Kaputt

by Curzio Malaparte

  Later, the display ended. Suddenly the rain ceased; the moon appeared through a rent in the clouds; it looked like a landscape painted by Chagall: A Jewish Chagall sky, crowded with Jewish angels, with Jewish clouds, with Jewish horses and dogs dangling in their flight over the town. Jewish fiddlers sat on the roofs of the houses or floated in a pale sky above the streets, where old Jews lay dead in the gutter between the lighted ritual candelabra. Jewish lovers were stretched out in mid-air on the edge of a cloud as green as a meadow. And under that Jewish Chagall sky, in that Chagall landscape illuminated by a round transparent moon, from the Nicolina, Socola, and Pacurari districts, rose a confused din, a rattle of machine guns and the dull thud of hand grenades.

  "Oh, they are killing the Jews!" said Marioara holding her breath.

  The din could also be heard from the center of the town, from the elevation around Unirii Square and the church of the Three Hierarchs. Above that confused roar of people pursued through the streets, could be heard German words shouted in terrible, strident voices, and the stai! stai! of Romanian soldiers and policemen. Suddenly a rifle shot whizzed by our ears. From the end of the road came the clamor of German, Romanian and Jewish voices; a crowd of people in flight ran by; they were women, men, boys and girls pursued by a group of policemen firing on the run. Behind the others came a staggering soldier with his face covered with blood, shouting, "Parasiutist! Parasiutist!—Paratrooper! Paratrooper!" and aiming his rifle at the sky. He fell to his knees a few steps away from us and hit his head against the fence. He lay stretched out with his face in the mud, under the slow rain of the Soviet paratroopers who dropped one by one from the sky, with lightly poised feet, and hung in their huge white umbrellas from the roofs of the houses.

  "Oh, oh!" shouted Marioara, as I lifted her from the ground, ran across the orchard and pushed the door open with my elbow.

  "La revedere, Marioara," I said letting her slide slowly through my arms until she touched the threshold.

  "Nu, nu, Domnule Capitan, nu, nu!" shouted Marioara clinging to my breast. "Nu, nu, Domnule Capitan, oh!" and she buried her teeth in my hand, biting it savagely, whining like a dog.

  "Oh, Marioara," I said softly, touching her hair with my lips, and I hit her in the face with my free hand to make her release my other hand. Then I pushed her gently into her dark house, crossed the orchard and walked away along the deserted street, turning now and then to look back at the fence, the sunflower standing above the pointed pickets, the little house with its red-tiled roof splotched with moonlight.

  When I reached the top of the hill, I turned around. The town was ablaze. Thick clouds of smoke hung over the lower sections along the banks of the river. The houses and the trees, close to the burning buildings stood out clearly and looked bigger than they were, like enlarged photographs. I could even discern the cracks in the walls, the branches and the leaves. There was something dead about the scene, and at the same time, something too precise, as in a photograph; I would have believed that I was facing a ghostly photographic backdrop, if it had not been for the confused din rising everywhere, the wailing hoot of sirens, the long whistling of steam engines and the rattling of machine guns that imparted a vivid and immediate reality to that terrible sight. Up and down the narrow twisting streets leading toward the center of town, I heard all about me desperate barking, banging of doors, shattering of glass and of china, smothered screams, imploring voices calling mama! mama!, horrible beseeching cries of nu, nu, nu! and occasionally from behind a fence or from an orchard, or through the half-closed blinds from inside a house a flash, the sharp report of a shot, the whizzing of a bullet and the strident, frightful German voices. In Unirii Square a group of SS men kneeling by the Prince Gutsa Voda monument fired their tommy guns toward the little square where the statue of Prince Ghiha in Moldavian costume stands with his great quilted coat and his brow covered by a tall fur cap. By the light of the fires a black, gesticulating throng, mostly women, could be seen huddled at the foot of the monument. From time to time someone rose, darted this way or that across the square and fell under the bullets of the SS men. Hordes of Jews pursued by soldiers and maddened civilians armed with knives and crowbars fled along the streets,- groups of policemen smashed in house doors with their rifle butts,- windows opened suddenly and screaming disheveled women in nightgowns appeared with their arms raised in the air,- some threw themselves from windows and their faces hit the asphalt with a dull thud. Squads of soldiers hurled hand grenades through the little windows level with the street into the cellars where many people had vainly sought safety,- some soldiers dropped to their knees to look at the results of the explosions within the cellars and turned laughing faces to their companions. Where the slaughter had been heaviest the feet slipped in blood; everywhere the hysterical and ferocious toil of the pogrom filled the houses and streets with shots, with weeping, with terrible screams and cruel laughter.

