The Dark Arena

by Mario Puzo

  She undressed underneath the bed covers, and he, smoking a last cigarette and drinking the last of the liqueur, had finally joined her. She turned to him with a passionate intensity that surprised and delighted him. Months later she told him that she hadn't been with a man for nearly a year, and he had laughed, and she had said with a rueful smile, “If a man says that, everyone pities him; they laugh at a woman,”

  But he had understood that first night and understood more. That she had been afraid of him, he the enemy, but the radio's soft music, the warm liqueur, the precious and nerve-soothing cigarettes, the fat sandwiches he had bought from the mess sergeant—these luxuries she had not known for so long, had all combined with her bodily desire, and they had played a game, spinning out time until they knew it would be too late for her to leave. It had all been impersonal, and understanding this hadn't spoiled it, perhaps because physically they were suited to each other, and the night became a long darkness of sensual pleasure, and in the gray morning before the real dawn, she sleeping, he smoking, Mosca thought, I'll have to keep this steady, and thought with pity, tenderness, and some shame how he had punished her fragile body and met there an unexpected, tensile strength.

  When Hella woke later in the morning she was frightened, not remembering for a moment where she was, and then she was ashamed that she had surrendered so easily, so casually, and to the enemy. But her legs tangled with Mosca's in the narrow bed filled her whole body with a warm sensuousness. She rose on one elbow, to look at Mosca's face, realizing with recurring shame that she did not really have a clear image of him in her mind, did not know what he really looked like.

  The mouth of the enemy was thin and almost ascetic, the face narrow and strong, not relaxed in sleep. He slept stiffly, his body rigid on the narrow bed, and he slept so silently, scarcely breathing, that she wondered if he were shamming, watching her watch him.

  Hella left the bed as quietly as she could and dressed. She was hungry and seeing Mosca's cigarettes on the table she took one and lit it. It tasted very good. Looking out the window, hearing no sound in the street below, she realized it was still early. She wanted to leave but was hoping that he had a tin of food in the room and would offer it to her if he ever woke up. She thought, with rueful shame and pleasure, that she had certainly earned it.

  She glanced at the bed and was startled to see that the American's eyes were open and he was studying her quietly. She stood up, felt a ridiculous shyness, and stretched out her hand to say Good-bye. He laughed, reached out, and pulled her down to the bed. He said mockingly, in English, “We're too good friends for that.”

  She didn't understand but she knew he was making fun of her and she was angry. She said, in German, “I have to leave.” But he didn't let her hand go.

  “Cigarette,” he said. She lit one for him. He sat up in bed to smoke, the covers falling away from his body, and she saw die white jagged scar running from his groin to the nipple of his breast. She asked in German, “The war?”

  He laughed, pointed to her and said, “You.” It seemed to Hella for a moment that he was accusing her personally, and she turned her head so that she could not see.

  He tried his bad German. “Are you hungry?” he asked. She nodded. He jumped out of bed, naked. With a modesty that seemed to Mosca very funny, she averted her eyes while he dressed.

  Ready to leave, he kissed her gently and then said in German, “Go back to bed.” She made no sign that she understood but he knew that she had and for some reason would not do so. He shrugged and left, running down the stairs; and out to the motor pool. He drove to the mess hall, picked up a canteen of coffee and some fried egg sandwiches. Back in the room he found her sitting by the window, still dressed. He gave her the food, and they both drank from the canteen. She held out one of the sandwiches to him, but he shook his head. He noticed with amusement that after a hesitant gesture she did not offer it a second time. “You'll come tonight?” he asked in German. She shook her head. They looked at each other, he with no trace of emotion on his face. SJie saw that he would not ask again, that he was ready to erase her from his mind and memory, make the night they had spent together completely nothing. And because her vanity was aroused and he had been a considerate lover, she said, “Tomorrow,” and smiled. She took one last drink of coffee, leaned over to kiss him, and left.

  She had told him all this in the time after. Had it been three months, four months? A long time of contentment, ease, physical pleasure, and comfort. And one day, coming into the room, he had found her in the classical, wifely pose, mending a great, twisted bundle of socks.

