“Because I’ve always done it,” Minot said. “You used to do it once.”
“I had to do it,” Jeffrey said. He knew that Minot was referring to the Squadron in the war. “I don’t like being scared to death.”
Minot rested his hand on Jeffrey’s knee.
“I’ll tell you something,” Minot said. “There’s just a moment in it—it’s like flying. You do everything you can. You get the pace, you steady him, and then there’s nothing more you can do. You’ve shot the works, and there it is. That’s the part that’s worth waiting for. It’s—well, it’s worth waiting for.”
“You sound like Death in the Afternoon,” Jeffrey said.
Minot sat silently for a few seconds, and then he nodded.
“That boy Hemingway knows how to say it exactly right,” he said. “What’s the matter with it? Why be afraid of dying?”
“Reflex,” Jeffrey said, “that’s all.”
“Well,” Minot said, “there are worse things.”
It was more than Minot usually said. It occurred to Jeffrey that ever since the last war, Minot had spent a good deal of his time and thought and money in not being afraid of dying, but Jeffrey could not develop that point of view. It seemed like a waste of time. Perhaps Jim would have understood Minot’s motives better. Jim was at an age when you liked to demonstrate that you were not afraid of dying.
“You’ll like him,” Minot said, “when you see him, you’ll know what I mean.”
“Who?” Jeffrey asked.
“Who?” Minot repeated. “Bozeybones. He cost plenty. I was bidding against the Whitneys.”
One thing Jeffrey could never understand was the selection of names for horses. “Powder Puff,” or “Binkey,” or “Nighty-night,” or “Carmen.”
“You’ll like him,” Minot said again. “He’s got what it takes behind. When you’re looking at a hunter, look at his rump.”
“Why in God’s name,” Jeffrey asked, “do you call him ‘Bozeybones’?”
“I didn’t call him that,” Minot answered. “Technically, he’s Bozeybones II. He’s sired by Bozeybones I.”
“Never mind it, Minot,” Jeffrey said.
“Valsky will be there,” Minot said. “That’s really why I wanted you to come. You’ll like the Prince.”
“I thought he was a Colonel,” Jeffrey said.
“He’s both of them,” Minot said, “Colonel Prince Valsky.”
Minot had often spoken of the Colonel. The Colonel had been in command of a cavalry regiment under the Czar. It was something, Minot often said, to get the Prince a little liquored-up in the evening and hear him tell about medieval life on the family estates on the Don. Then came the Revolution—not “come the Revolution” for the Prince—and the Prince fought with Denikin against the Reds, and somehow it sounded like a technical war game when Minot spoke of it. Then came the bust-up—not come the bust-up, for the Prince—and out he got, through the back door near Urga, with a few gold rubles and some of the Valsky diamond rings, and finally he appeared in that queer closed corporation of exiles, the White Russians, in New York. The Prince was a soldier who had seen a world turn upside down and, as Minot said, knew how to take it like a gentleman. Make no mistake, Minot said, Prince Valsky was a gentleman, and you could always tell one. Prince Valsky knew how to drink, and he could draw diagrams charting the course of a horse clearing an obstacle as accurately as he could chart the curve of a projectile. Prince Valsky was a disciple of the forward seat, a perch, as he put it, such that the rider’s weight was right on the withers, allowing the animal’s hindquarters necessary free play. Prince Valsky could ride anything, and when Prince Valsky was up, no matter what he was up on, he could make nothing seem like something. And what was more, don’t forget it, he was a gentleman, an educated man of family from the Czar’s Military Institute. What was more, Prince Valsky was a great teacher, patient and sensible, and he needed patience with the pupils who came to him who wanted to get into the right set by learning to ride. There had been a time when Prince Valsky was held back by his English. Once, when he was watching a middle-aged lady in the ring of his riding establishment, he could not think of the English expression for rising to the trot, and he had been obliged to say, “Soft sit, soft sit.” But Valsky’s English was good now. He had that Russian facility with languages, and he could teach anybody to ride. Minot said he ought to teach Jeffrey. If Jeffrey gave the Prince the chance, Jeffrey would love it.
