North (3 page)

Exactly the same croupiers as in Monte Carlo . . . so-called deportees . . . pomaded hair, the same . . . hooked noses, the same . . . dinner jackets, sewn pockets . . . same as in Ostend, Zoppot, Enghien . . . voices like velvet guillotines . . .
"faites vos jeux"
. . . nothing new except the rehabilitation of the basket cases by specialists from Monaco . . . the Great Reich thought of everything . . . people find fault with it now! Sure! . . . think of the stories they tell nowadays about the Gauls, Louis XIV, even Félix Faute! . . . the defeated are always scum! . . . I know it . . . I know it well . . .

In the old chronicles wars are called by a different name: the travels of the nations ° . . . the term is still perfectly apt, in June 1940, for instance, the French people and the French Army simply traveled from Berg-op-Zoom to the Pyrenees . . . people and armies with the shit coming out of their asses . . . in the Pyrenees they all got together again . . . Fritzes and French! . . . fought no more, drank, sat down, fell asleep . . . journey ended! . . . and I bring you back to Baden-Baden . . . disorder, the bric-a-brac of ideas! . . . why had I left Montmartre? fear of being torn limb from limb on Avenue Junot four years later . . . ah, what inglorious confessions! All my friends and relatives expected me to be skinned alive, every last one of them waiting to dash in and walk off with my furniture, divide up my sheets, and sell the rest. . . Which, Od's blood, is exactly what they did! No comeback, I'd asked for it . . . I'd crucified myself for those people! . . . sweet Jesus is dying every day ten thousand years later! . . . a lesson that hasn't been wasted on everybody! Look at the highways: all those motorized floozies, full of caviar, diamonds, vacations . . . not a fart's worth of self-sacrifice!

The French Army, while we're on the subject, did its galloping diarrhea from Berg-op-Zoom to Bayonne in 1940 . . . we, Lili, me, Bébert, and Le Vigan ° in '44 . . . from rue Girar-don to Baden-Baden . . . to each his shitless epic! Condemned to death, little Tintin ° hopped a plane for Lourdes to save his honor and skin . . . I'm not going to regale you with "parallel lives" . . . Tintin's one thing I'm another . . . his chronicle "brought in billions! . . . mine, you can imagine, a couple of hundred francs . . . Tintin's statues are all over the place, they won't dare to engrave my name on my tomb . . . take my mother in Père-Lachaise, they've purged her tomb, rubbed out our name . . . that's what comes of not running to the right place at the right time . . . in La Rochelle I had to resist the French Army that wanted to buy my ambulance! It wasn't mine! me, the soul of honesty, nobody can buy anything from mel the ambulance belonged to my dispensary in Sartrouville . . . you can imagine . . . I took the lousy bus back where it came from! and the two grandmothers, my passengers, with their bottles of wine, and three newborn babies . . . the whole shebang in perfect condition! Did anybody show me the slightest gratitude? Hell no! Abominations, that's all I got . . . enough to fill a penitentiary! Twenty Landrus, Petiots, ° and Fualdèses! ". . . if I'd sold the ambulance for the price they offered me, with the babies, nurses, and old women, I'd be a hero of the Resistance today, with a statue as big as a house! Once the hue and cry starts up, ah my forefathers! . . . there's not a crime you haven't, committed! you're not sticking that neck out far enough . . . how do you expect them to slice your lousy carotids?. . . coward! . . . shout the millions in the grandstand! . . . and all because of my pretentious pride, wanting to bring that jalopy back where it came from! . . . because it belonged in Sartrouville! vanity! . . . if I'd let the Fritzes have it or the Franzouskis or the Fifis, anybody, if I'd left it at the public baths, they all wanted to buy it, grandmothers, nurses, babies, and all! I'd be a happy and respected man of property, not an old tramp in the shit . . .

