“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.”
“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.
“I
don’t know what I’m going to do,” Nick said honestly. “What if there is no solution?”
“There will be,” Alex said quietly. “There has to be, although this never should have happened. Never. Not in a civilized country like Germany. Who cares if your mother was half Jewish?”
“I want to see her,” Nick admitted sheepishly. “I’d be angry at my father for not telling me the truth for all these years, if the rest of this weren’t happening. But I can’t be mad at him now. The poor man is terrified for us, and heartbroken that we have to leave. But I’d like to see who she is. Even if we have nothing in common, she’s still my mother, and I’ve always wondered about her.” Alex nodded. He could understand that, although it seemed so much less important than his other problems now.
“Does it really matter?” Alex asked.
“It does to me,” Nick said solemnly. “Although I have to find a sponsor and a job in the States or Britain first. I need someone who can employ me so I can support the boys.”
“I’ll think about it tonight,” Alex promised.
Nick reached out to touch his arm through the open car window. “Thank you,” he said, “for everything … for being my friend for all these years.” Alex nodded, unable to speak for a moment, and moved to tears himself. There was nothing he could say to express what he was feeling or how much Nick and his children meant to him. He hated the Nazis more than ever now, for what they were doing. The country had gone mad if they were following this little monster who wanted to chase respectable people from their homes and send them away with their children. Nick von Bingen and his family were the backbone of Germany, its heritage, and the essence of what mattered. And treating people like him and his family as if they were criminals was going to leave a gaping wound in the soul of the country Alex had been proud to call his homeland. And all he could think of was how much he was going to miss Nick and the boys. He couldn’t bear to think about it yet. He was still reverberating from what Nick had told him, and as he walked into the schloss, he wiped his eyes. He was crying for his friend, his sons, his father who would be heartbroken to be separated from them, for himself, and for the country he had loved and could grow to hate now, for banishing his friend. What was about to happen was an immeasurable loss to all of them, and a frightening sign of the times. Their safe, peaceful life had been shattered, and Alex was certain that nothing in his life would ever be the same again.
Pegasus: A Novel Page 3
