by Mario Puzo
They had no trouble finding the house, a private, two-family home cut up into a tenament to provide much-needed housing. On the vestibule door was a list of all the tenants, including every member of the family, and what apartments they occupied. Mosca looked at the identity pass and compared names. Then he went up to the second floor. He knocked sharply and the door was opened immediately. He realized that he had been seen from the window and his knock waited for. The man at the door had the same bullethead and stern features but his face was set in a constrained mask and softened by the now naked baldness of his skull. The German stood aside and Mosca went in.
He had interrupted the evening meal. The table in the large room held four dishes filled with black gravy in which floated dark, shredded vegetables and large pasty white potatoes. In one corner was a bed, farther along the wall a sink hung awkwardly, above it a great framed painting in dark greens and browns. A woman, light hair drawn against her skull, was trying to bring two small boys through the door to the other room of the apartment. But as she turned to see Mosca she let the children escape her. They all looked at Mosca and waited.
He handed the German the blue identity card. The man took it and said falteringly, “Yes?”
Mosea said, “You don't have to go to the police station. Forget about everything.”
The blunt, stern face turned ghastly white. The relief from fear, the shock of the day, the jeep screaming to a stop in front of his house, all combined now—a poison disintegrated his blood. He trembled visibly and his wife hurried to his support, helped him to one of the four empty wooden chairs surrounding the table. Mosca, alarmed, said to the woman, “What's the trouble, what's the matter with him?”
“Nothing,” the woman said, her voice dead, completely empty of emotion or any life. “We thought you came to take him away.” Her voice wavered slightly.
One of the children began to cry with quiet fright, as if the strength and walls of his world had been destroyed. Mosca, thinking to quiet him, took a few steps forward and brought out a bar of chocolate. The child was terrified and began to scream great hysterical screams, so high pitched they were barely audible. Mosca stopped and looked at the woman helplessly. She was bringing her husband a small glass of schnapps. As the man drank, the woman ran over to the child, slapped him full in the mouth and then picked him up in her arms. The child was still. The father, still terribly agitated, said, “Wait, please wait,” and almost ran to the cupboard for a bottle of schnapps and a small water glass.
He poured Mosca a drink and forced it into his hands. “It was all a mistake, you see, all a mistake, I thought the children were annoying you. I did not mean to interfere.” And Mosca remembered the man's angry tone when he had scolded the two boys in front of the Glocke, the angry shame and guilt, as if its owner were himself the cause of the children's degradation.
“It's all right,” Mosca said. He tried to leave the drink on the table but the German kept hold of his arm and forced the drink on him again.
Forgetting his wife and children watching him, as if he were pleading for his life, the father went on feverishly,
“I was never a Nazi. I joined the Party to keep my job, all printers must join. But I paid my dues. No more. I was never a Nazi. Drink. It's good stuff. Drink it. I save this for when I feel ill.” Mosca drank and broke away for the door but the German caught him, shook his hand. “I am very grateful for your kindness. That is from the heart. I will never forget this. I have always said the Americans were good. They are kindhearted; we Germans are fortunate.” He wrung Mosca's hand for the last time, his head shaking up and down with nervousness and passionate relief.
At that moment Mosca felt an almost uncontrollable urge to strike him down, to make the blood flow from that bald skull and twitching face, and turned his head away to hide his contempt and disgust.
Framed against the brown door, in the room beyond, Mosca saw the wife's face. The flesh was drawn tight around the separate and distinctly seen bones. The skin was dead white and her head was slightly lowered, the shoulders hunched by the weight of the child in her arms. Her gray eyes, almost black now, were dark pools of unforgetting hatred. Her hair, too, seemed dark beside the child's golden one and her gaze did not flinch as it met Mosca's. Not one muscle of her face moved.
As the door closed behind him, Mosca heard her voice, quiet but sharp, speaking to her husband. Out in the street, by the light of the lamp-lit room, he could see her looking down at him, the child still in her arms.
twelve
Wolf ate his cold sapper German-peasant fashion, picking up the long, blood-red wurst and slicing off a thick, glutinous chunk with his pocketknife. Then he cut a block of dark bread from the enormous loaf resting before him. The German girl he lived with, Ursula, and her father, took the bread and wurst in their turn. Each had a can of American beer beside their plates with which they filled small wine glasses when necessary.
