Kaputt

by Curzio Malaparte

  Siell mie paimelauluin lauluin

  min muamo mieroon suori

  Karjalan maill kuldäkäkoset guk-kuup—

  The cuckoo's call rang sad and loud in the silence of the forest. Guns rumbled on the opposite shore of Lake Ladoga. The crash of the explosions spread from tree to tree like a flutter of wings, a rustle of leaves. And above the living silence that was rendered deeper and more secret by the occasional ping of isolated rifle shots, rose persistent, monotonous and very pure the call of the cuckoo, a call which seemed to become human. Gook kooup, gook kooup.

  Sometimes, Svartström and I also went down to the lake and sat on the heads of the horses. Leaning his elbow on the hard icy mane, Svartström tapped the empty pipe in the hollow of his hand and gazed fixedly in front of him across the frozen, silvery expanse of the lake. Svartström hails from Viipuri—called Viborg by the Swedes—the Karelian city on the shore of the Gulf of Finland facing Leningrad. His wife is a young Leningrad Russian of French origin, and he has something delicate and gentle in him that men in the North seldom possess, perhaps something French that he has acquired from his wife, his baby kulta—"kulta" meaning "golden" in Finnish. He knows a few French words,- he can say oui, charmant, and pauvre petite. He can also say naturlement instead of naturellement. He can say amour, he often says amour, and he also says très beaucoup. Svartström, by profession, is a poster-designer; and he spends many hours in drawing red and blue flowers with a red and blue pencil, in cutting baby kulta's name into the white bark of birches, and in writing the word amour in the snow with the tip of his stick.

  Svartström never had any tobacco. For a month he had been tapping the bowl of his empty pipe in the hollow of his hand, and I used to say to him, "Tell me the truth, Svartström. I am sure you would even smoke a piece of human flesh." He used to grow pale then and reply, "If this war goes on..." And I said: "If this war goes on, we shall all become like beasts, and you too, don't you think so?" And he answered, "I, too, naturlement."

  I was fond of him. I became fond of Svartström on the day I saw him grow pale because of that piece of human flesh—we were in the Kaunas{7} in front of the Leningrad suburbs—that the rangers had discovered in the haversack of a Russian paratrooper who had hidden in the forest for two months in a hole next to the corpse of a companion. In the korsu that night, Svartström had vomited. He wept saying: "They have shot him, but is it his fault? We shall all become like wild beasts and we shall end by eating each other." He was not drunk. He very seldom drank. It was not drink. It was that piece of human flesh that made him vomit. I became fond of him that day, but from time to time, when I saw him tapping his empty pipe in the hollow of his hand, I used to say to him, "Isn't it a fact, Svartström, that you would be capable of stuffing your pipe with a piece of human flesh?"

  One evening, during dinner at the Spanish Legation in Helsinki, the Spanish Minister, Count Augustin de Foxá, started talking about the piece of human flesh the rangers had discovered in the haversack of that Russian paratrooper. We had had an excellent dinner; the old Spanish wines endowed the Oulu salmon and the smoked reindeer tongue with the delicate warm flavors of the sun. All protested, saying that the Russian paratrooper was not a man, that he was a wild beast, but no one vomited, no one; neither Countess Mannerheim, nor Demetra Slörn, nor Prince Cantemir, nor Colonel Slörn—Adjutant to the President of the Republic; not Baron Bengt von Törne, not even Titu Michailescu, nobody vomited.

  "A Christian," said Anita Bengenström, "would rather die of starvation than eat human flesh."

  Count de Foxá laughed, "Ha, ha, ha! A Catholic wouldn't; a Catholic wouldn't. Catholics like human flesh."

  And as everyone protested, the white reflection of the snow broke through the windowpanes; it was like the reflection of a huge silver mirror shining back with silver flashes from dark solid walnut furniture, from the excessively shiny varnish of the oil portraits of Spanish grandees, from the golden Crucifix hanging on the wall covered with heavy red brocade—then Count de Foxá said, "All Catholics eat human flesh, Jesus Christ's flesh, the very holy flesh of Jesus: the Host, the most divine and most human flesh in the world." And he began to recite in a deep voice that poem of Federico Garcia Lorca, the Spanish poet who was shot in 1936 by Franco's men, the famous Oda al Santisimo Sacramento del Altar—"Ode to the Most Holy Sacrament at the Altar"—which begins like a love song: cantaban las mujeres—the women were singing— When he came to the lines about the "frog," de Foxá raised his voice:

  Vivo estabas, Dios mio, dentro del ostensorio

  punzando por tu Padre con agujas de lumbre.

