Kaputt

by Curzio Malaparte

  It really was the rattle of castanets, and little by little it grew louder, clearer and closer. All the sound lacked, however, was an echo of smells that usually accompany the rattle of castanets— the smell of withered flowers, of fritters and of incense. It was the sound of hundreds and hundreds of castanets. An interminable procession of Andalusian dancers marching within the glinting sheath of the frozen nocturnal sun. They were not followed by the shouts of crowds, by the bangs of firecrackers, or by the blare of distant bands. Only by that sharp and high pitched crackle of castanets that came always nearer.

  I jumped out of bed and aroused my companion. Georg Beandasch rose on his elbow, listened and looked at me with a smile. He said in that peculiar precise and ironical manner of his, "Reindeer. The two toes that hang from their heels knock against each other when they run and sound like castanets." Then he added: "Did you mistake them for Spanish dancers? The first night General von Heunert thought that they were Andalusian ballet girls. I had to bring a reindeer into his room at two in the morning." He spat on the floor and, smiling, went to sleep. I looked out of the window. A herd of several hundred reindeer was galloping toward the river along the edge of the forest. In the Hyperborean forest they were the ghosts of the Mediterranean lands, of the warm lands of the South. The ghost of Andalusia anointed with olive oil and parched by the sun. And in the frozen thin air, I could sense an absurd, imaginary smell of human sweat.

  The nocturnal sun slanted through the small islands scattered in the center of the lake and tinted them with the color of blood. A dog, far down in the Inari village, howled plaintively. The sky was covered with fish scales that glittered and trembled in the icy dazzling air. I was walking with Kurt Franz along the wooded slopes of the hill toward the lake. Among the hundred islets scattered in the middle of the lake I discerned Ukonsaari, the sacred island of the Lapps, the most famous heathen shrine in the entire Inari region. There, on that cone-shaped islet that the nocturnal sun reddens like a volcano, the ancient Lapps gathered in spring and autumn to sacrifice reindeer and dogs to their gods. Even today the Lapps stand in sacred awe of Ukonsaari and land on it only on certain days as if prompted by a subconscious recollection, by an obscure longing for their ancient heathen ceremonies.

  We sat down to rest under a tree and gazed at the huge silvery lake stretched out naked in the icy flame of the nocturnal sun. The war was far away from us. I no longer smelled around me that sad odor of man, of perspiring man, of wounded man, of hungry man, of dead man that defiled the air in unhappy Europe. Only the smell of resin, that cold lean smell of Arctic lands, the smell of trees, water and earth, that smell of wild beasts. Kurt Franz was smoking his short Norwegian pipe, a Lille Hammer which he had purchased in Mr. Juho Nykänen's sekatavara kauppa. I watched him furtively and I smelled him. He was a man, perhaps a man like all other man, perhaps a man like myself. There was the odor of a wild beast about him—the odor of a squirrel, a fox, a reindeer. The odor of a wolf. The summer odor of wolves when hunger does not make them cruel. It was a primitive animal odor, the odor of wolves in the summer when the green grass, the warm wind and the waters free from ice, rippling and murmuring in a thousand rivulets toward the calm lake, dissolve their cruelty, their savagery, and quench their thirst for blood. He smelt like a sated wolf, a resting wolf, a wolf at peace. For the first time after three years of war, I felt untroubled beside a German. We were far from the war, outside war, outside humanity and outside time. He really smelt like a wolf in the summer, like a German when the war is over, and he is no longer athirst for blood.

  We went down the hill and, just outside the forest, close to the Inari village, we passed by an inclosure surrounded by a high stockade of white birch logs.

