Airs Above the Ground (20 page)

He grinned. ‘The thought had entered my twisted little mind.’

‘Then you are serious? Good for you. Well, in you get, then, let’s be on our way. I wonder if they’ve ever had a Lippizzan stallion stabled here before?’

‘“Airs above the ground”,’ he quoted, as the little car nosed its way across the narrow bridge. ‘Well, I’ll bet the great Neapolitano Petra’s never been stabled higher in his life, that’s one thing. Incidentally, how is he going to get up here?’

‘You’re young and strong,’ I said cheerfully, ‘you’re going to lead him. I’m sorry I can’t say ride him, but that’s not possible yet.’

‘I had a feeling you had something like this laid up for me,’ said Timothy, ‘when you said you couldn’t do without me. There’s always a comeback to that one. What a good thing I had that
Gugelhupf
for tea, isn’t it?’

When the foeman bares his steel,
Tarantara, tarantara!

We uncomfortable feel,
Tarantara
.

W. S. Gilbert:
Pirates of Penzance

‘But what on earth are we going to do?’ asked Annalisa.

It was barely half an hour before the first performance was due to start. We were all in her wagon, Timothy, myself and Herr Wagner, rotund and perspiring, already dressed for the ring and looking extremely worried. Annalisa, in her cowgirl’s costume for the first act, was hurriedly making up her face in front of the mirror. Timothy and I had told our story, and to our surprise Herr Wagner had accepted it immediately.

‘I believe you,’ he said, ‘I believe you. I do not even need to see the brands . . . No, no, I knew nothing, and I suspected nothing, but you might say I
felt
it . . . here.’ A hand gestured perfunctorily towards his brawny chest. ‘I do not pretend that I ever thought about Franzl’s horse, why should I? I am not a curious man . . . and what a man has done, where he has been,
that is his own affair. If my dear wife had been alive, ah, that would have been different. But I, I ask nothing.’

He paused, head bent, apparently studying the tabletop, then looked up and nodded at us, slowly, though neither Timothy nor I had spoken.

‘My father? Oh, yes, he must have known. But what would you? He was a man who cared all for his family, and nothing for the law. What would you have him do? Franzl was his nephew, his sister’s son, and one must look after one’s own. The penalty for stealing such a horse would be very heavy; a trained stallion is beyond price, and besides, it is State property . . .’ He lifted his wide shoulders. ‘Tell you the truth, I did not know until now that Franzl had been in the
Spanische Reitschule
. . . We had heard nothing for many years, you understand: I thought he had learned his dressage with the cavalry at Wiener Neustadt. He used to speak of his service there. I tell you, in a circus we have many people, of many kinds; they come, and they go. If they tell you of themselves, then you listen . . . But you do not ask. No, you do not ask. We are artists, we of the circus, and we have our own affairs which take all our time, our lives, our – what shall I say? – our whole strength. I think you have a saying, “Live and let live”. In the circus, we let live.’ He mopped his brow with a vast red handkerchief. ‘Do you understand me?’

We assured him that we did, which appeared to relieve him enormously. He became practical then, and brisk, with one eye on his watch, and the other on Timothy and myself, and I knew quite well that he was thinking of his circus’s schedule (not the performances,
but the frontier passage in the morning) and trying to weigh up what our attitude was going to be.

‘There is only one thing to do,’ he said, ‘there is only one thing that is both right and convenient, and that is to return the horse where he belongs.’ He rolled a brown knowing eye at me. ‘I am a business man,
gnädige Frau
, but I am also honest, when occasion permits. When honesty and business go together, then I am grateful to the good God. To me, to the circus, the horse is useless. It therefore seems’ – he checked himself – ‘it seems to me right, in whatever case, to confess the whole to the Directors, and return the horse. Especially as there cannot well be any trouble for the circus now. Do you not agree?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Don’t stick your neck out,’ said the parrot.

Herr Wagner gave a surreptitious glance at his watch.

‘But you also see my difficulty? Tomorrow we cross the border, and we do not return to Austria until the winter, when we come back to our permanent home near Innsbruck. So, as you say, with the best will in the world, I do not know how this thing shall be done.’

