Kaputt (46 page)

"Heil
Hitler," replied the agent.

"Ein Liter
—One liter," said I. The corridor was watched by Gestapo agents, the hotel was surrounded by SS men armed with tommy guns. I said,
"Prosit"

"Heil
Hitler," replied the Gestapo agent.

"Ein Liter,"
I said. Next morning the manager of the hotel politely requested me to give up my room, and moved me to a double room on the first floor, at the end of a hall. The second bed was occupied by a Gestapo agent.

"You did not recognize him on purpose," said my friend Jaakko Leppo, staring at me with hostile eyes.

"I had never seen him before. How could I recognize him?" I answered.

"Himmler is an extraordinary man, an extremely interesting man," said Jaakko Leppo. "You should have accepted his invitation."

"He is a person with whom I don't want to have anything to do," I answered.

"You're wrong," said the Governor. "Before I met him, I also thought that Himmler was a terrible character, with a pistol in his right hand and a whip in his left. After talking for four hours with him, I realized that Himmler is exceptionally well read, an artist, a real artist and a high-minded man who responds to everything human. I'll say even more: a sentimental man." The Governor said, "A sentimental man." He added that after having had personal visits with him, and having had the honor of conversing with him for four hours, if he were called upon to paint his portrait, he would have painted him with the Gospels in his right hand and the Prayer Book in his left. The Governor actually said, "with the Gospels in his right hand and the Prayer Book in his left," and he banged his fist on the table.

De Foxá, Michailescu and I were unable to repress a discreet smile, and de Foxá, turning to me, asked, "When you met him in the elevator, what did he have in his hands, a pistol and a whip, or the Gospels and the Prayer Book?"

"He had nothing in his hands," I replied.

"Then it wasn't Himmler, it was someone else," said de Foxá gravely.

"The Gospels and the Prayer Book! Precisely!" said the Governor banging his fist upon the table.

"You pretended not to recognize him on purpose," said my friend Jaakko Leppo. "You knew perfectly well that it was Himmler."

"You ran a great risk," said the Governor. "Anyone present might have thought it was a criminal attempt and shot you."

"You'll certainly get in trouble about it," said Jaakko Leppo.

"Maljanne,"
said de Foxá raising his glass.

"Maljanne,"
all the others replied in a chorus.

The guests sat stiffly, resting heavily against the backs of their chairs and shaking their heads slightly as if a violent wind were blowing. The dry and pungent odor of brandy was spreading through the room. Jaakko Leppo stared intently at de Foxá, Michailescu and me, with a peculiar hostile flash in his dull eyes.
"Maljanne,"
said Governor Kaarlo Hillilä from time to time, raising his glass.
"Maljanne,"
echoed the others in a chorus. Through the large windows I gazed at the sad, deserted, hopeless landscape of the Kemi and the Ounas valleys, those stupendously transparent and deep perspectives of forest, water and sky. A limitless horizon, chalky with the violent and pure bleached light of the North, touched the end of the distant rolling
tunturit,
those wooded hills in whose soft folds are concealed marshes, lakes, forests and the winding course of the great Arctic rivers. I was gazing at that empty lofty sky, that squalid abyss of light hanging over the cold glow of leaves and water. All the secret, mysterious meaning of that ghostly country was revealed in the color of the sky, in that frozen loneliness aglow with a wonderful white light and a dead and frozen splendor of chalk. Beneath that sky, in which the pale disk of the nocturnal sun seemed to be painted on a smooth white wall, the trees, the rocks, the grass and the water dripped with a queer substance, soft and slimy; that chalky light was the ghostly, dazzling light of the North, and in that still, pure glow the human faces looked like masks of chalk, blind and dumb. Faces without eyes, without lips, without noses—shapeless and smooth masks of chalk, resembling the egg-shaped heads of the characters painted by de Chirico.

Turning with a smile to the Governor, I said that his features and the features of all his guests recalled to my mind the faces of the sleeping soldiers in the Tori on the night I had reached Rovaniemi. They had been asleep on the ground on beds of straw. Their faces seemed carved from chalk: eyeless, lipless, noseless, smooth and egg-shaped. The eyes of the sleepers were delicate and sensitive surfaces on which the white light rested with a light timid touch, forming a small warm nest—just a drop of a shadow, just a drop of blue. The only living thing in those faces was that drop of a shadow.

