Pegasus: A Novel (32 page)

“Yes, I can. I’m eighteen. And they’d draft me anyway.”

“You’re not even American,” Nick reminded him. He didn’t want his son going to war,
for anyone.

“They took me,” he said quietly with a determined look. “Germany took away our citizenship
anyway. I leave for boot camp in two weeks.”

“That’s insane!” Nick said, and stormed out of the trailer, near tears. He didn’t
want his son risking his life for any country, neither his old one nor his new one.
But Toby was right. He would have been drafted. When Nick told Christianna about it,
she could see how upset Nick was.

“Maybe he’s right, and they would have drafted him,” she said quietly.

“He’s German,” Nick reminded her. But that rapidly became an issue too.

Two days later U.S. Immigration authorities came to the fairground to question all
German nationals who were employed by the circus. Many were roustabouts, and several
important acts were German performers. All of the horse acts, two of the big cat acts,
Nick, many clowns, several gymnasts, and their star contortionist. And one by one
they were questioned, as to their loyalty. Those who were Jewish were immediately
exempt and allowed to ask for asylum. The others were given the opportunity to go
home if they wanted to, and some had more complicated status, Nick among them. He
had been deemed Jewish by the Germans, so he and his children qualified
for asylum, but he was also married to an American now. Christianna was a citizen.
So he had the choice of requesting asylum, or asking for citizenship through his wife.

“What’s it going to be, Mr. Bing?” the immigration officer asked him, holding a clipboard.
He had handed him back his passport and the boys’.

Nick hesitated for only a second. “I’d like to become an American,” he said quietly.
It was his final act of renouncing Germany forever. The officer made a note on his
clipboard.

“We’ll be in touch with you in the next few weeks,” he reassured him. “What about
the name? I see your passport is issued in a different name from the one you use in
the circus. Which do you want it to be on your citizenship papers?”

“Nicolas Bing,” he said clearly. He had lost the “von” and his title, but he had a
name he could live with, one that would never link him to Germany again.

“Got it,” the officer said, and moved on to the next one, as Nick looked at Christianna.

“Do you mind?” he asked Christianna, and she shook her head.

“You can be whatever you want to be,” she answered, but she thought he had made the
right decision.

In the next few days, they learned that several of the performers, mostly the non-Jewish
Germans, were going back to Europe. They had decided not to stay. They didn’t want
to be under suspicion for being spies.

And all Nick could think about in the ensuing days was Toby leaving for the army and
going to boot camp.

The best thing in his life had happened only days before, when he married Christianna.
And now the worst was about to happen. His son was going to war.

Toby left for boot camp at Fort Mason in San Francisco right before Christmas and
there were tearful goodbyes with Katja, as well as his father, stepmother, and brother.
Christianna was as upset as Nick and Lucas, and dozens of people came by for days
before, to wish him well. And Toby and Katja were inseparable for the days before
he left. They spent as much time as they could together, kissing and holding hands,
but everyone else wanted time with him too. Many of the other young men were leaving,
but Nick and his family were much loved, and Toby was a sweet boy. Pierre came to
pantomime his goodbyes, and actually managed to make Nick laugh, which was rare now.
He had been stone-faced and red-eyed since Toby enlisted after Pearl Harbor. He wasn’t
afraid to show how much he would miss his son. And he sobbed openly the morning Toby
left. Katja was equally inconsolable, and Lucas and Christianna clung to each other
and Nick after their goodbyes. And Gallina stood by in tears to comfort her daughter.

Toby would be home again for a visit in February, before they left
on tour in late March or early April. And then the army would ship him somewhere,
no one knew where just yet.

It made Christmas for Nick and his family a bleak affair. Nick didn’t have the heart
to buy or decorate a tree, so Christianna did it for him, and she and Lucas strung
up lights outside the trailer, but Nick was serious all the time now, and terrified
to lose his boy.

