Authors: Mario Puzo
The brilliant morning son of early spring washed the
ruined city in colors of bright yellow and gold, glinting off smashed red brick; a light-blue sky curtained maimed and disfigured buildings on the horizon.
Yergen's daughter pushed the cream-colored baby carriage, her sad little face proud and happy, yet concerned; her pretty blue dress matched the sky. Yergen walked beside her, watching her, enjoying her happiness, sensing the coming alive of the great city after a long, terrible winter.
Coupled
Strassenbahnen
made a great clanging as they went through the streets, filling the golden morning air with a sound of bells. Turning into the Metzer Strasse, Yergen saw far down the street Mosca and his Mends working on a jeep. Then he saw Heila standing under a tree. Coming closer he saw that Mosca, Leo, and Eddie were loading the jeep with Mosca's possessions. There were suitcases and Val-packs full of clothing, a wooden box full of tinned food, and a small coal stove which he, Yergen, had procured for them.
Yergen touched his daughter's shoulder. “Giselle, push the wagon right under their noses,. surprise them.” The little girl smiled happily and pushed faster. Hella saw them first and Yergen could hear her squeal of delight before she took a few awkward running steps to meet them.
“How do you like it?” Yergen asked with pride. “Isn't it every bit as good as I promised?”
“Oh, it is wonderful, Yergen, it's beautiful,” Hella exclaimed. The thin, serene face had such a look of joy that Yergen was really and truly touched. He looked at the carriage again and saw that it was beautiful, low slung with lines like a racer, its lovely, creamy paint, framed by the green earth on which it rested and the light-blue sky above them.
“My daughter Giselle,” Yergen said, “she wanted to bring it herself.” The shy little girl bowed her head. Hella knelt clumsily, the loose overcoat she wore folding around her onto the earth. “Thank you very much,” she said and kissed the little girl on the cheek. “Will you, help me bring it to my new home?” The child nodded.
Mosca came over from the jeep. He was dressed in old, wrinkled sun tans. “I'll pay you later, Yergen,” he said, barely glancing at the carriage. “We're moving over to Kurfiirsten Allee. Why don't you walk over there with Hella and the carriage? We'll be there soon as we get loaded.”
“Of course, of course,” Yergen said. In high spirits he lifted his hat to Hella and said in German, “Dear lady, may I accompany you?” She smiled at him and took the arm he offered. They let the child go before them.
They walked into a spring breeze that smelled of flowers and grass, and Hella buttoned her coat. Yergen could see it stretch tight across the front of her stomach and felt an unaccountable content mixed with sadness. His own wife dead, his daughter without a mother, and now walking beside the mistress of the enemy, he thought of how it would be if Hella belonged to him, her tenderness and love given to him and his child and carrying a new life within her that would belong to both of them. How sweet it would be on this sweet morning, how the sadness and
fear would wash away inside himself and how Giselle, too, would be safe. And as he thought this, Giselle turned her head to give them both a smile.
“She looks much better now,” Hella said.
Yergen shook his head. “I am bringing her away to the country this very day. For a month. On the doctor's advice.” Yergen slowed his walk so that Giselle would not hear what he said next. “I think she is very ill. It was a bad winter for her.’
Giselle was far ahead of them now, pushing the carriage through a great patch of sunlight. Hella slipped her arm into Yergen's again. He said, “I must get her away from the ruins, anything that makes her think of her mother's death, away from Germany.” He hesitated and then matter of f actly, casually, as if repeating something he did not even remotely believe, “The doctor says she may become insane.”
Giselle was waiting for them where the shade of the street began again, as if afraid of walking alone among the shadows of a tree. Hella walked ahead of Yergen so that she would come first to the little girl and said to her gaily, “Do you want to ride in the carriage?” Giselle nodded and Yergen helped her into it, letting her long legs dangle over the side. Hella pushed, saying laughingly, “Oh, what a big baby I have,” tickling the child under the chin. Then she tried to run to make an impression of speed, but she was too awkward. Giselle didn't laugh, but she was smiling and making little sounds that were the shadows of laughter …
They came to a long row of white stone houses beaded along the Kurfiirsten Allee. Hella stopped by the first house, by a little gate that barred a cemented path leading to the door. Hella called out, “Frau Saunders,” and a woman appeared at the open window. She had a sad, stern face with the hair severely done, and they could see from the upper part of her body visible to them that she was wearing a plain black dress.
