The Skin

by Curzio Malaparte

  "Ah! ah! ah! merveilleux!" cried Jack as he ran. "It looked just like a hand—the skeleton of a hand!"

  And we roared with laughter as we ran among the trees. We reached our jeep, jumped in and drove at breakneck speed down the Castel Gandolfo road. We reached the Via Appia and overtook the column amid a cloud of dust. Eventually we took our place behind General Cork's jeep, which, preceded by a few Shermans, was leading the Fifth Army's column on its way to the capture of Rome.

  * * * *

  Now and then a burst of rifle-fire rent the dusty air. The smell of mint and rue was wafted towards us on the wind; it was like the smell of incense, the smell of Rome's thousand churches. By now the sun was sinking and the purple sky was filled with swollen clouds, marshalled as in the cloud-scenes of the baroque painters. The roar of a thousand aircraft created vast whirlpools of sound, through which the sunset river of blood went coursing down.

  Ahead of us the Shermans advanced slowly with a loud metallic roar, from time to time firing their cannon. Suddenly, as we rounded a bend, Rome came into view. There it lay, at the far end of the plain, behind the red arches of the aqueducts and the tombs of blood-red brick, beneath that baroque sky—very white in the midst of a vortex of smoke and flame, as if a terrific fire were consuming it.

  A shout went up, and passed from end to end of the column: "Rome! Rome!" From the jeeps, tanks and lorries thousands and thousands of faces, covered with white masks of dust, strained towards the distant city as it lay there, wrapped in the flames of sunset; and I could feel my hoarse voice expressing the hatred, the bitterness, the anguish, and all the sadness and happiness of that moment, which I had awaited so long and in such an agony of fear. At that moment Rome seemed to me harsh, cruel, impenetrable— it was like an enemy city; and an obscure feeling of apprehension and shame came over me, as if I were committing a sacrilege.

  Outside the smoking ruins of the Campino aerodrome the column came to a halt. Here two German Tigers lay on their sides, barring the road. Occasionally a rifle-bullet whistled over our heads. Standing up in their tanks, lorries and jeeps the American soldiers laughed and chattered happily and carelessly as they chewed their gum.

  "This road," I said to Jack, "is strewn with obstacles. Why don't you suggest to General Cork that we should leave the Via Appia Nuova and take the Via Appia Antica?"

  Just then General Cork turned, and unfolding an ordnance map made a sign to Jack with his hand. Jack jumped down from the jeep, and going up to General Cork started to confer with him, indicating a point on the map with his finger.

  "General Cork," said Jack, turning to me, "would like to know if there's a shorter and safer route to Rome."

  "If I were General Cork," I replied, "I would turn left at that cross-road and enter the Via Appia Antica at a point about a mile from the Tombs of the Horatii and the Curatii. Then I would pass through Capo di Bove and enter Rome by the Via dei Trionfi and the Via dell'Impero. It's a longer route, but it's more picturesque."

  Jack ran over to General Cork and came back after a few moments.

  "The General," he said, "asks if you feel inclined to act as guide to the column."

  "Why not?"

  "Can you guarantee that we shan't fall into an ambush?"

  "I can guarantee nothing. We are at war, I believe."

  Jack resumed his conference with General Cork and after a few moments came to tell me that General Cork wanted to know if the Via Appia Antica was, generally speaking, safer.

  "What does generally speaking mean?" I asked Jack. "Does it mean usually? In time of peace it's as safe as houses. I don't know about now."

  "Generally speaking," replied Jack, "probably means in this particular case."

  "I don't know if it's the safer way in this particular-case, but it's certainly the more picturesque. It's the noblest road in the world— the road that leads to the Thermae of Caracalla, the Colosseum, and the Capitol."

  Jack ran off to confer with General Cork, and came back shortly afterwards to tell me that the General wanted to know which was the road by which the Caesars entered Rome.

  "When they returned from Orient, Greece, Egypt and Africa," I replied, "the Caesars entered Rome by the Via Appia Antica."

  Jack rushed away, and came back to tell me that General Cork came from America, and had therefore decided to enter Rome by the Via Appia Antica.

