The Dark Arena

by Mario Puzo

  “It is a small thing,” Wolf said calmly. “You know what I have come for. Can you help us?”

  The woman looked him up and down and still speaking English said, “My dear man, your story has a stink to it. I don't know of this million dollars in scrip. If I did I would be very careful in my dealings with you and your friend. Really, you insult my intelligence.”

  Wolf kept his smile. Business before pleasure, he thought. He said, “If you make a contact and deliver that contact to me it may well mean a small fortune for you. For such a little thing.”

  There was contempt in the woman's voice and disdain in her puffy, fat cheeks. “I am a woman of business and will have no part in such affairs. And make certain I will warn my friends against you.” She gave a snort of laughter. “You have five thousand cartons.”

  Wolf was still smiling. He asked, “Can either of these two men understand English? It is important.”

  The woman, surprised by the unexpected question, said, “No, they do not.”

  The smile faded from Wolfs face, and into it, as if it were a mask he had always ready, came the look of power, a confident quiet sternness.

  He put his briefcase on the table and leaned over it to look directly into the old woman's circled eyes.

  “You are too clever and too proud,” he said with measured harshness. “You think you have some power, that you are safe, that your age and your men protect you. I don't like insolent Germans. You don't understand Americans, you and your giant.” The woman was alert now, her eyes a beady, flashing black. The little German with his bulging coat had a frightened look. The pant at the door moved toward Wolf. Mosca drew the Hungarian pistol from his briefcase and clicked off the safety catch” They all turned to him.

  He didn't point the gun, held it down to the floor. In German he said to the giant, “Turn around.” The giant moved toward him. Mosca took a step forward and the old woman, seeing his face, called out a sharp command to the giant. He gave her a bewildered look, then retreated to the far wall and turned his back.

  Wolf leaned toward the woman again. “Do you like my friend?” he asked her.

  She didn't answer. She kept her eyes on Mosca. The little German, without a command, joined the giant against the wall. Wolf went on. “My friend is a very pride-ful and irritable man. If your giant had pushed him instead of me there would be no speeches, you would be very sad people here. There would be no words, words I speak so calmly. Now listen. I am reasonable. I hold no grudge for this incident. But if on my rounds I learn you have given information about me, then you can see the other side of my face.”

  He stopped and looked into the old woman's eyes. There was no fear in them. She was regarding him quite calmly, without compliance. But this was in his province, this was his life work, this challenged the genius he knew he had. He understood that look as no one else could. That words meant nothing, threats no hindrance or persuasion to the human will. He smiled because he knew the answer. He went over to the giant and pushed and turned him around.

  “You lump, take off your belt and stand before your mistress,” he said. The giant did so. Wolf stepped away. He drew his gun from his briefcase, for effect really, and said to the woman, “Tell him to give you three hard strokes on your back.” He made his voice malignant. “If yoil Cty out I'll kill the three of you. Now. Tell him three strokes.”

  The old woman was still calm. “You do not understand” she said. “If I order him he will take me quite seriously and injure me terribly. He will strike with all his power.”

  Wolf said good-humoredly, “I understand perfectly.”

  Her fat cheeks creased with a faint doubtful smile. “You have made your point, it is not necessary to go any further. I will say nothing, I promise. Now, please, I have many people waiting.”

  Wolf paused for a long moment, and then with a deliberately cruel smile he said, “One stroke. To seal our bargain.”

  For the first time the woman seemed frightened. Her face sagged, there was a quaver in her voice. “I shall scream for help,” she said.

  Wolf didn't answer her. He spoke to Mosca, slowly, so that the woman would be sure to understand. “When the woman goes down, kill the big man.” !He swung the gun up to the woman's face.

  She turned her head away. She said to the giant in German, “Johann, give me one hard stroke across the back.” She sat on the chair with her head bowed on the table, her rounded fat shoulders hunched for the blow. The giant swung his belt down and when it hit, they could hear a terrible crackling split of skin and meat beneath cloth. The woman raised her head. Her face was bloodless with pain and fright and shock.

