London Bridge

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Then the whole joint explodes in shouting… All the girls squealing at him! “Over here! Over here! Hello!” The whole joint is jumping! What a real happy reunion!

  “He’s over there! He’s over there!” they yell…

  They’re talking about me…

  “Ah! Great! Ah! Great! The little ass…”

  Now it hits me… just as I suspected… they’re springing their trap… an ambush… in their clutches, lamb to the slaughter! This big show all for my benefit! What crapola! St Ferdinand! And the other bullshit! A damn lot of trouble they put themselves through! Kids’ stuff when you’re dealing with a dumb sucker like me! We should have gotten the hell out of here! At dawn! Run for it… The first idea, the right idea!… All the lovey-dovey fooled us… They must have brought along the cops… I don’t see them yet… But I smell a rat… It’s the scalp dance!… “Revenge!…” They said to each other!… “Ferdinand’s double-crossing us!” And so here they are! Just breezing in on us! A piece of cake! Candy from a baby! Ah! Fuck! I jump to my feet, square off!…

  “That you, Ferdy?”

  I can see him walking towards me… his grey bowler… his slicked forelock…

  “Come on! What’s your game?” I pop the question…

  “Why, nothing, my boy, nothing at all!…”

  He looks real surprised to see me so worried, brutal!

  “Feeling sick?…” he asks… “Feeling sick? You mean you’re not glad to run into me again?… Anyhow, sit down… sit down!…”

  He’s calm.

  I want to chew him out but I lose my nerve.

  “Monsieur is visiting London, I hear?”

  He’s the one who goes on the attack… He glances over at the bench… towards Sosthène… a little smile for Virginia…

  The girls are chuckling, they’re in seventh heaven… over the way he’s treating me, like some kid… some excitable nut…

  At this Prospero starts laying it on thick… fills out a few details.

  “Cascade, hell, you don’t know the half of it! Monsieur is going away! Monsieur’s off on a journey!… Monsieur has seen enough of us all!… There’s the news! Ah! None too soon! Oltremare! America! with the chick! And Monsieur Sosthène sitting right here! An ethpedition!…”

  “Oh man, oh man! Ferdinand, so fast! Just like that with no luggage? No farewells?”

  I surprised Cascade. He knocks back his bowler, a flick of the fingers… straightens it out, the whole time studying me…

  I look at him too…

  It must have been four months more or less since I’d left the Leicester… The time had taken its toll on Cascade: he’d aged, his forehead curl had gone grey, his kiss curl, slicked down in place… His whole face had gone dark… crow’s-feet… Just like that, pow! He had worn himself to a frazzle!… Even his African Battalion Cross, his “Bat d’Af”, the tattoo in the corner of his eyelid, had deepened a shade…

  He shakes his head a little for no reason… some private joke… then he stops… passes his hand across his face as though to wipe away a world of worry… lost in thought again…

  “So, sonny, that your suitcase?”

  He drawls the question.

  “Nice job packing!”

  He looks at Virginia…

  “The baby doll?”

  He studies her…

  “Huh! Well, well! I say, little man!… Will you take a look at that… Darling… Darling!…”

  He’s checking her out.

  “Why don’t you show her wares? Look at me, I show what my ladies got!”

  Ah! That’s an understatement… He’s ribbing me…

  Those ladies of his bust out laughing, choking, moaning… they’re in stitches…

  Ah! I’m an absolute riot!… Ah! Geez, no kidding! Ah! I’m unbelievable!…

  I don’t know why…

  Delphine’s the only one not having a good time, sipping real slowly from her grog, closed in on herself, grumbling under her breath, teary-eyed… She pours herself another shot of rum… Her make-up’s plastered on thicker than Curlers’… Since she’s crying it starts dissolving… in streaks… her cheeks running with blue and red rivulets… She gets up, walks off to another table… she can’t listen to another word from this crew… she throws her head into her mitts… hunches up… boo-hoos… big sobs… she’s a pain in everybody’s ass… blubbering something awful…

  Putting on a big pout…

  “What’s wrong, Delphine?”

  No answer.

  They ask me to sing again.

