Kaputt (45 page)

The lamp was smoking again; a greasy smell of oil spread through the room. I gently held Susannah's hand between mine, and her hand trembled like a frightened bird. The night was breathing on the threshold like a sick beast; its warm breath penetrated the room together with the rustle of the leaves in the trees and the ripple of the river.

"I have seen them when they went out of here," said Susannah with a shudder. "They looked like ghosts."

We sat like that, in silence, in the twilight of the room, and I was filled with bitter sadness. I no longer trusted my own words. My words were false and evil. Our silence also seemed to me false and evil.

"See you soon, Susannah," I said softly.

"Don't you want to come upstairs?" she asked.

"It is late," I replied making for the door. "See you soon, Susannah."

"Au
revoir
," said Susannah smiling.

Her poor smile was shining on the threshold, and the sky was full of stars.

"Did you ever hear anything more about those poor girls?" asked Louise after a long silence.

"I learned that two days later they were taken away. Every twenty days the Germans provided a change of girls. Those who left the brothel were shoved into a truck and taken down to the river. Later Schenck told me that it was not worth while to feel so sorry for them. They were not fit for anything any more. They were reduced to rags, and besides, they were Jewish."

"Did they know that they would be shot?" asked Ilse.

"They knew it. They trembled with fear. Oh, they knew it! Everybody knew it in Soroca."

When we came out into the open, the sky was full of stars. They shone, cold and dead, like glass eyes. The raucous whistle of the train was heard from the station. A pale spring moon rose in the clear sky, the trees and the houses appeared to be made of a slimy, soft material. Over by the river a bird was singing. We walked along a deserted road to the bank and sat on the dam.

In the darkness, the river rustled like bare feet on grass. Then, in the branches of a tree that was already lighted by the pale flame of the moon, another began singing and others far and near replied. A large bird flew with silent wings through the trees, swooped down almost skimming the water and crossed the river in a slow and uncertain flight. There came back to my mind the summer night in the Roman prison,
Regina Coeli,
when a flight of birds settled on the roof of the prison and began singing. They certainly had come from the trees on the Gianicolo. They had nests in Tasso's oak, I thought. I thought that they had their nests in Tasso's oak and I began weeping. I felt ashamed of weeping, but after such a long imprisonment, a bird's song is stronger that a man's pride. "Oh, Louise," I said and without meaning to, I took her hand and held it gently in mine.

Just as gently, Louise withdrew her hand and gazed at me with wonder rather than reproach. She was surprised by my unexpected gesture. Perhaps she regretted that she had evaded my sorrowful caress and the things I wanted to tell her. There rose in my mind Susannah's hand resting between mine—the small, sweating hand of Susannah—down there in the Soroca brothel; there rose in my mind the hand of the Russian working woman that I had covertly pressed one evening in a coach of the Berlin U-Bahn—that broad, lined hand, cracked by acids. It seemed to me that I was sitting with Susannah, the unfortunate Jewish girl, on the sofa in the Soroca brothel. A deep feeling of pity swept over me for Louise, Louise von Preussen, for the Imperial Princess, Louise von Hohenzollern. The birds were singing around us in the dark light of the moon. The two girls were silent as they gazed at the dull glint of the river flowing past the bank in the darkness.

"J'ai pitié d'etre femme,"
said Louise softly in that Potsdam French of hers. "I'm sorry I am a woman."

PART FIVE
The Reindeer

XV. Naked Men

T
HE
GOVERNOR
of Lapland, Kaarlo Hillilä, raised his glass and said, "
Maljanne
." We were dining in the Governor's palace at Rovaniemi, Lapland's capital built on the Arctic Polar Circle. "The Arctic Circle runs right under the table between our feet," said Kaarlo Hillilä. Count Augustin de Foxá, Spain's Minister to Finland looked under the table; there was a burst of laughter and de Foxá whispered softly through his teeth, "Damned drunks!" Everyone was drunk and pale, their brows sweaty, their eyes staring and glistening—those Finnish eyes that alcohol tinges with mother-of-pearl lights.

I said to de Foxá, "Augustin, you are drinking too much." Augustin replied, "Yes, you are right. I'm drinking too much, but this is my last glass." Then, on Olavi Koskinnen's raising his glass and saying,
"Maljanne,"
de Foxá replied. "Thanks, I'm not drinking any more." The Governor stared at him and said, "Are you refusing to drink our health?"

