Death on the Installment Plan

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Antoine, our skilled assistant, was awfully strict, he’d smack him for nothing at all. But he liked the job all the same, because after seven nobody bothered him. He could have fun on the stairs. The court was full of cats, he’d bring them scraps. On his way back upstairs he’d look through all the keyholes … That was his main amusement.

  When we got to know each other better, he told me all about it. He showed me his system of looking into the can to see the women pissing, right on our landing, two holes in the door. He’d put little plugs in them when he was through. He’d seen them all, Madame Gorloge too, she was the biggest slob of the lot, he could tell by the way she picked up her skirts …

  He was a peeping torn by instinct. It seemed she had thighs like monuments, enormous pillars, and so much hair on her pussy, the fur went up so high it covered her belly button … Robert had seen her right in the middle of her monthlies … It splattered up the whole shithouse … She had the most amazing ass … you can’t imagine… He promised to show me. And something even worse, another hole he had bored … something really terrific … in the bedroom wall, right next to the bed. And there was still another way … If you climbed up on the stove … in the corner of the kitchen, you could look down through the transom … and see the whole bed.

  Little Robert would get up at night just for that. Lots of times he’d watched the Gorloges fucking. The next day he told me all about it, except he could hardly stand up from jerking off so much …

  Little Robert worked mostly with filigree … the rough polishing … He had a file no thicker than a hair that he stuck into the tiniest openings … He’d also put patina on the finished pieces … It was close work, those things were as fine as cobwebs … He’d squint at them until his eyes hurt … Then he’d stop and sprinkle the floor.

  Antoine never let him get away with anything, he always had it in for him … He couldn’t stand my guts either. We wanted to catch him laying Madame Gorloge. Apparently he did … Robert said so, but he wasn’t really sure … Maybe it was a red herring. At the table during meals Antoine was insufferable, you had to watch your step. At the slightest word he’d fly off the handle and start packing up his tools. They’d promise him a raise … ten frances … maybe only five … “Go shit in your hat!” he’d say. Right to Gorlogc’s face. “You give me a good pain in the ass … How can you make promises when you haven’t got a pair of shoes to your name! … Bullshit!”

  “Don’t get excited, Antoine! I assure you that things are going to pick up … One of these days … I’m positive … Soon … Sooner than you think …”

  “Balls! They’ll pick up when I’m an archbishop …”

  That was the way they spoke to each other. The sky was the limit … The boss would stand for anything … he was so scared Antoine would pick up and leave. He didn’t want to do anything by himself … he didn’t want to ruin his hands. While waiting for the renaissance … his main pleasure in life was his cup of coffee and looking out the window smoking his pipe … The neighborhood panorama … He didn’t like anybody to talk to him … You could do anything you pleased as long as you didn’t bother him. He told us so perfectly frankly: “Just pretend I’m not here.”

  I still wasn’t finding any takers, neither wholesale nor retail. I still had every one of my bats and chimeras on my hands … And yet I hadn’t left a stone unturned … From the Madeleine to Belleville … I’d been everywhere, I’d tried everything … From the Bastille to Saint-Cloud there wasn’t a single door that I didn’t open sooner or later … Every junk dealer, every watchmaker from the rue de Rivoli to the cemetery of Bagneux … Every little Yid knew me … every punk … every goldsmith … All I got was the brush-off … They didn’t want anything … This couldn’t go on forever … Even bad luck gets tired …

  Finally one day it happened. A miracle … on the corner of the rue Saint-Lazare … I’d been passing the place every day … And I’d never stopped … They sold Chinese bric-a-brac … Not a hundred yards from La Trinité. Funny I hadn’t noticed before that they went in for grimaces too, and not little ones, great big ones! Whole windows full of them. And they weren’t just kidding, they were real horrors. Pretty much like mine … Every bit as ugly … But they went in more for salamanders, flying dragons … Buddhas with enormous bellies … all gilded … furiously rolling their eyes … Smoke was coming up from behind the pedestal … like an opium dream … And rows of arquebuses and halberds all the way up the ceiling … with fringes and sparkling glass-beads. Real fun. Lots of snakes too, spitting fire … twined around columns … wriggling down toward the floor … And along the walls a hundred flaming parasols and next to the door a devil, life-size, surrounded by toads with wide-open eyes lit by thousands of lanterns …

  Since they sold that kind of truck, the idea came to me —a real inspiration … that they might like my little things.

