Mosca stood up from the bed. He said quietly, “You're not lying?”
“No, I do not lie,” Honny said. IBs face had gone dead white and the freckles stood out on his skin like spots of grease. “If you think back, you will know I do not lie.”
Mosca went to the wardrobe and unlocked it. He felt himself moving quickly and though his head was aching he felt almost happy. From the wardrobe he took a bode of blue American Express checks, signed five of them. They were each for a hundred dollars. He showed them to Honny. “Get Yergen to come here tonight and these belong to you.”
Honny backed away. “No, no,” he said, “I cannot do that. What made you think I can do that?”
Mosca held out the blue checks and took a step toward him. Honny backed away, murmuring, “No, no I cannot do it.” Mosca saw that he would not He took the man's briefcase from the table and gave it to him. “Thanks for telling me, anyway.’ he said.
Alone, he stood in the center of the room. His head pounded as if a great vein was filling and emptying itself with each giant blood stroke of his heart. He felt a little faint, as if his lungs could not swallow the close air of the room. He finished dressing and left the billet.
Out in the street he was surprised by the warmth of the sun. The early winter that had invaded autumn seemed to have died away. He turned into the Kurftirsten AUee, toward what had been his home, skirting the frail shadows cast by almost bare trees. Except for the headache he felt better than he had felt in a long time. He thought, Tonight Ftt be able to sleep right through.
He let himself into the apartment very quietly and stood outside the door of the living-room. He heard the squeak of a baby carriage, and when he went in he saw Frau Saunders pushing it back and forth. She
“Is he all right?” Mosca asked.
Frau Saunders nodded. “Everything is well.” She freed her hands from the book and the carriage and locked her fingers together.
“Did you get the package I sent?” The week before he had sent her a great carton of food.
She nodded her head again. She looked much older. Mosca recognized something familiar in the way she sat and in the way she answered.
He didn't look at her when he asked, “Can you keep the child indefinitely? I'll pay you well, anything you say.” His head felt as if it were swelling with pain, and he wondered if she would have aspirin.
Frau Saunders picked up her book again, held it unopened. The severe face had no touch of the wry humor he always remembered. “Herr Mosca, she said formally, “if you give your consent I will try to adopt your child as my son. That would solve your problem.” She said this very coldly, but suddenly the tears streamed down her face. She let the book fall away to the floor and used her hands to hide and stop her tears. And Mosca recognized what he had thought familiar, she was acting like his mother when he gave her pain.
Because she was not his mother and could not really touch him, he walked over to the sofa and rested his hand on her arm for a moment. “What is it, what have I done?” His voice was calm, reasonable.
Her hands had stopped the tears and dried them. She said quietly, “You don't care for the baby, you didn't come once all this time. What if she knew you would be like this? How terrible, how terrible, she loved you both so much. She always said you were good, and when she fell down the stairs she stretched out her arms for the baby. She was in such pain and she screamed, but she thought of the baby. And now you think nothing of what she loved so much.” She paused for breath, went on hysterically, “Oh, you are a terrible man, you tricked her, you are not a good man.” She leaned away from him and put her two hands on the carriage.
Mosca stepped back and away from her. To help her he said, “What do you think I should do?”
“I know what she would wish. That you take the child to America, give him a safe and happy life so that he will grow old.”
Mosca said simply, “We weren't married and therefore the child is German. It would take a long time.”
“So,” she said eagerly, “I can take care of him until then. You will do it?”
“I don't think I can,” he said. And suddenly he was impatient to leave. He was conscious of his headache again.
Frau Saunders was saying in her cold voice, “Do you want me to adopt him?”
He looked at the sleeping baby. He felt nothing. He took the Express checks he had signed from his pocket and left them on the table, “I don't know what will happen,” he said. He went to the door.
“When will you come to see your son again?” Frau Saunders's voice was angry. There was contempt in her face. Mosca turned back toward her.
The pain in his head was a great heavy beat, and he wanted to leave, but that look was more than he could bear. “Why don't you speak the truth, why don't you speak what is in your mind?” Not knowing his voice was rising he said, “You think it's my fault; you think she died because I didn't do enough to save her. Tell me the truth. That's why you are so angry, you look at me as if I'm an animal. You believe, ‘That American, another German he killed.’ Don't pretend you're angry about the child, don't pretend, don't act that lie. I know what you believe.”
For the first time Frau Saunders looked at him carefully, directly into his eyes. He looked very ill, his skin was yellow and his eyes were very black, there were angry red splotches forming on his mouth. “No, no,” she said. “I never thought so badly.” And as she said the words she realized for the first time that he spoke some truth.
But he was under control now. He said quietly, “I'll show you it's not true.” He turned and left; she could hear him running down the stairs.
