The Dark Arena (2 page)

Mosca couldn't sleep. The train had begun to move, and he walked down to the door again, rested against it, and looked at the black, shadowy countryside pass by. He remembered the same, nearly the same, land going by so slowly, from the back of trucks, tanks, on foot, crawling on the ground. He had believed he would never see this country again, and he wondered now why everything had turned out so badly. He had dreamed for so long about going home, and now he had left again. In the darkened train, he remembered his first night at home.

The large square sticker on the door had read
Welcome Home, Walter,
and Mosca noticed that similar stickers with different names were pasted on two of the other apartment doors. The first thing he saw when he entered the apartment was the picture of himself taken just before he went overseas. Then his. mother and Gloria swarmed over him, and Alf was shaking his hand.

They all stood away from each other, and there was just one moment of awkward silence.

“You've gotten older,” his mother said, and they all laughed. “No, I mean more than three years older.”

“He hasn't changed,” Gloria said, “He hasn't changed a bit.”

“The conquering hero returns,” Alf said. “Look at all those ribbons. Did you do something brave, Walter?”

“Standard,” Mosca said; “most of the WACs got the same set” He pulled off his combat jacket and his mother took it from him. Alf went into the kitchen and came out with a tray of drinks.

“Ouist,” Mosca said, startled, “I thought you lost a leg.” He had completely forgotten his mother writing about Alf. But his brother had obviously been waiting for this moment. He drew up his trouser leg.

“Very pretty,” Mosca said. “Tougji luck, Alf.”

“Hell,” Alf said, “I wish I had two of ‘em. No athlete's foot, no ingrown toenails—you know.”

“Sure,” Mosca said. He touched his brother's shoulder and smiled.

“He put it on especially for you, Walter,” his mother said. “He doesn't usually wear it around the house even though he knows I hate to see him without it.”

Alf raised his drink. “To the conquering hero,” he said, and then with a smile, turning to Gloria, “To the girl who waited for him.”

“To our family,” Gloria said.

“To all my children,” his mother said affectionately. Her glance included Gloria. They all looked at Mosca expectantly.

“Let me drink this one, and then I can think of something.”

They all laughed and drank.

“And now for supper,” his mother said. “Help me set the table, Alf.” The two of them went into the kitchen.

Mosca sat down in one of the armchairs. “A long, long trip,” he said.

Gloria went over to the mantel and picked up the framed photo of Mosca. With her back to him she said, “Every week I'd come here and look at the picture. I'd help your mother get supper, we'd eat together, and then sit here in this room, looking at this picture and talking about you. Every week, for three years, like people visiting a cemetery, and now that you're back it doesn't look a bit like you.”

Mosca got up and went over to Gloria. Putting his arm on her shoulder he looked at the picture, wondering why it irritated him.

The head was thrown back in. a laugh, and he had obviously stood so that the black and white diagonal stripes of his division would show clearly. The face was youthful and full of an innocent good nature. The uniform was nattily fitted. Standing there in the heat of the southern sun he had been a typical GI getting himself photoed for an adoring family.

“What a jerky grin,” Mosca said.

“Don't make fun of it. That was all we had for a long time.” She was silent for a moment. “Ah, Walter,” she said, “how we cried over it sometimes, when you didn't write, whenever we heard rumors about a troop ship being sunk or a big battle being fought. On D day we didn't go to church. Your mother sat on the couch, and I sat here by the radio. We just sat here all day. I didn't go to work. I kept turning the radio to different stations; as soon as one news bulletin was finished I'd try to get another station, even though it would say the same thing. Your mother just sat there with a handkerchief in her hand, but she didn't cry. I slept here that night, in your room, in your bed, and I took the picture with me. I put it on the dresser and said good night to it, and then I dreamed that I would never see you again. And now here you are, Walter Mosca, in the flesh, and you don't look a bit like the picture.” She tried to laugh, but she was crying.

Mosca was embarrassed. He kissed Gloria gently. “Three years is a long time,” he said. And he thought,
On D day I was in an English town getting drunk. I was giving a little blonde what she claimed was her first drink of whisky and her first lay. I was celebrating D day but even more celebrating that I wasn't in it
He had a strong desire to tell Gloria the exact truth, that he hadn't thought of them that day, or of anything that they had thought of, but all he said was, “I don't like the picture—And besides when I came in you said I hadn't changed a bit.”

