London Bridge

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “Shit!” I say to them all. “Shit! And shit again!”

  They were pushing me over the edge.

  “Got to run, I just told you, right? I got to be back there by eight! At eight he ships out! At eight.”

  “You don’t have any idea what a boat’s all about!”

  The Neapolitan, plus the other one, Majorque, bust out in crazy laughter! “He doesn’t know what it’s like! One week, take it from me, that’s all I give you!… And a week’s a long time! You’ll drop dead! They’ll make soup from your bones! That’s what you’ll be cooking up! ”

  Oh! Jeez! Oh! Jeez! That was a hot one!

  “String-bean soup! Happy peasants you are!”

  I felt sorry for them…

  “We’ll talk about this again, kid!”

  What louts! I preferred keeping my trap shut!

  The guy from Naples, the music man, wanted to roll me for drinks, give me my just deserts. I didn’t bet much, two pennies three sets. Still and all, I preferred using three dice. I’d spotted another pair in the back, but it was dark as an asshole! With just the light from a small wall lamp. Before anything, I wanted the kid off her feet, wanted to set her up nice and comfy on a couple of chairs, or a bench if I could find one. Right then somebody asks for Prospero, two men at the door, and then this small gang. I can see what’s up, street pedlars, messengers, handymen from all over, Maltese, Chinks, Dagos, Papuans… roving bands that slink around the docks bartering, fobbing off cheap junk, at dusk, small-time fencing. Hushed voices, dickering in the dark, without a glance at the customers, coming and going just the way they’d arrived… The sort of merchandise that’s a snap to hide, a wad of silk, the real stuff, a cloud nabbed in a fist, poppy juice, just a few drops, essence of rose… Easy warehouse pickings. Hand quicker than the eye. Across from the Dingby before the fire, the same scene would always spring up just after dark, a spate of finagling, of shadowy trafficking in the doorway. On this side of the river, ditto.

  “Prospero!…” somebody whispers…

  He’s disturbed another three four times, has to go to the door in person!

  No great shakes at billiards, I wasn’t exactly racking up the points. They spotted me twelve points because of my arm, time was ticking away, I had to step on it!

  “I’m off, Prospero! Bye, buddy! Have a nice and happy one!”

  Mind made up.

  He steps in front of me.

  “Don’t go!… Don’t go!… Come on! Look around! Everybody’s gone!”

  Right he was! A fact! I’m surprised myself… Everybody was gone! He plants himself in front of me, absolutely blocks my way.

  “Come on, old pal! These ideas of yours! Where’re you going? It’s your party!”

  The joint stands empty now, the tables cleared, not a living soul, all the customers into thin air, nothing left but the smoke swirling, drifting under the ceiling lamps and the smell of cabbage, rancid grease, tobacco and liquor.

  The stink turned your stomach. I sat back down.

  “It’s moving!” I say to him. “This canteen of yours! It’s moving!”

  All swaying up above, all the ceiling lanterns, right down the line… not just one… all of them… just like that, all the rows attached to the rafters, so that my head started rocking too… real crummy sensation…

  Prospero wouldn’t stop jabbering, the damned pest.

  “You can’t be leaving, Ferdinand! You can’t!…”

  “Fuck!” I answer back… “Fuck and shit!”

  I couldn’t stand up… a queasiness…

  “You won’t be leaving today!”

  The bull was fixated on the idea!

  I was pretty pig-headed myself.

  “I will too! Will too! Laddie!”

  “Just open your eyes a little!” he says to me… “Open them good!… You haven’t seen the best… You didn’t look closely…”

  He points over at the corner, all the way back in the darkness… I couldn’t see shit.

  “You can too!… You can too!… Look hard!”

  I stare wide-eyed… Ah! Over there!… Look at that!… The hat… the feathers… arms crossed… somebody asleep… on the table…

  “So what?” I ask.

  He calls out: “Delphine! Hey!… Delphine!…”

  The lump stirs… the topper… it’s her! It’s her! That hair! She rubs her eyes. She looks to see where the voice is coming from…

  “Delphine! Delphine! It’s us! Here’s a kiss!”

  I’m affectionate. I’ve got no reason to play hide and seek.

  “Ah! Darling! Ah! Treasure!”

