• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 321 0

a girl he had lived with shortly after coming out of Buchenwald, a thin and merry German girl with a gleeful and almost malicious grin. He had gone into the country and come back with a goose and a brace of chickens. And when he had told her of the low amount he had given she had looked up at him and said with a disturbing intonation and smile, “So, you are a good businessman.” And yet now he realized or made himself realize the attitude of mind behind what she had said, he felt only a vague bitterness against her with the others. She had been tender and loving, she had eared about him, she had treated him with every consideration and fairness except for that one time. And yet, she and the many others like her had burned the blue numerals in his arm he would carry to his grave. And where could he escape these people? Not in America, certainly not in Germany. Where could he go?

Father—Father, he cried in his mind, you never told me that every human being carries his own barbed wire, his ovens, his canes of torture, wherever they go; you never taught me to hate, to destroy, and now when Tm humiliated, jeered at, I feel only shame not even anger, as if I deserved every blow, every insult and now where can I go? In Palestine Ptt find barbed wire as surely as you found it in Heaven or in Hell And then quite simply, clearly, as if really he had known it secretly for a long time, he thought, Father, too, was the enemy.

There was nothing more to think about He saw Mosca still silent, still smoking his cigar.

“I leave in two weeks, I think, for Palestine, but I leave Bremen in a few days.”

Mosca said slowly, “I guess you're right” Come over to flie house before you leave.”

“No,” Leo said, “it's nothing personal. I don't want to see anybody.”

Mosca understood. He rose and held out his hand. “Okay, Leo, here's tack.” They shook hands. Ihey could hear Hella opening the door of the other room.

“I don't want to see her,” Leo said.

“Okay,” Mosca said and went out.

Hella had begun to dress. “Where were you?” she asked.

“With Leo, he's back.”

“Good,” she said, “call him in.”

Mosca thought for a moment. “He doesn't want to see anybody right now. He had a little accident and hurt his face. I guess he doesn't want you to see him.”

•That's silly,” Hella said. When die had finished dressing she went out of the room and knocked on Leo's door. Mosca stayed in his own room, resting on the bed. He heard Leo open the door for Hella and listened as they spoke, their voices indistinct murmurs. He didn't want to go in, there was nothing he could do.

Mosca dozed off and when he woke he felt that it was very late, it was pitch dark in the room. He could still hear Leo and Hella talking in the other room. He waited for a few minutes and then he called out, “Hey, how about getting something to eat before the Red Cross closes up?” The voices broke off and started again. Then he heard Leo's door open and a moment later Hella came into the room and snapped on the light

“I'm ready,” she said; “let's go.” He saw that she was biting her lips to keep from crying.

Mosca picked up the blue gym bag into which he had stuffed the wet towels and dirty underclothing. TTiey went down the steps and out of the building. Frau Meyer was still standing on the steps. “Did you see our friend?” she asked. There was a slightly patronizing and amused tone in her voice.

“Yes,” Hella said curtly.

On the way down the Kurfiirsten Allee, Mosca asked, “He tell you everything?”

“Yes,” Hella said.

“What the hell did you talk about so long in there?”

She didn't say anything for a time. “About when we were children. He grew up in the city, and I was raised on the land but a lot of the same things happened to both of us. When we were children Germany was a nice country to live in.”

“Everybody is leaving,” Mosca said. “First Middleton, now Leo, and pretty soon Wolf. That leaves just us and Eddie. I'll have to keep an eye on you and Eddie.”

Hella looked at him without smiling. Her face was tired, the eyes a very pale gray. The blue lump had spread to a long welt the length