Kaputt

by Curzio Malaparte

  "Basically," replied Frank, "they risk nothing else."

  "And you call that cricket?"

  "Certainly. Every game has its set of rules."

  "In Cracow," said Frau Wächter, "my husband has built a wall of an Eastern design with elegant curves and graceful battlements.

  The Cracow Jews certainly have nothing to complain about. An elegant wall in the Jewish style."

  They all laughed as they stamped their feet on the frozen snow.

  "Ruhe—Silence!" called a soldier who was kneeling concealed behind a mound of snow a few feet away from us with his rifle against his shoulder. Another soldier, kneeling behind him, peered over the shoulder of his companion who suddenly fired. The bullet hit the wall just at the edge of a hole. "Missed!" remarked the soldier gaily, slipping another cartridge into the barrel.

  Frank walked over to the two soldiers and asked them what they were firing at.

  "At a rat," they replied laughing loudly.

  "At a rat? Ach, so!" said Frank kneeling and looking over the men's shoulders.

  We also came closer, and the ladies laughed and squealed lifting their skirts up to their knees as women do when they hear anything about mice.

  "Where is it? Where is the rat?" asked Frau Brigitte Frank.

  "It is in the trap," said Frank laughing.

  "Achtung! Look out!" said the soldier aiming. A black tuft of tangled hair popped out of the hole dug under the wall; then two hands appeared and rested on the snow.

  It was a child.

  Another shot and again the bullet missed its mark by a few inches. The child's head disappeared.

  "Hand me the rifle," said Frank in an impatient voice. "You don't know how to handle it." He grabbed the rifle out of the soldier's hands and took aim.

  It snowed silently.

  PART THREE

  The Dogs

  VIII. The Winter Night

  AMONG the mink, ermine and squirrel skins, among the skins of blue, silver and platinum foxes, a horrible and pitiful dog skin was displayed in the shop window of the Tartar furrier. It was a fine black and white setter with long silky hair, its eye sockets empty, its ears flattened, its muzzle crushed. A price tag was propped against one of its ears, "An English thoroughbred setter skin, six hundred Finnish marks." We stopped in front of the window. A subtle feeling of horror overcame me.

  "Haven't you ever seen gloves made of dog skin? Colonel Lukander, that Finnish colonel whom we met on the Leningrad front had a pair," said Count Augustin de Foxá, the Spanish Minister in Helsinki. "I would like to buy a pair to take to Madrid. I would tell everybody that they were made of dog skin. Gloves of spaniel's skin are smooth and soft, and gloves of pointer's skin are coarser. For rainy days I would like a pair of rough terrier gloves. Up here the women wear caps and muffs made out of dog skin," de Foxá laughed, looking slyly at me. "Dog skin is becoming to feminine beauty," he added.

  "Dogs are generous," I said.

  It was the end of March 1942. We were walking along a street toward the Esplanade and, having turned into the Esplanade near the Savoy, we went down toward the square that faced the harbor where the neoclassical building occupied by the Swedish Legation stood and, close to it, designed in the style of Engel, was the palace of the President of the Finnish republic. The icy cold felt as though we were walking on the edge of a razor. A little way beyond the Tartar furrier's window, on the corner, we passed an undertaking establishment. The coffins—some painted white, some glistening black with huge silver nails, some mahogany color— were attractively displayed inside. In the window gleamed a single silver coffin for a child.

  "I love this," said de Foxá, stopping to look at the coffins.

  Like all good Spaniards, de Foxá is cruel and funereal. He feels respect only for the soul. Flesh, blood, the suffering of miserable human bodies, their infirmities and wounds—leave him indifferent. He enjoys talking about death, a passing of a funeral procession gladdens him like a feast, he lingers to look at coffins displayed in shop windows; he relishes talking about sores, tumors and monsters. But he is afraid of ghosts; one subject he never talks about is ghosts. He is an intelligent, highly cultured and witty man. Perhaps he is too witty to be truly intelligent. He knows Italy well. He knows most of my friends in Florence and Rome, and I even suspect that at one time we were in love with the same woman without knowing about one another.

  He spent some years in Italy as a Secretary of the Spanish Embassy at the Quirinal, until he was expelled for making some witty remarks at the expense of Countess Edda Ciano on the golf links of Acquasanta and in his reports to Serrano Suner. "Just think, I had been living three years in Rome," he said to me one day, "and I did not know that Countess Edda Ciano was Mussolini's daughter."