“Forgive me for calling out,” Hella said smilingly. “I walk so badly now. Could you throw me the key? They will be here in a few minutes.” The woman disappeared
and then reappeared to drop the keys into Yergen's waiting hand. Then she disappeared again into the house.
“Oh. Oh,” Yergen said, “you may have some trouble in that quarter. She looks very respectable.”
And then realizing what he had said, embarrassed, he paused, but Hella laughed and said, “She's very nice, she'll understand. She recently lost her husband with cancer. That's how she has two empty rooms. They had special privileges because of his illness.”
“And how were you fortunate enough to find them?” Yergen asked.
“I went to the housing officer of the district and inquired,” Hella said. “But first I offered a little present of five packs of cigarettes.” They smiled at each other.
Yergen saw the loaded jeep coming down the Allee. Leo parked as he always did, bumping against a tree on the sidewalk. Mosca jumped down and Eddie and Leo got out of the front seats. They began to carry stuff into the house, Hella showing them the way. When Hella came out again, she had a large brown parcel which she handed to Yergen. “Ten cartons.’ she said, “is that right?” Yergen nodded. Hella went to Giselle who was now leaning against the carriage. She took from her coat pocket a handful of chocolate bars and gave them to the child, saying, “Thank you for bringing me such a beautiful carriage. Will you come to see me when the baby comes?” Giselle, nodded her head and handed the chocolate to Yergen. He took one and broke it into small pieces so that she could hide them in her hand as she ate. Then as Hella watched them walk down the Kurfiirsten Allee she saw Yergen stop to pick up his daughter, she holding the brown parcel balanced on his shoulder. Hella went back into the house and climbed the flight of stairs to the second floor.
The floor consisted of a four-room apartment; a bedroom, a living-room, then another bedroom and a small room that was to be made into a kitchen. Mosca and Hella, it was understood, were to have the small bedroom and the kitchen and were to be allowed to use the living-room on special occasions. Frau Saunders had her bedroom and a stove in the living-room to do her cooking.
Hclla found Mosca, Leo, and Eddie waiting for her. There were two bottles of Coke and two glasses of whisky on the small table. The bedroom was cluttered with suitcases and everything else they had brought. Hella noticed that Frau Saunders had hung pretty blue-flowered curtains on both windows.,
Mosca lifted his glass, Hella and Leo lifted their bottles of Coke. Eddie was already sipping his whisky, but then waited for them.
“To our new home,” Hella said. They all drank together. Eddie Cassin watched Hella take one sip from her Coke and then open the suitcases to put her clothes away in a great mahogany dresser.
He had never made his play for Hella, though he had been in Mosca's room alone with her many times. He wondered why and he realized that partly she had never given him the opportunity. She had never moved close to him, or given him any sort of opening, verbally or physically. She had no coquetry. And all in a very natural manner that was not provoking. He realized that it was partly his fear of Mosca, and trying to analyze that fear, he thought it was grounded in his knowledge of Mosca's carelessness of other people and the stories he had heard about Mosca from some other men in the outfit, a fight he had had with a sergeant for which he had been transferred to Military Government and for which he had just escaped court-martial. The sergeant was so badly hurt that he was sent back to a hospital in the States. But it was a queer story, hushed up, and just rumors. Basically it was the carelessness, a lack of interest so complete that it was frightening.
His friends,
Eddie thought,
myself, Leo, Wolf, Gordon, we think wefre his buddies. If we were all killed tomorrow he wouldn't give a good goddamn.
“The carriage,” Hella exclaimed suddenly, “where did you put the carriage?”
They all laughed. Leo clapped his hands to his head and said in German, “My God, I left the wagon in the street.”
But Mosca said quickly, “It's in the small room, Hella,
the kitchen.” And Eddie Cassin thought,
He can't even stand to see her anxious as a joke.
Hella went into the other room. Leo finished up his Coke. “The next week I leave for Nuremberg,” he said. “They want me to testify about those people who were guards and officials at Buchenwald. At first I said no, but then they told me a certain doctor was among the defendants. He is the one who used to tell us, ‘I am not here to cure your aches and pains. I am not even here to keep you alive. My job is to see that you are able every day to work.” That bastard I will testify against.”
