London Bridge

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  I was good at reconnaissance, approach manoeuvres… I had all the army tricks down pat… the proof is that Mr Magician Sosthène had taken me on for that very purpose, hired me right off the street for his caravan, his Tibet, his Tara-Tohé, his mirages! Damn it all! To hell with pipe dreams! Back to work!…

  I was guiding Virginia by the arm, making sure she didn’t twist her foot, the stones were awful; she’d got dizzy on coming out of the joint, leaving the smoky den, the hollering, plus she’d danced too much, drunk too hard just to keep everybody happy, clinking glasses with all the ladies… and hopping, dancing on top of that! I was worried! And all through the evening, all through the night! Where was my head at? I was genuinely nuts! Hadn’t it dawned on me? Maybe she hurt herself? Bumped something? Her belly? And that’s why she wasn’t feeling well!… Plus she’d given out two-three times… practically fainted… she’d been a bad girl jumping all over the place like that… understandable at her age… But what about me, I should have thought about it!… It was the obvious thing to do… Come on, I was older than her… I ought to have looked out for the kid… I was twenty-two… she just fifteen… well, almost… I upbraided her gently… Ah! No harsh words… sweetness and light… saying it was nothing serious…

  Sosthène was slogging along behind us… moaning because of his corns… Little Sweetheart had tread on top for two-three dances… He was going to take off his shoes, continue barefoot… he informed us:

  “Just like in Benares!…” he announces… “Like in Benares…”

  In Benares walking barefoot was sacred… he explains to us… the way of the fakirs…

  We stop for Benares, so he can fall in with the ritual…

  “You going to go back to your ballet act?”

  He wasn’t anxious to.

  The first light of dawn was spreading about the docks, not bright, lost in the fog… It sheds a dim glow on our embankment…

  The large Tower Bridge in the distance gradually looms out of the mist, very slowly baring its keep, raising high into the air the gigantic arms of its arches, sitting in the middle of the river like that, for the ships to enter… the huge steamships steaming – puff! puff! puff! – in big furbelows… shuddering chugging forward… in black columns of smoke… huge plumes blue, mauve, pink puffs of steam… Pavane on the river… in broad daylight… bulwark in fanciest finery… the shores to the east shimmering with a thousand and one lanterns, winking, trembling… the work crews congregating… flocking… vaulting up the rungs… black on grey… A great commotion sweeping the area… the crew rejoining their ships at daybreak… pouring down to the docks… changing hands… quitting time for the graveyard shift… two-three winches screak, grind horrendously… the noise, the knocking… a grating screech… high into the sky… and then it all snaps into gear again – chug! chug! chug! – small puffs of steam… The giant Portland, the crane bellows a savage blast… Rise and shine.

  The river quivering, crisscrossed, whipped up every which way… A hundred small open boats rush out, charge into the traffic… sculling… with a splash! splash! splash!… pulling hard at the oars… streaming in from all corners… into the wakes… onto the stems… the sterns… slipping around the laggard stems… corks of foam… grazing past everything… arches… propeller blades… churning furiously!… Fervent halyards seized in flight… from one end to the other… bellying cargos… overwhelming monsters… a small fry of pilot fish in the first light of day from crest to crest of foam nimbly scudding free… splashing up farther away… even more lively… spinning tops rocking from wave to wave… sending up sprays…

  I’ve painted you a small picture of the farandole out on the lapping waves… But there’s more to life than sights to see! We’ve got to hurry along… Sitting around’s no good for us… Sosthène was ready. He goes back on his plan. Doesn’t want to barefoot it any more… slips his clodhoppers back on, he’s a contrary character…

  “Come on! Let’s go, Benares!”

  I hustle him along.

  Virginia could use a break, I see… The darling’s sort of struggling to keep up… And she’s not the dilly-dallying sort.

  “I could use some sleep!…” she confesses…

  “But you already got some!…”

  It comes over her… closes her eyes…

  “Virginia, we have to go!…”

  We were too close to the canteen… if there was going to be a roundup… which I was sure was due any minute now… It was dead certain settled… sitting there on our asses like good little boys and girls in the brisk morning air… Oh! Holy Christ! As clear as two plus two. I could see it all coming, just mind-boggling! Ah! The worthless bums! The cannibals!… Ah! I can’t control myself any more! Ah! I flare back up! Roaring mad! Ah! first-class shits! Ah! I shout: “Fuck you, assholes!”

