The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [11]
The bus unloaded most of the civilians on the outskirts of Frankfort, then continued with Mosca and a few officers to the Wiesbaden airfield. Mosca was the only one of the civilians, beside Mr. Gerald, who had been given his permanent assignment in the States. Hie others had to wait in Frankfort for definite orders.
When, finally, his documents were checked at the airfield, he had to wait until after lunch for the plane to Bremen. And when the plane left the field he had no feeling of rising from the earth, no sense that the plane could run off the edges of the continent, or even that it was possible to fall. He watched the earth tilt, slanting toward him so that it seemed to be coming up to form a wall of green and brown before his eyes, and then as the plane banked away, the continent was an endless and depthless valley. And then all the mystery was gone as the plane flew level, and they looked down as from a balcony to the flat, checkered, tableclothed fields.
Now that he was so near his final destination, that this return was so nearly completed, he thought about his few months at home and felt an uncomfortable, vague guilt at the patience his family had shown. But there was no desire to see any of them again, and feeling now a mounting impatience with the plane's slowness, its seeming suspension in the boundless spring-clear sky, he realized that the truth he had told his mother had been a lie, that he was going back because of that German girl, as his mother had said, but going back with no expectation of finding her, with no real hope of their lives coming together after these months of separation, but because he had to return to this continent in any case. He no more expected to find her waiting for him than if he had left her in a trackless jungle, disabled, with no means of sustenance, weaponless against the wild beasts. And thinking so he felt a sickness inside him, a poison of shame and sorrow flowing into his blood and mouth. He saw clearly her body, her face, the color of her hair, thought of her fully in his mind, consciously, for the first time in the months he had left her, and finally, clearly and concretely, as if he had spoken it aloud, he thought of her name.
The police presidio had blown up just a little before noon that hot summer morning nearly a year ago and Mosca, sitting in his jeep in the Hoch Allee, felt the earth shake. The officer he had been waiting for, a young lieutenant fresh from the States, came out a few minutes later and they drove back to Military Government headquarters on the Contresearpe. Someone shouted the news and they drove to the police building. The military police had already sealed off the area, their jeeps and white helmets blocking streets leading to the square. The lieutenant with Mosca showed his identification, and they passed through.
The massive, dark-green building stood on a small rise of ground at the top of the Am Wald Strasse. It was large and square, with an inner courtyard for vehicle parking. German civilians were still streaming out of the main entrance, their faces and clothing covered with dust Some of the women were weeping hysterically with shock. A crowd was being pushed away from the building, but the building itself seemed silent, untouched.
Mosca followed the lieutenant to one of the small side entrances. It was an archway packed almost to the ceiling with debris. They crawled through to the inner courtyard.
The great inner square was filled now with a mountain of rubble. Vehicle tops, jeeps, and trucks, could be seen sticking above it in some spots like masts of sunken ships in shallow water. The walls to a height three stories high had been hacked away by the explosion, and naked to their view were the desks, chairs, and wall clocks of the offices above them.
Mosca heard a sound he had never heard before, a sound which had become a commonplace in the great cities of that continent. For a moment it seemed to come from