Death on the Installment Plan

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Little by little, what with living in the closest intimacy with Courtial, I really got to know his character … Way down deep it wasn’t so hot. The fact is he was pretty mean, petty, envious, and sneaky … Still, to be fair, I’ve got to admit that the work he did was a nightmare, struggling desperately, year in year out, to hold his own against that gang of raving maniacs, the Genitron‘s subscribers …

  He spent ghastly, absolutely devastating hours … in a hotbed of asininity … And he had to bear up, to defend himself, to return blow for blow, to sweep away all resistance, to make a good impression on them, so they’d all go away happy and want to come back …

  At first Courtial was reluctant to take me on. He didn’t go for the idea … He thought me a little too tall, a little too broad-shouldered, a little too husky for his shop. Even without me, you couldn’t move in all that mess … And yet I wasn’t expensive. I was being offered without pay, just for board and lodging … My parents were perfectly satisfied. I didn’t need money, they kept telling my uncle … I’d only put it to bad use … It was much more important that I shouldn’t live with them anymore … That was the unanimous opinion of the whole family, of the neighbors too, and of all our acquaintances … that I be given something to do, no matter what! that I be kept busy at any price! no matter where, no matter how! As long as I wasn’t left idle! and kept away! From one day to the next, to judge by the way I had started out, I might set the Passage on fire! That was the general sentiment …

  Of course there was always the army … My father asked nothing better … Only I still wasn’t old enough … I lacked at least eighteen months … So Pereires and his valiant Genitron came in really handy, they were a gift from heaven …

  But Courtial hesitated and shilly-shallied a good deal … He asked his wife what she thought about it. She raised no objection … Actually she didn’t give a hoot in hell, she never came to the Galerie, she stayed out in Montretout in her cottage. Before he made up his mind, I’d been to see him at least ten times all by myself … He talked abundantly … always and incessantly … I was a very good listener … My father! England! … Everywhere I’d listened … By that time I was in the habit … It didn’t bother me in the least. I didn’t need to answer. That was how I won him over … By keeping my trap shut … Finally one evening he said:

  “Well, my boy. I’ve kept you waiting quite a while, but now I’ve thought things over thoroughly. I’m going to keep you here with me. I think we’ll get along … But you mustn’t make any demands on me … Oh no! Not a sou! Not a centime! It can’t be done. I should say not. Don’t expect anything. Never expect anything. I’m already having a hell of a time making ends meet in these unpredictable times! covering the costs of the magazine, keeping the printer quiet! I’m harassed, crippled, exhausted! You understand? They dun me day and night. And surprises with the photographic plates … unforeseen expenses … It’s out of the question. This isn’t an industry … a business … some cushy monopoly … Far from it. It’s a frail skiff sailing before the wind of the spirit … And what storms, my boy, what storms! … You want to join us? Good! I take you, I welcome you! Fine! Come aboard! But I’m telling you in advance! You won’t find a single doubloon in the hold … Empty hands … little in your pocket … No bitterness … No rancor … You’ll get lunch … You’ll sleep on the mezzanine, I used to sleep there myself … in the Tunisian office … you’ll make up the couch … It’s perfectly comfortable … you’ll be marvelously at peace … Lucky boy! … Wait and see, in the evening, how pleasant, how peaceful it is! After nine o’clock the Palais-Royal is all yours! You’ll be happy, Ferdinand! … Just think of me, rain, thunder, or tempest, I still have to traipse out to Montretout! It’s abject slavery. I’m expected! Ah, let me tell you, it’s awful some days. When I see the locomotive, I’m so exasperated I could fling myself under the wheels! Ah! I restrain myself … for my wife’s sake. And a little for my experiments. My radio-telluric garden! Well, all in all, I’ve no business complaining. She’s been through a good deal. And she is charming. You’ll see Madame des Pereires one of these days. She gets so much pleasure out of her garden … It’s all hers … And she hasn’t much in her life … That and her house … And myself too, a little. I’d forgotten myself. Ha! Ha! That’s a good one. Well, we’ve joked enough. It’s settled. Splendid! Shake on it! Then we understand each other? As man to man. Fine. In the daytime you’ll run errands. You’ll have plenty of them. But don’t worry, Ferdinand, I mean to take you in hand too, to guide you, equip you, raise you to the heights of knowledge … No salary! Of course not! Not in cash, that is. But spiritual fare! Ah, Ferdinand, you don’t realize what you stand to gain. No! no! no! You’ll leave me some day, Ferdinand … inevitably …” Already there was sadness in his voice. “You’ll leave me … You’ll be rich! Yes, rich! I’m telling you!”

