The Skin

by Curzio Malaparte

  For a long while we remained silent, watching the cupola of St. Peter's gently quivering on the sky-line at the far end of the plain.

  "Vous en avez de la veine!" General Guillaume said to me suddenly, clapping me on the shoulder; and I felt that he was thinking of Paris.

  "I am sorry," said Jack, "to have to leave you. But it's already late, and General Cork is waiting for us."

  "The American Fifth Army will conquer Rome even without your help . . . and without ours," said General Guillaume, and there was a plaintively ironical inflection in his voice. Then he altered his tone and added, with a smile at once sad and mocking: "You will lunch at our table, and then I will let you go. With the Holy Father's permission, General Cork's column won't move off again before two or three o'clock. Let us go, gentlemen—the kouskous awaits us."

  In a small clearing stood a row of tables, which the goumiers had taken from some deserted farm-dwelling. Shelter was provided by a number of great holm-oaks, where myriads of birds had built their nests. We took our places, and General Guillaume indicated two dark-skinned monks, thin as lizards, who were-moving about among the Moroccans. He told us that when the news of the goumiers'' arrival spread through the district all the peasants had fled, crossing themselves as if they already detected the smell of sulphur, and that a number of monks had immediately hurried forward from the neighbouring monasteries to convert the goumiers to the religion of Christ. General Guillaume had sent an officer to ask the monks not to annoy the goumiers but the monks had replied that they had orders to baptize all the Moroccans because the Pope did not want Turks in Rome. The Holy Father had in fact sent a radio message to the Allied Command in which he expressed his desire that the Moroccan Division should be halted at the gates of the Eternal City.

  "The Pope is wrong," added General Guillaume with a laugh. "If he consents to be liberated by an army of Protestants I don't see why he should object if his liberators also include some Mussulmans."

  "The Holy Father," said Pierre Lyautey, "might show himself less severe in his attitude to the Mussulmans if he knew what a high opinion the gourmiers have of his power." And he told us that those three thousand women refugees in the papal villa had made an enormous impression on the Moroccans. Three thousand wives! The Pope was undoubtedly the most powerful monarch in the world.

  "It has devolved upon me," said General Guillaume, "to throw a cordon of sentries round the outer walls of the papal villa, so as to prevent the goumiers from going in to pay their addresses to the Pope's wives."

  "I understand now," said Jack, "why the Pope doesn't want Turks in Rome."

  We all began to laugh, and Pierre Lyautey said that a big surprise awaited the Allied forces in the Eternal City. It seemed, in fact, that Mussolini had remained in Rome, that he had prepared a triumphal reception for the Allies, and that he was waiting for his liberators on the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia, so that he could welcome them with one of his usual magnificent speeches.

  "I should be much astonished," said General Guillaume, "if Mussolini were to neglect such an opportunity."

  "I am sure the Americans will applaud him enthusiastically," said Pierre Lyautey.

  "They have applauded him for twenty years," I said, "and there's no reason why they shouldn't go on applauding him."

  "It is certain," said Major Marchetti, "that if the Americans had refrained from applauding him during those twenty years they wouldn't have found themselves faced one fine day with the necessity of landing in Italy."

  "In addition to Mussolini's speech," said Jack, "we shall undoubtedly receive the Holy Father's benediction from the Loggia of St. Peter's."

  "The Pope is a polite man," I said, "and he certainly won't let you go back to America without giving you his holy benediction."

  Just then a goumier, his head covered by the fringe of his dark mantle, so that he looked like an ancient priest in the act of performing a sacrifice, came up to our table carrying a tray, decorated with softly-gleaming slices of ham like the petals of a great rose. As he approached we heard a muffled explosion among the trees, and we saw some goumiers running through the wood behind the kitchens.

  "Another mine!" exclaimed General Guillaume, getting up from the table. "Please excuse me, gentlemen. I must go and see what has happened." And he made off in the direction of the spot where the explosion had occurred, followed by several officers.

  "That's the third goumier so far who's been blown up since this morning," said Major Marchetti.

  The wood was sprinkled with German mines of the sort which the Americans called "booby-traps." As they strolled among the trees the Moroccans stepped on them with incautious feet and were blown up.

