The Skin

by Curzio Malaparte

  "It's enough for us to be happy," I replied. "For we are happy.'"

  "Happy?" exclaimed Mrs. Flat, looking at me with stupefaction in her eyes. "How can you be happy when your children are dying of hunger and your women are not ashamed to prostitute themselves for a packet of cigarettes? You aren't happy—you're immoral."

  "With a packet of cigarettes," I said in a low voice, "one can buy six pounds of bread."

  Mrs. Flat blushed, and the sight of her blushing gave me pleasure.

  "Our women are all worthy of respect," I said, "even those who sell themselves for a packet of cigarettes. All the honest women in the world, even the honest women of America, ought to learn from the poor women of Europe how one may prostitute oneself with dignity to satisfy one's hunger. Do you know what hunger is, Mrs. Flat?"

  "No, thank God. And you?" said Mrs. Flat. I noticed that her hands were trembling.

  "I have a deep respect for all who prostitute themselves because of hunger," I replied. "If I were hungry, and I could not satisfy my hunger in any other way, I would not hesitate for a moment to sell my hunger for a piece of bread or a packet of cigarettes."

  "Hunger, hunger—always the same excuse," said Mrs. Flat.

  "When you go back to America," I said, "you will at least have learned this horrible and marvellous truth—that in Europe hunger can be bought like any other commodity."

  "What do you mean when you talk of 'buying hunger'?" asked General Cork.

  "I mean 'buying hunger'," I replied. "American soldiers think they are buying a woman, and they are buying her hunger. They think they are buying love and they are buying a slice of hunger. If I were an American soldier I should buy a slice of hunger and take it to America, so that I could make a present of it to my wife and show her what can be bought in Europe with a packet of cigarettes. A slice of hunger makes a splendid present."

  "The unfortunates who sell themselves for a packet of cigarettes," said Mrs. Flat, "don't look as if they were starving. They have the appearance of being in excellent condition."

  "They do Swedish drill with pumice-stone," I said.

  "What?" exclaimed Mrs. Flat, opening her eyes wide.

  "When I was deported to the island of Lipari," I said, "the French and English newspapers announced that I was very ill and accused Mussolini of brutality towards political prisoners. As a matter of fact I was very ill, and it was feared that I had tuberculosis. Mussolini ordered the Lipari police to have me photographed in an athletic pose and to send the photographs to the Ministry of the Interior in Rome, where it would be published in the newspapers as proof that I was enjoying good health. So one morning a police officer visited me, accompanied by a photographer, and ordered me to assume an an athletic pose.

  " 'I don't go in for athletics on Lipari,' I replied.

  " 'Not even a little Swedish drill?' said the police officer.

  " 'Yes,' I replied, 'I do a little Swedish drill with pumice-stone.'

  " 'All right,' said the police officer, 'I'll photograph you while you do some drill with pumice-stone.' And he added, as though trying to give me a piece of advice in the interests of my health: 'It isn't very strenuous. You ought to exercise with something heavier to develop your chest-muscles. You need to do it.'

  " 'One gets lazy on Lipari,' I replied. 'After all, when one is deported to an island of what use are muscles?'

  " 'Muscles,' said the police officer, 'are of more use than brain. If you had had a little more muscle you wouldn't be here.'

  "Lipari has the largest deposits of pumice-stone in Europe. Pumice is very light—so light that it floats in water. We went to Canneto, where the pumice deposits are, and I picked up an enormous block of the light, porous stone. It looked like a ten-ton block of granite, but in reality it weighed barely four pounds. Smilingly I raised it above my head with both arms. The photographer clicked the shutter and thus I was portrayed in that athletic attitude. The Italian newspapers published the photograph, and my mother wrote to me: 'I am happy to see that you are well and that you have become as strong as a Hercules.'

  "You see, Mrs. Flat—to those unfortunates who sell themselves for a packet of cigarettes prostitution is merely a form of drill with pumice-stone."

  "Ha! ha! ha! Wonderful!" cried General Cork, while a merry laugh echoed all round the table.

  Bewildered, almost frightened, Mrs. Flat blushed and turned to General Cork.

  "But I don't understand!" she cried.

  "It's only a joke," said General Cork, laughing, "a marvellous joke!" And to hide his amusement at the joke he began coughing.

