The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [13]
“No,” she said in German, Tm just too scared to walk.” He heard the note of shame, just barely understanding. He lit a cigarette and stuck it between her lips, then lifted die thin body and carried her to a chair in the room.
Mosca opened the other bottle of beer and this time she drank a little. Below them the scene had increased its tempo. The doctors bent over, their hands busy; the men holding the plasma containers knThe girl moved from her chair. “I can walk now.” She 6tarted to leave but Mosca blocked the door.
In his awkward German he said, “Wait for me outside.” She shook her head. “You need a drink,” he said, “schnapps, real schnapps, warm.” She shook her head again. “No monkey business,” he said in English, “honest, cross my heart” And he mockingly held the bottle of bear over his breast She smiled and brushed past him. He watched her thin figure going slowly but steadily down the corridor to the rubbled staircase.
That was how it began; the dead, conqueror and enemy alike, being carried away below them, the brick dust settling on their eyelids, and he, Mosca, moved to pity and a strange tenderness by her fragile body and thin face. At night in his room they listened to the small radio, finished off a bottle of peppermint liqueur, and when she tried to leave he had kept her there with one pretext or another until it was after curfew and she had to stay. She hadn't let him kiss her the whole evening.
She undressed underneath the bed covers, and he, smoking a last cigarette and drinking the last of the liqueur, had finally joined her. She turned to him with a passionate intensity that surprised and delighted him. Months later she told him that she hadn't been with a man for nearly a year, and he had laughed, and she had said with a rueful smile, “If a man says that, everyone pities him; they laugh at a woman,”
But he had understood that first night and understood more. That she had been afraid of him, he the enemy, but the radio's soft music, the warm liqueur, the precious and nerve-soothing cigarettes, the fat sandwiches he had bought from the mess sergeant—these luxuries she had not known for so long, had all combined with her bodily desire, and they had played a game, spinning out time until they knew it would be too late for her to leave. It had all been impersonal, and understanding this hadn't spoiled it, perhaps because physically they were suited to each other, and the night became a long darkness of sensual pleasure, and in the gray morning before the real dawn, she sleeping, he smoking, Mosca thought, I'll have to keep this steady, and thought with pity, tenderness, and some shame how he had punished her fragile body and met there an unexpected, tensile strength.
When Hella woke later in the morning she was frightened, not remembering for a moment where she was, and then she was ashamed that she had surrendered so easily, so casually, and to the enemy. But her legs tangled with Mosca's in the narrow bed filled her whole body with a warm sensuousness. She rose on one elbow, to look at Mosca's face, realizing with recurring shame that she did not really have a clear image of him in her mind, did not know what he really looked like.
The mouth of the enemy was thin and almost ascetic, the face narrow and strong, not relaxed in sleep. He slept stiffly, his body rigid on the narrow bed, and he slept so silently, scarcely breathing, that she wondered if he were shamming, watching her watch him.
Hella left the bed as quietly as she could and dressed. She was hungry and seeing Mosca's cigarettes on the table she took one and lit it. It tasted very good. Looking out the window, hearing no sound in the street below, she realized it was still early. She wanted to leave but was hoping that he had a tin of food in the room and would offer it to her if he ever woke up. She thought, with rueful shame and pleasure,