  "I should have been astonished," I replied, "if he had chosen any other road." And I added that Marius, Sulla, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Pompey, Antony, Cleopatra, Augustus, Tiberius and all the other Emperors had passed along the Via Appia Antica, and that General Cork might therefore pass along it too.

  Jack ran over to General Cork, and after he had spoken to him in a low voice the General, turning to me with a broad grin, shouted: "Okay!"

  "Let's go!" said Jack, jumping into the jeep.

  We passed General Cork's jeep and took our place at the head of the column, immediately behind the Shermans. We turned down the lane opposite the Ciampino aerodrome which leads from the Via Appia Nuova to the Via Appia Antica. Shortly afterwards we entered that noble road, the noblest road in the world. It is paved with great slabs of stone in which the two grooves dug by the wheels of the Roman chariots are still visible.

  "What's that?" shouted General Cork, indicating the tombs that stand at the side of the Via Appia Antica in the shade of cypresses and pines.

  "Those are the tombs of the noblest families of ancient Rome," I replied.

  "What?" shouted General Cork, amid the frightful din of the Shermans' caterpillars.

  "The tombs of the noblest Roman families!" shouted Jack.

  "The noblest what?" shouted General Cork.

  "The tombs of the Four Hundred from the Roman Mayflower!" shouted Jack.

  The word passed from vehicle to vehicle all the way down the column, and the American soldiers, standing up in their tanks, lorries and jeeps, shouted "Gee!" and clicked their Kodaks.

  I too stood up and, pointing my finger at each tomb, shouted at random: "That's the tomb of Lucullus, the most famous drunkard in ancient Rome. That's the sepulchre of Julius Caesar. That's Sulla's tomb, and that's Cicero's. That's the tomb of Cleopatra . . ."

  The name of Cleopatra passed from mouth to mouth and from vehicle to vehicle, and General Cork shouted: "A famous signorina, wasn't she?"

  When we came abreast of the Actor's tomb I told Jack to stop for a moment. Indicating the marble stage-masks embedded in the high red brick wall that rises like a theatre scene or backcloth beside the great round mausoleum I shouted: "That's the tomb of Cotta, the most famous Roman actor!"

  "Who's what?" shouted General Cork.

  "The most famous Roman actor!" shouted Jack.

  "I want to autograph it!" shouted a G.I., and a crowd of American soldiers jumped down from their vehicles and made a dash for the wall, which in a few moments was covered with signatures.

  "Go on! Go on!" shouted General Cork.

  Just then I raised my eyes and saw, sitting on the rough stone steps that lead up to the mausoleum, a German soldier. He was almost a boy. His fair hair was dishevelled, his face covered with a mask of dust through which his bright eyes gleamed softly like the sightless eyes of a blind man. He sat there with a weary, abstracted look, his head thrown back and his two hands resting on the stone steps. He seemed remote from everything—from the war, from his surroundings, from time. He was breathing deeply, panting like a shipwrecked mariner who has just reached the shore. No one had noticed him.

  The column started off again, and shortly afterwards we came abreast of the two high grassy mounds beneath which sleep the Horatii and the Curiatii. These mounds resemble two pyramids of earth, and are surmounted by cypresses and pines.

  I told Jack to stop. "These are the tombs of the Horatii and the Curiatii!" I shouted, and in a loud voice I briefly related the story of the three Horatii and the three Curiatii. I told of the challenge and the fight, of the cunning deception practised by the last Horatius and
of how the victor ran his sister through with his sword on the threshold of their home to punish her for loving one of the three Curiatii brothers whom he had slain.

  "What? What the hell's that about the sister?" shouted General Cork.

  "Where's the sister?" shouted several voices. And all the G.I.s in the column jumped to the ground, and scrambled up the two high grassy pyramids which the massive foliage of the pines and the lissom cypresses endue with the romantic colouring of a canvas by Poussin or Boeklin. Even General Cork wanted to climb to the top of one of the tombs, and Jack and I followed him.

  From the summit of the mound, Rome, now that the fires of sunset had spent themselves, looked at once sombre and kindly in the transparent green light of evening. A vast green cloud hung over the cupolas, the towers, the columns and the roofs with their countless marble statues. The green light streamed down from the sky, like one of those showers of green rain that sometimes fall on the sea at the beginning of spring. It seemed exactly as though a shower of green grass was pouring down from the sky on to the city, and the houses, the roofs, the cupolas and the marble statues shone like a damp meadow in spring time.