  "It's a very stupid joke," said Mrs. Flat severely, "and I am amazed that an Italian can laugh at some things."

  "Are you sure Malaparte is laughing?" said Jack. I saw that he was moved. He was looking hard at me with a sympathetic smile on his face.

  "Anyway, I don't like jokes," said Mrs. Flat.

  "Why don't you like jokes?" I said. "If everything that is happening around us in Europe weren't a joke do you think it would make us cry—do you think crying would be enough?"

  "You don't know how to cry," said Mrs. Flat.

  "Why should you want me to cry? Because you kindly invite our women to the dances which your Waacs organize for the amusement of the American officers and men, but forbid their husbands, fiances and brothers to accompany them? Would you wish me to cry because there aren't enough prostitutes in America to send to Europe to amuse your soldiers? Or should I cry because your invitation to our women to come to dances by themselves is not an invitation a la valse but an invitation to prostitution?"

  "In America," replied Mrs. Flat, looking at me in amazement, "it is not considered wrong to invite a woman to a dance without her husband." ,

  "If the Japanese had invaded America," I said, "and had behaved towards your women as you behave towards ours, what would you say, Mrs. Flat?"

  "But we aren't Japanese!" exclaimed Colonel Brand.

  "The Japanese are men of colour," said Mrs. Flat.

  "To conquered peoples," I said, "all conquerors are men of colour."

  An embarrassed silence greeted my words. They all looked at me with amazement and distress written on their faces. They were simple, honest folk; they were Americans, the most righteous, the most ingenuous of men; and they looked at me with mute sympathy, amazed and distressed because the truth that was implicit in my words made them blush. Mrs. Flat had lowered her eyes and was silent.

  After a few moments General Cork turned to me. "I think you are right," he said.

  "Do you really think Malaparte is right?" asked Mrs. Flat in a low voice.

  "Yes, I think he is right," replied General Cork slowly. "Even our soldiers are indignant because they have to treat the Italians—men and women—in a way they consider . . . yes ... I mean . . . hardly correct. But it isn't my fault. The attitude that we have to adopt towards the Italians has been dictated to us by Washington."

  "By Washington?" exclaimed Mrs. Flat.

  "Yes, by Washington. Every day the Fifth Army's newspaper, Stars and Stripes, publishes a large number of letters from G.I.'s on this very subject which repeat Malaparte's views almost word for word. The G.I.s, Mrs. Flat, are citizens of a great country—a country in which women are respected."

  "Thank God!" exclaimed Mrs. Flat.

  "Every day I carefully read the letters which our soldiers send to Stars and Stripes; and only last Sunday I gave orders that invitations to our dances should in future be issued not only to the women but also to their husbands or brothers. I think I did right."

  "I think you did right too," said Mrs. Flat. "But I shouldn't be surprised if Washington blamed you for it."

  "Washington has approved my decision," said General Cork with an ironical smile, "but even if I didn't have Washington's approval I should still think I had done right, especially after the latest scandal."

  "What scandal?" asked Mrs. Flat, tilting her head slightly to one side.

  "It certainly isn't an amusing sto
ry," said General Cork. And he related how a few days before a boy of eighteen had shot his own sister dead in the middle of Via Chiaia because, although forbidden to do so by her family, she had gone to a dance at an American officers' club. "The crowd," added General Cork, "applauded the murderer."

  "What?" cried Mrs. Flat.

  "The crowd was wrong," said General Cork, "but . . ." Two evenings before some Neapolitan girls of good family, who had imprudently accepted an invitation to a dance at an American officers' club, had been made to go from the vestibule of the club into a room used as a Pro Station, where they had been forcibly subjected to a medical inspection. A shout of indignation had echoed through the streets of Naples.

  "At the Court Martial," added General Cork, "I denounced the men responsible for this shameful incident."

  "You did your duty," said Mrs. Flat, blushing.

  "Thank you," said General Cork.

  "Italian girls," said Major Morrison, "are entitled to our respect. They are nice girls, and they deserve respect just as much as our American girls."

  "I agree with you," said Mrs. Flat, "but I can't agree with Malaparte."

  "Why not?" said General Cork. "Malaparte is a good Italian, he is our friend, and we are very fond of him."