  When I finally reached the Italian Consulate on the green road that runs back of the wall surrounding the old abandoned churchyard, Consul Sartori was sitting on the doorstep smoking a cigarette. He looked tired and bored. He smoked peacefully with an air of Neapolitan indifference. But I know my Neapolitans and I knew that he was suffering. The sound of smothered sobbing reached us from the inside room.

  "This outbreak was all we needed!" said Sartori. "I have saved half a dozen of the poor devils; some are wounded. Would you help me, Malaparte? I am no good as a nurse."

  I went into the office of the Consulate. Stretched out on the sofas or seated on the floor in the corners were several women, a few bearded old men, five or six boys and three young men who looked like students,- a little girl was crying under Sartori's writing desk. A woman sat, her forehead split by a blow with a rifle butt; a student moaned from a gunshot wound in his shoulder. I heated some water and, assisted by Sartori, began washing the wounds and bandaging them with strips of linen cut from a sheet. "What a bore!" said Sartori. "This business is just what we needed, and especially tonight when I have a slight headache."

  While I was bandaging her, the woman with the wound in her forehead turned to Sartori and addressing him as Monsieur le Marquis, thanked him in French for saving her life. Sartori looked at her with a bored air and he said, "Why do you call me Marquis? I am Signor Sartori." I liked that fat, placid fellow who renounced that evening a title to which he had no claim but which, nevertheless, flattered him. In moments of danger the Neapolitans can face the most painful sacrifices. "Do you mind handing me another bandage, dear Marquis?" I said, wishing to compensate him for his sacrifice.

  Later, we sat on the threshold; Sartori on a chair and I on the doorstep. The garden surrounding the Consulate was thick with acacias and pine trees. Alarmed by the glare of the fires, the birds, beating their wings, moved in silence among the branches. "They are afraid. They will not sing," said Sartori, his eyes fixed on the foliage of the trees. Then pointing to a dark stain on the wall of the villa, quite close to the door, he went on, "Look at that wall. It is stained with blood. One of those poor devils took refuge in here. Policemen came and almost killed him with their rifle butts there, against that wall. Then they took him away with them. He was the owner of this villa—a gentleman." He lit another cigarette and slowly turned to me. "I was alone," he said, "what could I do? I protested. I said that I would write to Mussolini. They laughed in my face."

  "They laughed in Mussolini's face, not yours."

  "Don't make fun of me, Malaparte. I even grew angry, and when I grow angry..." he said with his placid air. He went on smoking, then he added, "Ever since yesterday I have been asking Colonel Lupu for a detachment of police to protect the Consulate. He replied that there was no need for it."

  "You may thank the Lord! It is better to have nothing to do with Colonel Lupu's men. Colonel Lupu is a murderer."

  "Oh, yes, he is a murderer. What a pity—such a handsome man." I began to laugh and turned my face away so Sartori would not see me. Just then, out in the road, we heard de
sperate screams, several pistol shots and then the horrible, unbearable, dull, soft thud of the rifle butts on heads.

  "Now they are really beginning to rile me," said Sartori. He rose with his apathetic Neapolitan air, in a leisurely way crossed the garden, opened the gate, and said, "Come in here, come in here."

  I went out into the middle of the road and was pushing a crowd of people, stupefied with terror, toward the gate. A policeman caught me by the arm, and I kicked him with all my might in the belly.

  "That's right," said Sartori calmly, "that ill-mannered fellow deserved it." Sartori was angry, he was using strong language. "Ill-mannered" was a very strong term for him.

