Pegasus: A Novel (3 page)

“I want to tell you about some things I’ve never discussed with you before,” Paul
began in a measured tone, and Nick glanced at him in surprise. This was new, and he
couldn’t imagine what it was. “I was very much like you when I was young. Actually
I was a great deal wilder than you are, or ever were. You seem to have a fondness
for pretty women and fast cars, but there’s no harm in that, I suppose. And you’re
a wonderful father, and a devoted son.”

“So are you a wonderful father, Papa,” Nick interrupted him with a loving look in
his eyes. “And you’re very patient about my not wanting to run the estate. I just
think you do it better than I ever will, and it would be a shame to have me make a
botch of it, if I took it over from you now.” His father smiled with a wintry expression
that Nick had never seen before. Something was different today and he had no idea
what it was. There was a sense of sadness around his father that frightened him. He
hoped he wasn’t sick. He was growing increasingly worried as he watched his father
grope for words. “Is
something wrong?” He cut to the chase, and his father didn’t answer, which was unlike
him as well.

“When I was twenty-one,” Paul went on, avoiding Nick’s eyes, “I met your mother. I
was twenty-two when you were born. She was a very beautiful girl, and very young.
She had dark hair and dark eyes like you, although other than that, you don’t resemble
her at all.” Nick knew he was the portrait of his paternal grandfather, except for
the dark hair. “She had very exotic looks, and I thought we were the same age. We
had a brief and passionate affair one summer when I had nothing else to do, and she
got pregnant, almost immediately. Later, I discovered that she was just fifteen, and
she was sixteen when she had you. Needless to say, my parents weren’t pleased. And
even less so, when they discovered who her parents were. Her father was one of our
tenants, or actually, his cousin was. Her father had come from the city with his wife
and children to work the farm with his cousin, which was why I’d never seen your mother
before. I was besotted with her immediately. Their cousins, our tenants, had originally
been our serfs, which my father found particularly unamusing. I insisted I was in
love with her, and perhaps I was. I’m not sure that anyone knows what love is at that
age, or what can happen as a result, all the ramifications and consequences and things
that can go wrong. When she told me she was pregnant, I did what I thought was the
right thing and married her in a small ceremony in the chapel on the estate, in utter
disgrace with my parents. My father struck an agreement with hers. No one was ever
to know that I had married her, and we agreed that when she gave birth to you, we
would be divorced immediately afterward. My father was able to arrange it with an
attorney in Munich. And she agreed to give up the child when it was born, which was
part of the contract my father made with them.

“I went abroad for a year, to Spain and Italy. I had an extremely good time, although
I felt bad about her. We were divorced as soon as you were born, as she had agreed,
and they left the farm. She and her parents and brothers and sisters went back to
the city, and my father bought the farm from their cousins for a very handsome price.
After two hundred years on our land, they felt disgraced by what had happened and
wanted to leave. I eventually returned from my travels, having allegedly married a
young countess in Italy, who supposedly gave birth to you and died in childbed of
a fever, which was common at the time. No one ever questioned the story when you appeared
with me on my return, and everyone felt sorry for me. To be widowed so young and have
a child on my hands. Your grandmother helped me take care of you, and no one ever
knew the truth, except my parents, your mother and her family who were gone, the priest
who married us, and the nurse who took care of you. And no one ever talked. I never
saw your mother again, which was a dastardly thing to do. But I barely knew her, and
you were the result of youthful lust, a brief summer fling.

“And the only real love I felt was for you. I fell in love with you the moment I saw
you, and I never regretted having you for an instant. In fact, I think it turned me
responsible early on, which was probably a good thing, since my own parents died when
I was still relatively young, and I had to learn everything you’ve resisted learning
all your life. I had no choice. I had a child, and a large estate to run, and I have
done so for you, so that I can turn it all over to you in good order one day.”