  He had me flabbergasted, I stood there open-mouthed.

  “You understand me, Ferdinand … Everything isn’t in a pocketbook … No! There’s nothing in a pocketbook! Nothing!”

  I was of the same opinion …

  “Well, as a starter, here’s an idea. How about giving you a title? A raison d’être! It’s indispensable in our line of business … an official label! … I’m going to put you on our stationery, on all our paper! ‘Secretary in charge of Stock.” What do you think of it? It sounds good to me … Is it all right with you? Not too pretentious? Not too vague? … OK?”

  It was all right with me … Everything was all right with me … But there wasn’t anything honorary about that title … the stock was real and it was hard work … He set me straight right away … My job was to do all the delivering with a pushcart … all the hauling to the printer’s and back … In addition I was responsible for every tear in the big balloon … I had to keep tabs on all the hardware he left lying around, the barometers, the ropes, all the little gadgets … I had to mend the rips and the big bag … patch things up with cord and glue … and attend to all the knots in the cables and guy ropes … all the tackle that broke in midair … The Enthusiast was a venerable old balloon, even down there in the cellar sprinkled with moth flakes, it was eminently given to decay … thousands of grubs feasted in the folds … luckily the rubber repelled the rats … there were tiny little mice that nibbled at the silk. I’d locate the tears in the Enthusiast, the tiniest holes, and patch them like a pair of pants … with oversewing, hems, pleats, depending on the nature of the tear … It was in pretty bad shape all over, I mended for hours on end, after a while I got really absorbed …

  At least in that cubbyhole of a gymnasium there was a little more elbowroom … And besides the customers in the shop weren’t supposed to see me …

  Some day, it was stipulated in our solemn agreement, I was to go up in the contraption, to an altitude of a thousand feet … Some Sunday … I’d be second in command … a different title … He told me that, I suppose, to make me mind my mending … The old buzzard was pretty sly under those shaggy eyebrows … He looked at me out of his mean little eyes … I was on to his game … As a soft-soap artist he had no equal … He was giving me a song and dance … But we ate pretty well in the back room … I wasn’t too unhappy … Naturally he had to take me for a ride … or he wouldn’t have been the boss.

  At about four o’clock, when I was knee-deep in my sewing, he’d look in: “Ferdinand,” he’d say, “I’m closing up … if anybody asks for me, tell them I stepped out five minutes ago. Anyway I’ll make it fast. I won’t be long.”

  Putting two and two together. I knew where he was going. He’d run down to the Insurrection, the little bar at the corner of the Passage Villedo and the rue Radziwill, for the racing results … That was the time they came out … He never told me anything definite … But I knew … When he had won, he came back whistling a Matchiche * … That wasn’t very often … When he’d lost, he’d chew on his quid and spit in all directions … He’d check up in Turf, his dope sheet, that he always left lying around … He’d mark his pon
ies with blue pencil … This was the first vice I detected in him.

  If he wasn’t too eager to take me on. it was mostly on account of the horses … He was afraid I’d blab … go noising it around the neighborhood that he played in Vincennes … that the subscribers would get wind of it. He told me so later … He lost stupendously … he wasn’t very lucky. Whether he tried a combination or bet with his eyes closed, he lost his money … Maisons, Saint-Cloud, or Chantilly, it was always the same story … A bottomless pit … All the subscription money went into the “classics”! And the dough he took in with the balloon was swallowed up in Auteuil … The Equine Race * was rolling in clover! Longchamp! La Porte! Arcueil-Cachan! Giddyap giddyup, and down the drain. I could see the cash drawer going down. There was no great mystery. Our petty cash was always running with the ponies … trotting! limping! to win! to place! to come in fourth! … simple or fancy, it made no difference … he’d never get back when he went to see about those proofs … We ate beans to try and mollify the printer … My veal stew had to last all week, and we ate on our knees with a napkin in the back of the shop … It didn’t seem so very funny to me … When he’d lost heavily, he didn’t explain, he never admitted it … But he’d get vindictive, touchy, aggressive with me … He’d abuse his power …

