Kaputt (25 page)

The day was hot, the car moved slowly along the road pitted with deep holes. A victim of my usual hay fever, I was sneezing continuously. Clouds of furiously buzzing flies followed us. Sartori drove away the flies with his handkerchief. His face streaming with perspiration he said, "What a bore to be looking for a corpse in this heat, with all the thousands of corpses that are lying about in Moldavia! It is like looking for a needle in a haystack!"

"For goodness' sake, don't talk about hay, Sartori!" I said sneezing.

"Ah, Jesus, Jesus!" said Sartori, "I forgot that you have hay fever," and he gazed with eyes full of pity at my congested face, purple nose, red and swollen eyelids.

"You like searching for corpses, Sartori," I said to him. "Confess that you like it. You are a Neapolitan and Neapolitans like dead bodies, funerals, weeping, mourning and cemeteries. You like burying the dead. Isn't it a fact that you like corpses?"

"Don't make fun of me, Malaparte. I could really do without searching for corpses in this heat. But I have given my word to the poor chap's wife and daughter, and a promise is a debt. Those poor women still hope that he may be alive. Do you think it possible, Malaparte, that he is still alive?"

"How could he be alive, if unprotesting you allowed him to be murdered under your very eyes? I realize now why you are as fat as a butcher. Is this the fine way in which things are being done in the Royal Italian Consulate of Jassy?"

"After what you said, if Mussolini were a just man, Malaparte, he would make me an ambassador."

"He will appoint you to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I bet you have hidden the corpse under your bed. Be honest, Sartori, you like sleeping with a corpse under your bed."

"Ah, Jesus, Jesus!" sighed Sartori dabbing his face.

We had been looking for the corpse for three days. The night before we had finally gone to see the Chief of Police to try to find out whether by any chance that poor wretch, having been spared at the last moment by his murderers, had been cast into a prison. The Chief of Police had received us kindly; his face was yellow and flabby, his eyes black and hairy with yellow reflections in the shadow of his thick eyebrows. I was surprised to notice that hair was growing along the inside edge of his eyelids,- they were not lashes; it was actually a thick fine down of grayish color.

"Have you tried the St. Spiridion Hospital? He may be there," said the Chief of Police after a while, half-closing his eyes.

"No, he is not at the hospital," replied Sartori in his quiet voice.

"Are you quite sure," went on the Chief of Police gazing at Sartori with a narrow sector of his eye flashing black and green through the grayish down, "quite sure that it happened on the Consulate grounds? And that it was done by my men?"

"Would you at least help me trace the corpse?" asked Sartori smiling.

"It would appear," said the Chief of Police, lighting a cigarette, "that some pistol shots were fired from the windows of the Italian Consulate on a police patrol passing along the street."

"I can see that it will not be difficult for me to trace the corpse with your assistance," said Sartori smiling.

"I have no time to bother with corpses," said the Chief of Police with a gentle smile. "I am far too busy with the living."

"Luckily," remarked Sartori, "the living are rapidly growing fewer in number, and you will be able to have some rest."

"I really need it," replied the Chief of Police raising his eyes to the sky.

"Why can't we agree and share the task?" asked Sartori in his placid voice. "While you are busy tracing and arresting the murderers—who certainly are still alive, I shall undertake to find the dead body. What do you say to that?"

"If you fail to bring me the corpse of this gentleman and cannot prove that he has been killed, how can I trace the murderers?"

"I see your point," said Sartori smiling. "I'll bring you the corpse. I'll bring it here, into your office, along with the other seven thousand corpses and you will help me to find it in the pile. Is it agreed?" He spoke slowly, smiling, with imperturbable indifference, but I know my Neapolitans. I know what some Neapolitans are, and I knew that Sartori was quivering with wrath and indignation at that moment.

"Agreed," replied the Chief of Police.

Then Pellegrini, the "stupid Fascist" stood up and, clenching his fists, said to the Chief of Police: "You are a low-down murderer and a cowardly bastard."