  "It's the reindeer Calvary," Kurt Franz said, "the autumn rite of slaughtering the reindeer is a kind of Easter for the Lapps that is reminiscent of the sacrifice of the Lamb. The reindeer is the Christ of the Lapps," Kurt Franz said. We entered the vast inclosure. Against the hard, cold light that cuts the grass, an extraordinary, wonderful forest spread before my eyes: thousands upon thousands of reindeer horns heaped haphazard in a fantastic entanglement, thin in some places, in other places standing like thickets of bones. The most ancient horns were clothed in a slight green-yellow, reddish mildew. Many horns were still fresh and tender, not yet encased in the hard, bony crust. Some of the others were broad and flat with many branches, still others were knife-shaped and looked like steel blades growing out of the ground. On one side of the inclosure were heaped thousands and thousands of reindeer skulls, shaped like Greek helmets, with empty triangular orbits in the hard frontal bones that were white and smooth. All those horns looked like the metal trophies of knights fallen on the battlefield—an animal Roncevaux. Yet there was no trace of a struggle anywhere. There was order, repose and a deep solemn quiet. A breath of wind passed over the meadow and made the blades of grass tremble between the motionless bony trees of that extraordinary forest.

  During the autumn the herds of reindeer, prompted and guided by instinct, by an obscure call, cover immense distances to reach those savage Calvaries where they are expected by the Lapp herders who sit on their heels, their "four winds hats," the nelyäntuulen lakki, jammed on the nape of their necks, the short glinting puukkos clutched in their small hands. The smallness and delicacy of the Lapps' hands are a wonder. They are the smallest and most delicate hands in the world—a wonderful and most delicate contrivance made of the toughest steel. The thin, patient fingers are as accurate as the pincers of a la Chaux-de-Fonds watchmaker or of an Amsterdam diamond cutter. Tamely and docilely the reindeer offer their jugular veins to the deadly blades of the puukkos; they die without a sound, with a pathetic and despairing sweetness.

  "Like Jesus Christ," Kurt Franz said. Within the inclosure the grass, fed by so much gore, is thick. But the small leaves of some of the bushes look as if they had been charred by a great fire; perhaps it is the heat and the very flame of blood that paints them red and sears them.

  "No, it cannot be the blood," Kurt Franz said. "Blood does not burn."

  "I've seen entire cities burned by a single drop of blood," I said.

  "Blood disgusts me," Kurt Franz replied. "It's a dirty thing. It soils everything it touches. Vomit and blood are two things that disgust me the most."

  He ran his hand over his forehead already gnawed by a scrofulous baldness. He gripped the mouthpiece of his Lille Hammer in his toothless mouth. Now and then he took the pipe out of his mouth and crossly spat on the ground, bending slightly forward. While we were crossing the village two old Lapp women, sitting on a doorstep, followed us with their half-closed eyes and slowly turned their yellow wrinkled faces. They were squatting on their heels, smoking short clay pipes, their elbows on their knees. A soft rain was falling. A large bird flew low over the branches of the firs and sent forth hoarse and monotonous cries.

  In front of the hotel General von Heunert was getting ready to go fishing. He was wearing Lapp boots of reindeer leather that reached half way up his thighs. He had wrapped himself in a wide net cape against mosquitoes, and his arms were sunk up to the elbows in large gloves of dog's leather; he stood in front of the hotel waiting for his Lapp servant, Pekka, to finish packing the bag of food. General von Heunert was in full battle dress—his head was covered by a steel helmet, a heavy Mauser hung from his belt, and he was leaning on his long fishing rod like an ancient Teuton leaning on his long spear. From time to time he spoke to a short, thickset, gray-haired Alpenjäger captain who stood beside him with the rosy, smiling face of a Tirolean. Behind the General, at a respectful distance, Georg Beandasch stood rigidly at attention. He was also shod, gloved, armed and wrapped in a net cape reaching down to his heels. He nodded to me and I gathered from the way his lips were moving that he was mumbling some amiable Berlin curses.

  "This time," General von Heunert said to me, "I hold victory in the palm of my hand."

  "You have not been very lucky these past few days," I said.

/>   "That's what I think, too. I have had no luck," General von Heunert said. "But that's not what Captain Springenschmid thinks. To his mind, the fault is mine—the salmon are capricious and obstinate and I have overlooked their temperament. A most grievous error! Luckily, Captain Springenschmid has lectured me on the temperament of the trout, and now—"

  "Of the trout?" I said.

  "Of the trout. Why not?" General von Heunert said. "Captain Springenschmid, who is well known throughout the Tirol as a specialist in trout fishing, maintains that the Tirolean trout has the same temperament as the Lapp salmon. Isn't it so, Captain Springenschmid?"