  I’m ready and willing, but it’ll be ‘Little Sailor Boy’!…

  At that they yell at me – no, not that one… So I get pissed! They want a love song… I refuse…

  So Cascade performs… He’s back in the swing. Just one of those tired spells…

  Boom! Boo! Boo! Boom!

  Here comes our Town Mayor!

  Three steps forward!

  Three steps back!

  A big guffaw… He’s merrier in his seat than on his feet… Heart trouble, I found out later, his age. It made him look like hell…

  The song started with the chorus:

  Three steps forward!…

  And then the trombone imitation!… The guy who screwed up had to pay the consequences… By downing three glasses in a row… Screwing up was all the fun! Was I leaving or wasn’t I? Some lush wanted to know… He came over and sniffed right under my nose…

  “Going? Going, lad?”

  Curlers joined in too… with her own song…

  Give me your girl

  Petronurl!…

  And then the chorus at the top of her lungs…

  Give me! Give me!

  Your girl…

  I’m crazy ’bout her…

  Madame Cantaloupe!…

  Oupe! Oupe! Oupe!

  Stamping loudly with the beat.

  “He’s comfy here! He’s staying put!”

  That was the decision! My fate from everyone’s lips… Cascade was the most flat out…

  “He won’t be leaving!…”

  It took some real nerve, in a way… although their intentions were friendly…

  “Monsieur Sosthène’s staying with us, too! Isn’t this all terrific, Monsieur Sosthène?”

  By then Sosthène was seeing double, gibbering… Playing patty cake with Mona Lisa… they kept finding ten-twelve hands!… Which meant they kept walloping each other good and hard… first one, then the other, just for fun… Whack! Whack! Whack! They were having a grand old time! The mariniero from La Reale felt in the mood to dance the maxixe… So he wraps Mimi in his arms, keeps her hopping with his lovey-dovey pawing. But Prospero wanted to call it a night… close up shop… it was past time, supposedly. Hector works the gramophone despite being forbidden… one of those morning-glory-shaped jobs that screeched something horrible!… Prospero wanted an end to the hoof-stomping… to call it quits right then and there!

  Bram! Brang! The shutters jangling… Police again! Lucky it wasn’t the real thing!… Only the nightwatchman from just down the way, over at Poplar Dock…

  We let them in… those guys weren’t nasty sorts… it was just their throats were always parched, they were real sponges… It was their turn to stand watch, so they’d popped in to check what all the singing was about… they sat down among the ladies… Cascade told the story of Jérôme the Flute! Who on a sudden whim to strut his stuff had bet one of his dames that he could walk across the roof of the Crystal Palace without breaking anything… A phenomenal feat, just imagine for a minute! Practically fifty yards up off the ground… crossing the entire glass dome with nothing for balance but little iron rods… you might as well be walking on air… a Tara-Tohé tightrope trick!… Nothing less than a miracle!… On the big day everybody had come to watch, the whole gang from the Leicester, the Royal… Right when he gets to the top! Scared shitless! Just came over him, plop! A wreck! He chickens out!… He motions he’s on his way back down!… Not pressing on… Ah! You should
have heard the hell breaking loose!… “Cocksucker! Big zero! Blockhead! Limp dick! Greaseball quitter!” They wanted him dead! Their insults echoed under the glass roof! The entire Crystal Palace was in an uproar! He saved his ass just in the nick of time, they were ready to string him up! Like greased lightning he was out of there, flew through the turnstile… And nobody ever laid eyes on him again, nowhere, knocked off his high horse… a beeline for America! Lost!… Vanished off the face of the earth!… So went Jérôme’s story…

  “You’re a different situation, kiddo, you’ve got no reason to clear out!”

  The ladies were still laughing at what a goofy jerk Jérôme looked like up on the roof of the Crystal Palace! Oh! Oh! Oh!

