by Mario Puzo
“Forgive me for calling out,” Hella said smilingly. “I walk so badly now. Could you throw me the key? They will be here in a few minutes.” The woman disappeared and then reappeared to drop the keys into Yergen's waiting hand. Then she disappeared again into the house.
“Oh. Oh,” Yergen said, “you may have some trouble in that quarter. She looks very respectable.”
And then realizing what he had said, embarrassed, he paused, but Hella laughed and said, “She's very nice, she'll understand. She recently lost her husband with cancer. That's how she has two empty rooms. They had special privileges because of his illness.”
“And how were you fortunate enough to find them?” Yergen asked.
“I went to the housing officer of the district and inquired,” Hella said. “But first I offered a little present of five packs of cigarettes.” They smiled at each other.
Yergen saw the loaded jeep coming down the Allee. Leo parked as he always did, bumping against a tree on the sidewalk. Mosca jumped down and Eddie and Leo got out of the front seats. They began to carry stuff into the house, Hella showing them the way. When Hella came out again, she had a large brown parcel which she handed to Yergen. “Ten cartons.’ she said, “is that right?” Yergen nodded. Hella went to Giselle who was now leaning against the carriage. She took from her coat pocket a handful of chocolate bars and gave them to the child, saying, “Thank you for bringing me such a beautiful carriage. Will you come to see me when the baby comes?” Giselle, nodded her head and handed the chocolate to Yergen. He took one and broke it into small pieces so that she could hide them in her hand as she ate. Then as Hella watched them walk down the Kurfiirsten Allee she saw Yergen stop to pick up his daughter, she holding the brown parcel balanced on his shoulder. Hella went back into the house and climbed the flight of stairs to the second floor.
The floor consisted of a four-room apartment; a bedroom, a living-room, then another bedroom and a small room that was to be made into a kitchen. Mosca and Hella, it was understood, were to have the small bedroom and the kitchen and were to be allowed to use the living-room on special occasions. Frau Saunders had her bedroom and a stove in the living-room to do her cooking.
Hclla found Mosca, Leo, and Eddie waiting for her. There were two bottles of Coke and two glasses of whisky on the small table. The bedroom was cluttered with suitcases and everything else they had brought. Hella noticed that Frau Saunders had hung pretty blue-flowered curtains on both windows.,
Mosca lifted his glass, Hella and Leo lifted their bottles of Coke. Eddie was already sipping his whisky, but then waited for them.
“To our new home,” Hella said. They all drank together. Eddie Cassin watched Hella take one sip from her Coke and then open the suitcases to put her clothes away in a great mahogany dresser.
He had never made his play for Hella, though he had been in Mosca's room alone with her many times. He wondered why and he realized that partly she had never given him the opportunity. She had never moved close to him, or given him any sort of opening, verbally or physically. She had no coquetry. And all in a very natural manner that was not provoking. He realized that it was partly his fear of Mosca, and trying to analyze that fear, he thought it was grounded in his knowledge of Mosca's carelessness of other people and the stories he had heard about Mosca from some other men in the outfit, a fight he had had with a sergeant for which he had been transferred to Military Government and for which he had just escaped court-martial. The sergeant was so badly hurt that he was sent back to a hospital in the States. But it was a queer story, hushed up, and just rumors. Basically it was the carelessness, a lack of interest so complete that it was frightening. His friends, Eddie thought, myself, Leo, Wolf, Gordon, we think wefre his buddies. If we were all killed tomorrow he wouldn't give a good goddamn.
“The carriage,” Hella exclaimed suddenly, “where did you put the carriage?”
They all laughed. Leo clapped his hands to his head and said in German, “My God, I left the wagon in the street.”
But Mosca said quickly, “It's in the small room, Hella, the kitchen.” And Eddie Cassin thought, He can't even stand to see her anxious as a joke.