  A cry of wonder burst from the lips of the soldiers who thronged the mounds. As if disturbed by the cry, a flight of black crows ascended from the distant red Aurelian Walls which form the boundary of Rome between the Porta Latina and the tomb of Caius Cestius. Their black wings sparkled now green, now blood-red. From that lofty vantage-point we could distinguish the meadows and orchards of the Via Appia and the Via Ardeatina, the grove of the nymph Aegeria, the forests of canes surrounding the little church in which the Barberini sleep, the red arches of the aqueducts, and in the distance, beyond Capo di Bove and over towards the Porta di San Sebastiano, the great crenellated tower of the tomb of Caecilia Metella. At the bottom of the vast green bowl, sprinkled with pines, cypresses and sepulchres, which gradually falls away towards the Acquasanta golf links, the first houses of Rome suddenly came into view—those lofty white stuccoed walls with their flashing glass, against which the green and red breath of the Roman Campagna spent itself as in a billowing sail.

  Groups of men were running hither and thither over the plain. Every so often they would stop and look uncertainly about them, then start running again, hesitant, like wild beasts pursued by dogs. Other groups of men would come forward in overwhelming numbers from every side, closing in upon them and blocking the paths of flight and salvation.The sharp crackle of rifle-fire was wafted towards us on the sea-breeze, which brought a sweet tang of salt to our lips. These were the last clashes between the German rearguards and the bands of partisans; and the evening air, transparent as an aquarium, gave a melancholy tinge to that scene of pursuit, which in its sound and its vague, elusive colouring touched a chord of memory. It was a mild, green evening, like the evening on which the Trojans looked down from the top of their walls and anxiously watched the last encounters of the blood battle, even as Achilles rose from the river like a bright star and ran across the plain of the Scamander towards the walls of Ilium.

  Just then I saw the moon rising behind the wooded slopes of the mountains of Tivoli—an enormous moon, dripping with blood—and I said to Jack: "Look over there. That's not the moon—it's Achilles."

  General Cork looked at me in astonishment. "It's the moon," he said.

  "No, it's Achilles," said Jack.

  And in a low voice I began to recite in Greek the verses from the Iliad in which Achilles rises from the Scamander "like the mournful star of autumn which men call Orion." When I stopped Jack continued, watching the moon rising over the mountains of Latium and scanning the Homeric hexameters with the sing-song cadence that he had learned in his own Virginia University.

  "I must remind you, gentlemen . . ." said General Cork in a severe voice. But he stopped; slowly he descended from the tomb of the Horatii, climbed back into his jeep and in a furious tone gave the order to start. "Go on! Go on!" he shouted, and he seemed not merely irritated but profoundly astonished. The column set off again, and near Capo de Bove, where stands the athlete's tomb, we had to slow down in order to give the G.I.s time to cover the boxer's statue with signatures. "Go on! Go on!" shouted General Cork; but when we reached the famous inn at Capo di Bove called Qui non si muore mai I turned to him, pointed to the sign, and shouted: "Here we never die!"

  "What?" shouted General Cork, trying to make his voice heard above the metallic roar of the Shermans' caterpillars and the gay, noisy chatter of the G.I.s.

  "Here we never die!" said Jack.

  "What? We never dine?" shouted General Cork.

  "Never die!" repeated Jack.

  "Why not?" shouted General Cork. "I will dine—I'm hungry! Go on! Go on!"

  But when we came to the tomb of Caecilia Metella I told Jack to stop for a moment. Turning round, I shouted to General Cork that this was the tomb of one of the noblest matrons of ancient Rome—of that Caecilia Metella who was the consort of Sulla.

  "Sulla? Who was that guy?" shouted General Cork.

  "Sulla—the Mussolini of ancient Rome!" shouted Jack. And I wasted at least ten minutes explaining to General Cork that Caecilia Metella "wasn't Mussolini's wife."

  The word passed from vehicle to vehicle, and a crowd of G.I.s made a dash for the tomb of Caecilia Metella, "Mussolini's wife." At last we started off again. Down we went to the Catacombs of San Callisto, then up once more in the direction of San Sebastiano. When we reached the little church called Quo Vadis I shouted to General Cork that we ought to stop there even if it meant that we were the last of the conquerors to enter Rome, because this was the Quo Vadis church.