  I screw up my courage. I push through the door . . , with my saddlebags … I unpack … of course I stammer a little at first … then finally the patter begins to flow.

  The guy was a little character with slanting eyes and a voice like an old woman, as sly as they come … he was wearing a silk dress with a flower design, and clogs … in short he looked like a Chinese goblin except for his soft hat … At first he didn’t say much … But I could see I was making an impression with my large selection of charms … my mandrakes … my knots of Medusas … my Samothrace brooches … For a Chink it was hot stuff! … You had to have come a long way to appreciate my collection …

  Finally he thawed … In fact he was frankly excited … enthusiastic … exultant … He even stuttered with impatience … He came right out with it: “I believe, my dear little young man, that I shall be able to do something for you …” And he went on in his singsong …

  He knew an art lover near the Luxembourg … A very respectable gentleman … A real scholar … who was crazy about high-class artistic ornaments … exactly my style … This guy was a Manchu, he was here on vacation … He filled me in … I mustn’t talk too loud … He couldn’t stand noise of any kind … He gave me his address … It wasn’t a very good Hôtel, it was on the rue Soufflot … All the Chink on the rue Saint-Lazare wanted for himself was a little “present” … if I got the order … Only five percent … It wasn’t too much … I signed his little paper … I didn’t waste a second … I even jumped into the Odéon bus on the rue des Martyrs.

  I tracked down my art lover. I show him my boxes, I introduce myself. I dig out my samples. He’s even more slant-eyed than the other guy … He’s wearing a long dress too. He’s delighted with my stuff … He makes a whole speech … about his pleasure at discovering such beautiful things.

  Then he shows me on the map where he came from … From the end of the world … even a little farther, way off in the left-hand margin … This was the mandarin on vacation … He wanted something beautiful to take home with him, except he wanted to have it engraved to order … He’d even selected his model, he just had to have it. He wanted me to make it up for him … A real order! … He explained where I could go to copy it … It was in the Galliera Museum, on the third floor, in the middle showease … I couldn’t go wrong, he made me a little sketch. He wrote the name in big letters: SAKYAMUNI, it was called … the god of happiness … He wanted an exact copy of it for a tiepin, because back home, as he told me: “I dress in the European style. I’m the chief justice.”

  He’d got this idea. He was very trusting. He gave me two hundred francs just like that to buy the gold with … It was more convenient … that way we wouldn’t lose any time… .

  I can swear I made a face like Buddha myself when I took those two bills … This weird way of doing things knocked me for a loop … I staggered on my way down the boulevard … I was so dizzy I almost got myself run over …

  Finally I get to the rue Elzévir … I tell the whole story … What luck when we’d given up hoping! … Engraving was coming back … Gorloge had been right … We drank on it … Everybody hugged
and kissed me … Everybody made up … We went out and changed the two hundred frances … There was only a hundred and fifty left …

  Gorloge and I went to the museum to sketch the little Chink. He was mighty interesting in his little case, all alone, still as a mouse, on a little camp chair, laughing to himself, holding a shepherd’s crook …

  We took our time, we copied our sketch and reduced it one to a hundred … We made a little model … It all went off fine. Then Robert and I dashed over to the Comptoir Judéo-Suisse on the rue Francoeur for some eighteen-carat gold, a hundred francs’ worth at one throw, and fifty francs’ worth of solder … We put the little ingot away carefully, we double-locked the safe … That hadn’t happened in four years … keeping metal overnight on the rue Elzévir … When the model was finished, we sent it to be cast … Three times they messed it up … they had to start all over again … Founders never know what they’re doing … The time passed … We were getting annoyed … And then finally they caught on. All in all, it wasn’t bad … The god was beginning to shape up … It only needed to be finished, polished, and engraved …

