Kaputt

by Curzio Malaparte

  "The love of these girls costs nothing," said Schenck. "It is a free service."

  "You mean compulsory work?"

  "No, a free service," replied Schenck. "In any case, it's not worth while paying them."

  "Not worth while paying them? Why?"

  The Sonderführer explained that when their turn was over, after a couple of weeks, they would be sent back to their homes and replaced by another team of girls.

  "Home?" I asked. "Are you certain that they will be sent back to their homes?"

  "Yes," replied Schenck with some embarrassment, blushing slightly, "home, maybe to a hospital; I don't know. Maybe to a concentration camp."

  "Instead of those unfortunate Jewish girls, why don't you put Russian prisoners in that brothel?"

  Schenck burst out laughing and kept laughing. He clapped me on the shoulder and laughed, "Ach, so! Ach, so!" But I was certain that he had not grasped what I had meant; he, no doubt, fancied that I had hinted at the story about a certain house in Baltsiu in which a Leibesstandart of SS men had a secret brothel for homosexuals. He had not fully grasped what I had meant, and he laughed open-mouthed, slapping me on the shoulder with his hand.

  "If instead of those unfortunate Jewish girls," I said, "there were Russian soldiers, the fun would be greater, wouldn't it?"

  At last Schenck thought he understood and began laughing louder. Then suddenly he asked in a serious tone, "Do you think that the Russians are homosexuals?"

  "You'll find out at the end of the war," I replied.

  "Ja, ja, natürlich, we'll find out at the end of the war!" said Schenck, gurgling with laughter—

  One evening, very late, close to midnight, I set out for the Genoese castle. I went down to the river, turned into a lane of that miserable neighborhood, knocked at the door of that house and went in. In a large room lighted by an oil lamp hanging from the center of the ceiling, three girls were seated on the sofas placed along the walls. A wooden staircase led to the upper floor.

  From the rooms above came the squeakings of doors, light footsteps and a murmur of distant voices that seemed sunk in darkness.

  The three girls raised their eyes and looked at me. They sat sedately on the low sofas covered with those ugly Romanian carpets of Cetacea Alba striped in yellow, red and green. One of them was reading a book that she put down on her knees to watch me as soon as I entered. It looked like a brothel interior painted by Pascin. They watched me in silence; one of them smoothed with her fingers her black crinkly hair that had gathered on her forehead like a child's. In a corner of the room, on a table covered with a yellow shawl, stood several bottles of beer, of zuica, and a double row of glasses.

  "Gute Nacht," said the girl after a while, as she smoothed her hair.

  "Buna sear a" I replied in Romanian.

  "Buna sear a" said the girl, sadly attempting to smile.

  At that moment I no longer remembered why I had gone to that house, although I was aware that without letting Schenck know, I had gone not out of curiosity or from a vague feeling of pity, but for something that my conscience now refused to accept.

  "It's very late," I said.

  "We are closing soon," said the girl.

  Meanwhile one of her companions had risen from the settee, and covertly glancing at me, lazily approached the gramophone standing on a little table in a corner,- she turned the handle and placed the needle on the record. A woman's voice singing a tango rhythm came from the gramophone. I went over and lifted the needle from the record.

  "Why?" asked the girl who with arms raised was getting ready to dance with me. Without waiting for a reply, she turned her back on me and went back to sit on the sofa. She was short and quite plump. Her feet were clad in light green cloth slippers. I joined her on the sofa and, staring intently at me, she tucked her skirt under her leg to make room for me. She was smiling, and I cannot tell why the smile irritated me. Just then a door opened at the top of the stairs and a woman's voice called, "Susannah!"

  Down the stairs came a pale, thin girl holding a lighted candle shielded by a funnel of yellow paper. Her hair hung loosely over her shoulders. She wore slippers, a towel draped over her bent arm, her hand held up her dressing-gown—a sort of bath wrap tied around her waist with a cord—as if it were monk's cloak. She descended half way down the stairs, and looked me over attentively, frowning, as if my presence annoyed her, then she looked around with more suspicion than anger. She looked at the gramophone on which the record was still turning idly with a slight rustle. She looked at the untouched glasses, the orderly array of bottles and, opening her mouth in a wide yawn, she said in a slightly hoarse voice in which there was something harsh and rude, "Let's go to bed, Susannah. It's late."

