The Skin (25 page)

Every day, in the afternoon, these faded Venuses met in a lonely villa situated on the Piccola Marina, half-way between the villas of Teddy Gerard and Gracie Fields. What occurred during their secret reunions we are not privileged to know. It seems that their chief delights were music, poetry, painting and, added some, whisky. What is beyond question is that, even during the years of war, these gentle ladies had remained faithful in taste and sentiment to Paris, London and New York, that is to say to the rue de la Paix, Mayfair and Harper's Bazaar; and because of their fidelity they had endured insults and gibes of every sort. In matters of art they had remained faithful to D'Annunzio, Debussy and Zuloaga, whom they regarded as the Schiaparellis of poetry, music and painting. Old-fashioned, too, was their taste in dress, inasmuch as it was still inspired by the motifs which Marchesa Casati had made famous throughout Europe thirty years before.

They dressed in long tweed jackets, the colour of burnt tobacco, and purple velvet capes, and they swathed their wrinkled brows in lofty turbans of white or red silk, richly decked with gold clasps, precious stones and pearls, so that they looked like Domenichino's Cumaean Sibyl. In addition, they wore not skirts but broad trousers of Lyonese velvet, green or blue in colour, whence protruded their feet, which were small and shod with gilt sandals, like the dainty little feet of the Queens portrayed in the Gothic miniatures in the
Livres d'heures.
So clad, and by reason of their hieratic postures, they had the appearance of sibyls or witches, and so in point of fact they were commonly described. When they crossed Capri's square, stiff and inexorable, sombre-faced, firm of gesture, proud and preoccupied, the people watched them go by with a vague feeling of disquiet. They inspired not so much respect as fear.

On September 16th, 1943, the Americans landed on Capri, and at the first rumour of that happy event the square filled with jubilant people; and now there arrived in a body from the direction of the Piccola Marina the severe sibyls, who mingled with the crowd, cleaving a passage through the dense throng merely by moving their eyes, and grouping themselves around the Princess in the front rank. When the first American soldiers emerged into the square, walking with their bodies bent and their tommy-guns slung over their shoulders, as if they expected at any moment to come upon the enemy, and found themselves face to face with the group of sibyls, they halted in consternation, and many of them recoiled a step.

"Long live the Allies! Long live America!" cried the wrinkled Venuses in their raucous voices, raising their fingers to their lips and blowing kisses at the "liberators." Rushing up to encourage his troops, who were already retreating, and imprudently pushing his way too far forward, General Cork was surrounded by the sibyls, enfolded by a dozen arms, lifted up and carried bodily away. He disappeared, and nothing more was heard of him until late in the evening, when he was seen crossing the threshold of the Albergo Quisisana, wide-eyed and wearing a dazed and guilty expression.

On the following evening there was a great gala ball at the Quisisana in honour of the "liberators," and on this occasion General Cork was responsible for a memorable exploit. It was his duty to open the ball with the first lady of Capri; and without a doubt the first lady of Capri was the Princess. While the Quisisana orchestra played
Stardust
General Cork gazed one by one at the mature Venuses grouped around the Princess, who was already smiling, already slowly raising her arms. The countenance of General Cork was still pale with fright following his experiences of the previous evening.

Suddenly his face lit up as he looked beyond the wall of sibyls and fixed his gaze on a dark, saucy-looking girl with very beautiful dark eyes. She had a wide, red mouth, and a black down covered her neck and cheeks. She was standing at the door of the buttery with the hotel maids, enjoying the gay confusion. Her name was Antonietta, and she was employed at the Quisisana as wardrobe-mistress. General Cork smiled, forced his way through the group of sibyls, passed unseeingly between the lines of beautiful, bare-shouldered, bright-eyed young women who were massed behind the Princess and her wrinkled nymphs, and opened the ball in the hairy arms of Antoinetta.

It was a colossal scandal, and the Faraglioni are still quivering from its impact. What a splendid army the American Army was! What a wonderful general was General Cork! Not content with crossing the Atlantic to conquer Europe, landing in Italy, spreading confusion among the hostile armies, entering Naples as a liberator and conquering Capri, the island of love, here he was celebrating his victory by opening the ball with the wardrobe-mistress of the Quisisana! The Americans, it must be acknowledged, are smarter than the British. When, a few months later, Winston Churchill landed on Capri, he went and had lunch on the rocks of Tragara, right under my house. But he wasn't as
chic
as General Cork. He ought at least to have sent a luncheon invitation to Carmelina, the maid at the Trattoria dei Faraglioni.

