Kaputt

by Curzio Malaparte

  Meanwhile, as if to work free of the sad spell of that voice and of the pictures that were called up by it, I raised my eyes and looked across the trees in the park at the Stockholm houses, ash-colored in the tired glow of the sunset. I saw a blue sky slowly darkened by the night, similar to the Paris sky, looking down on the Royal Palace far away and on the churches of the Garnie Stade—that Proustian sky of papier gros bleu—blue wrapping paper—which I used to see from the windows of my Paris house in Place Dauphine over the roofs of the rive Gauche, over the spire of the Sainte Chapelle, over the bridges on the Seine, and over the Louvre; and those dull purples, those fiery pinks, those gray-blue hues of the clouds delicately attuned with the shaded black of the slate roofs, were sweetly gripping my heart. I thought then that perhaps Prince Eugene was also a character du côté de Guermantes. Peut-être un de ces personnages qu'évoque le nom d'Elstir.— Perhaps one of those types that remind you of Elstir. I was just going to ask him the question that had been surging to my lips for some moments. I was just going to ask him with a tremor in my voice to speak to me of her, of Madame de Guermantes, when Prince Eugene fell silent, and after a long silence during which he seemed to gather the pictures of his youth behind the screen of his lowered lids, as if to protect them, he asked whether I had ever been back to Paris during the war.

  I would have preferred not to answer. I felt a sort of painful reluctance; I should not have liked to talk to him of Paris, of my own young Paris, and I shook my head. I kept slowly shaking my head, gazing at him. Then I said, "No, I have not been back to Paris during the war. I do not wish to return to Paris while the war lasts."

  The painful and beloved pictures of a younger Paris, more troublous perhaps, more restless and sad were gradually superimposing themselves on the faraway pictures of the Paris of Prince Eugene and Madame de Guermantes. As faces of passers-by loom out of the mist outside the windows of a café, there rose in my memory the faces of Albertine, Odette, and Robert de Saint Loup, the shadows of young men with brows marked with drink, lack of sleep and lust—who may be found behind the shoulders of Swann and M. de Charlus, in the characters of Apollinaire, Matisse, Picasso, Hemingway and Paul Eluard's gray-blue ghosts.

  "I have seen German soldiers in every town in Europe," I said. "I do not want to see them in Paris."

  Prince Eugene dropped his head on his chest and said in a distant voice: "Alas, Paris!"

  Suddenly he raised his face, crossed the room and approached the portrait of Friherrina Celsing. Leaning from the balcony, the young woman looks down on the avenue damp with autumn rain. She looks on the cab-horse and the bus-horses swinging their heads beneath the green trees already parched by the first autumn fire. Prince Eugene placed his hand on the canvas, stroked with his long pale fingers the house fronts, the sky above the roofs and the leaves; he caressed that Paris air, that Paris color, those pink, gray, green and blue hues, all slightly faded—that pure and transparent Paris light. He turned and looked at me with a smile. And I saw that his eyes were wet with tears, that a tear was slowly rolling down his cheek. Prince Eugene brushed away the tear with an impatient movement and said, smiling, "Please don't say anything to Axel Munthe. He is an old rascal. He would tell everybody that he has seen me weep."

  II. Horse Kingdom

  DAYLIGHT was beginning to lose its youth after the ghostlike endlessness of a pellucid summer day, without dawn or sunset. Already the face of the day was growing wrinkled, and little by little the evening was darkening the first, still-luminous shadows. Trees, rocks, houses and clouds sweeter and more intense in their foreboding of the coming night were slowly melting into the mellow autumnal landscape, as in those landscapes of Elias Martin.

  Suddenly I heard the Tivoli horses neighing, and I said to Prince Eugene: "It's the voice of the dead mare of Alexandrovska, in the Ukraine—the voice of the dead mare."...