He looked bleak as he said it, and Nick could see that his father’s confession was
weighing heavy on his heart. What he didn’t know was why he had chosen to tell him
about his history now. Nick was trying to sort through what his father had said and
what it meant to
him. What shocked him most was hearing that the mother who Nick had always believed
had died in childbirth, actually hadn’t. And she wasn’t an Italian noblewoman, she
was a young girl on one of their farms, the daughter of a farmer or their city cousin,
but the impact of that hadn’t hit him yet. Nick was more shocked to realize that his
mother was probably still alive, particularly since she’d been so young when he was
born.

“Are you telling me that my mother is still alive, and always was? Why are you announcing
that to me now, Father?”

“Because you have to know. I had no other choice now but to tell you. And I don’t
know if she’s still alive. I assume she is. She was told never to contact us again,
and she hasn’t. She was a decent girl, and she kept her word. I have no idea where
they moved to, but I’m sure we could find out. I imagine she’s still alive, she’d
only be fifty-nine now, which isn’t very old. And I’m very sorry to tell you all this.
I never intended to tell you any of it.”

He had even covered his tracks by saying that her family had blamed him for her death
when she died and never wanted to see him or the child again. That had explained the
absence of maternal grandparents in his life, which Nick had never questioned, and
he had such a happy childhood that, although he missed having a mother, he had lacked
for nothing and basked in his paternal grandparents’ attention when they were alive,
and most of all his father’s, who could never do enough for his only son. Paul had
never remarried, and Nick couldn’t help but wonder why now, since he hadn’t been mourning
a child bride he had loved. Perhaps the circumstances had been so traumatic and distasteful,
Nick imagined, that they had cured him forever of wanting to form a permanent attachment,
although he knew his father had had several long relationships
that never led to marriage. He always said that the only family he needed or wanted
was his son.

“Now that I think about it,” Paul went on, “I vaguely recall hearing that she married
a short time later. I think my father’s attorney knew that, after he handled the divorce.
I was relieved for her. I remember my father saying something about it, but I didn’t
pay attention. I had you, which was all I cared about by then. And if she did remarry,
I’m sure she had other children. She was a lovely, healthy girl. But all I ever had
or wanted is you.” He and Nick exchanged a serious look, and neither man spoke for
some time.

Nick was stunned by what his father had told him, and to realize that the father he
had always believed would never lie, had told him nothing but lies about the circumstances
surrounding his birth. It was a shock to learn that he had a mother somewhere who
had probably sold him for a healthy sum. His father hadn’t mentioned money, but it
was obvious that that would have been part of the arrangement, to induce her and her
father to agree to their terms to divorce and give up the child.

“What was her name?” Nick asked in a low voice, suddenly wondering what she looked
like. There had never been any photographs or portraits of her anywhere, which his
father had always said would have been too painful for him, and Nick had never questioned
it for a moment, and respected his father’s feelings about his “tragic loss.”

“Hedwig Schmidt.” Nick nodded as he felt the name carve itself into his brain. And
then his father took a long breath and went on. “I am telling you this now because
I had a visit two days ago from a man I haven’t seen in years. We were friends as
young men. He went to live in Indonesia, and I haven’t seen him since. He’s a general
of the Wehrmacht now, and he came to see me as a favor. I don’t know
where or how he got it, but he had the record of my marriage, and the divorce, and
he knew about you. People tell things nowadays that they never did before. There is
information flying through the air all over Germany, in this very ill wind that is
blowing from Berlin.”

Paul looked hard at his son. “My friend Heinrich von Messing tells me that your mother
was half Jewish. I didn’t know it at the time, and it wouldn’t have mattered to me.
The circumstance of who she was was enough to make our marriage unsuitable, by reason
of her birth. Her parents were cousins of our tenants, and apparently, according to
my friend, her mother’s family were Jews, which makes her half Jewish, and you a quarter
Jewish, and your sons one-eighth. And according to Heinrich, being even part Jewish
is very dangerous these days.

“We’ve all been well aware of that for several years, since the Nuremberg Laws.” Jews
had been defined as a separate race, and stripped of their citizenship. Since then,
one hundred and twenty more laws had deprived them of further rights, and having any
“non-Aryan” blood in one’s ancestry had become a very bad thing. Paul had never imagined
that the plight of Jews in Germany had anything to do with them, and now it had everything
to do with them, and especially his son. The news had come as a shock to Paul.

