Chapter 6 chapter Five

Mosca felt that the second post-armistice summer passed quickly.The job at the air force base was easy, and it seemed to be designed to keep Eddie Cassin company, to hear him tell a good story, or to smooth things over for him when he was too drunk to come back to work.Eddie Cassin didn't have much to do either.Lieutenant Ford came to stay for a while every morning, signed documents, and then went to the ground command office of the base, made a flight sweating, chatted with the flight companions, and passed the day.After get off work, Mosca and Wolfe and Eddie, sometimes with Gordon, had dinner in the underground restaurant.This is a casual restaurant for US military officers and civilians stationed in Bremen.

He stayed in his room with Helene every night, lying on the couch together and reading, while the radio was tuned to a German radio station and listened to light music.And when the last twilight of the sweet summer night wore on, they would smile at each other and go to bed.Keep the radio on late. The floor where they live is very quiet, but there are dances every night on the floors downstairs.On summer nights, the radio blared all over Metzstrasse.Every jeep was full of Americans in brown-and-green clerical uniforms with pretty, thigh-baring German girls on their arms.Stopping in front of the building, there was a screeching sound of brakes intertwined with the screams of young women.The sound of laughter and clinking glasses attracted passers-by on the street.They looked over their shoulders with a sort of cautious curiosity, and hurried away.Later, they might hear Eddie Cassin swearing drunkenly as he wrestled with one of his girlfriends outside the building.Sometimes the dance ended early, so the late-night breeze stirred the leaves and branches on both sides of the street downstairs, and its fresh breath was polluted by the mildew of the rubble.

Every Sunday, Helene and Mrs. Meyer prepare dinner together in Meyer's penthouse suite.There was usually a rabbit or duck that Eddie and Mosca had driven to a nearby farm and bought, along with vegetables from the vegetable garden on the same farm.Then end the potluck with coffee and ice cream from the Army Mart.After dinner, Helene and Mosca usually left Eddie and Mrs. Meyer to drink on their own and take the long walk through the city, out into the endless green country. Mosca was smoking a cigar, and Helene was wearing one of his starched white shirts, the sleeves rolled neatly above the elbows.They walked past the police station, a huge, green concrete building dotted with gray hollows from the blast.A little further on, pass the Glock Building.Today it is the American Red Cross.On the square in front of the building, a group of children waited there begging for cigarettes and chocolates.There were also stubbled men in Wehrmacht caps and dyed military jackets.As long as a U.S. military man in a grass-green uniform standing leaning against the building threw a cigarette butt on the ground, they would immediately pick it up.These American soldiers spent their time comfortably, watching the women passing by, and finding out the "ladies".They walk slowly, swaying in front of you like walking on a pedal, then go around the building for a while and come back, and they do this over and over again.The U.S. military watched them as if they were watching an acquaintance riding a merry-go-round, and the familiar faces appeared in front of these onlookers who were eager to see through and take pleasure in it.In this warm summer afternoon, the square is like a joyful and prosperous market, which makes this day not look like a Sunday, and washes away the quiet and closed atmosphere of Sunday.

Grass-green military buses and mud-stained trucks drove into the square every few minutes. Some sent the occupying troops from the barracks around Bremen, and some sent the occupying troops from Bremerhaven in the distance. His grass-green woolen military uniform, with his trouser legs neatly tucked into his well-polished reddish-brown short military boots, looked clean and beautiful.There were also sweaty British soldiers in thick woolens and berets.The sailors on the American boat looked very wild in ragged trousers and dirty sweaters, and occasionally with long shaggy beards.They waited sullenly for the military police to check their papers before entering the building.

German policemen in dyed military-style uniforms went around clearing the square.They drove the little beggars into the side alleys, and pushed the haggard-looking snipers picking up cigarette butts to a remote corner of the square.Then let them rest on the steps of the German traffic building.The "ladies" circling around the building quickened their pace slightly, but no one interfered with them. Mosca was always going to get some sandwiches at the Red Cross, and they walked on, joining the flow of people heading for Berg Park. The enemy still had their traditional afternoon walk on Sunday.The German men put on the majesty of a parent, some with four empty cigarette butts in their mouths, their wives pushing the baby carriage, and the children danced quietly and feebly in front of them.The afternoon breeze swept over the Kham Ruins, blowing loose soil.The summer sun gathers the soil and fills the sky.As a result, a barely perceptible golden cloud of dust formed over the entire city.

After passing through the brick-red ruins-the houses here have been razed to the ground, littered with broken tiles, ashes and scrap iron-they finally left the city and came to the countryside.When they were exhausted, they stopped in a green field full of heavy crops.There they rest, they sleep, they eat the sandwiches they bring, and if the place is very secluded and secluded, they make love in silence under the curtain of the sky and the bed of the ground. When the sun shone across the sky and hit their faces, they strolled back to the city.Over the vast ruins, dusk is about to fall.So, when they walked into the square, they would see American soldiers leaving the Red Cross Building one after another.The victors ate enough of sandwiches, ice cream, Coca-Cola, ping-pong, and the professional, impossible-to-produce intimacy of their dance partners.Soldiers roamed the streets as if they were lost.Groups of German "ladies" walking back and forth disappeared one by one.Side by side, the enemy and the conqueror made their way along the rubble-strewn alleys to the not-quite-collapsed rooms of the ruined buildings, or, if time ran out, to random caves.The square was dark and almost silent, except for a few beggars who were still determined, a child, and a few exhausted girls who were no longer walking.Indistinct music came from a touring performance that was about to end, passed through the building, lingered over the silent people in the dark square, passed the ruins and fell to the Weser River, as if following the ruins to this quiet place. Like a quiet river.So, as Mosca and Heliane walked along the river, they left the music behind and gazed across the river at the city looming in the moonlight on the opposite bank.

Meyer and Eddie had tea and cakes waiting for them on Metz Street; sometimes Eddie, who lay in a stupor on the divan, would wake up at the sound of their voices.They drank tea and chatted leisurely, feeling the new tranquility of this comfortable summer night, and gradually fell asleep.This way, they will be able to sleep soundly and without dreams.