The Dark Arena

by Mario Puzo

  The bell rang and Gordon went to the door. The professor stood up and nervously straightened his coat, the frayed tie. He pulled his short body with its swollen potato stomach to an erect position and faced the door.

  The professor saw a tall, dark boy, not more than twenty-four, certainly not older than his own son. But this boy had serious brown eyes and a grave, almost sullen face that just missed being ugly. He was dressed very neatly in officer green and had the white-and-blue patch denoting his civilian status sewed on his lapels and left sleeve. He moved with an athletic carelessness that would have been contemptuous if it had not been so impersonal.

  When Gordon made the introduction, the professor said, “I am very happy to meet you,” and thrust out his hand. He tried to keep his dignity but realized that he had said the words obsequiously and betrayed his nervousness with his smile. He saw the boy's eyes go hard and noticed the quick withdrawal after their hands touched. The knowledge that he had offended this youth made the professor tremble, and he sat down to arrange the chess pieces on the board.

  “Do yon care to play?” he asked Mosca and tried to suppress the apologetic smile.

  Gordon waved Mosca toward the table and said, “See what yon can do, Walter; he's too good for me.”

  Mosca sat in the chair opposite the professor. “Don't expect too much; Gordon taught me this game just a month ago.”

  The professor nodded his head and murmured, “Please take the white pieces.” Mosca made the opening move.

  The professor became absorbed in the game and lost his nervousness. They all used the simple opening, these Americans, but where the little schoolteacher had played a cautious game, sound but uninspired, this one played with all the impetuosity of youth. Not without talent, the professor thought, as with a few expert moves he broke the force of the headlong attack. Then swiftly and ruthlessly he swooped on the unprotected rooks and bishop and slaughtered the pawns standing forward without support.

  “You're too good for me, professor,” the boy said, and the professor noted with relief that there was no rancor in the voice.

  Then without any transition Mosca said abruptly in German, “I'd like you to give English lessons to my fiancee twice a week. What does it cost?”

  The professor flushed. It was humiliating, this common bargaining, as if he were a shopkeeper. “Whatever you wish,” he said stiffly, “but you speak quite a good German, why not teach her yourself?”

  “I have,” Mosca said, “but she wants to learn the structure, grammar and all that. A pack of cigarettes for every two lessons okay?”

  The professor nodded.

  Mosca borrowed a pencil from Gordon and wrote on a slip of paper. He gave it to the professor and said, “Here's a note in case anyone in the billet questions you. The address is there, too.”

  “Thank you.” The professor almost bowed. “Will tomorrow evening be suitable?”

  “Sure,” Mosca said.

  Outside the house a jeep horn began a steady honking. “That must be Leo,” Mosca said. “We're going over to the Officers” Club. Feel like coming, Gordon?”

  “No,” Gordon said. “Is that the boy that was in Buchen-wald?” And when Mosca nodded, “Have him come in for just a second; Fd like to meet him.”

  Mosca went to the window and pushed it open and the horn stopped. “Come on in,” Mosca shouted. It was very dark now, the children and their lanterns out of sight

  When Leo came in he shook hands with Gordon and said to the professor stiffly, “Angenehm” The professor bowed, picked up his briefcase and said to Gordon, “I must go.” Gordon took him to the outer door, and they shook hands in farewell. Then Gordon went to the kitchen in the rear of the house.

  IBs wife was sitting at the table with Yergen, haggling over the price of some black-market goods. Yergen was polite, dignified, and firm; they both knew she was getting a good bargain. Yergen believed in quality. On a chair beside the table was a foot-high stack of rich-looking, rusty-colored woolen material.

  “Isn't this lovely stuff, Gordon?” Ann Middleton asked in a pleased voice. She was a plump woman, her features good-natured and kind despite the determined chin and shrewd eyes.

  Gordon in his slow, deliberate way made a sound of assent and then said, “If you're through here I'd like you to come and meet some friends.” Yergen hurriedly gulped the cup of coffee before him and began to fill his leather briefcase with the round tins of fats and meats that rested on the table. “I must go,” he said.