“Isn't it funny,” Gloria said, “when you came in the door you looked exactly like your picture. But when I kept looking at you it seemed as if your whole face had changed.”

His mother called from the kitchen, “It's ready,” and they went into the dining-room.

All his favorite foods were on the table, the rare roast beef with the small roasted potatoes, a green salad, and a slab of yellow cheese. The tablecloth was snowy white, and when he was finished he noticed the napkin untouched beside his plate. It had been good but not as good as he had dreamed it would be.

“Ah.” Alf said, “a big difference from GI chow, hey, Walter?”

“Yeah,” Mosca said. He took from his shirt pocket a short fat, dark cigar and was about to light it when he noticed they were all looking at him with amusement, Alf. Gloria, and his mother.

He grinned and said, “I'm a big boy now,” and lit the cigar, exaggerating his pleasure. They all four of than burst out laughing. It seemed as if the last awkwardness, the strangeness of his coming home so different in face and manner, had been swept away. Their surprise, and then amusement at their surprise when he had taken out the cigar had broken down the barrier between them. They went into the living-room, the two women with their arms around Mosca's waist, Alf carrying the tray with the whisky and ginger ale.

The women sat close to Mosca on the sofa, and Alf handed them all drinks and then sat down opposite them in one of the soft armchairs. The floor lamp sent a gentle yellow glow over the room and Alf said in the benign and half-joking tone he had used all evening, “The story of Walter Mosca will now be told.”

Mosca drank. “First, the presents,” he said. He went to his blue gym bag still lying by the door, took out three small boxes wrapped in brown paper, and handed one to each of them. While they were opening the packages he took another drink.

“Christ,” Alf said, “what the hell are these?” He held up four enormous silver cylinders.

Mosca laughed. “Four of the best cigars in the world. Specially made for Hermann Goering.”

Gloria opened her package and then gasped. In a black velvet box was a ring. Small diamonds were set around a square, dark-green emerald. She got up and flung her arms around Mosca and then turned to show the ring to his mother.

But his mother was fascinated by roll after roll of tightly packed wine-red silk falling to the floor in large folds. His mother held it up.

It was an enormous, square flag, and in the middle,
superimposed on a white, circular background, rested the spider-black swastika. They were all silent. In the quiet of this room they had seen for the first time the symbol of the enemy.

“Hell,” Mosca said, breaking the silence, “it was just a gag. You were supposed to see this.” He picked up the small box lying on the floor. His mother opened it, and seeing the blue-white diamonds she raised her eyes and thanked him. She folded the huge flag into a tight little square, then rose and picked up Mosca's blue gym bag, saying, “I'll unpack this.”

“TTiey are lovely presents,” Gloria said; “where did you get them?”

Mosca grinned and said, “Loot,” emphasizing the word comically so that they would laugh.

His mother came back into the room with a large bundle of photos in her hand.

“These were in your bag, Walter. Why didn't you show them to us?” She sat on the sofa and started looking at the photos one by one. She passed them on
io
Gloria and Alf. Mosca helped himself to a drink as they exclaimed over the different pictures and asked questions about where they had been snapped. Then he saw his mother turn pale, staring hard at one of the photos. For a moment Mosca had a feeling of panic, wondering if the really obscene pictures he had picked up were still there. But he was sure he had sold them all on the boat. He saw his mother pass the photos on to Alf, and he was angry with himself that he had felt any kind of fear.

“Well, well,” Alf said, “what's this?” Gloria went over and looked at the picture. He saw the three pairs of eyes turned to him, waiting.

Mosca leaned toward Alf and when he saw what it was, he felt a surge of relief. He remembered now. He had been riding on the back of a tank when it happened.

In the photo was the huddled figure of a German bazooka man lying crumpled in the snow, a dark line running black from his body to the end of the print Over the body stood himself, Mosca, staring straight into the camera, his M—I slung over his shoulder. He, Mosca, looked
curiously misshapen in his winter combat clothing. The blanket, in which he had cut holes for his head and arms, hung like a skirt beneath his combat jacket. He seemed to stand there like a successful hunter, ready to carry home the fallen game.