Mosca filled the glasses again and gave Leo a fresh bottle of Coke. “If I were in your shoes I'd want to kill those bastards.”
Leo shrugged. “I don't know. I have only contempt but no hatred any more. I don't know why. I just want to get out of here.” He took a long slug from his Coke.
“We'll miss you at the billet, Walter,” Eddie said. “How do you think you'll like living kraut style?”
Mosca shrugged. “It's all the same.” He filled Eddie's glass, then said, “Scram, Eddie, after that one. I don't want you scaring the hell out of my new landlady. No more drinks.”
“I've reformed,” Eddie Cassin said. “My wife is coming from England with the kid.” He looked at them with mock pride. “My family is coming to join me.”
Mosca shook his head. “Poor dame, I thought she gave up when you were in the Army. What the hell are all your chippies going to do?”
“They'll get along,” Eddie said. “Don't worry about them, they always get along.” Suddenly, unreasonably, he was angry. “I'd like to give ‘em all a boot in the ass.” He took his jacket and left
Eddie Cassin went down the Kurfiirsten Allee, walking slowly. The curved, tree-shaded avenue was pleasant in the warmth df the early spring afternoon. He decided to take a shower in the billet and then go on for supper at the Rathskellar. He glanced across the Allee before he turned into the Metzer Strasse, a flash of color attracting
his eye, and there he saw a young girl standing underneath a wide, green tree, four little children dancing around her. Across the broad avenue he could see the delicate lines of her face, the purity of youth in them. As he watched, she lifted her head to the yellow light of the afternoon sun and turning away from the children looked directly at Eddie Cassin.
He saw on her face that smile which, in its innocence and instinctive knowledge of sexual power, always excited him. It was a smile of youth, Eddie thought, a smile they wear when being flattered, and yet innocent, curious, wondering what the power really was that they possessed, and a little excited. To Eddie Ca&in it denoted virginity, a virginity of mind, of body, too, but primarily a mental innocence which he had seen and corrupted before, the struggle and courtship sweeter to him than the actual taking.
Now staring across the street, he was moved to a sadness that was sweet, and also a wonder that this young girl in her white blouse could move him so. He hesitated to go to her; he was unshaven, dirty, and he could smell his own sweat.
HeU, I can't screw “em all,
he thought, knowing that across the broad avenue, even in the bright sunlight, she could only see the delicate cut of his features and not the fine lines of age. What would seem to her old age, decay.
She had turned to the children, and that graceful, youthful motion of her head and body, the picture they made as they all sat on the green carpet of grass, burned into his brain. Under that dark-green tree, the young girl in her white shirt, the white sleeves rolled up nearly to her shoulder, the two bulges of white cloth that were her breasts, her golden head bending over the seated children, these were not to be borne. He strode quickly away down the Metzer Strasse and into the billet
Eddie showered and shaved and found himself hurrying, but he paused long enough to put a great deal of sweet-smelling talcum powder over his body and face. He combed his hair carefully, regretting its grayness on the sides, and in his room put on his olive-green officer's uniform
with the civilian patch, knowing that he would not appear as old in her eyes in these as he would in civilian clothing.
There was a knock on the door and Fran Meyer came in. She was in a bathrobe. It was an old trick of hers. When she knew Eddie was bathing she would bathe also, and smelling sweetly of perfume come to the room as he was dressing. Usually it would work.
“Have you a cigarette for me, Eddie?” she asked and sat on the bed and crossed her legs. Eddie, tying his shoelaces, motioned toward the table. She took a cigarette, lit it, and sat again on the bed.
“You look very handsome; are you seeing someone?”
Eddie stopped for a moment, surveyed the almost-perfect body, the pleasant, buck-toothed face. It was known. He lifted her off the bed, carried her out of the room, and set her down in the hall. “Not today, baby,” he said and ran down the stairs and out of the building. There was a tremendous excitement and exultation in him, a quivering of the heart. He trotted up the Metzer Strasse, slowing to a quick walk as he came to the corner and, puffing a little, turned into the Kurfursten Allee.