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PARTISAN REVIEW
him," he said , ass uming that the dead person was young. One o f the
men came towards me to take the cigarelle tha t I was still offering. As
he put it to his lips h e shi vered aga in . H e sa id that
J
should no t go
nearer. Those were his orders. "I just want to take a q uick look," I said.
"Then I will go away." H e looked around and hi s ma te nodded
approval. " Two minutes and no more!"
I walked
La
the stretcher and whistl ed softl y, more to g ive the
policemen the benefit of an appearance of p ersonal streng th than from
anything I reall y felt. "Suntanned, isn 't he?" sa id one policeman and
chuckled . T he o ther tulled . There was no bod y.' II was a burnt crust.
The arms and legs and h ead had shrunk to maybe two- thirds of their
normal size. "They look like stumps on a gingerbread man ," I tho ught
irrelevantl y. I wanted to know wha t was left of th e human fl esh and I
bent over the bundle, but I could onl y smell the strong, sweet odor of
roasted meal.
It
was , remo tely, th e smell of bar becued beef, but a little
off. It was a sweet smell and I was surprised tha t I was no t revo lted by
it. In "Spanish Tes tament," Arthur Koes tl er describes the smell of
burning human bodi es as on e tha t was parti cul ar ly identifi able, as
have man y reporters and foreign correspondents covering various
conflicts. But the horror o f the smell must be mos tl y in the mind . I
looked a t the skull- "Sko l, prosit, chin chin , salud," I thought-to see
if it h ad burst, as I h ad been told by a wag tha t the tops of skull s pop
with the h eat; but there was no eviden ce of a burst thal I could see and
onl y the faintes t shap e of the front of a head was recognizable.
I walked around to the side of the bund le and bent over it. I
gl anced up, without lifting m y head , to see if the po licemen were
keeping watch on me. I thought th eir eyes looked askan ce, and I
wanted
La
touch the remains. After wh at felt like hours o f hes ita tion
sp ent bending over the body, I made up m y mind and lashed out with
my foo t. Th e kick was too h ard and I froze almost on contact. The shoe
had push ed the crust in rou ghl y below wh at mi ght h ave been the rib
cage. My toe cap slid from what mi ght h ave been a bo ne, or just a hard
burned bit whi ch resisted th e blow , to enter a hard- surfaced , softer area
which fell away in the sh ap e of a toe cap. There was a reddi sh- yellow
looking tissue inside.
It
was quite dry at first, but th en an oil y,
transparent ma tter began to ooze out. T hi s h ad been a human being.
One po liceman rush ed to me, gripped me by the shoulder, pulled
me straight, and pushed me away. H e shouted at me for betraying his
confidence; yelling, n earl y screaming at me for m y savagery. Behind
him , th e o ther m an shouted rep ea tedl y, "Now, let him h ave it. Let him
h ave it. " The man who grabbed m e was near shock; as well as being
concerned tha t he would be in troubl e when th e forensic doctor a rri ved.
