The Dark Arena (34 page)

He threw the letter on the floor and stretched out on the bed. Below him he could hear the parties starting, the soft music and the laughing voices. His headache was be ginning again. He switched out the light. The tiny yellow eyes of his watch told him it was six-thirty. He had plenty of time. He closed his eyes.

He thought of how it would be, the return home, seeing his mother and child every day, finding another girl and settling down. Buried inside himself he would carry this other life, his hatred for everything they believed. His life would be a stone over the grave of everything he had ever seen or done or felt. He thought with surprise of what he had shouted at Frau Saunders. It had sprung out of him. He had never even thought such a thing. But now he could see all the mistakes he had made, he forced his mind onto something else.

Drowsily the images formed into Hella carrying the child off die boat and meeting his mother. Then aD of them in the living-room together, and then every morning, every night, seeing each other's face. He fell asleep.

He dreamed, or thought, a fraction of his brain awake, that he was on his way home, that the sign on the door read,
Welcome Home, Walter,
that he had left Hella alive in Germany and on his way home had dreamed a year away. TTiat he had never returned to Hella, that she had not held the gray bread in her hands and let it fall to the floor, that he had opened that other door and Gloria and his mother and Alf were waiting for him, and he had come out of a nightmare to them, and they were in a great flood of light. But then his mother had a bundle of pictures in her hand, and he could see a crib in the corner and the curled back of a sleeping child and he was afraid, and then they were all sitting down and passing photos and his mother said, “Oh, what's this?” and he looked and saw his combat jacket and his blanket skirt and smiling over a
mounded grave. “That's my third vietim,” he said and laughed and laughed, but Alf was angry and stood on one great tall leg and shouted, “That's going too far, Walter, that's going too far.” Everybody was standing up and his mother was wringing her hands, and he saw his face saying, “Good-by Good-by,” and then everything was very dark. But Wolf came with a candle and he was in the cellar with Wolf, and Wolf held his candle high in the air and said, “She's not here, Walter, she's not here,” and he felt the sifting rubbled floor pulling him down down below the candlelight, and he began to scream.

He was awake and knew he had made no sound. Hie room was completely dark, the windows painted black by night. Great shrieks of laughter filled the billet. Undulating waves of sound, music, loud male voices, many feet running up and down the stairs. In the room next to his be heard a couple making love. Then the girl saying, “Now, let's go down to the party. I want to dance.” TTie man grumbling, angry. And the girl's vpice, “Please, please I want to dance.” The sighing of the bed as they rose, then the girl laughing in the hall, and he was in silence and darkness.

Eddie Cassin couldn't help dropping in on the party before he went to Yergen, but he was only a little drunk when he spotted the two young girls. They were not more than sixteen. Dressed exactly alike, in little blue hats, little blue tailored jackets, white parachute-silk blouses, they delighted his eye. Their skin and hair set off their clothes with delicate pinks, creamy whites, and there were ringlets like golden coins across their foreheads. They danced with some of the men but refused all drinks and always came together when the music stopped as if they found a virtuous strength in each other.

Eddie watched them for a time, smiling, planning the attack. Then he went to the prettier one and asked her to dance. One of the men said protesting, “Hey, Eddie, I brought her up here.” Eddie said, “Don't worry, I'll fix it”

While dancing he asked her, “Is that your sister?”

The girl nodded. She had a pot little face and on it
was the look of frightened haughtiness he understood, so well.

“Does she always follow you around?” Eddie asked and his voice was a compliment to her, an invitation to disparage her sister in a gentle way.

The girl smiled with an innocent fatuousness he found charming. She said, “Oh, my sister is a little too shy.”

The record ended and he asked, “Would you and your sister like a little supper in my room?” She was immediately frightened and shook her head. Eddie gave her his paternally sweet smile, his delicate face had an almost fatherly understanding. “Oh, I know what you think.” He led her to where Frau Meyer was drinking with two men.

“Meyer,” he said, “this little girl is frightened of me. She refused my invitation to supper. But if you come and chaperon, I think she will say yes.”

Frau Meyer put her arm around the girl's waist “Oh, you don't worry about him. He is the one good man in the house. I'll come with you. And he has, the finest food, food you girls haven't tasted since you wore in diapers.” The girl blushed and went to call her sister.