"An egg-shaped face? My face also egg-shaped?" asked the Governor gazing at me with uneasy surprise and touching his eyes, his nose and his mouth.

"Yes," I replied. "Just like an egg." And I told them what I had seen at Sodankylä, on the road to Petsamo. The night was clear, the sky white, the trees, the hills, the houses, everything seemed made of chalk. The night sun looked like a blind eye without eyelashes. After a while I saw an ambulance coming down Ivalo Road. It stopped in front of the post office by the small hotel that housed the hospital. A few white-clothed attendants—ah, the dazzling whiteness of those linen uniforms!—began lifting the stretchers out of the ambulance and ranging them on the grass. The grass was white, mellowed by a transparent bluish veil. On the stretchers in heavy, motionless frozen postures, lay statues of chalk, their heads oval and smooth, without eyes, without noses, without mouths. Their faces were egg-shaped.

"Statues?" asked the Governor. "Do you really mean statues? Chalk statues? And they were being carried to the hospital in an ambulance?"

"Yes, statues," I replied. "Chalk statues. Suddenly a gray cloud spread over the sky, and out of the sudden twilight around me, revealing their real shape, emerged the beings and things that before had been merged into that still white glow. The chalk statues on the stretchers were abruptly changed into human shapes by the sudden shadow from that cloud. Those chalk masks were turned into living human features. They were men, they were wounded soldiers. They followed me with their wondering and puzzled glances, for I, too, had suddenly turned before their eyes from a chalk statue into a man—a living man, made of flesh and shadow."

"Maljanne,"
gravely said the Governor gazing at me with an amazed and puzzled look.

"Maljanne,"
echoed the others in a chorus and raised their glasses filled to the brim with brandy.

"What's Jaakko doing? Has he gone mad?" said de Foxá clutching my arm.

Jaakko Leppo was sitting on his chair, his body motionless, his head thrust slightly forward. Without gesturing he spoke in a low voice, his face impassive, his eyes burning with a black flame. Very slowly his right hand had slipped along his side, unsheathed the bone-handled
puukko
hanging from his belt, and suddenly, he had raised his short thick arm and was holding the knife and staring into Titu Michailescu's face. Everyone followed his lead and unsheathed their
puukkos.

"No, that's not the way it should be done," the Governor said. He also drew his
puukko
and imitated the movements of a bear hunter.

"I've got him, straight through the heart," said Titu Michailescu, turning slightly pale.

"Like this, straight through the heart," repeated the Governor, making a downward thrust with his knife.

"And the bear drops to the ground," said Michailescu.

"No, he does not drop at once," Jaakko Leppo said. "He moves a few steps forward, then sways and drops. It's a most wonderful moment."

"They are all dead drunk," de Foxá said softly clutching my arm. "I am beginning to be afraid."

I said to him, "For God's sake, don't show them that you are afraid. If they notice that you are frightened, they are apt to take offense. They are not bad, but when they are drunk they are like children."

"They are not bad, I know," de Foxá said. "They are like children. But I'm afraid of children."

"To show them that you are not frightened, you must say
'Maljanne
' in a loud voice and, looking straight at them, drain your glass in one gulp."

"I'm done for," de Foxá said. "Another glass and I am done for."

"For God's sake!" I said to him. "Don't get drunk! When a Spaniard is drunk, he is dangerous."

"Señor Ministio,"
said a Finnish officer, Major von Hartmann, in Spanish to de Foxá, "during the Civil War in Spain, I amused myself by teaching my friends of the Tercio how to play the
puukko
game. It's a very amusing game. Shall I teach it to you too,
Señor Ministro?"

"I don't see the need of it," said de Foxá suspiciously.

Major von Hartmann, who had been at the Pinerolo Cavalry School and had fought in Spain as a volunteer in Franco's army, is a courteous and willful man,- he likes to be obeyed.

"Don't you want me to teach you? Why? It's a game that you
must
learn,
Señor Ministro.
Look. The left hand with the fingers spread out is placed on the table, the
puukko
is grasped in the right, and with a sharp thrust the knife's blade is driven into the table between two fingers." While he spoke he raised his
puukko
and made a thrust between the fingers of his open hand. The point of the knife stuck into the table between his thumb and his forefinger.

"Did you see how it is done?" asked von Hartmann.

"Valgame Dios!
—God help me!" said de Foxá growing pale.

"Won't you try,
Señor Ministro
?" asked von Hartmann, offering his
puukko
to de Foxá.

"I would be glad to try it," said de Foxá, "but I cannot spread my fingers. My fingers are like those of a duck."

"Odd!" said the incredulous von Hartmann. "Let me see!"

"It isn't worth your trouble," de Foxá said hiding his hands behind his back. "It's a blemish, a simple fault of nature. I cannot spread my fingers."

"Let me see!" said von Hartmann.

They all bent over the table to see the Spanish Minister's fingers that were shaped like a duck's, and de Foxá tried to conceal his hands under the table, stuck them into his pockets, thrust them behind his back.

"Are you web-footed?" the Governor said grasping his
puukko.
"Show us your hands, sir!"

They brandished their knives as they leaned over the table.

"Web-footed?" said de Foxá, "I'm not web-footed. Not quite web-footed, if you please. There's only a little skin between my fingers."

"The skin must be cut," the Governor said raising his long
puukko.
"It isn't natural to have
les pattes d'oie
—goose feet."

"What?
Les pattes d'oie
?" said von Hartmann. "You already have crow's feet at your age,
Señor Ministro'.
Show me your eyes!"

"His eyes?" asked the Governor. "Why his eyes?"

"You, too, have crow's feet," de Foxá said. "Show them your eyes."

"My eyes?" the Governor said in an uneasy voice.

They were leaning over the table, looking at the Governor's eyes.

"Maljanne,"
said the Governor raising his glass.

"Maljanne,"
they repeated in a chorus.

"You do not wish to drink with us, sir?" the Governor said reproachfully to de Foxá.

"Governor, gentlemen!" the Spanish Minister said seriously, getting to his feet, "I cannot drink any more. I am going to be sick."

"You are ill?" asked Kaarlo Hillilä. "Are you really ill? Have another drink!
Maljanne."

"Maljanne,"
said de Foxá without raising his glass.

"Have another drink!" the Governor said. "When one is ill, one must drink."

"For God's sake, Augustin, drink!" I said to de Foxá. "If they notice that you are not drunk, you're lost! So they won't see that you are not drunk, Augustin, you must drink." In the company of Finns one must drink. If anyone does not drink with them, if anyone does not get drunk with them, if anyone falls two or three
Maljannes
or two or three glasses behind, he becomes a person to be looked on with distrust and suspicion. "For God's sake, Augustin, don't let them discover that you are not drunk!"

"Maljanne,"
said De Foxá with a sigh and raised his glass.

"Drink, sir!" the Governor said.

"God help me!" exclaimed de Foxá shutting his eyes and draining his glass brimming with brandy.

The Governor again refilled the glasses and said
"Maljanne."

"Maljanne,"
echoed de Foxá raising his glass.

"For God's sake, Augustin, don't get drunk!" I said. "A drunken Spaniard is fearful. Remember that you are the Minister of Spain."

"I
don't give a damn!" said de Foxá.
"Maljanne."

"The Spaniards," von Hartmann said, "don't know how to drink. During the siege of Madrid I was with the Tercio in front of University City...."

"What?" de Foxá said. "We Spaniards don't know how to drink?"

"For God's sake, Augustin, remember that you are the Minister of Spain!"

"Suomelle!"
de Foxá said raising his glass.
Suomelle!
means, "To Finland!"

"Arriba Espana!"
said von Hartmann.

"For God's sake, don't get drunk, Augustin!"

"To hell with them!
Suomelle!"
de Foxá said.

"Long live America!" said the Governor.

"Long live America!" said de Foxá.

"Long live America!" the others echoed in a chorus raising their glasses.

"Long live Germany, long live Hitler!" said the Governor.

"To hell with them!" de Foxá said.

"Long live Mussolini!" the Governor said.

"To hell with him!" I said with a smile and raised my glass.

"To hell with him!" said the Governor.

"To hell with him!" all the others called in a chorus and raised their glasses.

"America is Finland's staunch friend," the Governor said. "There are many hundreds of thousands of Finns in the United States. America is our second fatherland."