Pegasus: A Novel (6 page)

“You’re crazy, but I love you, Alex. I can’t join a circus, for God’s sake, no matter
how fabulous your horses are. I can’t do a circus act. You’re the horse trainer, not
I. And I can’t take your horses. And not the Lipizzaners surely. No circus would hire
me. I’d have no idea what I was doing.”

“I can teach you. And the Lipizzaners know their job. All you have to do is guide
them through it, by voice command. Leave the hard
part to them. You can ride one of the Arabians and gallop around the ring. Nick, you’re
one of the best horsemen I know. And you can do it, if it will save you and the boys.”
Alex saw it as their only way out.

“I can’t join a circus,” Nick said. “What would I do there?” He looked horrified,
but Alex was determined.

“You’d be saving your sons, and yourself, from disaster here. The situation for Jews
is getting worse not better, and your father’s friend said they have a file on you.
What choice do you have?” Nick didn’t answer for a long moment as he thought about
it, and then he nodded, and looked at Alex. Everything his friend had said was true.

“I can’t take your horses. Eight of them, and two of them Lipizzaners. If I do it,
I’ll pay you before I go.”

“I won’t take your money. You’re like a brother. If the circus will take you, they’re
a gift from me.”

“I can’t do that,” Nick said firmly, and then he grew pensive again. “How would I
find a circus from here?”

“There is one called Ringling Brothers. I’ve read about it. I think they merged with
another circus, and they’re based in Florida. We can call the embassy in Berlin and
ask.”

“They’ll think we’re crazy,” Nick said, smiling. He was beginning to feel hopeful,
even though he still thought it was a crazy idea, and probably wouldn’t work. Circuses
didn’t just hire men with horses to perform a circus act they didn’t know how to do.
It sounded farfetched to him. But they called the embassy later that morning, and
they were given the address of Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus in Sarasota,
Florida. It was based there for the winter before it went on tour. The woman at the
embassy knew all about them, and Nick didn’t tell her why he wanted to contact them.
He was afraid she’d think he was crazy too.

Nick and Alex drafted a letter then, asking them to hire and sponsor
him, with a description of the horses he could bring with him, and explaining the
documentation he needed from them. They drove to the post office to mail it, and then
they went to the manor house to tell Paul what they’d done. He thought it was an intriguing
idea, although he insisted on paying Alex, too, if it worked. Nick would be taking
some of his best horses. And Alex said he had an old railroad car they could use for
the ship to transport them. He was even beginning to convince Nick as they discussed
the plan. Nick wanted to go riding after that, but Alex wouldn’t let him. He said
they had work to do.

“What kind of work? Do you want to look at your forest land again?” Nick liked that
idea too. It would distract him and get his mind off his problems.

“You have a circus act to learn, my friend,” Alex said in a stern tone, “and after
we teach you what you need to know, we’ll work with the boys.” Nick could see he was
dead serious, and this time he didn’t laugh. They drove back to Schloss Altenberg,
and Alex pushed him hard all afternoon, showing him how to work the Lipizzaners, and
how to direct them by voice commands. And then he had him ride Pluto around the ring,
again and again, taking the big white stallion through his paces and everything he
knew how to do. And then he had him work with Nina, the Lipizzaner mare, and an Arabian
stallion.

“Your horses are a lot smarter than I am,” Nick said finally. “I keep forgetting what
to do. They don’t.” They were impeccably trained.

“They’ll remind you. They’re smarter than I am sometimes too.” Alex had done nothing
but instruct him, with infinite patience, all afternoon in his style and their liberty
commands. And he made Nick repeat what he learned again and again. He was a hard taskmaster,
and incredibly patient, and Nick was impressed.

