Kaputt

by Curzio Malaparte

  "I shall knock him out in the first round; you will be the referee, Schmeling," said Frank clutching a hunting knife in his hand.

  That day I was not the guest of honor at the table of the Governor-General of Poland in the Belvedere Palace of Warsaw. The guest of honor was Max Schmeling, the famous prize fighter. I was grateful that his presence drew the attention of the guests from me. It allowed me to yield to the sweet sadness of past memories, to recall that far-off New Year's day of 1920 when I had entered that room for the first time to take part in the traditional homage paid by the diplomatic corps to Marshal Pilsudski, the head of the state. The old Marshal had stood motionless in the center of the room and leaned on the hilt of his ancient saber curved like a scimitar, its leather sheath wrought with silver. His pale face was streaked with thick livid veins that resembled scars,- his long mustaches dropped in the Sobieski fashion and his wide forehead bristled with hard, close-cropped hair. Over twenty years had passed and the old Marshal still stood before me, in the same spot where a deer just taken off a spit now smoked in the center of the table, while Frank laughingly probed its choice flesh with the broad blade of his hunting knife.

  Max Schmeling sat on Frau Brigitte Frank's right. He was self-contained as he looked over the guests one by one, with shy and yet steady upward glances from his lowered head. He was a little above average height, smoothly shaped, round-shouldered and almost elegant in manner. It was difficult to imagine that beneath his well-cut, gray flannel suit, probably Vienna or New York tailored, lurked that great strength. His voice was deep and melodious, and he spoke slowly, smiling—whether out of shyness or because of the instinctive feeling of self-reliance that is characteristic of athletes I wasn't sure. The look in his black eyes was deep and calm. His face was serious and gentle. He leaned forward, his forearms resting on the table, and gazed fixedly in front of him as if crouching expectantly in the ring. He listened attentively, yet suspiciously to the conversation, and now and again his faintly amused glances fell on Frank in an ironical but respectful manner.

  In his presence, Frank acted a part that was new to me: the role of an intellectual who, when accidentally placed face to face with an athlete, preens himself, shows off his finest feathers and, while pretending to bend his head in deep reverence before the statue of Hercules and to extol its muscular torso, bulging biceps and huge hard fists, actually burns incense at Minerva's shrine, thus proclaiming the indisputable superiority of intellect and culture over brute force by an exaggerated courtesy of manners and profuse praise condescendingly bestowed on athletic proficiency and by a few loftily dropped words. Far from seeming hurt or annoyed, Schmeling made no effort to conceal his amused surprise as well as his candid curiosity, as if he were faced with a human species unknown to him. Diffidence was apparent in his firm gaze, ironical smile, and the caution with which he answered Frank's questions and the sulky stubborn way in which he belittled the fame his name was surrounded with and everything else that was alien to his own athletic experience.

  Frank asked Schmeling about Crete and the serious wound he had received in the dangerous and heroic operation in which he had taken part as a paratrooper. Turning to me, Frank added that British prisoners in Crete had shouted, "Hello, Max!" as Schmeling was carried past them on a stretcher, and waved their fists in the air.

  "I was on a stretcher, but I was not wounded," said Schmeling. "The rumor that I had been hit in the knee was false; Goebbels had it sent out as propaganda. It was even said that I was dead. The truth was much simpler: I was suffering with cramps in my stomach." Then he added, "I want to be frank. I suffered with colic."

  "Even for a heroic soldier, there is nothing debasing about suffering with colic," remarked Frank.

  "I never thought there was anything debasing in colic," said Schmeling smiling ironically. "I had caught cold, my colic certainly was not due to fear. But when the word 'colic' is mentioned in connection with war, everyone thinks of fear."

  "Nobody can associate you with fear," said Frank. Then he looked at me and added, "Schmeling behaved like a hero in Crete. He does not want to hear about it but he is a real hero."

