London Bridge

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  “Don’t bother,” they answer. “We know who your little darling is.”

  Curlers blabbed the whole story with a thousand and one details about our last run-in. My little girl’s so beautiful… such lovely calves, such lovely eyes, you name it… and I’m an oaf… That’s unanimous… a boor… a lout…

  Ka-boom!… It’s starting up again outside… big time… we go back onto the doorstep, mustn’t miss a trick… Hustling and bustling… mad laughter…

  “Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep! Hoo! Hoo!”

  Curlers hoots… calling into the darkness… Still others are answering from up along the embankment… from out towards the docks… the rest of the gang… the whole Leicester pub’s on the way… Gertrude’s back, Girouette, Carmen… They came the Tower Bridge way… They wanted a look at the fire… Then they finally rolled in. Without Cascade… He’d be around a little later… He didn’t stroll around with the women. He’d meet up with them again somewhere or other… back at the bar or over at the racetrack… but never in the street together. It’s the way things were done… Inevitably we wound up talking about him, what he thought about my behaviour…

  “I miss the old guy! I do! I’m sure he’s making a mess of things!…” A quote.

  “Ah! You’d better believe you’re the apple of his eye! He wouldn’t have carried on a hundredth as much about any other guy, what a hullabaloo! Your sorry ass!”

  How had things been going since I left? The fuzz? Matthew? Maybe they’d come around asking about me?

  Yeah, seemed so… a little… And the guys at the front?… Any word? Yeah, three dead… The others in tip-top… And the ladies?… Rirette and the rest of the gang?… Hard at work? Frills and flounces?… Such laziness… pig-headedness… the Tommies made them drink way too much… they’d get sloshed, such a disgrace… Getting them up out of the sack was one hell of a chore… at four in the afternoon… A girl without a pimp has no professional pride… still snoring away at dinner time… when all was said and done, they were a pack of stinking bitches… Angèle could swear and threaten and blow her top all she wanted, no good… uppity attitudes… rebellion in the ranks… No pimp no respect… Cascade did all he could but he didn’t want to smack them around… They were his just for safe keeping! They took advantage of his promise… Come Saturdays they were so smashed they puked up and down the hallways… they lived on nothing but whisky, on pure ether in Ninette’s case… She even got her dog drunk… They had even worked the vice out of their systems… just snored their lives away… the whole thing, apparently, because they were distressed and worried, waiting for word…

  The war! The war! Always the war! The only thing that sort of roused them was all the ker-booming… and it had to be thundering something God-awful, rattling heaven and earth, to crack open their eyelids a wee bit… A whore without a man loses her fizz.

  Judging by the sirens, we had a huge bombing raid on our hands this time around…

  And it was heading our way…

  Rumour put at least a dozen Zeppelins up in the sky… but we were still waiting for our first glimpse of one… nothing but showering shrapnel… ricocheting all over the roof, the entire shack was shaking, quaking…

  Everybody raised a glass to my health, then to those absent, to those present, to the ladies, to Miss Virginia, to the Chinaman… I picked up the details from stray comments… about those who had fallen in Flanders, Raymond La Comptée… Bobby Drug… plus Lulu Brême in the Vosges… Carmen was the gossip queen, not so sloshed, not as silly a cunt as the others, she got a kick out of scuttlebutt…

  The crashbanging had been going on again for quite some time now… the door rattles open… a pack of loudmouths… another fresh load… tousled tarts, Mario’s stable, five or six girls also showing their faces at my party… Out on a binge… And seriously stewed… horsing around, drunk as skunks… I see Curlers pounce on them, big wet smooches for one and all… endless lovey-dovey, what a show. Dédé Accordion is also along for the ride, right away he climbs on the table, sets himself up, plays us ‘La Marseillaise’ to the sound of the cannon fire… and then immediately breaks into ‘The Blue Danube’… the waltz… the lovely waltz… mince around!…

  “Start mincing! Start mincing! Waltz! Start mincing!”

  He invites everyone to dance…

  I didn’t want to waltz or anything… I wanted to clear out… Mince around my balls! For one thing, how’d they all get here? How’d they find me? I pop the question to Mona Lisa again, she holds out on me.