Eddie went over to the man who had brought the girl. “It's all fixed,” he said. “Go with Meyer to my room. Say I'll be there later.” Eddie went to the door. “Save me some,” he said laughing. “I'll be back in an hour.”

Mosca watched the city from his window. Far away across the plateau of ruins, the heart of the city, he saw a long rope of green and yellow light, an arrow pointing as if drawn, to the blazing windows of the Metzer Strasse. He knew it was the children with their lanterns. But the shouts of laughter, the party noises of music and uneven tread of dancing feet, the small coy shrieks of drunken women, all these drowned what he listened for, the song they sang.

He left the window open and took his shaving kit and towel and went to the bathroom. He left the bathroom door open so that he would hear anyone going to his room.

He washed thoroughly, the water cool on his hot face. Then he shaved, studying the smooth and quiet features,
the long thin nose, the long thin mouth with almost color less lips, the hollow black eyes, and dark bronzed skin, gray now with fatigue and splotched with fever sores.

He rinsed the soap off his face and then kept looking it. He was surprised at how strange it seemed to him, ai if he had never really seal it. He turned his head to look at each profile and how the deep eye socket cast shadows over his jaw. He saw the cruelty and evil, the black glints in the dark eyes, the firm and brutal chin. He steppec back, his hand out to cover that mirror face, but surprised, let his hand drop before it touched glass. For a moment he smiled.

In his room it was cold. There was a strange hum in the air. He went to the window and closed it. The hum ceased. The green and yellow lights crossing the ruins were much nearer. He looked at his watch. It was nearly eight o'clock. He felt suddenly weak and feverish, nausea made him sit on the bed. The ache that had been burie< by aspirin broke into its steady beat, and with a terrible despair, as if he had lost final hope for salvation, he was sure that Yergen would not come. He felt very cold an< went to the wardrobe and put on his old green combs jacket From an empty cigarette carton he took the Hungarian pistol and slipped it into his pocket He put all hi cigarettes in a small suitcase, then the shaving kit an< the nearly full bottle of gin. Then he sat on the bed to wait

Eddie Cassin parked the jeep in front of the church. He wait around die side entrance and up the steps to the steeple. He knocked on the door; there was no answer. He waited, then knocked again. On the other side of the door, Yergen's voice came, unexpectedly clear, “Who there?”

Eddie said, “It is Mr. Cassin.” Yergen's voice said, “What do you want?” Eddie Cassin said, “Frau Meyer sent me with a message.’

The bolt slid back mid the door opened. Yergen stooi by it, waiting for him to enter. The room was dark, except for one little table lamp
the comer, and beneath this lamp, pn a small sofa, Yer-gen's daughter held a book of fairy tales. She rested against great cushions piled against the wall.

“Yes, what is it?” Yergen said. He looked much older, his slight figure was thinner, but his face was still sure, still proud.

Eddie put out his hand. Yergen shook it. Eddie said with a smile, “Come, we've known each other a long time, we've had many a drink together. Is this a way to act with me?”

Yergen smiled reluctantly. “Ah, Mr. Cassin, when I worked in the Metzer Strasse I was a different man. Now—”

Eddie said slowly, sincerely, “You know me, I wouldn't trick you. I've come for your benefit. My friend, Mosca, wants his money and cigarettes back. What he paid for the defective drugs.”

Yergen was watching him intently, then said, “Of course, I will do that. But tell him not immediately. I cannot.”

Eddie said, “He wants you to come see him tonight”

“Oh, no, oh, no,” Yergen said. “I will not go to see him.”

Eddie looked at Yergen's daughter lying on the sofa. She had opened her eyes into a wide, blank stare. It made him uncomfortable.

“Yergen,” he said, “Mosca and I are leaving tomorrow for Marburg. When we come back he leaves for the States. Now if you don't come to see him tonight, he will come here. If he becomes angry, he will frighten the little girl when he quarrels with you.”

As he had known it would, this last argument took effect. Yergen shrugged, then went to get his coat. Then he went to his daughter.

Eddie watched them. Yergen with his heavy fur-collared overcoat and neatly combed brown hair, his look of quiet dignity and seriousness, knelt humbly, sadly, to whisper nto his daughter's ear. Eddie knew he was giving her the signal, so that when he returned and knocked on the door, [he little girl would slide back the iron bolt He could see
the little girl's blank eyes watching him over her father's shoulder and he thought, what if she forgot the signal, what if she never answered her father's knocking on the door.