“When do you have to go?” Ursula asked. She was a small, dark girl with an ungovernable temper. Wolf had taken pleasure in taming her. He had already put in his marriage papers, and it was with this understanding that he had been allowed to move into the father's house to live with her. There were other considerations.
“I have to meet Mosca at the Rathskellar in about an hour,” Wolf said, looking at the watch he had taken from the Polish refugee after the war. The dead Polack, Wolf thought.
“I don't care for that man,” Ursula said. “He has no manners. I don't know what that gjurl sees in him.”
Wolf cut another slice of wurst and said jokingly, “The same thing you see in me.”
As he knew she would, Ursula flared up. “You damn Americans think we'll do anything for your goods. Try treating me as your Ami friends treat their girls. See if I keep you. Out the house you go.”
The father, munching on the hard bread, said placatingly, “Ursula, Ursula,” but he said it out of habit, thinking of something else.
When Wolf had finished supper he went into the bedroom and stuffed his large, brown leather briefcase with cigarettes, chocolate, and a few cigars. He took these from a locked wardrobe to which he had the only key. As he was about to leave Ursula's father came in.
“Wolfgang, before you leave. A word if I may.” The father was always polite and respectful, always remembering the lover of his daughter was an American. Wolf liked this in him.
The father led Wolf to their cold storeroom in the back of the basement apartment. The father threw open the door and in a dramatically concerned voice said, “Look.”
From the wooden beams hung bare bones of hams with tiny shreds of dark meat clinging to them, small ends of salamis, and a white cheese like a thin quarter moon.
“We have to do something, Wolfgang,” the father said, “our supplies are very low. Very, very low.”
Wolf sighed. He wondered what the old bastard had done with all that stuff. They both knew damn well it hadn't been eaten. A regiment couldn't have done such damage. As always when the old man had outgeneraled him he thought grimly, Wait until Ursula and me get back to the States. I'll teach them both a lesson. The old man would expect packages. Balls he'd get. Wolf nodded his head as if he had been thinking over the problem.
“All right,” he said. They went back to the bedroom and he gave the father five cartons of cigarettes. “These are the last I can give for a few months,” Wolf said warningly. “I have a very big deal ready.”
“Don't worry,” the father said, “this will last a long time. My daughter and I get along as sparingly as we can, you know that, Wolfgang.” Wolf nodded his head reassuringly, and also in admiration of the man's nerve, thinking, The old robber will make his fortune out of me yet
Before he left the room, Wolf took the heavy Walther pistol from his bureau drawer and slipped it into the jacket of his coat. This always captured the father's attention, made him more respectful, and this also pleased Wolf.
As they left the room together the older man threw his arm in a confiden
tial, fatherly way around Wolfs shoulders. “Next week I am getting a great supply of brown and gray gabardine. I'll have some beautifcil suits made for you, as a present. And if any of your friends wish to buy I will give them a special price, as a favor to you.”
Wolf nodded gravely. As he went out the door Ursula called out, “Be careful.” He left the basement and walked up a few steps to the street. Then he strode briskly in the direction of the Rathskellar. It was only, fifteen minutes away, he would be in plenty of time. As he walked he marveled over the father. A load of gabardine. His gabardine really. And then he was supposed to sell it without commission. He'd fix that. He'd make himself a little something. He'd give Mosca, Cassin, and Gordon a good break, maybe even the Jew, but still earn a little something. But he should be able to sell a lot of it. At a nice cut for himself. Well, that was chicken feed, but every bit helped.
In the Rathskellar, the great underground restaurant that before the war had been one of Germany's finest, he found Eddie Cassin and Mosca at a table by the giant wine casks. These huge barrels reaching to the ceiling formed a shadow over the two men, cutting them off from the rest of the olive-drab officers and the few women who spotted the vast, cavernous room. A string orchestra played quietly, the lights were dim, and small white-clothed tables stretched out as far as the eye could see; then clustered in white eddies like foam; in alcoves and small private dining-rooms.