  While we walked down the Esplanade, Augustin de Foxá told me that one evening in Madrid he and several of his friends had been to see the tombs opened in the ancient cemetery of St. Sebastian. It happened in 1934 when Spain was a republic. In accordance with the needs for new city-planning in Madrid, the Republican government had decided to have the ancient cemetery demolished. When de Foxá and his friends, among whom were several young Madrid authors—Cesare Gonzalo Ruano, Carlos Miralies, Agostin Vignola and Luis Escobar—reached the cemetery, night had fallen and many tombs had already been opened and emptied. The dead could be seen lying in the opened coffins: matadors in their gala attire, generals in full uniform, priests, boys, well-to-do civilians, girls, noblewomen, children. One young woman had been buried with a bottle of perfume clutched in her hand. To her, the poet Luis Escobar later dedicated a poem: "To a very beautiful woman who was called Maria Concepcion Elola." Later Agostin Vignola wrote an ode to a poor sailor who had died by chance in Madrid and had been buried far away from his sea in that gloomy churchyard. De Foxá and his friends, slightly drunk, knelt before the coffin of the sailor and intoned prayers for the dead. On the breast of the corpse, Carlos Miralles placed a sheet of paper on which he had drawn in pencil a boat, a fish and a few sea waves. They all crossed themselves, saying: "In the name of the North, of the South, of the East and of the West."

  On the tomb of a student, named Novillo, there was an inscription half effaced by the passage of time, "God has interrupted his studies to teach him the truth."

  In a coffin studded with rich silver nails lay the mummified corpse of a young French nobleman, Count de la Martinière, who with a group of French Legitimists had emigrated to Spain in 1830 after the fall of Charles X. Cesare Gonzalo Ruano bowed before Count de la Martinière and said, "I greet you, as an honest French nobleman, loyal and faithful to your legitimate sovereign, and in the presence of your spirit I raise a cry that can no longer come from your lips, a cry that will make your bones tremble, 'Long live the King!'"

  A Republican civilian guard, who was in the churchyard, caught Cesare Gonzalo Ruano by the arm and dragged him to prison.

  De Foxá, gesticulating as was his custom, talked in a loud voice.

  "Augustin," I said, "speak softly—the ghosts are listening to you."

  "Ghosts?" whispered de Foxá, turning pale and gazing around. The houses, the trees, the statues, the benches in the Esplanade garden seemed to shimmer in the ghostly, cold light that the reflection of snow spread in the evenings of the North. A few drunken soldiers were arguing with a girl on the corner of the Mikonkatu. A policeman walked back and forth on the sidewalk before the Hotel Kämp. Above Mannerheim Street, above the roofs, the sky was spread white, uncreased, without a tremor, like the sky in an old, faded photograph. The huge iron letters of the Klubbi cigarette advertisement on the roof of Uosisuoma Palace stood out black against the white sky like the skeleton of a huge insect. The glass tower of the Stockmann Palace and the skyscraper of the Torni Hotel swayed in the livid air.

  Nothing will ever remind me so much of the Finnish winter as Linguaphone records. Whenever I see among the advertisements of a newspaper, "Learn foreign languages by the Linguaphone method," whenever I chance to read those two mag
ic words, Linguaphone Institute, I think of the Finnish winter, the ghostly forests and the frozen lakes of Finland.

  Whenever I happen to hear the Linguaphone records mentioned, I close my eyes and see my friend Jaakko Leppo, thickset and fat, laced in the uniform of a Finnish captain; I see his round, pale face with high cheekbones, his small suspicious eyes, those slanting eyes of his, full of a cold gray light. I see my friend Jaakko Leppo, a glass in his hand, sitting in front of a gramophone in the library of his house in Helsinki, and clustered around him, also with glasses in their hands, Liisi Leppo, Madame and Minister P— , Count Augustin de Foxá, Titu Michailescu, Mario Orano, all listening to the raucous voice of the gramophone. I see Jaakko Leppo now and again raising his glass full of brandy, saying, "Maljanne—Your health!"...

  It was two in the morning, and we had just finished our second or third supper. Sitting in the library in front of the huge window-pane carved in the ghostly sky, we were watching Helsinki slowly sinking into the snow. From that white and silent derelict protruded the columns of the Palace of Parliament emerging like the masts of a ship—the smooth front of the Post Office—and, farther away against the background of the trees on the Esplanade and in Brunnsparken—the towers of glass and concrete of the Stockmann and the Torni skyscrapers.