  She dashes to her feet… hitches up her skirts, her train. Here she is!… She flings her arms around my neck…

  “I knew, darling! I knew! I knew you’d be back!”

  Now that’s a surprise…

  “How did you know?”

  For my own information…

  “Oh! A little bird told me!”

  “You sure keep your ears open, don’t you now, sweetie pie!”

  No doubt about it, it was all the rage… throwing up a smokescreen… Even the old whore was in on the act! Guessing games… big fuss!…

  They both lay into me. Teamwork.

  “Stay, oh come on! You’re going to have a ball! Your little girl too! And your handsome old geezer! Your weirdo! Is he leaving us?”

  They both agree it’s a crime. She takes pity on me, solemnly…

  “Worried young man! Oh my, oh my!”

  The hag wants to wheedle me. I’m her fancy. She declares her feelings… “My fancy! My fancy!…” She throws her arms around my neck again. Virginia’s not too jealous, luckily, for God’s sake!… It’s my name-day party, for one thing! Every heart glad! The good cheer even infects Delphine, St Ferdinand is my special day.

  “A long life to Ferdinand! Long happiness!”

  I’m thrilled. Bliss! Health! Fortune! All that for me!

  I wound up having a good laugh too.

  I took the joke well.

  Now that she’d been shaken out of her sleep, Delphine was all wound up. She was yelping away hoarse and shrill. People could probably hear her for blocks around… She got the bug to a toast right away, to raise her glass to Victory! So we had to fill her glass, and all the way to the brim. She’d planted herself in front of the sideboard, turned towards us, her hat askew, skirts, train, all hitched up, show time…

  For us! For us! The announcement is made. In our honour. Guests of honour in the audience! She’s about to start: “Honourable company!”

  Perk up your ears! A song has been selected! Warm-up time! She’ll act out a few lines from The Merry Wives of Windsor. Raise your glasses high! All at once, the passion seizes her, she screws up her mouth, rolls her left eye into her hair, throwing herself body and soul into her performance.

  Fie on sinful fantasy!

  Fie on lust and luxury!

  Lust is but a bloody fire!

  With a cry she’s off singing… her voice hits too high a note… cracks, swings off pitch, dissolves into a fit of hacking… once she starts coughing she can’t stop… she’s hooting so hard the glass she just downed comes trickling back out her nostrils… she’s not upset… We sit her back down… she wants to have another go… Ah! Anything but that!… I congratulate her… We chat a little more… I didn’t want to ask her any questions… though I really was tempted… like about what had been happening since that time back at Van Claben’s… and whether she’d read the papers… or had any run-ins… or about how she’d disappeared… and nobody’d spotted her anywhere? And now she turns up here? Ah! I still couldn’t get over suddenly seeing her again… The sight of her gave me quite a turn… she popped right up out of some dream, bam… veil, fingerless gloves, the works… as though nothing had happened… the same fired-up screwy chatterbox as always… and this was only the beginning… That’s how I saw it… I thought I was dreaming with my eyes wide open… yet it really was her all right… Delphine in frills and bone
, wide-eyed, yapping away, the whole shebang… her and nobody else!… I wasn’t drunk now, hadn’t puffed anything… Plus Greenwich wasn’t far… just across the way… No!… On the same side of the river! Two minutes away… shit!…

  I look at that face of hers again… white as a sheet! Plastered with powder and make-up… shit I’m sweating…

  “Sweet little kisser!” I say to her… “Sweet little kisser!”

  I’m about to yell! Shit… I grab hold of myself… give it everything they got… She asks me who Virginia is… doesn’t know her… Have to introduce her… Yet here she just sang from The Merry Wives of Windsor in front of her!… Ah! My oh my!… What could she have been thinking!

  “Darling! Darling pet!”

  I make the introductions… We couldn’t hear ourselves talking in the joint any more… it was starting to fill up, people arriving… hollering loud enough to wake the dead… I had to scream my lungs out in order to get the intros right…

  “Mrs Delphine!…” My voice was drowned out… “Mrs Delphine!”

  A big curtsy from the artiste to the gathering… the boys at the bar! A right proper introduction… I mustn’t skip anything, had to mention every detail… her finery… the pretty feathers… the lorgnette, her old standards! The artiste she once… and still was! Goddamn! I had to run right down the list! And explain and translate for Sosthène… the moron didn’t get it.

