The Dark Arena

by Mario Puzo

  “All right,” Mosca said and then before he hung up he heard Frau Saunders say, “She told me to tell you not to be worried.”

  Eddie Cassin raised his eyebrows when Mosca told him the news. Eddie picked up the phone and ordered a vehicle from the motor pool.

  When the jeep came Eddie silli “I'll meet you at the RathskeUar for supper if you can make it. Give me a ring if anything happens.”

  “It may not even be the baby,” Mosca said, “she's not too rugged.”

  “She'll be okay,” Eddie said reassuringly. “It's the baby all right. They come early and they come late. I've gone through all that.” He put out his hand to shake Mosca's and said, “Here's luck.”

  On the drive to town, Mosca became anxious, really worried. Without warning a great wave of fear flooded over him, so powerful that he was sure that she was ill and said to the driver, “Go faster.”

  The driver said, “I have my orders, the regulations.” Mosca threw his half-full pack of cigarettes into the German's lap. The jeep leaped forward.

  The city hospital was a group of red brick buildings scattered over a great area of tree-lined walks and green lawns, and all encircled by an iron fence crawling with ivy to hide the defending spikes. Along the perimeter of the fence were little iron doors. The main entrance for visitors, however, was an enormous gateway through which entered vehicles and pedestrians. Tlie jeep went through this gate, moving slowly through eddies of German men and women.

  “Find out where the maternity ward is,” Mosca said. The jeep stopped. The driver leaned out and spoke to a passing nurse, then put the jeep in motion. Mosca leaned back and tried to relax as they rolled slowly through the hospital grounds.

  Now he was in a German world. Here there were no uniforms, no military vehicles except the one he rode in. The people around him were all the enemy; their clothes, their speech, the way they walked, the very atmosphere. As they rode, he could see from time to time the iron spears enclosing this world Near the fence was the maternity building.

  Mosca went in and found a small office in which sat an elderly nurse. Against the wan stood two men wearing American Army fatigues but on their heads the peaked caps of the Wehrmacht. These were ambulance drivers.

  ‘Tm looking for Hella Broda, die entered hoe this morning,” Mosca said The nurse consulted a record book on her desk. For a moment Mosca was afraid she would say no and his fears would be realized. She looked up at him and smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Wait, FU call up about her.”

  As she spoke over the phone one of the ambulance drivers said to Mosca, “We brought her here,” and both men smiled at him. He smiled bade politely and then saw they were hoping for cigarettes as a reward. He readied in Us pocket; he had given his driver the last pack. He shrugged and waited for the nurse to finish.

  She hung up the phone. “You have a baby boy,” she said to him.

  Mosca said impatiently, “Is my wife all right?” Then he was self-conscious about the word wife.

  “Yes, of course,” the nurse said. “If you wish you can wait and see her in about an hour. She's sleeping now.”

  “Fll wait,” Mosca said. He went out and sat on the wooden bench that ran along the ivy-covered building.

  He could smell flowers from a near-by garden, a burning sweetness mixed with the reddish light of the burning midday sun. White-clad nurses and doctors passed to and fro, crossed over green lawns and entered blood-red brick buildings fastened squarely and without visible scars in the fresh, living earth. Filling the air was a muted trilling of insects and new-born birds. He felt a sense of absolute peace, a quiet restfulness, as if the iron fence were a barrier to the noise and ruin and dust of the city on the other side. The two ambulance drivers came out and sat near him. The bastards never give up, Mosca thought He was dying for a smoke himself. He turned to one of the men and asked, “Have you a cigarette?” They were stunned, the one nearest him actually gaped, his month open. Mosca grinned. “I have none with me. Fll leave a few packs for you both when I come again.”

  The nearest man took out a dark-colored pack of German cigarettes and extended it to Mosca, saying, “If you really wish to smoke one of these—?

  Mosca lit one up and choked on his first breath. The two ambulance drivers burst out laughing and one said, “These take getting used to.” But after that first puff, it tasted good to Mosca. He lay back on the bench, letting the afternoon sun strike his face, resting. He felt tired.

