The Dark Arena (15 page)

The giant took them one by one into the next room and also took care of the door as more officers and GIs and Germans arrived. Some Mosca recognized as base personnel, crew chiefs, a mess sergeant, the PX officer. All acted as if they did not know each other after the first nod erf greeting.

The windows were heavily shuttered but the sound of jeep motors starting and dying to a halt could be heard in that room. When someone disappeared with the giant, they never returned. At the other end of the house was a door that served as exit.

Their turn came, and the giant took them into the next room. He indicated they were to wait. The room was empty save for two wooden chairs and a small table on
which was an ash tray. When they were alone Mosca said, “That's a big guy.”

“Her protection,” Wolf said, “but if she has the scrip that won't mean nothing. That giant is nearly a moron. She keeps him here to scare people, like drunken GIs and krauts. But for the real McCoy he can't do much.” He smiled at Mosca.

After a short wait the giant came in again. He said, in German, in a huskily soft voice that did not fit his body, “Would yon care to see something I personally wish to sell?” He took out a band of gold in which was fastened a large diamond. He gave it to Mosca. “Only ten cartons.”

Mosca handed it over to Wolf and said, “That looks like a good buy. A carat at least.”

Wolf turned it over and smiled. ‘It's not worth anything,” he said. “See, it's fiat backed. I told you this guy was a moron.” He threw the ring to the giant who snatched at it clumsily but missed and had to stoop down from his great height to pick it up from the floor. Then determinedly he gave the ring to Mosca again. “Ten cartons, a bargain, but do not tell the old Frau.” He put a huge finger, childlike, on his lips.

Mosca tried to give the ring back to him but the giant refused to take it. “Ten cartons, keep it for ten cartons,” he said over and over again. Mosca put the ring on the table. Slowly, sadly, the giant picked it up.

Then he motioned them to follow and opened the door to the next room. He stood by the door to let them pass, first Mosca, then Wolf. But as Wolf went by he gave a malicious push that sent the American hurtling to the center of the room. Then the giant closed the door and stood by it.

A small, stout, gray-haired woman sat in a wide wicker chair, beside her a desk on which stood an open ledger. There were stacks of PX goods against one wall, hundreds of cartons of cigarettes, yellow boxes of chocolate bars, bars of toilet soap, and other toilet goods with bright wrappers. A small German man was arranging the goods neatly into piles. The pockets of his black, ill-fitting jacket
bulged with German currency, and when he turned to watch them a bundle of it feU to the floor.

The woman spoke first and she spoke in English. “I am very sony,” she said. “Once in a great while Johann takes a dislike to someone and does such a thing. There is nothing to be done.”

Wolf had been taken by surprise and stood in momentary bewilderment But now his heavy dead-white face turned crimson. The woman's insolent tone angered him even more. He saw Mosca smiling at him and that Mosca had stepped to a wall where he could command everyone in the room if he showed a weapon. Wolf shook his head, then turned to the old woman and saw the glint of amusement in her shrewd eyes.

“It is a small thing,” Wolf said calmly. “You know what I have come for. Can you help us?”

The woman looked him up and down and still speaking English said, “My dear man, your story has a stink to it. I don't know of this million dollars in scrip. If I did I would be very careful in my dealings with you and your friend. Really, you insult my intelligence.”

Wolf kept his smile.
Business before pleasure,
he thought. He said, “If you make a contact and deliver that contact to me it may well mean a small fortune for you. For such a little thing.”

There was contempt in the woman's voice and disdain in her puffy, fat cheeks. “I am a woman of business and will have no part in such affairs. And make certain I will warn my friends against you.” She gave a snort of laughter.
“You
have five thousand cartons.”

Wolf was still smiling. He asked, “Can either of these two men understand English? It is important.”

The woman, surprised by the unexpected question, said, “No, they do not.”

The smile faded from Wolfs face, and into it, as if it were a mask he had always ready, came the look of power, a confident quiet sternness.

He put his briefcase on the table and leaned over it to look directly into the old woman's circled eyes.

