The Skin (11 page)

"Show how it works," said the man to the girl.

The girl sat down on the edge of the bed and held it against her groin.

The other girl, who was laughing, said: "For negroes, for American negroes."

"What for?" shouted Jimmy, opening his eyes wide.

"Negroes like blondes," said the man. "Ten dollars each. Not expensive. Buy one."

Jimmy was holding the "wig," red in the face and doubled up with mirth. Every so often he closed his eyes as if his convulsive laughter made him feel sick at heart.

"Stop, Jimmy," I said.

The sight was not a subject for laughter. It was sad—horrible.

"The women have lost the war too," said the man with a strange smile, slowly passing his hand over his mouth.

"No," said Jimmy, looking at him hard. "Only the men have lost the war. Only men."

"Women too," said the man, half closing his eyes.

"No, only the men," said Jimmy in a hard voice.

Suddenly the girl jumped down from the bed and, looking Jimmy in the face with a sad and malignant expression, cried: "Long live Italy! Long live America!" And she burst into a fit of laughter, which distorted her mouth horribly.

I said to Jimmy: "Let's go, Jimmy."

"That's right," said Jimmy. He thrust the "wig" into his pocket, threw a thousand-lire note on the table and, touching my elbow, said: "Let's go."

At the end of the alley we met a patrol of M.P.s, armed with their white-enamelled truncheons. They were walking along in silence; they were certainly going to cause a fluttering in the dovecotes of Forcella, the home of the black market. And above our heads, from balcony to balcony, from window to window, sped the warning cry of the look-outs as they announced the approach of the M.P.s to the black-market army, spreading the alarm from alley to alley: "Mama and Papa! Mama and Papa!" As the cry arose there was a stir down in the hovels, a scurrying of footsteps, an opening and closing of doors, a creaking of windows.

"Mama and Papa! Mama and Papa!"

The cry sped gaily and lightly through the streets, brilliant beneath the silvery moon, "Mama and Papa" slipped silently along the walls, swinging their white truncheons in their hands.

At the entrance to the Hotel du Pare, where the American officers of the P.B.S. had their Mess, I said to Jimmy: "Long live Italy! Long live America!"

"Shut up!" said Jimmy, and he spat furiously on the ground.

When he saw me enter the Mess, Colonel Jack Hamilton signed to me to go and sit by him at the large table reserved for senior officers. Colonel Brand lifted his head from his plate to answer my greeting, and gave me a kindly smile. He had a handsome, pink face, crowned with white hair; and his blue eyes, his shy smile, the way he had of looking about him and smiling, gave his serene countenance an ingenuous and good-natured, almost boyish air.

"There's a wonderful moon this evening," said Colonel Brand.

"Truly wonderful," I said with a smile of pleasure.

Colonel Brand thought that Italians are pleased when they hear a foreigner say "The moon is wonderful this evening," because he imagined that Italians love the moon as if it were a part of Italy. He was not a very intelligent man, nor was he very cultured, but he had an extraordinarily kindly disposition; and I was grateful to him for the friendly way in which he had said "The moon is wonderful this evening," because I felt that by those words he had meant to express to me his sympathy with the Italian people in their misfortunes, sufferings and humiliations. I would have liked to say "Thank you" to him, but I was afraid that he would not have understood why I was saying "Thank you." I would have liked to shake hands with him across the table, to say to him: "Yes, the Italians' true country is the moon—it is our only country now." But I was afraid that the other officers who were sitting round our table—all except Jack—would not have appreciated the meaning of my words. They were splendid fellows—honest, simple, genuine, as only Americans can be; but they were convinced that I, like all Europeans, had the bad habit of putting a hidden significance into every word I uttered, and I was afraid that they would have sought in my words a different meaning from the true one.

"Truly wonderful," I repeated.

"Your house on Capri must look a picture in this moonlight," said Colonel Brand, colouring slightly, and all the other officers looked at me with sympathetic smiles. They all knew my house on Capri. Whenever we came down from the sad mountains of Cassino I used to invite them to my house, and with them some of our French, English and Polish comrades—General Guillaume, Major Andre Lichtwitz, Lieutenant Pierre Lyautey, Major Marchetti, Colonel Gibson, Lieutenant Prince Lubomirsky, aide-de-camp to General Anders, Colonel Michailovsky, who had been Marshal Pilsudski's ordnance officer and was now an officer in the American army; and we would spend two or three days sitting on the rocks, fishing, or drinking in the hall around the fire, or stretched out on the balcony looking at the blue sky.