  Then we had lousy luck … The cops come looking for Gorloge … The whole house is in an uproar … On account of his four weeks of military service … No further postponement was possible … He’d already had too many … He couldn’t miss the big maneuvers … No two ways about it, he’d have to leave the “god of happiness” unfinished … It wasn’t the kind of job you could do in a hurry … It needed fine finishing …

  Since there was no way out, this is what Gorloge decided. Antoine would finish the job … he’d take his time … and I’d deliver it … There was only another hundred francs to collect … Gorloge would collect in person … he made that very clear … when he got back from his hitch … He was awfully suspicious.

  If our Chinaman liked it, we’d make more, we’d make a whole pile of Sakya-Munis in solid gold! What could stop us? The future, as we saw it, was one glowing sunrise … Why wouldn’t the renascence of engraved ornaments come to us from the Far East? … Why not? Our whole stairway … Stairway B … was buzzing with our story, all the little tinkers upstairs and downstairs were flabbergasted at our luck, they couldn’t get over it! What a windfall! There were rumors that we were getting checks from Peking.

  Gorloge hung around to the last minute. He was building up to a mess of trouble. He and Antoine took turns working on the little character. There were crazy details, things so small, so tiny you couldn’t see them properly even with the magnifying glass. The little chair … the shepherd’s crook … and especially his little puss … it was hard to catch that tiny little smile! They were still scraping away particles with a fine tool, as sharp as a fingernail … He was almost done … It was a perfect copy. But even so, maybe Antoine had better give it a little more thought … go back to it in four or five days … Then it would be really first-class …

  Finally Gorloge made up his mind to get going, it was high time. The cops had been back again …

  The next day when I got there, I saw him … He was dolled up like a soldier from top to toe … The enormous floating cape, with the two buttons so you could turn up the corners like a sack of French fries … the kepi with the green pompon and the bright-red pants that went with it … That’s what he was wearing when he went downstairs … Little Robert carried his musette bag. It was packed mighty full … there were three camemberts, so much alive that everybody made remarks … And two quarts of white wine and some smaller bottles, an assortment of socks … and his woolen nightgown for sleeping in the open …

  The neighbors all came trooping down in denims and slippers … They were all hawking like mad, spitting all over the doormats … They wished him luck. I took Gorloge to the station, I left him outside the Gare de l’Est, on the corner of the Boulevard Magenta. He was worried about having to leave right now, with this job on hand. He kept giving me instructions. It burned him up that he couldn’t finish it himself … Finally he said good-bye … He told me to be good … He followed the sign … The whole place was full of soldiers … Some of the guys said we were blocking the traffic with our gabfest … I had to beat it …

  When I got back to the rue Elzévir, I passed by the lodge. The concierge calls me:

  “Hey,” she says, “come in here a minute, Ferdinand. So he’s gone? So he finally made up his mind! Well anyway, he won’t be cold out there. They’ll make it plenty hot for him. It’s a good thing he took all those bottles. ‘Cause they’re going to make it mighty rough for him. Whew! The bastards! They’ll make your cuckold sweat!”

  She said all that to get me started, to make me talk. I didn’t answer. I was fed up on gossip. That’s God’s truth. I was getting to be very cautious … I was right … But I wasn’t cautious enough! … As I was soon to find out.

  Once the boss was gone, little Robert couldn’t contain himself. He was determined to see Antoine and the patronne fucking … He said it would happen, it was bound to … He was a natural-born peeping torn.

  The first week we didn’t see much … So’s to keep the shop running it was me that went over to the rue de Provence and down the boulevard looking for repair work … I brought back what I found … It was barely enough … I didn’t tote my collection around anymore. That would have made them throw me out.