Softly, I whispered to de Foxá, "For God's sake, Augustin, don't be reckless! You must always say 'Yes,' always 'Yes,' for God's sake!" And de Foxá said, "Yes, always Yes." At intervals he raised his glass saying
"Maljanne,"
and his face grew redder, his brow glistened with sweat and his eyes wavered behind his misty spectacles. Heaven help us! I thought, looking at de Foxá.

It was close to midnight. The sun, wrapped in a thin veil of mist, shone on the horizon like an orange wrapped in tissue paper. The ghostly light of the North, penetrating in frozen gusts through the window illuminated the huge hall where we had been at the table for six hours. The hall was decorated in an ultramodern Finnish style that has the blinding glare of an operating room—a low ceiling, white-painted walls and a floor of pinkish birch wood. The large windows, long and narrow, looked out on the wide valleys of the Kemi and the Ounas, on the wooded horizon of the Ounasvaara. Ancient
ryyas,
those tapestries that Lapp herdsmen and Finnish peasants weave on their rustic looms, hung on the walls side by side with fine prints of the Swedes, Schjöldebrand and Aveelen, and of the French Viscount de Beaumont. Among the others was one
ryya
of great value: trees, reindeer, bows and arrows were woven in pink, gray, green and black; there was another extremely rare one in which the dominant colors were white, pink, green and brown. The prints showed landscapes of East Bothnia and Lapland, views along the Oulu, the Kemi and the Ounas rivers, seascapes of the Tome harbor and of the Tori of Rovaniemi. At the end of the eighteenth century, when Schjölderbrand, Aveleen and Viscount Beaumont made those beautiful etchings, Rovaniemi was only a large village of Finnish pioneers, reindeer-breeders and Lapp fishermen,- a village of small cabins built of rough-hewn logs and with high stockades around them for protection,- the entire village was herded around the Tori, the cemetery and the fine stained-wood church built by the Italian, Bassi, in a neoclassical style that despite its Swedish origin bears traces of the France of Louis XV and of Catherine's Russia—a wood that is found in the white lacquered furniture of the old houses of Finnish pioneers in northern East Bothnia and Lapland. Between the windows and above the doors hung panoplies of ancient
puukkos,
their blades hand wrought and their handles covered with soft, short-haired reindeer skin. Each of the guests had a
puukko
hanging from his belt.

The Governor sat at the head of the table on a chair covered with a white bear skin. For some unexplained reason I sat at the Governor's right, while the Minister of Spain, Count Augustin de Foxá, was at his left. De Foxá was furious. "Not for myself, don't you know?" he said to me, "but for Spain."

Titu Michailescu was drunk and said to him, "Ah, it's on behalf of Spain, isn't it? On behalf of
your
Spain?"

I tried to calm him down. "It isn't my fault," I said.

"You are not representing Italy, are you? Why then are you sitting on his right?" asked de Foxá.

"He
represents Italy, doesn't he? Don't you represent your Italy, Malaparte?" said Michailescu.

"To hell with you!" said Augustin.

I am fascinated by the talk of drunks so I listened to Michailescu and de Foxá wrangling with the ceremonious rage of drunken people.

"Don't worry, the Governor is left-handed," said Michailescu.

"You're wrong; he is not left-handed. He squints," replied de Foxá.

"Ah, if he squints, it is a different matter, and you should not grumble," said Michailescu.

"Do you imagine he squints on purpose to make me sit on his left?" asked de Foxá.

"Most certainly. That's just why he squints," replied Michailescu.

Then Count Augustin de Foxá, the Minister of Spain, turned to Kaarlo Hillilä, the Governor of Lapland and said: "Sir, I am seated on your left. This is not my place."

Kaarlo Hillilä gazed at him with surprise. "Why isn't it your place?"

De Foxá made a slight bow. "Don't you think that I should be seated in Malaparte's place?"

Kaarlo Hillilä looked at him with growing surprise: "Why is that?" He said to me, "You wish to change places?"

Everyone looked at me in surprise.

"Not at all. This is my place," I replied.

"You see?" said the Governor triumphantly, turning to the Spanish Minister. "He is seated in his right place."

Then Titu Michailescu said to de Foxá, "Come, my dear Augustin, can't you see that the Governor is ambidextrous?"

