The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [71]
“Let's go in and pay our respects to the landlady,” Mosca said.
All the rooms had doors that opened on the hall, and the hall itself had a door that locked the floor off from the stairs. To go from one room to the other they had to go out in the hall and knock on the door of the living-room. They heard a voice telling them to come in.
Frau Saunders was sitting on the sofa reading a newspaper. She stood up when HeUa introduced them and shook Mosca's hand. Mosca saw that she was not as old as he had thought from the glimpse he had had of her. The hair was severely done and her face was” lined, but there was a curious youthfulness in the movements of her lanky body, in its straight flowing black.
“I hope you will feel free to use the living-room whenever you wish,” Frau Saunders said. She had a low, sweet voice but she said the words out of politeness.
“Thank you,” HeUa said. “I wanted to thank you for the curtains and the extras you put in the rooms. If there is anything we can help you in, please tell us.”
Frau Saunders hesitated. “I hope only that there will be no trouble with the authorities.” She gave Mosca a doubtful glance as if she wished to say something else.
Hella guessed what it was. “We're very quiet people, he's net one of these wild Americans always giving parties.” She smiled at Mosca but he did not smile in return. “We just came in for a few minutes,” Hella went on, “we had a hard day, so—” She rose and they said good night awkwardly, Mosca giving a polite smile, Frau Saunders giving the same smile in return, and in that moment Mosca realized that this woman was shy despite her age, and that she was a little frightened by the thought of the enemy living in her home.
As they undressed in their room Mosca told Hella a bit of news he had almost forgotten. “Orders finally came in to ship the Middletons back to the States. They leave next week.”
Hella was surprised. “Oh, that is too bad,” she said.
“Don't worry,” Mosca said, “I can get some other people's commissary cards, and we can trade out in the country like real Germans.”
In bed Hella said, “So that is why you looked so worried today.” Mosca didn't say anything. After she had fallen asleep he lay awake for a long time.
He felt strange that now, finally, as if this had been the purpose behind everything, he lived as one of the enemy. The house was full of Germans and the houses in the streets around him; in his bed, carrying his child. He missed the sound of parties that went on in the billet, the throbbing of jeep motors, radios tuned to the Armed Forces Network giving out American music. Here all was still. The bathroom in the hall gave a small sudden roar of water. Frau Saunders, he thought, and then had to get up and go himself, waiting a little to give the woman plenty of time to get back to her own room. Then he stood by the curtained window, smoking a cigarette, trying to see in the darkness outside. He tried to think back to when he had been given his first weapon, his first steel helmet, his first combat orientation lecture to protect himself against the enemy. But that now too seemed unreal and unimportant What finally was real was this room, the carriage, the woman in the bed.
fourteen
The evening before the Middletons were to leave Germany, Hella and Mosca went for a walk through the city before visiting them. Leaving the house on the