  “Search me! Search me! Go shit! I’m out of here, my friends! Off and running! I’m taking Virginia, get a good look! Virginia, the girl I love!”

  Take it or leave it!

  This gets them all up on their feet, such a din! A horrible racket! They won’t have this at all!… Such an uproar, it drowns out the music, the accordion, the cannon fire outside, the sirens, the dock alarm. Won’t have it! Absolutely no way! They grab hold of me… force me back into my seat… Ah! I plough into the mob… throw a few uppercuts, with what’s remaining in my left arm, they collar me, I’m down for the count. Three-four keep me pinned to the floor… All because they’re so thrilled to lay eyes on me again… I’m outraged in front of Virginia… I work myself free… call them every name in the book…

  “But we’d lost touch with you, you big lug!”

  I’ve got to get it through my head we’re talking about genuine fondness. I’d had it with talk! Dédé Accordion, a real comedian that one, wanted to razz the sailors a little, he clambers up onto their table, does a jig… Doesn’t go over too well with them…

  “Jump, Froggy! Get the hell out!”

  They were admiring the cannonade, they didn’t want any distractions! But one of them, the tall skinny one, gets all worked up…

  “Go on, Dédé!… Go on, me love! Love you, Dédé! Boom! Boom! Love you!”

  He rises from his bench… staggers… wants to nab him by his trousers… give Dédé a kiss… a sure bet he’s a flaming queen…

  Ping! Bing! Bang!… Right in the kisser! A hail of fists! His pals let him have it! He crumples to the floor. Bleeds. Back to his seat, crying, wiping himself off, dripping all over the table, puking, bright red, he’s led away…

  Outside the big event is still going strong… the whole atmosphere’s ignited… the firemen are clanging, galloping full tilt… You can hear them stampeding on the opposite shore… charging after the fires… the flames must be raging in Wapping… Honest, this is an all-out attack, not just a lot of noise, or some drill…

  Another voice calling for me… from the back of the joint…

  “Where’s the little ass… where’s the sweetheart?”

  Curlers is after me. Screaming her lungs out. A hoarse holler, bad vocal chords! “I’ve got bad vocal chords!” Her badge of honour. “Ever since my first Communion!” She thumped her chest… Aaargh! Aaargh! While hacking… she sounded like a dog choking… her proof…

  “It’s spread to my wind bags! Since my first Communion!… I caught cold in the church! In Sacré Cœur in Montmartre! Never shook it!

  “Little ass! Little ass! Where are you?”

  She gropes around in the dark. Stumbling. I try to duck her… and run smack into her instead…

  “Here you are, sweetheart!”

  She’d circled the place three times… She wants us to go back to the bistro, the little girl too…

  “You are pretty, Miss Virginia! You are pretty, darling, a wonder!”

  She gazed in admiration at Virginia under the ceiling lamp. She held the girl by the shoulders, right in front of her, very tenderly.

  All the customers and tarts were outside yelling at every thunderclap.

  “Hello, boys! Hit him! Bang!”

  They were cheering them on. Tracking the battle in the clouds… the volley of blasts kept the place rattling, quivering in every joint, such a heavy bombardment, even the embankment was dancing. A big turn-on for Curlers, watching Virginia up real close, her e
yes glued to the girl… She didn’t give a shit about outside…

  “You’re pretty,” she repeated… and then coaxingly: “Darling, darling… are you ill?…”

  She asked me, worried.

  “What’re you doing to her? The little pumpkin’s pale as a ghost! You son of a bitch, go on, get out of here! Are you beating her?”

  “Of course I’m not beating her!”

