The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [55]
“I was never a Nazi. I joined the Party to keep my job, all printers must join. But I paid my dues. No more. I was never a Nazi. Drink. It's good stuff. Drink it. I save this for when I feel ill.” Mosca drank and broke away for the door but the German caught him, shook his hand. “I am very grateful for your kindness. That is from the heart. I will never forget this. I have always said the Americans were good. They are kindhearted; we Germans are fortunate.” He wrung Mosca's hand for the last time, his head shaking up and down with nervousness and passionate relief.
At that moment Mosca felt an almost uncontrollable urge to strike him down, to make the blood flow from that bald skull and twitching face, and turned his head away to hide his contempt and disgust.
Framed against the brown door, in the room beyond, Mosca saw the wife's face. The flesh was drawn tight around the separate and distinctly seen bones. The skin was dead white and her head was slightly lowered, the shoulders hunched by the weight of the child in her arms. Her gray eyes, almost black now, were dark pools of unforgetting hatred. Her hair, too, seemed dark beside the child's golden one and her gaze did not flinch as it met Mosca's. Not one muscle of her face moved.
As the door closed behind him, Mosca heard her voice, quiet but sharp, speaking to her husband. Out in the street, by the light of the lamp-lit room, he could see her looking down at him, the child still in her arms.
twelve
Wolf ate his cold sapper German-peasant fashion, picking up the long, blood-red wurst and slicing off a thick, glutinous chunk with his pocketknife. Then he cut a block of dark bread from the enormous loaf resting before him. The German girl he lived with, Ursula, and her father, took the bread and wurst in their turn. Each had a can of American beer beside their plates with which they filled small wine glasses when necessary.
“When do you have to go?” Ursula asked. She was a small, dark girl with an ungovernable temper. Wolf had taken pleasure in taming her. He had already put in his marriage papers, and it was with this understanding that he had been allowed to move into the father's house to live with her. There were other considerations.
“I have to meet Mosca at the Rathskellar in about an hour,” Wolf said, looking at the watch he had taken from the Polish refugee after the war. The dead Polack, Wolf thought.
“I don't care for that man,” Ursula said. “He has no manners. I don't know what that gjurl sees in him.”
Wolf cut another slice of wurst and said jokingly, “The same thing you see in me.”
As he knew she would, Ursula flared up. “You damn Americans think we'll do anything for your goods. Try treating me as your Ami friends treat their girls. See if I keep you. Out the house you go.”
The father, munching on the hard bread, said placatingly, “Ursula, Ursula,” but he said it out of habit, thinking of something else.
When Wolf had finished supper he went into the bedroom and stuffed his large, brown leather briefcase with cigarettes, chocolate, and a few cigars. He took these from a locked wardrobe to which he had the only key. As he was about to leave Ursula's father came in.
“Wolfgang, before you leave. A word if I may.” The father was always polite and respectful, always remembering the lover of his daughter was an American. Wolf liked this in him.
The father led Wolf to their cold storeroom in the back of the basement apartment. The father threw open the door and in a dramatically concerned voice said, “Look.”
From the wooden beams hung bare bones of hams with tiny shreds of dark meat clinging to them, small ends of salamis, and a white cheese like a thin quarter moon.
“We have to do something, Wolfgang,” the father said, “our supplies are very low. Very, very low.”
Wolf sighed. He wondered what the old bastard had done with all that stuff. They both knew damn well it hadn't been eaten. A regiment couldn't have done such damage. As always when the