Kaputt (20 page)

Marioara did not want to go down into the
adapost-,
she wanted to go home, she was afraid and wanted to go home. On other nights she slept on a settee in a room of the Corso Café-Restaurant, but that evening she wanted to go home; she was all atremble.

"They will fire at us, Marioara," I said.

"Nu, nu,
the soldiers cannot fire at an officer."

"Who can tell? It is dark. They will fire at us, Marioara."

"Nu, nu,"
replied Marioara, "Romanian soldiers will not fire at an Italian officer, will they?"

"No, they will not fire at an Italian captain, they are afraid. Come along, Marioara. Colonel Lupu also is afraid of an Italian officer."

We walked close to one another, along the walls, in the warm rain. Marioara's bosom was heaving gently against my arm, the light breathing of a child. We went down toward Usine Road, among the ghosts of disemboweled houses. From hovels made of wood or straw and mud came voices, laughter, weeping of children, raucous triumphal songs of gramophones. Sharp rifle shots pierced the night down there beyond the station. Through the amplifier of an old gramophone, placed on the sill of a dark window, a sad raucous voice sang:

Voi, voi, voi, mandrelor voi...

From time to time we hid behind a tree trunk, behind the wall of an orchard and held our breath until the tread of a patrol had faded away in the distance. "There, my home is there," said Marioara. Before us the massive red-brick building of the central power station loomed out of the darkness like a silo. From the tracks around the railroad station came the mournful whistling of engines.

"
Nu, nu, Domnule Capitan, nu, nu
,"
said Marioara
.

But I crushed her in my arms, caressed her curly hair, the thick hard eyebrows, the thin little mouth.

"Nu, Domnule Capitan, nu, nu,"
said Marioara trying to push me away, her hands pressing against my chest.

Suddenly the storm burst like a mine on the roofs of the town. Charred shreds of clouds, trees, houses, streets, men and horses were hurled into the air and whirled about in the wind. A stream of lukewarm blood gushed forth from the clouds torn open by red, green and blue thunderbolts. Romanian soldiers went by in groups shouting,
"Parasiutist! Parasiutist!"
They ran firing their rifles aimed into the air; a confused din reached us faintly from the lower city through the high, faraway hum of the Russian planes.

We backed against the fence surrounding Marioara's house, and at that moment two soldiers who came running from the turn in the road fired at us without stopping. We heard distinctly the thud of the bullets against the fence. A sunflower, bending its head, peered at us with its round, polyphemic, impersonal eye, the long yellow lashes half-curled over the great black pupil. I crushed Marioara in my arms, and she leaned back, her eyes turned to the sky. Suddenly she said in a low voice: "Oh,
frumos! frumos!
—Oh, beautiful! beautiful!" I lifted my eyes to the sky and a shout of wonder escaped my lips.

There were men up there, walking on the roof of the storm. Small, awkward, round-bellied, they walked along the edges of the clouds, holding up with one hand a huge white umbrella that swayed in the gusty wind. They were perhaps the old professors of the Jassy university with their gray top hats and pea-green frock-coats, who were returning home along the avenue from the
Fundatia.
They strolled very slowly in the rain, in the livid flashes of lightning, and they talked among themselves. It was funny to see them up there. They moved their legs in an odd way, like scissors opening and closing, cutting the clouds, making a way for themselves through the spiderweb of rain hanging over the town.
"Nopte buna, Domnule Professor
," they said to one another inclining their heads and raising their gray top hats with finger and thumb,
"Nopte buna!"
Or perhaps they were the proud, handsome ladies of Jassy returning from their promenade in the park, shading their delicate faces under pale blue or pink silk parasols trimmed with white lace; and they were followed at a distance by their old black, solemn carriages, with eunuch coachmen brandishing their whips with the long red tassels above the glistening croups of the fine horses with long yellow manes. Perhaps they were the old noblemen of the Jockey Club, the fat Moldavian noblemen, with side whiskers trimmed Paris fashion, Saville Row clothes, and small ties that were drawn through the narrow openings in their high stiff collars so they could breathe a little fresh air after the endless bridge games in the smoky rooms of the Jockey Club with its smell of roses and tobacco. They swayed from their hips, clipping their scissors, their extended right arms grasping the long handles of their huge white umbrellas, their tall, gray top hats slightly tilted over their ears as those of certain
vieux beaux
of Daumier, or of Caran d'Ache.