“Wolf, the living cigarette tree,” Eddie Cassin shouted.
His voice rose above the music and rose to the almost invisible ceiling high above them and became lost there. No one paid any attention. He leaned over the table and whispered, “What you two hustlers got planned tonight?”
Wolf sat down. “Just making a little trip around town. See if we can pick up any bargains. Stop using your butts for gash, and ITl make you a few pennies.” Though he joked, Wolf was worried. He could see Mosca was nearly as drunk as Eddie and he was surprised. He had never seen Mosca drunk before. He wondered if he should cancel the whole deal for this night. But it was all set up, this was the first night they would hit the big black-market wheels, they might even get a lead on who had the dough. Wolf ordered a drink, watching Mosca to see if he would be okay.
Mosca noticed this and smiled. “I'll be all right, a coupla minutes fresh air. I'll be okay.” He tried to enunciate carefully but the words slurred together. Wolf shook his head with an impatient disgust he could not hide.
Eddie shook his head in drunken mimicry. “The trouble with you, Wolf, is you think you're clever. You wanna be a millionaire. Wolf, you'll never make it. Never in a million years. One, you got no brains, just a little cunning. Two, you haven't got real guts. You can slap kraut prisoners around but that's all. That's all, that's all.”
“How can you stand this gash hound?” Wolf asked Mosca, his voice deliberately quiet, insulting. “He's had so many dames sitting on his head, his brain's gone soft.”
Eddie jumped up angrily and shouted, “You lousy butt hustler—” Mosca pulled him down to the chair. Some of the people at the other tables turned around. “Take it easy, Eddie, he's only kidding. You, too, Wolf. He's drunk. When he's drunk he hates everybody. And besides, his wife wrote him she's leaving England with the kid and coming here, and he can't stand giving up all his dames.” Eddie turned on Mosca with drunken reproachfulness and said, “That's not so, Walter, I really gave her some raw deals.” He shook his head dolefully.
Mosca, to cheer him up, said, “Tell Wolf about your gorilla.”
Wolf drank his whisky down, and some of his good humor returned. He grinned at Eddie Cassin.
Eddie said solemnly, almost reverently, “I'm screwing a gorilla.” He waited for Wolf's reaction.
“I'm not surprised.’ Wolf said and laughed with Mosca. “What's the deal?”
“I'm screwing a real honest-to-God gorilla,” Eddie insisted.
Wolf looked questioningly at Mosca. “It's a dame,” Mosca said, “he claims she looks just like a gorilla, she's that homely.”
Eddie looked down at the table and then turned earnestly to Mosca. “I got a confession to make, Walter, she's really a gorilla, I was ashamed to admit it. But she's a real gorilla. I lied to you. She lives right near the air base and she works for Military Government. She's an interpreter.” He smiled at them, and Wolf, his spirits completely restored, laughed so heartily that the people at the near-by tables turned around again.’
“How about bringing her around and giving us a break?” Wolf asked jokingly.
Eddie shuddered. “Christ, I never go out in the street with her even. I sneak into the house when it's dark.”
“It's time for us to leave, Walter,” Wolf said briskly; “this is the big night and itV going to be a long one.”
Mosca leaned over Eddie and asked, “You all right? Can you get home okay?” Eddie mumbled that he was and as they walked to the door they could hear him shouting to the waiter for another drink.
Wolf waited for Mosca to get ahead of him, noticing the unsteady walk. Going up the steps he could not help saying, “You picked a hell of a night to get stewed.”
