North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “What’s the idea?”

  “These heaters!”

  We’ve got them right there and they’re very heavy! … Lili thought we could give them back to Léonard … brilliant! … they wouldn’t take them! … they’d say they’d never seen , them, they’d say we’d made it up … a provocation! … naturally their idea was to get us nabbed! … why else would they slip us their rods?! … the oily, rotten two-timers! … unbelievable! … so how would we get rid of them? … the manure pit? it was enormous, deep and very black … but they’d see us, they were always on the lookout in their pigpen … sure, there were other mud holes in the village … but which one? … in Grünwald I’d slipped my hand grenades into a big shell hole full of water … they’d found them next day … when they look, they always find … objects I mean, not people … here the people could see us roaming around, they’d find our Mausers in any hole regardless! … we thought we’d reconnoitre the ponds till we found the right one … nothing to it! … there’s two or three in front of every hut … all practically dry … the geese are gone … ah, at last! this one’s practically full… deep muck … the geese come out … hundreds of them!… and cackle! cackle!… with leveled beaks! and flapping wings!… they charge us! … the housewives come out … to watch the riot of the geese! … it starts all over again! … they’re not exactly angry at us … what they want is a big feast of nettles, mountains of leaves like the other day! they recognize us from the farm … but we’ve got nothing to offer them … they’ve developed a taste … they remember our faces and connect us with the banquet! … the whole yard full of nettles! heaps and mounds! and they want us to do it again! … they’re coming full steam … they won’t let us get away without recognizing them … they’ll never let us pass! … the rotten frantic gluttons! … like the bourgeoisie at the family board … they hadn’t come for nothing … we double bade, but they’re still charging … ten! … twenty of them … and cackle! cackle! they’re not guarding the huts or the capital or the marshes, they don’t give a shit! all they want is us! and our nettles! … greedy bastards! ready to tear us to pieces! … our guts … our sleeves … our ribs! cackle cackle! … they’ve caught the epidemic! … our duffel coats! … open us up! … and tear out our guts and eyes … along with the nettles! … That business in Rome … I can see why the barbarians took a powder! … here all the geese in Zornhof were on the warpath for their favorite weed … so nobody can get through … same as the people of Paris had stormed Versailles to bring back what they needed … the royal couple and their heads … There at the farm we’d managed to escape through a little doorway and the shed where they kept the peat and firewood … here the only hope, of not being torn to pieces was to huddle close together and take little short steps … we locked arms and held our hands over our eyes … stiff upper lip! … just so those blasted geese don’t eat us alive! … as far as the church! … luckily I knew a brick walk between two huts, very narrow … too narrow for the geese … I’d learned how to slip practically unnoticed between the huts and sheds … I always kept an eye open for those little byways … I was beginning to know that stinking town … whew! we’ve made it! … the bibelforschers’ kitchen! the cook knows us well … heil! heil! two packs of Luckies a day! … now his chow, cabbage and turnip soup with sausages … that’s for Bébert … he won’t eat it all … a little for us and the rest for the rats … ah, a guest! no stranger … the one-armed sergeant from the airfield … I hadn’t seen him … with a cane … what’s he doing here?… heil! heil! … we recognize each other … the sergeant with the robin! … how’s his little bird? … doing all right … the sergeant fills me in … his shelter in the airfield … he’d had to get out … more and more rats … bigger and bigger … besides, it was flooded … the rain had turned his shelter into a reservoir! … his lieutenant, the field commander, had disappeared, they’d picked him up and sent him to the Eastern Front … when would he be back? nobody knew … nobody’d told the sergeant anything … he’d never received any orders … he’d retreated to Zornhof with his robin … attached himself to the Tanzhalle mess … slept there too … plenty of room … the bibels were living in the isbas … another thing at the Tanzhalle, they had electricity, the only place in Zornhof … the juice for the carpenter shop … from a very noisy generator! … that racket could come in very handy, you could say anything you pleased, the diesel drowned everything out! … boom! boo-oom! … you could scream and yell! … the one-armed sergeant took the opportunity … he didn’t like the people on the farm! … and he said so at the top of his lungs! … the whole lot of them, owners and Russians! … all in the same sack and throw them in the crapper! … they laughed at him and his uniform! they’d see! … boom! boo-oom! diesel! donner! … the cook tried to make him pipe down … he couldn’t control his indignation! … always ribbing hun! not just the von Leidens … their flunkeys too! … Polacks! … Russians! … Franzosen … they all asked him why he didn’t go up there and stop the Fortresses … he was an aviator, wasn’t he? … even with one arm! … couldn’t he make a plane out of the junk out there in the field? they’d help him! what was he waiting for? … he had a better idea! they should all dig a ditch and bury themselves! … they were used to digging! they should all jump in the hole and cover themselves with quicklime! … maids, masters, and brats! … he was bellowing! … the cook agreed with him but thought he was shouting too loud … even with the diesel wide open … boom! boom! and the walls shaking … he was shouting louder than the saw … some housewife could come by … but there was something even better than the diesel and the Fortresses and the bombs to drown out bis voice … so you couldn’t hear him at all … the gramophone … it was standing in the corner of the dance hall … that did the trick … three horns … I’d heard it screeching when a company of bibels came over to peel potatoes … they weren’t allowed to talk to each other … the Tanzhalle was their chance to tell each other the news … they didn’t have many records … mostly hymns for the Sunday services … “Nun Freut Euch Liebe Christengemein …” and “Ein’ Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott”… it gave the cook a good laugh to hear him bellowing against the records, the saw, the diesel, and the bombs! snorting mad! … “throw them all in quicklime! … I’ll send them up in the sky! … and you too! bibel cook of my asshole!” boom! bang! … but it didn’t shut him up at all! … the opposite! … von Leiden! shit! all in the hole! … the cripple and his wife! if they only knew! … and Harras … he’d gone off scouting! … “quicklime! quicklime!” Harras … the sly bastard … the cream of the crop!