  “Ah,” he said in German, “the good Hausfrau.”

  Hella smiled shyly and looked at him as if she were trying to penetrate into his mind, trying to see what impression the scene had made. That had been the beginning of the campaign to make him not want to leave her, to stay in the land of the enemy with heir, also the enemy, and yet though he understood, it was not offensive to him.

  And then later, the tried and tested frontal assault, the lethal weapon of pregnancy, but he had felt no contempt, no pity; just annoyance.

  “Get rid of it,” he said. “Well go see a good doctor.”

  Hella shook her head. “No,” she said, “I want to have it.”

  Mosca shrugged. “Fm going home, nothing can stop me.”

  “All right,” she said. She made no entreaties. She gave herself to him completely in every thing and in every way until one day, though he knew he lied he couldn't help saying, “I'll come back.” She watched him intently, knew that he lied and he saw that she knew. And that had been the mistake, starting it. Because in the time that followed he kept repeating the lie, sometimes with drunken fervor, so that they had finally both come to believe in it, she with an inborn, stubborn faith, a stubbornness she had in many things.

  The final day he came back to his room and found she had already packed his duffel bag. It stood upright near the window, like a stuffed green dummy. It was after lunch, and the old lemon-colored sunlight of October filled the room. The truck for the embarkation area would leave after supper.

  He dreaded the time he would have to spend with her and said, “Let's go for a walk.” She shook her head.

  She motioned him to her, and they both undressed. He saw the slight bulge of the coming child. He had no desire but forced himself onward until desire came and was ashamed at her urgent passion. When it was time for supper he dressed and helped her dress.

  “I want you to leave now,” he said. “I don't want you to wait for the truck.”

  “All right,” she said submissively, and she gathered her clothes together into a bundle and put them into her small suitcase.

  Before she left he gave her all the cigarettes and German money he had and they left the building together. On the street he said, “Good-by,” and kissed her. He saw she couldn't speak, that the tears were running down her face, but she walked straight down the street, down the Con-trescarpe to the Am Wald Strasse, not seeing anything, not turning around.

  He watched her until she was out of sight, believing it was the last time he would ever see her, feeling a vague relief that it was all over, and so easily, with no fuss. And then he remembered what she had told him a few nights before and it had been impossible to doubt her sincerity. “Don't worry about me or the baby,” she had said. “Don't feel guilty about it; if you don't come back, the baby will keep me happy, will always make me think how happy we were together. And don't come back for me, if you don't want to.”

  He was angered by what he thought was the false nobility of her speech but then she went on. “I'll wait for you at least a year, maybe two years. But if you don't come I'll be happy. I'll find another man and make my life; that's the way people are. And Fm not afraid, not afraid of having the baby or taking care of it alone. Do you understand that I'm not afraid?” And he had understood. That she was not afraid of any pain or sorrow he might give her, or the cruelty and lack of tenderness that was now part of him, bu
t most of all what she did not understand herself he envied most, that she had no fear of her own inner being, that she accepted the cruelty and rage of the world around her and kept her belief in the giving of love, and that she felt more sorrow for him than for herself.

  A brown-green wall tilted before his eyes, blocking off his vision, and as if on a level before him but lying on their sides, were groups of buildings and small oblongs that were people. The plane leveled off and Mosca could see the neat outlines of the airfield, the small groups of buildings that were aircraft hangars, and the long, low administration building, gleaming white in the sun. Far away he could see a ragged outline formed by the few tall buildings that were still standing in Bremen. He felt the wheels meet the earth, gingerly, distrustfully, and there swept over him an impatient eagerness to be out of the plane, to stand waiting for Hella outside a door. At that moment, when he was ready to leave the plane, he was sure he would find her waiting for him.

  three

  Mosca let a German porter cany his suitcases out of the plane, and he saw Eddie Cassin coming down the ramp of the airfield to meet him. They shook hands, and Eddie Cassin said in the quiet, carefully modulated voice, vibrant with a sincerity that he always used when he felt unnatural, “It's good to see you again, Walter,”

  “Thanks for fixing up the job and the papers to come here,” Mosca said,

  “That was nothing,” Eddie Cassin said. ‘It's worth it to me to have one of the old gang back. We had some great times together, Walter.” He picked up one of Mosca's suitcases, and Mosca took the other and the blue gym bag and they walked up the ramp, off the flying area.

