The Skin (16 page)

Meanwhile Jeanlouis had gone up to the girl and, caressing her shoulder with a gesture full of tenderness, was whispering something in her ear, to which she, her face deathly white, assented with a slight nod of the head. I had risen, and was surveying the scene with a smile.

"That man—what does that man want with us?" cried the girl suddenly, brusquely repelling Jeanlouis and looking me boldly in the face. "Who let him in? Isn't he ashamed to be among us?"

"I'm not at all ashamed," I said, smiling. "Why should I be ashamed? I like being in the company of fine fellows. Isn't it true that at heart they are all fine fellows?"

"I don't understand what you're referring to," said one of the youths with a provocative air, coming so close to me that he was almost touching me.

"But aren't you fine fellows?" I said, resting the flat of my hand on his chest. "Why, yes—you're all fine fellows. If it weren't for you there would be no one who had won the war." And laughingly I made for the door and descended the stairs.

Jeanlouis caught me up in the street.

He was a little embarrassed, and for a long while we did not speak. In due course he said to me: "You shouldn't have insulted them. They are suffering."

"I didn't insult them," I answered.

"You shouldn't have said that they alone had won the war."

"Didn't they win the war, then?"

"Yes—in a sense, yes," said Jeanlouis. "But they are suffering."

"Suffering? What from?"

"They are suffering," said Jeanlouis, "because of all that has happened during these years."

"You mean because of Facism, and the war, and our defeat?"

"Yes, because of that too," said Jeanlouis.

"It's a fine pretext," I said. "Couldn't you have found a better pretext?"

"Why do you pretend not to understand?" said Jeanlouis.

"But I do," I said. "I understand you very well. You have taken to playing the harlot in desperation, because of your grief at losing the war. Isn't that right?"

"No, it isn't quite like that, but it comes to the same thing," said Jeanlouis.

"And Fred? Is Fred suffering too? Has he, perhaps, taken to playing the harlot because Britain has won the war?"

"Why do you insult him? Why do you call him a harlot?" said Jeanlouis with a gesture of petulance.

"Because if he is suffering, he is suffering as a harlot suffers."

"Don't talk nonsense," said Jeanlouis. "You know very well that-young men have suffered more than the rest during all these years."

"Even when they applauded Hitler and Mussolini and spat at those who went to gaol?"

"But don't you understand that they were suffering? Don't you understand that they are suffering?" cried Jeanlouis. "Don't you understand that everything they do is done because they are suffering?"

"It's certainly a fine excuse," I said. "Luckily not all young men are like you. Not all young men play the harlot."

"It isn't our fault if we're reduced to this," said Jeanlouis.

He had slipped his arm through mine, and as he walked at my side he leaned against me with all the weight of his body, just like a woman who wants to be forgiven for something, or a weary child.

"And then, why do you call us harlots? We aren't harlots, and you know it—it's unfair that you should call us harlots."

He was talking in a whimpering voice, exactly like a woman who wants to arouse pity, or a weary child.

"Are you starting to cry now? What do you expect me to call you?"

"It isn't our fault—you know very well it isn't our fault," said Jeanlouis.

"No, it isn't your fault," I said. "If it were only your fault do you think I would say to you some of the things I am saying? It's always the same old story after a war. The young men react against heroism, against rhetorical talk of sacrifice and heroic death, and they always react in the same way. When they get sick of heroism, noble ideals, heroic ideals, do you know what young men like you do? They always choose the easiest form of revolt—degradation, moral indifference, narcissism. They think they're rebels, nihilists, they think they're
blasé,
emancipated, and really they're only harlots."

"You have no right to call us harlots!" cried Jeanlouis. "Young men deserve to be respected. You have no right to insult them."

"It's a question of the meaning of words. I knew thousands like you after the other war who thought they were dadaists or surrealists, and were really only harlots. You'll see, after this war, how many young men will think they're Communists. When the Allies have liberated all of Europe, do you know what they'll find? A horde of disappointed, corrupt, desperate young men, who will play at being pederasts as they would play tennis. It's always the same old story after a war. Young men like you, when they get sick and tired of heroism, nearly always end up as pederasts. They assume the role of Narcissus or Corydon to prove to themselves that they aren't afraid of anything, that they have risen above
bourgeois
prejudices and conventions, that they are truly free—free men—and they don't realize that this is just another way of acting the hero!" I laughed. "You can never get away from heroism! And their excuse for all this is that they are sick of heroism!"