Out in the street he lit a cigarette and looked up at the cloud-filled sky and then down the Kurfiirsten Allee. He had nearly smoked the cigarette away before he started walking back to his billet in the Metzer Strasse. The ache in his head was hurting his eyes and the veins in his neck. He looked at his watch. It was only three o'clock. There was still a long time to wait before he could do anything about Yergen.
twenty-five
His room was filled with afternoon shadows. He took some aspirin and lay on the bed. He was surprised at the tiredness he felt. He closed his eyes, it seemed only for a moment, and then he heard a knocking on the door, and opening his eyes he found himself in darkness. He switched on the table light and looked at his watch. It was only six o'clock. There was another knock and then the door was opened, and Eddie Cassin was in the room. He was neatly dressed, shaved, and smelled of talcum.
“Christ, you should lock the door when you sleep,” he said. Then casually, “How you feeling, wake you up?”
Mosca rubbed his face. “It's okay,” he said. His head ache was gone but his face felt very hot, his lips dry.
Eddie Cassin threw some letters on the table. “Picked Up your mail. You got a drink?”
Mosca went to the wardrobe and took out a bottle of gin, then two glasses.
“Big party tonight,” Eddie said. “Come on down.”
Mosca shook his head, handed him a glass. They both drank. Then Eddie said, “Your orders come in a week. The adjutant tried to stop it, said it was his fault. The colonel said no good.” He leaned toward Mosca. “Give the word and I'll lose some papers, #ve you an extra couple of weeks.”
“It doesn't matter,” Mosca said. He got up from the bed and looked out the window. There was still some twilight in the streets and he could see a group of children, waiting with unlit lanterns for complete darkness. He remembered hearing their song the last few nights, its softness shattering the light film of sleep that shielded his brain, not waking him, but seeping through somehow.
Eddie Cassin behind him said, “What about the kid?”
&nb
sp; Mosca said, “Frau Saunders, she's keeping him.”
Eddie's voice was low. “Ill go see her. Don't worry.” He paused. “It's tough, Walter. Guys like you and me are jinxed. Just take it easy.”
The children in the street formed two files and marched down the Metzer Strasse and out of sight, their lamps still dark. Eddie said, “TTiose letters are from your mother. I cabled her. I figured you not to write.”
Mosca turned around to face him. “You've been a good friend,” he said. “Could you do me one last favor?”
“Sure,” Eddie said.
“You never told me Yergen was back in town. I want to see him. Can you get him over here?”
Eddie took another drink and watched Mosca move around the room. There was something wrong, he thought Mosca had his voice under control, but his eyes were like black mirrors and every so often a spasm twisted his face into what seemed a second of rage and hatred.
Eddie said slowly, “I hope you're not figuring anything stupid, Walter. The guy made a mistake. It wasn't his fault. Hell, you know Yergen went out of his way for Hella all the time.”
Mosca smiled. “Hell, I just want to get back the cigarettes and money I paid for that stuff. Why should I pay?”
Eddie was so surprised and then so relieved tihat he let out a yelp of relief and joy. “Christ, boy, now you're back to normal Why the hell should you pay for it?” Back in his mind flashed the thought that this was like Mosca to think of not being cheated, even in his grief. But his relief was genuine. He was glad to see that Mosca had finally come back to normal.
He was struck by an idea. He grabbed Mosca by the arm. “Look,” he said, “listen to me. I'm going with Frau Meyer for a week, up to the mountains around Marburg. You come along. I'll get you a girl, a real sweet girl. Well have lots of laughs, farmer food, liquor. Cmon, say yes for a buddy.”
Mosca smiled at him. “Sure, okay,” he said.
Eddie laughed out loud. “That's it, Walter. That's fine. Fine.” He slapped Mosca on the shoulder. “WeTl leave tomorrow night. Wait till you see those mountains. Beautiful, really beautiful.” He paused for a moment and with real affection, almost fatherly, he said, “Maybe we can figure a way to get your kid back to the States with you. That's the thing you know she'd want, Walter. More than anything else.” Then with an embarrassed smile, “Come on down. Just for one drink.”
Mosca said, “You getting Yergen here for me?”
Eddie looked at him thoughtfully. Mosca said, “The truth is I'm broke, Eddie. I have to leave money with Frau Saunders for the kid. I need dough to go with you to Marburg.” He laughed. “Unless you're treating for the whole week.” He made his voice quietly sincere. “And I need the money for the trip to the States. That's all there is to it. I paid the guy a small fortune for that stuff.”
Eddie was convinced. “Sure, I'll get him,” he said. “Ill go right now. And then after you come down to the party. Okay?”
“Sure, Mosca said.
When Eddie left, Mosca looked round the empty room. He saw the letters on the bed, picked one up, and sat down on the bed to read it When he finished he realized he had not understood a sentence. He went ova: it again. He tried to connect the words so they would mean something. They wavered through his unfocused mind, filtered through the noises of the billet.
Please come, his mother wrote. Don't think about anything, please come home. Pit take care of the baby. You can go back to school, yot/re only twenty-three, I always forget how young you are and for six years you've been away. If you feel bitter now, pray to God, that is the only thing that helps. Your life is beginning.
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 dri
nking 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.