Kaputt

by Curzio Malaparte

  I was forced to stop some miles from Nemirovskoye. A German Feldgendarme—a field policeman—with his glittering brass plate like some knightly order hanging on a chain from his neck, commanded me to stop. "Verboten!—Prohibited!" It was impossible to go ahead. "Nein! Nein! Nein!" I drove along a side road, a kind of cart track; I meant to get as close as possible to Nemirovskoye, so I could see the Russian "bulge" that the Germans had encountered on their way, and were now attacking on all sides. Fields, ditches, villages, the kolkhoz—the collective farms—were all full of German troops. And everywhere verboten. Everywhere zurück—turn back. Toward sunset I made up my mind to go back. It was useless to lose time and to try to get through. Much better to turn back toward Balta and edge northward toward Kiev.

  I drove on and stopped after a long stretch in an abandoned village where I ate a little of my dry bread and cheese. Most houses had been destroyed by fire. From the southwest came the roar of guns at my back. Yes, literally at my back. A large hammer and sickle were painted on the front of a house. Entering I saw that it was a Soviet office. A huge portrait of Stalin was pasted on the wall. Some Romanian soldiers had penciled: "Aiurea!" under that portrait, which means "Oh, yeah!"

  I sat down on a writing desk cluttered with papers: the floor also was covered with papers, rags, books and propaganda pamphlets. And I thought of the dead mare stretched in front of the house where I had spent the night in the village of Alexandrovska; I thought of the poor, lonely carrion lying on the side of the road, in the midst of the crowd of dead machines and steel carcasses. I thought of the poor, lonely stench of the dead mare overcome by the smell of scorched iron, gasoline, rotting steel, of the new smell of this new war of machinery. I thought of the soldiers in War and Peace, of the Russian roads along which Russian and French bodies and carcasses of horses were scattered. I thought of the odor of dead men, dead beasts, of the soldiers in War and Peace who were left alive by the roadside to the rapacious beaks of the crows. I thought of the Tartar horsemen armed with bows and arrows, the horsemen of the Amur river, whom Napoleon's soldiers called les Amours—those tireless fleet, merciless Tartar horsemen, speeding out of the woods and flaying the enemy stragglers, that ancient and noble race of horsemen who were born and lived with horses, fed on horse flesh and mare's milk, dressed in horses' skins, slept under tents made out of horsehides, and were buried in deep graves astride their horses.

  I thought of the Tartars in the Red Army, who are the best mechanical workers in the U.S.S.R., the best Storm Troopers among workers, the best udarniki—"shock" workers—and stakhanovtzi{2} —the spearheads of the "attacking squads" of the Soviet heavy industry. I thought of the Tartars in the Red Army who are the best drivers of tanks, the best engineers in the armored divisions and in the Flying Corps. I thought of the young Tartars whom three five-year plans have transformed from horsemen into industrial workers, from horse-breeders into udarniki in the iron works of Stalingrad, of Kharkov and of Magnitogorsk.

  "Aiurea!" meaning "Oh yeah!" was penciled in Romanian beneath Stalin's portrait. Undoubtedly it had been written by some poor Romanian peasant, who had never examined a machine, who had never touched a screw, or loosened a bolt, or taken an engine apart—some poor Romanian peasant whom Marshal Antonescu—the "Red Dog" as his officers call him—had driven into that war of peasants against the huge army of engineering workers of the U.S.S.R.

  I reached for Stalin's picture and began to tear off the section of the poster with the word "Aiurea!" Just then I heard footsteps in the yard. I went to the door and some Romanian soldiers who were there asked me the time. "Six o'clock," I answered. They said "Multzumesc" which means "thanks" and invited me to have a cup of tea with them. I said "Multzumesc" and following them through the village, shortly reached a partially wrecked house where five or six more soldiers welcomed me warmly, asked me to have a seat, and offered me a cup of tea and a bowl of ciorba de pui—the Romanian chicken soup.

  I said "Multzumesc." We began to talk and the soldiers told me that they were a liaison post in the village, that their division was some ten miles farther on, to the right. There was not a living soul in that village. The Germans had passed through it ahead of the Romanians.

  "The Germans," said one of those soldiers in a deep voice, and all the others laughed.

  "The Germans went through here before we did," another soldier repeated as if apologizing. They laughed softly while eating the ciorba de pui.