During the days that he spent at my house on Capri, General Cork used to rise at dawn and go for a solitary walk in the wood situated near the Faraglioni, or climb the craggy precipice which overhangs my house on the Matromania side; or, if the sea was calm, he would go out in a boat with Jack and me and fish among the rocks under the Salto di Tiberio. He liked to sit at my table alongside Jack and me with a glass of Capri wine before him, pressed from the vines of Sordo. My cellar was well stocked with wines and liqueurs, but more than the best Bourgogne, the best Bordeaux, hock, moselle, or the choicest Cognac he liked the pure, unadulterated wine that comes from the vineyards of Sordo, on the Monte di Tiberio. In the evening, after supper, we used to sprawl in front of the chimney-piece on the chamois-skins that cover the stone-paved floor. It is a vast chimney-piece, and built into the back of the fireplace is a representation of Jena in quartz. Through the flames one discerns the moonlit sea, the Faraglioni rising from the waves, the crags of Matromania, and the forest of pines and holm oaks that lies behind my house.

"Will you tell Mrs. Flat about your meeting with Marshal Rommel?" said General Cork to me with a smile.

To General Cork I was neither Captain Curzio Malaparte, the Italian liaison officer, nor the author of
Kaputt:
I was Europe. I was Europe, the whole of Europe, with its cathedrals, its statues, its pictures, its poetry, its music, its museums, its libraries, its victories and defeats, its immortal glories, its wines, its foods, its women, its heroes, its dogs, its horses. I was Europe—cultured, refined, witty, amusing, disturbing and incomprehensible. General Cork liked to have Europe at his table, in his motor car, at his headquarters on the Cassino or Garigliano front. He liked to be able to say to Europe: "Tell me about Schumann, Chopin, Giotto, Michelangelo, Raphael, Picasso, that damned fool Baudelaire—tell me about Jean Cocteau." He liked to be able to say to Europe: "Give me in a few words the history of Venice, tell me the theme of the
Divine Comedy,
talk to me about Paris and Maxim's." He liked to be able to say to Europe, at any time—at table, in his car, in a trench, in an aeroplane: "Tell me something about the life the Pope leads, what his favourite sport is—tell me if it's true that the Cardinals have lovers."

One day, when I had gone to see Marshal Badoglio at Ban, which was then the capital of Italy, I had been presented to His Majesty the King, who had graciously asked me if I was satisfied with my mission to the Allied Command. In reply I told His Majesty that I was satisfied, but that in the early days my position had been a very difficult one. At the beginning I was merely "the bastard Italian liaison officer," then gradually I had become "this fellow," and now I was "the charming Malaparte."

"The Italian people," said His Majesty the King with a sad smile, "have undergone a similar transformation. At the beginning they were 'the bastard Italian people': now, thank God, they have be come 'the charming Italian people.' As for me … " he added, and he stopped. Perhaps he intended to say that to the Americans he was still "the little King."

"The hardest thing," I said, "is to make those fine American boys understand that not all Europeans are scoundrels."

"If you succeed in convincing them that there are some honest people even in this country," said His Majesty the King with a mysterious smile, "you will have proved your worth, and you will have deserved well of Italy and Europe."

But it was not easy to convince those fine American boys of some things. General Cork asked me what Germany, France and Sweden were really like. "The Comte de Gobineau," I replied, "has described Germany as
les Indes de l'Europe."
"France," I replied, "is an island surrounded by land." "Sweden," I replied, "is a forest of fir-trees in dinner-jackets." "That's funny!" they all exclaimed, looking at me in amazement. Then, blushing, he asked me whether it was true that in Rome there was a bro . . . hm ... I mean ... a
maison de tolérance
for the priests. "They say there's a very smart one in Via Giulia," I replied. "That's funny!" they all exclaimed, looking at me in amazement. Then he asked me what a totalitarian State was. "It's a State in which everything that isn't forbidden is compulsory," I replied. "That's funny!" they all exclaimed, looking at me in amazement.

I was Europe. I was the history of Europe, the civilization of Europe, the poetry, the art, all the glories and all the mysteries of Europe. And simultaneously I felt that I had been oppressed, destroyed, shot, invaded and liberated. I felt a coward and a hero, a "bastard" and "charming," a friend and an enemy, victorious and vanquished. And I also felt that I was a really good fellow. But it was hard to make those honest Americans understand that there are honest people even in Europe.