"Where have you been today? I was looking for you all the afternoon," Jack said to me in a low voice.

"I've been for a walk with Jimmy."

"There's something wrong with you. What's the matter?" said Jack, looking at me hard.

"Nothing, Jack."

From the dishes rose the steam of the usual tomato soup, the usual fried spam, the usual boiled maize. The glasses were brimming over with the usual coffee, the usual tea, the usual pineapple juice. I felt a lump in my throat, and I did not touch the food.

"That poor King," said Major Morris, of Savannah, Georgia, "certainly didn't expect a welcome like that. Naples has always been very devoted to the Monarchy."

"Were you in Via Toledo today when the King was hooted?" Jack asked me.

"What King?" I said.

"The King of Italy," said Jack.

"Ah, the King of Italy."

"They hooted him today in Via Toledo," said Jack.

"Who did? The Americans? If it was the Americans, they shouldn't have done it."

"He was hooted by the Neapolitans," said Jack.

"They did quite right," I said. "What did he expect—to be pelted with flowers?"

"What can a King expect from his people today?" said Jack. "Flowers yesterday, hoots today, flowers again tomorrow. I wonder if the Italian people know the difference between flowers and hoots."

"I'm glad it was the Italians that hooted him," I said. "The Americans have no right to hoot the King of Italy. They have no right to photograph a negro soldier sitting on the throne of the King of Italy in the Palazzo Reale at Naples, and to publish the photograph in their papers."

"I can't deny the justice of what you say," said Jack.

"The Americans have no right to urinate in the corners of the throne-room of the Palazzo Reale. They have done so. I was with you when I saw them do it. Even we Italians have no right to do such a thing. We have a right to hoot our King—to put him against the wall, even. But not to urinate in the corners of the throne-room."

"And have
you
never thrown flowers at the King of Italy?" said Jack with friendly irony.

"No, Jack, my conscience is clear, so far as the King is concerned. I have never thrown a single flower at him."

"Would you have hooted him today if you had been in Via Toledo?" said Jack.

"No, Jack, I should not have hooted him. It is a shame to hoot a defeated King, even if he is one's own King. All of us—not only the King—have lost the war, here in Italy. All of us—especially those who were throwing flowers at him yesterday and are hooting him today. I have never thrown a single flower at him. For that reason, if I have been in Via Toledo today I should not have hooted him."

"Tu as raison, a peu près," said Jack.

"Your poor King," said Colonel Brand. "I am very sorry for him." And he added, smiling at me kindly: "And for you too."

"Thanks a lot for him," I answered.

But somehow my words must have rung false, because Jack looked at me strangely and said to me in a low voice: "Tu me caches quelque chose. Ca ne va pas, ce soir, avec toi."

"No, Jack, I'm all right," I said, and I began to laugh.

"Why are you laughing?" said Jack.

"It does one good to laugh now and again," I said.

"I like laughing too, now and again," said Jack.

"Americans," I said, "never cry." "What? Les Americains ne pleurent jamais?" said Jack in amazement.

"Americans never cry," I repeated.

"I had never thought about it," said Jack. "Do you really find that Americans never cry?"

"They never cry," I said.

"Who never cries?" asked Colonel Brand.

"Americans," said Jack laughing. "Malaparte says that Americans never cry."

They all looked at me in amazement, and Colonel Brand said: "What a funny idea!"

"Malaparte is always having funny ideas," said Jack, as if apologizing for me, while everyone laughed.

"It isn't a funny idea," I said. "It's a very sad idea. Americans never cry."

"Strong men don't cry," said Major Morris.

"The Americans are strong men," I said, and laughed.

"Have you never been in the States?" Colonel Brand asked me.

"No, never. I have never been to America," I answered.

"That's why you think Americans never cry," said Colonel Brand.

"Good Gosh!" exclaimed Major Thomas, of Kalamazoo, Michigan. "Good Gosh! Tears are fashionable in America. The celebrated American optimism would be absurd without tears."