It was an arduous week in Alex’s hands. He was relentless in his training of Nick,
teaching him how to work as one with the horses, and then he included the boys. Responses
to Paul’s letters began to drift in, all of them negative. No one had a job for Nick
or felt they could sponsor him and the boys. Their only hope now was the circus, and
as they waited for an answer, Alex continued to work with Nick and the boys. Paul
came to see them in the stables several times, and was impressed by what he saw, and
Marianne came every day after school to watch them. They looked very professional
to her by then. Toby was still a little shy, but Lucas was irresistible and a natural.
He rode one of the Lipizzaners bareback, and Alex taught him how to leap from one
to the other, and both the mare and the stallion were willing to let him do that.
If the circus hired them, Alex was going to give them Pluto, and the mare called Nina.
She was ten years old, but beautifully trained and a steady ride. And he had already
handpicked six Arabians for them, all from his best stock. He insisted that he could
spare them, and that he had so many horses that he would hardly notice. But Nick knew
that Pluto had been promised to the Spanish Riding School, and Alex would have a hard
time replacing him. And Alex persisted in refusing to be paid.

A full two weeks after Nick had sent the circus the letter, he finally got a response.
Nick’s hands were trembling as he tore open the envelope in front of Alex and his
father and read what they said. There was dead silence. Alex was afraid that they
had turned him down. It had been almost three weeks since the general’s visit, and
the threat of labor camp, or worse, was becoming more real by the day. Ringling Brothers
was their last hope. Nick met Alex’s eyes when he put down the letter, and there were
tears in his eyes as Alex gently touched his arm to console him.

“My God, they want us,” he whispered, “it’s all here. Everything
we need. They’re even going to post bond for us. We can leave.” The tears rolled down
his cheeks then, and Alex gave him a hug, let out a war whoop, and they could see
that Paul was crying too. It was both happy and bitter news. With luck, they could
avoid being sent to hard labor, but it meant they were leaving Germany forever, and
it had to be very soon. Time was running out.

Paul regained his composure quickly, congratulated his son, and said he would book
passage on a ship to America as soon as he could. He hurried off to make some calls
and was back half an hour later. He had booked Nick and the boys in first class in
two cabins, on the luxurious
Bremen
, which was leaving in four days for New York. It was willing to take the boxcar and
the horses with its cargo, and Nick and the boys would have to tend to them. It was
going to be their last voyage in luxury, possibly ever, or for a very, very long time.
Who knew when or if they would ever come back to Germany? The atmosphere was one of
jubilation and sorrow, excitement and despair. And when Nick told the boys they would
be leaving, everyone cried.

The six of them spent the next four days together, and Alex was relentless rehearsing
their act with them. Nick and the boys actually looked like an experienced circus
team by the day before they left. And Marianne and Alex and Nick’s father were planning
to accompany them to the boat. They were going by train to Bremerhaven, via Nuremberg
and Hanover, and boarding the ship there. And on the last night, Alex and Marianne
had them to dinner at Schloss Altenberg. The meal was superb, there were many toasts,
many silent moments filled with emotion, and a constant flow of tears. It was hard
for all of them. Lucas was the most excited, but he had no real concept that they
might never come home.

Their documents were in order, Paul had paid their emigration
tax, and thanks to the general, the Reich had given its seal of approval to the plan.
It was satisfied to see them leave. As far as they were concerned, there would be
three fewer Jews in Germany, which appeared to be what they had in mind, to either
force them to leave or strip them of all the rights they had ever had, or find some
excuse to treat them as criminals. Hitler was “reclaiming Germany from the Jews,”
and now suddenly Nick had become one of them, and so were his boys.

By the time they boarded the train from Bavaria to Bremerhaven, and saw the boxcar
with the horses loaded onto the train as well, all six of them were silent when they
took their seats for the long ride. There was nothing left to say. They had said it
all the night before: their hopes, their dreams, their regrets, their fears for one
another, their sorrow to be parting. They watched the countryside slip by, as Toby
and Marianne held hands, and they all fought back tears. Nick had a lump in his throat
the size of a fist when the train pulled into the station in Bremerhaven, and Alex
got up to help him oversee the move of the boxcar by crane onto the ship. The two
men looked at each other for a long moment, as they watched it with their hearts in
their mouths, terrified the boxcar would slip, and at that moment, Nick knew exactly
what Alex had done for him with his plan and his incredible gift. He had given them
a new life, safety, and freedom. Nick hoped he could do as much for him one day, but
it didn’t seem possible. Alex had saved them from an unknown fate and given him and
his sons the chance for a future. And as they watched the boxcar gently set down on
the deck of the ship, Nick whispered silent thanks, and Alex put an arm around his
shoulders, as both men wondered when they would meet again.