I looked at him in amazement. It was the first time that I looked at him without envy. He looked most handsome—tall, athletic,- his face was pale, his nostrils quivered and his eyes flashed. His angry movement made his wavy black hair drop in long curls on his forehead. I looked at him with the deepest respect. He was a stupid Fascist, but during the night of the great Jassy pogrom he had several times risked his life to save a handful of unfortunate Jews, and now, when a nod from the Chief of Police would have sufficed to have him murdered on a street corner that very night, he was risking his skin for the sake of the corpse of a Jew. I promised myself that, if Mussolini were to be sent home one of these days, I would take up Pellegrini's defense against anyone who wished to make him pay for his "stupid Fascism." A Fascist who risks his skin to pull doomed Jews out of their murderer's hands, a man who risks his skin for the sake of a corpse, deserves the respect of all free and civilized men.

The Chief of Police also stood up and fixed him with those hairy eyes of his. He willingly would have shot him in the stomach; he would have fired at Sartori, at Pellegrini and at me, but he did not dare. We were not wretched Romanians, we were not three wretched Jews from Jassy. He feared that Mussolini would avenge us. Ha, ha, ha! He feared that Mussolini would avenge us. He did not know that had he killed me, Mussolini would not even have protested. Mussolini had no intention of being bothered. Didn't he know that Mussolini was afraid of everyone—even of him? And I laughed thinking about the Chief of Police in Jassy being afraid of Mussolini.

"What are you laughing at?" suddenly asked the Chief of Police, turning abruptly to me.

"What does this gentleman want?" I asked Pellegrini. "Does he wish to know what I am laughing at? I am laughing at him. Can't I laugh at him?"

"It certainly is not forbidden to laugh at him," said Pellegrini, "but I realize why it would not make him very happy."

"It certainly does not make him happy."

"Do you mean it? Are you laughing at him?" asked Sartori in his placid voice. "I beg your pardon, Malaparte, but it seems to me you are wrong. He is a perfect gentleman and should be treated as he deserves."

Quietly we rose and went out. But we had no sooner crossed the threshold when Sartori stopped us and said, "We have overlooked saying good-by to him. Shall we go back?"

"No," I replied, "instead let's go to the Commandant."

The Commandant offered us cigarettes, listened to us kindly and then said, "He may have gone to Poduloea."

"To Poduloea?" asked Sartori. "Why?"

A couple of days after the slaughter, a train loaded with Jews had started for Poduloea, a village some twenty miles beyond Jassy, where the Chief of Police had decided to establish a concentration camp. That train had left three days before and should have been there long ago.

"Let's drive to Poduloea," said Sartori.

So the next morning we started for Poduloea in a car. We stopped to ask for news of the train at a small station lost in the dusty countryside. Several soldiers, sitting in the shade of an abandoned car on a siding told us that the train, made up of about ten cattle cars, had passed through there two days before and had spent a whole night in the station. The unfortunate people packed into the sealed cars had shrieked and moaned, begging the soldiers to remove the wooden boards nailed over the windows. About two hundred Jews had been piled into each car, and those wretched people were unable to breathe. The train had started at dawn for Poduloea.

"You may be able to overtake it before it reaches Poduloea," said the soldiers.

The railway track ran along the valley, parallel with the road. We had nearly reached Poduloea when we heard a long whistle from across the dusty countryside. We looked at each other and paled as though we recognized it.

"What heat!" moaned Sartori wiping his forehead.

And I noticed that he at once regretted and felt ashamed because he had said "What heat!" He thought of those people piled into cattle cars, two hundred in each car, without water and without air. That distant whistle through the still glow of the sun had a ghostly sound in that dusty, deserted countryside. After a while we saw the train. It had stopped at a signal and was whistling for a right-of-way. Then it moved on slowly and we kept beside it, following along the road. We looked at the cattle cars and at the wooden boards nailed over the windows. The train had taken three days to go twenty miles. It had to give precedence to military convoys; besides, there was no hurry. Had it reached Poduloea even after three months it still would have been on time.

Meanwhile we had reached Poduloea where the train had stopped on a shunting track just outside the station. The heat was stifling. It was about noon; the railway officials had gone to eat. The engineer, the fireman and the military guards had jumped down from the train and were stretched out on the ground in the shade of the cars.

"Open the cars at once," I ordered the soldiers.

"We cannot,
Domnule Capitan
."

"Open the cars at once!" I shouted.

"We cannot. The cars are sealed," said the engineer. "The stationmaster would have to be advised."