Yergen rose, took his briefcase, and they went out. Yer-gen paused, waited until he heard on the other side of the door the sound of iron sliding over wood, until he knew that his daughter was locked away from the world.

They got into Eddie's jeep. Once during the ride through the dark streets, Yergen said, “You wiU stay with me when we meet?” And Eddie said, “Sure, don't worry.”

But now in Eddie Cassin rose a vague uneasiness. They drove into the light of the Metzer Strasse and the billet. Eddie parked the jeep and they got out. Eddie looked up. There was no light in Mosca's room. “Maybe he's at the party,” Eddie said.

They went into the billet. On the first landing, Eddie said to Yergen, “Wait here.” He went into the party but saw no sign of Mosca. When he went out into the hall, Yergen was waiting for him. He could see that Yergen's face was pale, and suddenly Eddie Cassin felt a terrible sense of danger. Through his mind flashed everything Mosca had said and he felt it was all false. He said to Yergen, “Come on, Til take you home, he's not here. Come on.”

Yergen said, “No, let us finish this. I am not afraid. No more—”

But Eddie Cassin started to push Yergen down the steps. He was certain, almost overwhelmed with suspicious terror, and then suddenly he heard Mosca's voice above them, cold and with controlled fury say, “You fuckin” Eddie, let him go.” Yergen and Eddie looked up.

He stood on the landing above them and in the weak hall light his face was sickly yellow. Two great red fever sores blistered his thin mouth. He stood very still. The green combat jacket seemed to make him bulkier than he really was. “Come on up, Yergen,” he said. One hand was hidden behind his back.

“No,” Yergen said in an unsteady voice, “I am leaving with Mr. Cassin,”

Mosca said, “Eddie, get out of the way. Come up here.”

Yergen held on to Eddie's arm, “Don't leave me,” he said. “Stay here.”

Eddie held up his hand to Mosca and said, “Walter, for Christ's sake, Walter, don't do it”

Mosea took two steps down. Eddie tried to pull free from Yergen, but Yergen clutched his arm and cried out, “Don't let me stand alone— Don't, don't—” Mosca took another step down. His eyes were black, opaque, the red fever sores on his mouth burned in the hall light. Suddenly the pistol was in his hand. Eddie flung himself away from Yergen, and Yergen alone, with a despairing cry tried to turn, tried to run down the stairs. Mosca fired. In his first step Yergen fell to his knees. He raised his head, the faded blue eyes staring upward, and Mosca fired again. Eddie Cassin ran up the steps past Mosca and kept running to the attic,

Mosca put the gun back in his pocket. The body rested fiat on the landing, the head dangling over to the descending steps.

From the rooms below came a great wave of laughter, the phonograph began a loud waltz, there began a great stamping of feet and loud yodeling cries. Mosca ran up the stairs quickly to his room. Dark shadows stretched through the window. He waited and listened He went to the window.

There was no alarm, but the ruins of the city, the great hills of rubble crawled with a mass of brilliantly hued caterpillars, bobbing lanterns that lit the coming winter night with long tracers of green fire. A great rash of sweat poured over his face and body. He began to tremble, a great circling blackness sickened him and he pushed the window open and waited.

Now, in the street below, he could hear the children singing. The lanterns he could not see swung in his mind and heart, and as the choral died away, he felt an extraordinary release from fear and tension. The cold air rushed over him and the sickness and blackness left his body.

He picked up the packed suitcase and ran down the stairs, over Yergen's body, past the party noises. Nothing
had changed. Out of the billet he started walking
across
the back plateau of ruins, then turned for one last look.

Four great stages of light cast a burning shield against the darkness of the city and the night and from each tier came a long rolling wave of music and laughter. He stood outside that shield of light feeling no remorse, only thinking that he would never see his child or Eddie Cassin, his country or his family again. He would never see the mountains around Marburg. Finally he had become the enemy.

Far across the ruins, toiling upward toward the black and falling winter sky he could see the green and red of the children's lanterns, but he could no longer hear their song. He turned away from them and walked toward the
Strossenbahn
that would take him to the railroad station.