  Wolf looked at her with cold, emotionless eyes. “Now you understand,” he said. Then, mimicking her insolent voice and manner, “There is nothing to be done.” He walked to the door and said, “Come on, Walter,” and they went through the rooms they had come by and out the front door.

  In the jeep going back to town, Wolf laughed and said to Mosca, “Would you have shot that big guy if I gave the word?”

  Mosca lit a cigarette. He was still tense. “Hell, I knew it was an act. I got to hand it to you, Wolf, you put on a hell of a show.”

  Wolf said in a satisfied voice, “Experience, boy. Some of our officers were too chicken to use real pressure on prisoners. So we had to use the scare technique. And you looked real mean there on the wall.”

  “I was surprised,” Mosca said, “When that big guy pushed you and the old dame was so snotty, I figured a trap. Then I was mad Christ, don't they know some of these GIs would butcher the whole crew for a stunt like that?”

  Wolf said slowly, “I'll tell you how people are, Walter. This old dame, she thinks she's clever. And she has this big giant and ill these officers and GIs treat her with respect because she can make their fortune. Now get this. She forgets. She forgets what it is to be afraid. That one stroke she got was the key. Remember that. Without that one stroke she couldn't be afraid. People are like that.”

  They went across the bridge and into the Bremen town. In a few minutes they were before the billet

  They smoked a cigarette together in the parked jeep.

  Wolf said, “In a week or so we make the most important contacts. Well have to stay out most of the night. So be ready for a call any time. Okay?” He dapped Mosca on the back.

  Mosca stepped out of the jeep, took a last puff on his cigarette. “You think she'll squawk to her friends?”

  Wolf shook his head. “This m the one thing I know about. She'll never open her mouth to anybody.” He grinned at Mosca. “She'll never forget that stripe she wears on her back.”

  eleven

  Walter Mosca, dressed in civvies, stared out of the window of the Civilian Personnel Office. He watched the people of the base going by, the airplane mechanics in their green fatigues and fur-lined leather jackets, natty flying officers in dark greens and violet overcoats, the German laborers in their old clothing, all hunched against the sharp November wind. Behind him Eddie Cassin said, “Walter.” Mosca turned around.

  Eddie Cassin leaned back in his chair. “I got a job for you. I had an idea and the lieutenant thinks it's pretty good. We're having a food conservation drive all over the European Theater, you know, try to tell the chowhounds that they shouldn't eat themselves sick. Not to starve but not to load up their trays, then leave a lot of stuff that has to be thrown out. Now here's the idea. We want a picture of a GI with a big heaping tray of food and caption it ‘Stop This.’ Next to it we want a photo of two little German kids sniping butts in the street and the caption, “And You Stop This.’ How does it sound?”

  “It sounds like real shit to me,” Mosca said.

  Eddie grinned at Mm, “All right, But it looks clever as hell. Real public-relations stuff. Headquarters will eat it up. Maybe Stars and Stripes will print it Who knows? It could turn out big.”

  “For Christ's sake,” Mosca said.

  “Okay,” Eddie Cassin said, a little annoyed. “Just get a picture of ki
ds sniping butts. The jeep is outside and you can pick up that photographer, the corporal, at the lab.”

  “Okay,” Mosca said. He went out and watched the afternoon flight from Wiesbaden come down out of the sky, as if appearing by magic from nothing but air. Then he got into the jeep.

  It was late afternoon before he drove the jeep over the bridge into Bremen proper. The corporal had been goofing around the hangars, and it had taken Mosca an hour to frack him down.

  The streets of the city were full oi hurrying Germans and the Strassenbahns clanged their way through dense traffic, passengers hanging onto the step poles. Mosca parked the jeep in front of the Glocke.