“You are too clever and too proud,” he said with measured harshness. “You think you have some power, that you are safe, that your age and your men protect you. I don't like insolent Germans. You don't understand Americans, you and your giant.” The woman was alert now, her eyes a beady, flashing black. The little German with his bulging coat had a frightened look. The pant at the door moved toward Wolf. Mosca drew the Hungarian pistol from his briefcase and clicked off the safety catch” They all turned to him.

He didn't point the gun, held it down to the floor. In German he said to the giant, “Turn around.” The giant moved toward him. Mosca took a step forward and the old woman, seeing his face, called out a sharp command to the giant. He gave her a bewildered look, then retreated to the far wall and turned his back.

Wolf leaned toward the woman again. “Do you like my friend?” he asked her.

She didn't answer. She kept her eyes on Mosca. The little German, without a command, joined the giant against the wall. Wolf went on. “My friend is a very pride-ful and irritable man. If your giant had pushed him instead of me there would be no speeches, you would be very sad people here. There would be no words, words I speak so calmly. Now listen. I am reasonable. I hold no grudge for this incident. But if on my rounds I learn you have given information about me, then you can see the other side of my face.”

He stopped and looked into the old woman's eyes. There was no fear in them. She was regarding him quite calmly, without compliance. But this was in his province, this was his life work, this challenged the genius he knew he had. He understood that look as no one else could. That words meant nothing, threats no hindrance or persuasion to the human will. He smiled because he knew the answer. He went over to the giant and pushed and turned him around.

“You lump, take off your belt and stand before your mistress,” he said. The giant did so. Wolf stepped away. He drew his gun from his briefcase, for effect really, and said to the woman, “Tell him to give you three hard strokes
on your back.” He made his voice malignant. “If yoil Cty out I'll kill the three of you. Now. Tell him three strokes.”

The old woman was still calm. “You do not understand” she said. “If I order him he will take me quite seriously and injure me terribly. He will strike with all his power.”

Wolf said good-humoredly, “I understand perfectly.”

Her fat cheeks creased with a faint doubtful smile. “You have made your point, it is not necessary to go any further. I will say nothing, I promise. Now, please, I have many people waiting.”

Wolf paused for a long moment, and then with a deliberately cruel smile he said, “One stroke. To seal our bargain.”

For the first time the woman seemed frightened. Her face sagged, there was a quaver in her voice. “I shall scream for help,” she said.

Wolf didn't answer her. He spoke to Mosca, slowly, so that the woman would be sure to understand. “When the woman goes down, kill the big man.” !He swung the gun up to the woman's face.

She turned her head away. She said to the giant in German, “Johann, give me one hard stroke across the back.” She sat on the chair with her head bowed on the table, her rounded fat shoulders hunched for the blow. The giant swung his belt down and when it hit, they could hear a terrible crackling split of skin and meat beneath cloth. The woman raised her head. Her face was bloodless with pain and fright and shock.

Wolf looked at her with cold, emotionless eyes. “Now you understand,” he said. Then, mimicking her insolent voice and manner, “There is nothing to be done.” He walked to the door and said, “Come on, Walter,” and they went through the rooms they had come by and out the front door.

In the jeep going back to town, Wolf laughed and said to Mosca, “Would you have shot that big guy if I gave the word?”

Mosca lit a cigarette. He was still tense. “Hell, I knew
it was an act. I got to hand it to you, Wolf, you put on a hell of a show.”

Wolf said in a satisfied voice, “Experience, boy. Some of our officers were too chicken to use real pressure on prisoners. So we had to use the scare technique. And you looked real mean there on the wall.”

“I was surprised,” Mosca said, “When that big guy pushed you and the old dame was so snotty, I figured a trap. Then I was mad Christ, don't they know some of these GIs would butcher the whole crew for a stunt like that?”

Wolf said slowly, “I'll tell you how people are, Walter. This old dame, she thinks she's clever. And she has this big giant and ill these officers and GIs treat her with respect because she can make their fortune. Now get this. She forgets. She forgets what it is to be afraid. That one stroke she got was the key. Remember that. Without that one stroke she couldn't be afraid. People are like that.”

They went across the bridge and into the Bremen town. In a few minutes they were before the billet

They smoked a cigarette together in the parked jeep.