  “You won't forget the material for my husband's coat next week?” Ann Middleton asked warningly.

  Yergen made a gesture of protest “Dear lady, no. Next week at the latest.”

  When she had locked the back entrance after Yergen, Ann Middleton unlocked a cupboard and took out a bottle of whisky and some bottles of Coca-Cola. “It is a pleasure to do business with Yergen; he never wastes your time with anything shoddy,” she said. They went into the living-room together.

  After the introductions Gordon rested in one of the armchairs, not listening to the usual small talk his wife made. He felt almost painfully the alien atmosphere of the requisitioned home, living with belongings which had no memories, no associations, not knowing who had picked out the pictures on the wall, the furniture scattered through the rooms, who had played the piano which rested against the far wall. But these feelings were traitorous to his intellect and not new. He had felt it most keenly on his visit home to his parents before he entered the Army. In that home, surrounded by furniture from ancestors long dead, as he kissed the diy cheeks of his mother and father, cheeks dried out and tough by the vigorous northern climate, he had known that he would never go back, as others would not, the young people who had gone to war and to the factories; and that this land, glacial in its stark and wintry beauty, would be inhabited only by old people, their hair white as the snow which covered the bony hills. And in his bedroom the large picture of Marx that his mother had thought was just a painting. How proud he had been of his cleverness and a little contemptuous of her ignorance. It was probably still hanging there.

  His wife had prepared drinks, weak ones, since whisky was rationed and since she sometimes used it to trade on the black market. Gordon asked Leo, “Wasn't it in your camp that some prisoners were killed by an Allied air raid?”

  “Yes,” Leo answered, “I remember. We did not resent it, believe me.”

  “I read that Thalman, the Communist leader, was killed in that raid. Did you know him?” For once Gordon's voice had lost its calmness. There was a vibrant note in it.

  “That was a curious thing,” Leo said. “Thalman was brought to the camp two days after the raid in which he was supposed to have been killed. Then he was taken away in a short time. We heard about Ae anfiotraeeineni of his death; of course it was a joke among us.”

  Gordon took a deep breath. “Did you meet him?”.

  “No,” Leo said. “I remember because many of the kapos, the trusties, were Communists. They were the first ones sent to the camps and naturally they had the good jobs. Anyway, I heard that they had managed to secure some delicacies and even liquor and planned to welcome Thalman with a secret banquet. But it never came off. He was always under special guard.”

  Gordon was nodding his head with a solemn, sad pride. He said to his wife with quiet anger, “You see who were the real enemies of f asdsm?”

  Leo said with irritation, “The Communists were not bargains. One, a kapo, had great pleasure beating old men to death. He did many other things I cannot say before your wife.”

  Gordon became so angry that it showed on his usually well-controlled face, and his wife said to Mosca, “Why don't jou come over for dinner some night with your girl. And Leo, too.” They settled details, giving Gordon time to recover. Suddenly Gordon said to Leo, “I don't believe the man was a Communist. He may have been at one time. But he was either a renegade or an impostor.”

  At this Ann and Leo burst out laughing, but Mosca turned his sharp, dark face t
oward Gordon and said, “The guy was in camp for a long time. Don't you know what that means, lor Christ's sake?”

  And Leo said almost comfortingly, “Yes, he was one of the oldest inmates.”

  In a room above them a baby began to cry, and Gordon went upstairs and brought down a great big healthy boy who looked much larger than his six months. Gordon changed the diaper, proudly showing off his skill.

  “He's better than I am,” Ann Middleton said, “and he enjoys doing it which I'm sure I don't.”

  “Why don't you fellows spend the evening here instead of going on to the club?” Gordon asked.

  “Yes,” Ann said, “please do.”

  “We can stay a little while,” Mosca said, “but we have to meet Eddie Cassin at the club about tea o'clock. He went to the opera.”

  Ann Middleton sniffed. “I'll bet He's at the opera.’