  That one-armed sergeant had a low mentality, but he made us laugh and he wasn’t talking through his hat … if anybody was off beam it was the farm and manor people … they thought they were still under William III … they must have heard the racket at the manor … the diesel, saw, and gramophone! the bibels had two more records, but they weren’t religious, the Wacht am Rhein, donated by the army … and the Horst Wessel … by the Party … the cook got a big kick out of the catastrophes the sergeant was predicting, he’d been an “objector” for years … long before Hitler! … deluges were, his meat … but he was very cautious! he’d been to school, he knew about the “silent” wing of Dachau … for people who talked too much … every variety of bigmouth … philosophical, political, military, and evangelical! … even heroes! every branch of service! … army, navy, and air force … the sergeant with his robin didn’t realize … he thought his amputation put him in the clear! good joke! I could have told him a thing or two … same in every country! … the massacre’s over? … trumpets, banners, and curtain! … lino up the survivors! and silence! we’ve heard enough out of you! in our situation I could see one thing … that listening to this blowhard sergeant couldn’t do us any good! we were already earmarked as “horribles” … ripe for the silent wing … anti-von Lieden, anti-manor, anti-Kräntzlin, anti-Reich … why not Bolsheviks? … in other words, let’s get out of here! … Le Vig takes one messkit, I take the other
… two packs of Luckies for these fine people! … tender farewells! … we leave to the tune of the Wacht am Rhein … we’re needed at the manor … we didn’t meet a soul … I’ve told you, I know more and more fancy detours … those little paths that seem to lead to the road and lose themselves in the fields … you could sneak like an Indian from one to the other as far as the trees … nobody’d really see you … the geese or the housewives’ or the grocery woman, or the “Resistance” in the Wirtschaft … just as well … the Mausers in our pockets looked very queer … in between the huts it wasn’t so bad, but out in the open! … especially because we needed our hands for the messkits … we finally make it! … the peristyle, the stairs … Lili’s there … wondering what’s become of us … we tell her all about it, the Tanzhalle, the one-armed sergeant, the cook, and the hymns … decided we’d listened long enough … the diesel and the saw! boom! boo-oom! and the artillery … but the others must have heard … Semmelring had ears all over! … especially at the bibels! Semmelring was the worst of the lot! wanting to liquidate our Bébert! …

  “Your Landrat” Lili called him … oh no, he wasn’t ours! … and then the details … the one-armed sergeant moving out of his flooded bunker …

  “What about his robin?”

