The Dark Arena (27 page)

After a few stops two WACs climbed aboard. One of
them noticed the child in Hella's arms and said to the other, “Isn't that a cute German baby?”

The other WAC leaned over to look and said several times, loudly, “Oh, it's a lovely baby,” and looking up to Hella's face to see if she understood, said,
“Schon, schon.’

Hella smiled and looked at Mosca, but he made no sign. One of the WACs took a bar of chocolate out of her purse and as they came to a stop she quickly put it on the baby's body. Before Hella could protest they were both out of the car and walking away’

Mosca had been amused at first, but for some reason he was angry now. He took the bar of chocolate and flung it into the street

When they had left the
Strassenbahn
and were walking home, Hella said, “Don't be so upset because they took us for Germans.”

But it was more than that. He had been frightened, as if. they were really Germans, and had to accept charity, humiliation as one of the conquered. “Well be out of here soon,” he said. “I'll talk to Eddie tomorrow about speeding up the papers.” He felt for the first time a sense of urgency.

Eddie Cassin left the country club with no idea of where he could go. The sight of Mosca sitting on the grass, his head resting against Hella's knees, one hand on the wheel of the cream-colored carriage, the sight of this was painful to him. He caught a
Strassenbahn
and thought,
I'll go see the gorilla.
This cheered him up enough to watch the girls walking their way to the center of town. At the far end of the city he walked down to the river, crossed the bridge over the Weser, and caught another
Strassenbahn
that continued on through the Neustadt. He got off at the last stop before the streetcar went out to the air base.

The row of buildings here was intact. He entered one and climbed up three flights of stairs and knocked. He heard Elfreida's voice say, “One moment.” Then the door opened.

Eddie Cassin was shocked each time he saw her. The soft figure, full but really fuller than it looked, the trim
ankles and hips and then that monstrosity of ft head with its delicate violet eyes, red rimmed like rabbit eyes.

Eddie Cassin went in and sat down on the couch against the wall. “Get me a drink, baby,” he said. He kept a supply of liquor here; he felt safe doing so. He knew Elfreida never touched the stuff unless he was present. As she mixed the drink he watched with fascination the movements of her head.

It was a little too large for its body and the hair was like mounds of brassy wire spikes. The skin was old and looked like chicken skin, with the yellow, fatty sheen and huge pores. The nose was splayed as if smashed by many vicious blows, and her lips, until she made them up as she always did when Eddie came, were two puffy welts the color of veal. She had a great sagging chin and jaw. But as she moved around the room and spoke to him, her voice was soft and musical and somewhere in it the trill of a long-passed adolescence. She spoke English very well, was adept at languages, and made her living as a translator and interpreter. Sometimes she gave Eddie lessons in German. Eddie felt comfortable and safe here. She always lighted the room with candles and Eddie thought, chuckling, that probably they had other uses. On the opposite wall was a bed and near it, against the wall which faced the window was a bureau on which stood a picture of her husband, a handsome-looking fellow whose uneven teeth showed in a good-natured smile.

“I didn't expect you tonight,” Elfreida said. She gave him his drink and sat away from him on the couch. She had learned that if she made any gesture of affection or desire he would leave, but that if she waited until he had drunk enough he would put out the candles and drag her violently to the bed, and she knew then she had to pretend unwillingness.

Eddie lay back on the couch drinking, staring at the picture. The dead husband had fallen before Stalingrad and Elfreida had often told him how, with her fellow countrywomen, she had donned her widow black on the special day of mourning decreed for German men who
had died there, so many that now the very name Stalingrad had a terrible sound in their hearts.

“I still think he was a fairy,” Eddie Cassin said. “How come he ever married you?” He watched her agitation and distress which he always caused her on his bad nights.

‘Tell me, did he ever make love to you?” Eddie Cassin asked.

“Yes,” Elfreida said in a low voice.

“How often?”

She didn't answer.

“Once a week?”

“More,” she said.

“Well, maybe he wasn't a complete fairy,” Eddie said with a judicial air. “But I'll tell you one thing, he was unfaithful to you.”

“No,” she said, and he noted with satisfaction that she was already crying.