  "The goumiers" said Pierre Lyautey, "are incorrigible. They can't accustom themselves to modern civilization. Even booby-traps are part of modem civilization."

  "Throughout North Africa," said Jack, "the natives got used to American civilization straight away. It's an undeniable fact that since we landed in Africa the peoples of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia have made great progress."

  "What sort of progress?" asked Pierre Lyautey in amazement.

  "Before the American landing," said Jack, "the Arab used to go about on horseback while his wife followed him on foot, walking behind the horse's tail with her child on her back and a large bundle balanced on her head. Since the Americans landed in North Africa things have altered profoundly. The Arab, it is true, still goes on horseback, and his wife continues to accompany him on foot as before, with her child on her back and a bundle on her head. But she no longer walks behind the horse's tail. She now walks in front of the horse—because, of the mines."

  A roar of laughter greeted Jack's words, and hearing the officers laugh the Moroccans who were scattered about the wood looked up, pleased that their officers were in a good humour. At that moment General Guillaume joined us. His brow was beaded with tiny drops of perspiration, but he seemed more exasperated than upset.

  "Luckily," he said, resuming his seat at the table, "Luckily no one has been killed this time—only wounded. But what can I do about it? Is it my fault? Should I tie them to the trees to prevent them from stubbing their toes against the mines? I certainly can't shoot that poor beggar to teach him not to get blown up!"

  Fortunately, this time the imprudent goumier had come off lightly. The mine had only carried off one of his hands, which had been neatly severed.

  "They haven't yet succeeded in finding the hand," added General Guillaume. "Who knows what will become of it?"

  The ham was followed by miniature trout from the Liri, silvery blue in colour with a faint green glint. Then came kouskous, the famous Arab dish, pride of Mauritania and Saracenic Sicily, consisting of mutton cooked in a crust of bran, bright as the gilded cuirasses of Tasso's heroines, and golden wine from the Castelli Romani—a rich Frascati wine, noble and heart-warming as an ode of Horace, which brought a glow to the cheeks and a sparkle into the conversation of the guests.

  "Vouse aimez le kouskous?" asked Pierre Lyautey, turning to Jack.

  "Je le trouve excellent!" replied Jack.

  "It certainly isn't to Malaparte's liking," said Pierre Lyautey with an ironical smile.

  "And why shouldn't it to be to his liking?" asked Jack in great astonishment.

  I smiled but said nothing, keeping my eyes fixed on my plate.

  "Judging from Kaputt" answered Pierre Lyautey, "one would say that Malaparte eats nothing but nightingales' hearts, served on plates of old Meissen and Nynphenburg porcelain at the tables of Royal Highnesses, Duchesses and Ambassadors."

  "During the seven months that we have spent together outside Cassino," said Jack, "I have never seen Malaparte eating nightingales' hearts in the company of Royal Highnesses and Ambassadors."

  "Malaparte undoubtedly has a very vivid imagination," laughed General Guillaume, "and in his next book you will find our humble camp meal transformed into a regal banquet, while I shall become a kind of Sultan of Morocco."

  They all l
ooked at me and laughed. I kept my eyes fixed on my plate and said nothing.

  "Do you want to know," said Pierre Lyautey, "what Malaparte will say about this lunch of ours in his next book?" And he proceeded to give an extremely amusing description of a sumptuous banquet, the scene of which was not the heart of a wood on the high bank of the Lake of Albano but a hall in the Pope's villa at Castel Gandolfo. Seasoning his discourse with a number of witty anachronisms, he described the porcelain crockery of Caesar Borgia, the silver ware of Pope Sixtus—the handiwork of Benvenuto Cellini—the golden chalice of Pope Julius II, and the papal footmen, busying themselves about our table while a chorus of angel voices at the end of the hall intoned Palestrina's Super flumina Babyolniae in honour of General Guillaume and his gallant officers. They all laughed amiably at Pierre Lyautey's words. Only I did not laugh. I smiled and said nothing, keeping my eyes fixed on my plate.

  "I should like to know," said Pierre Lyautey, turning to me with an urbanely ironical air, "how much truth there is in all that you relate in Kaputt."