  “And besides,” Mosca said, “it's stag night at the club and the show should be terrific. Leo here never saw a stag show. He cant miss it.”

  When Gordon went to the door with them he said to Mosca, “We never use up all our allowance on our commissary card. Any time you need some groceries and want to use it, just let me know.”

  Gordon locked the door and went back to the living-room. Ana said to him, “Really that was quite shameful, you were downright rude to Leo.”

  Gordon, knowing that this from her was a stern rebuke, said without defiance but resolutely, “I still think the man was an impostor.”

  This time his wife did not smile.

  The soft, rose-colored lights went out Eddie Cassin leaned forward in his seat, applauded with the rest as the old, white-haired conductor entered the pit and tapped the music stand sharply with his baton. The curtain went up.

  As the music started slowly, yet with passion, Eddie Cassin lorgot the school auditorium he was in, the Germans all around him, the two monstrous Russian officers almost blocking Lis view. The familiar figures on the stage were now all lis life, and he gripped his jaw and mouth with his hands to control the emotional workings of his face.

  On the stage the man and woman who at the beginning had sung of their love for each other, now sang of their hate. The man in his peasant costume cried with anger in hard beautiful tones, rising and ascending, the orchestra playing beneath the voice, rising and falling with it, as a wave might, yet falling completely away when need be. The woman's voice, shrill, cut through his, mingled, the orchestra circling what they said. The man threw the woman away from him with so much force that as she spun away she fell to the floor, really slamming against the wood of the stage. She was up on her feet instantly, screaming reproaches yet musically, and as the man threatened her and she denied his accusations, suddenly the man's voice, the voices of the chorus, the orchestra, all fell away and the woman's voice found itself alone, admitted her guilt, hurled back defiance, and falling to a lower and sweeter tone sang of death and sorrow and a bodily love that led all men and women. Before Eddie Cassin's eyes the man took the woman hy the hair and thrust into her body with a dagger. On a loud clear note she called for help, and her lover died with her; the horns and violins rose to a high, crescending wave, and the man's voice made its final utterance, a long clean note of revenge, passion, and inconsolable grief. The curtain came down.

  The Russian officers in their green-and-gold uniforms clapped enthusiastically, seeming to lead the applause. Ed-die Cassin pushed his way out of the auditorium and into the fresh right air. He leaned against his jeep, feeling exhausted and jet content. He waited until everyone had left, waited until the woman who had died on the stage came out. Ke saw that she was plain, with heavy German features, dressed all in black, loosely; lumpy as a fifty-year-old housewife. He waited until she was out of sight mid then got into the jeep and drove across the bridge into the Alstadt, Bremen proper, and as always the ruins rising up to meet him awakened a feeling of kinship. Mingled with this was the remembrance of the opera and how closely this physical world resembled—with the same element of the ridiculous—that interior make-believe world he had seen on the stage. Now that he was free of the music's spell, he was ashamed of the easy tears he had shed, tears for a tragedy so simple, so direct, a child's story of guiltless and unfortunate animals come to disaster, and his own tears a child's tears he would never understand.

  The Officers’ dub had been one of the finest private homes in Bremen. What had been its lawn was now a parking lot for jeeps and command cars. The garden in the rear supplied flowers for the homes of the higher ranking officers.

  When Eddie entered the club the dance floor was empty, . but ringed around it, seated on the floor and leaning against the wall, the officers were three rows deep. Others watched from the barroom, standing on chairs so that they could look over the crowd before them.