  In the gray workaday afternoon all was still. The front of the Red Cross Club was empty of beggars, streetwalkers, and children; activity would begin after the supper hour. Two German policewomen strolled slowly up and down the sidewalk, slowly, as if bemused by the melodious clanging of streetcar bells,

  Mosca and the corporal waited in their jeep for some begging children to appear, smoking cigarettes but not talking. Finally the corporal said, “What goddamn luck. Tins is the first time I didn't see some kraut kids hangin’ around.”

  Mosca got out of the jeep. “TU take a look,” he said. It was very cold and he turned up the collar of his jacket He walked around the corner and seeing no children, continued to walk until he was in the rear of the Glocke Building.

  Serenely perched on a great hill of rubble, looking down on half the great city that lay in ruins before them, were two small boys. They were wrapped in coats reaching to their shoes and on their heads were caps that came down almost over their ears. Through their bare hands they strained the loose dirt out of the rubble they scooped up, and then threw stones and fragments of brick out across the prairie and valley of ruins below them; throwing at nothing in particular and not hard enough to lose balance on top of the hill.

  “Here,” Mosca called in German, “do you two want to earn some chocolate?”

  The children looked down at him gravely, judging him, recognizing him as one of the enemy, despite his civilian clothes, and slid down the hill, not afraid. They followed him, leaving their vast, silent, empty playground, clasping each other's hand when they came into the busy square before the Glocke.

  The corporal was out of the jeep, waiting for them. He slipped a plate into his camera and adjusted the range finder. When he was set he said to Mosca, “Okay, tell them what to do.” The corporal could speak no German.

  “Pick up those cigarettes butts,” Mosca told the boys, “Now look up so that man can take your picture.” They bent obediently but their long, peaked caps shadowed their faces.

  “Push their caps back,” the corporal said. Mosca did so, exposing two grinning gnomelike faces to the camera.

  “Those butts are too small,” the corporal said. “They won't show up.” Mosca took out some whole cigarettes and threw them into the gutter.

  The corporal had made a few shots but was not satisfied. He was preparing for another when Mosca felt someone's hand on his arm and he was spun around.

  Before him were the two policewomen, the one who had spun him around nearly as tall as he, her hand still on his arm. He gave her a push that was nearly a blow, feeling the soft breast beneath the rough, blue wool of her uniform. She staggered back, her hand falling away from his arm, then said defensively, “That is not allowed here.” She turned to the boys and said in a warning voice, “You two leave here instantly.”

  Mosca grabbed the children by their coats. “Stay here,” he said. He turned on the two women, his lean, dark face ugly and vicious with anger. “Do you see that uniform?” pointing to the corporal. He held out his hand. “Give me your identification.” The two women began to stutter explanations, that it was their job to keep the children away, keep diem from begging. A German man going by stopped, the boys edged away from the quarrel, and the man said something to than in an angry, scolding voice which frightened them, and they began to nm. Mosca caught them again as the corporal let out a warning shout The man began to walk away quickly to get to the throng of fellow Germans waiting on the comer for a streetcar. Mosca ran down the street after him and when the German heard the pounding feet he turned around, his eyes blinking with fright.

  ‘TMd you tell those children to leave?” Mosca shouted at him.

  The German said quietly, apologetically, “I did not understand. I thought they were begging!.”

  “Give me your identity pass,” Mosca said. He held out his hand. The German, trembling with nervousness and shock, reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the usual enormous wallet stuffed with papers. He fumbled unseeingly, trying to watch Mosca at the same time until Mosca took the papers out of his hand and found the blue card himself.

  Mosca handed the wallet back. “Come to the police station in the morning for your pass,” he said, and turned to walk back to the jeep.

  Across the street, on the other side of the square, he saw in the failing November light a dark, silent mass of Germans watching him; tall, giantlike, black as the outline of a forest For one moment he knew fear and terror as if they could see into his heart and mind, and then his anger flared up again. He walked slowly, calmly, to the jeep. The two boys were still there but the policewomen had disappeared.

  “Let's go,” he said to the corporal. He drove down to the Metzer Strasse and got out. He said to the corporal, “Take the jeep back to the base for me.”

