by Philip Kerr
Kalinka had awoken early one morning, after spending the night wrapped in a ragged blanket under a cranberry bush, to find one of the horses—a mare—standing over her. Instinctively she knew that, although the horse was wild, the horse wanted to make friends.
“Hey,” she said. “How are you? Are you after these cranberries? Help yourself. I’ve had more than enough of them. Too many, probably.”
Kalinka sat up, stroked the horse’s nose, and let the animal smell her, recognizing that horses can quickly tell almost all they need to know about a person from her scent. At the same time, this made her frown, for she recognized it had been a while since she’d had a wash.
“Maybe that’s why you’re not afraid,” she said, stroking the mare’s nose. “Because I must smell as much of an outcast as you are. Maybe it’s just soap and civilization that makes animals distrust humans.”
She frowned again as her stomach rumbled loudly.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “The cranberries are tasty enough, but they don’t make much of a meal when you’re as hungry as I am.”
The mare nodded with what looked to Kalinka like sympathy.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where I could get something to eat around here, would you?”
The mare nodded again, turned around, and looking back at Kalinka as if inviting her to follow, walked on and led her about a kilometer or two away to a blue-painted cottage beside a small lake. The mare sniffed the air carefully as though weighing if it was safe, and then uttered a snort that Kalinka took as the all-clear to approach the place.
The front door was not locked, and quickly Kalinka went inside and glanced around the one neat room.
“This is nice,” she said. She especially admired a handsomely framed oil painting that was leaning against the wooden wall. It showed the veranda of a large white house with lovely garden furniture and flower beds and a beautiful lady in a long white dress. It reminded Kalinka of summers gone and—she hoped—summers yet to come.
“I dislike doing this,” she said, taking some bread and cheese for herself and an apple for the mare. “But I dislike starving even more.”
When she came out again, they both returned to the cover of the woods and ate the food she had stolen from the blue cottage. Previously she had stolen only from the Germans, which—given that they stole from everyone else—didn’t seem wrong at all; but it was very dangerous, and Kalinka had no doubt of what would have happened to her if ever she’d been caught.
Later on, the mare introduced Kalinka to some of the other wild horses, and she spent the night sleeping between the warm bodies of the mare and her stallion as if she’d been their own foal.
“That was the best night’s sleep I’ve enjoyed since I was at home,” she told the mare and the stallion when she awoke. “Thank you. I’m grateful to you. My old coat and blanket are getting a bit threadbare, I’m afraid. The wind blows straight through the holes.”
The stallion turned and galloped away with what seemed like indifference, but the mare stayed. And because Kalinka had nowhere else to go, she decided to keep the horses company for another day or so.
Which soon became one week and then two.
The wild horses didn’t mix with the other animals at Askaniya-Nova, and a longer acquaintance with them revealed to Kalinka that they were very different from the horses she had known before. The first time that one of the wild horses chased and fetched a stick like a dog was a revelation to her. They loved to play hide-and-seek, and they were fond of practical jokes: she lost count of the occasions on which her hat was snatched from her head and made off with, or a handkerchief nibbled out of her pocket with a stealth that would not have disgraced a competent thief. In the few moments Kalinka tried to find some privacy in the bush or behind a tree, she often found herself disturbed by a horse playing peekaboo. It was at times like these Kalinka was convinced that the wild horses of Askaniya-Nova were almost capable of laughter. Which was more than she could have said of herself. She seldom smiled, and she never laughed. After what she’d been through, it didn’t seem she had anything to laugh about.