  One thing leads to another, good cheer all around, I catch up on the news about practically everybody… the crowd at the Monaco… Victor’s… the Aztec… in Soho!… In short, all my buddies’ hangouts… the Eiffel Tower… all over the place, guys leaving, ladies left behind… the Consulate was sending out calls… “Everybody’s asking for you!” Right. I knew what he was after…

  “Look, you see, perfect togetherness!…”

  He laughs!… He shows me Angèle and Mona Lisa drinking from the same glass…

  “You see… not a nasty peep… they’ve made up!… If they start scrapping again I told them: ‘I’m joining up pronto! My haversack!’ See the effect it has?… Doves! And I wouldn’t think twice!… I’ve warned them! War or peace! I want some damn peace and quiet!… You know how I feel about it, right?… Noise is a real pain in my ass… You’ve got noise up there, don’t you, in your head? Told me so yourself, right? Right?…”

  “Ah! A little, for sure!… Just a little…”

  I didn’t want to gripe.

  So he’s back talking to me about the war… about my wounds… and then back to my head… Wondering whether it still hurts me… He treated me nice… We return to the topic of women… Fact is, the hatchet’s been buried… everything’s hunky-dory…

  “If they start scrapping again, they know what to expect!… I’m clearing off, I’m enlisting! I’ll do just like everybody else!… The haversack! At the first word!… Ah, kiddo, it’s love!… And I wouldn’t think twice about it, you know me… I’m not the kind of guy who says one thing and does another! But you know how I feel too… it’ll cost me dearly, and how! Very dearly…”

  He rivets me…

  “Does liquor mess up your head?”

  It had no effect at all on him… He never went crazy because of booze… What’s more, he didn’t overdo it… Solid as a rock… We’re back on the war again… my wounds… my head… he wonders whether I’m still in much pain…

  “Ah! How about that! Ah! How about those big fairies!…”

  He was stuck on that idea about military types… He starts fuming just at the thought. Couldn’t let go…

  He slicks his palm over his creamed curl…

  He had hard, heavy mitts, the thick thumbs of a strangler. Gruesome hands, tougher than mine, even compared to my left! My one good paw… But there was nothing nasty about his face, always looked ready for a good laugh, always hankering for some fun… a good joke. London hadn’t got him down at all… It was the war that stuck in his craw… And then fuck it all tough shit let’s go!… He was off again! Pulled his bowler down over his curl and ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay! Let’s get this show on the road!… The first dance! the biddy and the kiddy into the whirl… mad youth! Even so he’d aged in the not quite three months since we’d last seen each other. The girls didn’t lift a finger to make life easier for him, gave him a real run for his money with all the dumb shit they pulled… constant hassles, day-in-day-out disasters, over nothing and everything! He had eleven on his back… René’s girls! Jojo’s! Baldie Tatave’s, Shithouse Jack’s and so on, plus Périgot’s back-up stable, and Vison’s, and Grendemer’s… a whole jointful… plus two or three besides… From everybody who’d cleared out, got sent to the front, joined up to the beat of marching bands! Ordinary guys who’d caught the fever, others who’d got nabbed, he’d taken on all their women, for safe keeping, like a brother they could rely on, until their speedy return! So long! What a God-awful mess! He had one hell of a zoo on his hands! No heart! No feeling! Angèle told me about it. A devil of a job to get the girls to hand over their take to the pimps… They bawled… forgot everything… sloppy, grungy, sneaky, yakking themselves to death, plus being soused to the gills worse than ever… the climate sure had a hell of a lot to do with it… They were dead, flat-out bored. Plus their doctor visits… A song and dance every time over needles… They didn’t give a damn about their rotting asses… as long as they could slip into new duds, boa feathers, kooky hats… plus knock back a few Pernods… they blew all their dough on crap, were in hock everywhere, even at the shoemaker’s! They drank the pennies meant for repairs, traipsed through puddles, coughing their heads off… That’s the sort of scene it was, and such jealousy, they’d put on a face for days on end, they wanted to spend the rest of their lives in the sack.

  Cascade came back to his seat, pooped, sweaty. He watched his fillies dancing, all lighthearted laughing.

  “They look so sweet when they’re like this, kid! I’d have to beat them black and blue only once a day!…”

  One hitch, he wasn’t a violent man, the idea of handing out lumps turned him off…

  “I want to make them feel just the way you see them now! I’ll wind up killing them!”