  “Weil go to my office and have a drink and meet some of the guys,” Eddie Cassin said. He put his free arm across Mosca's shoulder for a moment and said in a natural voice, “You old bastard, I'm really glad to see you, you know that?” And Mosca felt what he had not felt in his previous home-coming! a sense of true arrival, of reaching a final destination.

  They followed a wire fence to a small brick building that stood some distance away from the other installations of the base. “Here I'm the lord and master,” Eddie said. “Civilian Personnel Office, and I'm the Assistant to the Qvilian Personnel Officer who spends all his time flying. Five hundred krauts think I'm God and a hundred mid fifty of them are women. How about that for living, Walter?”

  The building was a one-story affair. There was a large outer office filled with German clerks scurrying to and fro, a patient horde of other Germans waiting to be interviewed for jobs as mechanics in the motor pool, kitchen help in the mess halls, PX attendants. There were rough-looking men, old women, young men, and a great many young girls, some very pretty. Their eyes followed Eddie as he went by.

  Eddie opened the door to the inner office. Here there were two desks face to face, so that their occupants could look each other in the eye. One desk was absolutely bare except for a lettered green-and-white shingle which read, Lt. A. Forte, CPO, and a small neat bundle of papers waiting for signature. On the other desk there were two double-decked baskets overflowing with paper. Almost swamped by other papers scattered over the desk was a small shingle which read Mr. E. Cassin, Asst. CPO. In the corner of the room was a desk at which a tall and very ugly girl was typing, stopping in her work long enough to say, “Good afternoon, Mr. Cassin. The colonel called; he wants you to call him back.”

  Eddie winked at Mosca and picked up the telephone. While he was speaking, Mosca lit a cigarette and tried to relax. He made himself not think of Hella and looked at Eddie. Eddie hadn't changed, he thought There was the gray, wavy hair framing the delicate, yet strong features” Hie mouth was as sensitive as a girl's, yet the nose was long and imperial, the set of his jaw determined. The eyes were hooded as if with sensuality and the grayness of his abundant hair seemed to have tinged his skin. Yet the impression was one of youthfulness, a frank warmth of expression that was almost naive. But Mosca knew that when Eddie Cassin was drunk the sensitive and delicately cut mouth twisted into an ugly line, the whole face grayed and went old and vicious. And since (hat viciousness had no real strength behind it and because men would laugh at it as Mosca often had, the viciousness, in words and physical action, was vented on the woman who was his companion or mistress of the moment. He had one set opinion of Eddie Cassin, a crazy bastard about women and a lousy drunk, but otherwise a really nice guy who would do anything for a friend. And Eddie had been smart enough never to make a pass at Hella. He wanted to ask Eddie now whether he had seen Hella or knew what had happened to her but he could not bring himself to do so.

  Eddie Cassin put down the phone and opened a drawer of his desk. He took out a bottle of gin and a tin of grapefruit juice. Turning to the typist he said, “Ingeborg, go wash the glasses.” She took some glasses, empty containers of cheese spread, and left the office. Eddie Cassin went to a door that led to a smaller office behind them. “Come on, Walter, I want you to meet a couple of friends of mine.”

  In the next office a short, stout, pasty-faced man in the same olive-green Eddie wore was standing by his desk, his foot on the rung of a chair and his body bent over so that his paunch rested on his thigh. He held in his hand a Fragebogen or questionnaire and was studying it. Before him, standing stiffly at attention, was a short squat German, the inevitable gray-teen Wehrmacht cap under his arm. By the window sat a long-looking American civilian with the long jaw and square small mouth of a weather-beaten American farmer, and with his air of self-centered strength.

