The Skin

by Curzio Malaparte

  "What's that?" shouted General Cork, trying to make his voice heard above the chorus of whistles that went up from the column.

  "The Colosseum!" I replied.

  "What?"

  "The Colisee!" shouted Jack.

  General Cork stood up in his jeep and for a long time surveyed the gigantic shell of the Colosseum in silence. He turned to me, and with a note of pride in his voice shouted: "Our bombers have done a good job!" Then, spreading out his arms, he added apologetically: "Don't worry, Malaparte: that's war!"

  Just then the column entered the Via dell'Impero. I had turned to General Cork, and was pointing to the Forum and the Capitoline Hill, shouting "That's the Capitol!" when a terrific uproar cut me short. A vast, yelling crowd was coming towards us down the Via dell’Impero. It consisted largely of women, and they seemed to be preparing to assail our column. They came running down, dishevelled, delirious, their clothes awry, waving their arms, laughing, weeping and shouting. In a twinkling we were surrounded, assailed, overwhelmed, and the column disappeared beneath an inextricable tangle of legs and arms, a forest of black hair, and a soft mountain of ripe breasts, full lips and white shoulders. ("As usual," said the young curate of the Church of Santa Caterina, in Corso Italia, when delivering his sermon next day—"As usual Fascist propaganda lied when it predicted that if the American Army entered Rome it would assault our women. It is our women who have assaulted, and discomfited, the American Army.") And the roar of engines and caterpillars was drowned by the yells of that joy-maddened crowd.

  But when we were on the heights of Tor di Nona a man who was running towards the column, waving his arms and shouting "Long live America!" slipped, fell and was dragged along beneath the caterpillars of a Sherman. A cry of horror arose from the crowd. I jumped to the ground and forcing my way through the mob bent over the shapeless corpse.

  A dead man is a dead man. He is just a dead man. He is more, and perhaps less too, than a dead dog or cat. Many times, on the roads of Serbia, Bessarabia and the Ukraine, I had seen in the mud of the street the imprint of a dog that had been killed and crushed by a tank. The outline of a dog drawn on the slate of the road with a red pencil. A carpet made of the skin of a dog.

  In July, 1941,1 had seen a carpet of human skin lying in the dust of the street right in the centre of Yampol, a village on the Dniester, in the Ukraine. It was a man who had been crushed by the caterpillars of a tank. The face had assumed a square shape, and the chest and stomach were splayed out at the sides in the form of a diamond. The outspread legs and the arms, which were a little apart from the torso, were like the trousers and sleeves of a newly-pressed suit, stretched out on the ironing-board. It was a dead man—something more, or something less, than a dead dog or cat. I cannot say now in what respect that dead man was more, or less, than a dead dog or cat. But then, on that evening, at the moment at which I saw his imprint in the dust of the street, in the centre of the village of Yampol, I could perhaps have said what it was that made him something more, or something less, than a dead dog or cat.

  Here and there gangs of Jews in black caftans, armed with spades and shovels, were collecting the dead whom the Russians had left behind them in the village. Sitting on the doorstep of a ruined house I watched the light transparent mist ascending from the marshy banks of the Dniester, while in the distance, on the other bank, beyond the bend of the river, the black clouds of smoke that rose from the houses of Soroca slowly spiralled up into the air. The sun revolved like a red wheel in a whirlwind of dust at the far end of the plain, where cars, men, horses and waggons were clearly silhouetted against the brilliant, dust-filled sunset sky.

  In the middle of the street, there in front of me, lay the man who had been crushed by the caterpillars of a tank. Some Jews came up and began to remove the outline of the dead man from the dust. Very slowly they lifted the edges of the pattern with the ends of their spades, as one lifts the edges of a carpet. It was a carpet of human skin, and the fabric consisted of a fine network of bones, a spider's web of crushed bones. It was like a starched suit, a starched human skin. It was an appalling and at the same time a delicate, exquisite, unreal scene. The Jews talked among themselves, and their voices sounded distant, soft, muffled. When the carpet of human skin had been completely detached from the dusty street one of the Jews impaled the head on the end of his spade and moved off, carrying the remains like a flag.