Those who had decided to leave the circus were already gone by then, or packing up.
Their decisions had been quick, and made Nick’s horse act even more important, since
the others were departing. The only time Nick smiled now was when he performed, and
nothing Christianna did could cheer him. She worried about him constantly, and talked
to Gallina about it.

“He’s had a lot of losses in his life,” Gallina explained gently. “He’s afraid. Be
patient. He’ll cheer up.” Christianna did everything she could to lighten the mood,
but Christmas was awful, and New Year’s was no better. Nick stayed home when she went
to have their traditional New Year’s Day dinner at the Polish restaurant with her
family, but her father and brothers said they understood. Christianna and Lucas went
anyway and joined the others. Nick just wasn’t in the mood, he was still too upset
about Toby.

And in January, Nick had a letter from Alex, in a more complicated way this time,
through a friend in Geneva, who forwarded the letter to Nick, since America had entered
the war. Alex said nothing about conditions in Germany, or his life, due to the censors,
but he told Nick that Marianne and her husband were expecting a baby in the late spring.
It was Alex’s first grandchild and he was excited about it. He said he missed her
terribly and couldn’t wait to see her and the new baby and meet her husband one day.
And when Nick put down the letter, he looked at Christianna with a rueful smile and
a groan.

“Now I feel ancient,” he told her. “My friend Alex is having his first grandchild.
He’s four years older than I am, but I could have one too.” Nick was forty-six now,
and Alex had just turned fifty, which seemed astonishing too. It seemed only yesterday
when they were boys, and had lives they thought that nothing could touch or would
ever change. And now everything was gone. Nick worked in a circus, and Alex was alone
and hadn’t seen his daughter in more than a year, and Toby was going to war.

Nick and Christianna hadn’t talked again about having a baby. With Pearl Harbor happening
only days after their wedding, Toby enlisting was all he could think about—the babies
he had, not the ones they didn’t.

And when Toby came home after boot camp in San Francisco, it was agonizingly bittersweet.
Each second was precious, and Nick never let him out of his sight for a minute. He
wanted to be with him every moment he could. Toby did a final performance with his
father, in his corporal’s uniform, at the ringmaster’s request. And when he and his
father rode the Lipizzaners through their final steps, the crowd stood up and cheered
them. They were cheering for Toby as tears rolled down Nick’s cheeks. The ringmaster
had explained over the microphone that Toby was shipping out.

And there were countless others like him, at the circus, and in all walks of life.
Every young boy in America was wearing a uniform and looked like a man overnight.
Even Lucas seemed suddenly older and more mature. And Toby had come back from boot
camp looking solid and strong and healthy. He was home for five days, which went too
quickly, and the night before he left, he announced that he and Katja had gotten engaged.
And she and her family were as tearful as Nick about his leaving. And on the eve of
Toby’s departure, after walking Katja back to her trailer, the two brothers lay in
bed in their
familiar bedroom, and Lucas hugged him and told him how much he would miss him. Toby
had tears in his eyes as he embraced his younger brother, and Lucas was crying.

All of Christianna’s family came to see him off in the morning. Sandor referred to
him as his grandson, and told him how proud of him he was, and what a great American
he would be. And Katja and her family came to see him off at the train to California,
and no one could stop crying.

In the days after Toby left for Fort Mason, Nick tried to keep busy with the horses,
and practicing new routines for his new act without Toby. But Christianna and Nick
were the main focus, even more so now. Nick had written to Alex to tell him that Toby
had enlisted, but he knew it would be a long time before Alex got the letter, and
longer still before Nick heard from him, from Switzerland. But it was shocking to
realize now that Nick’s little boy was in the army, and Alex’s little girl was about
to have a baby of her own. Time had flown.

And in April, Toby was able to get a message to Nick from Fort Mason that he was shipping
out. He wasn’t allowed to say where, but he said it was in the Pacific. He knew two
other Germans in his company, and none were being sent to Europe. But at least he
was being allowed to fight for his adopted country. Nick wished he weren’t going.
And at the same time Japanese Americans were being sent to internment camps in the
West. The government wanted to be sure that there were no divided loyalties among
any of them. But Nick knew nothing more about where Toby was being sent. Toby promised
to write to them as often as he could. Nick slipped the letter into a little box,
along with the others Toby had written from boot camp. He had saved them all.