Certainly, the horses were extremely vocal. The lead stallion made five basic types of sound—the neigh, nicker, whinny, snort and squeal—of which there was a wide range of subtle variations. After a while, Kalinka calculated that the horses were capable of making at least six different kinds of snort, and it was soon apparent to her that the horses could communicate with each other on what was a fairly sophisticated level. This enabled the small herd to work like a pack of dogs. Scout horses were sometimes dispatched by the lead stallion to look for better grass, and the same stallion quickly made the rest aware when his nose told him that wolves were close—although these knew better than to risk attacking the horses. This was hardly surprising, as Kalinka saw how the horses could be very aggressive with each other. She herself was bitten on a number of occasions—painfully, on the behind, when she bent over. She understood this was meant to be a joke, although it was not a joke she found very funny—and sometimes she was even kicked. Kalinka soon recognized that the wild horses were resourceful to the point of being devious: she saw them unlatch gates, steal food, ambush rival zebras and even count. The horses were extremely fast. They also possessed keen senses of smell, hearing and sight—much keener than her father’s horses’ and probably as keen as those of any wolf.
They were a little peculiar to look at, however. The mare who had first befriended Kalinka was no more than one and a half meters high at the withers and had a thick, short neck and a low-slung belly. The head and the curved, almost semicircular neck were darker than the horse’s body, and a dorsal stripe ran from the stiff, brushlike mane along the broad back to the tail. She possessed no forelock. Her muzzle was pale and the strong legs striped like a zebra’s, but the most striking difference from the domestic horse that Kalinka noticed was the short-haired, almost furry tail, which was more like a fox’s brush or a sable’s pelt. Kalinka soon formed the opinion that this strangely furry tail helped explain the wild horse’s demonstrable cunning.
TIME PASSED, BUT THE Germans stayed and, like everyone else, Maxim Borisovich Melnik learned after all to fear them. They shot many of the estate’s deer, goats, ducks and geese—even some of the llamas and camels—and ate them, but that was not the reason why Max learned to fear the soldiers. He feared the Germans because from time to time they would receive orders to perform “special police actions” and a group of them would drive grimly away from Askaniya-Nova, returning a few days later, falling-down drunk, with a crazy look in their blue eyes, sometimes hysterically laughing and trembling with adrenaline, their weapons still warm to the touch and always spattered with blood.
On the rare occasions Max went to one of the villages on the estate and spoke to the peasants who lived there—these days they feared the Germans more than they feared the Soviet secret police, the dreaded NKVD, and hence they no longer felt inclined to shun Max—he heard stories of the unspeakable things that the SS captain and his men had done, of thousands of people murdered and then buried in mass graves, and of whole towns put to the torch, and he shuddered that he would have to go back to Askaniya-Nova and be near such inhuman monsters.
The villagers urged Max to flee Askaniya-Nova, but always he went back because he feared for the animals. And for this reason, it was Max who pointed out the weakest deer and fowl for the soldiers to shoot for their pot. As for the llamas, he’d never been that keen on them: llamas spit. It’s one thing being bitten by an animal; it’s quite another to be spat upon. Max had never gotten used to that, just as he could not get used to the idea that Captain Grenzmann could allow his men to behave with such callous barbarism when he himself was a man of some refinement. As well as being a captain and an Olympic equestrian, Grenzmann was an artist of considerable skill; his pen-and-ink drawings of the Hanoverian horses in the stables were among the finest pictures of horses that Max had ever seen. Oddly, however, the Hanoverians were the only s
ubject that Grenzmann seemed inclined to draw. One day, while helping the captain mount Molnija for his morning ride, Max summoned up his courage and asked him about this.
“Why don’t you draw one of our other animals, sir?” he asked. “The European bison are very interesting, I think. Or perhaps the Przewalski’s horses. I’d be interested to see what such a skilled artist as yourself might make of them.”
Grenzmann gave Max a withering look—which was even more withering from the back of such a tall horse as Molnija.
“I’m not in the least interested in any of the other animals,” he told Max. “Especially not your mongrel sub-horses. In fact, I’m still wondering what we’re going to do about those slitty-eyed beasts. Before we leave.”
“Are you leaving, sir?”
“We’ll have to before very long. The war isn’t going well for us in this part of the world. Your Red Army is less than a hundred kilometers away. And we risk being encircled if we stay here. Chances are we’ll have to fall back on Kiev before very long.”