  “How was she when you brought her?” He spoke with his eyes closed.

  “Fine, like all of them,” the driver who had given him the cigarette said. He had a face that was perpetually set in an expression of good humor, a half-smile that was formed by the very structure of facial bone. “We've had hundreds like her, no trouble.”

  Mosca opened his eyes to look at him. “Not nice work, carrying women around every day, listening to them cry and scream.” He realized as he spoke that he felt resentment toward these two men because they had seen Hella defenseless, that for a period of time she had been helpless in their hands.

  The same driver said, “It's nice carrying around people who can make noise. In the war I was with a burial squad. We used to take a truck out and pick up the dead. In the winter they were stiff, we had to pack them in carefully, like cordwood, in neat stacks; sometimes you could bend their arms a little and there was a nice little trick of hooking arms in one pile to arms in another so you could stack them higher.”

  The other driver left the bench and went back into the building. “He's heard these stories before,” the German continued. “And he was with the Luftwaffe; they empty a can of garbage, they have nightmares for weeks. Anyway, as I was telling you. In the summer, terrible. Terrible. I used to pack fruit before the war, maybe that is why the Army gave me the burial squad. I used to pack oranges, sometimes they were rotten, we have to import them you know, so I'd repack them. The bad ones Fd squeeze into small boxes to take home. In summers that was the way with dead men. They would be all squashy, we'd press them in against one another. It would be like a big pile of garbage in the truck. So this job is fine. The other one, winter or summer, we had no conversation, nothing interesting, you understand.” He gave Mosca a huge grin.

  Mosca thought, How about this bastard. He felt a genuine liking for the man, recognized the intended kindliness.

  ‘I like conversation,” the man went on, “so I didn't care for my Army work. Now here, if is a pleasure. I sit with the woman, and when she screams I say go ahead and scream, nobody will hear. When they cry, like your wife, I say, ‘Cry, it will do you good. Anybody who has children must get used to tears.’ My little joke, I don't always say things the same. I think of something new usually and it is almost always true. I don't talk much, just enough so they won't feel alone, as if I were their husband.”

  Mosca closed his eyes. “Why did my wife cry?”

  “Man, it is a painful business.” The German tried to give him a reproachful look but only succeeded in making a kindly grimace, the bones of his face working against him. “The pain made her cry but that means nothing because you could see she was very happy. I thought then, her husband is a lucky man. I didn't say anything to her, I couldn't think of anything to say. I wiped her face with a wet towel because the pain made her sweat, and she cried a great deal. But when she got out of the ambulance she smiled at me. No, she was fine, there was nothing for me to say.”

  A tap on the window behind them made the driver turn; the nurse was motioning for him to come in. The German left and a few moments later both drivers came out The German shook Mosca's hand “All the best, don't forget our cigarettes when you come again.” They got into their ambulance and drove slowly toward the main gate.

  Mosca closed his eyes, leaned back, and the heat of the June sun made him doze off. It seemed as if he slept for a long time, even dreamed, and then he was awake. There was a tapping on the windowpane behind him. He turned his head and saw the nurse motioning him to enter.


  She gave him the floor and room number and he ran up the two flights of stairs. When he came to the room he saw outside a long table on rollers and on the table nearly twenty small white-clothed bundles from which came an overwhelming din. One of them might be his and he stopped to look for a moment. A nurse came out of the room and started to wheel the table away. “You can go in,” she told him. He pushed open the door and stepped into a large, square, green-walled room in which were six high hospital beds filled with women, none of them Hella. Then in one corner he saw a bed so low it was nearly level with the floor.

  She was lying flat, her eyes open, watching him, and she was more beautiful than he had ever seen her. Her mouth was the dark redness of blood and her face very white except for two crimson spots on her cheeks. Her eyes were shining and alive and except for her body, which was curiously lifeless and immobile, she did not look as if she had had a child only a few hours before. Conscious of the other women in the room, he went to her and bent down to kiss her cheek, but she twisted her head so that her mouth met his. “Are you happy?” die whispered. Her voice was peculiarly hoarse, as if she had a heavy cold. Mosca smiled down at her and nodded.

