The Skin (30 page)

Often, especially in the mornings, one saw passing along the deserted streets—littered with abandoned and already bloated human bodies, the remains of horses, and vehicles that had been overturned by the explosions—a few old Tilburys, pride of English coachmakers, and even an occasional antiquated horse-charabanc, drawn by a shrunken jade, one of the few that remained in the squalid stables after the last requisition for the army. They passed by carrying old aristocrats of the generation of Prince Jean Gerace, accompanied by young women with pale, smiling faces. Coming out into the sordid alleys of Toledo and Chiaia, the poor people, ragged, gaunt-faced, their eyes bright from hunger and lack of sleep, their faces dark with anguish, would greet the "gentry" with smiles as they drove by on top of their coaches. Aristocrats and paupers would then acknowledge one another with those informal gestures of greeting, those mute looks and that affectionate arching of the brows, which in Naples mean so much more than words.

"We are glad to see you well, gentlemen," implied the informally deferential gestures of the paupers. "Thank you, Gennari', thank you, Cuncetti'," the affectionate gestures of the aristocrats seemed to reply. "We can't bear it any longer, gentlemen, we can't bear it any longer!" was the purport of the poor people's looks and bows. "Patience, children, have patience for a little longer! This trouble will pass as they all do," was the aristocrats' reply, conveyed by nods and gestures of the hand. And as they raised their eyes to heaven the paupers seemed to say: "Let us hope the Lord will help us!"

For in Naples Princes and paupers, the aristocracy and the poor, have all known one another for countless centuries, and their acquaintanceship has been handed down from generation to generation, from father to son. They know one another by name, they are all blood-relations, in virtue of that family affection which has from time immemorial existed between the commonalty and the old nobility, between the hovels of Pallonetto and the palaces of the Monte di Dio. From time immemorial the aristocracy and the commonalty have lived together in the same streets, in the same palaces, the populace in their
bassi,
in those dark caves which open out on to the alleys, the aristocracy in the magnificent gilded halls of the
piani nobili
{5}
For countless centuries the great noble families have fed and protected the common people, huddled together in the alleys that surround their palaces, not, to be sure, in a spirit of feudalism, nor merely out of Christian charity, but in fulfilment, I would say, of the obligations of kinship. For many years the aristocracy too have been poor; and the populace almost seem to apologize because they cannot help them. Commonalty and nobility share the joy of births and marriages, the anxieties of sickness, the tears of mourning; and there is not a pauper who is not accompanied to the cemetery by the lord of his district, nor a lord whose bier is not followed by a weeping crowd of paupers. It is an old saying among the populace of Naples that men are equal not only in death, but in life.

The traditional attitude of the Neapolitan nobility to death is different from that of the common people. They greet it not with tears but with smiles, almost gallantly, as one greets a beloved woman or a young bride. In Neapolitan painting, as in Spanish, weddings and funerals recur with a haunting regularity. The pictures have a macabre and at the same time a gallant character; they are the work of obscure painters who maintain even today the great tradition of El Greco and Spagnoletto, though in their hands it has lost its scrupulousness and its distinctive character. And it was an ancient custom, observed until a few years ago, that noblewomen should be buried with their white bridal veils about their heads.

Hanging on the wall directly in front of me, and behind the Prince of Candia, was a large canvas, on which was depicted the death of Prince Filippo of Candia, our host's father. Dominated by the balefulness and gloom of the dirty greens and blues, by the shabbiness of the faded yellows and by the excessive boldness of the crude, cold whites, this canvas contrasted strangely with the festive splendour of the table, brilliant with Angevin and Aragonese silverware and Capodimonte porcelain, and draped in its vast cloth of old Sicilian lace, whose Arabian and Norman ornamental motifs were interwoven with the traditional themes of pomegranate and laurel branches, bending under the weight of fruits, flowers and birds, against a sky filled with twinkling stars. The old Prince Filippo of Candia, conscious of the approach of death, had illuminated the ballroom in festive style, donned the uniform of a high dignitary of the Sovereign Order of Malta and, supported by his servants, made a solemn entry into the vast, empty, brilliantly lighted hall, clutching in his palsied hand a bouquet of roses. The obscure painter, who by the manner in which he piled white on white revealed himself to be in some remote way an imitator of Toma, had portrayed him standing in the middle of the hall, in the bright solitude of the exquisite marble floor, which was embellished with scenes from history. He was offering the bouquet of roses to his unseen Princess, bowing as he did so. And he had died where he stood, in his servants' arms, while the common people from the Vicolo del Pallonetto stood in the open doorway and in reverent silence witnessed the death of the great Neapolitan aristocrat.

