The Skin (15 page)

The bravest and the most patient were the children. They did not cry or call out, but looked about them with serene eyes, gazing at the fearful spectacle, and smiled at their relatives, with that wonderful resignation so characteristic of children, who forgive the impotence of their seniors, and pity those who cannot help them. As soon as night fell a whispering arose on all sides, a murmuring, as of the wind in the grass, and those thousands and thousands of heads watched the sky with eyes that were bright with terror.

On the seventh day the order was given for the removal of the civilian population from the localities where the doomed beings were buried in the ground or immersed in the water. The crowd of relatives silently withdrew, urged on gently by the soldiers and orderlies. The doomed victims were left alone. A terrified muttering, a gnashing of teeth, a stifled sobbing came from those horrible heads, which protruded above the water and the ground along the banks of the canals and the river, in the streets and the deserted squares. All day those heads talked among themselves, wept, cried out, with their mouths just above the surface of the ground, making frightful grimaces, putting out their tongues at the
schupos
on guard at the cross-roads; and they seemed to be eating earth and spitting stones.

Then night fell: and mysterious shadows moved among the doomed creatures and silently bent over them. Columns of lorries arrived with their lights extinguished, and stopped. From every side arose the sound of spades and shovels, and a splashing, and the dull plop of oars, and cries that were at once stifled, and moans, and the staccato crack of pistols.

Lanza and Ridomi sat talking of the massacre of Hamburg, and Lanza, who was near the window, shivered as he peered up at the dark starry sky. In due course Ridomi get up and switched on the radio, in order to hear the latest news from Rome. A woman's voice was singing in a sonorous, metallic void, to the accompaniment of a number of stringed instruments. The voice was warm and it vibrated above the cold, strident sound of steel-stringed aluminium violins and violoncellos. Without warning the singing ceased, the instruments stopped playing, and the sudden silence that followed was shattered by a raucous voice: "Attention! Attention! This evening, at six o'clock, by order of His Majesty the King, the Head of the Government, Mussolini, was arrested. His Majesty the King has entrusted Marshal Badoglio with the task of forming the new Government." Lanza and Ridomi leapt to their feet and remained for a few moments in silence, facing each other across the dark room. The voice resumed its singing. Ridomi pulled himself together, closed the window and turned on the light.

The two friends looked at each other. They were pale, breathless. Lanza rushed to the telephone and rang up the Italian Embassy. The official on duty knew nothing. "If it's a joke," he said, "it's a joke in very bad taste." Lanza asked him whether Ambassador Alfieri, who during the last few days had been in Rome for a meeting of the Grand Council, had telephoned the Embassy. The official on duty replied that the Ambassador had telephoned at five o'clock, as he did every day, to know if there was any news. "Thank you," said Lanza, and he telephoned the Propaganda Ministry: Scheffer was not there. He telephoned Reichsminister Schmidt: he was not in. He tried Reichsminister Braun von Stum: he was not in. The two Italian diplomats looked at each other. They must have more definite information; it was necessary to act quickly. If the news of Mussolini's arrest was true the German reaction would be immediate and brutal. They must take refuge in some safe place in order to escape the first wave of violence, which, as always, would be the most dangerous. Ridomi suggested that they should take refuge in the Spanish Embassy or the Swiss Legation. But what if the news were false? They would be the laughing-stock of Berlin. Finally the two Italian diplomats decided to ring up a Berlin lady, Gerda von H— , with whom they were both on friendly terms. Gerda knew a lot of people in the foreign diplomatic world and in Nazi circles. Perhaps she would be able to give them some advice and help, and offer them asylum for a few days, a few hours, until the situation was clarified.

"Oh, lieber Lanza," replied the voice of Gerda von H— , "I was just going to ring you up. I've got a few very dear friends here with me, do come—tell Ridomi not to be lazy: we'll have a lovely evening. Come at once: I'm expecting you." Lanza had left his car outside the front door, and the two friends rushed down the stairs, jumped into the vehicle, and set off at high speed in the direction of Gerda von H— 's house. They fled as if the Gestapo were already at their heels. Gerda lived in the West End. The streets were dark and deserted. As they approached the West End suburbs the air became misty, the green foliage of the lime-trees floated in the starry sky, the thousand remote sounds of the city dissolved in the blue haze like a drop of coloured liquid in a glass of water, and all the while the transparent veil of mist had a light sonorous hue.