  The corporal nodded and said quietly, “I think those shots will be enough.” And Mosca realized that he had forgotten to renew the taking of pictures and had left the children standing in front of the Glocke, not given them the chocolate he had promised.

  When Mosca entered the room, Hella was warming soup on the electric plate, a red-labled empty can open on the table. A pan full of bacon waited its turn. Leo sat on the couch reading.

  The room was warm with the smell of food, comfortable in its well-filled largeness. The bed and its night table in one corner, on the table a lamp and small radio; the great white wardrobe in the corner near the door, and in the middle a great round table surrounded by wicker chairs. Along one wall the enormous, empty china closet helped give the room a coziness that was not crowded, that yet gave plenty of space to move around in. A hell of a big room, Mosca always thought.

  Hella looked up from her cooking. “Oh, you're home early,” she said and rose to kiss him. Her face always changed when she saw him, he could see the happiness there, giving him always a sense of guilt and fear because she built so much of her life on him. As if she did not know the many dangers he felt in the world around them.

  “I had something to do in town and didn't go back to the base,” Mosca said. Leo raised his head and nodded to him, then continued to read. Mosca reached into his pocket for a cigarette, and his fingers touched the German's identity card.

  “How about giving me a lift to the police station after we eat?” Mosca asked Leo. He threw the card on the table.

  Leo nodded and said, “What have you there?” Mosca told them what had happened. He noticed that Leo was watching him with a curious, amused smile. Hella poured the hot soup into cups and said nothing. Then she put the bacon on the electric plate.

  They drank the soup carefully, dipping crackers into it Hella lifted the blue identity card from the table. Holding the cup in one hand she flipped the card open with the other. “He's married,” she said. “He has blue eyes and brown hair and works as a printer. That is a good job.” She studied the picture. “He doesn't look like a bad man; I wonder if he has children.”

  “Doesn't it say on the pass?” Mosca asked.

  “No,” Hella said. “He has a scar on his finger.” She let the card drop back onto the table.

  Leo tilted his head back and drank the last of his soup, then leaned over the table, the tic in his face working a little. “Tell me,” he said, “why didn't you go to the police station with the man right away? It was close by.”

  Mosca smiled at him
. “I just wanted to scare the guy, Tm not going to do anything. I guess I just wanted to scare the son of a bitch.”

  “Hell have a very bad night,” Hella said.

  “He deserves it,” Mosca said angrily, defensively. “Where does that bastard come off putting his two cents in a deal like that.”

  Hella lifted her pale, gray eyes to him. “He was ashamed,” she said, “and I think he felt it his fault that these children beg and pick up cigarettes in the streets.”

  “Ah hell, let him sweat,” Mosca said. “How about some bacon before you burn the hell out of it?”

  Hella put die bacon and a loaf of gray German bread on the table. When they had finished eating the grease-soaked sandwiches, Leo and Mosca rose, Leo searching for his jeep keys on the trunk. Hella picked up the identity card and looked at the address. “See,” she said eagerly, “he lives on Rubsam Strasse. That is closer than the police station.”

  Mosca said curtly, “Don't wait up for me. We're going to the club after.” Then he smiled at her as she leaned her head to be kissed, her thin, closely drawn light-brown hair like a helmet. The sentimental action always endeared her to him though he smiled at it and never made the first move himself. “Do you want me to bring some ice cream?” She nodded. As he went out the door she called after him, “It's on the way to the club.”

  In the jeep Leo said to him, “Where do we go?”

  “Okay, for Christ's sake, take me to the guy's house.” Mosca shook his head. “You and her give me a big pain in the ass.”

  “I don't give a damn,” Leo said, “but it is on the way to the club. And besides I know what it is to ‘sweat,’ as you say. That is a very accurate word.” He turned his big-boned face to Mosca and smiled with a touch of sadness.

  Mosca shrugged. “I don't even want to see the bastard. How about you going in the house, Leo?”

  “Not me,” Leo said with a grin. “You took it away from him? You give it back.”