Pegasus: A Novel (4 page)

“What am I supposed to do?” Nick nearly shouted at him, but
there was no one to shout at, no one to rail at but the fates. Because of a mother
he had never known, or even knew existed, Nick and his sons would have to leave their
home and flee. “What do I have to do? Run away?”

Paul looked at him with heartbreak in his eyes and nodded. “Yes. Heinrich said that
people are leaving for America, if they can get sponsors and jobs, which isn’t easy.
I made a list of people I know there, but I don’t know if they’d be willing to help.
I want to write to the headmaster of your school in England—perhaps he can assist
us. We have to reach out to everyone we know, to get you out of here. But to do that,
you have to have a job.”

“And what will I do, Papa? Be a chauffeur? I don’t know how to work.” He felt like
a fool saying it, but they both knew it was true. The world he lived in and their
circumstances didn’t require him to work, or to know how to do anything productive.
He hadn’t even learned the little he should, to manage his own land.

“Perhaps you could work in a bank,” Paul said hopefully. “You can’t take more than
a certain amount of money with you. They don’t want any large fortunes leaving Germany.
I’ll give you whatever I can.” Paul looked distressed. He had thought of the same
things himself. “You have to be able to take care of the boys.”

“Nothing in my life has ever prepared me for this,” Nick said, with a tone of desperation.
“We’re brought up to do nothing except ride horses and drive cars, be civil at dinner
parties and dance at balls. What part of that would make me eligible for a job?”

“We’ll have to think of one quickly. There’s no time to waste. You could teach German
once you got there. You speak English well—it’s why I want to write to your headmaster.
Perhaps he could get you a job in a school, in England or the States. It’s a respectable
profession and it would feed you and the boys.”

“And what am I supposed to tell my children?” He couldn’t imagine what to say, it
was all so convoluted, so ridiculous, and so sick. Toby wouldn’t understand it at
fifteen, and Lucas even less at six. He didn’t understand it himself. “That we have
to leave Germany because we’re considered criminals? My sons don’t even know what
a Jew is. And I’m supposed to tell them that because a lunatic is running Germany,
we’re now being forced to leave home, to go to a place where we have nothing and know
no one. Papa, this is insane.”

“Yes, it is,” Paul agreed, “and when things calm down, which I’m sure they will eventually,
you can come back, but for now you have to leave. Heinrich made that very clear to
me, and I believe him. You have no other option. I’ll write the letters, and you need
to think if there is anyone you know who can help, either sponsor you or give you
a job.” Nick sat down in silence again for a moment, dumbstruck by all he’d heard.
And Paul was surprised by what he said.

“The men I went to school with in England do the same thing we do. Hunt, ride horses,
and manage their estates. They don’t have jobs. And I’d like to try to meet my mother,
at least once. Even if she wants nothing to do with me, I’d like to see who she is.”
It suddenly mattered to him, although he wasn’t sure why. He was curious about the
mother who had given him up at birth. And since she was probably still alive, he wanted
to see her face.

“I understand. I’ll help you do that.” Paul looked as though he meant it, although
he wasn’t happy about it. She had been gone for forty-three years, and he had no desire
himself to exhume her from the past. But they had more important things to tend to
first, than satisfy Nick’s curiosity about his mother. “We have no time to waste now.
We have to get you and the boys out of Germany as soon as we can.” Neither of them
could think of a way to do that yet, but they knew they had to find a plan. Nick and
the boys’ lives depended on
it, or their well-being certainly. Nick was horrified at the idea of going to a labor
camp with his sons, and Paul couldn’t think of anything worse, although his friend
the general had hinted that that might only be the first step, and there could be
worse to come, and he didn’t want that happening to them. The general paying Paul
a visit to warn him had been an immeasurable gift. Paul shuddered now, thinking of
what might have happened if he hadn’t come. They would have been taken by surprise,
and Nick and the boys would be gone.

“Let’s talk about this later,” Nick said with a look of distress. “I need some air.”

“Where are you going?” his father asked, panicked, fearing what Nick would do next.