  They all smiled at me, and Jack, who was sitting opposite me, gave me a wink.

  Mrs. Flat turned and surveyed me with eyes in which irony, scorn and malice blended in an expression of benevolent amazement. "You are fishing for compliments, aren't you?" she said, smiling at me.

  At that moment the door opened and four liveried footmen appeared in the entrance, preceded by the major-domo. On a kind of stretcher, covered with magnificent red brocade on which was designed the crest of the Dukes of Toledo, they carried, in the traditional manner, an immense solid silver tray, containing an enormous fish. A gasp of joy and admiration passed down the table. "Here is the Siren!" exclaimed General Cork, turning to Mrs. Flat and bowing.

  The major-domo, assisted by the footmen, deposited the tray in the middle of the table, in front of General Cork and Mrs. Flat, and withdrew a few steps.

  We all looked at the fish, and we turned pale. A feeble cry of horror escaped from the lips of Mrs. Flat, and General Cork blanched.

  In the middle of the tray was a little girl, or something that resembled a little girl. She lay face upwards on a bed of green lettuce-leaves, encircled by a large wreath of pink coral-stems. Her eyes were open, her lips half-closed; and she was gazing with an expression of wonderment at Luca Giordano's painting of the Triumph of Venus which adorned the ceiling. She was naked; but her dark, shining skin, which was of the same purple colour as Mrs. Flat's gown, was exactly like a well-fitting dress in the way in which it outlined her still callow yet already well-proportioned form, the gentle curve of her hips, her slightly protruding belly, her little virginal breasts, and her broad, plump shoulders.

  She might have been not more than eight or ten years old, though at first sight, owing to the precocious development of her body, which was that of grown woman, she looked fifteen. Here and there, especially about the shoulders and hips, the skin had been torn or pulpified by the process of cooking, and through the cracks and fissures a glimpse was afforded of the tender flesh, which in some places was silvery, in others golden, so that she looked as if she were clad in purple and yellow, just like Mrs. Flat. And, like Mrs. Flat's, her face (which the heat of the boiling water had caused to burst out of its skin like an overripe fruit from its rind) resembled a shining mask of old porcelain, while her lips pouted, and her brow was deep and narrow, her eyes round and green. She had short, fin-like arms, pointed at the ends and similar in shape to hands with no fingers. Hairlike bristles protruded in a tuft from the top of her head and grew sparsely down the sides of her small face. About her mouth the flesh was all puckered and, as it were, congealed in a kind of grimace that resembled a smile. Her flanks were long and slender, and terminated, exactly as Ovid says, in piscem—in a fish's tail. The little girl lay on her silver bier; she seemed to be asleep. But, owing to the unpardonable negligence of the cook, she slept as the dead sleep when no one has performed the merciful duty of lowering their eyelids: she slept with her eyes open. And she gazed at Luca Giordano's Tritons as they blew into their sea-shells; at the dolphins as they galloped over the waves, dragging Venus's coach behind them; at Venus herself, sitting naked in her golden coach, and her retinue of pink and white nymphs; at Neptune, grasping his trident as he raced across the sea, drawn by his mettlesome white horses, still athirst for the innocent blood of Hippolytus. She gazed at the painting of the Triumph of Venus which adorned the ceiling—at the blue sea, the silvery fishes, the green sea-monsters, the white clouds that drifted across the horizon; and she smiled ecstatically. This was her sea, this was her lost country, the land of her dreams, the happy kingdom of the Sirens.

  It was the first time I had ever seen a little girl who had been cooked, a little girl who had been boiled; and I was silent, gripped by a holy fear. All the diners were pale with horror.

  General Cork raised his eyes and looked at his guests. "But it isn't a fish . . . It's a little girl!" he exclaimed in a trembling voice.

  "No," I said, "it's a fish."

  "Are you sure it's a fish—a real fish!" said General Cork, passing his hand across his brow, which was dripping with cold sweat.

  "It's a fish," I said. "It's the famous Siren from the Aquarium."