"If you call all that has happened during these years heroism," said Jeanlouis in a low voice.

"And what
would
you call it? What do you think heroism is?"

"Heroism is your
bourgeois
cowardice," said Jeanlouis.

"The same thing always happens after proletarian revolutions," I said. "Young men like you think that pederasty is a form of revolutionism."

"If you're referring to Trotskyism," said Jeanlouis, "you're making a mistake. We're not Trotskyites."

"I know you aren't Trotskyites either," I said. "You are poor boys who are ashamed of being
bourgeois,
and haven't the courage to become proletarian. You think that to become a pederast is just one way of becoming a Communist."

"Stop! We're not pederasts!" cried Jeanlouis. "We're not pederasts, do you understand?"

"There are a thousand ways of being a pederast," I said. "Often pederasty is merely a pretext. A fine pretext, there's no denying it. I don't doubt you will find someone who will invent a literary or political or philosophical theory to justify you. There's never any shortage of pimps."

"We want to be free men," said Jeanlouis. "Is that what you call being pederasts?"

"I know," I said. "I know you are sacrificing yourselves for the liberty of Europe."

"You're being unfair," said Jeanlouis. "If we're what you say it's your fault. It's you who have made us like this. What were you people capable of doing? A fine example you gave us! The only thing you were capable of doing was to get yourselves thrown into gaol by that clown Mussolini. Why didn't you start a revolution, if you didn't want war?"

"War or revolution, it's the same thing. Both are breeding-grounds of poor heroes like you and your friends."

Jeanlouis began to laugh in a malicious, spiteful way. "We aren't heroes," he said. "Heroes make us sick. Mothers, fathers, the national flag, honour, country, glory—they're all stuff and nonsense. They call us harlots and pederasts. Yes, perhaps we are harlots and pederasts, or even worse. But we don't realize it. And that's enough for us. We want to be free, that's all. We want to give a meaning, a purpose to our lives."

"I know," I said in a low voice, smiling. "I know you're fine fellows."

*       *       *       *

Meanwhile we had descended the hill of the Vomero and had reached the Piazza dei Martiri. From there we turned off into the Vicolo della Cappella Vecchia with the intention of making our way up to the Calascione. The Rampa Capioli opens at its lower end into the
piazzetta
of the Capella Vecchia, a kind of large courtyard dominated on one side by the rugged slopes of the Monte di Dio and on the other side by the wall of the Synagogue and the high facade of the mansion in which Emma Hamilton passed long years. From that upper window Horatio Nelson, his brow pressed against the glass, used to gaze out at the Bay of Naples, the island of Capri, drifting on the horizon, the mansions on the Monte di Dio, and the hill of the Vomero, green with pines and vineyards. Those high windows, which look straight down on to the Chiatamane, were the windows of Lady Hamilton's apartments. Clad sometimes in the costume of the island women of Cyprus, sometimes in that of the women of Nauplia, sometimes like the girls of Epirus, in broad red trousers, and sometimes in the Greco-Venetian costume of Corfu, her hair swathed in a sky-blue silk turban, as we see her in the portrait by Angelica Kauffmann, Emma used to dance before Horatio, while the mournful cries of the orange-sellers ascended from the green and blue abyss of the alleys of the Chiatamane.

I had stopped in the middle of the
piazzetta
of the Cappella Vecchia and was looking up at Lady Hamilton's windows, gripping Jeanlouis tightly by the arm. I was unwilling to drop my eyes and look about me. I knew what I should see, there in front us, at the foot of the wall that forms a background to the courtyard on the Synagogue side. I knew that there in front of us, a few yards from where I stood—I could hear the reedy laughter of the children and the raucous voices of the
goumiers
—was the child-market. I knew that today, as on every other day, at this hour, at this moment, boys from eight to ten years old were sitting half-naked in front of the Moroccan soldiers, who were observing them closely, picking them out, and coming to terms with the horrible toothless women, gaunt-faced, wizened and plastered with rouge, who trafficked in those little slaves.