  "It's of no importance," said Jack, "whether what Malaparte relates is true or false. That isn't the question. The question is whether or not his work is art."

  "I would not wish to be discourteous to Malaparte, for he is my guest," said General Guillaume. "But I think that in Kaputt he is pulling his readers' legs."

  "And I don't wish to be discourteous to you," retorted Jack warmly; "but I think you are wrong."

  "You won't ask us to believe," said Pierre Lyautey, "that all that Malaparte relates in Kaputt actually happened to him. Is it really possible that everything happens to him?Nothing ever happens to me!"

  "Are you quite sure of that?" said Jack, half-closing his eyes. "Please forgive me," I said at last, turning to General Guillaume, "if I am forced to reveal to you that a few moments ago, at this very table, I had the most extraordinary experience of my life. You were not aware of it, because I am a well-mannered guest. But inasmuch as you question the truth of what I narrate in my books, allow me to tell you what happened to me a few moments ago— here, in your presence."

  "I am curious to know what happened to you that was so extraordinary," answered General Guttlaume, laughing.

  "Do you remember the delicious ham with which we began our meal? It was a ham from the Fondi mountains. You have fought over those mountains—they rise behind Gaeta, between Cassino and the Castelli Romani—and you will therefore know that in the Fondi mountains they breed the finest pigs in the whole of Latium and the whole of Ciociaria. These are the pigs that are referred to in such affectionate terms by St. Thomas Aquinas, who came, in fact, from the Fondi mountains. These pigs are sacred, and they root within the precints of the churches in the little villages situated on the high ridges of Ciociaria. Their flesh has the perfume of incense, and their lard is as soft as virgin wax."

  "C'était en effet un sacré jambon," said General Guillaume.

  "After the ham from the Fondi mountains came miniature trout from the Liri. A beautiful river, the Liri. On its green banks many of your goumiers have fallen before the fire of the German machine-guns—fallen face downwards in the grass. Do you remember the Liri trout—slim and silvery, with delicate fins that diffuse a faint green radiance and have a darker, mellower silveriness? The miniature trout from the Liri are like those found in the Black Forest; they are like the Blauforellen of the Neckar—the poets' river, the river of Hölderling—and of the Titisee; they resemble the Blauforellen found in the Danube at Donaueschingen, where the Danube has its source. The regal river rises in the park of the castle of the Princes of Fürstenburg, in a white marble basin that looks like a cradle and is adorned with neo-classical statues. That marble cradle, pleasance of the black swans celebrated by Schiller, is frequented by stags and fallow-deer, which go there at sunset to drink. But the Liri trout are perhaps brighter and more transparent than the Blauforellen of the Black Forest; and the silvery green of their light scales, which in colour resemble the old silver candelabra that hang in the churches of Ciociaria, does not yield the palm to the silvery blue of the Blauforellen of the Neckar and the Danube, which diffuse the same mysterious blue radiance as the dazzling white porcelain for which Nynphenburg is famous. The soil that is washed by the Liri is ancient and noble; it is some of the noblest and most ancient soil in Italy; and just now I was moved when I saw the Liri trout curled up in the form of a crown with their tails in their pink mouths, even as the ancients used to represent the serpent, symbol of eternity, in the form of a wreath, with its tail in its mouth, on their columns at Mycenae, Paestum, Selinus, and Delphi. And do you remember the flavour of Liri trout—delicate and elusive as the voice of that noble river?"

  "Elles étaient délicieuses!" said General Guillaume.

  "And finally an immense copper tray appeared on the table. It contained the kouskous, with its barbarous, delicate flavour. But the ram from which this kouskous is made is not a Moroccan ram from Mount Atlas or from the scorched pastures of Fez, Teroudan or Marrakesh. The Itri mountains above Fondi—where Fra Diavolo ruled—are its habitat. On the Itri mountains, in Ciociaria, there grows a herb similar to horse-mint, but richer, with a flavour that reminds one of sage. The people who live among those mountains call it by the ancient Greek name of kallimeria. From it pregnant women make a potion that facilitates childbirth. It is a pungent herb, and the rams of Itri devour it greedily. It is indeed, to this herb, kallimeria, that the rams of Itri owe their rich fat, so suggestive of pregnant women; because of it they have the feminine indolence, the fullness of voice and the weary, languid eyes of pregnant women and hermaphrodites. You should look attentively at your plate when you eat kouskous. The ivory whiteness of the bran in which the ram is cooked is in fact as delightful to the eye as the flavour is to the palate, don't you think?"

