Death on the Installment Plan

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  In the end I took a good deep breath, I steeled myself. I rehearsed the stuff I had to say … a whole collection of bedtime stories … Why things had gone wrong … beginning with the preliminary tests … because of a grave disagreement among scientists on a highly controversial technical point … We’d try again next year … Well anyway, a ton of baloney … So there I go … into the fray! … Good luck, kid … First of all I was to give them back all their plans, their models, their blueprints, their cockeyed knickknacks … along with our apologies …

  I used the indirect approach … I began by asking them if they’d received my letter … announcing my visit … No? … That got a rise out of them … They thought they’d won the jackpot … If it was dinner time, they’d invite me to join them. If the whole family was there, my little mission got kind of delicate with all those people around … I needed plenty of tact … They’d had visions of gold … It was an ugly moment … After all, I had to disabuse them … That’s what I’d come for … I tried to break it gently … They’d start gulping … they couldn’t eat anymore … They’d stand up hypnotized, their eyes fixed in stupor … It was time for me to keep an eye on the cutlery … Stormy weather in the dishes! … I braced my back against the wall … I’d pick up the soup tureen for a sling … ready to block any aggressor! … I’d go on with my spiel. At the first halfway suspicious move, I’d let go! Right in the guy’s face … But in most places my resolute attitude was protection enough … it made them think twice … It didn’t end so badly … with gushing congratulations … and then, after a little wine, a chorus of sighs and belches … especially if I coughed up the ten francs! … But one time, in spite of my caution and long practice, I got a bad shellacking … It was on the rue de Charonne, I remember, Number 72 to be exact, the Hôtel is still there … This guy was a locksmith, he did his inventing in his room … believe me, I know … not on the third floor, on the fourth … If you ask me, this character’s work was assembling kits of burglar’s tools … Well, anyway, his invention for the perpetual-motion contest was a mill, something like a dynamo, with a “variable faradic” intake … The idea was to store up the energy of storms … After that it kept going from one equinox to the next …

  So I go in, I see his porter, I give him the name: “It’s on the fourth floor.” I go up, I knock … I was worn-out … fed up … I spill the beans all at once! The guy doesn’t even answer … I’d hardly looked at him … He was a heavyweight champ … I hadn’t even finished talking … Not a word! Boom! … He charges me … He rams me! … I take it in the breadbasket … I stagger … I topple backward … a wild bull! … I fall … I cascade down all three flights … They pick me up on the sidewalk … I was all over bumps … a bloody mess … They took me home in a cab … Seeing as I’d passed out, the boys had gone through my pockets … I didn’t even have my ten francs left …

  After that little collision, I was even more careful … I didn’t go into the rooms right away … I’d parley from outside the door … With complaints from the provinces we had a different method … We told them their dough had been sent by mail … that they’d be sure to get it soon … that the address had been wrong … the department … the first name … any old thing … the contest had brought such a rush of mail … In the end they got sick of corresponding in all directions … They were ruining themselves on postage …

  With the wild ones, you know where you’re at … it’s a bullfight … The only problem is jumping the fence before they gore your insides out … But with the timid, the sensitive souls that lose their grip and want to commit suicide right away … you’re in for trouble … The disappointment is too much for them … they can’t bear it … They hang their heads in their soup and start mumbling … They don’t understand … They break out in a sweat, their glasses fall off … Their faces go green, you can’t stand to look at them … Those are the sad sacks … Some of them want to end it all … They sit down, they get up again … They mop themselves off … They can’t believe their ears when you tell them their contraption didn’t work right … You’ve got to say it over again slowly, you’ve got to slip them their plans … They abandon themselves to their misery … They don’t want to live … they don’t want to breathe anymore … They collapse …

  From laying on words like poultices, I was getting pretty good at it. I knew the phrases that console … the De Profundis of hope … Sometimes after my visits we parted buddies … I gained their sympathy … Out by the Plaine Saint-Maur, I had a whole group … really enthusiastic about our studies … they appreciated what I’d done for them … From the Porte Villemomble to Vincennes I knew rafts of them … fine hands at drawing magical plans and not at all vindictive … And in the west suburbs too … In a corrugated-iron shack right after the Porte de Clignancourt … there are Portuguese living there now … I met two junk dealers who with hair, matches, a spiral spring, three violin strings, and a sleeve-joint had worked up a little compensatory system that really seemed to work … Hygrométrie power! … The whole thing fitted inside a thimble! … It was the only perpetual-motion device I ever saw that worked a little.

  It’s unusual for women to invent anything … But I met one … She was a bookkeeper for the railroad. In her leisure hours she decomposed water from the Seine with a diaper pin. She toted around a pile of equipment, a pneumatic pump, and a Ruhmkorff coil in a fish net. She had a flashlight too and a picrate battery … She recovered the essences right out of the water … and even the acids … She stationed herself for her experiments near the Pont-Marie, not far from the wash barge * … She was nuts about hydrolysis … Her build wasn’t bad … Only she had a tic and she was crosseyed … I came around one day, I said I was from the paper … First she thought like all the rest that she’d won the jackpot … She wouldn’t let me go away … she went and got me some roses! … I talked myself blue in the face … she didn’t understand … She wanted to take my picture … She had a camera that worked with infrared rays … She had to close the windows … I went back twice … She thought I was some good-looker … She wanted me to marry her right away. She kept on writing me … registered letters! … Mademoiselle Lambrisse her name was … Juliette.