Hella went into the other room. Leo finished up his Coke. “The next week I leave for Nuremberg,” he said. “They want me to testify about those people who were guards and officials at Buchenwald. At first I said no, but then they told me a certain doctor was among the defendants. He is the one who used to tell us, ‘I am not here to cure your aches and pains. I am not even here to keep you alive. My job is to see that you are able every day to work.” That bastard I will testify against.”
Mosca filled the glasses again and gave Leo a fresh bottle of Coke. “If I were in your shoes I'd want to kill those bastards.”
Leo shrugged. “I don't know. I have only contempt but no hatred any more. I don't know why. I just want to get out of here.” He took a long slug from his Coke.
“We'll miss you at the billet, Walter,” Eddie said. “How do you think you'll like living kraut style?”
Mosca shrugged. “It's all the same.” He filled Eddie's glass, then said, “Scram, Eddie, after that one. I don't want you scaring the hell out of my new landlady. No more drinks.”
“I've reformed,” Eddie Cassin said. “My wife is coming from England with the kid.” He looked at them with mock pride. “My family is coming to join me.”
Mosca shook his head. “Poor dame, I thought she gave up when you were in the Army. What the hell are all your chippies going to do?”
“They'll get along,” Eddie said. “Don't worry about them, they always get along.” Suddenly, unreasonably, he was angry. “I'd like to give ‘em all a boot in the ass.” He took his jacket and left
Eddie Cassin went down the Kurfiirsten Allee, walking slowly. The curved, tree-shaded avenue was pleasant in the warmth df the early spring afternoon. He decided to take a shower in the billet and then go on for supper at the Rathskellar. He glanced across the Allee before he turned into the Metzer Strasse, a flash of color attracting his eye, and there he saw a young girl standing underneath a wide, green tree, four little children dancing around her. Across the broad avenue he could see the delicate lines of her face, the purity of youth in them. As he watched, she lifted her head to the yellow light of the afternoon sun and turning away from the children looked directly at Eddie Cassin.
He saw on her face that smile which, in its innocence and instinctive knowledge of sexual power, always excited him. It was a smile of youth, Eddie thought, a smile they wear when being flattered, and yet innocent, curious, wondering what the power really was that they possessed, and a little excited. To Eddie Ca&in it denoted virginity, a virginity of mind, of body, too, but primarily a mental innocence which he had seen and corrupted before, the struggle and courtship sweeter to him than the actual taking.
Now staring across the street, he was moved to a sadness that was sweet, and also a wonder that this young girl in her white blouse could move him so. He hesitated to go to her; he was unshaven, dirty, and he could smell his own sweat. HeU, I can't screw “em all, he thought, knowing that across the broad avenue, even in the bright sunlight, she could only see the delicate cut of his features and not the fine lines of age. What would seem to her old age, decay.
She had turned to the children, and that graceful, youthful motion of her head and body, the picture they made as they all sat on the green carpet of grass, burned into his brain. Under that dark-green tree, the young girl in her white shirt, the white sleeves rolled up nearly to her shoulder, the two bulges of white cloth that were her breasts, her golden head bending over the seated children, these were not to be borne. He strode quickly away down the Metzer Strasse and into the billet
Eddie showered and shaved and found himself hurrying, but he paused long enough to put a great deal of sweet-smelling talcum powder over his body and face. He combed his hair carefully, regretting its grayness on the sides, and in his room put on his olive-green officer's uniform with the
civilian patch, knowing that he would not appear as old in her eyes in these as he would in civilian clothing.
There was a knock on the door and Fran Meyer came in. She was in a bathrobe. It was an old trick of hers. When she knew Eddie was bathing she would bathe also, and smelling sweetly of perfume come to the room as he was dressing. Usually it would work.
“Have you a cigarette for me, Eddie?” she asked and sat on the bed and crossed her legs. Eddie, tying his shoelaces, motioned toward the table. She took a cigarette, lit it, and sat again on the bed.
“You look very handsome; are you seeing someone?”
