The Skin (39 page)

The standard-bearer passed by, carrying his flag. His head was high, his eyes were fixed intently on some distant point. He had the fixed, glassy stare of Dulle Griet. His walk was exactly like that of Peter Breughel's Dulle Griet, like that of Greta the Mad, returning from market with her basket on her arm, her eyes fixed in front of her, seeming not to see or hear the diabolical uproar that is going on around her nor the pandemonium through which she is passing —violent and obstinate, guided by her madness as by an invisible archangel. He walked straight ahead, enveloped in his black caftan, seemingly oblivious of the stream of vehicles, men, horses, baggage-waggons and gun-carriages that rushed in furious haste through the village. "Let's go," I said, "and see our country's flag buried." And joining the procession of grave-diggers we started to follow the flag. It was a flag made of human skin, the flag of our country: it
was
our country. And thus we went to see our country's flag, the flag of the country of all peoples and all men, cast into the filth of the communal grave.

*       *       *       *

The crowd was yelling; it seemed mad with horror. Kneeling beside that carpet of human skin, spread out in the middle of the Via dell'Impero, was a woman. Wailing and tearing her hair, she stretched out her arms—helplessly, not knowing how to embrace the corpse. The men shook their fists at the Shermans, shouting "Murderers!" They were brutally repelled by some M.P.s, who whirled their truncheons round in an effort to free the head of the column from the pressure of the infuriated crowd.

I went up to General Cork. "He's dead," I said.

"Of course he's dead!" shouted General Cork. "You'd do better to try and find out where that poor fellow's widow lives," he added in a petulant voice.

I forced my way through the crowd, approached the woman, helped her to get up, and asked her what the dead man's name was and where he lived. She stopped yelling and, stifling her sobs, gazed at me with a frightful expression, as if she did not understand what I was saying to her. But another woman came forward and told me the name of the dead man, the name of the street in which he lived and the number of the house. With a spiteful air she added that the weeping woman was not the dead man's wife, nor even a relative, but merely a neighbour. On hearing her words the poor wretch began to wail more loudly, tearing her hair with a fury that was far more intense and genuine than her grief, until the thunderous voice of General Cork was heard above the tumult, and the column started off again. A G.I. leaned out of his jeep as it passed and threw a flower on to the shapeless corpse, a second imitated his merciful gesture, and in a short time the wretched remains were covered with a heap of flowers.

In the Piazza Venezia a vast multitude greeted us with a deafening shout, which changed into frantic applause when a G.I. from the Signal Corps clambered on to the famous balcony and began to harangue the crowd in an Italo-American dialect. "You thought Mussolini was coming out to speak to you, didn't you, you bastards?" he said. "But today I am speaking to you—I, John Esposito, a soldier and a free citizen of America—and I'm telling you that you'll never become Americans—never!" "Never! Never!" yelled the crowd, laughing and clapping their hands. The roar of the Shermans' caterpillars drowned the ear-splitting shouts of the people.

Eventually we entered the Corso, went up Via del Tritone, and halted outside the Albergo Excelsior. Shortly afterwards General Cork sent for me. He was sitting in an armchair in the middle of the hall, his steel helmet on his knees, his face still begrimed with dust and sweat. In an armchair next to his sat Colonel Brown, the chaplain attached to Headquarters.

General Cork asked me to accompany the chaplain on a visit of condolence to the unfortunate man's family, and to take a sum collected among the G.I.s of the Fifth Army to the widow and orphans.

"Tell the poor widow and the orphans," he added, "that ... I mean that ... I too have a wife and two children in America, and . . . No! My wife and children don't come into it all."

At this point he stopped, and smiled at me. I saw that he was very much upset.

As I drove with the chaplain in his jeep in the direction of Tor di Nona I looked about me with a feeling of sadness. The streets were full of drunken American soldiers and yelling crowds. Rivers of urine flowed along the pavements. American and British flags hung from the windows—flags made of cloth, not of human skin. We reached Tor di Nona, turned off into an alley, and had almost come to the Torre del Grillo when we stopped outside a mean-looking house. We climbed a staircase, pushed open a door which was ajar, and entered.