  After a trial period of two months, he fully realized that I’d never be happy anywhere else … that the Genitron routine was right down my alley, that it suited me fine, that anywhere else or in any other racket I’d be impossible … That was my Destiny … When he chanced to win, he’d never put anything back in the till, he got stingier than ever, like he was trying to get even … He’d have curry-combed a penny … Always sly and deceitful, worse than a dozen false bosoms … He told me such whoppers they’d stick in my craw at night … They were so steep, so crummy, so indigestible, I’d mull them over … They woke me up with a start. Sometimes he really overdid it … he’d dream up any damn thing … so as not to pay me … But when he came home from the provinces, when he’d put on a good show with his balloon and made a sensation … when they’d bowled him over with compliments … and the Enthusiast hadn’t split too many seams … there’d be an outburst of generosity … He’d spend like mad … He’d bring in piles of eats through the back door … whole baskets full … For a week we shoveled in so much we couldn’t chew anymore … our suspenders were bursting … You had to make hay while the sun was shining, because soon there’d be famine … the ragouts would begin again … we’d stretch the stew with pickles … with sardines … with little onions … And around toward rent time there’d be strictly bread soup, with or without potatoes … He at least was lucky, he’d be getting another meal in the evening with his old lady. He wouldn’t lose any weight … I wouldn’t get beans.

  From going hungry I began to wise up too … I operated with the subscriptions … The business didn’t have any regular receipts … only expenses … He knocked himself out with his bookkeeping. He had to show his wife the books. Her supervision exasperated him … It put him into a vile temper … He’d sweat for hours … Nothing but loops and zeroes …

  All the same there was one department where he never cheated me, never disappointed me, never once bluffed me or let me down. I’m referring to my scientific education … On that score he never weakened, never hesitated a second … He always came through … As long as I listened to him, he was always happy, delighted, overjoyed … He was always ready to give me an hour, two hours, and more, sometimes he’d spend whole days explaining something or other … Anything that can be understood, solved, communicated, in connection with the direction of the winds, the movements of the moon, the functioning of heating installations, the ripening of cucumbers, the reflections of the rainbow … Yes, teaching was really a consuming passion with him. He’d have liked to teach me everything in the world and from time to time play a mean trick on me! He couldn’t help it … in either case! I used to think it all over in the back room, while mending his contraption … That was his nature … he was a man who had to work off his energy … He had to throw himself wholeheartedly in one direction or another, he never did things by halves. He wasn’t boring! No, you could never accuse him of that. What I’d really have liked to do was to visit his home some day … He often spoke to me of his old lady, but he never let me see her. She never came to the office. She didn’t care for the Genitron. She must have had her reasons.

  When my mother was perfectly sure I was all set, that I wasn’t going to pick up and leave, that I had a steady job with this des Pereires, she came over to the Palais-Royal in person, to bring me some underwear … It was really a pretext … she wanted to look around, to see what the place was like … She was as curious as a titmouse, she always wanted to see, to find out about everything … What was the Genitron like? And my lodgings? Was I getting enough to eat?