  I took a hundred francs off her once … and fifty another time … But that was very exceptional …

  Jean Marin Courtial des Pereires wasn’t so cocky anymore … In fact he was downright morose … He was scared of the oddballs and lunatics from the contest … He got anonymous letters that were no joke … The meanest and crankiest of the lot threatened to come back some time sure as shooting … and knock the shit out of him … flatten him out once and for all … so he’d never be able to swindle anybody again … Avengers! … So under his frock coat, over his flannel vest, he’d taken to wearing a coat-of-mail made out of tempered aluminum … one of the Genitron’s patents that was still on our hands, “extra-light and bulletproof.” But even that didn’t reassure him completely … Any time he lamped a character that wasn’t looking too well … that didn’t seem to be entirely happy … coming in our direction with a scowl on his face, he ran straight down to the cellar … He didn’t wait for the details …

  “Open the trap, Ferdinand! Let me through quick. It’s one of them! I can tell! … Tell him I’m gone … left the day before yesterday! that I’m never coming back! … to Canada! That I’m spending the whole summer there! Hunting weasels! sables! The great hawk! Tell him I never want to see him again! Not for all the gold in the Transvaal! Tell him to go away! … evaporate! … scatter! … Blow the bastard up! … Explode him! … Christ almighty Jesus!” Hermetically sealed in the cellar, he felt a little easier in his mind. It was empty now that we’d sold what was left of the balloon, all the gadgets … He could roam around from wall to wall as he pleased … He had plenty of room … He could do his gymnastics again … In addition he’d built himself a “blockhouse” in one corner … absolutely impregnable … where he couldn’t be seen at all … in case of invasion … in among the crates
and clothes racks … He’d stay there for hours on end … That way at least he didn’t bother me … His disappearing act was all right with me … I had my hands full with the old cutie … she was spending all her time in the shop these days … She stuck like granulated glue … She was determined to run everything her way … the paper and the subscribers …

  At two in the afternoon she’d breeze in from Montretout … She’d settle down in the shop in full battle dress, with her hydrangea hat, her veil, her parasol, and her pipe. You couldn’t fool with her! She was all ready for the enemy … It gave them quite a shock when they came in and found her staring them in the face …

  “Sit down,” she’d say. “I am Madame des Pereires … I know the whole story … I wasn’t born yesterday! Speak up! I’m listening! But be brief! I haven’t a moment to lose! I’m expected at the dressmaker’s …”

  That was her routine … It threw them off almost every time … The brutal tone, the powerful voice … a little hoarse maybe, but cavernous and not easy to shout down … They’d stop and think a minute … standing there in front of the old bag … She’d lift her veil a little … They’d lamp the moustaches, the paint, the odalisque’s eyes … And then she’d frown … “Is that all?” she’d say … And they’d pull out trembling … half the time backwards … As meek as Moses … “I’ll call again, madame … I’ll call again …”

  So one afternoon she was giving her audience … She was finishing up her dish of compote on the corner of the table … it was about four o’clock … that was her afternoon snack … it was part of her diet … I remember the exact day, it was a Thursday … the fateful day when I had to go see the printer … It was very hot … The audience was drawing to a close … Madame had already bounced out a whole gang of jokers from the contest … the whole crowd of spluttering argumentative bellyachers … she’d punctured them in record time … nothing to it! … when in comes a priest … That was nothing so unusual … We knew a few … Some of them were faithful subscribers … and delightful correspondents …

