Pegasus: A Novel (37 page)

“Christianna? Are you okay?” He wasn’t sure if she was awake or had been dreaming,
but she answered him in a sleepy voice.

“I’m fine. My back hurts.” He rubbed it for her, and she started to drift back to
sleep and then jolted awake with a sharp stabbing sensation. He looked at her then
and sat up in bed. And he could see that she was in pain.

“I think you’re having the baby,” he said in a strong, quiet voice. “I don’t think
this is indigestion.” He suddenly realized that she was in denial, and she’d been
having contractions earlier. “Come on, baby, let’s go.”

“I want to stay here,” she said in a small voice.

“We can’t,” he said firmly. “I don’t want you to have the baby here.” He was definite
about that.

“They won’t let you be with me,” she said plaintively, and then in a smaller voice,
“I’m scared …” And as she said it, a viselike pain gripped her, and she clutched his
shoulders with both hands, and he could see in her eyes how bad it was.

“I’ll stay with you if they’ll let me,” he promised. He got up, put on his pants and
a shirt, his socks and shoes, then rapidly brushed his hair. “Come on,” he said as
he scooped her up in his arms, and wrapped her in the blanket. He tried to stand her
up, but she could no longer walk, and he was panicked they had waited too long. He
set her down on the couch in the living room. “I’ll get the car.” They had already
arranged to borrow one from a trapeze act down the road, who had agreed to leave the
keys on the seat. And when he got there, he found the keys, quickly started the car,
drove it back to their trailer, and went inside to get Christianna. She was in the
throes of terrible contractions and could barely speak. She stopped him when he tried
to pick her up.

“I can’t … I can’t …” she whispered. “It hurts too much … don’t move me,” she begged
him, and then she screamed.

“Christianna, don’t do this to me … baby, please—let’s go.” But she was in agony,
and he didn’t have the heart to just pick her up and move her, she was in too much
pain, and she wouldn’t let go of him. He helped her lie down on the couch, and he
ran next door to wake Gallina. “Get a doctor—an ambulance—somebody—she’s having the
baby!”

“I thought you were going to the hospital.” Gallina looked at him in surprise, still
half asleep.

“I think it’s too late—she won’t let me move her.” Gallina woke up fast then, and
promised to get someone there, the fire department if she had to. Nick ran back to
their trailer, praying that someone would come soon. And by the time he got back to
her, Christianna had gone back to their bed, and was writhing in agony.

“I can’t …” she kept saying to him, “I can’t …” and then she was racked by another
pain, and he didn’t know what to do, and finally he held tightly to her hands and
looked her in the eye, and knew
what he had to do. It was no different than Pegasus when he wanted to give up.

“Yes, you can,” he said to her firmly. “Yes, you can. You’re doing it … it’s going
to be fine … I’m right here—”

“No!” she screamed at him, as a pain bored through her that was so powerful, she felt
like she was drowning and could no longer see him. Everything was underwater, except
the pain that followed her everywhere, and she could hear him but she couldn’t see
him. And as he watched her, there was terror on his face. He didn’t want to lose her
or the baby if something went wrong, and then he laid her down gently, and when he
looked, he could see the baby’s head coming through, moving toward him, as Christianna
screamed, one long unending howl of agony, until the baby lay in his hands, and she
stopped screaming, and there was silence in the room. It was a girl, with the cord
wrapped around her. She wasn’t making a sound, but she was looking at him with wide-open
eyes, and he was crying as he held her and turned her gently and tapped her back,
and she took a breath and started to cry, and Christianna cried too.

“She’s so beautiful,” she said in awe. “And I love you so much.” She touched his face,
as they looked at each other and laughed and cried.

“I love you too.” What he had just experienced had made up for almost everything that
had happened to him. It was the greatest gift of his life. And so was Christianna.
And their child.

He had no idea how to cut the cord, but he didn’t have to. The fire department arrived
five minutes later, and the firemen took over and knew what to do. They offered to
take Christianna to the hospital, but she didn’t want to, and the baby was fine. She
was already at her mother’s breast, and looking around with interest. And Nick knew
he would never forget the instant she’d been born and what they
shared. And maybe Christianna had been right. She didn’t want to leave him, and if
she’d gone to the hospital, he would have missed all of it. It was the greatest miracle
of all.

The firemen checked Christianna’s vital signs and the baby’s, and helped them clean
things up, and Gallina came to help too. And an hour later the firemen left and wished
them luck. Other performers had gathered in the road by then, and Gallina told them
what had happened, and everyone was happy for them. Lucas came to see his baby sister
for a few minutes, and then went back to play with Rosie in the other trailer.

In their tiny room, Christianna lay holding their baby, and Nick looked at them both
with adoration.

“You were fantastic,” he praised her, “and so brave.”

“No, you were. I’m so glad we were together,” she said softly, as Nick stroked the
baby’s cheek and she slept in her mother’s arms.

“Me too. You were right.” She was right with most things. Christianna always seemed
to know what was best for them. They had already agreed to call her Chloe if she was
a girl, and Nick whispered her name, and then kissed Christianna. And as he looked
at them, he knew that one day he’d give them a better life than this, in this tiny
room in a trailer, touring all over the country, with no place to call home. He knew
he would do it—he didn’t know how, but he would. Christianna deserved it, and so did
their baby, and Lucas … but for now, what they had just shared was a miracle in itself,
and enough for them both. He curled up in bed next to them, and all three of them
went to sleep. It had been a very big day.