  The thermometer hanging outside the window was down to forty-nine degrees below zero. "Forty-nine degrees below zero is Finland's Parthenon," said de Foxá. From time to time Jaakko Leppo raised his glass full of brandy and said, Maljanne. I was just back from the Leningrad front. For a fortnight I had done nothing but say Maljanne everywhere, in the depths of the Karelian forests, in the koisus hewn in the ice, in the trenches, in the lottalas, on the tracks of the Kannas{9} each time my sled met another sled—everywhere; I did nothing for a fortnight but raise my glass and say Maljanne.

  On the Viipuri train I had spent an entire night saying Maljanne with the superintendent of railways of the Viipuri district, who had come to call on Jaakko Leppo in our compartment. He was a thickset, Herculean man, with a pale, swollen face. He removed his heavy sheepskin coat and emerged in a dress suit. Below his spotless white tie the neck of a bottle protruded between his starched shirt and his vest. He had been to his son's wedding. The nuptial feast had lasted for three days, and he was going back to Viipuri, to his engines, his trains and his office, which had been excavated from the wreckage of the station that Soviet mines had destroyed.

  "It's odd," he said to me, "today I have drunk a great deal and I am not even tipsy." In my opinion he was very drunk on very little liquor. After a while he drew the bottle from his bosom, a couple of glasses from his pocket, filled them with brandy to the brim, and said "Maljanne."

  I said "Maljanne," and we spent the night saying Maljanne and gazing at each other in silence. Now and again he began talking to me in Latin—the only language in which we could understand each other—and pointing at the black, hard, ghostly, endless forest that runs along the railway, he said: "Semper domestica silva," and he added, "Maljanne." Then he roused Jaako Leppo with: "Somno vinoque sepultum," from his couch and placing a glass in his hand, he said "Maljanne." Jaakko Leppo said "Maljanne," emptied the glass in one gulp without opening his eyes and fell asleep again. Thus we sat until we reached Viipuri and separated saying, "Vale!—Farewell!" to one another amid the ruins of the station.

  For a fortnight I had done nothing but say Maljanne in every korsu and every lottala in the Kannas and Eastern Karelia. I had said Maljanne in Viipuri with Lieutenant Svartström and the other officers of his company. I had said Maljanne in Terioki, Alexandrovska, in Taippala, in Raikkola, on the shores of Lake Ladoga with the officers of Colonel Merikallio's rangers; I had said Maljanne in the trenches in front of Leningrad with the artillery officers of Colonel Lukander. I had said Maljanne in the tepidarium of the sauna, the Finnish national bath; after running out of the calidarium where the heat rises to seventy-six degrees Centigrade—and rolling naked in the snow on the edge of the forest in a cold of forty-four degrees below zero. I had said Maljanne in the house of the Russian painter Repin in the suburbs of Leningrad, and while gazing at the great painter's tomb amid the trees in the garden I could see yonder, at the end of the road, the first houses of Leningrad beneath the huge clouds of smoke hovering above the city.

  Until the uneasy hour when the Finns grow sad, they gaze into each other's faces with a challenging air, bite their underlips and drink in silence without saying Maljanne, as if trying to repress a deep wrath within their breasts. I meant to slip away unnoticed, and so did de Foxá, but Minister P— had caught him by the arm and was saying, "My dear Minister, you know Mr. Ivalo, don't you?" Ivalo was the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office.

  "He is among my dearest friends," replied de Foxá in a conciliatory tone. "He is a man of uncommon intelligence, and Madame Ivalo is a most gracious lady."

  "I did not ask you whether you knew Madame Ivalo," said Minister P— , fixing de Foxá with his small, suspicious eyes. "I wanted to know whether you knew Mr. Ivalo."

  "Yes, I know him very well," replied de Foxá, his eyes beseeching me not to desert him.

  "Do you know what he has told me about Spain and Finland? I met him tonight in the Kämp Bar. He was with Minister Hakkarainen. You are acquainted with Minister Hakkarainen, are you not?"

  "Minister Hakkarainen is a charming man," replied de Foxá, his eyes meantime searching for Titu Michailescu.

  "Do you know, Ivalo asked me whether I knew the difference between Spain and Finland?"

  "It can be found on the thermometer," prudently replied de Foxá.