I had a look at my watch, too; it was twenty minutes to five. Having found out all we needed to know about Herr Wagner’s reactions, I decided to cut this short. I said: ‘If you would trust Timothy and myself with the horse, and leave him in our care, we would be delighted to do all that was required.’

Herr Wagner’s look of astonished delight did him great credit. So did his protestations, which even
managed to sound genuine. But we persuaded him, and he allowed himself to be persuaded. If we really meant it . . . if we could really find the time . . . there was no one with whom he would rather leave the animal . . . he was sure that the
Herr Direktor
of the National Stud would be so overwhelmed that he would render us every possible assistance . . .

And finally, amid a torrent of mutual goodwill, it was all arranged. Even the parrot contributed, though not with noticeable helpfulness. The only person who had said nothing was Annalisa.

‘There is only one thing,’ said Herr Wagner. ‘This is after all a valuable horse, and he was stolen, and his value has been much diminished. Though I myself and the circus cannot well be blamed, there will be questions, and there may be a certain unpleasantness . . . There may even be proceedings. If this should happen—’

‘Don’t worry about that now,’ I said. ‘Neither Timothy nor I will get into trouble, and I don’t see that you can, either. In any case, if they want to see you, you’ll be coming back before winter. Be sure we’ll make it very clear that neither of you knew a thing about it till we told you.’

‘That’s right,’ said Timothy.

Annalisa, her face bright with paint, but still with that strained look about the eyes, had been sitting down, listening in silence to the conversation. Now her eyes lifted, and she said, very quietly:

‘I did know about it.’

Her father swung round. ‘
You knew?
You knew about this?’

She nodded. ‘Two days ago I knew.’

‘Two days? Then you mean – it was not from Franzl—’

‘No, no, indeed not. It was only when Vanessa operated, on Sunday night. She wanted the instrument case for the operation, and afterwards, when I washed the instruments and put them away, I found . . . these.’

From the bench beside her she lifted the instrument case, opened it, and pulled out the bottom drawer, where one usually keeps papers – prescription forms, folders about new drugs, and so on. She lifted some of these out, and there underneath was a bundle of newspaper clippings. Naturally I couldn’t read them, but I could see the repetition of the name ‘Neapolitano Petra’ and the photographs, in different poses, of the great stallion; and Timothy told me afterwards that they all related to the stallion’s disappearance. These, now, Annalisa spread before us on the table, with the gesture of one who does in literal fact throw her cards on the table, and herself on the mercy of her audience.

‘And there is this,’ she said.

She dropped the last piece of paper on top of the rest. This was a photograph, yellow and frayed at the edges, of a white horse standing by a stable door, and beside him a man in the uniform of the Spanish Riding School.

As Herr Wagner reached for it, she laid her final trophy on the table, the brown tube labelled ‘Koloston’, which had fleetingly caught my eye while I was operating.

I picked it up. ‘What’s this? I saw it there, and I just
thought it must be the German trade name for some sort of ointment. Don’t tell me . . . It’s hair dye?’

She nodded dumbly, then turned to her father. ‘
Papa
—’

He took no notice. He was shaking his head over the cuttings, looking at once shocked and deeply touched.

‘Franzl,’ he said. ‘So it is true . . . All this time. Poor Franzl.’

I said gently to Annalisa: ‘Why are you worrying so? You could have done nothing. In any case, we’ll say you didn’t know till we told you. Even if you’d wanted to, you couldn’t have done much before today.’

‘I know. But it is not this’ – with a gesture to the clippings – ‘that troubles me.’ She turned her eyes back to her father, and I saw they had filled with tears. ‘You see, when poor Uncle Franzl was dying, he must have tried to tell me. Now, when I read these papers, I know what he said. He was trying to tell me about the horse. He said its name . . . over and over he said its name, and he spoke of “the Lipizzaner”, but of course I thought he meant Maestoso Leda. I thought he was worrying in case Leda was hurt in the fire. We could only hear a few snatches of what he said; he spoke of Vienna, and “the Lipizzaner”, and even of his harness . . . and now I know he was telling us to take Neapolitano Petra back to Vienna, even his saddle and bridle, which came with him. “
Neapolitano Petra’s Sattel
”, he said, and we thought he spoke of a “Neapolitan saddle”, and this puzzled us, because there is no such thing here. But this is what he must have meant. It is the one I use for Maestoso Leda.’ A tear ran glassily
over the blackened lashes. ‘We did not understand, and he was trying to confess, to make . . . to make . . .’ She faltered over the word.