Such things had never been seen in Naples in all its centuries of misery and slavery. From time immemorial all kinds of things had been sold in Naples, but never children. Never before had children been sold in the streets of Naples. In Naples children are sacred. They are the only sacred thing there is in Naples. The people of Naples are generous people, the most humane people in the world. They are the only people in the world of whom it can be said that even the poorest family brings up among its children, among its ten or twelve children, a little orphan, adopted from the Ospedale degli Innocenti. And that orphan is the most sacred, the best dressed, the best fed of all, because it is the "child of the Madonna," and brings good luck to the other children. One could say anything one liked about the Neapolitans, anything, but not that they sold their children in the streets.

And now the
piazzetta
of the Cappella Vecchia, situated in the heart of Naples, beneath the noble mansions of the Monte di Dio, the Chiatomane and the Piazza dei Martiri, and close to the Synagogue, had become the resort of Moroccan soldiers, who came to buy Neapolitan children, children at the price of a few
soldi.

They felt them and lifted up their garments, sticking their long, expert, black fingers between the buttons of their knickers and holding them up to indicate their price.

The children sat in rows beneath the wall, looking into the faces of the buyers. They laughed as they chewed their caramels, but they lacked the usual restless gaiety of Neapolitan children, they did not talk among themselves, they did not shout, they did not sing, they did not make faces or romp about. It was evident that they were afraid. Their mothers, or those strapping, painted women who called themselves their mothers, held them tightly by the arm, as though they feared that the Moroccans would carry them off without paying. Then one of them would take her money, count it and make off, clutching her child tightly by the arm, followed by a
goumier,
his face pock-marked, his deep-set eyes glinting beneath the edge of the dark cloak that covered his head.

I looked up at Emma Hamilton's windows, and was unwilling to drop my eyes. I looked at the strip of blue sky that fringed the high balcony of Lady Hamilton's house, and Jeanlouis at my side was silent. But I felt that he was silent not because he feared my mood, but because an obscure force was at work within him, tormenting him, because the blood was mounting to his temples and choking him. All of a sudden he said: "I really do pity those poor children."

I turned then and looked him in the face. "You're a coward," I said.

"Why do you call me a coward?" said Jeanlouis.

"You pity them, do you? Are you quite sure it
is
pity? Isn't it perhaps something else?"

"What do you suppose it is?" said Jeanlouis, looking at me with an odious, malignant expression.

"You would
almost
buy one of those poor children yourself, wouldn't you?"

"What difference would it make to you if I did?" said Jeanlouis. "Better I than a Moroccan soldier. I would give him food, I would clothe him, I would buy him a pair of shoes, I would not let him want for anything. It would be an act of charity."

"Ah, it would be an act of charity, would it?" I said, looking hard into his eyes. "You're a hypocrite and a coward."

"One can't even have a joke with you," said Jeanlouis. "In any case, what does it matter to you if I am a coward and a hypocrite? Do you think, then, that you have a right to act the moralist—you and all the others like you? Do you think
you
aren't a coward and a hypocrite too?"

"Yes, certainly I'm a coward and a hypocrite too, like thousands of others," I said. "And what of it? I'm not at all ashamed of being a child of my time."

"Well, then, why haven't you the courage to say of those children what you have said of me?" said Jeanlouis, seizing me by the arm and looking at me with eyes that were bright with tears. "Why don't you say that those children have become harlots with Fascism, war and defeat as their excuse? Come on—why don't you say that those children are Trotskyites?"

"One day those boys will become men," I said, "and if God so wills they will push our faces in—your face, and my face, and the faces of all those like us. They'll push our faces in, and they'll be justified."

"They would be justified," said Jeanlouis, "but they won't do it. When they're twenty those children won't break any heads. They'll do as we did, they'll do as you and I did. We were sold too when we were their age."