Gerda von H— was wearing a long sky-blue gown, which fell about her bare feet in soft folds, like the grooves in a Doric pillar. With her fair hair swept up above her temples and gathered into a mass on top of her head she looked like Nausicaa emerging from the sea. There was something of the sea, indeed, in her slow, sweeping gestures, in the way she raised her knees as she walked along the sea-shore. Gerda von H— had remained faithful to the ideal of classical beauty which was in vogue in Germany about 1930. She had been a pupil of Curtius at Bonn, had for some time frequented the little world of intellectual and aesthetes who were initiated in the cult of Stephan George, and seemed to live and move and have her being in the conventional setting of Stephan George's poetry, in which the neo-classical architectural designs of Winckelmann and the scenes in the second part of
Faust
provide a background for the spectral Muses of Hölderling [
sic
] and Rainer Maria Rilke. Her house, to use her old-fashioned phrase, was a temple in which she received her guests while reclining at her ease on a pile of cushions, in the centre of a group of young women stretched out on thick carpets—
comme un détail pensif sur le sable couché.
A brilliant smile played about her sad lips. Her eyes were round, their gaze warm and steady.

Gerda von H— took Lanza by the hand, and walking lightly on her bare feet led the way into the drawing-room, in which were assembled five girls. Tall and ephebic of frame, they had lean faces and calm, steady, lustrous blue eyes, which shone forth from under deep brows. Their lips were of rich ruby colour, slightly modified by that faint green tinge which is sometimes discernible in the lips of blonde women. Their ears were small and pink, like stems of coral. But there was something indeterminate about their faces, that vague, nebulous quality which is apparent in a face reflected in a mirror, when the contrast with the icy brilliance of the crystal makes the image dull and remote. They wore low-necked evening gowns, which revealed their shoulders—sun-tanned, rounded, smooth, the colour of honey. They had somewhat thick ankles, as German girls do, but their legs were well-shaped, long and supple, with rather prominent, bony knees. She who appeared the boldest, and looked like Diana among the huntresses, said that they had spent the day boating on the Wannsee, and that they were still drunk from the sun. She laughed, throwing back her head, and the movement revealed her lean throat and her ample, muscular Amazonian bosom.

The champagne was tepid, and as the windows had been closed for the black-out the atmosphere of the room was humid and oppressive, and full of the acrid smell of tobacco. The young women and the two Italian diplomats talked of Rome, Venice and Paris. The girl who looked like Diana had returned from Paris a few days before, and the tone in which she spoke of the French gave Lanza and Ridomi a disagreeable shock: it was a tone in which affection was mingled with bitterness, and jealousy with spite. It seemed that she was in love with France and at the same time hated it. Here was the love of a woman who had been betrayed. "The French hate us," said Gerda von H— . "Why do they hate us?" As Lanza and Ridomi conversed their minds were far away, obsessed by the thought which was troubling them, and every so often they exchanged anxious glances. A dozen times already Lanza had been on the point of revealing to Gerda and her friends the reason for their perturbation, but each time an obscure sense of foreboding restrained him. Meanwhile time was passing, and the uncertainty in the minds of the two Italian diplomats was turning to anguish.

Lanza was already on the point of getting up, of drawing Gerda aside, of telling her the truth, of asking her for advice and help. He was already getting up, he was already going over to her, when she spread out her arms, rested a hand on his shoulder and said: "Would you like to dance?"

"Yes, yes!" cried the other girls, and one of them switched on the radio.

"It's late," said Ridomi. "All the stations have closed down."

But the girl was turning the knob, and in due course she picked up Rome. The sound of a dance orchestra filled the room.
"A whole night with you,"
sang a woman's voice.

"Wunderbar!" said Gerda. "Rome is still singing."

"It'll sing a lot more soon," said Ridomi.

"Why?" asked Gerda.

"Because . . ." answered Ridomi, but he said no more, because of that obscure sense of foreboding which, in his mind and in that of his companion, was gradually ripening into fear.

