Pegasus: A Novel (11 page)

Joe checked a note he had in his pocket, and looked up the number of their trailer,
and consulted a map in order to find it. It was in
the third enormous parking lot, and when the truck pulled up next to it, Nick noticed
that it was particularly long, although not very wide. And when they stepped into
it, it looked like an inexpensive hotel room, but it had everything they would need.

His breath caught as they walked into the trailer. This was their new home, and he
had never seen anything like it, with two tiny bedrooms and a miniature kitchen. His
parking space for the Duesenberg had been bigger than this, and he tried not to let
what he was feeling show on his face. The boys peeked into the bedrooms, exploring.
Lucas seemed satisfied, and was anxious to go outside and meet the children he’d just
seen wandering around. They had just come home from school on several school buses.
Toby collapsed on the trailer’s only couch with an exhausted, dazed expression. Everything
was simple and clean, but none of them had ever realized that people actually lived
like this. Nick reminded himself that if they had been sent to a labor camp, it would
have been far worse. Or if they had been forced to leave their estate, as Jews. Where
would they have gone?

“We have a tent set up on the fairgrounds for your horses. We got it as close to your
trailer as we could. It’s warm, so they’ll be fine in a tent. We’ll use a trailer
for them when they’re on the road. We can store your boxcar here, or put it on one
of the trains,” he informed Nick, who nodded. He was feeling overwhelmed by all the
information and the tiny trailer they’d be living in, which was generous by circus
standards. The two bedrooms were the size of the beds. It was all so vastly different
from anything they’d ever known, and Toby looked like he was about to burst into tears,
which Nick hoped he wouldn’t. It would upset Lucas if he saw his older brother distraught.
And Nick had to worry about both of them now. He tried to put a good face on it for
their sake. He then asked Joe to show him to the
tent where their horses were, so he could tend to them. He suggested that Toby and
Lucas come with him, to keep them busy.

“Mr. North wants to see you at four this afternoon,” Joe told Nick. “I’ll pick you
up and take you to meet him. And you have rehearsal at ten tomorrow morning. He’ll
be attending that as well. You’re an important act for us,” he said generously. “He
likes to see all the acts when they come in. He particularly likes horses, so I’m
sure he’ll enjoy yours. He’s a very accomplished horseman himself. And he wants to
see your Lipizzaners.”

“I hope he likes our performance,” Nick said vaguely. He couldn’t imagine being able
to find his way around the maze of trailers, tents, workers, performers, and roving
bands of people who swarmed the area like ants. He had never seen so many people in
one place in his life. The boys were fascinated by it. Nick saw Toby watching a group
of girls in ballet costumes with sparkles on them. They were pretty girls with good
figures, and he hoped that would cheer them up a little. And Nick suddenly found himself
missing Monique, who was at least familiar with his world. He felt as though he had
been dropped on another planet, nothing looked like anything he’d ever seen before.
Even the tropical landscape was strange and different, and it was warm.

Joe pointed out the cookhouse in another huge tent, where they could get their meals,
or they could cook their own in the trailer if they preferred, but none of them knew
how. Nick had never cooked in his life, and he’d have to learn that, too, if he was
going to feed the boys. Going to the mess tent with hundreds of people for every meal
sounded exhausting to him. And he realized quickly that the one thing they would lack
here was privacy. There were so many people, living so close, seemingly on top of
each other. He could touch with his hand the next trailer from his own. It would be
hard
to get away for a quiet moment alone, or have a family life that hundreds of people
weren’t encroaching on.

After Joe left, they walked a short distance to the tent where their horses had been
put in stalls and safely tethered. They turned their heads when Nick and the boys
entered, and Pluto shook his fiercely the moment he saw Nick, as though to say hello
to him, and Nick smiled. Here was something familiar at last. He went quickly to the
big stallion and stroked him, deriving more comfort from touching him than he was
giving. He needed to see Pluto at that moment, and Nina, and the others. They were
the final gift from his lost life, a last piece of Alex, a tiny remnant of the world
they had known that had disappeared so quickly and so totally, on the other side of
an ocean, in a country where they weren’t welcome anymore. This was all that was left.
Eight horses, and his two children.