"Do tell Mrs. Flat about your meeting with Marshal Rommel," said General Cork to me with a smile.

One day when I was at my house on Capri my faithful housekeeper, Maria, came to tell me that a German general, accompanied by his aide-de-camp, was in the hall, and wished to look over the house. It was the spring of 1942, not long before the Battle of El Alamein. My leave was over; the following day I was due to set out for Finland. Axel Munthe, who had decided to return to Sweden, had asked me to accompany him as far as Stockholm. "I am old, Malaparte, I am blind," he had said, to arouse my pity, "please come with me, we'll travel in the same plane." Although I knew that Axel Munthe, in spite of his dark glasses, was not blind (his blindness was an ingenious invention designed to excite the compassion of romantic readers of
The Story of San Michele.
When it suited him he could see very well), I could not refuse to accompany him; and I had promised to leave with him next day.

I went to meet the German general and took him into my library. The general, noticing my uniform, which was that of a member of the Alpine Regiment, asked me on which front I was serving. "On the Finnish front," I replied. "I envy you," he said. "I suffer from the heat. And in Africa's it's too hot." He smiled a little sadly, took off his cap and passed his hand across his brow. I saw to my amazement that his skull was of an extraordinary shape. It was abnormally elevated, or rather it was prolonged in an upward direction, like an enormous yellow pear. I accompanied him all over the house, going from room to room, from the library to the cellar, and when we returned to the vast hall with its great windows, which look out on to the most beautiful scenery in the world, I offered him a glass of Vesuvian wine from the vineyards of Pompeii. "Prosit!" he said, raising his glass, and he drained it at a single draught. Then, before leaving, he asked me whether I had bought my house as it stood or whether I had designed and built it myself. I replied—and it was not true—that I had bought the house as it stood. And with a sweeping gesture, indicating the sheer cliff of Matromania, the three gigantic rocks of the Faraglioni, the peninsula of Sorrento, the islands of the Sirens, the far-away blue coastline of Amalfie, and the golden sands of Paestum, shimmering in the distance, I said to him: "
I
designed the scenery."

"Ach, so!" exclaimed General Rommel. And after shaking me by the hand he departed.

I remained in the doorway, watching him as he climbed the steep steps, carved out of the rock, which lead from my house to the town of Capri. All of a sudden I saw him stop, wheel round abruptly, give me a long, hard look, then turn and go away.

"Wonderful!" cried all the guests, and General Cork looked at me with eyes that were full of understanding.

"In your place," said Mrs. Flat with an icy smile, "I should not have received a German general in my house."

"Why not?" I asked in amazement.

"The Germans," said General Cork, "were the Italians' allies then."

"That may be," said Mrs. Flat with a contemptuous air, "but they were Germans."

"They became Germans after you landed at Salerno," I said. "Then they were simply our allies."

"You would have done better," said Mrs. Flat, raising her head proudly, "to receive American generals in your house."

"At that time," I said, "it wasn't easy to get hold of American generals in Italy, even on the black market."

"That's absolutely true," said General Cork, while everyone laughed.

"Your reply is too glib," said Mrs. Flat.

"You will never know," I said, "how hard it is to reply in such terms. At any rate, the first American officer to enter my house was called Siegried Rheinhardt. He was born in Germany, he had fought from 1914 to 1918 in the German Army, and he had emigrated to America in 1929."

"Then he was an American officer," said Mrs. Flat.

"Certainly he was an American officer," I said, and I began laughing.

"I don't see what you have to laugh about," said Mrs. Flat.

I turned towards Mrs. Flat and looked at her. I did not know why, but it gave me pleasure to look at her. She was wearing a magnificent purple silk evening gown, very
décolleté,
with yellow trimmings. The purple and the yellow invested her pale pink complexion, whose dullness was redeemed by a faint suggestion of rouge at the top of her cheeks, the somewhat glassy brilliance of her eyes, which were round and green, her high, narrow forehead and her violet-tinted, once lustrous hair with a somewhat ecclesiastical and at the same time funereal air. Years before her hair had undoubtedly been black, but she had recently dyed it a brownish yellow, the colour of the artificial locks with which wig-makers endeavour to conceal grey hair. But instead of cheating the years that vivid colour betrays them, making wrinkles look deeper, eyes duller, and the anaemic pink colouring of the face more lifeless.