  "Ce kouskous, en effet, est excellent!" said General Guillaume.

  "Ah, if only I had closed my eyes when I ate that kouskous! For a moment earlier I had suddenly become aware that the warm, strong flavour of the mutton had an unpleasant sweetness about it, and that I was chewing a piece of meat that was colder and softer than the rest. I looked at my plate, and was horrified to see a finger appear in the middle of the bran—first one finger, then two, then five, and finally a hand with white nails—a man's hand."

  "Taisez-vous!" exclaimed General Guillaume in a strangled voice.

  "It was a man's hand. It was undoubtedly the hand of the unfortunate goumier, which the exploding mine had neatly severed and hurled into the great copper pot in which our kouskous was cooking. What could I do? I was educated at the Collegio Cicognini, which is the best college in Italy, and from boyhood I have been taught that one should never, for any reason, interrupt the general gaiety, whether at a dance, a party, or a dinner. I forced myself not to turn pale or cry out, and calmly began eating the hand. The flesh was a little tough. It had not had time to cook."

  "Taisez-vous, pour 1'amour de Dieu!" cried General Guillaume in a hoarse voice, pushing away the plate that lay in front of him. They all looked ghastly, and were gazing at me with wide-open eyes.

  "I am a well-mannered guest," I said, "and it is not my fault if, as I silently nibbled the hand of that poor goumier, smiling as though nothing were amiss so as not to interrupt such a pleasant luncheon, you were imprudent enough to start pulling my leg. One should never make fun of a guest while he is devouring a man's hand."

  "But it isn't possible! I can't believe..." stammered Pierre Lyautey, who was green in the face, and he pressed his hand to his stomach.

  "If you don't believe me," I said, "look here, on my plate. Do you see all these little bones? They are the phalanges. And these, ranged along the edge of the plate, are the five nails. You will forgive me if, in spite of my good breeding, I wasn't equal to swallowing the nails."

  "Mon Dieu!" cried General Guillaume, gulping down a glass of wine at a single draught.

  "That'll teach you," laughed Jack, "to question the truth of what Malaparte relates in h
is books."

  At that moment we heard a report far out on the plain, followed by a second and a third. From the direction of Frattocchie, clear and crisp, came the thunder of a Sherman cannon.

  "Ca y est!" exclaimed General Guillaume, springing up.

  We all jumped to our feet and, overturning the benches and leaping over the table, ran towards the edge of the wood, whence the eye could explore the whole of the Roman Campagna, from the mouth of the Tiber to the Anio.

  We saw a blue cloud rising from the Via Appia, on the far side of the Bivio delle Frattocchie, and the distant roar of a hundred— a thousand—engines reached our ears. Jack and I uttered a cry of joy as we saw the endless column of the American Fifth Army bestirring itself and setting off in the direction of Rome.

  "Au revoir, mon General!" cried Jack, grasping General Guillaume's hand.

  All the French officers around us were silent. “Au revoir," said General Guillaume; and in a low voice he added: "Nous ne pouvons pas vous suivre. Nous devons rester la."

  His eyes were moist with tears. I gripped his hand in silence.

  "Come and see me whenever you like," General Guillaume said to me with a sad smile. "You will always find a place waiting for you at my table, and my hand outstretched in friendship."

  "Votre main, aussi?"

  "Allez au diable!" shouted General Guillaume.

  Jack and I rushed down the wooded slope, making for the spot where we had left our jeep.

  "Ah! ah! bien joué, Malaparte! un tour formidable!" cried Jack as he ran. "That'll teach them to question the truth of what you relate in Kqputt!"

  "Did you see their expressions? I thought they were all going to be sick!"

  "Une sacrée farce, Malaparte! Ah! ah! ah!" cried Jack.

  "Did you see how skilfully I arranged those little ram's bones on my plate? They looked just like the bones of a hand!"