Max did his best to contain his delight at this latest news.
Soon after this conversation, Grenzmann gave Max one of his better drawings as a present, and every time the old man looked at it, he marveled that an artist of such great sensitivity should be capable of such diabolical cruelty. More importantly, he worried over just what the captain had meant when he had spoken of “doing something” about the Przewalski’s horses.
The snow came early that year, cooling everything into a frigid silence. All of the lakes froze solid, each turning a different color: one was green, one was violet, one was silver, but the largest lake was black, with ice as thick and hard as a piece of pig iron, and almost as soon as Max broke through to the dark water with a hammer and chisel, it became ice again. Covered with a perfect blanket of thick snow, the endless steppe reflected the azure blue sky so that it resembled a petrified ocean on which no boat sailed. Forests of fir and birch froze as silver as Max’s beard, and everything—Max most of all—seemed to hold its wintry breath. The old man sensed that something bad was going to happen at Askaniya-Nova and that it was going to be up to him to stop it somehow but, at the same time, he knew he was just one man against many; while he was a crack shot with a rifle, he could not resist a whole battalion of German soldiers. So he hoped and he prayed, and meanwhile he bowed and scraped before the handsome young captain and, every morning, saddled the big stallion as usual.
Max had to admit that the German was an excellent rider. The captain was a different man on a horse: he was patient and understanding and sufficiently relaxed in the saddle to always get the best out of the animal. It was plain to see why he had been picked for an Olympic equestrian team. To watch him ride a horse was to observe a perfect partnership between man and animal. Sometimes the captain put his face against Molnija’s nose and talked to him as if he were a lover, and he always brought the horse a little treat—an apple, a carrot, or a couple of sugar lumps.
One day in December, Captain Grenzmann said to Max as he sprang up into the saddle, “Molnija. Does it mean anything, Max? Or is it just a name like Boris or Ivan?”
“It means ‘lightning,’ sir.”
That seemed to please the captain, for he smiled and patted Molnija’s neck fondly.
“How very appropriate,” he said, and when Max looked baffled, he took hold of the collar badge on his greatcoat and leaned toward the old man.
“Are you blind as well as stupid?” he said. “This SS badge. It’s supposed to resemble a double lightning flash. I wish I’d known this before. Really, Max, it was most remiss of you not to mention it until now. You know, I’ve a good mind to have you shot.”
Instinctively, Max let go of the reins, snatched off his cap and bowed gravely.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “Really I am. You’re right. I should have mentioned it.”
But the captain was laughing. “I was only joking, Max,” he said. “Lighten up a little. Don’t be so serious.”
“Oh. I see.” He tried to smile, but this just looked like he was showing his teeth, which were sharp and yellow, and the tall horse backed away from the old man suddenly, as if he was worried that the old man was going to bite his withers.
“Steady, boy,” said the captain, adjusting his seat. “Easy, Molnija.” And mistaking the reason for the horse’s display of nerves, he added, “I wouldn’t really have him shot. Not old Max. Not after all the faithful service he’s given us.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“His mangy, substandard, rootless horses, on the other hand. They’re a very different story.”
“What do you mean?” asked Max.
“Didn’t I say before? The Przewalski’s are now proscribed—a forbidden breed—and as such are to be destroyed.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s not up to me, Max. In all matters of race and species, the SS Main Office makes the decisions. And I’m afraid that, in the case of the Przewalski’s horses, Berlin has ordered me to complete the work that nature has started, Max. To remove from the animal population of the Greater German Reich what is, after all, a biologically unfit species, in order to protect the line of decent domesticated horses—like Molnija here—from possible contamination by your wandering pit ponies. It’s all part of our eastern master plan for the destruction of Ukrainian and Asian culture so that you people can be properly Germanized. Really, you should welcome this, Max. After all, the way you speak, you’re almost a German yourself. Perhaps not to look at. I’ll grant you that. Your appearance leaves a great deal to be desired. You’re almost as ugly as those slitty-eyed, steppe-wandering nags of yours.”