Something in that canvas filled me with disquiet. It was not the waxen face of the dying man, nor the pallor of the servants, nor the ostentatious splendour of the vast hall, with its glittering mirrors, marbles and gilt ornaments. It was the bouquet of roses which the dying man was clutching in his hand. These roses were of a vivid, sensuous red colour; they looked as if they were composed of flesh —the pink, warm flesh of a woman. They radiated an impression of restless sensuality, and with it a pure, tender sweetness, as if the presence of death did not detract from the delicious vitality and smoothness of the flesh-like petals, but enhanced their triumphant quality—the ephemeral yet eternal quality of the rose.

Roses of the self-same variety, which had bloomed in the selfsame hot-houses, protruded in fragrant bunches from the old, tarnished silver vases that had been set out in the middle of the table.

And it was not the scanty, humble fare, consisting of eggs, boiled potatoes and black bread, nor the thin, pale faces of the guests, so much as these roses that cast a gloom on the whiteness of the table-linen and on the very magnificence of the silver, the crystals and the porcelain, conjuring up an invisible presence and filling my mind with a painful apprehension, a foreboding of which I could not rid myself, and which profoundly disturbed me.

"The people of Naples," said the Prince of Candia, "are the most Christian people in Europe." And he related how on September 9th, 1943, when the Americans landed at Salerno, the people of Naples, unarmed though they were, revolted against the Germans. The ferocious battle in the streets and alleys of Naples lasted for three days. The people, who had counted on the Allies' help, fought with a frenzy born of desperation. But General Clark's soldiers, who ought to have come to the aid of the city now that it had rebelled, were clinging to the beach at Paestum, and the Germans were trampling on their hands with the heels of their heavy hobnailed boots in an effort to make them relax their hold and to throw them back into the sea. Thinking they had been deserted, the people denounced their betrayal: men, women and children wept for rage and grief as they fought. After a frightful struggle lasting three days the Germans, who had been driven out by the infuriated populace and had begun to retreat along the road to Capua, returned in force, re-occupied the city, and indulged in horrible reprisals.

The German prisoners who had fallen into the hands of the people numbered many hundreds. The heroic and unhappy Neapolitans did not know what to do with them. Should they let them go free? Had they done so the prisoners would have slaughtered the very people who had captured them and given them back their freedom. Should they cut their throats? The people of Naples are Christians, not a race of murders. So the Neapolitans bound their prisoners hand and foot, gagged them, and hid them in the depths of their hovels, pending the advent of the Allies. But meanwhile they had to be fed, and the people were dying of hunger. The responsibility of guarding the prisoners entrusted to the women, who, their fury at the slaughter having subsided, and their hatred giving way to Christian compassion, took the poor and scanty food from their children's mouths in order to feed their prisoners, sharing with them their kidney-bean or lentil soup, their tomato salad and their meagre ration of miserable bread. And not only did they feed them, but they washed them and looked after them as though they were infants in swaddling-clothes. Twice a day, before removing their gags in order to victual them, they knocked them out, lest, having been relieved of their gags, they should call for help, giving the alarm to their comrades as they passed along the street. But in spite of necessary blows and inadequate feeding the prisoners, who had nothing to do but sleep, waxed fat like fowls in the hen-coop.

Finally, at the beginning of October, after a month of anguished waiting, the Americans entered the city. And on the following day there appeared on the walls of Naples large notices in which the American Governor urged the population to hand over their German prisoners to the Allied authorities within twenty-four hours, promising a reward of five hundred lire for each prisoner. But a committee of citizens went to the Governor and explained to him that in view of the increase in the cost of kidney-beans, lentils, tomatoes, oil and bread the price of five hundred lire per prisoner was too low.

"Try to understand, Excellency! We can't let you have the prisoners for less than fifteen hundred lire a head. We don't want to make a profit—we don't even want to recoup our losses!"

The American Governor was inflexible. "I have said five hundred lire—not another cent!" he insisted.

"Very good, Excellency, then we keep them," said the citizens, and they left.

A few days later the Governor had fresh notices affixed to the walls, in which he promised a thousand lire for each prisoner.

The committee of citizens went back to the Governor and declared that more days had passed, that the prisoners had got hungry and were continuing to eat, that meanwhile the price of foodstuffs was increasing, and that a thousand lire a head was too little.