  "I am no hero at all," said Schmeling smiling, though I perceived that he was slightly annoyed. "I had not even the chance to fight. A hundred and fifty feet in the air I jumped from the plane, and I remained lying among the bushes with those awful pains in my belly. When I read about my wound, I denied the rumor at once in an interview with a journalist from a neutral country. I told him that I had simply suffered with cramps in my stomach. Goebbels has never forgiven me for that denial. He has even threatened to summon me before a military court as a defeatist. If Germany were to lose the war, Goebbels would have me shot."

  "Germany will not lose the war," said Frank severely.

  "Natürlich," said Schmeling. "German Kultur is not suffering with colic."

  We all laughed discreetly, and Frank deigned to curl his lips into an indulgent smile.

  "German Kultur," said the Governor-General austerely, "has sacrificed in this war many of its most noble representatives in the country."

  "War is the most noble sport," said Schmeling.

  I inquired whether he had come to Warsaw to take part in a boxing match.

  "I am here," replied Schmeling, "to organize and direct a series of matches between representatives of the Wehrmacht and the SS. This will be the first great sporting event to take place in Poland."

  I added that it almost amounted to a political event.

  "Almost," Schmeling agreed with a smile.

  Frank caught the allusion and an expression of deep complacency spread over his face. He had just come out victorious in a contest with the head of the SS, and he was unable to refrain from hinting at the causes for his disagreement with Himmler.

  "I am not ranged on the side of violence, and certainly Himmler will not bring me around to the idea that a policy of order and justice can be upheld in Poland only by a methodical employment of violence."

  "Himmler lacks a sense of humor," I remarked.

  "Germany," replied Frank, "is the only country in the world where a sense of humor is not essential to a statesman. But in Poland it is a different matter."

  I looked at him and smiled. "The Polish people," I said, "ought to be grateful for your sense of humor."

  "Undoubtedly they would feel grateful to me," said Frank, "if Himmler had not seen fit to back my policy of justice and order with violence." He began telling me of the current Warsaw rumors concerning the hundred and fifty Polish intellectuals whom Himmler, before leaving Poland, had ordered shot without Frank's knowledge and despite his objections. Frank was obviously anxious to clear himself in my eyes of the responsibility for that slaughter. Frank told me that he had learned about it from Himmler himself after the shooting as he climbed into the plane that was to take him to Berlin. "Naturally, I made the most vigorous protests," said Frank, "but it was too late."

  "Himmler," I said, "probably laughed. Your protests must have appeared ludicrous to a humorless man like Himmler. At any rate you also were laughing gaily on taking leave of Himmler at the airport. The news must have put you in a good humor."

  Frank fixed me with a glance filled with surprise and uneasiness. "How do you happen to know that I was laughing?" he asked. "It's true, I was laughing, too."

  "All of Warsaw knows it," I replied, "and everyone is talking about it."

  "Ach, so! Wunderbar!" exclaimed Frank raising his eyes to heaven.

  I also raised my eyes to heaven and laughed, and at the same time I could not repress a gesture of wonder and horror. From the ceiling where once had been painted the "Triumph of Venus," a fresco by some eighteenth-century Italian pupil of the great Venetian masters, now hung a mauve-colored wistaria arbor wrought with the precision and realism of that florid style that began with the "modernists" of 1900 and passed through the decorative schools of Vienna and Munich and finally achieved its extreme and highest expression in the official style of the Third R
eich. Horrible to say, that wistaria arbor looked real. The slim trunks climbed up the walls like snakes bending and entwining their long twisted tendrils above our heads. The sinuous branches, hung with leaves and clusters of flowers about which fluttered tiny birds, fat multi-colored butterflies and huge hairy bluebottles, made a lattice-work across a blue sky as clean and smooth as the sky in a cupola painted by Fortuny. My eyes glided slowly down the trunks of the wistaria and descended from branch to branch along the walls until it rested on the rich furniture stiffly and symmetrically ranged along the walls. It was dark, massive Dutch furniture over which hung on the walls blue Delft dishes showing landscapes and seascapes, and red souvenir dishes of the Dutch East India Company depicting pagodas and sea birds. Over a tall, solemn "Old Bavaria" cupboard hung a few Flemish-school still-lifes portraying huge silver trays laden with fish and fruit, and dining tables buried beneath a wonderful variety of game that was being sniffed at by setters, pointers and hunting dogs. The curtains on the large windows were typical Saxon provincial—made of an ugly light rayon with a birds-and-flowers design.

