The Winter Horses (19 page)
Authors: Philip Kerr
“The trail stops here,” said a voice. “At this big tree. It’s just as if they disappeared.”
“You idiot,” said another man. “Of course they haven’t disappeared. This isn’t some fairy story, you know. I never met such an impressionable, superstitious bunch as you men. Really, you astonish me sometimes.”
The Germans had stopped right beside their hiding place; they had kept their engines running and appeared to be studying the trail. One of them had climbed off his machine and was walking around the tree.
Suddenly Kalinka had an overwhelming desire to sneeze, so she pinched her nose, held her breath, closed her eyes and prayed that the Germans would not find them.
“The trail resumes on the other side, Captain,” said the German who’d circled the tree. “They must have gone under this conifer and sneaked out the other side in an effort to throw us off their trail. Smart idea. Do you suppose it was the child who thought of that or the horses?”
“These Przewalski’s are known for their cunning,” said another voice. “They may look like horses, but the fact is they’re not really proper horses at all but more of a counter-race of Gypsy horses: an inbred mixture of species that should have died out years ago. Biologically speaking, they’re duds. Like the dodo. But they still exhibit strong and primitive instincts for survival, and to that extent, they’re more like rats than horses. Which probably accounts for their cunning. And explains why
Berlin wants them eliminated. To that extent, they and the person traveling with them have much in common. Come on. We’ll pick up the trail on the other side. Won’t be long until we have them now. I’m sure of it.”
The motorcycles started to rev up again and then drove around the tree to the place from where Temüjin had begun the false trail.
Kalinka let out her breath and hugged Taras, who licked her face with relief.
“They’re gone, I think.”
Taras crawled to the edge of the canopy and peered out, then came back with his tail wagging.
“That was too close for comfort,” said Kalinka.
Taras let his lip curl; being near to a German sounded good to him just as long as he could bite one.
“Now all we have to do is wait for Temüjin to come and find us again,” Kalinka told him.
Taras barked.
The girl shrugged and looked around. “At least we’re dry. And it’s out of the wind.”
Once again, Kalinka was too alert to sleep. She thrust her frozen hands into the pockets of her Astrakhan coat, and felt the money that Max had given her. Suddenly she remembered him telling her he’d given her something to remember him by, and since there was nothing else in her pockets but matches, she took out the money. Between two greasy banknotes, she found a folded piece of notepaper. It was too dark under the tree to read it, so
she struck a match and saw that there was writing on the paper.
“Max wrote me a letter!” she told Taras. “How wonderful.”
Tara sniffed the letter, caught a strong scent of his master’s hands and whined.
“Would you like to hear it? Of course you would.”
Kalinka struck a second match and started to read:
“My dear Kalinka
,
“It’s been a very long time since I wrote a letter—so long that I have almost forgotten how—and I wish I had more time to write this one. As I think I told you, I never had any children of my own, but if I had, I certainly couldn’t have wished for a better daughter than you. Somewhere, your own father and mother are very proud. You are a great credit to them
.
“I haven’t known you for very long, but you are a remarkable young lady and you have my admiration, not just for your having survived the terrible events in Dnepropetrovsk, but also because in all my years I never knew anyone who could win the trust of these Przewalski’s horses. I envy you that and wonder if you can explain it yourself
.
“Anyway, that was one of the things I wanted to tell you. I remembered you called them tarpan
horses. That was incorrect. I wanted to remind you that these are not tarpan horses. Tarpan horses were gray, and had manes that hung down on one side, and forelocks; they were also smaller than the Przewalski’s horse. I say
were
because tarpan are certainly extinct; the last one died—poor thing—in 1918, in captivity at Poltava.”
Kalinka shook out the match and lit another to finish reading her letter.
“The same thing must not be allowed to happen to these Przewalski’s; one of the things that makes living in this world so wonderful is the fantastic variety of all the races and species that are in it, and it would be a crime to let the same thing happen to the Przewalski’s as has happened to so many other species of animal. But I am convinced that if anyone can save them, it’s you. Don’t let me down, Kalinka; more importantly, don’t let the Przewalski’s horses down. You must get them to a place of safety
.
“You have already suffered great hardship, and in the days ahead, there may come even more despair; so I also wanted to tell you about a great Russian grand master of chess—as perhaps you yourself will be one day—called Savielly Tartakower. In 1911, his parents were murdered, just
like yours, and in very similar circumstances; but by 1935, he was one of the main organizers of the Chess Olympiad in Warsaw. Tartakower was almost as well known for his great wisdom as for playing chess, and I had to write down a few of the clever things he said that may help you in the coming days and years. They are about chess, but in a way, they are also about life. Here they are, in no particular order:
“ ‘It’s always better to sacrifice your opponent’s men.’
“ ‘The mistakes are all there on the board, just waiting to be made.’
“ ‘The move is there, but you must see it.’
“ ‘Chess is a fairy tale of 1,001 blunders.’
“And my own favorite: ‘Moral victories do not count.’
“I am not a wise man like Tartakower. But one important thing I have learned is that nothing good ever comes of hate. It would be all too easy and understandable for you to hate the Germans for what they did to your family. But please try always to remember that it was a German—the baron Falz-Fein—who created the sanctuary at Askaniya-Nova, and there was a time when I thought that this particular German was the most wonderful man in the world. I promise you that there will certainly be other good Germans like
him. I hope that one day you get a chance to meet a German such as he was
.
“Good luck to you all. I know you will need it. But with God’s grace, I know you can come through this ordeal
.
“Your affectionate friend
,
Maxim Borisovich Melnik
“PS. Stroke Taras for me.”