  I warn them, I’m pissed off… A sure bet they put the finger on us! Sold us out straight to the fuzz! Ah! The bunch of bastards! I work myself into a lather! I rebel! Rise up! I see indignities everywhere! Challenges! Slimy devils crawling out from under every stone… right there through the fog I can make them out… careful! I warn my friends… I want them to see the shadows… In the grip of emotion myself… I can see freakish shapes in the fog… of people, and that’s a fact… light as air, that’s all… on the barge… on the companion hatch… around the small mast, the tackle… dancing, jigging, fluttering about… hand in hand, a big long line… No denying it… a farandole… circling, spinning… skimming the waves… then rising… people in the air… disappearing… The circle dance above the Thames!… I tell the wizard right away, whisper against his ear. He’s got to know…

  “Careful, you poor sucker! Very great danger!…”

  Ah! I’d bet my life on it!…

  “You hallucinating?” he responds.

  “Hallucinating? You rotten little jerk! Can’t you hear the music?”

  Not a note.

  Dumb as a post, what a disgrace.

  “Well then, how do you expect to see the delicate, bewitching circle dance? You can’t see anything, hear anything! End of discussion!”

  I felt sorry for the guy…

  “Come on, you old has-been! Let’s get going! I see people, and that’s the end of that! I can’t spell it out for you any clearer! We’re being watched! That’s the news I’ve got for you! Goddamn it!”

  I bawl them out one more time… saying I’ll give all I’ve got to save them! My last breath! So they had to listen to me! I insist!

  “Great danger! Treacherous mists from the glaucous river! Intertwining, coiling, love! Love!” I work myself up! “Flocks! Flocks! You hear me?… They’re moving forward! Dancing! Circling back on us! Dodging! Skirting around! Shore! Shh! Phew! Circling back! No more Millwall! Treacherous haze! No more trans-shipments! Muddle up! Muddle-headed! Muddy mist me loves! Muddled our ways! He who muddles best muddles muddiest! Whee-ouuh! I understand myself!”

  They’re terrified… looking hard at me… I’m still the same guy! Exploding with energy!

  “Ladies of the fog, I bow to you! You first, please! Daydream! Your servant! Your page!”

  I draw them to me, the kid and Sosthène, slip in their ears, hush-hush… “Let’s head out for Limehouse! Poplar! Gung ho! I’m rescuing you!…” My quick wits!

  My idea made for a long detour. So much the better! The worse!…

  “Come on, let’s go! Get a move on! Let’s go back to the city on the beam, my ballooning toads!”

  A well-hatched plan! Via the small slime path… the yokels’ lane, below the towpath… where you slip on everything from sludge to kelp… tidal pools… lucky thing I sort of knew the way… I’d been over to “Samarland”, the fruit-sellers’ dock… with Little Paul… for a Spanish chick… that was our way out… Ah! We mustn’t wind back up at the canteen!… Another zigzag… right after that, the semaphore… a greyish mauve-streaked mass… the same colour sky, river, houses… Against the fence… far in the distance I can spot two shapes, two peo
ple stooping… I peer hard… all a haze… the fog moving in wrapping them in a dense shroud… Streaming in fast from up river… a stampede… huge flocks… smothering everything…

  Ah! Got to find out!… Spooked!… The cops! It’s them! No! Wrong! Phew! Oh, no! Delphine on the ground, the Negro beside her…

  “Delphine! Delphine!…”

  I’m glad. I call her… They’re arm in arm, kissing, caressing, keeping each other warm, tongue on tongue… loads of lovey-dovey… they found each other in the darkness, the cold…

  She spots me. Right away starts shouting:

  “Ah! It’s you, my little bloodsucker!”

  And she’s shuddering, gesticulating!… Her hat flies off… her red veil flapping like crazy… swept off by a gust… her hair down over her face…

  Clambers back on her feet.

  Starts raving. I bring it out in the gal. The Negro, scared shitless, throws himself on his belly… asks forgiveness… Thinks I’m with the police…

  “Police!” he pleads… “Police! Not me! Not me!…”

  Just like me, hallucinating… Sees cops wherever he looks. The guy cracks me up, about time I had a turn.