Once the horses were safely on the ship in their boxcar, the six of them stood on
the dock, looking at each other. Passengers and their guests were boarding the ship,
to stroll the deck and visit the cabins, but Nick didn’t want to leave the pier. This
would be the last time he would stand on German soil, and once he boarded the ship,
he would lose everything he loved and knew. He couldn’t bear the thought of his father
being alone, and he turned and spoke to him quietly, out of earshot of the others.

“Will you come, Papa? Please? I don’t want you to stay here. You can come to the circus
with us. I’m sure they would sponsor you too.” He could come on the next ship—he wasn’t
in the danger that Nick and the boys were and could take more time to leave. But Paul
slowly shook his head. All the pain he was feeling over their departure was plain
in his eyes.

“I can’t. I can’t abandon everything we have here. I need to take care of it for you
and the boys. I don’t trust these people in the Reich. They’re going to destroy the
country if they can. I want to at least protect and preserve our small part of it
for you.” A sense of responsibility
and duty was keeping Paul in Germany, but his heart was leaving with Nick, Tobias,
and Lucas. After they left, there would be nothing for him in Germany, except their
land. Paul was the guardian of their property now, and nothing else. And he ached
with an almost physical pain to see them all leave. He was grateful, too, that he
and Nick had done some fancy footwork the previous year to keep Toby out of the Hitler
Jugend. Their doctor had given him a letter saying he had asthma and couldn’t attend
meetings. Paul wanted to contribute nothing to Hitler’s Reich, least of all his grandsons.
Paul hated the Nazis even more now. He would never forgive them for making Nick and
the boys leave.

“I’m going to miss you, Papa,” Nick said softly, and Paul nodded and lowered his eyes,
unable to speak. He would miss them, too, beyond measure.

They stood there for a few minutes then, in silence, and Alex came over to them to
talk to Nick.

“I want to check on the horses.” He looked concerned. There were eight horses in the
boxcar—Pluto, Nina, and six Arabians, of which two were stallions and four were mares—and
he wanted to be sure they were all right after the train ride and having the boxcar
moved onto the ship. He wanted to see for himself that none of them had been injured
and that they were relatively calm, although they would sense something different
happening. Alex had given Nick and the boys all the instructions they needed, and
even some fancy bridles to use in the circus. And to the very end, he had refused
to let Nick pay him. It was an enormous gift, which Nick knew he could never repay
with an equally important gesture, other than his love and loyalty forever, but Alex
had had that from him for years and always would. The two men looked bleak and despondent
at the prospect of saying goodbye.

Only Lucas was in good spirits as they boarded the ship. He was itching to go exploring,
but Nick told him to wait until later after they set sail. Nick and Alex went to look
at the horses, and they were skittish but fine. Alex said they would settle down,
and he hoped it would be a smooth trip.

And while Nick and Alex were busy with the horses, Lucas stood talking to his grandfather,
and Toby stood quietly chatting with Marianne. She had been dabbing at her eyes with
a lace handkerchief since they left home, and she looked at Toby sadly now.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” she said miserably. He was like her little brother,
and had been since he was born. “Write to me every day, and tell me what the circus
is like. I want to know everything.” She tried to distract both of them. He nodded
and promised to write, although he usually didn’t like writing letters and seldom
had, but he said he would for her.

“Will you visit Opa?” Toby asked her wistfully, and she nodded as they glanced at
his grandfather. Lucas was chatting animatedly with him, and even managed to make
his grandfather laugh, which wasn’t easy today.

They visited Nick’s stateroom, and the boys’ cabin next door. Both rooms were very
elegant, and Nick knew this was the last grandeur they would see for a long, long
time, until they returned to Germany. He had been allowed to take ten reichsmark with
him. And Paul had slipped a wad of cash into Nick’s hand unseen, which he concealed
under his clothing once he was in his cabin. It was all they had now, other than the
bond posted by the circus and the salary he’d earn once he was hired. He couldn’t
imagine living on his salary, but they would have to. He had left his Bugatti with
Alex and told him to use it. And they had brought several trunks with them, including
two filled with evening clothes to wear when they performed with the
horses. He had several tailcoats and two top hats with him, and another set for Toby.