  Outside the cannon fire breaks off, could it be the air raid’s over? The audience discusses, jabbers, and then everything quiets down. The embankment empties out, it’s late, Big Ben bongs 3.30. No sound but the lapping of the river and noises from the distance, the port, the wind from Tilbury, the boats towing, haling each other… Ah! I’d love to be setting sail too… Maybe I had another minute left?… Maybe they were already there?… But I’d run myself too ragged, on top of the buzzing in my head… Plus the fight with those crazy ladies… I came out of it dead tired… not to mention Delphine, her dirty cracks… What should I do? Wait another half-hour, that’s my decision. I sit down, Virginia, Curlers, the Napo across the table, Dédé at my side with two-three women. Got to wait, we chat… the topic always goes back to brawls and muggings. The women knew quite a thing or two about muggers. The poor gals’ve been their victims for several weeks running, extraordinary muggings by unbelievable thugs, the ballsiest pickpockets anybody’s ever seen… That was the word going around. From Bond Street to Tottenham, they clean you out in a snap, your whole day’s take, your wad of dough, papers – they frisk you, whisk past like arrows, before you even notice they’re gone. They melt back into the darkness. That explains the ladies’ woes, why their lives are one big mess, and they’re scraping bottom, rolling in dead broke from turning tricks, after eight-ten hours of doing their damnedest, in the pits, sick, grungy. Those cash, stash vampires… the pitch-black to blame.

  Angèle wasn’t buying any of this hoo-haa.

  “Crapola, my lovelies! You’re stewed to the gills! You guzzled your dough, and that’s that!”

  Ah! They explode in protest! How shocking! The very mention of such crimes! How insulting! What filthy suspicions! Ah! Too much to take! The innocents rise up! Blubber, choke on their sobs! It’s the honest-to-God absolute truth! Night wolves, the culprits! They all sing the same song! The whole town knows it! Vampires, a gang of Fantômas! They belonged to Consuelo’s gang, the pimp over at the Madrid Follies, the slot-machine guy… Didn’t need to rack your brains, pull your hair out. He was the criminal mastermind! The boom had already been lowered on him because of his telltale MO… It cost him an ear back in 1909… It was Jean-Jean who’d lopped it off one Christmas night… Jean-Jean the Parisian always used to settle his scores on Christmas night…

  Curlers had seen the whole thing with her own eyes. She could dredge up memories, yes she could… Twenty-two years she’d been in London… “My first abortion…” she started to rattle them off… “I might have had an English girl, how about that! Older than yours!…” A smooch for Virginia!… “Pretty miss!”

  Her memories rolled out helter-skelter… in dribs and drabs…

  “Back in those days!… Hack-hack… the pimps were shown respect!… Hack-hack!… Their ladies too… Hack-hack!… On the sidewalks of London! Plus the work, I think! Hack-hack! They didn’t go off to war to get buggered! Hack-hack!”

  But Angèle put up an argument, she wasn’t falling for that hogwash, ghosts, vampires, etc. It was all just a bunch of bunk as far as she was concerned… cock-and-bull cooked up by dishonest, lying perverts who didn’t take their jobs seriously any more, who drank away their take in bars!

  Ah! Well, you’ve never heard such a flare-up… “You big fat shit! You dirty bitch! You’re rotten!” That screwball could really flap her gums! Liar! Ah! Enough already! What gall! Flinging lies smack into your face!

  They’re exploding! Choking!

  “Ah! The big whore! Your ass!…”

  Virginia didn’t catch every word… Too much slang for her ears… But she was having a good time all the same… the greatest, in fact!… Sleep was the last thing on her mind… This henhouse of hell-raisers was something new… a lot more fun than her uncle’s…

  Curlers starts up again: “Say, she’s pale as a ghost, this kid of yours…”

  “Is that any of your business?”

  “You bet, you bum! It sure is!… Your little cutie pie’s so delicate!… Come on, will you leave her with me?… Go on, buzz off!… Beat it to America!…”

  She was kicking me out.

  Ah! Real witty! The whores were pissing themselves laughing at the sight of me being treated like such a royal sucker! Marrying off my girl to Curlers! And sailing off as a little cabin boy!… all by myself!…

  With a breeze in your sails…

  Go, little cabin boy…

  All together now!… The whole café, the tables, the bar! Even Sosthène! Even big Angèle!…

  Cracking up a gang of tarts is a snap… they laugh at every little fart… one drowning fly sets off wild fits… the really awful thing, and I do mean awful, was that my tenderest most delicate darling was getting just as big a bang… laughing her little head off just like the others… the dumbest pranks, brainless hyenas. I’d never seen her have a grander time… over the worst dumb-ass puns… over everything and nothing… over me, in the end… such a pretty picture I made with my travel craze, my bug to be a seafaring cook!