  “So tell me,” I ask the beauty, “so tell me, honey, is this your black man?”

  I was making a joke about the guy from way back when, the guy from the Greenwich, the one from the night we smoked the magic cigarettes who supposedly had run into her, the black guy she met on the railroad bridge while looking for the doctor that fateful night…

  In short, the whole awful mess. I didn’t give a shit about her!

  “Ah! The thug! The boor!”

  She bounds up, a shelion! She insults me! Wild-eyed on her feet! Ah! How dare I! Lowdown! Spluttering in rage… in total disgust!…

  “Oh! Oh! Go! Gosh! Oh! You!… You!… Wretch!…” She’s reached her limit. “You!… Dare recall!… thug! Miserable wreck! Silence, memories! Sa-ee-lence!”

  Splatt!… She spits in my face…

  “Murderer! Murderer!” she shouts herself hoarse… “Barbarian!”

  She doesn’t give a damn whether she’s raising a ruckus… that’ll bring the bulls down on us… I’ll teach her! this scares the Negro so bad he starts circling around on all fours… shaking so hard he can’t think… “Be! Be! Be! Be!…” he splutters… rolls on the ground… wants to hide under Delphine… climb into her petticoats… dives in… rummages around underneath…

  “Jesus!” he wails!… “Pity! Pity!”

  She’s in an ornery mood, gives him a few whomps with her feet, her arms, pummels his head… Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Breaks her umbrella!… Oh! Christ Almighty, what a clobbering!

  “Little mother!” he cries at each whack… “I love you!”

  And then oooh! He explodes in guffaws… an enormous bass boom! Ooooh! Oooooh! Echoing along the whole river.

  She’s whaling… whaling away… plus him laughing… Oooh! Flat on the ground, collapsed, belly in the pebbles… his skull taking the full brunt! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham!…

  She climbs on top… the final assault!… Gee up! Delphine’s not laughing, she’s on the warpath, so roaring mad she’s fit to be tied… She wants to beat me too, makes a charge for me when she sees me laughing my silly-ass head off. I snatch her umbrella away. Disarmed, she bellows twice as loud.

  “Kill me! Kill me then!”

  She recuperates her topper, pops it back on her head, plus the veil and gloves. There now, in position for me to kill her! She absolutely insists:

  “There! There!…”

  She shows me her heart, points to the exact spot! Right here and nowhere else! She rips away everything! Rrrip! Over the spot where I’m supposed to strike her!…

  If the cops show up it’s going to look just dandy!… On purpose she howls at me at the top of her lungs… I’m sure you can hear her on the opposite shore…

  “Lady Macbeth speaks to you!”

  “Shut the hell up! Shut the hell up!”

  I’ve had it.

  If I lay a finger on her she’ll howl bloody murder.

  “You stinking weasel!” she lashes out… “Get your face out of my sight!…”

  She’s sending me packing.

  “No! No!” she changes her mind, confidante. “Listen!” she whispers in my ear…

  “Seyton!* I must disappear!… Kill me!… Seyton! kill me!… Wretch! As you killed so well the others!”

  Now I’m Seyton, that’s the way it is, some new nickname, my party’s over. She’s turned on by the idea of me killing her as I killed so well the others!…

  She looks at me, rolls her peepers, I’ve got to make up my mind to do it.

  “Seyton! Seyton!” She’s got a one-track mind. I’m Seyton! That’s what she’s hot on, pop-eyed at the bright idea.

  “Macbeth! Macbeth!” she howls into the wind… now she’s calling that guy too… She’s got something to tell him. She grabs me, gives me a smooch, a taste of witchcraft. I’m smothered in caresses. Pure passion. She spills her heart. Whispering up against my face. She desires me. She’s got to ravage me supposedly… She paws me, turns on the charm… I’m clasped in her embrace… entwined’s more like it… then abruptly, in a snap, she yanks herself away… walks off… clambers back onto the embankment way high up against the fence. We’re in for another tirade… I spring after her, want to talk some sense into her: “Come on, Delphine, enough’s enough! You’re not this crazy! Listen to me! You’re going to bring the cops!…”

  “Fuck off!” She’s not interested.

