The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [30]
They drove back to Mosca's room for a drink. Hella began to prepare bacon sandwiches on the electric plate which stood on a foot locker.
They all sat around the large, square table, except Eddie who stretched out in the stuffed chair in one corner of the room. Mosca unlocked the white painted wardrobe and took out liquor and cigarettes.
Eddie from his chair asked, “How do the bastards get away with it?”
“TTiey won't,” Wolf said. “He's pulled some raw stuff, but tonight he went too far. How do you like the reception he got, though?” Wolf shook his white, heavy face up and down in amused wonder. “These krauts never learn. You'd think that if they just took a walk down the street they'd never want to fight again. But they're rarin’ to go. Just in their blood.” Mosca said jokingly to Leo, “Looks like you'd better make up your mind where you're going, Palestine or the States.” Leo shrugged and sipped his coffee.
Wolf asked, “Can you go to the States?”
“Oh, yes,” Leo said. “I can go there.”
“Then go.” Wolf studied him. “If tonight's any indication, you're too soft for that pioneer stuff.”
Leo put his hand up to the left side of his face.
“Leave it lay,” Mosca said.
“No. Don't misunderstand me, Leo, when I say the trouble with your race has always been that they never fight back. Some people think they're cowards. I think it's a matter of being too civilized. They don't believe in force. Like tonight. If we'd taken that guy outside and knocked him around, it would have helped, in a small way. If you people ever get a country of your own, thank your terrorist organizations. Terror and force are great weapons. Organizations in every country use them and never underestimate their power. I'm surprised you don't know that after what you've been through.”
Leo said slowly, “Fm not afraid to go to Palestine, and in some ways I know it is my duty. But I think, too, how it will be a hard time. I want now—pleasure. That is the only way I can think of it. And yet I am ashamed that I think this way. But I will go away.”
“Don't put it off too long,” Wolf said. “These krauts will never change. It's in their blood. You can see it every day.”
Leo went on as if he had not heard. “As for terror and force, I don't believe. My father was in camp with me; he was a German, by the way, my mother was a Jew. My father was a political prisoner, he went before me.”
The tic on Leo's face wait into motion again and he put up his hand to hold it still. “He died there but taught me before he died. He told me that one day I would be free and that the most terrible thing that could happen to me was to become like the people who kept us there. I believe him still. It is a little hard, but I believe him still.’
Wolf shook his head. “I know. I know people like your father.” His voice was expressionless.
Hella and Frau Meyer passed hot bacon sandwiches around. Leo refused his. “Tin going to bed,” he said. He left and they could hear him in the next room, his radio tuned to a German station playing soft string music.
Frau Meyer went ova: to Eddie and pushed him playfully. “Stop dreaming,” she said.
Eddie smiled, his handsome, delicate face soft with a sleepy tenderness. As Hella knelt by the electric plate, he watched her over his glass and thought, It will be in this room, and every piece of furniture stood out clearly as if there were no people there. He was always doing this, his mind always creating scenes with women he had not even approached.
Wolf munched on his bacon sandwich. “Ifs funny the ideas people get.” His voice lowered. “The men who ran Leo's camp were probably ordinary guys like you and me. Just following orders. During the war when I was in counter-intelligence, we'd get some prisoners, and the major would look at his watch and say, ‘I want such and such information by two o'clock.” We got it.” Wolf accepted a cigar from Mosca and puffed on it. “I got back