They had another letter from him in May, from Hawaii, while they
were on tour, and he sounded happy and excited, although he could say little about
what he was doing or where he was going. Between the restrictions on him and the censors
who read Alex’s letters, Nick felt like he was in the dark about both of them, but
at least he had letters from time to time. He wondered if Marianne had had her baby
yet, but he didn’t know that either. And he hadn’t heard from her since Toby left
for boot camp. She usually wrote to him and not his father, and Toby gave him her
news.

Marianne’s baby was due in the first days of June. She’d had an easy pregnancy, although
the days seemed long to her without Edmund. Isabel had her help in the garden, to
keep her busy and walking and moving, and she thoroughly enjoyed having her daughter-in-law
with her, and watching Marianne blossom like a lovely flower. And Isabel was over
the moon about the baby. As was Edmund. He came home as often as he could, which wasn’t
often. And each time, he rubbed his hands gently on his wife’s belly, amazed and thrilled
by how much it had grown. He loved feeling the baby kick, and looked excited each
time, as though it were the first time he’d felt it. It wasn’t likely he could, but
he had said he would try to get leave around the time the baby was due, in the first
week of June, and his mother warned him that first babies were almost always late.
She told him that he had been three weeks late, and she’d almost changed her mind
by then if he was going to be so rude and tardy. But she had forgiven him the moment
she saw him.

Edmund had also said that if she went into labor when he was on the base, he would
try to trade watch with someone, or even a scheduled mission if they’d let him, and
drive home as fast as he could, although he was based in East Anglia, which was several
hours away. But he said he would do his best, and she knew he would. She had decided
to have the baby at home in Haversham, since hospitals were so busy with injured men
now, and she felt guilty taking up bed space and the nurses’ attention for something
so normal. She was having the local doctor and her mother-in-law at the birth, and
with any luck at all, Edmund would be on leave, or come soon after, to see their baby.
She wanted a son for him, which was what was expected of them, but Edmund had secretly
admitted to her, since the beginning, that he wanted a girl, one who looked just like
her. They wanted many children, at least five or six, and they were both delighted
with the seemingly easy arrival of their first.

By sheer miracle, Edmund managed to get five days’ leave at the end of May, into the
first days of June, which was precisely when she was expecting their baby, and she
hoped it would arrive on time before he left. Isabel promised to run her around the
garden, and they’d had a spell of hot weather, which Isabel felt sure would bring
it on, if gardening and long walks didn’t. But Marianne wanted to sit very still before
he arrived, so she didn’t have it early either. She was enormous, and Isabel kept
saying it must be twins, although the doctor hadn’t heard a second heartbeat. But
Isabel found it hard to believe that one baby could be that size. Marianne’s face
and limbs had stayed thin, but her belly was huge, and Edmund made fun of her now
whenever he saw her. He said she looked like she’d stolen some poor child’s beach
ball and was hiding it under her dress. And she was uncomfortable in the heat and
felt like she could barely move. She could hardly get her stockings on, and had given
up wearing them in the heat. There was no one at Haversham to see her, and her mother-in-law
told her not to bother. They didn’t care. And lots of girls didn’t wear them now,
since they were so hard to get.

The night before Edmund was due home, he called Marianne from the base. He had just
been assigned to an important mission, and they wouldn’t allow him to trade it, or
start his leave for two more days. He said it would be over quickly, and to keep her
legs crossed until he got there. She promised to do so, and he had to get off the
phone quickly, as dozens of other airmen, if not hundreds, had to call about canceled
leaves. All she had time to do was tell him she loved him and come home soon, and
he said he loved her, too, in haste, and hung up. And she went to tell Isabel the
disappointing news that he’d been delayed for a mission, but Marianne was surprisingly
calm about it, and said she was sure she wouldn’t have the baby for a few more days.