“But I don’t want Valsky to teach me,” Jeffrey said.
Nevertheless, he liked to hear about Prince Valsky because the Prince was like a page in foreign literature.
The snow was melting fast, as it did in late March, and there was a faint touch of spring in the afternoon air. Minot’s car had stopped uptown on the West Side in front of a building that looked like a storage warehouse. There was a green door in the center of a blank brick wall, with a discreet bronze plaque on which was lettered VALSKY.
Pierre had hopped out and had opened the door and was pulling the rug carefully from their knees.
“When you go out to the Coast,” Minot said, “tell them about Valsky, Jeff. He’s thinking of taking a trip out there.”
The reception room had comfortable chairs and cigarette stands and sporting magazines, and a stout woman in black took their coats and hung them up carefully in a little cubbyhole.
“We’ve got the place to ourselves,” Minot said. “It’s a private hour.”
A door opened and a smallish man with dark hair, dark eyes, and delicate, regular features was standing there, dressed like Minot in riding breeches with black shining boots.
“Ermak!” Minot said.
“My dear Minot,” the other said. “Always on time, eh?” And he laughed about nothing, just the way Minot sometimes laughed.
“This is my old friend Jeffrey Wilson,” Minot said, “Colonel Prince Valsky.”
Jeffrey never knew exactly what to say to anyone like Colonel Prince Valsky.
“Minot’s told me a lot about you,” he said.
“He must not tell too much,” the Prince said, and he laughed again, heartily, about nothing, “not too much, eh? We’ll see him ride now, eh? Shall we go now?”
Minot was pulling on a pair of gloves and the little room that smelled of the stable seemed very still. Jeffrey’s reading was always making him place ordinary incidents in fictional categories, and this was like the fencing school in the cloak-and-the-sword story—two gay young bucks from London, Corinthians, perhaps, dropping into the academy of an émigré to test their skill with the smallsword. But it was also close to Tolstoy—those stilted phrases of the Prince’s, his courtesy, his good nature—and it was odd, coming upon it that winter at just that time.
“Well,” the Prince said, “shall we go? Come with me into the ring. There is no one to bother. We shall see our dear friend fall off, eh?” And the Prince laughed again.
The ring was small and covered with tanbark, built on what might have been once the floor of a warehouse or a garage. It was lighted by dirty barred windows, partially opened, and some sparrows had entered and were flying among the beams and girders which supported the roof. On one side of the ring were some benches, somewhat like a circus box, with steps leading down into the ring itself. On the other side was a dusty mirror, arranged, presumably, so that riders might criticize their posture in the saddle. The ring was vacant except for a jumping standard. They stepped noiselessly down onto the soft tanbark, and when the Prince called out in a sharp staccato tone a door slid open, and with a slithering of hoofs a horse appeared, led by a small Russian with a fat, rosy, inexpressive face. He should have been wearing a blouse and a belt, and Cossack boots instead of overalls.
Jeffrey looked at the animal in the baffled way in which he always looked at horses. Whether it was bay or chestnut, Jeffrey did not know, but the horse looked unhappy, judging from the twitching of its nostrils and the quivering of its forelegs, and the impatient way it threw its head. The ani
mal was bony—big-boned, Jeffrey supposed the technical term would have been, or raw-boned—and he could not understand why under the sun anyone had wanted it, but Minot and the Prince had the look that Jeffrey had seen before on the faces of “horse lovers”—the serious, enigmatic look of connoisseurs regarding a picture. The appearance of the hunter gave them some sort of secret aesthetic pleasure. Minot turned to Jeffrey and Jeffrey knew he was expected to say something.
“He’s sort of big for this room, isn’t he?” Jeffrey asked, and Minot laughed rudely.
“Did you hear that, Ermak?” Minot said, but the Prince only smiled politely.