  The girl whom the newcomer had called Susannah laughed, looking at her companion mockingly, "Are you tired already, Lublia?" she asked. "What have you been doing to make you so tired?"

  Lublia did not reply. She sat on the sofa opposite ours and with a yawn she carefully examined my uniform. Then she asked: "You are not German. What are you?"

  "Italian."

  "Italian?" The girls were now looking at me with curiosity. The one who was reading closed her book and looked at me in a tired, absent-minded way.

  "Italy is beautiful," said Susannah.

  "I would rather it were an ugly country," I said. "It's no use, just being beautiful."

  "I would like to be on the way to Italy," said Susannah. "To Venice. I would like to live in Venice."

  "In Venice?" asked Lublia, and began to laugh.

  "Wouldn't you go to Venice with me?" said Susannah. "I've never seen a gondola."

  "If I weren't in love I would start right now."

  Her companions laughed and one of them said, "We are all in love."

  The others began laughing again and casting strange glances in my direction.

  "We have many lovers," said Susannah in French, with the soft accent of Romanian Jews.

  "They would not let us leave for Italy," said Lublia lighting a cigarette. "They are so jealous!" I noticed that she had a long, narrow face and a small sad mouth with thin lips. It looked like the mouth of a child. But her nose was bony, the color of wax, with red nostrils. She smoked raising her eyes to the ceiling now and then, blowing the smoke into the air with a studied indifference. There was something resigned and at the same time despairing in her white glance.

  The girl who had been sitting with the book in her lap rose and, clutching the book in her hands, said "Nopte buna."

  "Nopte buna, Domnule Capitan," the girl said again bowing to me with a shy, clumsy grace. She turned and went up the stairs.

  "Do you want the candle, Zoe?" asked Lublia following her with her eyes.

  "Thanks, I am not afraid of the dark," replied Zoe without turning.

  "Are you going to dream about me?" shouted Susannah after her.

  "Certainly! I am going to sleep in Venice!" replied Zoe as she disappeared.

  We were silent for a while. The distant roar of a truck broke gently against the windowpanes.

  "Do you like the Germans?" Susannah suddenly asked me.

  "Why shouldn't I?" I answered in a slightly suspicious tone that was not lost on the girl.

  "They are very nice, aren't they?" she said.

  "Some of them are very nice."

  Susannah stared at me for a long time, then she said with inexpressible hatred, "They are very kind to women."

  "Don't you believe her," said Lublia. "At heart she is very fond of them."

  Susannah laughed and looked at me in a strange way. Something white and soft was lifting from the depths of her eyes; they seemed to be melting.

  "Perhaps she has reasons to love them," I said.

  "Certainly," said Susannah. "They are my last love."

  I noticed that her eyes filled with tears, although she smiled. I gently stroked her hand and Susannah dropped her head on her chest, letting her silent tears stream down her face.

  "What are you crying ab
out?" said Lublia in a hoarse voice, as she threw away her cigarette. "We still have two more days of gay life. Do you want more? Haven't you had enough?" Then, raising her voice and her arms, shaking her hands above her head, as if she were calling for help, in a voice filled with hatred, revulsion and grief, she screamed, "Two days, two days more and then they will send us home! Only two days more and here you are crying! We'll be free, don't you understand? Free, free!" Dropping on the sofa, she buried her face in the cushions and began trembling, her teeth chattered violently and, now and again in that strange voice of fear, she repeated, "Two days, only two days!" One of her slippers dropped off her foot and hit the wooden floor; her bare foot as small as a child's was exposed reddish, wrinkled, seared by white scars. I thought that she must have walked miles and miles,- who knows where she came from, who knows through how much space she had fled before she was caught and brought by force into that house.

  Susannah was silent, her head lowered, her hand between my hands. She did not seem to breathe. Suddenly she asked softly, without looking at me, "Do you think they will send us home?"

  "They cannot make you stay here all your life."