  Latiendo come el pobre corazon de la rana

  que los medicos ponen en el frasco de vidrio.

  You lived, O my Lord, in the monstrance{8}

  Pricked by your Father with flashes of light.

  Palpitating like the poor heart of a frog

  Which doctors preserve in glass jars.

  "This is disgusting," said Countess Mannerheim. "The flesh of Jesus which knocks within the monstrance like the heart of a frog! Ah, you Catholics are monsters!"

  "There is no better flesh in the world," said Count de Foxá in a deep voice.

  "Isn't it true, Svartström," I used to say to him, "that you could be capable of smoking a piece of human flesh?"

  Svartström smiled, his was a tired, sad smile. He looked at the heads of the horses protruding from the sheet of ice, those dead heads with hard frozen manes, those shiny wide-open eyes filled with terror. He stroked with a light hand those extended muzzles, the bloodless nostrils, the lips twisted with a despairing neighing—a neighing that was buried within the mouth full of frozen foam. Then, as we walked off in silence, we were wont to caress in passing, the manes white with sleet. The wind was softly hissing over the vast sheet of ice.

  That morning we went to see the horses being freed from their prison of ice.

  A sweet and greasy odor floated in the mild air. It was near the end of April and the sun was already warm. For some days, since the thaw had set in, the heads of the horses gripped within the crust of the ice had begun to stink. During certain hours of the day, that odor of carrion was beyond endurance, and Colonel Merikallio had given the order to take the horses out of the water and bury them in the thick of the forest. Squads of soldiers, equipped with saws, axes, crowbars, mattocks and ropes, had gone down to Lake Ladoga with a hundred sledges.

  When we reached the shore, the soldiers were already at work. Some fifty carcasses were heaped crossways on the sledges; they were no longer stiff, but limp, swollen,- their long manes freed by the thaw were floating. The eyelids hung on their watery swelling eyes. The soldiers broke the ice crust with mattocks and axes and the horses floated upturned on the dirty whitish water filled with air bubbles and spongy snow. The soldiers roped the carcasses and dragged them to the shore. The heads dangled over the sides of the sledges. The artillery horses scattered through the forest and neighed, smelling that sweet and heavy odor, and the horses hitched to the shafts of the sledges answered with long lamenting neighs.

  "Pois, pois! giddy-up!" shouted the soldiers brandishing their whips. The sledges glided away on the muddy snow with a dull rustle. And the harness bells made a gay sound in the tepid air, almost a merry lament.

  The room, by now, was steeped in shadow. The voice of the wind among the old trees of Oakhill was loud and sad, and I shuddered listening to the doleful neighing of the north wind.

  "You are cruel," said Prince Eugene. "I feel sorry for you."

  "I am deeply grateful to you," I said and laughed, but I at once felt ashamed of my laughter, and I blushed—"I feel sorry for myself too. I am ashamed of my feeling of self-pity."

  "Oh, you are cruel," said Prince Eugene. "I wish I could help you."

  "Let me tell you a strange dream," I said. "It is a dream which often troubles my nights. I walk into a square crowded with people who are all looking upward, and I raise my eyes and see a high mountain sheer above the square. A large c
ross is on the mountain-top. A crucified horse hangs from the cross beam. The executioners, standing on ladders, are hammering the last nails in. The hammers can be heard striking the nails. The crucified horse dangles its head from side to side and neighs softly. The silent crowd weeps. The sacrifice of the Horse-Christ, the tragedy of that animal Golgotha—I wish you would help me to understand the meaning of this dream. Might not the death of the horse signify the death of all that is noble and pure in man? Don't you think that this dream refers to the war?"

  "The very war itself is but a dream," said Prince Eugene passing his hand across his brow and his eyes.