“To Altenberg, to see Alex.” As always, in times of unhappiness or joy, he wanted
to see his friend.

“Are you going to tell him?” Paul was worried.

“I don’t know. I just want to be there for a while. Of course I’ll tell him when I
leave. And I need to think about who to write to and where to start. I don’t know
anyone in the States.” It might as well have been on another planet, and he couldn’t
see himself teaching at a school in England. He couldn’t imagine leaving Germany at
all. To where? To do what?

“I know some people in the States,” Paul said quietly. “I will write them all letters
asking them to sponsor you and the boys, and give you a job.”

“I can work as a stable boy, or a dance instructor,” Nick said ruefully, and he was
only half-joking. They were among the few things he knew how to do. He hadn’t tended
to his own horses since he was a boy himself, but he knew he could.

“I’ll try to get you something better than that,” his father said
sadly, horrified by the situation they were in. He was willing to do anything to save
his son and grandchildren.

A few minutes later, Nick drove away in his Bugatti, and both men were lost in thought.
As he drove the beautiful sports car, Nick realized that life as he knew it was about
to end, for years if not forever. And Paul was trying to adjust to the idea that he
was about to lose his entire family and be separated from everyone he held dear. He
thought of going with them, but he couldn’t abandon the estate. He had a duty to be
there for the land and their tenants, and to uphold his heritage and everything he
had been brought up to respect. And he felt too old to go. The last thing Nick needed
now was an old man on his hands to worry about. He would have enough to do with his
boys. Paul knew he had to stay here. But Nick and the boys
had
to leave. Soon.

When Nick got to Altenberg, he parked his car and walked to the stables, and found
Alex already working with Pluto. He was driving him hard through his paces, making
him switch directions with split-second timing, and training him to stand motionless
on his hind legs, which was called a “levade” and was something Lipizzaners were born
to do. Nick noticed that Pluto had improved remarkably in recent weeks, since he had
last seen Alex practicing with him. The result of hours of training was extremely
good. Pluto was a natural performer, and he would do well when he left for Vienna
in a few months, although Alex still wasn’t satisfied. Alex waved when he saw Nick
perch himself on the fence to watch his friend and the Lipizzaner at work.

“How bad was it with your father?” he called over his shoulder, and Nick shrugged.
He didn’t want to lie to him, and he didn’t want to tell him the truth yet either.
He was still digesting what he’d heard. It was just too hideous to believe. He and
the boys had to
leave Germany in a matter of weeks, with nowhere to go, and no way to support his
sons when he got there. What his father had told him that morning was a nightmare,
and all Nick wanted to do was wake up and hear it was a joke. But it was no joke.
He thought about his mother, too, as he watched Alex work with Pluto, this time adding
a hopping motion to the horse’s erect stance, which Nick knew was called a courbette.
He had seen Alex train horses to do that for years, as well as the ultimate, the capriole
and the croupade, in which the exquisite white horses seemed to fly through the air
in a perfectly choreographed ballet. Alex referred to the maneuvers they did as “airs
above the ground.” Alex was brilliant at training their Arabians, too, in
haute école
and line training, and it soothed Nick a little to watch Alex work with Pluto all
afternoon. It was dark outside when he stopped, and a groom came to lead the horse
away. Alex talked to Pluto and calmed him for a few minutes before he left, as though
thanking him for his hard work and a fabulous performance. Pluto had done better for
him that afternoon than ever before, and Alex looked pleased when Nick jumped off
the fence and walked over to join him.

“I have no idea how you get them to do that,” Nick said admiringly. “I’ve watched
you do it a thousand times, and it still looks like magic to me, as though you will
the horse to rise in the air. I swear you’re a magician.”

“It’s in their blood. They
want
to do it,” Alex assured him modestly. “I just give them the courage to try. Once
they know they can, it’s easy, and fun for both of us.” Nick looked unconvinced and
distracted as Alex met his eyes. “Was everything all right with your father?” Alex
asked him, worried. It had suddenly dawned on him that Nick’s father might be sick.
He hoped not, but Nick looked deeply unhappy and upset.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Nick said vaguely as they left the stables. Alex watched him closely.
Nick’s whole body looked tense, and his eyes were two deep pools of pain. They had
been friends for too long for Alex not to notice.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Alex said cautiously. “You don’t owe me anything. But
I know you’re lying. If I can do anything to help, tell me.”