  "Every twenty days they change the girls," said Susannah. "We have been here eighteen days already. Two days more and we shall be replaced. They have warned us already. But do you really think that they will let us go back to our homes?" I felt that she was afraid of something, but I could not understand of what. She told me that she had learned French in school in Kishinev, that her father was a Baltsiu merchant; that Lublia was a doctor's daughter; that three of her other companions were students, and she added that Lublia studied music, that she played the piano like an angel, and—she said—she would be a great musician.

  "When she leaves this house," I said, "she will be able to resume her studies."

  "Who knows? After all we went through! Besides, who knows where we shall end up?"

  Meanwhile Lublia had raised herself on her elbows. Her face was tight as a closed fist; her eyes shone strangely in her waxen face. She shook as if she had a fever. "Yes, I shall certainly become a great musician," she said and began laughing as she searched through the pockets of her dressing-gown for a cigarette. She rose, went to the table, opened a bottle of beer, filled three glasses and offered them to us on a wooden tray. She moved lightly, without any noise.

  "I'm thirsty," said Lublia drinking greedily with closed eyes.

  The air was stiflingly hot; through the half-shut windows came the thick breath of the summer night. Lublia walked barefoot about the room, an empty glass in her hand, her eyes staring blindly. Her long, lean body swayed under the flabby bell of the loose red dressing-gown, her bare feet made a soft muffled noise on the wooden floor. The other girl, who all this time had not uttered a single word or given any sign of life—as if she had been gazing at us without seeing us—unaware of what was happening around her, had meanwhile fallen asleep; she lay on the sofa in her poor patched gown, one hand resting on her leg, the other clenched in a fist on her bosom. Now and then, from the public gardens, came the sharp crack of a rifle. From the opposite bank of the Dniester, down the river from Yambol, came a rumble of artillery that was stifled in the wooly folds of the sultry night. Lublia stood in front of her sleeping companion and gazed at her in silence. Then, turning to Susannah, she said, "We must put her to bed. She is tired."

  "We have worked all day long," added Susannah, as if apologizing. "We are worn out. By day we have the soldiers; in the evenings from eight to eleven—the officers. We haven't a moment's rest." She talked in a detached way, as if she were discussing any ordinary sort of work. She did not even show any signs of disgust. While she spoke, she rose and helped Lublia to lift her friend who awoke as soon as her feet touched the floor; moaning, as if she were suffering from pain, she yielded and almost lay in the arms of her friends as they moved up the stairs, until her moans and the sound of their steps died away behind the closed door.

  I was left alone. The oil lamp hanging from the ceiling was smoking. I rose to turn down the wick and the lamp continued to sway, rocking my shadow along the walls along with the shadows of the furniture, the bottles and other things. It would have been better if I had left at that moment. I was seated on the sofa looking at the door. I had a dim feeling that it was wrong for me to stay in that house. It would have been better if I had left before Lublia and Susannah came back.

  "I was afraid we would not find you here," said Susannah's voice behind me. She had come noiselessly down the stairs; she moved slowly about the room as she arranged the bottles and glasses and then came over and sat next to me on the sofa. She had powdered her face and looked even paler than before. She asked me how long I would stay in Soroca.

  "I don't know, not more than two or three days," I replied. "I have to leave for the Odessa front, but I shall be back soon."

  "Do you think the Germans will take Odessa?"

  "I care nothing about what the Germans do," I replied.

  "I wish I could say the same," said Susannah.

  "Oh, I am sorry, Susannah. I did not mean..." I said. After an uncomfortable pause, I added, "It does not matter what the Germans do. It takes more than that to win a war."

  "Do you know who will win the war? Perhaps you imagine that the Germans or the British or the Russians will win the war? The war will be won by us, by Lublia, Zoe, Marica; by me and all those who are like us. It will be won by whores."

  "Shut up," I said.

  "It will be won by whores," repeated Susannah raising her voice. Then she broke into silent laughter and, finally, in a shaky voice, in the voice of a frightened child, asked, "Do you think that they will send us home?"

  "Why shouldn't they send you home?" I replied. "Are you afraid that they will send you to another house like this?"