‘Reparation,’ I said.

Her father patted her hand. ‘Do not trouble yourself, my Liesl, we shall make it now.’ He added some soft phrases in German which made her nod, and dry her eyes, then, with another glance at his watch, he became again his brisk self. ‘I shall have to go. If you would prefer to stay, and talk again later . . .?’

I shook my head. ‘There’s no need, if you’re satisfied. We’ll take the horse straight away, if we may, and deal with the next stage of the problem as it comes. The only thing that bothers me is what we’re going to do if they don’t want him back at the Stud now?’

Timothy said promptly: ‘I’ll have him.’

‘And if you don’t get your job, what then? Ship him back to England? What would your mother say?’

He grinned, and made a little grimace which showed all too clearly how far in the last couple of days he had come from those apron strings.

Herr Wagner was on his feet. ‘They will take him. You need have no fear of that. Their stallions live for thirty years, and when they die they are remembered. His name will still be on his stall, and fresh straw waiting. And now I must go. It is time. But there is a little matter of recompense; there will be all the trouble to which you will be put, the trouble and expense that we cannot expect you to bear for yourselves. This is ours. There will be the matter of a
horsebox on the train from here to Köflach, for Piber, and other things. You will let me know.’

I started to say something, but he waved it aside with sudden, unanswerable simplicity.

‘You must allow me to make this reparation at least. My cousin Franzl would rest more easily if he knew.’

‘Very well,’ I said, ‘I’ll let you know the cost.’

He fished in some inner pocket and produced a card. ‘Here is my address, the most permanent address I have; our winter quarters near Innsbruck. And perhaps you will leave yours with us? Now, there is also the matter of your own professional services towards the horse—’

But this I would not allow, and he made no attempt to override me, but merely thanked me again, and then, with more protestations of goodwill and gratitude, relieved and beaming, he took his leave.

We went with Annalisa down to the stable tent. Elemer was busy with the white stallion, while the ugly pied horse she used for the rodeo was saddled and waiting, with Rudi at its head.

Annalisa plunged into rapid explanations in German, while the other horses, ready for the ring, were already streaming past with tossing manes and tails, and the music sounded loudly from the big top. Old Piebald flung his head up and whickered at the sight of me, and we went into the stall, where presently Annalisa followed us.

‘I have told them – not everything, but that you are to take the horse. Elemer will help you – Oh!’ Her hand went to her mouth.

‘What is it?’

‘The saddle! I was forgetting the saddle . . . You must take that, too.’ She swung back to the men. ‘Elemer, Rudi—’

‘Look,’ I said quickly, ‘if it’s on your horse, why not leave it? I’m sure it doesn’t matter. We can take another if you insist, but I doubt if they’ll bother about a thing like that.’

But she persisted, obviously intent on purging the Circus Wagner of theft as completely as possible. She directed another flood of German at Elemer, and Timothy crossed the stable to help him lift the jewelled saddle off the white stallion. ‘In any case,’ said Annalisa to me, ‘you may need a saddle, and I wish you to take his own. But you see how we have decorated it for the circus . . . all those jewels . . . If I had had time to take them off—’

I laughed. ‘I see what you mean. It’s not exactly what they’re used to at the Spanish Riding School! But don’t worry about it, I’ll take them off before we send it back. If you want the jewels back, you’ll have to tell me how to send them. Would the Innsbruck address be all right, the one your father gave me?’

She shook her head. ‘No, they’re nothing, they are glass, stage pieces only. Please keep them, and do as you wish with them. Some of them are quite pretty, and I should like you to have —’ But there Rudi interrupted with something in German, and she said quickly: ‘There is the music. I must go. Goodbye, goodbye and thank you. God be with you both.’

She leaned forward suddenly, light as a dandelion puff, and kissed Timothy on the mouth. Then, with a hand from Rudi, she was up in the saddle, and the pied horse, with a jingle of curb chains and a thudding of hairy hoofs, was gone through the curtains at the back of the big top.