  We sat on the threshold all through the night and smoked. From time to time we stepped out into the road and pushed flocks of ragged and bleeding people into the Consulate. We gathered about a hundred of them.

  "These poor people ought to have something to eat and drink," I said to Sartori when we went back to our vigil after attending to a new batch of wounded.

  Sartori looked at me with the eyes of a dog. "I had some food, but the police broke into the Consulate and stole everything. It can't be helped."

  "O' vero—really?" I asked him in Neapolitan.

  "O' vero," replied Sartori with a sigh.

  I liked to be with Sartori during moments like this: I felt safe with that tranquil Neapolitan who was shaking within with fear, horror and pity, but showed no outward sign of it.

  "Sartori," I said, "we are fighting for civilization against barbarism."

  "O' vero?" asked Sartori.

  "O' vero," I replied.

  The dawn was already breaking in the cloudless sky. The smoke from the fires hovered over the trees and the roofs. It was rather cold.

  "Sartori," I said, "when Mussolini hears that they have violated the Consulate of Jassy he'll turn into a mad bull."

  "Don't make fun of me, Malaparte," said Sartori. "Mussolini barks but never bites. He will dismiss me for sheltering these poor Jews."

  "O' vero?"

  "O' vero, Malaparte."

  A little later Sartori rose and invited me to rest inside.

  "You are tired, Malaparte. All is over by now. The dead are dead. There is nothing more to do."

  "I am not tired, Sartori. You go and lie down on your bed. I'll remain here and stand guard."

  "Take at least an hour's rest, for goodness' sake," said Sartori settling himself again in his chair.

  As I crossed the churchyard in the uncertain light, I made out two Romanian soldiers sitting on a tombstone. They had some pieces of bread and were eating it in silence.

  "Good morning, Domnule Capitan," they said.

  "Good morning," I replied.

  A dead woman lay between two tombstones. A dog whined behind the hedge.

  I threw myself onto the bed and closed my eyes. I felt abased. All was over by now. The dead were dead. There was nothing more to do. La dracu, I thought. It was ghastly not to be able to do something.

  I fell asleep, and through the open window I saw the sky that the dawn was already lighting being licked by the livid reflection of the fires, and in the center of the sky a man was walking about holding a huge white umbrella in his outstretched hand and gazing downward.

  "Good rest to you," said the flying man with a nod and a smile.

  "Thanks. A pleasant stroll to you," I replied.

  A couple of hours later I awoke. It was a brilliant morning; the air, cleansed and freshened by the storm of the previous night, glistened on everything like a transparent varnish. I went to the window and looked down Lapusneanu Street. Scattered about in the street were human forms lying in awkward positions. The gutters were strewn with dead bodies, heaped one upon another. Several hundred corpses were dumped in the center of the churchyard. Packs of dogs wandered about sniffing the dead in the frightened, cowed way dogs have when they are seeking their masters; they seemed full of respect and pity; they moved about amid those poor dead bodies with delicacy, as if they feared to step on those bloody faces and those rigid hands. Squads of Jews, watched over by policemen and soldiers armed with tommy guns, were at work moving the dead bodies to one side, clearing the middle of the road and piling the corpses up along the walls so they would not block traffic. German and Romanian trucks loaded with corpses kept going by. A dead child was sitting up on the sidewalk near the lustrageria with his back against the wall and his head drooped on one shoulder. I drew back, closed the window and sat on the bed and began to dress very slowly. From time to time I had to lie flat on my back to fight down spasms of nausea. Suddenly, I thought I heard sounds of merry voices, of people laughing, calling and gaily answering each other. I forced myself to go back to the window. The road was crowded with people— squads of soldiers and policemen, groups of men and women, and bands of gypsies with their hair in long ringlets were gaily and noisily chattering with one another, as they despoiled the corpses, lifting them, rolling them over, turning them on their sides to draw off their coats, their trousers and their underclothes; feet were rammed against dead bellies to help pull off the shoes; people came running to share in the loot; others made off with arms piled high with clothing. It was a gay bustle, a merry occasion, a feast and a marketplace all in one. The dead twisted into cruel postures were left naked.