The room was full of people, who were talking in low voices. On the bed I saw the horrible thing. A woman with eyes swollen from weeping was sitting by the pillow. I addressed myself to her, saying that we had come to express to the dead man's family the grief of General Cork and of the whole of the American Fifth Army. I added that General Cork had placed a considerable sum of money at the disposal of the widow and orphans.

The women replied that the poor fellow had neither wife nor children. He was an evacuee from the Abruzzi who had sought refuge in Rome after his village and his home had been destroyed in the American air-raids. She added at once: "Forgive me, I meant the German air-raids." The poor fellow's name was Giuseppe Leonardi, and he came from a little village near Alfedena. All his family had been killed by the bombs, and he had been left on his own. "And so," said the woman, "he did a little business on the black market; but only a very little." Colonel Brown handed the woman a large envelope, which she, after some hesitation, took delicately between two fingers and laid on the pedestal. "It will do for the funeral," she said. After this brief ceremony they all began talking among themselves in loud voices, and the woman asked me whether Colonel Brown was General Cork. I replied that he was the chaplain—a priest.

"An American priest!" exclaimed the woman, and she rose and offered him her seat. Colonel Brown, red-faced and embarrassed, sat down; but he immediately got up again, as if he had been pricked by a pin.

They all looked at the "American priest" with respectful expressions, and every so often they bowed and smiled at him sympathetically.

"What do I do now?" Colonel Brown whispered to me. And he added: "I think ... yes ... I mean . . . what would a Catholic priest do in my place?"

"Do what you like," I replied, "but above all don't for heaven's sake let them see that you're a Protestant minister!"

"Thank you," said the chaplain, turning pale; and going over to the bed he clapsed his hands and stood for a while absorbed in prayer.

When he turned and moved away from the bed the woman, blushing, asked me how the body could be prepared for burial. At first I did not understand. She pointed to the dead man. He was in truth a pitiable and horrible sight. He looked like one of those paper patterns that tailors use, or a cardboard dummy such as is employed for target practice. What upset me most was his shoes. They were crushed flat, and here and there something white was sticking through them—perhaps some little bone. His two hands, which were clasped together on his chest (his chest!), looked like a pair of cotton gloves.

"What shall we do?" said the woman. "We can't bury him in this state."

I replied that perhaps they could try bathing him with a little hot water. The water might make him swell and give him a more human appearance.

"You mean sponge him," said the woman, "the same as you do with . . ." She broke off, blushing, as if a sudden feeling of shame had silenced her just as the word was on the tip of her tongue.

"That's it—sponge him," I said.

Someone brought a basinful of water, apologizing for the fact that it was cold. There had been no gas for days and days, nor even a little coal or wood to light the fire.

"Now then, we'll try with cold water," said the woman, and helped by a neighbour she began to sprinkle the water over the dead man with her hands. As it absorbed the moisture the body swelled, but not much; indeed, it became no thicker than a stout piece of felt.

In the distance we heard the proud blasts of the bugles and the triumphant shouts of the vanquished ascending from Via dell’Impero, the Piazza Venezia, the Foro Traiano and Suburra. I looked at the horrible thing lying on the bed, and I laughed to myself as I thought how each of us that evening believed himself to be a Brutus, a Cassius, an Aristogiton, though all, victors and vanquished, were like that horrible thing which lay on the bed—skins cut to look like men, miserable human skins. I turned to the open window and saw, high above the roofs, the tower of the Capitol; and I laughed to myself as I thought how that flag of human skin was our flag, the true flag of us all, victors and vanquished, the only flag worthy to fly that evening from the tower of the Capitol. I laughed to myself as I thought of that flag of human skin flying from the tower of the Capitol.

I made a sign to Colonel Brown, and we moved towards the door. We turned in the entrance and bowed low.

When we reached the dark passage at the foot of the stairs Colonel Brown stopped. "If they had soaked him with hot water," he said in a low voice, "he might have swelled up more."