  Someone brushed past Eddie and went onto the dance floor. It was a girl, stark nakedness exposed on tiny, silvery platforms of ballet slippers. Her pubic hair had been shaved to an inverted triangle, dark red on her body like a shield. In some way she had fluffed out the hair so that it was a formidably thick and matty bush. She danced without skill, coming close to the officers seated on the floor, almost thrusting the triangle of hair into their faces so that some of the young officers started involuntarily and turned their crew-cut heads away, She laughed when they did this and laughed and danced away when some of the older officers made a half-joking grab. It was an exhibition curiously unsexual, with no element of lust Someone threw a comb out on the floor, the girl continued to dance like a draft horse trying to gallop. The officers began to shout jokes she did not understand, and humiliation made her face and dance more strained, ludicrous, until everyone was laughing, throwing combs, handkerchiefs, butter knives, olives from their drinks, pretzels. One officer shouted, “Hide this,” and it became a refrain. The club officer came out on the floor holding an enormous pair of scissors, clicking the shears suggestively. The girl ran off the dance floor, past Eddie back to the dressing-room. Eddie went to the bar. At one corner he saw Mosca and Wolf and went over to them.

  “Don't tell me Leo missed the show,” Eddie said. “Walter, you guaranteed he wouldn't.”

  “Hell,” Mosca said, “he already latched on to one of the dancers. He's in.”

  Eddie grinned and turned to Wolf. “Find the gold mine?” He knew Wolf and Mosca went out nights and traded in the black market.

  “Business is tough,” Wolf said, his dead-white face shaking dolefully from side to side.

  “Don't kid me,” Eddie Cassia said, “I hear your Frdulein wears diamonds on her pajamas.”

  Wolf was indignant. “Now where the hell would she get pajamas?” They all laughed.

  The waiter came and Eddie ordered a double whisky. Wolf nodded toward the dance floor and said, “We expected you in the front row tonight.”

  “Nah,” Eddie Cassin said. “I'm cultured, I went to the opera. Anyway the broads there are better looking.”

  From the other room officers flooded into the bar, the show was over. The room became crowded Mosca stood up and said, “Let's go up to the dice table and play a little.”

  The dice table was almost completely surrounded. It was a crudely constructed affair with four unpainted wooden joists for legs and a green cloth stretched over the wooden top. Boards half a foot high formed a rectangle to confine the dice.

  The colonel himself, a small, plump man with a blond mustache, extremely neat, was rolling the dice awkwardly, the square cubes slipping clumsily from his clenched hand. All the other players were officers, mostly flyers. On the colonel's right stood the adjutant, watchful, not taking any part in the game while the colonel played.

  The adjutant, a young captain, was an ingenuous-looking man with a bland face and a smile that was attractive when not meant to menace. He gloried in his position as adjutant, the petty power that enabled him to select the officers who would perform the more irksome duties on the base, especially on week-ends. The colonel relied on him, and the adjutant did not forget a
n affront easily. But he was fair, and only vindictive when the affront was one to his position, not to himself personally. The rigidity of Army life and Army procedure was his religion, and any breach of it sacrilegious and blasphemous. Anyone who tried to get something done without going through channels—those straight and narrow paths clearly defined in Army regulations—would suddenly find himself a very busy man, and no matter how hard he worked, busy for a few months at least. He brought to his religion the fanaticism of the young; he was no older than Mosca.

  A white-jacketed waiter stood behind a small bar in the corner of the room. When the players called out for a drink he set it up, and whoever had called would step over for the glass and take his drink back to the game, resting it on the wooden ledge made by enclosing boards.

  Wolf, who did not gamble, sat in one of the easy chairs, and Eddie Cassin and Mosca squeezed into places around the table. When Eddie's turn to shoot came, Mosca bet with him. Eddie, a cautious gambler, slipped the one-dollar bills from his metal dip almost regretfully. He had a good roll and made five passes before he sevened out Mosca had made even more money than Eddie.

  Since they were standing beside each other, it was Mosca's turn to shoot, the dice going around the circle clockwise. Already ahead and feeling confident, he put twenty dollars worth of scrip on the green felt. Four different officers took five dollars each. Mosca threw the great square cubes backhanded. They came up seven. “Shoot it,” he said. He was sure now, and exhilarated. The forty dollars was faded by the same four officers. Eddie Cassin said, “And ten goes with him.”

  The colonel said, “Fll take that” They laid the money on the table.