  "Quo what?" shouted General Cork.

  "The Quo Vadis church!" shouted Jack.

  "What? What does Quo Vadis mean?" shouted General Cork.

  " 'Where are you going?' " I replied.

  "To Rome, of course!" shouted General Cork. "Where d'you think I'm going? I'm going to Rome!"

  Standing up in the jeep I then described in a loud voice how at that very point in the street, outside that little church, St. Peter had met Jesus. The word passed all the way down the column, and a G.I. shouted: "Which Jesus?"

  "Christ, of course!" shouted General Cork in a voice of thunder.

  A hush came over the column, and in reverent silence the G.I.s crowded round the door of the little church. They wanted to go in, but it was shut. Some of them began to try and force an entry with their shoulders, others hammered with fists and boots on the door, and just as a mechanic from a Sherman was endeavouring to lever it off its hinges with an iron bar the window of one of the hovels opposite the little church suddenly opened and a woman appeared. She hurled a stone at the G.I.s, spitting at them and shouting: "Shameless creatures! Stinking Germans! Sons of whores!"

  "Tell that good woman that we aren't Germans, but Americans!" General Cork shouted to me.

  "We're Americans!" I shouted.

  At my words all the windows of the houses were, suddenly flung open, a hundred heads popped out, and on all sides' voices arose in a delightful chorus: "Long live the Americans! Long live freedom!" A crowd of men, women and boys, armed with cudgels and stones, came out of the doors and emerged from behind the hedges. Throwing aside these rough weapons they all made a rush for the G.I.s, shouting: "The Americans!"

  Amid scenes of confusion that beggar description the G.I.s and the crowd embraced one another, uttering loud cries of joy. In the meantime General Cork, who while the uproar lasted had not stirred from his jeep, called me to him and asked me in a low voice whether it was true that St. Peter had met Jesus Christ at this very spot.

  "Why shouldn't it be true?" I replied. "At Rome miracles are the most natural thing in the world."

  "Nuts!" exclaimed General Cork. And after a few moments' silence he begged me to describe to him exactly what had taken place. I told him about St. Peter, his meeting with Jesus Christ and his question: "Quo vadis, Domine? Where goest thou, O Lord?" It seemed to me that General Cork was much disturbed by my
narrative, and especially by St. Peter's words.

  "Are you quite sure," he said to me, "that St. Peter asked the Lord where He was going?"

  "What else could he have asked Him? If you had been in St. Peter's place what would you have asked Jesus?"

  "Of course," replied General Cork, "I should have asked Him where He was going, too." And he stopped. Then with a jerk of his head he added: "So this is Rome!" And he said no more.

  Before ordering the column to start off again General Cork, who did not lack a certain prudence, begged me to ask someone in the small, gay crowd that surrounded us "who was in Rome."

  I turned to a youth who looked to me more wide-awake than the rest and repeated General Cork's question to him.

  "And who do you think is in Rome?" the fellow replied. "The Romans, of course!"

  I translated the youth's reply, and General Cork flushed slightly. "Of course," he exclaimed, "the Romans!" And raising his arm he gave the order to resume the advance.

  The column stirred and moved off. Shortly afterwards we entered Rome through the arch of the Porta di San Sebastiano and proceeded along the narrow street on either side of which stand high red walls covered with the green mould of centuries. When we passed by the tombs of the Scipios, General Cork turned and cast a lingering look at the sepulchre of Hannibal's conqueror. "That's Rome!" he shouted to me, and he appeared deeply moved. Then we came out opposite the Thermae of Caracalla, and at the sight of the stupendous mass of the imperial remains, transfigured by the moonbeams' marvellously delicate caress, a chorus of enthusiastic whistles went up from the column. The pines, cypresses and laurels threw luminous dappled shadows of a greeny-black hue over that prospect of purple ruins and shining grass.

  Amid a terrific roar of caterpillars we came face to face with the Palatine, which seemed weighed down by the remains of the Palace of the Caesars. Up we climbed once more, along the Via dei Trionfi, and suddenly, immense in the peaceful moonlight, the mass of the Colosseum arose before our eyes.