Eddie stopped for a moment, surveyed the almost-perfect body, the pleasant, buck-toothed face. It was known. He lifted her off the bed, carried her out of the room, and set her down in the hall. “Not today, baby,” he said and ran down the stairs and out of the building. There was a tremendous excitement and exultation in him, a quivering of the heart. He trotted up the Metzer Strasse, slowing to a quick walk as he came to the corner and, puffing a little, turned into the Kurfursten Allee.
As far as he could see, the trees along the Allee stood all alone, no children underneath them. The strip of grass was a continuous green line with no foreign body to mar its harmony with the trees above it. His eye singled out the exact spot in the row opposite him and it was as if it were a picture hanging on his wall, familiar, known every day, out of which the human figures he had always seen had magically faded. Eddie Cassin crossed the Allee and went to the nearest house. He knocked on the door and inquired in bad German about the girl taking care of four children, but no one knew anything about her, in that house or the others. The last house was an apartment billet for American civilians and the man who answered the door Eddie recognized as someone he had seen often at the Rathskellar. “No,” the man said, “she doesn't come from this street. The guys in here are laying all the dames in the block, and I know them all. I felt like going out myself. You're out of luck, fella.” And he grinned sympathetically at Eddie Cassin.
He stood in the center of the Allee, not knowing which way to go. The spring evening fell upon him, fresh breezes blowing away the afternoon heat On the other side of the Allee and beyond it, he could see the gardens with their newly sprouting green, the even patches and the mottled brown wooden and paper huts in which the gardeners kept their tools and in which some of them lived. He could see some men working in that small, farmlike area, and he could smell the river behind the hill which rose above the gardens. Patched through the rubble and from the sides of ruined houses he could see wild little streaks of dark green. He knew he would never see the girl again and would not recognize her if he did, but suddenly the exhilaration returned and he started the long walk down the whole length of the Kurfiirsten Allee until it ended where the city ended and he could see the country unmarked, the slightly rolling, restful hills, the moist green of spring over them like fresh-grown skin; and where no blemish of gray and blackened ruins could mar the beauty of the day.
That evening Hella tacked the woodcut illustrations of fairy tales on the walls. She had bought them for the coming child, she said, but Mosca felt that it was some sort of superstition, a magic that would make everything go well. When she finished she said, “I think we should go in to see Frau Saunders.
“Christ, I'm too tired tonight,” Mosca said. “We did a hell of a lot of work.”
Hella sat still on the bed, her hands folded, inspecting the almost square room. The cream-colored carriage rested against one light-blue flowered curtain, looking like a picture on a wall. There was a blue cloth on a small round table, and the two chairs were upholstered in light gray. On the floor was a maroon rug, faded with age. Bed and dresser were both mahogany, and on each wall there was a small painting of a country scene in light green, violets, blues, and the white silvers of running streams. A great surge of joy went through her body. Then she noticed Mosca's face set, strained, and she knew he felt uneasy. She took his hand and held it in her lap. “Now it seems really true, that we'll always be together.”
“Let's go in and pay our respects to the landlady,” Mosca said.
All the rooms had doors that opened on the hall, and the hall itself had a door that locked the floor off from the stairs. To go from one room to the other they had to go out in the hall and knock on the door of the living-room. They heard a voice telling them to come in.
Frau Saunders was sitting on the sofa reading a newspaper. She stood up when HeUa introduced them and shook Mosca's hand. Mosca saw that she was not as old as he had thought from the glimpse he had had of her. The hair was severely done and her face was” lined, but there was a curious youthfulness in the movements of her lanky body, in its straight flowing black.
“I hope you will feel free to use the living-room whenever you wish,” Frau Saunders said. She had a low, sweet voice but she said the words out of politeness.
“Thank you,” HeUa said. “I wanted to thank you for the curtains and the extras you put in the rooms. If there is anything we can help you in, please tell us.”
Frau Saunders hesitated. “I hope only that there will be no trouble with the authorities.” She gave Mosca a doubtful glance as if she wished to say something else.