  Evening was already falling; occasional rifle shots of the partisans were piercing the vast red flag of sunset fluttering in the dusty wind far away on the horizon. I had arrived within a few miles of Nemirovskoye, near Balta, in the Ukraine. It was the summer of 1941. I meant to push on to Nemirovskoye to spend the night in safety. But it was dark already and I preferred to stop in an abandoned village, lying in one of those valleys that cut the vast plain from north to south, between the Dniester and the Dnieper.

  The village was called Alexandrovska. In Russia the villages are all alike, as are their names. There are many villages called Alexandrovska in the Balta region. There is one in the west of Balta, some seventeen miles away. Another, eleven miles to the south. A third one, west of Federimova, on the road to Odessa, where the electric railway passes. And a fourth one, some nine miles north of Federimova. The one where I had stopped to spend the night, lay close to Nemirovskoye, along the Kodima river.

  I had left my car, an old Ford, at the roadside, close to a fence surrounding the orchard of a prosperous-looking house. Next to the wooden gate was stretched out the dead body of a horse. I lingered a moment looking at the carrion; it was a beautiful mare, a dark bay with a long yellow mane. It lay on its side, its hind legs sunk in a puddle. I pushed the gate open, crossed the orchard and leaned on the house door that opened with a squeak. The house had been abandoned; the floors were littered with scattered papers, straw, newspapers and clothes. The drawers were pulled half open, the cupboards ajar, the beds unmade. It was certainly no peasant's home. Perhaps it belonged to a Jew. In the room I chose, the mattress on the bed had been ripped open. The windowpanes were intact. It was very hot. A thunderstorm, I thought, as I closed the window.

  Night had fallen and the large, black, golden-lashed eyes of the sunflowers shone in the faint light. They gazed at me swaying their heads in the wind, already damp with the far-off rain. Romanian cavalrymen walked along the road leading their horses after watering them—fine full-hipped horses with yellow manes. The sand-colored uniforms stained the shadows with yellowish spots,- they seemed like large insects entangled in the thick and sticky air of the coming storm. The yellow horses followed them, raising a cloud of dust.

  There was still some bread and cheese in my knapsack, and walking up and down the room, I began eating. I had taken off my boots and barefooted I paced the packed-down, earthen floor along which columns of large black ants were marching. I felt the ants crawling over my feet, squeezing between my toes, climbing upward to explore my ankles. I was dead tired; I could not even chew, my jaws were so heavy and my teeth were so tender from fatigue. Finally, I threw myself on the bed and closed my eyes but I could not sleep. Once in a while close by or far away a shot pierced the night. They were shots fired by the partisans concealed amid the wheat and the sunflower forests that cover the vast Ukrainian plain toward Kiev, toward Odessa. And as the night grew thicker, the stench of carrion merged with the smell of grass and sunflowers. I could not sleep. I lay stretched out on the bed with my eyes shut and I could not fall asleep, my bones were too sore from fatigue.

  Suddenly the stench of the dead mare penetrated the room; it stopped on the threshold. It looked at me. I felt that the smell was gazing at me. Half asleep, I thought, it's the dead mare. The air was as heavy as a woolen blanket, the impending storm crushed the thatched roofs of the village. It rested its heavy load on the trees, the wheat and the dust on the road. Now and again the noise of the river sounded like bare feet shuffling through the grass. The night was as black, thick and clammy as black honey. It's the dead mare, I thought.

  The squeaking of cart wheels across the fields, of those four-wheeled Romanian and Ukrainian carutza, drawn by little lean, hairy horses that follow the armies with loads of ammunition, clothes and arms along the endless Ukrainian tracks—the squeaking of these cart wheels reached me from across the fields. I thought the dead mare had dragged itself to the threshold and that it was gazing at me. I cannot say how I came to believe this. I was dead tired, drugged with sleep. I could not rid myself of these thoughts. It was as if the heat and the stench of carrion had fill
ed my room with black slimy mud into which I was slowly sinking, and my struggles were growing more and more feeble. I cannot say how I came to think that the mare was not dead, only wounded, its wounds festering; that it was already rotting and still alive, like those prisoners whom Tartars tie to corpses, stomach to stomach, face to face, mouth to mouth, until the corpse devours the living. That stench was there at the door, and it was gazing at me.