Eddie stood up. “If you're going to act that way, not even talking to me, I might as well leave.” He was playacting, she knew but she knew what her response must be. She fell to her knees and clasped his legs in her arms.

“Please, Eddie, don't go. Please don't go.”

“Say your husband was a fairy, tell me the truth.”

“No,” she said, rising to her feet and crying with anger. “Don't say that word again. He was a poet.”

Eddie took another drink and said solemnly, “You see, I knew all the time. All poets are fairies. See? Besides I can tell by his teeth.” He gave her a sly grin.

She was weeping hysterically now with rage and grief. “You can go,” she cried out, “leave here, you beast, you dirty, filthy beast.” And when he swung and hit her in the face and dragged and knocked her on the bed she knew she had fallen into a trap; that he had deliberately made her angry to excite himself. When he threw his body upon her she tried not to respond but she sank under his frenzy, and as always, succumbed to a similar frenzy of her own. But tonight was worse than it had ever been. They sank further in their bed and their passion. He made her take long drinks from the whisky bottle and humiliated her in every way. He made her crawl on hands and knees and
beg with her mouth open. He made her gallop around tike room in the darkness, changing pace with his commands. Finally he took pity on her and said, “Whoa,” and she stopped. Then he let her come into the bed and into his arms.

“Now say your husband was a fairy.” He got ready to push her out of bed again.

With a childlike drunkenness she repeated after him, “My husband was a fairy.” She was silent after this and lay supinely on the bed. He made her sit up so that he could see the shadow of her long, cone-shaped breasts. Like footballs, almost exactly like footballs. Eddie marveled. Dressed she seemed ordinary. He had experienced a thrill of delight the first time he had discovered that treasure.

“I feel sick, Eddie,” she said. “I have to go to the bathroom.” He helped her there and sat her naked on the toilet bowl. Then he fixed himself a drink and lay back on the bed.

Poor Elfreida,
Eddie Cassin thought,
poor Etfreida. Do anything for a stiff dick.
When he had spotted her on the
Strassenbahn
the first time, he had known everything about her from the quick look she had given him. Now, sated, void of passion and hate, he wondered at his cruelty to her, a wonder without regret, and his willful destruction of the memory of her husband. And what kind of a guy was he to marry a woman with a head like that? From what Elfreida had told him at the beginning the guy was really crazy about her, and with a body like hers you could forgive a lot of other things. But not that head, Eddie thought.

He made another drink and went back to bed. So she had the luck to find the one guy in the world who would marry her, the one person who had the eyes to see her soul beneath the mask nature had given her, and from what she said and what the picture told you, a real hell of a guy. And he was corrupting that memory.

He could hear Elfreida throwing up in the bathroom. He felt sorry for her, knowing that he had terrorized her to quell his own panic. Now, finally, irrevocably, the last
roots of his Bfe had been torn away. He couldn't blame his wife. He had never been able to hide his disgust when die was sick. And carrying the kid she had been ugly, always throwing up like Elfreida now. He had never touched her then.

Eddie took another drink. His mind became hazy but he kept thinking of his wife as if she were standing beside him, legs spread apart; and into his mind came a picture of the old ice box his mother used to have, how he went down every day to the cellar of the coal man and brought up in a heavy wooden bucket the frosty block of ice, and then emptied the great hollow basin underneath the ice box which caught the water as it melted and dripped out And when he emptied that great basin every morning, in the murky water floated bits of decayed food, shreds of newspapers, wet clotted wads of dirt, and dead cockroaches, ten, sometimes thirty, floating cm their hard brown shells, their thin threadlike feelers flattened into the water like innumerable streaks of watery blood. In his mind now his wife was standing with legs thrust apart, the gray enameled basin resting on the floor between her ankles. And falling slowly down from her body were decayed bits of food, the clotted dirt and the dead, brown-shelled cockroaches, falling end over end.