A year later, in the spring of 1944, when Chloe was nearly a year old, the tides were
turning. The Allies were bombing Germany relentlessly, and landing in Europe, the
Russians were pushing the Germans back, and Adolf Hitler’s forces were finally losing
ground. It was a long time coming, and it wasn’t over yet. But there was hope at last
that Hitler might not conquer the world. Things were moving in the right direction.

Nick was worried about his old friend Alex—he hadn’t heard from him in nearly a year.
The letters just weren’t getting through anymore. He had heard from Marianne, and
she had had no word of her father either. Nick just prayed he was still alive. Marianne’s
baby was two years old by then, and she was living with her parents-in-law at Haversham,
and she said it was a peaceful life, but there was an unmistakably sad tone in her
letters. At twenty-three, she had lost a country, a home, a husband, and possibly
a father. She said the great joy in her life was her little girl. She was a year older
than Chloe, Nick and Christianna’s baby, who was the light of his life too.

After Alex had helped get the tenant farmer’s friend close to the Swiss border, and
concealed him in his wine cellar before that, there had been others, Jews who had
remained hidden or been overlooked, and were trying to escape before they were sent
to camps. Most were men who had the strength to survive the hardships, and were wily
enough to flee the Germans, and live in hiding or on the run. There had been women
on a few occasions, and once two little girls whose entire family had been taken—they
were trying to get to their aunt in France, who was willing to conceal them there.

Alex had never planned to help them, but each time the opportunity came, he rose to
the occasion and did what he could. There was no formal underground, just a handful
of people who were brave enough to help. It was the only thing that gave meaning to
his life now. Marianne was safely in England with the Beaulieus and her baby, he hated
his countrymen, and he was willing to do almost anything he could to undermine the
Nazis, and he had a perfect front as a distinguished aristocrat whom no one suspected.
And in time it took over his life. It had become his reason for living, and he continued
to help and conceal people, assisting them to escape. He knew it was his mission.
And he had gotten bolder as he gained more experience. Still the local high command
treated him with respect. He was just a local nobleman alone with his horses, and
they saw him out riding every day. He was on cordial terms with all the officers,
and had invited them to dinner several times. They thought him a charming man.

In June 1944, the Allies began landing on the coast of northern France. Hoping they
would come soon, and wanting to clear a path for them, Alex helped a group of men
blow up a train carrying rockets and munitions, to do all he could to wreak havoc
for the Nazis. It had gone well.

Alex worked as part of a six-man team that night, with one woman among them. It was
the first time he’d done anything like it, but he had agreed to join them, when they
said they needed his help.

They had a surprisingly easy time laying the wire for the explosives, and they were
bringing in the dynamite later that night, by wheelbarrow and by hand and by car.
Alex was planning to walk through the woods to them. He was fearless, and if they
killed him, he didn’t care. Marianne was safe with the Beaulieus, and the world he
knew and loved had been blown to smithereens in the past five years. Nothing he had
ever held dear still existed. And whatever he could do to destroy the Nazis as revenge
seemed fair.

He carried feed bags full of explosives that night, and handed them man to man to
set them. And then they all waited in the woods for the train the next morning, and
when it appeared at dawn, they lit the fuses. The reaction was immediate. The train
was blown to kingdom come and everything in it. Their mission had been accomplished.
They disappeared like mist into the woods, and Alex walked home through the forest.
He had just reached the path to the schloss, when the colonel appeared out of nowhere
on Favory. The horse still recognized the man who had trained him and pawed the ground
when he saw Alex. Alex smiled at both rider and man, and looked like a gentleman out
for a morning walk.

“Going somewhere, Count?” the colonel asked him with an evil glint in his eye.

“Just out for a morning walk, Colonel. How’s our friend there? He looks lively. Is
everything all right? It sounds like you had some trouble this morning.” The entire
neighborhood had heard the explosion. There was no way to ignore it. Alex couldn’t
pretend not to know.

“And where were you an hour ago, Count?”

“Getting some air,” he said innocently, as the colonel watched him. Alex could see
he was suspicious, but he was fearless.

“Along the train tracks? It stinks of dynamite there,” the colonel said angrily. It
would go badly for him that the explosion had happened in his district and on his
watch. And the high command was sensitive these days to betrayals and failures. The
colonel didn’t want that on his record, and Alex knew it.

“Does it?” Alex said benignly. And as he did, the colonel pulled a gun on him and
pointed it at his head from the distance.

“You think I don’t know what you’ve been up to, hiding Jews and making trouble! Always
the innocent aristocrat, looking down your nose at us. And now you think you can blow
up a munitions train and get away with it! We’ve been watching you for months.” He
was shaking with anger. Alex only smiled.

“Have you? It must be disappointing for you. I lead a quiet life.” If he was trying
to scare him, he hadn’t, but Alex had his hand on the pistol in his pocket, just in
case. It was the gun he’d been given the first night his tenant came to see him with
the man he had hidden in his wine cellar for two days.

“Not so quiet as you’d like us to think. And when the Allies come, you’ll welcome
them with open arms?”

“Are they coming?” Alex asked, feigning surprise. “What interesting news. I haven’t
heard that on the radio.”

“What have you heard?” the colonel asked, as the horse danced and he approached.

“About our victories on the eastern front, and how the British are cowering beneath
our bombs. Is that not true, Colonel? Propaganda or truth?”

“You traitor!” the colonel said as he drew closer. “I hate your kind!
Always supercilious! You think you’re better than everyone else, because you were
born with a title and a schloss, and can do anything you want.”

“And you think you can steal it from us, and be one of us. You’re not, any more than
the Fuehrer. You can’t steal it, Colonel. You have to be born to it. That’s how it
works.”