The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [99]
Mosca felt no anger, only embarrassment and a sense of shame. The adjutant went on in a softer tone. “As soon as they come in I'll let you know, okay?” And with this dismassal, Mosca left.
Walking back to the Personnel Office he tried not to feel depressed or anxious, knowing that Hella would see it in his face. But Hella and Inge were drinking coffee together and talking. Hella had her hat and veil off and she could only take little sips of coffee but he could see from her bright eyes that she had been telling Inge all about the baby. Eddie was leaning back in his chair, listening, smiling, and when he saw Mosca he asked, “How did it go?”
Mosca said, “Fine, he'll do what he can,” and smiled at Hella. He would tell Eddie the truth later.
Hella put on her hat and veil and shook hands with Inge. She shook hands with Eddie and then took Mosca's arm. When they were out of the office and had gone through the gate of the air base, Mosca said, “I'm sorry, baby.” She turned her veiled face to him, squeezed his arm. He turned his head away as if he could not bear her gaze without flinching.
In the early morning hours before dawn Mosca came out of sleep and heard Hella crying softly, sobbing into her pillow. He pulled her to him so she could bury her head in his naked shoulder. “Is it that bad?” he whispered. And she said, “Walter, I feel so sick, I feel so sick.” Saying the words seemed to frighten her and her crying became unrestrained like the weeping of a terrified child.
In the darkness the pain swept over her, took control of her blood and the organs of her body. The memory of Mosca at the air base powerless to help her gave her a sense of terror, made her helpless to restrain her tears. She said again, “I feel so sick,” and Mosca could barely make out the words, there was a curious distortion in her speech.
“I'll make you some more compresses,” he said and turned on the night lamp beside the bed.
He was shocked when he saw her. In the dim yellow light the side of her face was distended, the eye almost closed. There was a strange contour of her facial bones, giving her a mongoloid look. She put her hands up over her face and he went out into the kitchen to get some water for the compresses.
The ruins of the city rode on two morning sunbeams straight into the stunned eyes of Yergen's daughter. She sat on a great stone dipping her fingers into an open tin of mirabelle plums. The smell of rubble was just beginning to rise from the earth. The little girl serenely fished out the yellow, waxlike globes of fruit and then licked the sticky juice from her fingers. Yergen sat on a stone beside her. He had taken her to this secluded valley of ruins so that she could eat the rare delicacy without sharing it with the German woman who cared for her during the day.
Yergen watched his daughter's face with love and sadness. The eyes showed clearly the slow fragmentation and splintering of her childish brain. The doctor had told him that there was one hope, to get her out of Germany or the continent. Yergen shook his head. All the money he made in tide black market went to build a wall between his child and the suffering, the misery of the world around her. But the doctor had made him understand that this was not enough. That it all seeped through somehow.
Now at this moment he made his decision. He would buy false papers and settle in Switzerland. It would take months to prepare and a great deal of money. She would be cured, she would grow and live to happiness.
She held up a gleaming mirabelle, shiny pale yellow in its coat of syrup and to please her he opened his mouth to receive it She smiled at him and the smile made him put his hand on her face, in love and protection, for in this valley of ruins his daughter seemed like a plant growing, inhuman, her eyes blank, the smile a muscular spasm.
The morning air was cold, autumn had weakened the strength of the rising sun and changed the color of the earth, turned the rubble gray and patched it with