A slight consolation perhaps, every morning in the
Figaro
the obits, the departures . . . "in his château of Aulnoy-les-Topines Grand Commander Chickenbelly has bought his ticket . . . Before calling on the notary the bereaved family wishes to thank you . . . for your affectionate condolences . . . etc . . . "

There are reasons for my subscription to the
Figaro
. . . . . mostly the "Chronicle of the Fates" . . . I've seen the passing of characters who'd been really looking forward to eating the inside of my skull . . . worms and all, the arrogant jerks! . . . Greetings to the bereaved family! . . . left with Aulnoy-les-Topines on their hands . . . its forests and château . . . keep after that notary!

It's perfectly possible that in a year . . . two years? . . . this whole valley of the Oos will be nothing but a trickle of atoms . . . which makes it worth talking about . . . No order in my story? . . . you'll get your bearings . . . no head nor tail? . . . dammit! I left you at the Hotel Stern without giving you the key . . . I didn't have time . . . just a few words about those pregnant women . . . oh well! . . . the whole book is at Gallimard's and they don't give a shit either! reminiscences and memoirs! . . . the one thing that gets a rise out of them is vacation! I'll take you back to the pregnant women . . . anyway I hope so . . . our first stop after Paris was definitely Baden-Baden . . . and I haven't told you about it . . . like I was ashamed almost . . . but it's no more shameful than Marble Arch or Times Square! . . . the Medway or the banks of the Oos . . . Lichtenthalallee! . . . the promenade of Europe's creamiest cream . . . anyway the same people as in Evian or Bath . . . that's right, matter of luck! . . . the wheel turns, the stakes are down! . . . Has luck frowned on you? . . . scum of the Universe! You've won? . . . the world is yours . . . the streets bear your name! . . . chancelleries . . . every one of them . . . waiting in line to lick your ass! . . . The "Everything Goes" Casino of History has a roulette wheel that means business, that doesn't give a shit if you're right, a thousand times right! . . . cheat . . . phony chips . . . you're in! who cares! . . . If your number comes up, the world will adore you! . . . our chips looked pretty rotten to us . . . I asked Madame von Dopf . . . strolling on Lichtenthalallee . . . along the Oos, that murmuring gurgling little river, sparkling all colors . . . why they'd'put us there . . . people unfit to be seen . . . in this setting? in this hotel?

"Oh, never fear, Monsieur Céline, they've got some idea . . . you'll see, the great disaster will develop according to plan . . . the armies of the Reich are leaving Russia according to a plan! . . . ten thousand dead per kilometer . . . as for France, I can't say . . . not yet . . . but there too it will surely be so many per kilometer . . . Prince Metternich was telling me only yesterday, reprisals in Paris, already . . . Take care, Monsieur Céline, our madmen are extremely devious and chivalrous and methodical . . . isn't that a baroque mixture? . . . you'll see! . . . Baroque art is a German art . . . typical, don't you think? . . . typical! . . . they take their time, you'll see, Monsieur Céline, you'll see it all . . . take my own house in Potsdam, I haven't the slightest doubt that I was bombed by the Luftwaffe! not by the RAF, not at all! . . . by order of the madman, to do away with me and my house and my husband's papers! . . . at the stroke of noon they came, at lunch time . . . I'd gone to see my daughter in Grünwald . . . my house isn't there any more! . . . a detachment from the Chancellery came to search the ruins! they didn't find a thing . . . I owe my life to Prince Metternich, he called for me at eleven o'clock . . . and now Baden-Baden . . . to think that when my husband was still alive we were thinking of buying here . . . a villa . . . there's fate for you! . . . I too wonder why they've put us here, all of us together . . . or rather, I don't wonder . . . you must have noticed . . . those bombs that fall . . . not far from the hotel . . . just at lunch time . . . so regularly that people have stopped being afraid . . . they get used to it . . . they don't believe in it any more . . . If you can get away from the Simplon, go, Monsieur Céline! . . . the Hotel Simplon is asleep and its guests . . . under a spell! . . . only a bomb can wake them! . . . I'm joking, Monsieur Céline . . . to tell the truth, this valley is a paradise . . . nowhere in the world such trees, such groves . . . perhaps at Tsar-skoïe-Selo? . . . and the willows hanging over the Oos . . . not leaves but tears of gold and silver . . . an enchantment, you can't deny it . . . and so many birds . . ."