  “What have you done with poor Claben?”

  That’s the bug up her ass.

  “He’s in the river, you dumb cunt!”

  Now there’s an answer for you! She doesn’t get it… It’s her big hang-up… the Negro’s howling the same time she is, he wants me to murder her as she says… He leaps back down to the gravel… fidgety on all fours:

  “Kill me! Kill me!” he barks. Back to his doggie routine by the riverside… He’s possessed. Pretty state of affairs.

  “Let’s go! We’re leaving!”

  I beat it.

  She throws herself on me, clinging.

  “The dawn!” she exclaims!… “The dawn! Boys, the dawn! Salute the dawn! What joy!” She’s beside herself! She flings her arms up into the sky, shrieking.

  I’d just love to bump her off!

  A barge is moving past our spot… sailing out of the fog… manoeuvring towards us… alongside the pebbly shore…

  She shouts over to the bargeman…

  “At once the benefit of sleep! And do the effects of watching!* What a weird business… Oh! the clamour! All the benefit of sleep! Yet with eyes that see clearly! Watch out, boys! Watch out!”

  The ship hands stampede on deck… wave their poles… passing into the clouds… the boat grazes past… glides along… disappears…

  She shouts after them, warns them about the worst sort of perils!

  “Don’t be deceived, young men!…”

  They didn’t notice her at all. And here she was shouting her head off! She’s not sore. Ah! No way! No way! She knows what it’s all about!

  “They know me there!”

  She points to the stretch of endless mists!… That never occurred to me… they’re buddies! Oh! Geez! What a ninny! She’s jumping for joy.

  “Oh boy! Boys!…”

  It hits me. Everything falls into place! All the spells, eyes wide open!… She brings it all home to me… Ah! Splendid tricks! I’m ecstatic… I won’t fly in her face…

  She’s back on my case again… I’ve got to hear the whole story… She still has a few more real zingers to lay on me…

  “All the dangerous leaps of the cat! Of the elf! Lying down! Understand? Young man? Miracle! Beddy-bye! Understand! Get to bed! Dream! Dream! Little man!”

  That’s an order.

  I’m not dreaming, no way. My problem is coming up with some way to put an end to this, then skedaddle without her screaming bloody murder… I wanted t
o avoid that… Oh heck! Tough nuts!

  I motion to Sosthène… and the girl… for them to run along ahead of me… I’ll catch up… no need to wait cos I’ll be right behind…

  “Take a right!… A right!…”

  The gravel path continues on the right… then the lock then the Peninsula Shipping Company Dock… I let them leave… and zip!… I clear out!…

  I limp, still able to run despite all… Ah! She sends up a howl, oh brother! Roaring after me literally up into the sky!… The water carries sound… in a huge way… you can hear her trap thundering from every corner… echoing everywhere… on every breeze… suddenly shifting… gusting… put-downs roaring from every direction!…

  “Ferdinand! Beast! Frog! Monkey!” A long list of names for me…

  “Ferdinand! Dog! Heartless dog!…”

  I turn onto the parapet of the lock… It’s mobbed up there… the workers’ fairway… they’re wondering why there’s all this brouhaha…

  “She’s bonkers!” I explain.

  I give another try at getting her to shut up… Motioning to her from up where I am.

  “Shush! Shush! Shush!”

  Fuck off, and a hell of a lot worse than before! Stridently shrieking, she booms ten times louder than me!

  “Give me the dagger! Coward! Macbeth has murdered sleep!”

  She’s absolutely dead set. She’ll never shut up.

  Screw you! Bye-bye!

  “Let’s cast off! Step it up, gang!…”

  But my little gang of jokers is worn to a frazzle! Especially the girl, she’s falling off her feet!… Hit by another dizzy spell… but we need to keep moving forward all the same!… This is no neck of the woods to screw around in… Right away the small side streets… from the dock on the right… inside… shadowy… after the Insulinde silos… and then more back alleyways… tricky turns and zigzags… Dungow… Bermondsey… Hercule Commons… fast as our legs can carry us… almost as far as Lambeth Bridge… once there, a breather, a break… Intermission, we deserve it!… We were able to catch our breath. My darling Virginia was fluttering her lids… blinking her sleepy eyes… I upbraided her gently…