To the ears of the two Italian diplomats the voice sounded faint and very remote, like a thin mist of sound rolling through the night; and the two friends felt their hearts trembling within them, assailed as they were by the fear that at any moment that tender voice would become raucous and harsh, and proclaim the dread news.

"Dance with my friend," said Gerda, pushing Lanza into the arms of the girl who looked like Diana, and with innocent grace pulling the fat, slow-moving Ridomi towards her by the hand. The other four girls had split up into couples and were dancing languidly, each pressing her bosom and hips close against her partner's. Lanza's partner clung tightly to him and gazed into his eyes, smiling and constantly fluttering her eyelids. Lanza felt the vigorous beating of her heart close to his own, felt the motion of her flanks against his, felt her stomach pressing hard against his stomach. But his thoughts were elsewhere, and in his mind was a confused picture of Mussolini, the King and Badoglio indulging in a free fight, getting mixed up together, disengaging themselves, rolling on the floor, and trying to handcuff one another, like acrobats when they engage in a rough-and-tumble on a mat.

Suddenly the music stopped, the tender feminine voice was silent, and a hoarse, breathless voice announced: "Before we read the proclamation by Marshal Badoglio here is a summary of the latest news. At about six o'clock this evening the Head of the Government, Mussolini, was arrested by order of His Majesty the King. The new Head of the Government, Marshal Badoglio, has addressed the following proclamation to the Italian people . . ."

At the sound of that voice, of those words, Lanza's partner broke away from him, repelling him with a shove that seemed to Lanza like a blow of the fist. Each of the other couples disengaged themselves from their embrace, and before the eyes of the two bewildered Italian diplomats their occurred the most extraordinary thing imaginable. The movements, the postures, the smiles, the voices, the expressions of the girls gradually underwent an amazing metamorphosis. Their blue eyes darkened, the smiles died away on their lips, which had suddenly become pale and thin, their voices grew deep and harsh, their movements, which a moment before had been languid, became abrupt, their arms, just now plump and soft, grew hard and wooden, as when the branch of a tree is torn off by the wind, and, with the gradual drying up of its vital sap, loses its bright greenness, the sheen on its bark, that suppleness which is characteristic of trees, so that it becomes hard and rough. But the change which comes over a branch of a tree gradually was wrought in those girls instantaneously. As Lanza and Ridomi stood face to face with the young women they were conscious of the same bewilderment and terror as had seized Apollo when Daphne was transformed from a young girl into a laurel before his eyes. In the space of a few seconds those fair-haired, gentle girls turned into men. They
were
men.

"Ach, so!" said the one who a moment before had looked like Diana, in a harsh voice, staring at the two Italian diplomats with a menacing expression. "Ach, so! Do you think you can get away with it? Do you think the Führer will let you arrest Mussolini without bashing your heads in?" And turning to his companions, "Let's go to the camp at once," he went on. "I've no doubt our squadron has already received orders to start. In a few hours we shall be bombing Rome."

"Jawohl, mein Hauptmann," answered the four Air Force officers, clicking their heels loudly. The captain and his companions bowed silently to Gerda von H— , and without deigning to look at the two stupefied Italians departed in great haste with virile strides, making the floor ring with the sound of their heels.

*       *       *       *

The girl's sudden cry, her words, her gesture, the noise of the slap, were the signal for all the youths to disengage themselves from their partners' embrace. Letting the feminine mask drop from their faces, shaking off their languor, their inertia, the superficial effeminacy of their gestures, expressions and smiles, and becoming men again in the space of a few seconds, they pressed menacingly round the girl. Pale and breatheless, she stood in the middle of the room, staring at Fred with eyes full of hatred.

"Cowards!" she repeated. "You're a lot of cowardly Trotskyites, that's what you are!"

"What? What? What did she say?" cried the youths. "We're Trotskyites? Why? What's come over her? She's mad!"

"No, she's not mad," said Fred. "She's jealous." And he burst into a fit of laughter so shrill that I expected every moment to see it turn to tears.

"Ha! ha! ha!" chorused the other youths. "She's jealous! Ha! ha! ha!"