Nick shook his head, and against his will, in the face of Alex’s kindness, tears sprang
to his eyes, and he turned to look at the friend who was like a brother to him. It
was Alex who had consoled him when his wife and daughter died, and who had been there
for him for every major event in his life, good or bad. They had celebrated and cried
together, and shared every grief and joy like the brothers they felt they were.

“My mother is still alive.… My father lied to me for all these years about who she
was. And he just found out she was half Jewish. He didn’t know. He has a friend in
the Wehrmacht who came to tell him, and that the boys and I will be sent away somewhere,
possibly to a labor camp, if we don’t leave. I have to leave Germany in the next few
weeks, because I’m now considered a ‘Jew.’ I need a job and a sponsor in America or
England, or anywhere I can get to. Alex, I have no idea what I’m doing, or how I’m
going to support the boys when I get there. About the only job I’d know how to do
is be a stable boy or a groom or a chauffeur.” There were tears in his eyes as he
said it. He looked panicked. Alex stopped walking and stared at him as he listened.

“You’re serious? This isn’t some kind of joke?” Alex couldn’t believe it. Nothing
he had just told him was credible, least of all that his mother was alive, and Nick
was part Jewish. But far worse was
the news that he and the boys could get taken to a labor camp and had to leave immediately.
It was beyond comprehension.

“Do I look like I’m joking? What the hell am I going to do?”

“Find a sponsor and a job, and damn quickly,” Alex said solemnly. They both knew what
had been happening in Germany since the Nuremberg Laws, instigated by Hitler. They
just hadn’t known that it applied to Nick and his boys. That was very, very bad news,
and justified how Nick looked.

“A job doing what?” Nick said grimly. “At least you can train horses. I can’t even
do that. I just ride them after someone else does.”

“Are you sure there’s no way to buy your way out of this or talk to someone to change
their minds?” Alex still couldn’t believe it, nor could Nick, but it seemed to be
terrifyingly true.

“Not according to my father. His friend, the general in the Wehrmacht, said we have
to leave immediately, within a few weeks if not sooner. I have no idea what we’re
going to do. And why would anyone want to sponsor me and the boys, or hire me for
a job I can’t do?”

“We’ll think of something,” Alex said, trying to be helpful. But beyond finding Nick
a sponsor and a job, he was grappling with the idea that his boyhood friend who had
been his soul mate, brother, and partner in crime for forty years was about to leave
Germany, possibly forever, or surely for a long time, until Germany returned to normal,
and who knew how long that would take? “Do the boys know yet?” Alex asked, panicked
for him.

“I just found out this morning, and I’m not going to say anything to them until I
know what we’re doing. What if I can’t find anything, and they send us away?”

“You’ll survive it if that happens. But we have to make sure that it doesn’t.” He
couldn’t bear the thought of the three of them being
taken away. It would be just too cruel, and what if one or all of them didn’t survive
it? Alex wanted to do anything and everything he could to help. He tried to imagine
what it would be like if he and Marianne had to leave Germany, just as Nick and his
children did. It was beyond anything he could understand, and he would have been just
as terrified for the well-being and safety of his daughter as Nick must be now about
the boys. Nick had a look of desperation as Alex walked him to his car and they stood
there talking. Alex had never been so frightened for anyone in his life as he was
for them now. It reminded him of when Nick’s wife and daughter got sick. He was just
as agonized for Nick and his sons now, and he felt sick himself thinking about it.
“We’ll think of something,” he tried to reassure Nick as he got into the Bugatti.
Nick stared up at him with sorrow in his eyes, and a look of despair. Neither of them
could ever have dreamed that something like this could happen in their beloved country.
Their lives had seemed safe and secure forever, into all the future generations, and
now Nick was being forced to leave. It was impossible to absorb and fathom, let alone
find a miracle to solve something so enormous.