"Try to understand, Excellency! With every day that passes the price of the prisoners increases. Today we can't let you have them for less than two thousand lire a head. We don't want to indulge in a speculation—we simply want 'to cover our expenses. For two thousand lire, Excellency, a prisoner is yours!"

"I have said a thousand lire—not another cent!" he said. "And if you don't hand over the prisoners within twenty-four hours I'll send you all to gaol!"

"All right, put us in prison, Excellency, have us shot if you like— but that's the price, and we can't sell you the prisoners for less than two thousand lire a head. If you don't want them we'll make soap out of them!"

"What!" shouted the Governor.

"We'll make soap out of them," said the citizens mildly, and they left.

"And did they really boil the prisoners to make soap?" asked Jack, turning pale.

"When they get to know in America, thought the Governor, that the Neapolitans are making soap out of German prisoners, and that it's my fault, the least that can happen to me is that I shall lose my job. And he paid two thousand lire for each prisoner."

"Wonderful!" cried Jack. "Ha! ha! ha! Wonderful!" He was laughing so heartily that it made us all laugh just to look at him.

"Why, he's crying!" exclaimed Consuelo.

But Jack was not crying. The tears were rolling down his face, but he was not crying. This was the child-like and warm-hearted way he had of laughing.

"It's a wonderful story," said Jack, wiping away his tears. "But do you think that if the Governor had refused to buy the prisoners at the price of two thousand lire a head the Neapolitans would really have boiled them to make soap?"

"Soap is scarce in Naples," replied the Prince of Candia, "but the Neapolitans are nice people."

"The Neapolitans are nice people, but for a piece of soap they will do anything," said Consuelo, stroking the rim of a Bohemian crystal chalice with her fingers. Consuelo Caracciolo is Spanish; she has the soft, honey-like beauty characteristic of blonde women, and the ironical smile, the cold smile in the languid face, that constitutes so much of the haughty charm of blonde Spanish women. This lingering, smooth, vibrant sound that Consuelo produced with her finger from the crystal chalice spread linto the hall and gradually became louder, acquiring a metallic tone. It seemed to penetrate the heavens, to vibrate far away in the green moonlight, like the whir of an aeroplane.

"Listen," said Maria Teresa suddenly.

"What is it?" asked Marcello Orilia, putting his hand to his ear. Marcello had for many years been Master of the Naples Hunt, and it was his custom nowadays when he was at home, in his beautiful Chaitamone house overlooking the sea, to wear his faded pink coat as a dressing-gown. The tragic end of his thoroughbreds, which had been commandeered by the Army at the beginning of the war and had died of hunger and cold in Russia, his nostalgic memories of the fox-hunts at Astroni, the slow, proud decline of Hélène of Orleans, Duchess of Aosta, to whom he had been devoted for forty years, and who was growing old in her Capodimonte palace, her long head poised on top of her long frame like an owl on its perch, had aged him and broken his spirit.

"The Angel cometh," said Consuelo, pointing heavenwards.

As the voices of the guests died away, and everyone listened intently to that desultory bee-like hum in the sky above Posillipo (an aquamarine sky, into which a pale moon was climbing like a jelly-fish from the liquid depths of the sea), I looked at Consuelo and thought of the women portrayed by the Spanish painters, the women of James Ferrer, of Alonso Berruguete, of James Huguet, with their diaphanous hair, the colour of a cricket's wings—the women who in the comedies of Fernando de Rojas and Gil Vicente stand up when they speak, making slow, leisurely gestures. I thought of the women of El Greco, Velazquez and Goya, whose hair is the colour of cold honey—the women who in the comedies of Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca and Ramon de la Cruz speak in shrill voices, walking on tip-toe. I thought of the women of Picasso— women with hair the colour of
Cafarlati doux
tobacco and dark, shining eyes like water-melon seeds, who peer obliquely out between the strips of newspaper pasted on their faces. Consuelo too looks at you obliquely, her cheek resting on her shoulder, her dark pupil peeping round the corner of her eye, as one peeps over a window-sill. Consuelo has
los ojos graciosos
described in the song of Melibea and Lucretia in
La Celestina,
eyes that make
los dulces árboles sombrosos
quail. Consuelo is tall and thin, with long, loose arms and long, transparent fingers, like some of El Greco's women—those
vertes grenouilles mortes
with open legs and splayed fingers.