And not in the picture were the burning tanks on the covered plain. Not in the picture were the charred bodies sprinkled across the whitened field like rubbish. The German had been a good bazooka man.

“My buddy took that picture with a Leica the kraut had.” Mosca turned to his drink and turning back saw them still waiting.

“My first victim.’ he said, trying to make it sound like a joke. And yet it was as if he had said the Eiffel Tower or the Pyramids, explaining a background against which he had been standing.

His mother was studying the other photos. ‘Where was this taken?” she asked. Mosca sat down beside her and said, ‘That was in Paris on my first leave.” He put his arm around his mother's waist.

“And this?” his mother asked.

“That was in Vitry.”

“And this?”

“That was in Aachen.”

And this? And this? And this? He named the towns and told funny little stories. The drinks had put him into a good mood, but he thought,
This was in Nancy where I waited two hours on line to get laid, this was in Dombasle where I found the dead naked German with his balls swollen big as melons.
The placard on the door had said,
Dead German Inside.
And it hadn't lied. He wondered even now why someone had troubled to write it, even as a joke. And this was in Hamm, where he got his first piece in three months and his first dose. And this and this and this were the countless towns where the Germans, men, women, and children rested in their shapeless, rubbled tombs and gave out an overpowering stench.

And m all these the background against which he stood was like a man being photographed on a desert. He, the conqueror, stood on the flattened, pulverized remains of
factories, homes, human bones—the ruins stretching away like rolling sand dunes.

Mosca sat back on the sofa. He puffed on his cigar. “How about some coffee?” he asked. “I'll make it.” He went into the kitchen, Gloria following him, and together they set out the cups, cut the whipped-cream cake she took from the Frigidaire. And while the coffee boiled on the stove, she clung to him and said, “Darling, I love you, I love you.”

They brought the coffee into the living-room, and it was their turn to tell Mosca stories. How Gloria had never gone out on a date in three years, how Alf had lost his leg in a truck crash in a southern Army camp, and how his mother had gone to work again, clerking in a large department store. They had all had their adventures, but thank God the war was over, the Moscas had come through safely, a leg lost, but as Alf said, with modern transportation what did legs mean, and now here they all were, safe in this little room.

The enemy so far away, so utterly crushed, could no longer give them fear. The enemy was surrounded, occupied, starving, and melting away with disease, with no physical and moral strength ever to threaten than again. And when Mosca fell asleep in his chair, they, who all loved him, watched for a few minutes with a quiet, and almost tearful pleasure, almost not believing that he had traveled so far in time and place, and by some miracle bad returned, found his way back to safety unharmed.

It was the third night before Mosca could get Gloria alone. The second night had been spent at her house where his mother and Alf had settled details for the wedding with Gloria's sister and father, not really out of meddlesomeness but because of their joy and enthusiasm that everything had come out right They had all decided that the wedding would be as soon as possible but that it must wait until Walter had a steady job. Mosca had gone along more than willingly with the idea. And Alf had surprised Mosca. The timid Alf had grown into a confident,
assured, sensible man and played the family head to perfection.

On that third night his mother and Alf had gone out and Alf had grinned and said, “Watch the clock, we'll be home at eleven.” His mother had pushed Alf out of the door and said, “If you go out with Gloria don't forget to lock the door.”

Mosca had been amused at the note of doubt in her voice, as if the thought of leaving him and Gloria alone in the house was against her better judgment.
Good Christ,
he thought, and he stretched out on the sofa.

He tried to relax but was too tense and had to get up and pour himself a drink. He stood at the window and smiled, wondering how it would be. He and Gloria had spent evenings together in a small hotel room the few weeks before he had gone overseas, but he could hardly remember now. He went to the radio and turned it on and then went into the kitchen to look at the clock. It was nearly eight-thirty. The bitch’ was a half hour late. He went to the window again but it was too dark now to see anything. As he turned away there was a knock on the door, and Gloria came into the apartment