"Without tears," said Colonel Eliot, of Nantucket, Massachusetts, "American optimism would be absurd, it would be monstrous."

"I think its monstrous even with tears," said Colonel Brand. "I've thought that ever since I came to Europe."

"I thought it was against the law to cry in America," I said.

"No, it isn't against the law to cry in America," said Major Morris.

"Not even on Sundays," said Jack, laughing.

"If it were against the law to cry in America," I said, "America would be a wonderful country."

"No, it isn't against the law to cry in America," repeated Major Morris, looking at me severely, "and perhaps America is a wonderful country for that very reason."

"Have a drink, Malaparte," said Colonel Brand, taking a small silver flask from his pocket and pouring a little whisky into my glass. Then he poured a little whisky into the others' glasses and into his own and, turning to me with a friendly smile, said: "Don't worry, Malaparte. Here you are among friends. We like you. You are a good chap. A very good one." He raised his glass, and with a friendly wink pronounced the toast of American drinkers: "Mud in your eye!"

"Mud in your eye!" they all repeated, raising their glasses.

"Mud in your eye!" I said, while the tears rose to my eyes.

We drank, and looked at one another, smiling.

"You are strange people, you Neapolitans," said Colonel Eliot.

"I am not a Neapolitan, and I regret it," I said. "The people of Naples are wonderful people."

"Very strange people," repeated Colonel Eliot.

"In Europe," I said, "we are all more or less Neapolitans."

"You get yourself in a mess, and then you cry," said Colonel Eliot.

"One must be strong," said Colonel Brand. "God helps . . ."— and he certainly intended to say that God helps the strong, but he broke off and, turning his head in the direction of the radio set which stood in the corner of the room, said: "Listen."

The Radio Station of the P.B.S. was broadcasting a melody that sounded like one of Chopin's. But it was not Chopin.

"I like Chopin," said Colonel Brand.

"Do you think it
is
Chopin?" I asked him.

"Of course it's Chopin!" exclaimed Colonel Brand in a tone of profound amazement.

"What do you suppose it is?" said Colonel Eliot with slight impatience in his voice. "Chopin is Chopin."

"I hope it isn't Chopin," I said.

"On the contrary, I hope it is Chopin," said Colonel Eliot. "It would be very strange if it wasn't Chopin."

"Chopin is very popular in America," said Major Thomas. "Some of his blues are magnificent."

"Hear, hear!" cried Colonel Brand. "Of course it's Chopin!"

"Yes, it's Chopin," said the others, looking at me with a reproving air. Jack was laughing, his eyes half-closed.

It was a kind of Chopin, but it was not Chopin. It was a concerto for piano and orchestra, as it would have been written by a Chopin who was not Chopin, or a Chopin who had not been born in Poland, but in Chicago or in Cleveland, Ohio, or perhaps as a cousin, or brother-in-law, or an uncle of Chopin would have written it—but not Chopin.

The music stopped, and the voice of the P.B.S. Station announcer said: "You have been listening to Addinsell's
Warsaw Concerto,
played by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Alfred Wallenstein."

"I like Addinsell's
Warsaw Concerto,"
said Colonel Brand, flushing with pleasure and pride. "Addinsell is our Chopin. He's our American Chopin."

"Perhaps you don't like Addinsell either? said Colonel Eliot to me with a note of scorn in his voice.

"Addinsell is Addinsell," I replied.

"Addinsell is our Chopin," repeated Colonel Brand in a boyishly triumphant tone.

I was silent, my eyes fixed on Jack. Then I said humbly: "Please forgive me."

"Don't worry, don't worry, Malaparte," said Colonel Brand, clapping me on the shoulder. "Have a drink." But his silver flask was empty, and with a laugh he suggested that we should go and have something to drink in the bar. So saying he left the table, and we all followed him into the bar.

Jimmy was sitting at a table near the window surrounded by a group of young Air Force officers, and he was showing something to his friends—something which was light in colour and which I at once recognized. Jimmy, red in the face, was laughing loudly; the Air Force officers were also red in the face, and were laughing and clapping one another on the shoulder.

"What is it?" asked Major Morris, going up to Jimmy's table, and looking at the "wig" curiously.

"It's artificial," said Jimmy, laughing, "It's for negroes."