  "Aiurea!" said I.

  "It is quite true," said one of them who was a corporal, "the Germans passed through here ahead of us. It is quite true."

  "Aiurea!" said I.

  "Domnule—Sir—Capitan," said the corporal, "if you don't believe me, ask the prisoner. We do not destroy villages; we do not harm the peasants. We only have it in for the Jews. It's quite true. You, there, asculta!—listen here!" he shouted turning toward the corner of the room. "Isn't it true that the Germans passed through here ahead of us?"

  I turned toward the dark corner and saw a man sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. He was dressed in khaki; a yellow service cap sat on his shorn head. He was barefoot. A Tartar. He had a small lean face, the gray, shiny skin was tightly drawn over his prominent cheekbones; his eyes were fixed, black, perhaps veiled with hunger and fatigue. Motionless, he gazed at me with those veiled eyes of his. He did not reply to the corporal's question; he kept gazing at me.

  "Where did you capture him?" I inquired.

  "He was inside the armored car left in the square. There was something wrong with the motor, and the tank couldn't budge, but it kept on firing. The Germans were in a hurry and went off leaving us to deal with it. There were two men inside. They went on shooting till the very end. One of them was dead. We had to force the trap door open with a jimmy. He refused to surrender. He didn't have a single shot left; he said nothing; he squatted inside and did not want to open. The other one, the gunner, was dead. This one was the driver. We have to take him to the Romanian headquarters at Balta; but now nobody passes through here; the convoys of trucks drive along the main road. It's three days since anyone has passed through here."

  "Why did you take off his boots?" I asked.

  The soldiers began laughing, looked insolently at me.

  "A lovely pair of boots," said the corporal, "you look, Domnule Capitan, what boots these pigs of Russians have." He got up, rummaged in a sack and drew out a pair of heelless Tartar boots of soft leather. "They are better clothed than we are," went on the corporal pointing to his down-at-the-heel shoes and to his torn trousers.

  "It means they have a better country than yours," I said.

  "These pigs have no country," said the corporal, "they are like animals."

  "Even animals have a country," I replied, "a far better country than ours. Better than the Romanian country or the German country or the Italian country."

  The soldiers gazed fixedly at me; they did not understand; they looked at me and silently chewed bits of chicken swimming in the ciorba, and the corporal said uncomfortably, "A pair of boots such as these is worth at least two thousand lei."

  The soldiers shook their heads and drew in their lips. "Yes," one of them said, "a pair of boots like these, two thousand lei at the very least, if not more," and again they shook their heads and compressed their lips. They were Romanian peasants and Romanian peasants do not know what animals are; they do not know that animals also have a country; they do not know what machines are; that machines also have a country; that boots also have a country; a far better country than ours. They are peasants, and they do not even know what being peasants means; the Bratianu law has given the land to a horse, to a cow, to a sheep. They only know that they are Romanian and Greek Orthodox. They shout "Long Live the King!"; they shout "Long live Marshal Antonescu!"; they shout "Down with the U.S.S.R.!" But they do not know what the King is, what Marshal Antonescu is, what the U.S.S.R. is. They know that a pair of boots such as these are worth two thousand lei at least. They are poor peas
ants, and they do not know that the U.S.S.R. is a machine; that they are fighting a machine, a thousand machines, a million machines. But a pair of boots like these is worth two thousand lei at least, if not more.

  "Marshal Antonescu," I said, "has a pair of boots, a hundred pair of boots far better than these."

  The soldiers gazed fixedly at me and drew in their lips.

  "A hundred pair?" asked the corporal.

  "A hundred, a thousand pair," I replied, "far better than these. Haven't you ever seen Marshal Antonescu's boots? They are very beautiful. Of yellow leather, black leather, red leather, white leather; cut in the English style with a rosette below the knee. They are beautiful. Marshal Antonescu's boots are more beautiful than those of Hitler or Mussolini. Hitler's boots are fine enough. I have looked at them closely. I have never spoken to Hitler, but I have looked at his boots from very near. They are spurless. Hitler never wears spurs, he is afraid of horses; but even without spurs, they are fine enough. Also Mussolini's boots are fine, but they are useless. They are not fit for walking or riding. They are only fit for standing in the grandstand, during a parade, and watching soldiers with torn shoes and rusty rifles march by."