  "Why on the thermometer? No, it cannot be found on the thermometer," said Minister P— irritably. "The difference is that Spain is a sympathizer but not a belligerent, while Finland is a belligerent but not a sympathizer."

  "Ha, ha, ha, very funny indeed," said de Foxá laughing.

  "Why are you laughing?" asked Minister P— in a suspicious voice.

  Jaakko Leppo was sitting motionless on the piano stool, like a Tartar in his saddle, staring at de Foxá with his narrow, slanting eyes, consumed by dark jealousy. He was furious because Minister P— had not told him what he had told the Minister of Spain.

  Then struck the dangerous hour when the Finns sulk with lowered heads, drink on their own without saying Maljanne as if they were alone and drinking in secret, and when they talk aloud in Finnish to themselves. Mario Orano had disappeared. He had escaped on tiptoe without being noticed by anyone, although I had kept my eyes on him and had closely followed his every move. But Orano had been living in Finland for two or three years, and he had mastered the difficult art of slipping away mysteriously from a Finnish house just as the dangerous hour is about to strike. I would also have liked to slip away quietly, but every time I managed to get to the door, I felt something cold piercing my back and, turning, I met the gloomy eyes of Jaakko Leppo who was sitting on the piano stool like a Tartar in his saddle.

  "Let's go," I said to de Foxá, clutching his arm, but just then, Minister P— approached de Foxá and in a strange voice asked, "Is it true, my dear Minister, that you have told Mrs. McClintock that she wears feathers, I don't remember where?" De Foxá fenced and said that it wasn't true, but Minister P— paled and said, "What's that? You deny it?"

  I said to de Foxá: "Don't deny it! For heaven's sake, don't deny it!"

  And Minister P— persisted, becoming paler and paler, "Do you deny it? Confess that you dare not repeat what you said to Mrs. McClintock."

  I said to de Foxá: "For heaven's sake, repeat to him what you said to Helen McClintock."

  De Foxá began to recount that one night he had been a guest at the house of the United States Minister, Mr. Arthur Schoenfeld, along with Helen McClintock and Robert Mills McClintock, Secretary of the United States Legation; M. Hubert Guerin, Minister of Vichy France, and Madame Guerin had joined them later. Madame Guerin had happened to ask Helen McClintock if her ancestry was as Spanish as her looks and her accent s
eemed to suggest. Helen McClintock, who is a Spaniard from Chile, forgetting that the Spanish Minister was present, had replied, "Unfortunately, yes."

  "Ha, ha! That's very amusing, isn't it?" shouted Minister P— , slapping de Foxá on the back.

  "Wait, the story is not finished," I said impatiently.

  De Foxá went on to say that he had replied to Mrs. McClintock, "My dear Helen, when one is from South America, one is not Spanish. One wears feathers on the head."

  "Ha, ha, ha! Very amusing!" shouted Minister P— and, turning to Madame P— , he said, "Did you understand, dear? In South America, Spaniards wear feathers on their heads!"

  I whispered to de Foxá, "Let's go, for heaven's sake!"

  But the pathetic hour had struck when Finns become sentimental, begin to sigh deeply into their empty glasses and gaze at one another with tearful eyes. Just as de Foxá and I approached Liisi Leppo who was languidly sprawling in an armchair, to beseech her in pleading tones to excuse us, Jaakko Leppo rose and said loudly, "I want you to listen to some records." He added proudly, "I have a gramophone."

  He went to the gramophone, chose a record out of a leather album, placed the needle and gazed round with a severe look. We all waited in silence.

  "This is a Chinese record," he said.

  It was a Linguaphone record. A nasal voice gave us a long lesson in Chinese pronunciation, to which we listened in complete silence.

  Then Jaakko Leppo changed the record, wound up the machine and announced, "This record is in Hindustani."

  A lesson in Hindustani pronunciation followed to which we listened in deep silence.

  Then came several lessons in Turkish grammar, then a string of lessons in Arabic pronunciation and, finally, five lessons in Japanese grammar and pronunciation. We all kept silent as we listened. "Finally," announced Jaakko Leppo, turning the handle of the gramophone, "I shall let you listen to a wonderful record."

  This was a lesson in French pronunciation; a teacher of the Linguaphone Institute declaimed Lamartine's "Le Lac" in a nasal voice. We all listened keeping absolutely silent. When the nasal voice stopped, Jaakko Leppo gazed around with emotion and said, "My wife has learnt this record by heart. Do you mind, dear?"