They decided to stay and curry the horses before they went back to the trailer. He
put a bridle on Pluto that someone had taken out of the boxcar and hung on a hook
near his stall. There was a makeshift tack room in the tent, and their feed had been
put in it.

A moment later Nick slipped onto the stallion’s back, and suddenly as he sat there,
life felt real to him again. Whatever else happened, or wherever they went, they had
this. Each other and the horses Alex had given him. He had Pluto who had come back
to life for him, and as he leaned down close to the horse’s head, he whispered “thank
you,” and knew that for now, the Lipizzaner was his only friend in this frighteningly
unfamiliar world. The Lipizzaner stallion would carry them through. He already had,
when he decided to get back up on his feet again. And for that, and for this opportunity,
Nick was infinitely grateful, no matter how strange it all seemed.

Although he made every effort not to let it show, Nick was nervous before his meeting
with John Ringling North, “Mr. John,” as Joe called him. He had no idea what to expect,
any more than he knew what life in the circus would be like. He felt like he’d been
dropped onto a different planet, as he watched hundreds of circus performers and employees
milling around, talking to each other in groups, or heading for rehearsals in costumes
or workout clothes. He had heard the tigers roaring that afternoon, and a string of
elephants had walked by when he and the boys went back to the trailer. Everything
they saw was unusual, new, and different.

Joe Herlihy came to meet Nick at the horses’ tent later that afternoon to pick him
up for the meeting. And he looked admiringly at the beautiful white stallion.

“The two Lipizzaners are incredible,” he said, as he watched Toby brush Pluto. The
stallion tossed his head back with a loud whinny, as though saying thank you. “They
do a liberty act, don’t they?” he inquired, which meant they responded to voice commands
and signals.

“Yes, but I also ride them,” Nick answered. Nina was easier to ride, she was older
and calmer and had had more training. But Pluto was more exciting.

“That must be a sight to see. Your older boy too?” Nick nodded. Alex had worked with
Toby before they left. He was no circus performer, but he rode very well, and had
all his life. And he had taught Lucas a few simple tricks so he could join the act
if the circus wanted him to.

“The Arabians are all liberty trained too.” Nick smiled at Joe, who, if possible,
was wearing an even louder suit than the one he had worn that morning. It was gray
with a silver sheen to it. He was portly, and there was a lot of it, and he was wearing
a bright blue tie and a pink shirt. But it looked almost normal against the backdrop
of the circus and the oddly clad people all around them, many of them in bright colors
and costumes. Nick was wearing an impeccable suit from his tailor in Berlin for his
meeting with John Ringling North. He had no idea what to expect or why the president,
who was the owner of the circus, wanted to meet him.

Before they left, Nick told Toby he’d meet him at their trailer afterward, and to
keep an eye on Lucas. He had been exuberant all day and said he wanted to meet all
the clowns. To Nick it felt surreal that he now lived among them, and they were about
to become part of his everyday life. Lucas, of course, was thrilled, and Toby didn’t
know what to think. He had barely spoken since they’d arrived. He seemed to still
be on some kind of emotional overload from the trip, and the strange place where they’d
landed.

Nick rode in Joe’s panel truck with the circus logo on it, and a few minutes later
they got out and walked into a building on the fairgrounds. Joe led him to North’s
office, where two secretaries looked as sober and respectable as they would have in
any lawyer’s office or
bank. And a moment later, when John Ringling North came out, he was wearing a dark
pinstriped suit, similar to Nick’s although not as well tailored, a white shirt, a
dark blue tie, and impeccably shined shoes. He had a good haircut and wavy black hair
and a wide smile as he greeted Nick pleasantly and shook his hand and invited him
in. At least here Nick felt as though he were in a familiar world. John Ringling North
was serious and well spoken, and looked like an intelligent man. He invited Nick to
sit down across the desk from him. Joe had vanished when they walked in.

“Welcome to Florida, and to Ringling Brothers,” the president of the circus said kindly.
“I hope you had a good trip, and your horses traveled well.”