  He had to fight to get a word in edgewise. They thumbed their noses at him just for the hell of it. They acted up on purpose out on the street… standing the Dagos to drinks, making crude passes, vampire ghosts weren’t their only problem!… Another situation on his hands… he had to put up his dukes with little whippersnappers at the drop of a hat… and even wogs who came sniffing around the henhouse… Plenty to shave years off a guy… Plus this war that just wouldn’t end…

  “And here I was going to make way for the next guy!… How long do you think it can last?…”

  Another two-three years, I thought.

  “You don’t say, Christ, we’ll all be six feet under!”

  With that we returned to the topic of business… the quality of the customers… about this and that… Meanwhile, everybody’s boozing it up like mad all around us, blabbing helter-skelter, screaming, smashing every-and anything… throwing glasses at each other whole stacks at a time!…

  Had to yell up against each other’s ears. Angèle shouted her lungs out to add her two cents. And Jacasse, well, the gal was in conniptions, one pissed hellcat… she hollered your ear off…

  Cascade was sick and tired of her loud mouth…

  “Will you shut the hell up!”

  But the story about Raoul had hooked Cascade, just that and no other…

  He went back to it again. He couldn’t get it out of his head. I could see where he was going.

  “Ah! How about that now!… Ah! How about that!…”

  He wanted me to tell him one more time… rocking back and forth in his seat… his eyes glued on me… to be sure I wasn’t putting one over on him… hadn’t concocted any of it… and that it really had happened the way I said…

  “You’re positive now?… You’re not mixed up? When they came he was asleep? Positive? That’s the story?”

  “Give me a break, come on… I was there!…” What more could I say?… “I was in the bed across from his… Number 14!…”

  Nothing does the trick like details. I could see the story touched him… He was clinging to one wee doubt…

  “They took him away at four o’clock? It was light out, you say?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Was he limping?”

  “Sure was, I’m telling you!”

  He wanted to know about the firing squad… How big was it?

  I’d missed that!…

  “Ah! See now! You see!…”

  He held on to his doubt… Not a big one… he didn’t entirely believe me… But it was true.


  “Did he give you my address?”

  “I told you he did. Give me a break! The night before! How else would I’ve come?”

  I’d gone over it a hundred times… I couldn’t add any more to what I’d already said… But he felt a gnawing doubt… I had to tell the story one more time… Raoul’s last words… when he’d told me: “Don’t go there! Make yourself scarce!” and other stuff… I didn’t remember everything. Anyway the address stuck in my mind. In the end I just clammed up. I was tired of repeating the same story over and over…

  I couldn’t tell him any more than I had…

  He was worrying himself sick, that’s a fact. Putting himself through hell over nothing… Eating his heart out with doubt… wondering whether Raoul had really been executed… He didn’t believe me entirely… But it was true…

  He just sat there, rocking… straddling his seat… Suddenly he felt real down in the dumps… just sat there like that… on the bench… stopped talking… didn’t look at anything or anybody… didn’t hear the uproar… the hell-raising all around… just kept grumbling the same thing…

  “Fuck it all! Shit, that’s tough…”

  He wouldn’t let up… patted his curl again… smoothed it down… one swipe of his palm… dead set, grousing… dogging his idea in his own mind… without a thought for the people around us…

  Got to say, the party was going full swing… the girls had forced Prospero to get his ocarina back out… or else they’d break every last glass in the house… They start calling each other hysterics because of the tango… that’s the dance that drives them nuts! And right into each other!… There goes Angèle, a bug up her ass, she wants to pounce on Carmen… The armistice is over!… “Nya! Nya! Nya!” The battle flares! Insults fly! One camp for, another against… A circle forms, inside they can massacre each other… Cascade’s looking but not seeing… his eyes fixed straight ahead… lost in thought… he puts his bowler back on… takes it off… dogging his idea…

  He grabs me by the sleeve, leads me away, leaves the ladies to slap each other around…

  “You understand!” he goes to me… “You understand… his mother… anyhow it’s none of your business… I’m the one who brought him up, right… Right, huh?… That’s what’s important!”