  I rushed downstairs and ran across the churchyard striding over the tombs so as not to tread on the corpses scattered about in the grass and at the gate. I flew at a group of policemen busily stripping dead bodies and hurled myself screaming against them. "Dirty cowards," I shouted, "get away, you lousy bastards!" One of them looked at me in amazement, picked up some suits and two or three pairs of shoes from a pile of clothing on the ground and pushed them toward me saying, "Don't get angry, Domnule Capitan, there's enough for everybody."

  And at that very moment, from Unirii Square turning up the Strada Lapusneanu, appeared Princess Sturdza's landau with harness bells merrily tinkling. Grigori, the very solemn eunuch, sitting on the box in his green robe, dangled his whip over the backs of the fine, white-coated Moldavian horses that trotted proudly, holding their heads high and shaking their long manes.

  Sitting stiffly upright on the high, broad wide cushions, the Princess gazed upward as she held in her right hand a red silk parasol trimmed with a fringe of lace. Beside her, proud and remote, sat Prince Sturdza clothed all in white, his face shaded by the brim of a gray felt hat, his left hand clutching a little book in a red leather binding that he held close to his chest.

  "Good morning, Domna Principessa," called the despoilers of the dead, interrupting their messy task and bowing deeply.

  Princess Sturdza, dressed in pale blue, a large hat of Florentine straw tilted over one ear, turned right and left, curtly nodding her head, while the Prince lifted his gray felt hat with a quick motion of his hand as he smiled and acknowledged the greetings with slight bows.

  "Good morning, Domna Principessa."

  With a merry tinkling of harness bells the carriage drove on between the piles of naked corpses, flanked by two rows of humbly bowing people who clutched their cruel booty in their hands. It was swept away at a sharp trot by the fine, white horses that were urged on by the eunuch Grigori, who looked bloated and solemn on the box as he lightly dangled over them the long red tassel of his whip.

  VII. Cricket in Poland

  "HOW MANY Jews were killed in Jassy that night?" Frank asked me in an ironical voice as he stretched out his feet toward the fire and laughed softly.

  The others were also softly laughing and looking as if they felt sorry for me. The fire crackled in the fireplace, and the frozen snow was tapping with white fingers on the windowpanes. At intervals a high wind, the icy north wind, blew in gusts. It moaned in the ruins of the near-by Hotel d'Angleterre making the sleet whirl in the vast Saxe Square. I rose, went over to the window and looked down on the moonlit square. Faint shadows of soldiers moved along the sidewalk before the Europeiski Hotel. Where twenty years ago the Sobor had stood—the Ortho
dox Cathedral of Warsaw that the Poles had demolished in obedience to a monk's gloomy prophecy—the snow was now spread in its stainless white sheet. I turned to Frank and I, too, began to laugh softly.

  "The official report issued by the Vice-President of the Council, Mihai Antonescu," I replied, "admitted that there were five hundred. But the official count by Colonel Lupu was seven thousand slaughtered Jews."

  "Quite a respectable figure," said Frank, "but it was not a decent way to do it; it is not necessary to do it that way."

  "No, that's not the way to do it," said Fischer, the Governor of Warsaw, shaking his head in disapproval.

  "Not a civilized way," Wächter, the Governor of Cracow and one of Dolfuss' murderers, said in a disgusted tone.

  "The Romanians are not a civilized people," said Frank contemptuously.

  "Ja, es has kein Kultur—Yes, they have no culture," said Fischer shaking his head.

  "Though my heart is not as soft as yours," said Frank, "I share and I understand your horror at the Jassy massacres. As a man, a German, and as Governor-General of Poland I disapprove of pogroms."

  "Very kind of you," I answered with a bow.

  "Germany is a country that has a higher civilization and abominates barbaric methods," said Frank gazing around him with an expression of sincere indignation.

  "Natürlich," the others chorused.

  "Germany," said Wächter, "is called upon to carry out a great civilizing mission in the East."

  "The term 'pogrom' is not a German word," said Frank.

  "Naturally, it is a Jewish word," and I smiled.

  "I don't know whether it is a Jewish word," said Frank, "but I know that it never has been and never will be a part of the German vocabulary."