  The standard-bearer was a young Jew with long hair that hung loosely over his shoulders. His eyes shone forth from his pale, lean face with a melancholy, unwavering stare. He walked with his head high, and on the end of his spade, like a flag, he carried that human skin, which flapped and fluttered in the wind exactly as a flag does.

  I said to Lino Pellegrini, who was sitting beside me: "That's the flag of Europe. It's our flag."

  "It isn't my flag," said Pellegrini. "A dead man isn't the flag of a living man."

  "What is the inscription on that flag?" I said.

  "It says that a dead man is a dead man."

  "No," I said. "Read it carefully. It says that a dead man is not a dead man."

  "No," said Pellegrini, "a dead man is just a dead man. What do you suppose a dead man is?"

  "Ah, you don't know what a dead man is. If you knew what a dead man was you would never sleep again."

  "Now I see," said Pellegrini, "what the inscription on that flag is. It says: The dead must bury the dead."

  "No, it says that this is our country's flag, the flag of our true country. A flag made of human skin. Our true country is our skin "

  Behind the standard-bearer, carrying their spades on their shoulders, came the procession of grave-diggers, enveloped in their black caftans. The wind fluttered the flag, ruffling the dead man's hair, which was saturated with a mixture of dust and blood and stood up on end above the broad, square brow like the rigid mane of a plaster saint.

  "Let's go and see our flag buried," I said to Pellegrini.

  They were going to bury the remains in the communal grave that had been dug at the entrance to the village facing the bank of the Dniester. They were going to cast them into the filth of the communal grave, which was already full to overflowing with charred corpses and the bloodstained, mud-spattered remains of horses.

  "It isn't my flag," said Pellegrini. "The inscription on my flag is 'God, Freedom, Justice.'"

  I began laughing and, raising my eyes, looked across at the opposite bank of the Dniester. I gazed at the opposite bank of the river and thought of Tarass Bulba. Gogol was born in the Ukraine. He had passed through this place, through Yampol. He had slept in that house at the far end of the village. It was actually from the top of that high, steep river-bank that Tarass Bulba's faithful Cossacks rode headlong into the Dniester. Tied to the stake at which he was to die, Tarass Bulba urged his Cossacks to flee, to throw themselves into the river, to seek safety. From that very spot, opposite Yampol, a little way upstream from Soroca, Tarass Bulba watched his faithful Cossacks ride rapidly away on their lean, shaggy horses with the Poles in pursuit; he watched them throw themselves headlong over the precipice, over the edge ot the cliff that flanks the Dniester; and he watched the Poles likewise throw themselves into the river, and break their necks on the river-bank directly opposite where I was sitting. The horses of an Italian field-battery kept appearing and disappearing among the acacia-groves situated on top of the steep bank, and down below, beneath the corrugated-iron roofs of the sheds of the Yampol kolkhoz, lay the charred, still smoking remains of hundreds of horses.

  The standard-bearer passed by, carrying his flag. His head was high, his eyes were fixed intently on some distant point. He had the fixed, glassy stare of Dulle Griet. His walk was exactly like that of Peter Breughel's Dulle Griet, like that of Greta the Mad, returning from market with her basket on her arm, her eyes fixed in front of her, seeming not to see or hear the diabolical uproar that is going on around her nor the pandemonium through which she is passing —violent and obstinate, guided by her madness as by a
n invisible archangel. He walked straight ahead, enveloped in his black caftan, seemingly oblivious of the stream of vehicles, men, horses, baggage-waggons and gun-carriages that rushed in furious haste through the village. "Let's go," I said, "and see our country's flag buried." And joining the procession of grave-diggers we started to follow the flag. It was a flag made of human skin, the flag of our country: it was our country. And thus we went to see our country's flag, the flag of the country of all peoples and all men, cast into the filth of the communal grave.

  * * * *

  The crowd was yelling; it seemed mad with horror. Kneeling beside that carpet of human skin, spread out in the middle of the Via dell'Impero, was a woman. Wailing and tearing her hair, she stretched out her arms—helplessly, not knowing how to embrace the corpse. The men shook their fists at the Shermans, shouting "Murderers!" They were brutally repelled by some M.P.s, who whirled their truncheons round in an effort to free the head of the column from the pressure of the infuriated crowd.