"They are the Jassy noblemen escaping," I said. "They are afraid of the war and they are looking for safety in the Athénée Palace in Bucharest."

"Oh no, they are not escaping; down there are the houses of the gypsy women,- they are going to make love to the gypsies," replied Marioara gazing at the floating men.

The clouds looked like the foliage of the large green trees that rise among the little tables of the Pavilion d'Armenonville against a background of green, blue and pink trees in a Manet picture of the Porte Dauphine. They really were Manet's greens, pinks, blues and grays in the delicate landscape of lawns and leaves that appeared and disappeared within the gashes between the clouds, whenever a thunderbolt destroyed the tall purple castles of the storm.

"It is truly like a feast," I said, "a gay feast in a beautiful park in springtime."

Marioara gazed at the
demi-dieux
of the Jockey Club—the white demi-gods of Jassy. Jassy is
du côté de Guermantes,
a provincial
côté de Guermantes
belonging to that ideal province that is the true Parisian country of Proust, and in Moldavia everyone knows Proust by heart. She gazed at the gray top hats, the monocles, the white carnations in the buttonholes of the blue coats, the silken lace-edged parasols, the arms covered with lace gloves to the elbows, the little hats decked with birds and flowers, the brittle little feet peeking from under the pleated skirts. "Oh! how I should like to go to that party. I wish I, too, could go in a fine silk dress!" said Marioara touching with slender fingers her poor faded cotton frock stained with
ciorba de pui.

"Oh, look, look how they run away! Look how the rain is chasing them, Marioara! The party is over, Marioara."

"La revedere, Domnule Capitan,"
said Marioara, pushing open the little gate leading into her orchard. Marioara's home was a single-story, wooden hovel with a roof of red tiles. The windows were shut, a glimmer of light showed through the slats of the blinds.

"Marioara!" called a woman's voice from inside the house.

"Oh,
la revedere, Domnule Capitan,"
said Marioara
.

"La revedere
, Marioara," I said, holding her to me.

Marioara yielded to my arms and gazed up at the sky at the fiery tracks of the tracer bullets streaking the black glass of the night; they looked like coral necklaces hanging on invisible feminine necks, flowers thrown into a velvety black abyss, phosphorescent fish darting about a nocturnal sea; they were evanescent shapes of red lips melting into the shade of silk parasols; they were roses blossoming in a secret recess of a garden on a moonless night just before dawn. The
vieux beaux
of the Jockey Club and the old university professors sheltered from the rain under their huge white umbrellas, went home after the party as the last skyrockets were being fired.

Later, the display ended. Suddenly the rain ceased; the moon appeared through a rent in the clouds; it looked like a landscape painted by Chagall: A Jewish Chagall sky, crowded with Jewish angels, with Jewish clouds, with Jewish horses and dogs dangling in their flight over the town. Jewish fiddlers sat on the roofs of the houses or floated in a pale sky above the streets, where old Jews lay dead in the gutter between the lighted ritual candelabra. Jewish lovers were stretched out in mid-air on the edge of a cloud as green as a meadow. And under that Jewish Chagall sky, in that Chagall landscape illuminated by a round transparent moon, from the Nicolina, Socola, and Pacurari districts, rose a confused din, a rattle of machine guns and the dull thud of hand grenades.

"Oh, they are killing the Jews!" said Marioara holding her breath.

The din could also be heard from the center of the town, from the elevation around Unirii Square and the church of the Three Hierarchs. Above that confused roar of people pursued through the streets, could be heard German words shouted in terrible, strident voices, and the
stai! stai!
of Romanian soldiers and policemen. Suddenly a rifle shot whizzed by our ears. From the end of the road came the clamor of German, Romanian and Jewish voices; a crowd of people in flight ran by; they were women, men, boys and girls pursued by a group of policemen firing on the run. Behind the others came a staggering soldier with his face covered with blood, shouting, "
Parasiutist! Parasiutist!
—Paratrooper! Paratrooper!" and aiming his rifle at the sky. He fell to his knees a few steps away from us and hit his head against the fence. He lay stretched out with his face in the mud, under the slow rain of the Soviet paratroopers who dropped one by one from the sky, with lightly poised feet, and hung in their huge white umbrellas from the roofs of the houses.