  I felt all of a sudden that it was approaching, getting slowly closer to my bed. "Off—off with you!" I shouted in Romanian. "Merge! Merge!" Then it occurred to me that perhaps the mare was Russian, and I shouted: "Poshol! Poshol!" The stench halted. A moment later it began getting closer to my bed again. Then I became frightened. I clutched the automatic that I had shoved under the mattress, and sitting up suddenly, I turned on my flashlight. The room was empty,- nothing was on the threshold. I jumped out of my bed and barefooted approached the door. I looked outside. The night was empty. I went out into the orchard. The sunflowers were bending mildly with the wind; the storm weighed down upon the horizon. It looked like an enormous, painfully breathing black lung. Swollen and empty like an enormous lung. I saw the sky expand and contract; I saw it breathe like a huge lung, its network of veins and bronchial tubes for a moment lighted by the sulphurous flashes of lightning. I pushed the little wooden gate open and went into the road. The carrion lay there, sideways in the puddle, its head resting on the dusty edge of the road. Its wrinkled belly was swollen. Its wide-open eye shone damp and round. Its dusty yellow mane, smeared and clotted with blood and mud, stood rigidly erect, like the manes on the helmets of ancient warriors. I sat on the roadside, my shoulders resting against the fence. A black bird flew by in slow silent flight. Soon it would rain. Invisible gusts of wind rushed through the sky, dust clouds ran along the road with a long soft hiss; particles of dirt clawed at my face and lashes, and crawled through my hair like ants. Soon it would rain. I went back into the house and stretched out on the bed. My arms and my legs ached. I was dripping with sweat. And suddenly I fell asleep.

  And then the carrion stench came in again. It stopped on the threshold. I was not quite awake; my eyes were still shut and I felt that the stench was gazing at me. It was now a soft and greasy stench; a thick, slimy, deep smell, a yellow smell, stained with green. I opened my eyes. It was sunrise. The room was enveloped in a spider web of uncertain whitish light. Things grew slowly out of the shadows, so slowly they became distorted and twisted like things pulled out of the neck of a bottle. A cupboard stood against the wall between the door and the window, the hangers dangled— empty, swaying. The wind made the window curtains flutter— there were heaps of paper, dirty rags, cigarette butts on the earthen floor, and the papers rustled in the wind.

  Suddenly the stench came in, and on the threshold stood a young foal. It was lean and hairy. It stank of decay, of carrion. It gazed fixedly at me and snorted. It came close to the bed, stretched its neck and sniffed at me. It stank horribly. As I started to get out of bed, it turned suddenly, knocked its side against the cupboard, and fled, neighing with fright. I drew on my boots and followed it out on the road. The foal was stretched alongside the dead mare. It gazed at me fixedly. "Asculta!—Listen here!" I called out to a passing Romanian soldier carrying a pail of water. I told him to take care of the foal.

  "It was foaled by the dead mare," said the soldier.

  "Yes," I replied, "it was foaled by the dead mare."

  The little foal was gazing fixedly at me, rubbing its back against the side of the carcass. The soldier approached and began stroking the foal's neck.

  "It must be taken away from its mother. If it stays here, it will end by rotting. It can be your squadron's mascot," I said.

  "Yes," said the soldier. "Yes, poor beast. It will bring luck to our squadron." Saying this he took off his trouser belt and looped it around the foal's neck. At first the foal did not want to get up, then it leaped up and backed, neighing and twisting its neck toward the dead mare. The soldier dragged it toward the camp in the woods. I stood watching it for a while; then I pulled open the door of my car and started the motor. I had forgotten my knapsack. I went back to the house, took my sack and kicking the door shut, I climbed into my car and drove off to Nemirovskoye.