“A small ring makes better training,” he said, but his eyes were still on the horse. All his attention was focused on Minot as Minot walked forward and tested the saddle girth and began fussing with the stirrups. There was a slight argument about the bit, which Jeffrey could not understand, and then Minot was hopping in an awkward way, with one foot in a stirrup which was much too short for him, while the horse kept circling, snorting gently, with the man in overalls holding its head. When Minot was up in the saddle the man let go, and the horse began bouncing sideways. Minot’s body conformed to all the eccentric motions, and the concentration on Minot’s face showed that he was enjoying it, but to Jeffrey it all seemed a waste of everyone’s time. He stood there in the center of the ring, beside the Prince, feeling uncomfortable and cold.
“Nice hands,” the Prince said.
“What?” Jeffrey asked him.
For an instant the Prince’s clear, dark eyes looked impatient.
“His hands upon the reins,” he said. “The touch is very necessary for a rider. Nice hands.”
“I’m sorry,” Jeffrey said, “I don’t know much about this.”
They stood in the center of the ring while Minot walked the horse.
“He is a friend of yours?” the Prince asked.
Jeffrey could see no reason for the question, but then it was always hard to tell what a foreigner was thinking.
“Nice hands,” the Prince said, “nice sit.”
Jeffrey did not answer. There was no reason why Minot should not have nice hands and a nice sit, since he had given a great deal of attention to them.
“An old friend?” the Prince asked.
Considering everything, it seemed kind of the Prince to be interested.
“Ever since the last war,” Jeffrey said.
The horse was trotting now, snorting and throwing its head. The Prince’s voice was warmer. All Russians had a social sense, and now he and the Prince had something in common.
“Ah,” the Prince said, “you were a soldier?”
“Aviation,” Jeffrey said.
“Ah,” the Prince said, and he laughed for no particular reason. “That was a war.”
“Different from this one,” Jeffrey said.
“Ah, no,” the Prince answered. “All war is the same, I think. Just war.”
“I suppose you know,” Jeffrey said.
A part of Jeffrey’s attention was upon Minot and that horse, now moving at a slow, collected gallop, and part on what the Prince was saying, and part on his own thoughts. The Prince had wrinkled his forehead in a polite, exaggerated interrogation.
“Perhaps you can tell me something, sir,” he said. “With my people, war has seemed natural. With so many here, they do not seem to understand this. It seems to shock them very deeply.”
“They’re far away from it,” Jeffrey said.
“Yes,” the Prince said, “yes. It is amusing for me to think of.”
“How do you mean, it’s amusing?” Jeffrey asked.
“For me it is amusing,” the Prince said, “to hear them talk. For me, I am lonely in this war. I can stand and look, because I do not care.”
His detachment was tranquil and refreshing.
“I see what you mean,” Jeffrey said.
There was the sound of thudding hoofbeats all around them.
“I can see the combinations,” the Prince said, “and I wish that I might care.”
“I don’t know—” Jeffrey said—“I wish I didn’t.”
“No,” the Prince said, “believe me, it is better to care.”
They were silent for a moment, and then Jeffrey asked a question because the answer that the Prince might give to it could have some authority.
“Who’s going to win?” he asked.
“I think,” the Prince said, “no one will win. You see, I know about war very well, I think.” Then he called to Minot. “He does better today.”
“Yes,” Minot called back, “he’s all right.”
Then Jeffrey asked another question and he was reluctant to ask it, because he was afraid that he would believe the answer. “Do you think we’ll get into it?” he asked.
“Why, surely,” the Prince said. “Our friend has nice hands.”
The riding ring felt cold and the Prince seemed to be lost in thoughts of his own.
“If I might fight,” he said, “I should like to fight the Japanese. I do not like those people very much.” The Prince reached in his pocket and drew out an enameled cigarette case. “Please,” he said. “People here are so disturbed by what is inevitable. I do not understand it.”
“You’re a fatalist, aren’t you?” Jeffrey said.
The Prince laughed very heartily.
“My dear,” he said, and it sounded like a literal translation from War and Peace, “I and all my people are, I am very glad to say. Shall we set the jump up now?”