  Now there was something to die yukking over, they all thought I was such a damn funny clown… A scream! A laugh-riot! The hookers’ big hoot!

  “You’ve got ants in your pants! Let’s toast! Don’t go and drown yourself! You’ve got it good here, you sap!…”

  That’s what they thought… They start ragging me about Virginia.

  “Aren’t you taking her to school? They’ll snatch her away from you! Get a gander at those ankle socks!…”

  They come over to feel up her calves…

  “Let us have your baby doll… Give her to us! You’re not using her… You’re dumping her!”

  With that they swoop upon Virginia, smooch away at her from every which way.

  Curlers won’t have it, she’s boiling.

  “Beat it! Beat it! Sex maniacs!…”

  “Oooh! Oooh! Grandma! To hell with your crotchety crotch! She belongs to us! The dolly’s ours! Little Red Riding Hood!”

  More outpourings of affection, endless pecks! Everybody kisses my little honey bun! Even Prospero gets in his smooch, it’s his little cousin so he claims.

  Sosthène blows kisses over the table. He can barely move a muscle. He didn’t turn down one single glass, toasted every time. Normally the guy never touched the stuff, so this hits him hard, knocks him for a loop right where he’s sitting… He has just about enough strength to lift his glass for refills… and then smiles all around… Prospero opens another bottle of brandy… dumps it all into the mulled wine, a big bowlful, gin too, plus some lemon zest… “The special house punch of the Moor and Cheese,” so he announces… It packs enough of a punch to wipe out a regiment. I make like I’m drinking… but I’m not… It gives me such an awful headache… I don’t have too much upstairs as it is… I can talk, go wacky just fine without any help… the fact remains the booze keeps on gurgling away… then the question pops into my head… what about the tab? Real fast it scares the pants off me… I let Prospero know…

  “Watch it, pal! Not a penny from me!…”

  “It’ll be taken care of!” he replies.

  “Fine! Fine!”

  I drop it.

  After all, what’s right is right… I paid on my end, damn it! They can pay theirs! They’re doing me the honours! It’s perfectly natural! Is it my party, or isn’t it, damn it! I’m eighty-per-cent disabled! They might just get that through their heads! And about time too!

  A point of honour.

  But what about my party? This whole thing is one big mystery!…

  All so confusing… I ask again…

  “So what about my
party, Prospero?”

  “Bottoms up! You’re talking with your mouth full…”

  Pointless for me to keep pressing. All of a sudden they’re crazy, hysterical.

  “A song!” They jump on my case! “A song! Sing! Sing! Encore! Encore! Encore! Sing, Ferdy! Or pay up! Goddamn it!…”

  Nasty of them!

  Quickly I take the floor… belt out…

  Your lovely eyes!…

  from my repertoire in the Twelfth…

  For the hours are sh-o-ort!

  etc.… and then break right into

  Fairy Queen…

  by popular request, in English… The big hit of Gaby Deslys, the star of the Empire in those days…

  I brought the house down, especially because of my accent, I had a knack for impersonations.

  Virginia now! Her turn!

  “Come on, Miss! In French! In French!”

  Virginia was laughing so much she couldn’t sing… She was having a grand old time with this crowd. The mulled wine was perking her up. A new sensation for the kid. Even so, after a minute she found her voice.

  “In French! In French!…”

  A solo, please!…

  The swallow!

  replete with all the lights and shades, winding away, then prettily back, soaring flights, peeling trills… graceful in her song as in her smiles and laughter… all three rippling…

  Ah, swallow, come back to us!

  What a smash hit! The ladies were drinking her up with their eyes! “Good God, she’s darling! That’s the truth! An angel…”

  Curlers the wildest of the bunch…

  “An angel!… A voice from heaven!…”

  Ecstasy!

  Delphine was the only one who didn’t fall for it, she didn’t care for the song, or the darling, or anything at all… She’s all steamed up, bitching, screaming, clambers on a table, belts out:

  It’s a long way to Tipperary…

  A spanner in the works… They grab her, yank her off… Right then another row, more banging at the door… some guys knocking… Prospero dashes to the wicket… Voices asking: “Are they in there?”

  I recognize one… Cascade!