  I went up to General Cork. "He's dead," I said.

  "Of course he's dead!" shouted General Cork. "You'd do better to try and find out where that poor fellow's widow lives," he added in a petulant voice.

  I forced my way through the crowd, approached the woman, helped her to get up, and asked her what the dead man's name was and where he lived. She stopped yelling and, stifling her sobs, gazed at me with a frightful expression, as if she did not understand what I was saying to her. But another woman came forward and told me the name of the dead man, the name of the street in which he lived and the number of the house. With a spiteful air she added that the weeping woman was not the dead man's wife, nor even a relative, but merely a neighbour. On hearing her words the poor wretch began to wail more loudly, tearing her hair with a fury that was far more intense and genuine than her grief, until the thunderous voice of General Cork was heard above the tumult, and the column started off again. A G.I. leaned out of his jeep as it passed and threw a flower on to the shapeless corpse, a second imitated his merciful gesture, and in a short time the wretched remains were covered with a heap of flowers.

  In the Piazza Venezia a vast multitude greeted us with a deafening shout, which changed into frantic applause when a G.I. from the Signal Corps clambered on to the famous balcony and began to harangue the crowd in an Italo-American dialect. "You thought Mussolini was coming out to speak to you, didn't you, you bastards?" he said. "But today I am speaking to you—I, John Esposito, a soldier and a free citizen of America—and I'm telling you that you'll never become Americans—never!" "Never! Never!" yelled the crowd, laughing and clapping their hands. The roar of the Shermans' caterpillars drowned the ear-splitting shouts of the people.

  Eventually we entered the Corso, went up Via del Tritone, and halted outside the Albergo Excelsior. Shortly afterwards General Cork sent for me. He was sitting in an armchair in the middle of the hall, his steel helmet on his knees, his face still begrimed with dust and sweat. In an armchair next to his sat Colonel Brown, the chaplain attached to Headquarters.

  General Cork asked me to accompany the chaplain on a visit of condolence to the unfortunate man's family, and to take a sum collected among the G.I.s of the Fifth Army to the widow and orphans.

  "Tell the poor widow and the orphans," he added, "that ... I mean that ... I too have a wife and two children in America, and . . . No! My wife and children don't come into it all."

  At this point he stopped, and smiled at me. I saw that he was very much upset.

  As I drove with the chaplain in his jeep in the direction of Tor di Nona I looked about me with a feeling of sadness. The streets were full of drunken American soldiers and yelling crowds. Rivers of urine flowed along the pavements. American and British flags hung from the windows—flags made of cloth, not of human skin. We reached Tor di Nona, turned off into an alley, and had almost come to the Torre del Grillo when we stopped outside a mean-looking house. We climbed a staircase, pushed open a door which was ajar, and entered.

  The room was full of people, who were talking in low voices. On the bed I saw the horrible thing. A woman with eyes swollen from weeping was sitting by the pillow. I addressed myself to her, saying that we had come to express to the dead man's family the grief of General Cork and of the whole of the American Fifth Army. I added that General Cork had placed a considerable sum of money at the disposal of the widow and orphans.

  The women replied that the poor fellow had neither wife nor children. He was an evacuee from the Abruzzi who had sought refuge in Rome after his village and his home had been destroyed in the American air-raids. She added at once: "Forgive me, I meant the German air-raids." The poor fellow's name was Giuseppe Leonardi, and he came from a little village near Alfedena. All his family had been killed by the bombs, and he had been left on his own. "And so," said the woman, "he did a little business on the black market; but only a very little." Colonel Brown handed the woman a large envelope, which she, after some hesitation, took delicately between two fingers and laid on the pedestal. "It will do for the funeral," she said. After this brief ceremony they all began talking among themselves in loud voices, and the woman asked me whether Colonel Brown was General Cork. I replied that he was the chaplain—a priest.

  "An American priest!" exclaimed the woman, and she rose and offered him her seat. Colonel Brown, red-faced and embarrassed, sat down; but he immediately got up again, as if he had been pricked by a pin.

  They all looked at the "American priest" with respectful expressions, and every so often they bowed and smiled at him sympathetically.