  "Jawohl," Captain Springenschmid replied with a bow and, turning to me, said with that soft accent that the Tiroleans have when they speak Italian, "One must not seem to be in a hurry with trout. One needs patience—a monk's patience. When a trout perceives that a fisherman has patience and plenty of time on his hands, it becomes nervous and grows irritable and does something foolish. The fisherman must be quick to take advantage of that foolishness. Trout—"

  "Yes, trout," I said. "But what about salmon?" "Salmon are like trout," Captain Springenschmid said with a smile. "The trout is not a patient animal; it becomes tired of waiting and rushes into danger. As soon as it bites, it is lost. Gently, delicately it is reeled in by the fisherman. It is child's play. Trout—"

  "Yes, trout," I said. "But what about salmon?"

  "Salmon," Captain Springenschmid said, "is only a larger trout. Shortly before the war, at Landeck in the Tirol—"

  "It looks," General von Heunert said, "as if my salmon were the finest specimen ever seen in these rivers. It's a huge beast, extraordinarily plucky. Just think, the other day it almost knocked its snout against my knees!"

  "It's an insolent salmon!" I said. "It deserves to be punished."

  "It's a damnable salmon," General von Heunert said. "The only salmon left in the Juutuanjoki. It probably thinks it can drive me by force out of the river and can remain master of the stream. We shall see who is more obstinate: a salmon or a German." He opened his mouth wide and began laughing, making the wide folds of the large mosquito net sway about him.

  "Perhaps," I said, "it is irritated by your general's uniform. You should put on a civilian dress. It isn't fair to fish salmon in a general's uniform."

  "Was! Was sagen Sie, bittet—What? What were you saying?" General von Heunert said, growing dark in the face.

  "Your salmon," I said, "probably lacks a sense of humor. Perhaps Captain Springenschmid can tell you how to behave with a salmon that has no sense of humor."

  "You have to match wits with a trout," Captain Springenschmid said. "The General must pretend that he is in the middle of the river for quite another reason than the trout imagines. A trout has to be deceived."

  "It won't escape me this time!" General von Heunert said firmly.

  "You will teach the salmon to respect German generals," I said.

  "Ja, ja!" exclaimed General von Heunert, but his face grew angry and he glanced at me with suspicion.

  Just then Mrs. Irjaa Palmunen Himanka appeared on the threshold of the hotel, followed by Pekka who bore a tray with a bottle of brandy and several glasses. With a smile she approached the General, filled the glasses and offered them first to the General and then to each one of us.

  "Prosit," said General von Heunert raising his glass.

  "Prosit," we all repeated in a chorus.

  "Für Gott und Vaterland," I said.

  "Heil Hitler," the General answered.

  "Heil Hitler," the other repeated.

  Meanwhile half a score of Alpenjäger turned up, each of them wrapped in a wide mosquito net and armed with a tommy gun. The patrol was detailed to escort the General to the river and to stand along the banks to guard him, while he was fishing, against a possible surprise attack by Russian or Norwegian partisans.

  "Let's go!" the General said moving forward.

  We walked in silence, preceded and followed at a distance by the escorts. An invisible drizzle murmured in the leaves. A bird screamed from the branches of a tree. A herd of reindeer passed us at a gallop with the rattle of castanets between the pines. In the cold light of the nocturnal sun the forest seemed made of silver. We walked along the bank of the river, sinking up to our knees in grass that dripped with rain. Georg Beandasch glanced at me quickly with the air of a whipped dog. Now and then General von Heunert turned and silently stared at Beandasch and Springenschmid. "Jawohl!" the two officers said in unison and raised their right hands to the brims of their steel helmets. At last after walking for about one hour, we reached the rapids.