  The soldiers drawing in their lips gazed fixedly at me.

  "After the war," I said, "we shall go and pull off Marshal Antonescu's boots."

  "Also Domnule Hitler's," said a soldier.

  "Also Domnule Mussolini's," said another.

  "Certainly, also Mussolini's and Hitler's," I said. They all began laughing, and I asked the corporal, "How much do you think Hitler's boots are worth?"

  They all ceased laughing, and suddenly, I don't know why, they turned to look at the prisoner who crouched in his corner and gazed at me with his veiled slanting eyes.

  "Did you give him something to eat?" I asked the corporal.

  "Yes, Domnule Capitan"

  "That's not true. You did not give him anything to eat," I said.

  The corporal took a bowl from the table, then filled it with ciorba de pui, and passed it to the prisoner.

  "Give him a spoon," I said, "he cannot eat soup with his hands."

  The soldiers gazed at the corporal as he took a spoon from the table, cleaned it by rubbing it with his hands and offered it to the prisoner.

  "Ochen spassibo—Many thanks," said the prisoner.

  "La dracu!" exclaimed the corporal, which means "to the devil."

  "What are you going to do with the prisoner?" I asked.

  "We have to take him to Balta," replied the corporal, "but nobody goes by here; we are off the beaten track; we shall have to walk him there. If no truck passes today, we shall take him to Balta tomorrow, on foot."

  "It would be quicker to kill him, don't you think?" I asked the corporal gazing at him. All burst out laughing, watching the corporal.

  "No, Domnule Capitan," replied the corporal blushing slightly. "I cannot. The orders are to bring at least one prisoner to headquarters when we capture any. No, Domnule Capitan."

  "If you take him on foot, you'll have to give him his boots back. No one can walk barefoot as far as Balta."

  "Oh, he can walk barefoot as far as Bucharest," said the corporal laughing.

  "If you like, I'll take him to Balta in my car. Give me a soldier as an escort and I will take him with me."

  The corporal looked pleased; the other soldiers also looked pleased.

  "You'll go, Grigoreseu," said the corporal.

  Private Grigorescu strapped on his cartridge belt, took the rifle that was leaning against the wall (they were French cartridge pouches, wide and flat, and the rifle was a French Lebel with its long triangular bayonet), he took his haversack from a nail on the wall, flung it across his shoulder, spat on the ground and said, "Let's go."

  The prisoner continued to sit in his corner. He looked at us with his glazed eyes. "Podiom—Let's go!" I told the prisoner. The Tartar rose slowly to his feet; he was tall, as tall as I am,- his shoulders were rather narrow, his neck thin. He followed me stooping a little, and Private Grigorescu kept behind him with his rifle ready.

  A fierce wind was blowing; the sky was gray, as heavy as a cast-iron plate; the wheat's voice rose and fell with the wind, like the voice of a river. From time to time, the forests of sunflowers were heard squeaking in the hoarse dusty gusts.

  "La revedere—See you again," said the corporal shaking my hand. The soldiers came up one by one, to shake hands. "La revedere, la revedere, Domnule Capitan, la revedere." I started the motor, left the village, and drove along a track full of holes and ploughed in deep furrows (the tracks of the caterpillar tanks were sharply imprinted in the yielding mattress of dust). Private Grigorescu and the prisoner were sitting behind me, and I felt the fixed gaze of the Tartar boring into my back.

  The storm was approaching from the end of the vast plain,- little by little it covered the breadth of the sky like a huge frog. It was a green cloud, spotted white here and there; the soft frog's belly could be seen throbbing with labored breathing. From time to time a harsh croaking reached us from the edge of the horizon. In the fields, by the roadside, there lay hundreds of burned-out machines, carcasses of lorries, steel carrion stretched out sideways with legs apart, miserable and obscene. And lo! by degrees, I seemed to recognize the road, I had certainly driven through there before, a few days before, perhaps that very morning: there were the river and the pools, their shores thick with reeds and willows. The reflection of the whitish belly of the huge frog, swallowing the sky with raucous croaks, floated on the livid surface of the water. A few drops, slow, hot and heavy, pierced the dust on the road sizzling like a red-hot iron dropped in water. At last I made out some houses through the dusk, and I recognized the houses of Alexandrovska, the abandoned village where I had spent the night.