  All Lili wanted to know …

  “Same eager”

  “Yes … yes … the same!”

  That’s what interested her … barbarous! … such a small cage! Lili, I think, saw so many human tragedies all around her … people arranged it between them … this was what they wanted … none of her business … animal miseries were different … nobody paid any attention, but for her money only the animals counted … time has passed, water under the bridge … all in all I’d say she was right …

  The problem now was our pockets! … getting rid of those heaters … I thought we’d drown them … but where? … like the grenades in Berlin … in the water hole outside the Finnish bath … of course they’d retrieved them, hadn’t taken them long … but here it wasn’t likely, people didn’t go searching manure pits … Le Vig had the same idea … anywhere as long as we got rid of them … Lili didn’t see it that way! … not at all! she suspected … she was sure in fact … that our two creeps, Léonard and Joseph, would be watching every move we made … they’d go through the manure pit with a fine-tooth comb! … the whole thing was a setup! … okay! Le Vig and me would do something … it was urgent! … very urgent! … but we’d have to wait till daybreak hours … time to lie down a while … plenty of straw … Bébert in his bag, Lili, Le Vig and me side by side … I can’t say I was exactly easy in my mind … no … no reason to be … I was reeling kind of stymied … I had a right to. be tired, didn’t I? … no! … no right at all! … fatigue is a luxury … punks, especially us … have only one right! to look sharp and think … and think some more … I won’t bother you with the sounds from Berlin, the explosions, the gunfire … the “round trips” through the clouds … I’ve said enough … it gets boring … I was thinking about Hjalmar and his bugle calls too … where on earth could he be? … or the pastor? plenty of questions … I’d been mulling them over for at least an hour … I wasn’t asleep … I hear a sound on the stairs … right! … a step … somebody at our door … and tat! tat! … not hearing things … somebody knocking! … at this hour? … I jump out of the straw, I get up … I open … three steps down, a voice! … it’s Kracht! … he whispers, something to tell me, but not in our room … wants me to go down to the peristyle with him … okay! … I follow him … we don’t go far, he speaks up … he tells me in very simple German … I understand hin … oh, I’d been expecting it! … that Léonard and Joseph had reported us that morning as “armed saboteurs”! … absolutely! … and the Landrat had given orders to search our tower … our clothes … our ticks … Kracht gives me the good news in a whisper … comical! we’re like actors! … against a backdrop of fire all the way up to the clouds … Berlin burning … sound effects! … boom! boo-oom! little bombs and big ones! they haven’t got that at the Ambigu ° or any of the movie houses … sure, but what next? … okay … surprise! … he wants me to give him the two Mausers … mine and Le Vig’s … I shouldn’t throw them away! … hell keep them! … We won’t give the Landrat a damn thing! nichts! nichts! nothing! … did I understand?… perfectly! … it was pretty thick but okay! … okay! what did he want the Mausers for? … that was his business … I never found out! … anyway I agreed with him a hundred percent … setting up a private defense organization? … against the Wehrmacht? against the British? against the prisoners? … later on in Denmark I heard a lot of stories about mutinies in the SS … the SA … the kriegsmarine … I was in with them … so many plots … bomb, poison, and dagger … that it’s a miracle the regime held up for ten years … you’ll say that Poleon, Caesar, Alexander or Pétain stuck it out for a decade or two! … the minute you’re anointed and crowned, settled on the throne, master of everything … the bacchanalia begins… you’re sunk! … kisses, slip knots, bouquets, dinamiteros … your beloved people … your hominids … only waiting for this exalted moment to show what they want of you … your entrails all over the arena…

  There I can see Boger cleaning up with his comics … and Achille on his second billion! … that’ll do! … I wasn’t going to kid around with Kracht … or ask any questions … he was taking these things off my hands and that was that! … was he plotting something? … his business! … going in for resistance? … I’ll just go up quick and get those baubles! … I grope my way … wouldn’t do to take the wrong door … I’m a conspirator in spite of myself … I’ll laugh later … now the idea is not to break my neck! … I stumble … I’m wobbly without my canes … Le Vig is flabbergasted …

  “You think so? … you think so?”

