The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [67]
Yergen touched his daughter's shoulder. “Giselle, push the wagon right under their noses,. surprise them.” The little girl smiled happily and pushed faster. Hella saw them first and Yergen could hear her squeal of delight before she took a few awkward running steps to meet them.
“How do you like it?” Yergen asked with pride. “Isn't it every bit as good as I promised?”
“Oh, it is wonderful, Yergen, it's beautiful,” Hella exclaimed. The thin, serene face had such a look of joy that Yergen was really and truly touched. He looked at the carriage again and saw that it was beautiful, low slung with lines like a racer, its lovely, creamy paint, framed by the green earth on which it rested and the light-blue sky above them.
“My daughter Giselle,” Yergen said, “she wanted to bring it herself.” The shy little girl bowed her head. Hella knelt clumsily, the loose overcoat she wore folding around her onto the earth. “Thank you very much,” she said and kissed the little girl on the cheek. “Will you, help me bring it to my new home?” The child nodded.
Mosca came over from the jeep. He was dressed in old, wrinkled sun tans. “I'll pay you later, Yergen,” he said, barely glancing at the carriage. “We're moving over to Kurfiirsten Allee. Why don't you walk over there with Hella and the carriage? We'll be there soon as we get loaded.”
“Of course, of course,” Yergen said. In high spirits he lifted his hat to Hella and said in German, “Dear lady, may I accompany you?” She smiled at him and took the arm he offered. They let the child go before them.
They walked into a spring breeze that smelled of flowers and grass, and Hella buttoned her coat. Yergen could see it stretch tight across the front of her stomach and felt an unaccountable content mixed with sadness. His own wife dead, his daughter without a mother, and now walking beside the mistress of the enemy, he thought of how it would be if Hella belonged to him, her tenderness and love given to him and his child and carrying a new life within her that would belong to both of them. How sweet it would be on this sweet morning, how the sadness and fear would wash away inside himself and how Giselle, too, would be safe. And as he thought this, Giselle turned her head to give them both a smile.
“She looks much better now,” Hella said.
Yergen shook his head. “I am bringing her away to the country this very day. For a month. On the doctor's advice.” Yergen slowed his walk so that Giselle would not hear what he said next. “I think she is very ill. It was a bad winter for her.’
Giselle was far ahead of them now, pushing the carriage through a great patch of sunlight. Hella slipped her arm into Yergen's again. He said, “I must get her away from the ruins, anything that makes her think of her mother's death, away from Germany.” He hesitated and then matter of f actly, casually, as if repeating something he did not even remotely believe, “The doctor says she may become insane.”
Giselle was waiting for them where the shade of the street began again, as if afraid of walking alone among the shadows of a tree. Hella walked ahead of Yergen so that she would come first to the little girl and said to her gaily, “Do you want to ride in the carriage?” Giselle nodded and Yergen helped her into it, letting her long legs dangle over the side. Hella pushed, saying laughingly, “Oh, what a big baby I have,” tickling the child under the chin. Then she tried to run to make an impression of speed, but she was too awkward. Giselle didn't laugh, but she was smiling and making little sounds that were the shadows of laughter …
They came to a long row of white stone houses beaded along the Kurfiirsten Allee. Hella stopped by the first house, by a little gate that barred a cemented path