The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [83]
The same driver said, “It's nice carrying around people who can make noise. In the war I was with a burial squad. We used to take a truck out and pick up the dead. In the winter they were stiff, we had to pack them in carefully, like cordwood, in neat stacks; sometimes you could bend their arms a little and there was a nice little trick of hooking arms in one pile to arms in another so you could stack them higher.”
The other driver left the bench and went back into the building. “He's heard these stories before,” the German continued. “And he was with the Luftwaffe; they empty a can of garbage, they have nightmares for weeks. Anyway, as I was telling you. In the summer, terrible. Terrible. I used to pack fruit before the war, maybe that is why the Army gave me the burial squad. I used to pack oranges, sometimes they were rotten, we have to import them you know, so I'd repack them. The bad ones Fd squeeze into small boxes to take home. In summers that was the way with dead men. They would be all squashy, we'd press them in against one another. It would be like a big pile of garbage in the truck. So this job is fine. The other one, winter or summer, we had no conversation, nothing interesting, you understand.” He gave Mosca a huge grin.
Mosca thought, How about this bastard. He felt a genuine liking for the man, recognized the intended kindliness.
‘I like conversation,” the man went on, “so I didn't care for my Army work. Now here, if is a pleasure. I sit with the woman, and when she screams I say go ahead and scream, nobody will hear. When they cry, like your wife, I say, ‘Cry, it will do you good. Anybody who has children must get used to tears.’ My little joke, I don't always say things the same. I think of something new usually and it is almost always true. I don't talk much, just enough so they won't feel alone, as if I were their husband.”
Mosca closed his eyes. “Why did my wife cry?”
“Man, it is a painful business.” The German tried to give him a reproachful look but only succeeded in making a kindly grimace, the bones of his face working against him. “The pain made her cry but that means nothing because you could see she was very happy. I thought then, her husband is a lucky man. I didn't say anything to her, I couldn't think of anything to say. I wiped her face with a wet towel because the pain made her sweat, and she cried a great deal. But when she got out of the ambulance she smiled at me. No, she was fine, there was nothing for me to say.”
A tap on the window behind them made the driver turn; the nurse was motioning for him to come in. The German left and a few moments later both drivers came out The German shook Mosca's hand “All the best, don't forget our cigarettes when you come again.” They got into their ambulance and drove slowly toward the main gate.
Mosca closed his eyes, leaned back, and the heat of the June sun made him doze off. It seemed as if he slept for a long time, even dreamed, and then he was awake. There was a tapping on the windowpane behind him. He turned his head and saw the nurse motioning him to enter.
She gave him the floor and room number and he ran up the two flights of stairs. When he came to the room he saw outside a long table on rollers and on the table nearly twenty small white-clothed bundles from which came an overwhelming din. One of them might be his and he stopped to look for a moment. A nurse came out of the room and started to wheel the table away. “You can go in,” she told him. He pushed open the door and stepped into a large, square, green-walled room in which were six high hospital beds filled with women, none of them Hella. Then in one corner he saw a bed so low it was nearly level with the floor.
She was lying flat, her eyes open, watching him, and she was more beautiful than he had ever seen her. Her mouth was the dark redness of blood and her face