  "Oh, no! After twenty days of this work we are not fit for anything. I saw them—I saw the other ones." She broke off and I noticed that her lips were trembling. That day she had had to submit to forty-three soldiers and six officers. She laughed. She could no longer bear life. The physical exhaustion was worse than the disgust. "Worse than the disgust," she repeated smiling. That smile hurt me; it seemed as if she meant to apologize, or maybe that there was something else in that ambiguous smile, something obscure. She added that the other ones, those who had been there before her before Lublia, Zoe and Marica, when they had left that house had been reduced to a pitiful condition. They no longer appeared to be women. They were rags. She had seen them going out with their suitcases and with their bundles of rags under their arms. Two SS men armed with tommy guns had shoved them into a truck to take them no one knows where. "I would like to go back home," said Susannah. "I want to go back home."

  The lamp was smoking again; a greasy smell of oil spread through the room. I gently held Susannah's hand between mine, and her hand trembled like a frightened bird. The night was breathing on the threshold like a sick beast; its warm breath penetrated the room together with the rustle of the leaves in the trees and the ripple of the river.

  "I have seen them when they went out of here," said Susannah with a shudder. "They looked like ghosts."

  We sat like that, in silence, in the twilight of the room, and I was filled with bitter sadness. I no longer trusted my own words. My words were false and evil. Our silence also seemed to me false and evil.

  "See you soon, Susannah," I said softly.

  "Don't you want to come upstairs?" she asked.

  "It is late," I replied making for the door. "See you soon, Susannah."

  "Au revoir," said Susannah smiling.

  Her poor smile was shining on the threshold, and the sky was full of stars.

  "Did you ever hear anything more about those poor girls?" asked Louise after a long silence.

  "I learned that two days later they were taken away. Every twenty days the Germans provided a change of girls. Those who left the brothel were shoved into a truck and taken down to the river. Later Schenck told me that it was not worth whil
e to feel so sorry for them. They were not fit for anything any more. They were reduced to rags, and besides, they were Jewish."

  "Did they know that they would be shot?" asked Ilse.

  "They knew it. They trembled with fear. Oh, they knew it! Everybody knew it in Soroca."

  When we came out into the open, the sky was full of stars. They shone, cold and dead, like glass eyes. The raucous whistle of the train was heard from the station. A pale spring moon rose in the clear sky, the trees and the houses appeared to be made of a slimy, soft material. Over by the river a bird was singing. We walked along a deserted road to the bank and sat on the dam.

  In the darkness, the river rustled like bare feet on grass. Then, in the branches of a tree that was already lighted by the pale flame of the moon, another began singing and others far and near replied. A large bird flew with silent wings through the trees, swooped down almost skimming the water and crossed the river in a slow and uncertain flight. There came back to my mind the summer night in the Roman prison, Regina Coeli, when a flight of birds settled on the roof of the prison and began singing. They certainly had come from the trees on the Gianicolo. They had nests in Tasso's oak, I thought. I thought that they had their nests in Tasso's oak and I began weeping. I felt ashamed of weeping, but after such a long imprisonment, a bird's song is stronger that a man's pride. "Oh, Louise," I said and without meaning to, I took her hand and held it gently in mine.

  Just as gently, Louise withdrew her hand and gazed at me with wonder rather than reproach. She was surprised by my unexpected gesture. Perhaps she regretted that she had evaded my sorrowful caress and the things I wanted to tell her. There rose in my mind Susannah's hand resting between mine—the small, sweating hand of Susannah—down there in the Soroca brothel; there rose in my mind the hand of the Russian working woman that I had covertly pressed one evening in a coach of the Berlin U-Bahn—that broad, lined hand, cracked by acids. It seemed to me that I was sitting with Susannah, the unfortunate Jewish girl, on the sofa in the Soroca brothel. A deep feeling of pity swept over me for Louise, Louise von Preussen, for the Imperial Princess, Louise von Hohenzollern. The birds were singing around us in the dark light of the moon. The two girls were silent as they gazed at the dull glint of the river flowing past the bank in the darkness.