  “Delphine Vane! Sosthène! Artiste!”

  She corrects me, gets sore: “Yes… Artist… certainly! A theatre actress! Many parts, young man! Many souls! And then some!”

  She thinks my intro needs more pizzazz.

  This gets a roar! From the whole joint!… From every table front to back!…

  Just with a glimpse at that topper of hers, the two veils, the yellow and red ostrich plumes, the lorgnette, real laugh-getters, even in London!…

  Now she’s defiant, bawls them out…

  “Asses! Asses! Despicable asses!”

  Brang!… Bang!… Bomf!… Explosions outside! Right at that second! The whole sky it seems… the ground quakes… Boom! Boom! Bombs dropping on Poplar… Everything’s rattling, the shack, the tables, the works… A savage bombardment… from Zeppelins?… We still can’t see yet… the whole sky is flickering red… the lapping water… the darkness burns bright… with searchlights… we can hear the firemen’s bells going hell for leather… their water tanks whizzing past… racing into the night… the whole opposite bank a shimmering red mirror…

  Ba-da-boom!… Crash!… Another barrage… the clouds are echoing with the thunder… It isn’t grim or frightening, instead it has the feel of a country fair, and ba-da-boom!… Fireworks!…

  “Hurray! Hurray!”

  Sharp crackle… heavy boom, all hell’s breaking loose in deafening thunder… Delphine’s completely carried away:

  “Hurray!… Hurray!… Celebration!… Long live Mary!… Long live the King!”

  She hops, prances about, grabs her hat, veils, she wants to whip up the crowd… She raises her glass three times to the King’s health…

  Whoah, lookee there! The river superintendent! The one from the police upriver. Just slipped in on us, we were too wrapped up in our fireworks show… He calls out to us… stepped out of an open boat…

  “Gentlemen! Gentlemen! A child is lost!…”

  He’s looking for him.

  He sweeps us with the beam of his flashlight…

  “No, sir!… No, sir!…” in unison.

  “Good!…”

  “Goodnight!”

  He disappears.

  The shit was really flying something fantastic at the top of the sky, ka-booming loudly every which way in the atmosphere!… Baskets of flaming flowers spilling over the city, with dizzily whirling stems, blue, yellow, red foliage…

  Ah! They really knew how to put on one magnificent show! Ah! Altogether different from the son-of-abitching front lines! Here the bombs burst up among the stars, streaking, detonating in the heavens! They didn’t come shooting down into your hair! You could kick back and enjoy the spectacle! The view through the dump’s small window panes could have been better. They all piled back outside for a better gawk at the sights.

  I grab Sosthène, now was the time… I dash off…

  “Hey! Nutcase! I’m late… the boat’s leaving! Eight fifteen.”

  “Ah! You bastard!” is all he can shout. “What’re you going to do, ditch the little one, you rat?… Is that what you’re going to do?”

  “And what about you?” I answer. “You’re here, aren’t you, you creep? Can’t you take care of her? Go through a little trouble by any wild chance? While I’m off making my way for you!… Setting things up over there? Can’t you keep the uncle entertained? Can’t you help him out?.:. You’re a real deadbeat, damn, I can’t believe my ears!…”

  What a look, what a face, he was lolling back and forth.

  “Ah! The things you say!… Ah! Such things!…”

  Stubborn! He thought I was a lowlife because I was leaving, a quitter, a lousy bum! He didn’t want to hang around London. He wanted to leave at the same time, right away… didn’t want to wait… He knew America… He’d make out even better than I would… That’s how he saw it…

  “You’re too old, you geezer… you’re too old…”

  He told me to fuck off.

  “You stay with her! That’s your role! She’s pregnant. You said so yourself!…”

  Now it was finger-pointing time… I had to holler myself hoarse. The blasts outside were so loud we couldn’t hear ourselves talking. Bombs whizzing, sizzling above Kingsbury, Brompton, Millbridge… even farther out… towards Newport… the whole sky flaring with explosions, in hails, in bouquets whistling everywhere, all the echoes crackling, rumbling, every pane a mirror of flames.

