MALAPARTE, Curzio

The Skin

…..
Faded women, with livid faces and painted lips, their emaciated cheeks plastered with rouge - a dreadful and piteous sight – loitered at the comers of the alleys, offering to the passers-by their sorry merchandise. This consisted of boys and girls of eight or ten, whom the soldiers - Moroccans, Indians, Algerians, Madagascans – caressed with their fingers, slipping their hands between the buttons of their short trousers or lifting their dresses. 'Two dollars the boys three dollars the girls!' shouted the women. '

During the last few days the prices of girls and boys had dropped, and they were still falling. Whereas the prices of sugar, oil, flour, meat and bread had risen and were still on the increase, the price of human flesh was slumping from day to day. A girl between twenty and twenty-five years of age, who a week before was worth up to ten dollars, was now worth barely four dollars, bones included. This fall in the price of human flesh on the Neapolitan market may have been due to the fact that women were flocking to Naples from all parts of Southern Italy. During recent weeks the wholesalers had thrown on to the market a large consignment of Sicilian women. It was not all fresh meat, but the speculators knew that negro soldiers have refined tastes, and prefer meat not to be too fresh. Yet Sicilian meat was not in great demand, and even the negroes refused it in the end: negroes don't like white women to be too dark. Every day there arrived in Naples, on carts drawn by wretched little donkeys or in Allied vehicles, but mostly on foot, parties of sturdily built, robust girls, nearly all of them peasants, attracted by the mirage of gold. They came from the Calabrias the Apulias, the Basilicata and Molise. And so the price of human flesh on the Neapolitan market had been crashing, and it was feared that this might have a serious effect on the whole economy of the city. (Nothing of the kind had ever been seen in Naples before.

It was certainly a disgrace, and the vast majority of the good people of Naples blushed with shame because of it. But why did it not bring a blush to the cheeks of the Allied authorities, who were the masters of Naples?) In compensation, negroes' flesh had risen in price, and this, luckily, was helping to re-establish a certain equilibrium on the market.

…..


Kaputt

…..
Naakte Duitse mannen geven een eigenaardige, weerloze indruk. Ze hebben geen geheim meer. Ze boezemen geen angst meer in. Het geheim van hun kracht ligt niet in hun huid, hun botten, hun bloed, maar in hun uniform. Ze zijn zodanig naakt dat ze zich alleen in uniform gekleed voelen. Hun eigenlijke huid is het uniform. Toen de Europese volkeren wisten wat een slappe, weerloze en dode naaktheid zich onder het feldgrau van het Duitse uniform schuilhoudt, zou het Duitse leger zelfs het zwakste en slechts bewapende volk geen schrik aanjagen. Een kind zou het erop wagen een bataljon te bestrijden. Het volstaat ze naakt te zien om de verborgen zin van hun leven als volk, de geschiedenis van hun natie te verstaan. Ze stonden naakt voor ons als schuchtere, zich schamende lijken. Generaal Dietl hief de arm en riep met luide stem “Heil Hitler!” “Heil Hitler” antwoordden de naakte mannen, en enkele hieven moeizaam de met een bundel berkentwijgen bewapende arm. Deze berkenroedes dienen om zichzelf te geselen, het is het meest kenmerkende ogenblik van de sauna, de heiligste ritus. Maar zelfs het gebaar van deze met roede bewapende armen gaf een slappe en weerloze indruk.

…..

Vertaling : Z. DE MEESTER