“They did,” Nick assured him, trying not to think of Pluto’s nearly dying during the
storm. But he was fine now, and in good health. “I wanted to thank you,” Nick said
quickly. “I am very grateful to you for sponsoring me and my sons. You saved our lives,
literally. Germany is not a safe place to be these days. For us, anyway. It all happened
very quickly for me and my family, and we were warned to leave as soon as we could.
You helped us do that.”

“I understood that from your letter,” John North said carefully. “I have to admit,
I was a little confused though. People with a last name like yours, with a ‘von,’
are not usually subject to religious persecution. What’s going on now in Germany?
Were there some political issues I don’t know about? Were you vocally opposed to the
current government?” He knew that some were, with potentially disastrous results.

“I only discovered a few weeks ago that my mother, who I’ve never met, was half Jewish.
It changed everything for us overnight. We were at great risk. We received a private
warning from the Wehrmacht, the army, from a friend of my father’s, to leave. He’s
a general
and he did us a great favor by alerting us to the impending danger. He said things
are going to get much worse. And if you are a Jew they’re already pretty bad.” He
had begun to learn that firsthand. “And with my ancestry, that I never knew about,
my boys and I were suddenly at great risk. You can’t predict how far that kind of
hatred and prejudice will go. They might have wanted to make an example of me and
my boys, and show that even aristocrats who turn out to be Jews won’t be tolerated
and aren’t welcome in Hitler’s Germany.” John Ringling North looked distressed by
what he said, but not surprised. He had heard similar stories recently, and they had
hired other Jewish performers who had left Germany in the past few years. Despite
all they had left behind, after 1935, they thought it was safer and wiser to get out.

“You and your horses will be a great addition to the show. We’ve never had Lipizzaners
before, there are none in this country, although I’m familiar with them. They’ll be
a treat for our audiences to see. Beautiful beasts. I’m anxious to see yours. You’ll
go on before the intermission with the animal acts. The high-wire acts and performers
go on afterward. We generally open with the big cats in the center ring. I’d like
to bring you out right after that, also in the center ring.” It was a great honor,
which Nick didn’t yet know. “Which also brings up the matter of your name. We travel
all over the country, to big cities and small towns. Americans aren’t good with foreign
names, and we’d like to give you a name they can remember. I was wondering if you’d
mind shortening your name to Nick Bing—just as a stage name, of course. And I was
also wondering if you have a title.” The “von” suggested that he did, or might. Nick
looked embarrassed when North asked, and startled by the change of name. But Nick
Bing certainly did sound American, and would be easier to remember than von Bingen.

“Actually, my father has a title, but he doesn’t use it. He’s much more modern in
his thinking, and he finds it unnecessary. He’s a count.”

“We could use that,” North said pensively. “Count Nick Bing. The count,” he tried
it on as he said it. “Would you prefer duke?”

“Actually, no,” Nick said modestly about claiming to be a duke, which sounded embarrassingly
pretentious to him. “Do I really need a title?” He was horrified at the dishonesty
and arrogance of it. He was a viscount, thanks to his father, but seldom if ever used
the title.

“It’s theatrical, and Americans love royalty. Let’s settle for count. The Count, Nick
Bing. I think that’ll work. And what about your horses’ names, the two Lipizzaners?”
North was responsible for the successful financial operation of the circus, but he
was also acutely aware of all the more important performers, who they were, and what
they did. He knew everything about the circus, and attended performances often. And
he traveled with them when they were on the road, in his ornate private Pullman car
with a silver dome. He had become president a year before, and was doing an excellent
job running the complex operation. And he intended to watch Nick’s rehearsal the next
morning in the main tent. It was a command performance.

“The stallion is Pluto Petra, and the mare is Nina. They follow tradition in that
the stallion is named for his sire and dam, mares only have one name, but their names
always represent their bloodlines. They’re easier to follow that way. And in the purist
tradition, there are six names of the original stallions that date back to the eighteenth
century. Breeders of Lipizzaners are very proud of their ancestry, and very solemn
about their names.”