  Schmeling's eyes met mine and he smiled. I was surprised that a prize fighter, with his hard narrow forehead, a gentle brute, could appreciate the grotesque and horrible in that wistaria arbor, that furniture, those pictures, those curtains, that drawing room where nothing was left of what used to be the pride of the Belvedere with its Viennese stuccos, Italian frescoes, French furniture and huge Venetian hanging lights. Only the shape of the doors and windows, and the architectural proportions testified to its former harmony and seventeenth-century grace.

  Frau Brigitte Frank, who for some time, had been following my wandering glances and my lingering, surprised eyes, no doubt imagined that I was struck with admiration for so much art and leaned toward me to say with a proud smile that she herself had supervised the work of the German decorators—as a matter of fact, she used the grand word "artists" instead of "decorators"— who were responsible for that wonderful transformation of the old Belvedere. The wistaria arbor, of which she seemed particularly proud, was the work of a distinguished Berlin woman artist; but she made it clear that the original idea of that arbor was her own. For political reasons, she had first thought of having recourse to the brush of some Polish painter, but then she had given up that idea. "It must be conceded," she said, "that the Poles lack the religious sense of art that is a German heritage."

  That hint at the religious sense of art gave Frank the chance to discourse at length on Polish art, the religious spirit of the Poles and on what he was pleased to call Polish idolatry.

  "They may be given to idolatry," said Schmeling, "but I have noticed that the Poles have a childish and unspoiled conception of God." He went on to tell that on the previous night, while he was watching the training of some Wehrmacht boxers, a little, old Pole who was sprinkling the ring with sawdust had said to him, "If our Lord had possessed a couple of fists like yours, He would never have died on the cross."

  Frank laughingly remarked that had Jesus Christ possessed a pair of fists like Schmeling's, real German fists, the world would be a better place.

  "In a certain sense," I said, "a Jesus endowed with a couple of real German fists would not be unlike Himmler."

  "Ach, wunderbar!" shouted Frank, and everybody joined in the laughter. "Leaving fists aside," went on Frank when the hilarity subsided, "if Jesus Christ had been a German, the world would be ruled by honor."

  "I would rather it were ruled by pity," I replied.

  Frank broke into hearty laughter. "Yours is really an obsession! Would you have us believe that Jesus Christ was a woman too?"

  "The women would feel greatly flattered," said Frau Wächter with a gracious smile.

  "The Poles," said Governor Fischer, "are convinced that Jesus Christ is always on their side, even in political matters, and that He prefers them to any other people, even to the Germans. Their religion and their politics are built upon this childish idea."

  "Luckily for Him," said Frank with fat laughter, "Jesus Christ has too much sense to get embroiled in the polnische Wirtschaft. He would only make trouble for Himself."

  "Aren't you ashamed to blaspheme so?" exclaimed Frau Wächter in her sweet Viennese accent as she threatened Frank with her raised finger.

  "I promise you I won't do it again," replied Frank assuming the air of a naughty child. Then he added, laughing, "If I were certain that Jesus Christ had a couple of fists such as Schmeling's, I would assuredly be more cautious in talking about Him."

  "If Jesus Christ were a prize fighter," said Frau Wächter, "He would have knocked you out a long time ago."

  We all began to laugh, and Frank gallantly bowed to Frau Wächter and asked her by what blow she fancied Jesus Christ would have knocked him out.

  "Herr Schmeling," replied Frau Wächter, "is much better able to tell you."

  "The answer is not difficult," said Schmeling studying Frank's face carefully as if to determine the right place to strike. "Any blow would knock you out. Your head is frail."