  "What do I do now?" Colonel Brown whispered to me. And he added: "I think ... yes ... I mean . . . what would a Catholic priest do in my place?"

  "Do what you like," I replied, "but above all don't for heaven's sake let them see that you're a Protestant minister!"

  "Thank you," said the chaplain, turning pale; and going over to the bed he clapsed his hands and stood for a while absorbed in prayer.

  When he turned and moved away from the bed the woman, blushing, asked me how the body could be prepared for burial. At first I did not understand. She pointed to the dead man. He was in truth a pitiable and horrible sight. He looked like one of those paper patterns that tailors use, or a cardboard dummy such as is employed for target practice. What upset me most was his shoes. They were crushed flat, and here and there something white was sticking through them—perhaps some little bone. His two hands, which were clasped together on his chest (his chest!), looked like a pair of cotton gloves.

  "What shall we do?" said the woman. "We can't bury him in this state."

  I replied that perhaps they could try bathing him with a little hot water. The water might make him swell and give him a more human appearance.

  "You mean sponge him," said the woman, "the same as you do with . . ." She broke off, blushing, as if a sudden feeling of shame had silenced her just as the word was on the tip of her tongue.

  "That's it—sponge him," I said.

  Someone brought a basinful of water, apologizing for the fact that it was cold. There had been no gas for days and days, nor even a little coal or wood to light the fire.

  "Now then, we'll try with cold water," said the woman, and helped by a neighbour she began to sprinkle the water over the dead man with her hands. As it absorbed the moisture the body swelled, but not much; indeed, it became no thicker than a stout piece of felt.

  In the distance we heard the proud blasts of the bugles and the triumphant shouts of the vanquished ascending from Via dell’Impero, the Piazza Venezia, the Foro Traiano and Suburra. I looked at the horrible thing lying on the bed, and I laughed to myself as I thought how each of us that evening believed himself to be a Brutus, a Cassius, an Aristogiton, though all, victors and vanquished, were like that horrible thing which lay on the bed—skins cut to look like men, miserable human skins. I turned to the open window and saw, high above the roofs, the tower of the Capitol; and I laughed to myself as I thought how that flag of human skin was our
flag, the true flag of us all, victors and vanquished, the only flag worthy to fly that evening from the tower of the Capitol. I laughed to myself as I thought of that flag of human skin flying from the tower of the Capitol.

  I made a sign to Colonel Brown, and we moved towards the door. We turned in the entrance and bowed low.

  When we reached the dark passage at the foot of the stairs Colonel Brown stopped. "If they had soaked him with hot water," he said in a low voice, "he might have swelled up more."

  CHAPTER X - THE TRIAL

  THE boys sitting on the steps of Santa Maria Novella; the small crowd of onlookers gathered round the obelisk; the partisan officer who sat astride the bench at the foot of the flight of steps leading up to the church, with his elbows resting on a little iron table, taken from some cafe in the square; and the squad of young partisans from the Potente Communist Division who were lined up on the close before a jumbled heap of corpses, armed with automatic rifles—all these looked as if they had been painted by Masaccio on the grey plaster of the air. In the dull, chalky light that filtered down from the cloudy sky above their heads all were seen to be silent and motionless, and all were looking in the same direction. A thin stream of blood trickled down the marble steps.

  The Fascists sitting on the steps that led up to the church were boys of fifteen or sixteen—deep browed, with unbrushed hair and dark, bright eyes set in long, pale faces. The youngest, who was wearing a black jersey and a pair of short trousers that left his spindly legs uncovered, was little more than a child. There was also a girl among them. Very young, she had dark eyes, and her hair, which hung loosely over her shoulders, was of that auburn colour often encountered among Tuscan women of the lower class. She sat with her head thrown back, gazing at the summer clouds above the rain-bright roofs of Florence, at the sullen, chalky sky, in which here and there a crack appeared, so that it resembled Masaccio's sky-scenes in the frescoes of the Cerraine.

  We had heard the shots when we were half-way up Via della Scala, near the Orti Oricellari. Emerging into the square we had come to a stop at the foot of the flight of steps leading up to Santa Maria Novella, behind the partisan officer who was sitting at the little iron table.