The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [97]
“Don't worry,” Mosca said. “Our marriage papers will get here soon. We'll leave Germany in October.”
When they were nearly home, Hella sad, tiredly, “Walter, do you think the world will get better for helpless people?”
“I don't know,” he said, “but don't worry, we're not helpless.”
Then to cheer her up he said, “I wrote my mother about the whole deal. She's real happy, especially that I'm going home. She just hopes I picked a good girl.’ They smiled at each other.
“I think I'm good,” Hella said a little sadly. “I wonder about my father and mother, what they would think of me if they were alive. They wouldn't be happy.” She paused for a moment. “I'm afraid they wouldn't think me a good girl.”
‘We're trying, baby,” Mosca said, “we're trying like hell. It's a different world.”
They turned into the little path that led to their home, following a stream of moonlight to the doQr. Through the walls of the stone house they could hear the baby crying, not desperately, but in perfunctory protest. Hella smiled at Mosca. “That little stinker,” she said, but she ran up the steps ahead of him.
nineteen
It was the first time HeUa had ever come out to the air base, and Mosca went outside the wire fence to meet her and bring her past the guards. She was very slim and chic in a suit made from officer's pink. He had bought the material with Ann Middleton's Army store card. With the suit she wore a white silk blouse and white hat and veil. The veil screened her swollen cheek. She held on to Mos-ca's arm as they entered the gate of the air base.
In the Civilian Personnel Office, Inge left her desk and stood up to greet Hella. They shook hands and murmured their names. Herr Topp, the chief clerk, came in from the outer office with some papers for Eddie Cassin to sign. He was all smiles and pleasantness. “We have a peat dentist on the air base, American dentists are the finest,” Herr Topp assured Hella.
“Did you fix it with Captain Adlock sure?” Mosca asked Eddie.
Eddie nodded, then said to HeUa gently, “How do you feel?”
“It hurts a bit,” Hella said. She could feel the power that Eddie and Mosca held over the people here, how respectful Herr Topp and the girl Inge were, here the role of conqueror and conquered clean-cut, not blurred by sex or personal service. It made her shy of Eddie, and Mosca, too, so that she said almost defensively to Eddie, “The German dentists couldn't help.”
“We have the medicines they can't get,” Eddie said reassuringly. “Captain Adlock will fix you up fine.” He turned to Mosca. “You can take her over there now.”
Hella and Mosca left the Civilian Personnel Office. In the outer room the German clerks stopped work, as if in interested surprise, to see that the ugly American with his curt manner and cruel face had chosen a seemingly shy, sweet girl, slender and tall, directly opposite to what they had thought his choice would be.
They penetrated to the interior of the air base, crossing the many walks that radiated to the hangars, the flying fields, the Administration Building, until finally they came to the long low barrack that served as the medical dispensary and base hospital.
The dental chair of black leather was empty as was the white-walled room. Then a German doctor in white smock came in. He said, “Captain Adlock asked me to attend you. He is busy at the moment Please.” He motioned Hella toward the dental chair.
She took off her hat and veil and gave them to Mosca. She put her hand to the swollen cheek as if to hide it, then sat in the dental chair. Mosca stood near her and she reached out her hand to hold his arm. The German dentist's eyes narrowed as he saw her swollen cheek. He helped her open her mouth wide, forcing the jaws apart gently but firmly. He took one long look. Then he turned to Mosca and said, “We can do nothing until the infection is cleared up. It goes all