“Yes,” Minot called. “Put it up at three feet six. Let’s go.”
The Prince gave a sharp order and the man in overalls moved the jumping standards.
“That fellow,” the Prince said, “was a soldier. Please.”
The Prince lighted a match unhurriedly, and held it out to Jeffrey.
“Oh,” Jeffrey said, “thank you,” and he bent over the Prince’s small, delicate hand to light his cigarette. For some reason it was comforting to stand by someone who could view the future without emotion.
“Our friend,” the Prince said, “tells me you leave for Hollywood.”
“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “next week.”
“I do not understand,” the Prince said. “Most of them ride poorly in the films. I might teach them, do you think?”
“Do you mean,” Jeffrey said, “you want to go to Hollywood?”
Of all the places the Prince might want to go, it seemed the least plausible.
“It has always been my dream to go there,” the Prince said. “If you should see a chance for me, tell me please.”
Jeffrey nodded. Suddenly the Prince had shrunk into a fallible little man, no longer to be taken seriously, slightly sad, perhaps amusing, like Jeffrey himself and like everyone else. His words had lost their value. He still wanted something; he still had something to lose and something to gain, like everyone else, and what was worse, the thing he wanted was exactly the same as the thing desired by some little girl behind a drugstore lunch counter.
The jumping standards were up just opposite them, and Minot walked the horse to the center of the ring, so close that Jeffrey could feel the warmth from the animal’s sweating shoulder.
“What are you two talking about?” Minot asked.
“Philosophy, my dear,” the Prince answered.
“Well,” Minot said, “let’s go.”
He put the horse in a canter and went squarely at the jump. It looked effortless and easy.
“All right,” Minot called, “put it up to four.”
There was the same thudding of the hoofs. The Prince’s eyes narrowed and he flicked the ash of his cigarette.
“He is very nice,” the Prince said softly.
“Have you tried him over five?” Minot called.
“No,” the Prince called back, “not five. The ring is small.”
“All right,” Minot called, “put it up to five.”
Minot looked as young as he had looked years ago. His face was lighted by a sor
t of concentration that was entirely selfless.
“I thought so,” Jeffrey said, “he wants to break his neck.”
“Do you think?” the Prince asked, and he glanced at Jeffrey quickly and back to the jumping standard. “I do not think. I think it is he likes to live.”
The Prince’s face was like Minot’s, absorbed and watchful.
“Very nice,” the Prince said. “He is—very nice.”
You could not tell whether he meant that Minot was a very nice horseman or a very nice man. You could not tell anything about the Prince. As the horse rounded the curve and approached the short stretch before the jump, Minot brought his crop down hard and Jeffrey watched his friend’s face. Minot seemed to have recaptured something that Jeffrey never could. He was leaning forward. The horse reached with its neck toward the jump and Jeffrey could see the reins slither through Minot’s fingers.
“Now,” he heard the Prince say softly, “now,” and then the Prince raised his voice. “Very nice,” he called, “very nice.”
His eyes were on the jump, watching the horse sail through the air. Then there was a bell-like sound, made from wood struck heavily, followed by a crash. The horse had landed, entangled somehow with the falling bar, stumbling, throwing Minot forward, half out of the saddle.
“The wrong lead,” the Prince called, “was it not?” The horse stood trembling, and Minot slid from the saddle. Minot seemed to be considering the proper answer to the Prince’s question. He turned back toward the fallen jumping standard and pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his riding breeches and mopped the perspiration from his forehead.
“No, the lead was right,” he said. “He wasn’t going, that’s all.”
He turned and looked at the horse. “Maybe I didn’t give him enough. Maybe I’m getting old.”
“Oh, no,” the Prince said, and he laughed. “No, no, not that.”
Minot slapped his hands softly against the horse’s neck and looked back at Jeffrey and the Prince. His face no longer looked young.
“I’ve seen it happen,” Minot said. “You get too careful. You think too much.” He smiled. “Maybe I should have died young.”
So Little Time Page 40