  The Juutuanjoki widens at that point into an ample stream, rapid but not deep, with scattered boulders of granite peeping through the foamy water. Pekka and the other Lapps who carried the fishing tackle and the sacks of food, stopped under the shelter of a rock. Some of the escorting soldiers spread along the shore, while others forded the stream and stood on the opposite bank with their backs to the river. General von Heunert carefully examined his rod, tested the reel, then, turning to Beandasch and Springenschmid said, "Let's go," and stepped into the water followed by the two officers. I was left on the bank sitting under a tree with Kurt Franz and Victor Maurer. The voice of the river was high, rich and throaty; at times it broke into a yell and then dropped to a deep, heavy sound. Standing in the middle of the stream up to his belly in icy water, the General wielded his fishing rod as if it were a rifle and gazed around as though pretending that he was there, in the middle of the river, for an entirely different reason than the salmon imagined. Beandasch and Springenschmid stood a few steps behind him, in an attitude of military respect. Pekka and the other Lapps sat together on the bank, smoked their pipes and looked at the General in silence. Birds shrieked in the branches of the firs.

  About two hours went by, then suddenly the salmon attacked General von Heunert. The long rod jumped, bent, swayed and stretched out to its full length; the General wavered on his feet, took one or two steps forward; swayed on his knees, and bravely withstood the sudden attack. The battle was on. Scattered along the bank, the Lapps, the soldiers of the escort, Kurt Franz, Victor Maurer and I held our breath. Suddenly, taking long hard heavy steps, the General moved forward. He was following the stream, planting his boots heavily into the water, bracing his right foot first against one boulder, then against another, yielding ground step by step with careful deliberation. Such tactics were not new, even for a German general, because salmon fishing always requires one to give ground while advancing. From time to time the General stopped, consolidated the positions he had won at such heavy cost, and for a moment I thought that in the language of salmon fishing he had "lost"; but he persistently withstood the continuous furious jerks of his foe, and gently, slowly, cautiously maneuvering the steel rod, he began to wind the reel, pulling the plucky salmon toward him. The fish, in its turn, yielded ground slowly, with careful deliberation; one moment its shiny pink and silver back showed above the surface as it thrashed its strong tail and sent foamy splashes of water into the air; next moment, it came to the surface with its long muzzle, showing its half-open mouth and its round staring eyes. But no sooner did it find the support of two boulders between which it braced itself crosswise, or a more rapid current that gave support to its tail, than it made a sudden violent jerk and pulled its foe onward, drawing him downstream along the noisy steel hollow of the current. General von Heunert met these offensive thrusts by the salmon with a stubborn German tenacity, a Prussian pride, a feeling of superiority and a realization that, not only his personal prestige but also that of his uniform was at stake; now and again he let out a short hoarse cry, "Achtung!" He looked over his shoulder to scream at Beandasch and Springenschmid a few hoarse words that rose above the alternatingly deep and high-pitched chant of the river. But what assistance could poor Georg Beandasch render his general against such a salmon? What assistance could poor Springenschmid render him against such a trout? Every time the General stepped forward, Geo
rg Beandasch and Captain Springenschmid could do no more than follow him; thus, step by step, the General and his two aides went almost a mile downstream, drawn onward by the jerks of the strong and courageous salmon.

  The struggle had already lasted about three hours with varying success, when I perceived ironical smiles rising on the yellow wrinkled faces of Pekka and of the other Lapps who were huddled together, their clay pipes between their teeth. Then I looked at the General. There he was in the center of the river, in full battle dress, his big Mauser dangling from his belt, wrapped in the folds of a large mosquito net. The wide reddish stripes on his general's trousers glistened in the dead reflection of the nocturnal sun. Something was rising in him; I could feel it. I sensed it in his impatient gestures, in his hungry face, in the voice in which from time to time he shouted "Achtung!"—a voice with overtones of wounded pride, of a subtle and troubled fear. The General was angry and afraid. He feared that he was cutting a sorry figure. He had been struggling with the salmon for three hours already; it was beneath a German general's dignity to be held in check by a fish for such a long time. He began to fear that he might be worsted. If only he were alone! But he was right before our eyes, before the ironic eyes of the Lapps, before the eyes of his escorts stationed along the banks of the river. And then there was the precedent of Soviet Russia. The struggle had to be brought to an end. His dignity, the dignity of a German general, of all German generals, of the entire German Army was at stake. And then, there was the precedent of Russia!

  General von Heunert suddenly turned to Beandasch and shouted in a hoarse voice: