Kaputt (50 page)

"Are you sure that they will come back?"

"They will, and sooner than the people expect," Juho Nykänen said and, lowering his voice, added, "you may take it from me, sir, the Germans will lose the war."

"What?" I exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that the Germans will lose the war?"

"I mean the war against the salmon," said Juho Nykänen. "The people hereabout, the Lapps and Finns, all side with the salmon. The other day some German soldiers were found dead on the bank of the river. Probably, the salmon killed them, don't you think so?"

"Probably," I said. "I shall welcome with pleasure, my dear Mr. Juho Nykänen, the salmon's victory. Theirs is the cause of humanity and civilization. But meanwhile I would like a bed to sleep in."

"Are you very tired?"

"I'm dead tired with weariness and lack of sleep."

"I advise you to go to the hotel of Mrs. Irjaa Palmunen Himanka," Juho Nykänen said.

"Is it very far?"

"Not more than a mile. You'll have to make the best of the accommodations and probably sleep with a German officer."

"In the same bed?"

"Germans are fond of sleeping in other people's beds. If you tell him that the bed is not yours, he might make a little room for you."

"Thank you, Mr. Juho Nykänen,
kiitoksia pallion."

"
Haivää päivää.
"

"
Haivää päivää.
"

Mrs. Irjaa Palmunen Himanka gave me a kind welcome. She was a little over thirty years old, with a weary, sad face. She told me at once that she would ask Lieutenant Georg Beandasch, General von Heunert's adjutant, to give up one of his beds to me.

"In how many beds does this gentleman sleep?" I asked.

"There are two beds in his room," said Mrs. Irjaa Palmunen Himanka, "I hope that he will agree to give one of them to you. But you know, the Germans..."

"I don't give a damn about the Germans. I'm sleepy."

"Neither do I," said Mrs. Irjaa Palmunen Himanka. "But only up to a certain point. The Germans..."

"You must never ask a favor of a German," I said. "If you ask a favor of a German, you may rest assured of being refused. The entire superiority of the
Herrenvolk
depends on saying 'No.' With the Germans you must never ask or beg. Leave it to me, Mrs. Irjaa Palmunen Himanka. I've learned my lesson from the salmon."

The dull eyes of Mrs. Irjaa Palmunen Himanka lighted suddenly, "Oh, what a noble people the Italians are! You are the first Italian I have met in my life, and I did not know that the Italians also defend the salmon against the Germans. And yet you are allied to the Germans! You are a noble people!"

"The Italians are of the same breed as the salmon," I said. "All the peoples of Europe are salmon."

"What will happen to us," said Mrs. Irjaa Palmunen Himanka, "if the Germans destroy the salmon in our rivers or force them to migrate? In peacetime we make a living out of sporting fishermen,- people come from England, from Canada and the United States to spend the summer in Lapland. Ah, this war..."

"Take it from me, Mrs. Irjaa Palmunen Himanka, this war will end like the last one—the salmon will drive the Germans out."

"Heaven make it so!" exclaimed Mrs. Irjaa Palmunen Himanka.

We went up to the first floor. The hotel in Inari is like an Alpine refuge; a wooden two-storied building, attached to a small inn where the Lapp herdsmen and fishermen gather on a Sunday after church to talk about reindeer, fire-water and salmon before going back to their huts and tents hidden in the depths of the boundless Arctic forest. Mrs. Irjaa Palmunen Himanka stopped in front of a door and knocked softly.

"Come in!" shouted a hoarse voice.

"I'd better go in alone," I said. "Trust me. You will see that all will be well."

I pushed the door open and went in. In the little room that was wainscoted with birchwood were two beds. On the one near the window Georg Beandasch was stretched out, his face covered with netting. Without bothering to say "Good evening," I threw my knapsack and my raincoat on the other bed. Georg Beandasch rose on his elbow, looked me over from head to foot, just as a judge looks at a criminal, smiled, and began to swear through his teeth with the greatest gentleness and courtesy. He was dead tired, he had been standing the entire day in the midst of an icy current in the Juutuanjoki next to General von Heunert, and he would like to sleep for another couple of hours.

"Sleep well," I said to him.

"Two in a single room cannot sleep well," said Georg Beandasch.

"Three sleep worse," I said dropping on the bed.

"I wonder what time it is?" asked Georg Beandasch.

"Ten o'clock."

"Ten in the morning or ten at night?"

"Ten at night."

"Why don't you go and walk in the forest for a couple of hours," Georg Beandasch said. "Give me at least a chance to sleep in peace for another two hours."

"I'm sleepy too. I will go walking tomorrow morning."

"Morning or night are the same here. The sun shines during the night in Lapland," Georg Beandasch said.

"I prefer the day sun."

"Have you come for those cursed salmon?" Georg Beandasch asked after a brief silence.

"Salmon? Are there still any salmon in this river?"

"There's only one, but the cursed fellow cannot be caught."

"Only one?"

"Only one," Georg Beandasch said. "But he is a huge beast, full of tricks and courage. General von Heunert has asked for reinforcements from Rovaniemi. He will not leave Inari until he has caught him."

"Reinforcements?"

"A general is always a general," said Georg Beandasch. "Even when he goes salmon fishing. We have been standing in the water up to our bellies for ten days. Tonight we were on the point of catching him. I mean to say that tonight he passed nearly between our legs. He came close, but he would not bite. The General is furious. He says that the salmon is making fun of us."

"Making fun of you?"

"Making fun of a German general!" Georg Beandasch said. "But tomorrow the reinforcements that the General has asked for from Rovaniemi will arrive at last."

"A battalion of
Alpenjäger?"

"No, only a captain of the
Alpenjäger,
Captain Karl Springenschmid, a specialist in fishing mountain trout. Springenschmid comes from Salzburg. Have you read his book
Tirol am Atlantischen Ozean
? A Tirolean is always a Tirolean, even on the shores of the Arctic Ocean,- if he is a trout specialist, he should at least be able to catch a salmon, don't you think?"

"A trout isn't a salmon," I said with a smile.

"Who knows? Captain Springenschmid says so, but General von Heunert denies it. We shall see who is right."

"It is not befitting for a German general to ask for reinforcements against a single salmon."

"A general is always a general," Georg Beandasch said. "Even if he is facing only a single salmon. In any case, Captain Springenschmid will be expected to confine himself to a little good advice. The General wants to catch the fish himself. Good night."

"Good night."

Georg Beandasch turned on his back and closed his eyes, but opened them again almost at once, sat up, asked me my name, parentage, date and place of birth, nationality, religion, race, just as if he were questioning a prisoner. Then he drew a bottle of brandy from under his pillow and filled two glasses.

"
Prosit.
"

"
Prosit.
"

He dropped again on his back, closed his eyes and gently went to sleep. The sun was streaming in on his face. A cloud of mosquitoes filled the room. I dropped off to sleep and had been slumbering a few hours when a distant rattle of castanets reached my ear. Beandasch was lost in a deep slumber, his face protected by a mask of mosquito netting, like a gladiator who had dropped dying on the sand of the arena. It was a gentle rattle of castanets, a rustling of grass and swishing of branches. An interminable procession seemed to be passing under my window. A procession of Spanish dancers, a nocturnal procession of Sevillian dancers on their way to the shrine of the Virgin of the Macarena, beating their castanets, their right arms curving softly above their heads, their left hands resting on their hips.

It really was the rattle of castanets, and little by little it grew louder, clearer and closer. All the sound lacked, however, was an echo of smells that usually accompany the rattle of castanets— the smell of withered flowers, of fritters and of incense. It was the sound of hundreds and hundreds of castanets. An interminable procession of Andalusian dancers marching within the glinting sheath of the frozen nocturnal sun. They were not followed by the shouts of crowds, by the bangs of firecrackers, or by the blare of distant bands. Only by that sharp and high pitched crackle of castanets that came always nearer.

I jumped out of bed and aroused my companion. Georg Beandasch rose on his elbow, listened and looked at me with a smile. He said in that peculiar precise and ironical manner of his, "Reindeer. The two toes that hang from their heels knock against each other when they run and sound like castanets." Then he added: "Did you mistake them for Spanish dancers? The first night General von Heunert thought that they were Andalusian ballet girls. I had to bring a reindeer into his room at two in the morning." He spat on the floor and, smiling, went to sleep. I looked out of the window. A herd of several hundred reindeer was galloping toward the river along the edge of the forest. In the Hyperborean forest they were the ghosts of the Mediterranean lands, of the warm lands of the South. The ghost of Andalusia anointed with olive oil and parched by the sun. And in the frozen thin air, I could sense an absurd, imaginary smell of human sweat.

The nocturnal sun slanted through the small islands scattered in the center of the lake and tinted them with the color of blood. A dog, far down in the Inari village, howled plaintively. The sky was covered with fish scales that glittered and trembled in the icy dazzling air. I was walking with Kurt Franz along the wooded slopes of the hill toward the lake. Among the hundred islets scattered in the middle of the lake I discerned Ukonsaari, the sacred island of the Lapps, the most famous heathen shrine in the entire Inari region. There, on that cone-shaped islet that the nocturnal sun reddens like a volcano, the ancient Lapps gathered in spring and autumn to sacrifice reindeer and dogs to their gods. Even today the Lapps stand in sacred awe of Ukonsaari and land on it only on certain days as if prompted by a subconscious recollection, by an obscure longing for their ancient heathen ceremonies.

We sat down to rest under a tree and gazed at the huge silvery lake stretched out naked in the icy flame of the nocturnal sun. The war was far away from us. I no longer smelled around me that sad odor of man, of perspiring man, of wounded man, of hungry man, of dead man that defiled the air in unhappy Europe. Only the smell of resin, that cold lean smell of Arctic lands, the smell of trees, water and earth, that smell of wild beasts. Kurt Franz was smoking his short Norwegian pipe, a Lille Hammer which he had purchased in Mr. Juho Nykänen's
sekatavara kauppa.
I watched him furtively and I smelled him. He was a man, perhaps a man like all other man, perhaps a man like myself. There was the odor of a wild beast about him—the odor of a squirrel, a fox, a reindeer. The odor of a wolf. The summer odor of wolves when hunger does not make them cruel. It was a primitive animal odor, the odor of wolves in the summer when the green grass, the warm wind and the waters free from ice, rippling and murmuring in a thousand rivulets toward the calm lake, dissolve their cruelty, their savagery, and quench their thirst for blood. He smelt like a sated wolf, a resting wolf, a wolf at peace. For the first time after three years of war, I felt untroubled beside a German. We were far from the war, outside war, outside humanity and outside time. He really smelt like a wolf in the summer, like a German when the war is over, and he is no longer athirst for blood.

We went down the hill and, just outside the forest, close to the Inari village, we passed by an inclosure surrounded by a high stockade of white birch logs.

"It's the reindeer Calvary," Kurt Franz said, "the autumn rite of slaughtering the reindeer is a kind of Easter for the Lapps that is reminiscent of the sacrifice of the Lamb. The reindeer is the Christ of the Lapps," Kurt Franz said. We entered the vast inclosure. Against the hard, cold light that cuts the grass, an extraordinary, wonderful forest spread before my eyes: thousands upon thousands of reindeer horns heaped haphazard in a fantastic entanglement, thin in some places, in other places standing like thickets of bones. The most ancient horns were clothed in a slight green-yellow, reddish mildew. Many horns were still fresh and tender, not yet encased in the hard, bony crust. Some of the others were broad and flat with many branches, still others were knife-shaped and looked like steel blades growing out of the ground. On one side of the inclosure were heaped thousands and thousands of reindeer skulls, shaped like Greek helmets, with empty triangular orbits in the hard frontal bones that were white and smooth. All those horns looked like the metal trophies of knights fallen on the battlefield—an animal Roncevaux. Yet there was no trace of a struggle anywhere. There was order, repose and a deep solemn quiet. A breath of wind passed over the meadow and made the blades of grass tremble between the motionless bony trees of that extraordinary forest.

During the autumn the herds of reindeer, prompted and guided by instinct, by an obscure call, cover immense distances to reach those savage Calvaries where they are expected by the Lapp herders who sit on their heels, their "four winds hats," the
nelyäntuulen lakki,
jammed on the nape of their necks, the short glinting
puukkos
clutched in their small hands. The smallness and delicacy of the Lapps' hands are a wonder. They are the smallest and most delicate hands in the world—a wonderful and most delicate contrivance made of the toughest steel. The thin, patient fingers are as accurate as the pincers of a
la Chaux-de-Fonds
watchmaker or of an Amsterdam diamond cutter. Tamely and docilely the reindeer offer their jugular veins to the deadly blades of the
puukkos;
they die without a sound, with a pathetic and despairing sweetness.