  Antoine went on fussing with the little priest, he was doing fine. He knew his business. About the second week the patronne suddenly began to change. She’d always been kind of standoffish … when Gorloge was there, she hardly ever spoke to me. All of a sudden she began to be friendly, ingratiating, intimate. At first I thought there was something phony about it. But I kept my suspicions to myself … I decided maybe it was because I was getting to be more useful … Because I was bringing in little jobs … Still, they weren’t getting us any dough … not one of our bills had been paid …

  Gorloge, who was always suspicious … had made it very clear that we weren’t to collect a single bill! He’d do all that when he got back. He’d notified the customers.

  One morning I came in early and found Madame Gorloge already up, roaming around the room … She pretended to be looking for something by the workbench … She was wearing a swishy dressing gown … For my money she was acting pretty weird … She comes close. She says to me:

  “Ferdinand, on your way home from your errands this evening, be a good boy and bring me a little bunch of flowers. It’ll cheer the place up …” She heaves a sigh. “Since my husband went away, I haven’t had the heart to go out.”

  She waggled her ass around the room. She was putting on a seduction act. That was plain. The door to her bedroom was wide open. I could see her bed … I didn’t bat an eyelash … I didn’t make a move … Antoine and Robert came up from the café … I didn’t breathe a word …

  That evening I brought back three peonies. That was all I could afford. There wasn’t any money left in the till. As far as I was concerned it was plenty. I knew I’d never be paid back.

  And then Antoine gets polite too, almost palsy-walsy … when only a week before he’d done nothing but yell at us … He was perfectly charming … He didn’t even want me to go out anymore, to go looking for work… .

  “Take it easy,” he said. “Stick around the shop … Watch us work, you’ll learn something … you’ll make your rounds later …”

  In spite of all our shilly-shallying the pin was finished … it came back from the polishers. It was my job to deliver it … Just then the patronne gets a letter from Gorloge … he said we shouldn’t hurry … we should keep the pin a while … wait for him to get back. He’d take it to the Chinaman himself … Meanwhile if I felt like it, I could show it to some of our customers, the ones that would appreciate it …

  Right away I began to feel worried. Everybody admired the little character, that’s a fact … He looked real good on his little throne, Sakya-Muni in solid gold … eighteen carats after all … that meant something in those days. You couldn’t have asked for anything finer
… All our neighbors came around and complimented us … and some of them were connoisseurs … It was an honor to the house … Our customer could have no cause for complaint … Gorloge was going to be away for another ten days … That left me plenty of time to show it around the shops …

  “Ferdinand,” the patronne advised me, “why don’t you leave it here at night, in your drawer? Nobody’ll touch it, you know. You can pick it up again in the morning.”

  I preferred to keep it in my pocket and take it home with me. That struck me as much more conscientious … I even fastened it with safety pins, a great big diaper pin and two little ones, one on each side … Everybody laughed. “He won’t lose it,” they said.

  The way our shop was situated, right under the tiles, it was awfully hot, even at the end of September the heat was so bad we were always drinking.

  One afternoon Antoine went off his rocker from guzzling so much. He was singing so loud you could hear him all over the court as far as the concierge’s lodge at the other end … He’d brought up some absinthe and a lot of little cakes. We all nibbled. Robert and I put all the little bottles out under the faucet on the landing to cool. We bought them on credit, whole baskets full … There was trouble though … The grocers got mean … It was crazy in a way … We’d all gone berserk, it was the hot weather and the freedom.

  The patronne joined us. Antoine sat down right beside her. We laughed to see them necking. He went looking for her garters. He lifted her skirts up. She was giggling like a goat. She was irritating as hell, you wanted to sock her … He pulled out one of her tits. She just sat there beaming. He poured out the rest of the bottle. Robert and I finished it. We licked the glass. It was better than Banyuls … In the end everybody was crocked … the frenzy of the senses … Antoine hiked up her skirts completely … at one stroke … way over her head! … He got up too and just as she was, all bundled up in her skirts, he pushed her into the bedroom. She was still laughing … She had the giggles … They closed the door behind them … She went right on cackling …