  “It's a beautiful baby, so much hair,” she whispered, “like yours.” He didn't know what to say and stood there wondering how all this could make her so happy and leave him so untouched.

  A nurse came in and said, “That's all, please, you can come back tomorrow, in the regular visiting hours.” Mosca leaned down to Hella and said, “I'll see you tomorrow, okay?” She nodded and tilted her head for him to kiss her again.

  Outside the nurse asked if he would like to see the baby and he followed her down a long corridor to where it ended in a glass wall. There were some men looking through this wall at babies held up in turn by a small, pert-looking nurse who obviously enjoyed her work and the antics of the visiting, newly made fathers. She opened a small pane in the glass wall and the nurse with Mosca said, “The Broda child.” The nurse disappeared into a room behind the glass wall and came out with a small bundle. She took the cloth away from its face, holding up the baby proudly.

  Mosca was shocked by the baby's ugliness. It was the first time he had ever seen a new-born infant. The face was wrinkled, puckered up sourly, the small black eyes almost closed but still emitting malignant gleams toward the new and hostile world, and over its head like an untidy shawl, a great shock of black hair gave it an animal-like appearance.

  Beside Mosca a small, bald-headed German man was going into ecstasies over another baby held by another nurse behind the glass wall. Mosca saw with relief that this baby looked almost exactly like his own. The German was exclaiming and cooing, “Oh, what a sweet child, what a lovely child,” making sucking noises with his mouth and twisting his face into extraordinary grimaces to get a reaction from the infant. Mosca watched curiously and then stared at his own child, trying to feel some emotion, then signaled to the nurse to take it away. The nurse gave him a long, angry look; she had been waiting impatiently for his performance. Mosca thought, Screw you, sister.

  He ran down the steps and walked through the hospital grounds toward the gate. He saw Leo driving slowly against the waves of Germans going out. He stopped in front of the jeep and climbed up over the hood, stepped over the windshield and into the jeep. He saw the great bouquet of flowers in Leo's lap, and as their sweet, cool fragrance hit his face, he was suddenly free of tension and felt extraordinarily happy.

  When, finally, they met Eddie at the Rathskellar, Eddie was already drunk. He said, “You son of a bitch, why didn't you call? I had Inge phone the hospital and they gave me the dope. Then your landlady called and I told her the news.”

  “Christ, I forgot,” Mosca said with a foolish smile.

  Eddie threw an arm around his shoulders. “Congratulations. Now, tonight we celebrate.”

  They ate and then went to one of the tables in the bar.

  “Do we buy the drinks or does Walter?” Leo asked as if this were a very serious point.

  Eddie gave them both an amused, paternal look. “Tonight I'll buy everything. If I know Walter he won't even jpve out cigars. Look at that sad face.”

  “Jesus,” Mosca said, “how the hell can I act like a big-wheel fattier. We're not even married. They kept calling the kid by Hella's last name. That made me feel funny. I was thinking I'll put in the marriage papers.”

  “Let's see,” Eddie said. “You can figure three months. But then thirty days after you're married, back to the States. You going to leave all this jpravy?”

  Mosca thought it over. “I figure I can get the papers and hold off the marriage for a while. But I'd like to have everything set, just in case.”

  “You could do that,” Eddie said, “but you have to go back sometime. Especially now the Middletons are gone, you can't get the right food for a wife and kid.” He gave Mosca a strange, peering look. “You sure you want those papers, Walter; you ready to go back?”

  Mosca said to Leo, “How about you, you made up your mind yet, U.S.A. or Palestine?”

  “I'm doing well here,” Leo said. He thought of the professor. “But soon I must decide.”

  “You ought to come back with me,” Mosca said. “You could stay with me and Hella until you get set. That is, if I can get a place myself.”

  Eddie asked curiously, “What will you do when you get back to the States?”