  After the liberation of Naples the allies, for military reasons, had prohibited fishing in the bay. From Sorrento to Capri, from Capri to Ischia, the sea was blocked by mine-fields and infested with drifting mines which made fishing dangerous. Moreover, the Allies, especially the British, considered it unsafe to let the fishermen go out to sea, fearing that they might carry information to the German submarines, or supply them with oil, or in some way endanger the hundreds and hundreds of warships, troop-transports and Liberty ships which were anchored in the bay. To think that they could distrust the fishermen of Naples—that they could believe them to be capable of such crimes! But there it was: fishing was prohibited.

  In the whole of Naples it was impossible to find a fish-bone, let alone a fish: there was not a sardine, not a hog-fish, not a lobster, a mullet or a cuttle-fish—there was nothing. Consequently, when General Cork gave a dinner in honour of some high Allied officer, like Field-Marshal Alexander, Général Juin or General Anders, or some important politician, a Churchill, a Vishinksy or a Bogomolov, or some Commission of American senators who had come by air from Washington to hear what the soldiers of the Fifth Army had to say in criticism of their generals and to collect their opinions and suggestions with regard to the most serious problems of the war, he was in the habit of having the fish for his table caught in the Naples Aquarium, which, apart from that at Munich, is perhaps the most important aquarium in Europe.

  It followed that the fish served at General Cork's dinners was always very fresh and of a rare species. At the dinner which he had given in honour of General Eisenhower we had eaten the famous "giant octopus" presented to the Naples Aquarium by the Emperor William II of Germany. The celebrated Japanese fish known as "dragons," a gift from the Emperor Hirohito of Japan, had been sacrificed on General Cork's table in honour of a party of American Senators. The enormous mouths of those monstrous fish, their yellow gills, their black and scarlet fins, which resembled the wings of a bat, their green and gold tails, and their heads, bristling with prickles and crested like the helmet of Achilles, had profoundly depressed the spirits of the Senators, who were already preoccupied with the progress of the war against Japan. But General Cork, who in addition to his military virtues possessed the qualities of the perfect diplomat, had restored his guests' morale by intoning Johnny Got a Zero, the famous song of the American airmen in the Pacific, and they had all sung it in chorus.

  In the early days General Cork had had the fish for his table caught from the tanks in the Lucrine Lake—famous for the ferocious and exquisite murries which Lucull
us, whose villa was near Lucrino, fed on the flesh of his slaves. But the American newspapers, which lost no opportunity of harshly criticizing the High Command of the U.S. Army, had accused General Cork of mental cruelty in that he had compelled his guests—"respectable American citizens"—to eat Lucullus's murries. "Can General Cork tell us," some papers had ventured to say, "on what kind of meat he feeds his murries?"

  It was in consequence of this accusation that General Cork had given orders to the effect that in future the fish for his table should be caught in the Naples Aquarium. Thus, one by one, all the rarest and most famous fish in the Aquarium had been sacrificed to General Cork's mental cruelty, including even the heroic swordfish, a gift from Mussolini (which had been served steamed with a border of boiled potatoes), and the strikingly beautiful tunny, a gift from His Majesty King Victor Emmanuel III, and the lobsters from the Isle of Wight, the gracious gift of His Britannic Majesty King George V.

  The valuable pearl-oysters which His Highness the Duke of Aosta, Viceroy of Ethiopia, had sent as a gift to the Naples Aquarium (they came from that part of the coast of Arabia which lies opposite Massawa) had enlivened the dinner which General Cork had given in honour of Vishinsky, the Soviet Vice-Commissar for Foreign Affairs, who at the time was representing the U.S.S.R. on the Allied Commission in Italy. Vishinsky had been much astonished to find in each of his oysters a pink pearl of the colour of the new moon. And he had raised his eyes from his plate and looked at General Cork with the same expression with which he might have looked at the Emir of Baghdad had he been present at one of the banquets described in the Thousand and One Nights.

  "Don't spit out the stone," General Cork had said to him. "It's delicious."

  "But it's a pearl!" Vishinky had exclaimed.

  "Of course it's a pearl! Don't you like it?"

  Vishinsky had gulped down the pearl, muttering between his teeth, in Russian: "These decadent capitalists!"

  No less great, it seemed, was the amazement of Churchill when, having been invited to dinner by General Cork, he found on his plate a strange fish, round, slender and of a steely hue, like the quoits which the ancient discoboli used to throw.