"Oh, oh!" shouted Marioara, as I lifted her from the ground, ran across the orchard and pushed the door open with my elbow.

"La revedere,
Marioara," I said letting her slide slowly through my arms until she touched the threshold.

"Nu, nu, Domnule Capitan, nu, nu!"
shouted Marioara clinging to my breast.
"Nu, nu, Domnule Capitan,
oh!" and she buried her teeth in my hand, biting it savagely, whining like a dog.

"Oh, Marioara," I said softly, touching her hair with my lips, and I hit her in the face with my free hand to make her release my other hand. Then I pushed her gently into her dark house, crossed the orchard and walked away along the deserted street, turning now and then to look back at the fence, the sunflower standing above the pointed pickets, the little house with its red-tiled roof splotched with moonlight.

When I reached the top of the hill, I turned around. The town was ablaze. Thick clouds of smoke hung over the lower sections along the banks of the river. The houses and the trees, close to the burning buildings stood out clearly and looked bigger than they were, like enlarged photographs. I could even discern the cracks in the walls, the branches and the leaves. There was something dead about the scene, and at the same time, something too precise, as in a photograph; I would have believed that I was facing a ghostly photographic backdrop, if it had not been for the confused din rising everywhere, the wailing hoot of sirens, the long whistling of steam engines and the rattling of machine guns that imparted a vivid and immediate reality to that terrible sight. Up and down the narrow twisting streets leading toward the center of town, I heard all about me desperate barking, banging of doors, shattering of glass and of china, smothered screams, imploring voices calling
mama! mama!,
horrible beseeching cries of
nu, nu, nu!
and occasionally from behind a fence or from an orchard, or through the half-closed blinds from inside a house a flash, the sharp report of a shot, the whizzing of a bullet and the strident, frightful German voices. In Unirii Square a group of SS men kneeling by the Prince Gutsa Voda monument fired their tommy guns toward the little square where the statue of Prince Ghiha in Moldavian costume stands with his great quilted coat and his brow covered by a tall fur cap. By the light of the fires a black, gesticulating throng, mostly women, could be seen huddled at the foot of the monument. From time to time someone rose, darted this way or that across the square and fell under the bullets of the SS men. Hordes of Jews pursued by soldiers and maddened civilians armed with knives and crowbars fled along the streets,- groups of policemen smashed in house doors with their rifle butts,- windows opened suddenly and screaming disheveled women in nightgowns appeared with their arms raised in the air,- some threw themselves from windows and their faces hit the asphalt with a dull thud. Squads of soldiers hurled hand grenades through the little windows level with the street into the cellars where many people had vainly sought safety,- some soldiers dropped to their knees to look at the results of the explosions within the cellars and turned laughing faces to their companions. Where the slaughter had been heaviest the feet slipped in blood; everywhere the hysterical and ferocious toil of the pogrom filled the houses and streets with shots, with weeping, with terrible screams and cruel laughter.

When I finally reached the Italian Consulate on the green road that runs back of the wall surrounding the old abandoned churchyard, Consul Sartori was sitting on the doorstep smoking a cigarette. He looked tired and bored. He smoked peacefully with an air of Neapolitan indifference. But I know my Neapolitans and I knew that he was suffering. The sound of smothered sobbing reached us from the inside room.

"This outbreak was all we needed!" said Sartori. "I have saved half a dozen of the poor devils; some are wounded. Would you help me, Malaparte? I am no good as a nurse."

I went into the office of the Consulate. Stretched out on the sofas or seated on the floor in the corners were several women, a few bearded old men, five or six boys and three young men who looked like students,- a little girl was crying under Sartori's writing desk. A woman sat, her forehead split by a blow with a rifle butt; a student moaned from a gunshot wound in his shoulder. I heated some water and, assisted by Sartori, began washing the wounds and bandaging them with strips of linen cut from a sheet. "What a bore!" said Sartori. "This business is just what we needed, and especially tonight when I have a slight headache."