"Marvelous, Madame von Dopf!"

"In the days of Max of Baden we may have had more nests . . . there was a Society, for the birds of Lichtenthal. . . they had their sanctuary, planted with chickenweed and hemp-seed . . . and for migratory birds another sanctuary in the rocks . . . in those days they took care of everything . . ."

I wasn't going to point out to her that if die birds were squawking all around us it~Was because of Bébert, who stuck right with us, the faithful torn! . . . he followed at our heels. . . thinking of titmice, warblers, and robins . . . he and the birds understood each other, in a certain way . . .

I've been talking a lot about Madame von Dopf, I haven't shown her to you . . . an elderly lady, slight and frail, dressed in violet satin . . . half-mourning . . . oh, but not sad! always ready to laugh . . . not the least dismayed by the things that were happening . . . they gave her a kick . . . "Jewels I hadn't worn since I went into mourning" . . . she wore them all . . . three necklaces, rings, beautiful bracelets . . . "A showcase, Monsieur Céline, a showcase! . . . all that was left of my house! . . . I'm ridiculous, aren't I? . . . a young woman dresses to please, an old woman to look rich, you've got to be rich or go under! . . . My nieces now . . . they came to see me in Potsdam . . . they were going to be married soon . . . my house was enormous, too big, four stories, my husband's offices, much too big for me . . . I was thinking of coming here to end my days . . . I'd have given them my house . . . Hitler solved that problem . . . It's too comical!. . . where are my nieces now, I wonder? . . . I'll probably never see them again . . . and where do you think I shall end? . . . at the Hotel Simplon? . . . under another bomb? Oh, certainly not in the Oos! . . . nobody has ever succeeded in drowning himself in the Oos! . . . not a single gambler . . . not even the unluckiest! . . . at Monte Carlo everybody can drown himself! the sea is right there . . . here the Oos is made to order for the Casino! . . . it laps and gurgles but never drowns anybody, never! . . . do you hear it? . . . an amusing detail, Monsieur Céline: the gurgling can be regulated, it varies with the time of day and the weather . . . regulated by a maiden lady employed by the Casino and the Society of Springs and Fountains . . . the Oos must neither splash nor disturb nor drown . . . it must charm! . . . the Valley authorities think of everything . . . everything here must be as in a dream . . . you can see for yourself . . ."

That didn't exactly apply to us . . . for my money our life was no dream . . . extra-crummy reality! . . . like now in '59 . . . the bourgeoisie try so hard to think they're still living in 1900 . . . stupid masquerade! . . . yes, you can't deny it, certain attractions, old-time plush, all so cushioned and reassuring . . . Gypsy serenades for centuries and centuries of debauchery . . . but for us branded beasts, don't make me laugh! you seldom see animals enjoying themselves in front of the slaughter-bouse . . . a cute monument even so! worth looking at even for us hunted animals! Russian church . . . five cupolas, enormous gold onions against the blue sky . . . quite an effect, you say. . . .' oh yes! oh, what a dazzling prayer! . . . the pope is there, waiting . . . waiting for the tsars to come back . . . or some grand duke at least . . . two have turned up since 1917 . . . donors neither one . . . came to borrow icons . . . to exhibit them in Rome . . . . the pope never saw them again . . . this pope lived at the Simplon too, in the kitchen! . . . he was part of the Valley . . . pending better days the authorities put him up at the hotel . . . he showed people through the church now and then . . . Uli, me, Bébert, and Madame von Dopf got him to talk a litle . . . before going on to the"rose garden" . . . that's where the promenade ended . . . ever since the Romans . . . the first Baths . . . it's ended there . . . you must rest a while . . . the "rose garden" wants no tramps! no goof-off bottle washers . . . no picnickers! . . . the "rose garden" is open only to the better class of strollers . . . the flowers have been there since Tiberius . . .