  I don’t answer… I go back down …

  “Listen, Doctor! … listen!”

  He whispers so low I can hardly hear him …

  If anybody asks you …”

  “Asks me what?”

  “What’s happened …”

  “Well?”

  “Tell him: nothing! … you won’t forget? … nichts! In your pronunciation nix!”

  “Yes, yes, fine: nix!”

  “Same thing upstairs: nix! got it straight?”

  “Anyway nobody’ll ask us anything!”

  That makes him laugh! the whole thing looked very cloudy to me, riddles on riddles … but one good thing: our Mausers were gone! they could make jam out of them! and be damned! all these monkeyshines just for us? … at certain times anything is possible! … twenty years later I’m still wondering! … and the place doesn’t even exist any more … anyway not under that name … or the people … the von Leidens … their manor, their farm … I’ve asked around … East Germans … West Germans … Zornhof? … never heard of it … nix! … occupied? … by the Poles, I thought for a while … certain indications … not so sure! … one thing is sure, though … it’s time they made honest maps … like we had at school … not so much of the North Pole or South Pole … that have no more secrets … every nook and cranny more surveyed and crowded than the Champs-Elysées … but Europe right here … that people … with all that’s happened … know nothing about … nix!

  A day passes … another … I say to myself: better go see our friends … something must be cooking! humans need an outlet for their emotions … they get sick or make a plan or throw a fit, etc … if you don’t keep tabs on them … they hang you in effigy … and after a while they catch you and impale you for real, the Law’s on their side … the best way is to drop in and look around … our usual walk! … the Tanzhalle, the grocery store, the geese … still the same ponds, the same huts, the same lifting of curtains, the same cackle cackle … in the Tanzhalle the one-armed sergeant tells us the same story … all he knows about the farm, the servants,” the prisoners, and so on … and the von Leidens! the worst scum of all! nobles they think they are! they’re leftovers! … that feeble-minded cripple! ha
-ha! boom! boo-oom! … the diesel! … they think they have a right … to insult him! him! … to call him a no-good yellowbelly, and tell him to go up in the sky … not tomorrow, right this minute! and stop the Fortresses!

  “Stinkers! … I’ll take ‘em up in the sky! … I’ll take ‘em waltzing over Berlin! … the whole lot of them!”

  The cook doesn’t even applaud any more … a hundred times he’s heard his pissed-off pal going on about the crummy von Leidens … all he cares about is his diesel … he can’t let it slow down … it’s got to run the saw … and keep up that infernal zzzz … and the gramophone at the same time … the Horst Weasel Lied … and Ein’ Feste Burg in between … I don’t think they can hear much outside, even straining their ears … words I mean … only the gramophone, the saw and the boom! boom! … I shout that it’s important, something I want to know …

  “Has anybody seen Countess Tulff-Tscheppe?”

  “No!” … she left a week ago … they think … they’re not sure … the one that made us listen to her and answer her and correct her French … real punishment! … the Charity Bazaar and the Review at Longchamp! … and her trips to Monte Carlo … now all of a sudden evaporated! … no more President, no more Elysée, no more moving sidewalks! a million times we’d had to swear that she spoke French perfectly! … better than we did! … she never let us out of her sight … at the farm … on walks … on rides …and suddenly! plunk! … vanished! no more countess! … didn’t even say goodbye! … Lili thought she’d seen her over by the poplars … these two rapscallions must know … the bibel cook, and especially the sergeant … I ask my question again … they couldn’t hear me the first time … the diesel! … diesel! … boom!

  “Sure! … sure! … she’s here … boom! only she’s not allowed to talk to you any more! . . verboten! these people from the east aren’t allowed to talk to anybody!”

  “Yes, yes, go on …”