  “Won’t you sit down, Father …” Right away she puts on her company manners. He appropriates the big armchair … I look him over carefully … I’d never seen the guy … Definitely a neweomer … At first sight he seemed reasonable enough … or maybe even reserved would have been the right word … Perfectly calm and well behaved … He was toting an umbrella in spite of the weather, which was conspicuously sunny … He goes and leans it in a corner … He comes back, he gives a polite little cough … He was on the pudgy side … not the least bit emaciated … We were used to freaks … Nearly all our subscribers had tics, they made terrible faces … This one seemed mighty quiet … Then suddenly he opens his mouth … the words begin pouring out … and right away I could see the lay of the land … Some tripe! He’d come to talk about a contest … He read our Genitron, he’d been buying it at the stands … for years … “I travel a good deal! yes, a good deal!” He spoke in long bursts … You had to catch his words in full flight, the sentences came out in tangled bundles … full of knots, garlands, and throwbacks … and loose ends that went on forever … In the end, though, we made out that he didn’t care for our perpetual-motion line … He didn’t even want us to mention it! On no account! It would make him very angry! He had something very different in mind … It left him no peace … He wanted us to go in with him … Take it or leave it! … If you weren’t with him you were against him! … He gave us fair warning! We should consider the consequences! Perpetual motion was out … An absurdity! A hoax! … Not for him! … His obsession was a horse of a different color … We finally found out … little by little … after thousands of circumlocutions … what was eating him … Submarine treasure! … A noble project! … The systematic salvage of all the ships that were ever wrecked … Of all the galleons and armadas lost beneath the waves since the beginning of time … of all the glitter … strewn and scattered over the bottom of the sea … Well, that was his craze in a nutshell … That’s what he’d come to see us about … He urged us to get started … there wasn’t a minute to lose … to organize a contest! a worldwide competition … for the best method … the most reliable, most efficient way of raising all those treasures … He offered us everything he had, his own little fortune, he was prepared to risk it all … He’d give us a thumping advance that would cover all our initial expenses … Naturally Madame and I were kind of leery … But he kept at it … This crazy sky pilot had his own idea, a diving bell that would go way down deep … say 6,000 feet … It would be able to crawl into the hollows … grab hold of objects … hook on to metal and disintegrate it … it would absorb safes by “special suction” … As far as he was concerned, the whole thing was perfectly simple … Our job would be to attract competitors through the paper … In that department we were supreme … unrivaled … He was trembling with impatience for us to get started … He didn’t give us time to raise the slightest objection … or even the shadow of a doubt … Plunk! He lays a wad of bills right smack on the table … Six thousand francs! … He didn’t even have time to look at them … I had them in my pocket! … Grandma Courtial let out a whistle … I decided to strike the iron … No shilly-shallying for me …

  “Stay right where you are, Father … just a second … Half a second … while I go get the director … I won’t be a minute …”

  I run down to the cellar … I yell for the old man … I hear him snoring … I head straight for his hideout … I shake him … He lets out a scream … He thinks they’ve come to arrest him … He was scared shitless … he was shaking in his boots …

  “Come on,” I say. “Get up. This is no time to swoon.” In the trickle of light under the transom I show him the lettuce … Hell, this is no time to lose your voice! … In two words I fill him in … He takes another look at the wampum … He tolds it up to the light … He looks at the mint leaves one by one … He pulls himself together quick! He yawns and stretches, he sniffs at the bills … I clean him up! I pick the straw off him … He primps up his moustaches … He’s ready. He emerges into the daylight … he makes a brilliant entrance … He had his outline all ready … absolutely eloquent and resounding! … On the subject of divers he had us dazzled in two seconds flat … He dished up the history of every system from Louis XIII to the present day! Dates and places, the first names of those precursors and martyrs … the bibliographic sources … the research that had been done at the School of Arts and Trades! … It was a dream … He had the sky pilot burping, jumping up and down with joy … His highest hopes were fulfilled … He was so delighted that just like that, in addition to his previous offer—we hadn’t asked for anything—he guaranteed us two hundred thousand … cash on the line! … for the expenses connected with the contest! … He didn’t want any skimping on the preliminary studies … the drawing up of estimates … No pettifoggery … No swindling … We agreed to everything … We wrote in our initials … we closed the deal … Now that we were all buddies, he pulled an enormous map of the ocean floor from under his soutane … So we could see right away where all the treasures were located … where all that staggering wealth had been swallowed up … twenty centuries ago or more …

  We closed up the shop … We spread out the parchment between our two chairs and the table … That treasure map was a marvel … It really made you dizzy just to look at it … Especially when you consider when this cockeyed Saviour turned up … the trouble we’d been having! And he wasn’t kidding! … All that dough hidden in the drink was exactly marked on his map … It was a sure thing … And right near the coast … with the longitude written in … It was a cinch that if we found a bell that would go down to even 2,000 feet, we’d be rolling in clover … It was in the bag … We’d have all the treasures of the Armada right in our laps … We’d only have to bend down to pick them up … Literally! Only three nautical miles off Lisbon, in the mouth of the Tagus … there was an enormous cache! … That was an easy job … for beginners … If we put some gumption into it and perfected
the technique a little, the thing would take on entirely different proportions … In three shakes of a lamb’s tail we could expect to raise the treasure of “Saar Ozimput,” swallowed up in the Persian Gulf two thousand years before Jesus Christ … Several rivers of unique gems! Necklaces! Emeralds of inconceivable splendor … worth a billion at the very least … The priest had marked the exact position of that shipwreck on his map … It had been established by hundreds of soundings made over the centuries … No mistake was possible! … Expenses aside, it was only a little question of oxy-hydrogen drills … They’d need perfecting … Well, yes, we might have a little trouble raising the treasures of the “Saar” … We thought about it all one day … And certain “imponderables” of Persian legislation had us stymied for a minute … But we had other jobs that were perfectly within our reach, accessible, pure velvet … in more clement seas, absolutely free of sharks! We had the divers to think of! Gracious! No tragedies, please!