Wolf said, “In a week or so we make the most important contacts. Well have to stay out most of the night. So be ready for a call any time. Okay?” He dapped Mosca on the back.

Mosca stepped out of the jeep, took a last puff on his cigarette. “You think she'll squawk to her friends?”

Wolf shook his head. “This
m
the one thing I know about. She'll never open her mouth to anybody.” He grinned at Mosca. “She'll never forget that stripe she wears on her back.”

Walter Mosca, dressed in civvies, stared
out
of the
window of the Civilian Personnel Office. He watched the people of the base going by, the airplane mechanics in their green fatigues and fur-lined leather jackets, natty flying officers in dark greens and violet overcoats, the German laborers in their old clothing, all hunched against the sharp November wind. Behind him Eddie Cassin said, “Walter.” Mosca turned around.

Eddie Cassin leaned back in his chair. “I got a job for you. I had an idea and the lieutenant thinks it's pretty good. We're having a food conservation drive all over the European Theater, you know, try to tell the chowhounds that they shouldn't eat themselves sick. Not to starve but not to load up their trays, then leave a lot of stuff that has to be thrown out. Now here's the idea. We want a picture of a GI with a big heaping tray of food and caption it ‘Stop This.’ Next to it we want a photo of two little German kids sniping butts in the street and the caption, “And You Stop This.’ How does it sound?”

“It sounds like real shit to me,” Mosca said.

Eddie grinned at Mm, “All right, But it looks clever as hell. Real public-relations stuff. Headquarters will eat it up. Maybe
Stars and Stripes
will print it Who knows? It could turn out big.”

“For Christ's sake,” Mosca said.

“Okay,” Eddie Cassin said, a little annoyed. “Just get a picture of kids sniping butts. The jeep is outside and you can pick up that photographer, the corporal, at the lab.”

“Okay,” Mosca said. He went out and watched the afternoon flight from Wiesbaden come down out of the sky, as if appearing by magic from nothing but air. Then he got into the jeep.

It was late afternoon before he drove the jeep over the bridge into Bremen proper. The corporal had been goofing around the hangars, and it had taken Mosca an hour to frack him down.

The streets of the city were full
oi
hurrying Germans and the
Strassenbahns
clanged their way through dense traffic, passengers hanging onto the step poles. Mosca parked the jeep in front of the Glocke.

In the gray workaday afternoon all was still. The front of the Red Cross Club was empty of beggars, streetwalkers, and children; activity would begin after the supper hour. Two German policewomen strolled slowly up and down the sidewalk, slowly, as if bemused by the melodious clanging of streetcar bells,

Mosca and the corporal waited in their jeep for some begging children to appear, smoking cigarettes but not talking. Finally the corporal said, “What goddamn luck. Tins is the first time I didn't see some kraut kids hangin’ around.”

Mosca got out of the jeep. “TU take a look,” he said. It was very cold and he turned up the collar of his jacket He walked around the corner and seeing no children, continued to walk until he was in the rear of the Glocke Building.

Serenely perched on a great hill of rubble, looking down on half the great city that lay in ruins before them, were
two small boys. They were wrapped in coats reaching to their shoes and on their heads were caps that came down almost over their ears. Through their bare hands they strained the loose dirt out of the rubble they scooped up, and then threw stones and fragments of brick out across the prairie and valley of ruins below them; throwing at nothing in particular and not hard enough to lose balance on top of the hill.

“Here,” Mosca called in German, “do you two want to earn some chocolate?”

The children looked down at him gravely, judging him, recognizing him as one of the enemy, despite his civilian clothes, and slid down the hill, not afraid. They followed him, leaving their vast, silent, empty playground, clasping each other's hand when they came into the busy square before the Glocke.

The corporal was out of the jeep, waiting for them. He slipped a plate into his camera and adjusted the range finder. When he was set he said to Mosca, “Okay, tell them what to do.” The corporal could speak no German.

“Pick up those cigarettes butts,” Mosca told the boys, “Now look up so that man can take your picture.” They bent obediently but their long, peaked caps shadowed their faces.