!”

  I knew damn well we’d be thrown out … he was completely in the dark … quick we take Bébert in his bag … and down we go … it’s cool out, especially on the walk under the maples … these trees are so tall and dense it’s almost as dark tas our room … they don’t take care of these walks any more, the ground is covered with leaves … from the last two or three winters … deep carpets, you sink in up to your knees … the Mansard park has fallen into neglect … once they stop keeping up the Mansard parks, especially in Brandenburg, you can say that it’s all over, that the Great Century is dead and there’s nothing left to do but wait for the Chinese … clocks don’t wind themselves … carting away the leaves and pruning the trees mean years of labor … and tradition … there’s no more of that! …

  I kept these deep thoughts to myself … we passed the bibels, between their isbas … they’ve built a whole raft of them! … tremendous things! … log monuments! … the builders live in them … more comfortable than the Tanzhalle … the Finnish doctors from Berlin, the bathers in ice water … they’ll never get here! hell no! I wonder what’s left of that place … not much! … same as the Zenith Hotel … or Pretorius and his terrace of rare flowers … which reminds me of the Rittmeister Count von Leiden! … he’d gone off in that direction, westward to Berlin, with his drawn saber! … we’d seen him! … he was nifty … he must be there by now … we won’t mention him at the farm … or anything else … only Harras! … Le Vig’s idea! … here’s the Gypsy wagon … looks like a toy beside the isbas … the Gypsies beckon to us to come over … we keep going … nothing to say to them … do they want to tell our fortunes? … we know too much already … about the future and its charms! … we’re coming to the farm … the paved yard … empty, just a few geese … I’m suspicious of those two Frenchmen in the pigpen … especially Léonard … they beckon to us too …

  “Okay! … okay! … later!”

  It’s been raining … the manure pit has overflowed … half the yard looks like a swimming pool … it’s not just manure and rain, there must be beet juice too … from the big silos … because the smell is something special … hell, you get used to it … the little stairway … I knock … we haven’t long to wait … Inge and the cripple must have seen us coming … a Russian servant girl opens up … “Madame … Monsieur” … krank! and bang! … she slams the door! … sick? … I doubt it … but at least we know what’s what!

  “Well, Le Vig? you get the drift?”

  “Yes … I get the drift …”

  Nothing to do but go back … but Léonard and Joseph have watched the whole scene from inside their barn … they’re laughing at us … they make signs … they’ve got something for us … what? … we circle the manure pit … we come up to them … their idea … now what?

  “They take us inside …

  “You won’t tell anybody?”

  “We’re not cops!”

  “No … but …”

  “What’s it all about?”

  Very simple … just two Mausers they can’t keep! … nothing at all! … they rummage through the straw at the back of the barn … the hardware! … they show them to us … two enormous heaters …

  “What do you expect us to do with them?”

  “We thought of your cupboard … nobody’ll look there …”

  “Our cupboard?”

  “You know, Harras’s …”

  An open secret …

  I don’t see why we shouldn’t refuse … but these hicks are slippery … God knows what they’ll think up … better play ball with them … or seem to …

  “Yes … yes … good idea!”

  All right… I’ll get rid of their gats … but certainly not in Harras’s cupboard! … anywhere else! … everybody knows I take tobacco … that’s enough for them to know! … if Harras doesn’t come back pretty soon … with my generosity … he won’t find a damn thing! … I’ll just chuck them in some ditch, certainly not in the cupboard!

  During the mahlzeit I thought about those lousy guns … and nothing else … heil! … heil! … I make myself listen to the table talk, you never know … chatter … malicious remarks … who and what? … worth listening, it turns out … Kracht doesn’t open his mouth … Madame Kratzmuhl is running the show … little jokes … about us? … she’s laughing … menagerie laughter, sounds like a high-strung hyena … no! it’s not about us! … she’s talking … they’re all talking … about an order from the Landrat … issued yesterday … “All weapons, revolvers, rifles, and hand grenades must be turned in at the Tanzhalle” … a truck from the Kommandantur would pick them up … at d
awn … even shotguns! … no exception! … all who failed to comply would be placed under “surveillance” … I don’t see what’s so funny … well yes, there’s more to come … the cripple has already surrendered his weapon … to Kracht! … he won’t be terrorizing his wife and guests any more … the cripple is worried about his skin … he knows what this “surveillance” means … the Landrat may be his friend, but he doesn’t trust the Landrat around the corner … he wants the whole community to know that he’s on the right side of the law! … which is all right with Inge, his wife … she knows he’d kill her one of these days … jealousy or something else … if he kept his gun … and Cillie too! … they’re laughing fit to kill … even our little hunchback … but what are they laughing about? … our heaters? … they certainly knew … they couldn’t help it … just watching us move around … sitting down, it wasn’t so bad! … but those bulging pockets when we stood up! … Le Vig looks at me to see if I get it … I get it all right … La Kratzmuhl is shaking her chair so hard she must be pissing in her pants … the whole table was shaking … . the plates were rattling! … and she kept on barking … those cracks of hers had them all yelping! … irresistible! … the typists, the secretaries, even Kracht! … her German wasn’t slangy, but she dropped her verbs and left her sentences dangling … all at our expense … that’s for sure … I’d caught the word Mauser two three times … that clinched it… between barks … even the girls had dropped the word … Mauser … that did it! … in spite of all the clucking and hiccuping it came through … we got it! … we weren’t going to take those baubles up to our room! … our ticks, they’d said, or the cupboard! no soap! those sons of bitches! … naturally there’d be, a raid! first our room! … and then downstairs! … and what do they find? … I’m not asleep, just pretending … I think, I act! … I stand up … “Le Vig, I’m sick, got to go out! … Come along, Lili!”

  Before they know it, we’re outside … the peristyle, the park … first path on the left …