North by Louis-Ferdinand Céline Page B

supposedly for a "veterinary examination" . . . and you never see your cat again! . . . the SS take them away and tear their eyes out . . ."
    Now we know . . . I thank her . . . we'll be careful at the hotels! . . . Bébert is neither reproductive nor pedigreed . . . still, we've got a passport for him . . . I had him examined at the Hotel Crillon . . . by a colonel-veterinary of the German Army . . . "the cat known as Bébert, belonging to Dr. Destouches, 4 rue Girardon, seems to be free from all contagious disease" (photograph of Bébert) . . . the colonel-veterinary hadn't said a word about any pedigree . . . well, we'd see at the police . . . All very well to daydream and chat, but what about our visa? . . . oh, it comes back to me! . . . nobody'll take us in if our passports aren't in order . . . Schulze had warned us . . . "go straight to the police!"
    "Okay, lets go!"
    We'd been taking it easy . . . I ask the first schupo . . . on the other side of the bridge . . . . "the visa, office?" . . . Not far . . . he points out two three shacks between the Museum and the streetcar . . . okay! . . . we go that way . . . a sign . . . "displaced persons" or some such . . . further on we see, we hear, every conceivable lingo . . . children, grandparents, girls . . . you'd expect a free-for-all . . . actually there's a kind of order, everything according to signs . . . like the bricks . . . here the "Balkans" . . . there "Russia" . . . farther on "Italy" . . . we Franzosen way at the end . . . we go . . . we knock on a door . . . there's a short line . . . herein! here we are! . . . the trick is catching the attention of the man at the typewriter . . . there's about twenty of us standing over him . . . and answering the other people's questions . . . we're altruists, answers for all . . . the problems of the whole line . . . people from Noirmoutiers . . . Gargan . . . Marly . . . Villetaneuse . . . they can't speak German . . . we've got to answer for them . . . we don't give the man at the typewriter time to ask any questions . . . we ask him . . . and we answer all at once . . . each for all . . . what we want, his signature and stamp! he tries to tell us what he wants . . . papers! Our papers! . . . hell! we got plenty of papers! papers to sell! our gamebags and pants are full of them! . . . what does he want 'em for, the jerk? . . . I look at all the papers, certificates, and booklets I'm toting around . . . when you reach a certain age it's horrible . . . enough to disgust you with life . . . all the certificates, photostats, baptismal records, tax receipts you've accumulated . . . triplicate, duplicate! . . . another pen-pusher turns up . . . wants our photographs . . . we got plenty! . . . especially Le Vigan!. . . the best stills from his latest film . . . the bureaucrat looks us up and down . . . compares our mugs . . . not satisfied, far from it! . . . That you? . . . never!" . . . Neither me nor Lili nor Le Vigan! "No likeness!". . . Hell, we know it's us and not somebody else!
    "Ach! . . . nein! . . . nein!"
    The nerve of that pen-pusher! . . . haven't changed very much! . . . he's blind! in such a hurry! who does he think he's kidding? . . . I look, I compare . . . sure, we look tired . . . we've lost weight, but that's all! . . . what does he take us for? . . . parachutists? . . . saboteurs? . . . their newspapers are full of that stuff! . . . anyway one thing's for sure, he wants different pictures . . . new photos . . . which means that Photomaton joint. . . across the Spree, you can see it from here, that red and yellow shack . . .
    "He's crazy!"
    Or maybe . . . definitely . . . he's in cahoots with the joint . . . anyway he's got a thing about photos, never sees a likeness . . . that couple over there, for instance . . . nice-looking gentleman with a goatee and his wife in tears . . . they'd come to Berlin to see their son at the hospital . . . the "Charité ° . . . wounded on the East Front . . . that nut with