Kalinka blew out the third match and stroked Taras as Max had told her; then she laid her head against the tree and closed her eyes for just a moment and wished that she could have hugged the old man and thanked him again for his kindness.
“When you think about it,” she told Taras, “it’s not such a bad world that has men in it like Maxim Borisovich Melnik.”
T
EMÜJIN WAS GONE FOR
less than an hour, but to those who slept under the heavy boughs of the big conifer tree, it seemed much longer. Laying a false trail in the snow to deceive the Germans had been the work of only ten or fifteen minutes, and most of the remaining time he had spent looking for a warmer place for Kalinka, Börte and Taras to hide—a woodsman’s hut or perhaps an old barn—as the stallion was certain they could go no farther without sleep. The dog, he was sure, was like him and could have run forever, for that is characteristic of the borzoi breed, but the girl was exhausted, and Börte—who was the focus of Temüjin’s extra concern—almost as tired.
After a while, he sensed that there was a much better hiding place close by. He could not explain how he knew this, but it was as if his ancestors had called out to him
from hundreds—perhaps thousands—of years ago; and suddenly his nose seemed to tell him which way to go.
Kalinka awoke with a start to find the sleeve of her coat in the stallion’s mouth and that she was being tugged urgently to her feet. Taras and Börte were already standing, ready to leave the cover of the tree canopy.
“What is it?” she asked sleepily. “Why did you wake me? Are the Germans coming back?”
Temüjin stamped his foot.
“I can’t hear anything,” she said. “Couldn’t we stay under here, where it’s dry and out of the wind? I never thought I’d say it, but really, it’s quite comfortable sleeping on needles.”
Temüjin stamped his foot again, only this time with real impatience.
“It’s just that I’m tired. So very tired. I think I could sleep for a hundred years.”
Kalinka leaned across Börte’s back for a moment and closed her eyes, and this time, Temüjin dropped his head and bit her on the thigh.
“Ow,” she said, rubbing her leg. “That really hurt. What’s the big idea? I thought we were supposed to be friends, Temüjin.”
The stallion swung his head around and walked away; then he turned to see if Kalinka was following.
“All right, all right,” she said. “You want us to leave this place. I understand that. Although it beats me why.”
As Temüjin led the way out from under the tree, a
branch sprang back and dumped a large deposit of snow on Kalinka’s head; hearing the girl yelp with surprise and discomfort, he looked back and laughed, certain that she was properly awake now. He needed her full attention to reach the sanctuary that, in his bones, he knew to be close at hand.
Kalinka wiped the snow from her hair and off her face without further complaint and mounted Börte. To her surprise, the stallion began to lead them back the way they had come earlier.
“I get it,” she murmured. “We’re doubling back on our own trail. Good idea. That should confuse the Germans. It will be harder for them to track us now. You’re so clever, Temüjin. I’d never have thought of doing something like that.”
Temüjin broke into a trot and Börte followed. Soon they were running past the same trees where the horses had chewed off the bark and up the hill toward the circle of standing stones. Here the stallion paused and then walked off at a tangent toward an inner group of central stones, and it was only now that Kalinka perceived a pattern in the arrangement of the circle: all of the stones were positioned in an elliptical spiral with a clearly identifiable middle point where the stones appeared to become shorter. As they reached this middle point, she realized that it was not that the stones were shorter at all—that was only an illusion—but that the ground was much lower here, and the stones led the way down a
cleverly disguised pathway into a deep depression in the hill. From the back of the mare, Kalinka saw how you might have walked straight past this central spiral of stones and never realized that it seemed to lead to a place that must have been of great importance to the ancient people who had built it.
At the bottom of the spiral path, Temüjin stopped and looked around.
“Yes, it’s certainly interesting,” said Kalinka. “All right, we can’t be seen down here, but we’re still outside, in the freezing cold, and I don’t understand how we’re better off here than we were under that tree.”
Temüjin was already digging in the snow with his hoof, which prompted Taras to start digging. Finally Kalinka jumped off Börte’s back, and ignoring the cold in her hands, she began digging, too.
“If this is buried treasure we’re digging for,” she said, “I’m not sure how that’s going to help us. Although I suppose we could always try to bribe the Germans to let us go.”
A couple of times, she had to stop and warm her numb hands underneath her arms.
At last, Temüjin’s hoof struck something hard, and the next second, the remaining snow collapsed to reveal two large standing stones with a stone beam across the top.
“It’s an entrance to something,” said Kalinka. “But how did you know it was here, Temüjin?”
The stallion snorted and then sniffed at the length and
breadth of a wooden door as if something lay behind it. The design carved on the door was the same as the one on the stones; and now that Kalinka took a closer look, she could just about make out what it was.
“Why, it’s a horse,” she said. “Of course. Why didn’t I realize that before? It’s an ancient horse like you, Temüjin.”
Temüjin tossed his head up and down, anxious now that the girl should open the door.
“You can smell something in there, is that it?”
Temüjin nodded, and marked time for a moment like a horse in a dressage competition. Taras barked.
“You too, huh?”
Kalinka pushed hard, but the door did not move. She smacked it with frustration; the door didn’t sound as if it was very thick, but moving it was beyond her.
“It’s no good,” she said finally. “I can’t shift it. Not that I really expected I could. This door looks like it’s been here for thousands of years. I mean, well done for finding it, but I really don’t see that we’ve achieved anything.”
Temüjin sighed with frustration and turned away from the door with what Kalinka thought looked like disgust. The next second, he lashed out at the door with his powerful hind legs.