He raised himself up and called out, “Elfreida.” There was no answer. He wait into the bathroom and found her lying on the floor, her heavy breast pressed against the tile. He lifted her and brought her back to the bed and then saw she was crying silently, weakly. Suddenly it seemed as if he were standing far away, looking down at her and Eddie Cassin. He could see his own face reflected in the candles and the summer night and a great swift spear of terror went through Us body. In his mind he cried out
God, God, help me. Please help me.
He kissed her face, the great mouth and nose and yellow cheeks. “Stop crying,” he said, “please stop crying. Your husband was a fine man, he wasn't a fairy. I was teasing.”

And into his mind from long ago, he as a boy was listening to someone read the faintly remembered fairy tales.

The word so beautiful then, the fairy tales, and like everything else once innocent, corrupted now. The voice reading, “Lost lost lost in the forest. Pity the lost princess.” And into his mind came now as it had come then into his boy's mind, the picture of a virginal maiden with a crown and veil of white lace, the delicate features of an angel, the slight body of an undeveloped girl with no rotundity of hip or breast, no hint of nubility to mar the purity of her form. And then (was it in school or the bedroom of his home?) looking out the window, tear-blurred eyes sweeping over a forest of stone, he had wept silently and weakly, the imploring voice behind him softly saying, “Pity the lost beauty,” and going on and on and on.

That night Hella and Mosca left the baby with Frau Saunders and strolled down to Metzer Strasse where Mosca still had his official billet. Mosca carried the blue gym bag in which were towels and clean underclothing.

They were both hot and dusty and looked forward to a leisurely bath. There was no heating boiler in Frau Saun-ders's house.

In front of the building stood Frau Meyer. She wore white slacks and a white blouse, presents from Eddie Cassin. She was smoking an American cigarette and looking curiously smug. “Hello, you two,” she said. “You haven't been to see us for a long time.”

“Don't tell me you're lonely,” Mosca said.

Frau Meyer laughed, the buck teeth showing from the pulled back mouth. “No, I'm never lonely. Not with such a house full of men.”

Hella asked, “Frau Meyer, do you know if Leo has returned from Hamburg?”

Frau Meyer gave them a look of surprise. “Why, he returned Friday. Hasn't he been to see you?”

“No,” Mosca said, “and I haven't seen him eating at the Rathskellar or the club.”

The smug look was back on Frau Meyer's face. “He's in his room now with a wonderful black eye. I teased him about it but I could see he was angry so I left him alone.”

“I hope he's not sick,” Hella said. They went up the
stairs and knocked on the door of Leo's room. Mosca knocked louder but there was no answer. He tried the door. It was locked.

“Old Meyer missed something for once,” Mosca said, “He probably went out.”

TTiey went into Mosca's room and Mosca undressed and went to the bathroom at the end of the halL He soaked in the tub for the time to smoke one cigarette, then washed quickly. When he came back to the room Hella was resting on the bed, cradling one side of her face in her hands.

“What's the matter?” Mosca asked.

“My tooth hurts,” Hella said, “all that candy and ice cream I ate today.”

“I'll take you to the dentist tomorrow,” Mosca said.

“No, it will go away,” Hella said. “I've had it before.” She undressed as Mosca was dressing, put on the damp bathrobe, and went down the hall.

Mosca was tying his shoelaces when he heard someone moving around in Leo's room. For one moment he thought it might be a German domestic looting and he called out sharply, “Leo?” He waited, then he heard Leo say through the wall, “It's me.”

Mosca went out of his room and Leo had unlocked the door. When he entered Leo was already walking away from him and toward the bed.

“How come you didn't drop over?” Mosca asked.

Leo got onto the bed and when he turned to lie cm his back Mosca saw his face. There was a dark-blue stain under one eye and a lump on the forehead. His face looked puffy and swollen.

Mosca stared at him for a moment then walked over to the table and sat by it. He lit a cigar. He had a good idea of what had happened, the headlines he had seen in
Stars and Stripes
last night. It hadn't registered then through all the beer.

There had been a picture of a ship sailing into the harbor of Hamburg. The ship was black with people. Underneath the picture was the story of how this ship had tried to make its way to Palestine carrying former inmates of concentration camps. The British had intercepted the ship
and brought it to Hamburg. The people in it had refused to disembark and had been forced to do so by armed troops.

Mosca asked quietly, “You see that business up in Hamburg, is that it?”