  “Wolf,” Eddie said to the pudgy man, “this is an old buddy of mine, Walter Mosca. Walter, Wolf here is our security man. He clears the krauts before they can get a job on the base.”

  After they had shaken hands, Eddie went on. “That guy by the window is Gordon Middleton. He's the man without a job, so he's detailed to help out down here. The colonel is trying to get rid of him; that's why he hasn't anything special to do.” Middleton didn't get up from his chair to shake hands, so Mosca nodded, and the other waved a long scarecrow arm in acknowledgment

  Wolf jerked his thumb at the door and told the German, still standing at attention, to wait outside. The German clicked his heels, bowed, and left hurriedly. Wolf laughed, threw the Fragebogen on the desk with a contemptuous gesture.

  “Never in the Party, never in the SA, never in the Hitler Youth. Christ, I'm dying to meet a Nazi.”

  They all laughed. Eddie shook his head wisely. “They all say the same thing. Walter here is a guy after your own heart, Wolf. A rough character with krauts when we were in Mil Gov together.”

  “Is that so?” Wolf raised a sandy eyebrow. “That's the only way to be.”

  “Yeah,” Eddie said, “we had a big problem in Mil Gov. The krauts would make the coal deliveries to all the German installations, but when it came time to deliver to those Jewish refugee camps up at Grohn on Saturday either the trucks would break down or the kraut coal administrator would say there was no coal left My boy solved the problem.”

  “This I'd like to hear,” Wolf said. He had an easy, UH gradating way of speaking that was almost oily and had a trick of nodding his head up and down to assure the speaker of his complete comprehension.

  Ingeborg brought in the glasses, the bottle, and the fruit juice. Eddie fixed four drinks but one without gin. He gave this to Gordon Middleton, “The only guy in the occupation who doesn't gamble, drink, or chase women. That's why the colonel wants to get rid of him. He gives the krauts a bad impression.”

  “Let's hear the story,” Gordon said. IBs low, drawling voice was a reproach but a gentle one; patient

  “Well,” Eddie said, “it got so that Mosca would have to ride way the hell out to the camp every Saturday to makesore the coal got there. One Saturday he was In a crap game and let the trucks go alone. No coal. He really got chewed out. Ill never forget. I drove him out to where die trucks had broken down and he gave the drivers a little speech”

  Mosca rested against the desk, lit a cigar, and puffed on it nervously. He remembered the i
ncident and knew the kind of story Eddie would make out of it. Build him up to be a real hard guy and it hadn't been that way at all. He had told the drivers that if they did not wish to drive he would see to their release without prejudice. But if they wanted to stay on the job they had better get the coal to the DP camp even if they had to carry it on their backs. One driver had quit, and Mosca had taken his name and passed cigarettes all around. Eddie was making it sound as if he had knocked the hell out of six of them in a free-for-all.

  “Then he went to the coal administrator's house and had a little talk in English that I understood. That kraut was really shitting when he got through. After that he shot crap Saturday afternoon and the coal got to the camp. A real executive.” Eddie shook his head admiringly.

  Wolf kept nodding his head up and down with understanding and approbation. “That's the kind of stuff we need around here,” he said. “These krauts get away with murder.”

  “You couldn't do that now, Walter,” Eddie said.

  “Yeah, we're teaching the krauts democracy,” Wolf said, so wryly that Mosca and Eddie laughed, and even Middleton smiled.

  They sipped their drinks, and then Eddie got up to look out the window at a woman passing by on her way to the exit gate. “There's some nice gash,” he said; “how would you like to cut a piece of that?”

  “That's a question for the Fragebogen” Wolf said, and as he was about to add something else, the door leading to the corridor was flung open and a tall, blond boy was shoved into the room. His wrists were handcuffed and he was crying. Behind him were two short men in dark sack suits. One of the men stepped forward

  “Herr Dolman,” he said, “we have the person who has been stealing the soap.” Wolf burst out laughing.

  “The soap bandit,” he explained to Eddie and Mosca. “We've been missing a lot of Red Cross soap bars we were supposed to give the German kids. These men are detectives from the city.”