  It wasn’t very far from her shop to our place … No more than a fifteen minutes’ walk … Even so, she was groaning with fatigue when she got there … She was completely bushed … I saw her in the distance … from the end of the Galerie. I was talking with a subscriber. She was leaning on the shopwindows, resting without letting on, every fifty feet she’d stop … She looked awfully thin, and besides she’d gone sallow, her eyelids and cheeks had shriveled, she was all wrinkled around the eyes. She really looked sick … She gave me my socks, my underdrawers, and my big handkerchiefs, and then right away she started talking about Papa, though I hadn’t asked … He’d feel the effects of my assault to his dying day, she sobbed. Twice already they’d brought him home from the office in a cab … He could hardly stand up … He had fainting spells all the time … He sent word that he gladly forgave me, but that he didn’t want to see me again … not for a long time … not before my military service … until my looks and mentality had changed completely … when I got back from the army …

  Courtial was just coming back from a stroll, probably to the Insurrection. Maybe he hadn’t dropped as much as usual … in any case he was extremely polite all of a sudden, as charming and friendly as he could be … delighted to meet her … And about me? Reassuring. Right away he set out to charm my mother, he asked her upstairs for a chat … in his private office … on the “Tunisian” mezzanine … She had difficulty in following him … It was a horrible corkscrew staircase and to make matters worse it was littered with piles of garbage and papers that made you skid. He was mighty proud of his “Tunisian office.” He wanted to show it to everybody. It was a devastating layout in the hyperpoky style, with “Alcazar” cabinets … You couldn’t conceive of anything crummier … And then the Moorish coffeepot, the Moroccan ottomans, the fringed shaggy carpet that stored up a whole ton of dust all by itself … Nothing had ever been done about it … not even the slightest attempt at cleaning … Anyway the heaps of printed matter, the mountains, the cataracts of proof, of type, of newsprint lying around would have mocked any effort … Actually, there’s no denying it, it would have been dangerous … To come around troubling the equilibrium would be taking a big risk … The only way was to leave it perfectly intact, to move things as little as possible … Better still, I soon found out, was to toss on new layers of litter as you went along. That gave the surface a certain freshness … a kind of gloss.

  I heard them talking … Courtial told her frankly that he had discerned in me a real aptitude for the kind of journalism that was just what the Genitron needed … reporting … technical investigation … scientific research … objective criticism … that I was sure to get ahead … that she could go home with an easy mind and sleep soundly … that the future was already smiling on me … it would be all mine as soon as I’d acquired all the essential knowledge. It was a matter of simple routine and patience … He’d gradually teach me all I needed … But all that took time … Ah yes, he had no use for haste! Thoughtless precipitation! … No use trying to force matters … to go too fast … That would be idiotic waste! Anyway, according to his song and dance, I displayed a keen desire for education!
… Moreover, I was learning to be clever with my hands. I did the little jobs that came my way to perfection … I was managing very nicely … I was getting to be as nimble as a monkey! Eager! Intelligent! Hardworking! Discreet! In short, a dream! He went on and on … It was the first time in her life that my poor mama had heard anybody speak of me in such glowing colors … She couldn’t get over it … At the end of the interview, as she was leaving, he insisted on her taking a whole book of subscription blanks to distribute at random among her connections and acquaintances … She promised to do anything he pleased. She gaped at him in bewilderment … Courtial had no shirt on, only his varnished shirt front over his flannel vest, but the vest always went way up over his collar … he took an extra large size, it formed a kind of ruff, and of course it was completely filthy … In winter he wore two of them, one on top of the other … In the summer, even during hot spells, he wore his long frock coat, his lacquered collar down a little lower, no socks, and he brought out his boater. He took meticulous care of it … It was a unique item, a real masterpiece of the sombrero type, a gift from South America, a rare weave! Impossible to match … In short, it was priceless! … From the first of June to the fifteenth of September he kept it on his head. He hardly ever took it off … except for some extra-special reason … He was sure somebody’d steal it … That was his biggest worry on Sundays, before going up in his balloon … But there was no help for it, he had to exchange it for his cap, the tall one with the braid … That was part of his uniform … He entrusted his treasure to me … But the moment he’d touched the ground, the moment he’d rolled like a rabbit into the muck and come bouncing over the furrows, that was his first cry: “Hey, my panama! Ferdinand! My panama, dammit …”

  My mother noticed the thickness of the flannel vest right off and the fine quality of the prize hat … He let her feel the weave, to give her an idea … For quite some time she was lost in admiration, exclaiming: “Oh! Ttt! Oh! Ttt! … Ah, monsieur, I can see that. It’s the kind of straw they don’t make anymore!” She was in ecstasy.