De Foxá blushed, wiped his glasses with a napkin and said with an embarrassed air, "Yes, you're right. I had not noticed it."

I looked severely at Augustin. "You've had too much to drink," I said to him.

"I am sorry!" replied Augustin with a deep sigh.

We had been sitting at the table for six hours and after the
kiapu
, the red Kemi prawns, after the Swedish hors d'oeuvre, after caviar,
siika,
and smoked reindeer tongue, after the huge Cunas salmon—pink as a girl's lips—after roast reindeer and baked bear's paws, after a cucumber salad dressed with sugar, on the misty horizon of the table between the empty bottles of schnapps, Moselle and Château Lafite, in its dawn-tinted sky the brandy finally appeared. We all sat motionless, sunk in that deep silence of Finnish dinners when the brandy hour strikes and stared at each other fixedly, breaking that ritual silence only to say
"Maljanne"

Though we had finished eating, the jaws of the Governor made a dull, continuous, almost menacing noise. Kaarlo Hillilä was a little over thirty, stocky, with a short neck sunk deeply between his shoulders. I studied his thick fingers, his athletic shoulders, his short muscular arms. His eyes were small, cut aslant beneath two heavy, red eyelids under his narrow brow. His hair was blond, curly, almost frizzy—and as short as a fingernail. His bluish lips were swollen and cracked. When he spoke he lowered his head, resting his chin on his chest and pursing his lips, and looked up only now and again. A wild and cunning look, quick and violent with something wrathful and cruel in it, glittered in his eyes.

"Himmler is a genius," said Kaarlo Hillilä, banging his fist on the table. That very morning he had had a four-hour interview with Himmler and he was exceedingly proud of it.

"Heil
Himmler," said de Foxá raising his glass.

"Heil
Himmler," said Kaarlo Hillilä and, staring at me with a severe and reproachful glance, added, "and you would have us believe that you met him, spoke to him and did not recognize him?"

"I repeat it," I said. "I did not know it was Himmler."

A few nights before a group of German officers were standing in front of the elevator, in the hall of the Pohjanhovi Hotel. On the threshold of the elevator cage stood a medium-sized man in a Hitler uniform, who looked like Stravinsky. A man with Mongolian features, high cheekbones and near-sighted eyes that resembled fish eyes—white behind the thick lenses, as if seen through an aquarium glass. His odd face wore a cruel, absent-minded expression. He spoke in a loud voice and laughed. After a while he closed the sliding door of the elevator and was about to press the electric button, when I came up on the run, pushed my way through the group of officers and, after sliding open the door, stepped inside before the officers could stop me. The personage in the Hitler uniform made a gesture as if to push me back; this amazed me so that I pushed him back in turn and, having shut the door, I pressed the button. Thus it happened that I found myself in a cage of iron alone with Himmler. He looked at me with surprise and perhaps with a trace of irritation. He was pale, and he seemed to me rather uneasy. He took refuge in a corner of the cage, where, with his hands stretched out as if ready to defend himself against a sudden assault, and panting a little, he stared at me with his fish's eyes. I was puzzled. Through the glass door of the elevator I saw the officers, followed by Gestapo men, bounding up the stairs at great speed and knocking against each other on the landings. I turned to Himmler and smilingly apologized for pressing the button before I had inquired what floor he wanted. "Third," he said smiling, and as I thought, he appeared reassured. "I also am on the third," I said.

The elevator stopped on the third floor. I opened the door and made way for him, but Himmler bowed, pointed to the door with a courtly gesture and I went first under the wondering eyes of the officers and Gestapo men.

I had no sooner stretched out between the sheets when an SS soldier knocked at my door. Himmler was inviting me to have a drink of punch with him in his apartment. "Himmler?
Perkele!"
I said to myself.
Perkele
means "devil" and is a taboo word in Finnish. Himmler? What did he want with me? Where had I ever met him? It never entered my mind that he was the man in the elevator. Himmler? It was too much trouble to get up and, besides, it was an invitation, not an order. I sent a message to Himmler thanking him for his invitation and asking to be excused. I was dead tired and had already gone to bed. Shortly afterward somebody knocked again. This time it was a Gestapo agent. He brought me a bottle of brandy as a gift from Himmler. I put two glasses on the table and offered the Gestapo agent a drink. I said,
"Prosit."