CHAPTER
X -
THE TRIAL

T
HE
boys sitting on the steps of Santa Maria Novella; the small crowd of onlookers gathered round the obelisk; the partisan officer who sat astride the bench at the foot of the flight of steps leading up to the church, with his elbows resting on a little iron table, taken from some cafe in the square; and the squad of young partisans from the
Potente
Communist Division who were lined up on the close before a jumbled heap of corpses, armed with automatic rifles—all these looked as if they had been painted by Masaccio on the grey plaster of the air. In the dull, chalky light that filtered down from the cloudy sky above their heads all were seen to be silent and motionless, and all were looking in the same direction. A thin stream of blood trickled down the marble steps.

The Fascists sitting on the steps that led up to the church were boys of fifteen or sixteen—deep browed, with unbrushed hair and dark, bright eyes set in long, pale faces. The youngest, who was wearing a black jersey and a pair of short trousers that left his spindly legs uncovered, was little more than a child. There was also a girl among them. Very young, she had dark eyes, and her hair, which hung loosely over her shoulders, was of that auburn colour often encountered among Tuscan women of the lower class. She sat with her head thrown back, gazing at the summer clouds above the rain-bright roofs of Florence, at the sullen, chalky sky, in which here and there a crack appeared, so that it resembled Masaccio's sky-scenes in the frescoes of the Cerraine.

We had heard the shots when we were half-way up Via della Scala, near the Orti Oricellari. Emerging into the square we had come to a stop at the foot of the flight of steps leading up to Santa Maria Novella, behind the partisan officer who was sitting at the little iron table.

At the screeching of the brakes of the two jeeps the officer did not move, he did not look round. But after a moment he pointed his finger at one of the boys and said: "It's your turn. What's your name?"

"It's my turn today," said the boy, getting up, "but some day or other it'll be yours."

"What's your name?"

"That's my business," replied the boy.

"Why do you answer the silly fool?" said a companion of his who was sitting next to him.

"I answer the idiot to teach him his manners," replied the boy, wiping his dripping brow with the back of his hand. He was pale and his lips were trembling. But he was laughing impudently as he looked at the partisan officer with unwavering eyes. The officer lowered his head and began to doodle with a pencil.

Suddenly the boys began talking and laughing among themselves. They spoke with the broad accent of San Frediano, Santa Croce and Palazzolo.

"What are those dummies staring at? 'Aven't they ever seen a Christian killed?"

"What fun they're 'avin', the dummies!"

"I'd like to see what they'd do if they was in our plice, the bloody fools!"

"I bet they'd throw themselves on their knees!"

"You'd 'ear them squeal like pigs, poor blighters!"

The boys were deathly pale, but they were laughing as they gazed at the partisan officer's hands.

"Doesn't 'e look lovely with that red 'andkerchief round 'is neck!"

'"Oo is 'e?"

'"Oo d'yer think 'e is? 'E's Garibaldi!"

"What gets me down," said the boy standing on the step, "is the idea of being killed by those buggers!"

"Don't take all day over it, you brat!" shouted someone in the crowd.

"If you're in a 'urry come and tike me plice," retorted the boy, thrusting his hands into his pockets.

The partisan officer looked up. "Buck up," he said. "Don't waste my time. It's your turn."

"If your time's so precious," said the boy in a mocking voice, "I'll get a move on." And stepping over his companions he took up his position in front of the partisans, who were armed with their automatic rifles and stood beside the heap of corpses, right in the middle of the widening pool of blood on the marble paving of the close.

"Mind you don't get your shoes dirty!" shouted one of his companions, and they all began laughing.

Jack and I jumped out of the jeep.

"Stop !"yelled Jack.

But as he spoke the boy shouted "Long live Mussolini!" and fell, riddled with bullets.

"Good Gosh!" exclaimed Jack, pale as death.

The partisan officer looked up and eyed Jack from head to foot.

"Canadian officer?" he said.

"No, American colonel," replied Jack, and indicating the boys who were seated on the steps leading up to the church he added: "That's a splendid occupation—killing boys."

The partisan officer turned slowly and threw a sidelong glance at the two jeeps, which were full of Canadian soldiers with tommy guns in their hands. Then he rested his eyes on me, observed my uniform, and laying his pencil on the table said to me with a conciliatory smile: "Why don't
you
answer your American friend?"