  “I don't know,” Mosca said. “I figure Til go to school maybe. I'm an ignorant guy, I went right from high school into the Army.” He grinned at them. “You wouldn't think it but I used to be a good student But I enlisted, you know that, Eddie, you used to break my bills about it when we were GIs. Now I want to learn what goes on.” He stopped, trying to think of how he could put it into words. “Sometimes I wanta fight like hell against everything around me, but I don't know what to fight It seems like I can't get out of a straight line to a trap. like now. I want to do something but I'm not allowed. My own personal business. I can't marry a kraut and I can see why the Army makes it tough. I don't give a crap about the Germans but that stops me. All right, screw it.” He took another drink.

  “You know, when I was a kid I thought everybody was wonderful. I had definite ideas and now I can't even remember them. In a street fight when I was a kid I always used to fight like I was a hero in the movies, always fight fair, never hit the other guy when he dipped or was off balance. A real jerk. But that wasn't for real. Now it seems like that life before I got into the Army was never really real. like you could never believe the war would end. You knew you would go on to Japan, and then they would find somebody new to fight, the Russians maybe. Then after that maybe the men on Mars. But always somebody new so that you could never go home. Now for the first time I believe that it is over, that I'll have to go back to that dream life or whatever it was. I can start by going back to school.”

  Leo and Eddie were embarrassed. It was the first time Mosca had ever spoken to them about his feelings, and they were surprised by the boyishness of the emotions behind the lean, dark, almost cruel-looking face. Leo said, “Don't worry, Walter, when you lead a normal life with a wife and children everything will be okay.”

  “What the hell do you know?” Eddie demanded in drunken anger. “Eight years in a concentration camp without dames. What the hell do you know?”

  Leo said with a quiet contempt, “I know one thing. You'll never leave here.” This stunned Eddie.

  “You're right,” he said. “Goddamn if you're not right. I wrote my wife again that she gotta come and bring the kid or I'll never leave this goddamn continent. That's my only hope. But she's screwing for her boss, she thinks I don't know about it. But I've got her figured all the way.”

  Leo said to Mosca, “Maybe I will come with you, who knows what will happen by that time? I can't stay here forever. Maybe we can go into a business together with oar black-market profits and you could go to school, too, how would that be?”

  “TTiafs right,” Eddie said. “Go into business with Leo
and you can't lose, Walter.” He smiled at them and saw that neither of them had understood or perhaps had not heard because the liquor was twisting the words as they came out of his loose mouth and also perhaps because about that, they had always trusted him. He felt ashamed. “You guys are dreaming,” he said and realized that he was angry because they were making plans together and leaving him out, with no malice, assuming that he would never leave hare. He felt, suddenly, concern for both of them. Leo for his innocence of the real world, Mosca for what he sensed was an endless struggle that raged behind that seemingly indifferent, dark proud face; a struggle to hold to the world with the help of one thin thread. And he felt an overwhelming drunken sorrow for himself. To the amazement of Leo and Mosca, he put his head down on the table and began to cry. Then he fell asleep.

  seventeen

  Wolf eased Us pudgy body down the basement steps and sighed wearily, glad to be out of the hot summer sun. He was tired, as there had been a lot of work to catch up after a month's vacation. He had taken his wife to visit a sister in Bavaria, a last visit before they went to the States. Now he went directly to the kitchen where Ursula was preparing supper. “They have a baby boy,” he said.

  Ursula turned around and exclaimed happily, “Isn't that wonderful, just what she wanted. Is she back from the hospital yet? I must go to see her.”

  “It happened the day after we left,” Wolf said. “The baby came early. So she's been home three weeks now.” And he thought, They barely know each other and yet Ursula is happy. Something about children being born always touched him, too. He wanted kids of his own, when he was all set That was one thing you were sure of and he could teach them how to take care of themselves. They'd be the sharpest kids in the neighborhood, they'd know what the score was.

  “Have you heard anything about our marriage papers?” Ursula asked.

  “They haven't come bade from Frankfort,” Wolf said. This was a lie. The papers were now in his desk at the air base. But if Ursula knew she would insist on getting married immediately and he would have to leave Germany within thirty days after the ceremony. He wanted to remain a few months longer and complete a few deals.