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By Root 380 0

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