Max started to protest, to say that what Berlin had ordered would be a crime, but then he stopped and reminded himself that the extinction of a rare species of horse—compared to all the terrible crimes against humanity that Captain Grenzmann and his men had already committed in this part of Ukraine—might not count for very much in the eyes of anyone who wasn’t a zoologist or, like Max himself, someone who just loved Przewalski’s horses for themselves.
“A couple of specimens are to be shipped to Berlin,” continued Grenzmann, “so that Reich Marshal Göring can hunt them on his estate at Carinhall. He’s quite a collector himself, you know. But the rest of the Przewalski’s horses are to be rounded up and shot here without further delay.”
“Sir, it’s not their fault that they’re almost extinct. It’s ours. Mankind’s. If it wasn’t for us, there would still be substantial numbers of these horses in existence.”
“Look, there’s no point in arguing about this, Max. The decision has already been made. Tomorrow we start the process of eradication.”
The captain rode off.
MAX SPENT ALMOST THE whole night awake, wondering what to do. He sat in front of his fire, smoked several pipes and stared into the flames, asking himself what the baron would have done if he had been there. As a German aristocrat who was used to being obeyed, the baron would probably have reasoned with the captain; possibly he might have persuaded the SS captain that Germany had effectively lost the war and that there was little point in adding yet another terrible crime to his country’s already ignominious account. The captain might have listened, too; the baron was a very persuasive man. But Max was not the baron, and try as he might to think of something, he finally concluded that really there was nothing he could do. Nothing that would have worked anyway.
He knew it was hopeless even to try and round up the horses and lead them to a place of greater safety; previous experience had taught him that catching even a Przewalski’s horse that had gone lame could be the work of several frustrating days. A few of the horses—Ruslan, Mykola, Dmytro, Leonid, Ihor, Yaroslava, Snizhana, Oksana, Sofiya, Yulia and sometimes Luba—would come to Max’s call when he had a treat for them, but they would never consent to being stroked, let alone consent to a rope or a bridle. Usually, it was possible to catch the horses only when they were very you
ng and lacking in cunning and when they had yet to develop their tremendous capacity for speed. One of the two lead stallions, Temüjin, and his mare, Börte, Max had only ever seen at a distance. And it wasn’t as if all of the horses were in one herd; there were two, perhaps even three, herds of about ten horses each, with one dominant stallion.
Max told himself that all of this was in their favor.
They were also able to survive a long time without water, which meant that their human hunters were denied the most obvious strategy—to hide by the lakes where the horses came to drink. Besides, the lakes at Askaniya-Nova were frozen, so that was good, too. Max himself had seen how a lead stallion would scout the way ahead to water before directing his herd with snorts and whinnies—sometimes from the cover of a bush or a clump of trees. The fact was that even on the reserve, where until now the Przewalski’s horses had lived in almost perfect safety, the animals took no chances where humans were concerned.
Another thing in favor of the horses was that they were stealthy at night—as stealthy as any fox—and, by day, astonishingly adept at using features of the country as camouflage. From what Max had read about the horses in books the baron had lent to him years ago, it was not unusual for Mongol hunters to track a small herd and then lose it, only to find out later on that the horses had been hiding close by all along.
Max concluded it was one thing for the German captain to say that his men were going to round up thirty Przewalski’s and shoot them, but it was quite another actually to do it.
He fell asleep in his chair and dreamed sweet dreams of Askaniya-Nova before the Nazis and the Communists, and of the baron, who had been so kind to him.
A couple of hours later, he awoke with a start, certain that something he heard had interrupted his dreams. He stayed seated for a moment or two, his old ears straining to find an explanation for his sudden wakefulness.
And then he heard it: the sound of automatic gunfire.