The cold winter air sliced through MoscaV cheekbones, freezing the red pulp of his gums and palate, flesh already raw from too much alcohol and cigarettes. He lit a cigarette to warm his mouth and throat and thought, Screw you, Wolf, and thought, I'll this son of a bitch makes another crack Til rap him or walk away. He could feel the cold working through his coat and below it, freezing his knees and thighs, feeling his whole torso itch with the beginning chill as if it were glazed with frost, and he felt nausea as the frozen air hit the souring whisky in his belly, sending it spinning up to his brain. He wanted to vomit but knotted his stomach muscles, held it down, not wanting Wolf to see him so. Knowing that Wolf was right, it was a hell of a night to get stewed. But for the first time he'd had a quarrel with Hella, not the kind of an argument that made you mad or resentful but one in which neither could understand the other. Just depressing and sad.
The street Wolf and Mosca followed led down a hill from the Rathskellar, past the area of light shed by the Red Cross Club, the music from it trailing after them like a ghost through the ruins. Past the Police Building with its searchlight that imprisoned the jeeps in a white blinding pool of light cut from the surrounding darkness, and then descending the hill, steep as a well, they left the heart of the city and became part of the black night, and though they must have walked for some time it seemed almost a moment to Mosca before Wolf had knocked on a door, and they were inside some place, out of the cold.
In the room there was a large table, four chairs around it These were the only pieces of furniture. Against the walls were stacks of merchandise over which brown Army blankets had been hastily thrown. There were no windows, and the room was hazy with smoke.
Mosca could hear Wolf saying something, introducing him to the little almost dwarflike German before him, and though the closeness of the room brought the nausea back he made an effort to listen, bring everything into focus.
“You know what he is interested in,” Wolf was saying. “Money, only money. American scrip.”
The German shook his head. “I have asked, I have asked all around. No one has the amount you say. That I know. I can buy a few hundred dollars, but that is the most possible.”
Mosca broke in, enunciating slowly what he had been taught to say. “I am interested in selling a great quantity at one time. Five thousand cartons minimum.”
The little German looked at him with respect and awe and his voice was filled with envious greed. “Five thousand cartons, OH OH OH.” He thought of it dreamily and then said with a brisk, businesslike air, “However, I will keep an eye out, have no fear. A drink before you go? Freidl,” he called. A woman opened an inner door and peered out. “Schnapps,” the German shouted as if he were calling a dog's name, bringing it to heel. The woman disappeared and reappeared a few minutes later with a thin, white bottle and three small water glasses. Behind her came a small boy and girl, go
lden-haired but with dirty, red-splotched faces.
Wolf crouched on his haunches. “Ah, what beautiful children,” he exclaimed. From his briefcase he took four bars of chocolate and extended a pair to each.
The father stepped between them and reaching out took the chocolate into his own hands. “No,” he said, “it is too late for them to eat candy.” He went to one of the foot lockers resting against the wall and when he turned to face them his hands were empty. “Tomorrow, my children,” he said. The boy and girl turned away sullenly. As Wolf and Mosca lifted their drinks the woman said something sharply in a dialect they could not understand. The man gave her a warning and threatening look. “Tomorrow, I have said. Tomorrow.”
Mosca and Wolf left, and in the dark street, lit only by a single yellow windowpane they could hear the shrill voices of man and wife, voices raised in menacing anger, fear, and hate.
The white, homemade potato schnapps, almost as strong and raw as alcohol, warmed Mosca but added to the blackness of the winter night. He was unsteady and stumbled often. Finally Wolf stopped and held his arm and asked in a concerned voice, “You wanta call it off for tonight, Walter, and go home?” Mosca shook his head at Wolfs pasty-white face, luminous and cold as death in the darkness before him. They started to walk again. Wolf slightly ahead, Mosca following, straining against the cold wind and the physical nausea in his body. He thought of how Hella had said the same words to him that afternoon.
She had been wearing one of the dresses he had given her for the Christmas just past. Ann Middleton had let him use her clothing card at the Army store. Hella had watched him take the little Hungarian pistol from the wardrobe and slip it into the pocket of his short coat. Then she asked him quietly, “Don't you want to go home?”
He knew what she meant. The marriage ban against Germans had beat lifted a few days before Christmas and now more than a month later he had done nothing about putting in his papers for permission to marry. And she knew that this was because once they were married they would have to leave Germany and go back to the States. And he answered, “No, I can't right now, I have six months to go on my job contract.’