Tears filled Paul’s eyes as he went on, but he didn’t move from his seat. He could
see that Nick was already stunned by everything he had said. “He came to warn me,
so that I could alert you. He said that someone has started a file on you, and your
ancestry through your mother is known. This could be disastrous for you and your boys.
It takes very little to tip the balance now. You and your children could be seized
and sent away, and not allowed to remain here, or own property. Heinrich feels that
to be safe, you and the boys must leave Germany at once. If not, with the dossier
on you and
your heritage, it’s only a matter of time, and a very short time he believes, before
the three of you will be sent to some kind of camp for ‘undesirables.’ It is almost
a crime now to be a Jew in Germany, and even being a quarter Jewish puts you and the
boys at great risk. They have been using Dachau, near Munich, for ‘undesirables’ of
all kinds, which now applies to you and your children.” Tears rolled down Paul’s cheeks
as he said it.

“Heinrich said it’s going to get worse. I asked if I could speak on your behalf, or
if we could get some kind of special dispensation when they go after one-quarter Jews,
but he told me without question that anyone with any Jewish blood or ancestry is in
danger in Germany.” As he said it, Paul coughed to cover a sob that lodged in this
throat like a fish bone. He looked as if his heart were about to break. “My darling
son, you and your children must leave. Now. Soon. Before anything happens to you.
According to Heinrich, there is no time to waste.” There was an endless silence in
the room as Paul’s tears ran off his cheeks onto his desk. Neither of the two men
moved as Nick stared at him, and it sank in.

“Are you serious? I have to leave? That’s ridiculous. I’m not Jewish. My mother may
have been, but you’re not. I’m not. I didn’t even know. And the boys are even less.”
Their mother had been Catholic and was related to a bishop.

“Not to them. Not to Hitler’s government. If you have any Jewish blood at all, whatever
religion you practice, you’re a Jew,” Paul said bitterly. “It’s not about religion,
it’s about race, and you’re not a pure-blood Aryan German in this country now.”

“That’s absurd.” Nick stood up and walked around the room, unable to believe what
he’d just heard. “I have nothing against the Jews, but I’m not one of them.” Nick
was dumbstruck.

“You are as far as they’re concerned,” Paul repeated. “I won’t have
you taken from your home and sent to a labor camp. My friend in the Wehrmacht said
they could come here to take you away, and almost surely will, to make an example
of you. They don’t care who you are or how you’re living—people of Jewish ancestry
must go, or risk what will happen if they stay. And who knows what they’ll do next.
They’re sending Jews to labor camps now and calling them a ‘criminal element,’ in
order to make it more acceptable to lock them up, along with homosexuals, Gypsies,
and anyone else they don’t want in Hitler’s Germany. Jewish teachers cannot work,
Jews are being eliminated from their businesses and fired from their jobs, they can’t
go to parks or swimming pools. Where do you think this will go next? You can still
get a passport to leave Germany, with special permission. You have to take the boys
and go while you still can, before it gets worse.” And now Paul was beginning to believe
it would. He spoke to Nick with a tone of urgency.

“How much worse can it get?” Nick said, skeptical. “We are respectable people, Papa.
You own one of the biggest estates in Germany. We come from one of the oldest families,”
Nick argued with him with a look of desperation. He was fighting for his right to
stay in the only place he knew that was home.

Paul said miserably, “As far as they’re concerned, a half-Jewish mother cancels out
the rest. They don’t care how old or honorable our family is, by ancestry, you are
Jewish, even if you don’t agree. And Jews are no longer welcome here, that is precisely
what the general said. He took a great risk himself in coming here to warn us. He
said that your file has already crossed someone’s desk in Berlin. They are checking
all the old families, all the town records, marriages, births, they are systematically
looking for Jews. He said we have to move quickly. They could come here in a matter
of weeks.”