  "All that is noble, gentle and pure in Europe is dying. The horse is our homeland. You understand what I mean by this. Our homeland, our ancient homeland is dying. And all those obsessing pictures, that persistent obsession of neighing, of the horrible and sad odor of the dead horses lying on their backs along the roads of the war, don't they seem to correspond to the vision of war, to our voice, our odor, to the odor of dead Europe? Don't you also think that this dream means something similar? It is perhaps better not to interpret dreams."

  "Enough," said Prince Eugene. Then he leaned toward me and said in a low voice, "Ah, if I could but suffer as you do!"

  PART TWO

  The Mice

  IV. God Shave the King

  "I AM THE king; der König," said Reichsminister Frank, Governor-General of Poland, spreading his arms and gazing upon his guests with proud complacency.

  I glanced at him smiling.

  "The German King of Poland, der deutsche König von Polen," repeated Frank.

  I gazed at him smiling.

  "Why do you smile? Have you never seen a king before?" asked Frank.

  "Indeed I have spoken to many kings. I have dined with many kings in their palaces and castles; but none of them ever told me—'I'm the king!'"

  "Sie sind ein enfant gâté—you are a spoilt child," graciously broke in Frau Brigitte Frank, die deutsche Königin von Polen— the German Queen of Poland.

  "You are right," said Frank, "a real king never says 'I am the king'; but I am not a real king, though my Berlin friends call this country 'Frankreich.' I wield the power of life and death over the Polish people, but I am not the king of Poland. I bestow a king's high-minded benevolence upon the Poles, but I am not a real king. The Poles don't deserve to have me as their king; they are an ungrateful people."

  "They are not an ungrateful people," I said.

  "I should be the happiest man alive. I should truly be like Gott in Frankreich, if the Poles were grateful to me for all that I am doing for them. But the more I strive to allay their misfortunes and to deal justly with them, the more they despise all I am doing for their country. They are an ungrateful people."

  A murmur of approval came from the guests.

  "They are a proud and dignified people," I said smiling amiably, "and you are their master. A foreign master."

  "A German master. They do not deserve the honor of having a German master."

  "True, they do not deserve it. Pity you are not a Pole."

  "Ja, Schade!—Yes, it's a shame!" announced Frank enjoying his own gay laughter which was noisily echoed by all the guests. Suddenly Frank ceased laughing and placed both hands on his chest, saying, "A Pole! Look at me. How could I be a Pole? Do I by any chance look like a Pole?"

  "You are a Roman Catholic, aren't you?"

  "Yes," replied Frank, rather surprised, "I am a German from Franconia—"

  "And therefore a Roman Catholic," I said.

  "Yes, a German Roman Catholic," replied Frank.

  "You have then something in common with the Poles. Roman Catholics are all equals; and thus, as a good Catholic, you ought to feel yourself equal to the Poles."

  "I am a Roman Catholic," answered Frank, "a good Catholic, but do you think that's enough? My fellow workers are also Roman Catholics; they all hail from old Austria. But do you think it is enough to be a Catholic in order to rule the Poles? You cannot imagine how hard it is to rule a Roman Catholic people."

  "I have never tried my hand at it," I said smiling.

  "Beware of it! Particularly," added Frank leaning over the table and speaking softly with an air of mystery, "particularly if as in Poland, you come up against the Vatican at every turn. Do you know who is behind every single Pole?"

  "A Polish priest?" I replied.

  "No," said Frank, "there is the Pope; the Holy Father himself."

  "It's bound to be a trifle tedious," I suggested.

  "True enough there is Hitler behind me, but it isn't the same thing."

  "Oh, no, it's not the same thing," I said.

  "Is the Holy Father also behind every Italian?" asked Frank.

  "The Italians do not like to have anybody behind their backs," I replied.

  "Ach, so!" laughed Frank. "Ach, so!"

  "Ach! You are an enfant terrible," graciously said the German Queen of Poland.

  "I wonder," continued Frank, "how Mussolini manages to agree with the Pope."