  "We had better stop here," I said to Private Grigorescu. "It's too late to go on; Balta is still far off."

  I stopped the car in front of the house where I had slept. The rain had begun, it fell heavily with a subdued thud, raising a thick cloud of yellow dust. The mare's carcass still lay at the edge of the road in front of the wooden gate. Its wide-open eye was filled with a white light. We entered the house. Everything was as I had left it in the morning, in the same motionless, ghostlike disorder. I sat down on the bed, looking at the Private Grigorescu, who removed his cartridge belts and hung his haversack on the door handle. The prisoner was leaning against the wall, his arm hanging by his sides, and he gazed at me with his small, slanting eyes.

  I stood in the door; the night was as black as coal. I went into the orchard, pushed the gate open and sat down on the edge of the road close by the mare's carcass. The rain drenched my face, ran down my back. Greedily I took in the scent of wet grass, and little by little the soft, greasy stench of the carrion penetrated that fresh and exhilarating scent, conquered the odor of rotting steel, dissolving iron and putrefied metal. I felt as if the ancient law of war—human and animal—was mastering the new law of mechanical war,- I felt at home in the odor of the dead horse as if in an old fatherland, a fatherland that I had found again.

  Later I went back to the house and stretched out on the bed. I was dead tired; my bones ached; sleep was throbbing in my head as in a pulsing artery.

  "We will take turns watching the prisoner," I said to the soldier, "you must be tired too. Wake me in three hours."

  "Nu, nu, Domnule Capitan," said the soldier, "I am not tired. I am not sleepy."

  The prisoner, whose hands and feet Grigorescu had tied with a knotted rope, sat in a corner of the room against the wall between the window and the cupboard. The thick stench of the carrion stagnated within the room. The yellow light of an oil lamp swayed along the walls; the sunflowers squeaked in the orchard under the rain. The soldier faced the prisoner and squatted on the floor with crossed legs—his rifle with a fixed bayonet rested on his knees.

  "Nopte buna—Good night," I said closing my eyes.

  "Nopte buna, Domnule Capitan," said the soldier.

  I was una
ble to sleep. The storm had broken and raged furiously. The sky split with a roar, sudden light flooded from the clouds and pelted onto the plain; rain fell as hard and heavy as if it were raining stones. And the stench of the mare's carcass, whipped up by the rain, penetrated fat and slimy into the house and stagnated beneath the low ceiling. The prisoner sat motionless, the back of his head leaning against the wall, and gazed at me fixedly. His hands and feet were tied; his hands, small and pale, ash-colored, with the rope knotted tightly round the wrists, hung loosely between his knees.

  "Why don't you untie him?" I asked Grigorescu. "Are you afraid that he might get away? You might at least free his feet."

  The soldier bent forward and slowly undid the feet of the prisoner who was gazing at me with his stony eyes.

  I woke up a few hours later. The soldier, his rifle across his knees, was still sitting on the floor opposite the prisoner. The Tartar, the back of his head resting against the wall, gazed at me.

  "You sleep now," I said getting out of bed. "It's my turn now."

  "Nu, nu, Domnule Capitan, I am not sleepy."

  "Go to sleep, I tell you."

  Private Grigorescu rose, crossed the room dragging his rifle along the floor, and still clutching the rifle in his hands threw himself on the bed and turned toward the wall. He looked dead. His hair was white with dust, his uniform torn, his shoes worn. Coarse black hair bristled on the skin of his face. He looked dead.

  I settled on the floor opposite the prisoner, crossed my legs and shoved my automatic between my knees. The Tartar gazed at me with his veiled, narrow eyes, slanted like a cat's; they looked as if they were made of glass. They had the gaze that dead people's eyes have,- the eyelids, curled up under the brows, formed two scarcely visible sepia-colored folds. I leaned forward to untie the prisoner's hands. I studied his hands while my fingers fumbled with the knots on the rope; they were small, smooth, ash-colored, with nails that were almost white. Although they were marked by short deep lines, the skin was so porous that it looked as if it were seen through a microscope. The palms were thinly coated with calluses but were soft, smooth and almost tender to the touch. Hanging limply, they yielded to my hands as if they were dead, but I sensed that they were strong, nimble, tenacious, and at the same time as light and delicate as a surgeon's, a watchmaker's or a skilled precision worker's.