  It was the great Zeppelin hunt, everybody outside had their socks knocked off, all shouting on the embankment – hey, they weren’t Zeppelins up there, they were airplanes, Taube, the latest model. The Germans had announced they were going to reduce London to smithereens! That remained to be seen. The customers weren’t afraid, they wanted ringside seats.

  I went out with the girl. Got to admit it was an exciting show… Bets were on… All the stevedores had a stake… The first to spot the Zeppelin takes the pot! The searchlights were searching the sky… Whenever they turned up empty the crowd ahhed and awhed… miffed… a barrage of catcalls… Go ahead, boo the fireworks!… They were tripping each other up, what a big joke… All of a sudden you hear people going “Ooo! Ooo!”… I thought they’d spotted something… false alarm!… It was some other group on the embankment… closing in… shouting!

  Prospero boomed loudest: “Over here!… Hey! Hey! Over here!…”

  And then, for me: “Ferdinand! Ferdy!”

  “What’s up?”

  “Hey! Here, over here!” A real racket between cannon blasts. Those arriving would answer: “Oooh! Oooh!” A slap-happy crew!… A shouting match… to see whose voice could sound the loudest… Boom! Boom! Oooh! Oooh! From earth to sky. What a terrific time! I wish I could have seen the expression on those newcomers… turning up so late… Because we were all hollering our lungs out for them…

  “Hey! Hey! Guys!… Over here! Here! Come on over so we can give you a kiss!…”

  The new group chuckles, stumbles, gropes… hangs on wherever… swears… plants smooches on cheeks… I’m all for… I start groping too… Somebody calls me… my name… So I finally ask who it is… Can’t place the faces in the glimmer from up above… Shit!

  “Long live Ferdinand! Long live Ferdinand!”

  One person yelling…

  “There he is! There he is!…”

  It’s a mob scene… I’m on my guard… I look for Virginia… grab her… don’t want to leave her side…

  “There he is! There! Hey! Hey!”

  The entire embankment is mobbed… all the customers have filed outside, plopping down wherever, on top of each other… I grope the new
arrivals… Everybody laughs… Ah! I do recognize them…

  “It’s Renée!… Ah! Wow, and who’s that?… It’s Finette!… Ah! Geez, it’s the whole cathouse!…”

  All the women! And big Angèle! And how they’re laughing their asses off down there on the ground like that, shoving each other across the gravel, a bunch of kids, having a ball, crazy ladies… I’m floundering around them… don’t know where I am any more… Where’s Cascade? The whole Leicester gang’s here! An outing! A spree! Loony ladies on the loose! One hell of a party for me, I’m telling you!

  They make me out in the dark!

  “There you go, you little fart! You rotten brat! You bed-wetter! Peek-a-boo!”

  I’m pawed, knocked on my ass… they all climb on top of me, trampling me, just for laughs, right down against the gravel… I bellow, beg for mercy!

  “Your party, Ferdinand! Your party!”

  Mustn’t put up a fight, they’d eat me alive, hilarious harpies.

  “Your party! Your party!…”

  The bug up their ass… They came down from the centre of town just for that reason, to wish me all the best, in unison, the whole cathouse, young bitches and old bats. A long bus trek, then hoofing it a good way, in whorehouse heels across gravel!

  All just for me!…

  The bombardment’s fun for them, they laugh like hyenas over the sprays of sparks, but even so some bombs do hit the ground… we’re sitting in a hail of debris… ricocheting all across the stones…

  “I got something in my eye!” Curlers shouts.

  Can’t be!… Still and all it’s scary… Everybody piles back inside… There, by the canteen lamplight, I can see their faces, don’t recognize each and every one… Little Nestor is fluttering his lids, dazzled by the brightness… Curlers is pissed, she twisted her foot but good… Fly-swatter doesn’t want to lend her a hand – he’s more in a mood to chew her out. They all jostle in at the doorway, the girls feel each other up, start flipping out, the bombardment’s overexciting them… Right away they’re hot to play blind man’s buff with the sailors, they blindfold the men… Right off, lascivious pawing… the ladies walked over along the embankment, a good strip of shore from the Wapping Tube stop… they take off their shoes, their feet are burning. I introduce Virginia.