  "At first," I said, "there also arose serious difficulties between Mussolini and the Pope. They both live in the same city and both claim to be infallible; they were bound to join issue. Later they managed to agree, and things are now proceeding to everyone's satisfaction. When an Italian is born, Mussolini takes him under his wing; he first entrusts the child to a kindergarten, later sends him to school, gets him trained in a trade and enrolls him in the Fascist party. He puts him to work until he is twenty. At that age, he enlists him in the army, keeps him a couple of years in barracks; then he dismisses him and sends him back to work. He marries him off as soon as he becomes of age; and if any children are born, they are dealt with as their father was. When the father, having grown old, has become unfit for work and useless, Mussolini sends him back home, gives him a pension and waits for him to die. Finally when he is dead, he is handed over to the Pope to do what he likes with him."

  The German King of Poland raised his arms, blushed, grew purple in the face as if choking with laughter, and all the guests raised their arms, shouting, "Ach! Wunderbar! Wunderbar!—Wonderful!" Finally, after taking a long sip of wine, and with a voice still shaking with emotion, Frank said, "Ah! The Italians! The Italians! What political genius! What juridical sense! Pity," he went on, "all Germans are not Roman Catholics. The religious problem in Germany would be far simpler. Catholics would be handed over to the Pope as soon as they died; but to whom could we hand over Protestants?"

  "It is a problem," I said, "that Hitler should have solved long ago."

  "Do you know Hitler personally?" asked Frank.

  "I never was so honored," I replied. "I saw him only once, in Berlin, during Todt's funeral. I was standing on the sidewalk with the crowd."

  "What was your impression of him?" asked Frank waiting for my reply with evident curiosity.

  "I thought he did not know to whom to hand over Todt's remains." Loud laughter again greeted my words.

  "Let me assure you," said Frank, "that Hitler has solved this problem long ago, nicht wahr?—isn't that so?" and he glanced laughing at his guests.

  Laughing, they all shouted, "Ja, ja, natürlich."

  "Hitler is a superior man. Don't you think he is a superior man?" As I hesitated, he looked fixedly at me, and added with a kindly smile: "I should like to have your opinion of Hitler."

  "He is almost a man," I replied.

  "What?"

  "Almost a man. I mean, not quite a real man."

  "Ach, so," said Frank. "You mean that he is an Übermensch, nicht wahr?.—Superman, don't you? Yes, Hitler is not quite a real man,- he is an Übermensch."

  From his end of the table, one of the guests broke in: "Herr Malaparte has written in one of his books that Hitler is a woman."

  It was Himmler's man, the chief of the Gestapo of the government of Poland. His voice was cool, sweet, sad—a faraway voice. I raised my eyes, but I lacked the courage to look at him. That cool, sweet, sad voice of his, that farawa
y voice, had set my heart trembling slightly.

  "Just so," I added after a moment of silence, "Hitler is a woman."

  "A woman?" exclaimed Frank gazing at me, his eyes filled with confusion and worry.

  Everyone remained silent, looking at me.

  "If he is not quite a real man," I said, "why should he not be a woman? What harm would there be? Women are deserving of all our respect, love and admiration. You say that Hitler is the father of the German people, nicht wahr? Why couldn't he be its mother?"

  "Its mother!" exclaimed Frank, "die Mutter!"

  "Its mother," I said. "It is the mother who conceives children in her womb, begets them in pain, feeds them with her blood and her milk. Hitler is the mother of the new German people; he has conceived it in his womb, has given birth to it in pain and fed it with his blood and his—"

  "Hitler is the father, not the mother of the German people," said Frank sternly.

  "Anyway, the German people are his child," I said, "there's no doubt about that."

  "Yes," said Frank, "there's no doubt about that. All the peoples of New Europe, to begin with the Poles, ought to feel proud to have in Hitler, a just and stern father. But do you know what the Poles think of us? That we are barbarians!"

  "And do you feel hurt?" I asked smiling.

  "We are a master people, not barbarians; a Herrenvolk."

  "Oh, don't say that!"

  "Why not?" Frank inquired with amazement.

  "Because masters and barbarians are the same thing."

  "I beg to differ," said Frank. "We are a Herrenvolk, not barbarians. Do you by any chance feel as though you were among barbarians tonight?"

  "No," I replied, "I feel as though I were among masters," and I added smiling, "I must admit that when I entered the Wawel tonight I felt as if I had entered a court of the Italian Renaissance."