The stationmaster was at his meal. At first he refused to interrupt his dinner,- later, learning that Sartori was the Italian Consul and that I was an Italian
Domnule Capitan,
he rose and trotted along behind us with a pair of heavy pincers in his hand. The soldiers went to work at once trying to open the sliding door of the first car. The wood and iron door would not yield; it seemed as if ten, a hundred hands held it from the inside, as if the prisoners strained every sinew to prevent it from opening. At last the stationmaster shouted, "You there, inside, help us push too!" No one answered. Then all together, we tried to force it. Sartori stood facing the car, his face raised and wiped his sweat with a handkerchief. Suddenly the door yielded and the car was opened.

A throng of prisoners hurled itself at Sartori, knocking him down and falling on top of him. The dead were fleeing from the train. They dropped in masses—with dull thuds, like concrete statues. Buried under the corpses, crushed by their huge, cold weight, Sartori struggled and wriggled trying to free himself from under that dead burden, from under that frozen mountain; finally he disappeared beneath the pile of corpses, as if it were an avalanche of stones. The dead are wrathful, stubborn, ferocious. The dead are stupid—vain and capricious as children and women.
The dead are crazy.
Woe to the living if a dead man hates him. Woe to him if the dead fall in love with him. Woe to the living being if he insults a dead one, touches his self-love or wounds his honor. The dead are jealous and vengeful. They fear no one, they fear nothing—neither blows, nor wounds, nor enemies in overwhelming numbers. They even have no fear of death. They fight tooth and nail, silently, without yielding a step; they never loosen their hold, they never flee. They fight to the end with a stubborn, cold courage, laughing and sneering, pale and dumb—those mad eyes of theirs wide open and squinting. When finally, they are vanquished, when they resign themselves to defeat and humiliation, when they lie beaten, they exhale a sweet, greasy odor and slowly decompose. Some, attempting to crush him, hurled themselves with all their weight upon Sartori, others dropped on him coldly, rigidly, sluggishly; others butted their heads into his chest, or hit him with their knees and their elbows. Sartori grasped their hair, clutched at their clothing, caught hold of their arms, tried to push them back by gripping their throats or hitting their faces with clenched fists. It was a furious silent struggle. We all ran to his aid and vainly tried to free him from under the oppressive mound of the dead. Finally, after great effort, we succeeded in reaching him and drew him from the pile. Sartori stood up, his suit was in tatters, his eyes swollen, and there was blood on his cheek. He was very pale and perfectly calm. He only said, "See if there is anyone living among them. My cheek has been bitten."

The soldiers climbed into the car and began throwing out the corpses one by one. There were a hundred and seventy-nine of them—all suffocated, all had swollen heads and bluish faces. Meanwhile a squad of German soldiers and a little crowd of local inhabitants and peasants had come up and helped open the cars, throw out the corpses, and range them along the railway embankment. Next came a group of Poduloea Jews, led by their rabbi. They had learned that the Italian Consul was present and this had bolstered their courage. They looked pale but they were calm and did not weep. They spoke with steady voices. All had friends or relatives in Jassy, and each feared for their lives. They were clothed in black and wore odd, hard felt hats. The rabbi and five or six others who said they were on the managing board of the Agricultural Bank of Poduloea, bowed to Sartori.

"It is hot," said the rabbi, wiping the sweat with the palm of his hand.

"Yes, it is very hot," replied Sartori, pressing a handkerchief to his forehead.

The flies buzzed furiously. The dead, ranged along the railway embankment, numbered about two thousand. Two thousand corpses stretched out under the sun are a great many—too many. Clutched between his mother's knees, a few-months'-old baby was still alive. It had fainted, but it still breathed. One of its arms was broken. The mother had managed to hold it for three days with its mouth glued to the door jamb; she had fought savagely not to be wrenched away by the crowd of the dying; she had been crushed dead by the merciless pressure. The baby had been buried under the dead mother, clutched between her knees, sucking that thin thread of air with its lips. "It's alive," said Sartori in an odd voice. "It's alive, it's alive!" I was moved as I looked at Sartori, at that fat placid Neapolitan who had at last shed his indifference, not because of all those dead, but because of a living child, because of a child that was still alive.