  In the whitish light of dawn the river had a strange glitter. The sky was overcast; it looked like a winter sky. The wind blew along the river. Thick reddish clouds of dust passed low on the horizon like clouds escaping from a fire. Water birds among the reeds along the banks croaked raucously; flocks of wild ducks rose into flight, beating their wings slowly above the water, through thickets of willows shivering in the biting cold of the morning. And everywhere hung that smell of things rotting, of decomposing matter.

  From time to time, I passed long rows of Romanian army carts. The soldiers walked ahead of their horses chattering aloud among themselves and laughing, or they slept stretched out on sacks of bread, ammunition boxes, bundles of spades and hoes. And that odor of rotting things rose from everywhere. Sometimes along the banks of the river and on the sandbars emerging from it, the reeds and willows began to sway as if some wild beast at the approach of men had hidden among them. The soldiers shouting "Mice! Mice!" unslung their rifles and shot into the reeds, out of which women, disheveled girls, men dressed in long coats, and small boys came rushing hither and yon, stumbling, falling and getting up again. They were Jews from the neighboring villages who had escaped and who had taken cover among the reeds and willows.

  Farther along on a marshy stretch between the road and the river, a Soviet armored car lay overturned. The gun stuck out of the conning tower, the trap door was open and twisted by the explosion,- inside, amid the mud that had filled the car, was a man's arm. It was a carcass of an armored car. It stank of oil and petrol, of burnt paint, of gutted leather and scorched iron. It was a strange odor. A new odor. The new odor of the new war. I felt sorry for that armored car, but sorry in a different way than I had felt at the sight of the dead horse. It was a dead machine. A rotting machine. It had already begun to stink. It was iron carrion, overturned in the mud.

  I stopped and went down to the side of the mudhole, close to the armored car. I grasped the arm of the tankman and tried to pull him out. I pulled with all my strength until I felt the arm yielding and saw a head gradually emerging from the mud. It was a mud ball. I wiped the face with my hand. I clawed with my nails at that mass of filth, and a small gray face with black lashes and black eyes appeared under the palm of my hand. It was a Tartar, a Tartar tankman. I began pulling once more to draw him out of the car, but soon gave up; the mud was stronger. I climbed into my car and drove off toward a cloud of smoke that rose from the plain, on the edge of a huge blue forest.

  Meanwhile the sun was coming up from the horizon of green, and gradually the hoarse call of the birds was becoming shriller and more lively. The sun seemed to beat down hammer-like on the cast-iron plate of the lagoons. A shiver ran along the water with a kind of metallic vibration and spread to the surface of the pools, just as the sound of a violin spreads like a shiver along the arms of a musician. By the roadside, and here and there in the cornfields, were overturned cars, burned trucks, disemboweled armored cars, abandoned guns, all twisted by explosions. But nowhere a man, nothing living, not even a corpse, not even any carrion. For miles and miles around there was only dead iron. Dead bodies of machines, hundreds upon hundreds of miserable steel carcasses. The stench of putrifying iron rose from the fields and the lagoons. The cockpit of a plane was sticking up from the mud in the middle of a pool. The German cross was clearly discernible: it was a Messerschmitt. The smell of rotting iron won over the smell of men and horses—that smell of old wars,- even the smell of grain and the penetrating, sweet scent of sunflowers vanished amid that sour stench of scorched iron, rotting steel, dead machinery. The clouds of dust lifted by the wind from the far ends of the vast plain carried no smell of organic matter with them but a smell of iron filing. And all the time, while I was pushing into the he
art of the plain and approached Nemirovskoye, the smell of iron and of petrol grew stronger in the dusty air,- even the grass seemed to be permeated with that undefinable, strong and exhilarating smell of gasoline, as if the smell of men and beasts, the smell of trees, of grass and mud was overcome by that odor of gasoline and scorched iron.