Hella guessed what it was. “We're very quiet people, he's net one of these wild Americans always giving parties.” She smiled at Mosca but he did not smile in return. “We just came in for a few minutes,” Hella went on, “we had a hard day, so—” She rose and they said good night awkwardly, Mosca giving a polite smile, Frau Saunders giving the same smile in return, and in that moment Mosca realized that this woman was shy despite her age, and that she was a little frightened by the thought of the enemy living in her home.
As they undressed in their room Mosca told Hella a bit of news he had almost forgotten. “Orders finally came in to ship the Middletons back to the States. They leave next week.”
Hella was surprised. “Oh, that is too bad,” she said.
“Don't worry,” Mosca said, “I can get some other people's commissary cards, and we can trade out in the country like real Germans.”
In bed Hella said, “So that is why you looked so worried today.” Mosca didn't say anything. After she had fallen asleep he lay awake for a long time.
He felt strange that now, finally, as if this had been the purpose behind everything, he lived as one of the enemy. The house was full of Germans and the houses in the streets around him; in his bed, carrying his child. He missed the sound of parties that went on in the billet, the throbbing of jeep motors, radios tuned to the Armed Forces Network giving out American music. Here all was still. The bathroom in the hall gave a small sudden roar of water. Frau Saunders, he thought, and then had to get up and go himself, waiting a little to give the woman plenty of time to get back to her own room. Then he stood by the curtained window, smoking a cigarette, trying to see in the darkness outside. He tried to think back to when he had been given his first weapon, his first steel helmet, his first combat orientation lecture to protect himself against the enemy. But that now too seemed unreal and unimportant What finally was real was this room, the carriage, the woman in the bed.
fourteen
The evening before the Middletons were to leave Germany, Hella and Mosca went for a walk through the city before visiting them. Leaving the house on the Kurfiir-sten Allee, Hella stopped to say good evening to the women in their doorways. Mosca stood by her patiently, a polite smile on his face.
They began to walk to the center of town. “Let's get Frau Saunders some ice cream from the Red Cross Club,” Hella said. Mosca looked at her.
“You two sure became awful good buddies in a week,” he said. “What goes on, anyway? I know you give her part of your meals and some of the sugar and coffee we have. When the Middletons leave you'll have to get stingy, baby. That stuff will be hard to get.”
She gave him an unused smile. “If I thought you really cared I wouldn't do it. I know it's just that you want me to have everything. But I can't
do it, Walter. When I cook some meat the smell fills the whole hall, and I think of her in the living-room with just dry potatoes” Besides. Tm too fat. Look at me.”
That's not from eating,” Mosca said. She laughed and gave him a push. He grinned at her and said, “But you're pretty big. At least now you can't wear my shirts any more.” She had on a blue maternity dress Ann Middleton had given her.
They walked along, Mosca holding her arm when they had to climb over rubble that overflowed onto the walk. The trees were all heavy with leaves and the rays of the setting sun only occasionally glanced over them. Hella said thoughtfully, “Frau Saunders is really fine. You wouldn't think it to look at her, but she is a lot of fun to talk to and she does nearly all my wdrk for me. And not because I give her things, she really wants to help. Will you get her some ice cream?”
Mosca laughed and said, “Sure.”
She had to wait outside while he went into the Red Cross Club. On the way back they went by the Polizeihaus and on the outskirts of the Contrescarpe Park below they were blocked off by a small crowd listening to a man standing on a park bench. He was lecturing, waving his arms, shouting. They paused. Mosca shifted the cold box of ice cream to bis right hand and Hella leaned on his shoulder.
“The guilt is on every one of us,” the man was shouting. “This godless age, this godless land. Who thinks of Christ, of Jesus? We accept his blood as our salvation and do not believe. But I tell you, I tell you, his blood has washed away so many sins, that blood is weary, the Lord God is weary of our ways. How much longer will he be patient? How much longer will the blood of Jesus save us?” He paused and his voice became soft, pleading. “The love of Jesus is no longer enough, the blood of Jesus is no longer enough. Please believe me. Save yourselves and me and our children and our wives, our mothers, our fathers, sisters, brothers, and our country.” His voice became calm, factual, reasonable, and his body relaxed. He spoke conversationally.