  "My head is frail?" shouted Frank blushing. Trying to appear unconcerned, he stroked his face with his hand, but he was visibly annoyed. We all laughed with relish and Frau Wächter kept dabbing her eyes that had filled with tears of laughter. Only Frau Brigitte came to Frank's rescue and, turning to me, she added, "The Governor-General is very friendly to the Polish clergy; he is the true protector of religion in Poland."

  "Ah, is that so?" I exclaimed, pretending to be deeply surprised and pleased.

  "The Polish clergy," said Frank, joyfully seizing upon the opportunity to change the subject, "did not care for me in the beginning. I had serious grounds for dissatisfaction with the priests. But after the recent turn of events in Russia, the clergy came over to my side. Do you know why? They fear that Russia will beat Germany. Ha, ha, ha! Sehr amusant—very amusing—nicht wahr!"

  "Ja, sehr amusant," I replied.

  "There is now perfect understanding between me and the Polish clergy. Nevertheless, I have not altered and shall not alter in the slightest the fundamental lines of my religious policy in Poland. To be respected in a country such as this, one must be consistent; I am, and I shall remain, consistent with myself. Polish aristocracy? I ignore it and have no contact with it. I never enter the houses of Polish noblemen and none of them enter mine. I have allowed them to gamble and to dance freely in their palaces. They gamble, run into debt and dance without perceiving the ruin that faces them. They open their eyes now and again, perceive that they have caused their own ruin, shed tears over the misfortunes of their country and charge me in French of being a cruel tyrant and an enemy of Poland; then they begin laughing, gambling and dancing again.

  "The middle classes? The greatest part of the rich middle class escaped abroad in 1939, in the wake of the Republican government. Their property is administered by German officials. Those of the middle class who have stayed, have been mortally hit by the impossibility of practicing their liberal professions and are trying to survive by desperate means, entrenching themselves in an irreducible opposition that is composed of ludicrous chatter and ineffective plots that I weave and undo behind their backs at my leisure. All Poles are born conspirators, especially the intellectuals. Conspiring is their principal passion. Only one thing comforts them in Poland's ruin—the chance to be able at last to give vent to their dominant passion. But I have a long arm and know how to make use of it. Himmler, whose arm is short, dreams only of shootings and concentration camps. Doesn't he really grasp that the Poles fear neither death nor imprisonment? The secondary schools and the universities were hotbeds of political intrigue. I have closed them. What is the use of high schools and universities in a country that has no Kultur."

  "And now we come to labor. The peasants grow rich on the black market, and I allow them to grow rich. Why? Because the black market is bleeding the middle classes and starving industrial labor, making a coalition of peasants and workers impossible. The workmen toil in silence under the lea
dership of their own technicians. When the Republic crumbled to pieces the technicians did not flee; they have not left their machinery and labor; they have remained at their places. The technicians and the workmen are our enemies too, but they are enemies who deserve respect. They do not conspire; they work. Maybe their behavior is part of a general plan to fight us. Leaflets containing communist propaganda printed in Russia and smuggled into Poland are passed around in the mines, the factories and the shipyards. Those leaflets urge the Polish workmen and technicians to abstain from acts of sabotage and from lowering the average output, to work in perfect discipline, so as not to give the Gestapo any cause for reprisals against labor. Obviously, if labor succeeds in not having its back broken by Himmler and is not scattered about in graveyards and concentration camps, after the war it will be the only class capable of seizing power. Always assuming of course that Germany loses the war. And if Germany wins the war, she will be forced to lean on the only class that will be on its feet, that is to say on labor. The Polish middle class accuse me of being the source of those leaflets. That is a piece of slander. Those leaflets are not of my making, but I allow them to be circulated. Our main concern is to make the Polish industrial output meet the requirements of war. Why should we refrain from utilizing communist propaganda to achieve our objectives when that propaganda, in order to save the working classes from destruction, urges workers not to damage our war production? German and Russian interests in all of Europe are irreconcilable,- there is a single point on which they meet and agree: that is maintaining the full efficiency of the laboring classes until the day when Germany will crush Russia, or Russia will crush Germany.