Carry Me

by Peter Behrens

  During his stay at Walden he was given a room above the horse stalls. After Lovely Morn was rested and feeding well, it was time to show her off.

  My father didn’t like to run horses, especially broodmares, in the full heat of a summer’s day. So it was early morning, just after dawn, when we gathered around the paddock and watched Mick leading her out.

  Lovely Morn was big even by Irish standards, nearly seventeen hands, and spirited. But she came out calm and easy with Mick, even with all the strangers about. You could see she trusted people; she had been handled well. No matter their bloodline, badly raised thoroughbreds waste so much spirit in fussing and worrying that they rarely realize their potential.

  Karin stood at the rail, holding a little leather crop, looking like a dangerous angel in her summer riding habit of pale-blue blouse, white breeches, and mahogany-top English boots. Longo, whom her parents considered Karin’s all-but-official fiancé, was probably still in bed. He and Karin had been staying out late at parties.

  As Mick put Lovely Morn through her paces on the longe line I could see he was terribly proud of her. A good groom feels kinship with his horse, and from the light, immaculate way Mick handled her and the way she responded, I could tell they both felt this.

  “Very nice, very nice,” the baron said to Mick. “But what do you say, sir? I think perhaps we see her on the run. The saddle’s up for a reason, I suppose.”

  “Sure enough,” Mick replied. When we were boys in Ireland he hadn’t owned a pair of shoes, but at Walden he seemed entirely confident and at ease, a horseman who knew his business.

  The first hay had just been cut, so the turf was sleek. Mick was wearing horse boots and must have intended to be up himself, but I saw Karin speak to her father, who said something to Mick, and the next moment Mick was giving Karin a leg up without looking very happy about it. She was so fine and light he nearly tossed her over the mare’s back—I saw her laugh at his apology. While he shortened the stirrup straps she was settling herself and communicating to the mare, via the telepathy real riders share with their mounts, that she, Karin, was in charge now, that the mare was perfectly safe in her hands, and that she would be careful, diligent, and wise enough for both of them. (It flows through the hands, this communication, the hands, and the voice.)

  Mick held the bridle, waiting for Karin’s nod. The moment he let go, the mare launched her thoroughbred spring and flew down the track cut into the woods, where we lost sight of them.

  It is one of those scenes I have retained in its roundness all my life: cool-blue light of the summer dawn, scent of trees, of tobacco smoke. My father’s stopwatch ticking. My father saying a word to the baron, the baron’s bark of laughter.

  Almost too soon we heard the faintest tremor of hoofbeats. Then Karin and the mare were coming out of the woods at a gallop.

  She would have been no weight at all on a horse like that, nothing but a pair of hands.

  They took another turn, then Karin slowed the mare down and began walking her out. By then the baron and my father had started back toward the main house where they would take coffee together.

  Karin slipped down off the mare and handed the reins to Mick. The sun was flaring through the woods, and the trainers, grooms, and stable hands had gone off to their day’s work. The grass was steaming dew, and I watched Mick and Karin walk the mare back to her stable. Karin was speaking with animation, her face glowing like a child’s.

  Was I envious? Of course. But we’d hardly exchanged a word all summer. She was a year older and living in the great city of Berlin. Mick was a professional horseman and on his way to America. I cycled off to my café au lait and foreign newspapers, telling myself the sooner I started a career of my own, the better.

  That morning I began considering Herr Kaufman’s youngest secretary, Heidi, as a travel companion, though I wasn’t convinced such ein gesundes Fräulein would be willing to take on the emptiness of the American High Plains. Blonde and pretty, Heidi spoke not a word of English and every Saturday eagerly rode the bus back to her family’s swine farm at Schwalbach in the Taunus.

  After work I passed by the BMW showroom and paused to gaze at the motorcycles in the window. Easy to imagine one of these machines as the up-to-date version of Old Shatterhand’s magnificent horse, Lightning. What a thrilling idea, to set off across El Llano Estacado riding such a beast. With a sidecar fitted on, there was certainly room for a girl.

  The cinema was the only place that could possibly suit my heightened mood, so from the motorcycle shop I went on to catch the new Gary Cooper picture, Nevada. Coop played an outlaw hired to protect a rich rancher’s daughter from the band of outlaws aiming to kidnap her. I could imagine myself gunning down a gang of criminals for the sake of a girl. I’d help her into my sidecar, gun my engine, and we’d zoom together across a landscape of light.

  My mother invited Mick to have dinner with us. She liked the Sligo in him, the curl in his voice. She’d been sounding more Sligo herself since Mick and my grandmother had arrived.

  Afterward he and I took an evening stroll around the paddocks. On summer evenings horses were always turned out of the stalls, and it was enjoyable to see the long-legged colts frisking.

  Mick offered me a Sweet Afton. He said Walden was the grandest horse establishment he’d ever seen. The only thing that came close was the National Stud at Kildare, which was falling apart “like everything in Ireland. But I’m not going back to Ireland, Billy.”

  “You’re emigrating.”

  “I am. Going for America, like most of them from our old Calry National. Except them that went for England, and one fella that got himself murdered by the Tans.”

  “Do you remember, the peelers, in the road?”

  “ ‘Down goes the pony’?”

  “I thought he would shoot.”

  “Do you know what would suit me, Billy Lange? Taking that girl across with me. I’d say the two of us might make a start together in New York.”

  It startled me. “She’s other fish to fry.”

  Mick smiled. “Ah, you mean that tall drink of water, Longo von Himself? But is he really in the running? I wouldn’t be so sure. The fellow does have money, I suppose.”

  “He’s not as rich as she is.”

  “I’ve lived twenty years without being knocked over by a woman. And here I am with a passage for America, one foot on the boat, and now there’s a girl in old Germany I won’t be forgetting. Ah, man, it is cruel.”

  He was smiling. He didn’t seem too distraught.

  “What’ll you do in New York?” I asked. I didn’t want to talk anymore about Karin.

  “Try to get on the police, I suppose. Dream of your Karin von, that’s what. She was something, up on the mare, was she not? Light as a bird. Jesus.”

  The rest of that week I didn’t see much of Mick. Once or twice I caught a glimpse of him in the paddock or on the yearling track, and Karin was there as well. She wore blue cotton shirts that summer and breeches and mahogany-top boots the same as mine, which I’d outgrown.

  One evening when I came home from the lawyer’s office I saw Mick sitting on a rail. I went over to him and stood holding my bicycle while we watched Karin gallop out of the woods.

  “There you are, Billy boy.” Mick sighed. “There’s something beautiful and fast. I’m afraid your Karin von has me beat.”

  Watching yearlings run is as close as I ever have come to feeling music in my soul. That’s putting it in a very German way, isn’t it? It’s the beauty of the thing itself, their bright eyes and bright coats, the drumbeat of hooves, the squeaks and snorts of young thoroughbreds breathing hard. Creak of saddle leather. Spurts of red dust rising from the turf.

  After all, it’s not only the chance of winning a pile that brings people to the track, it’s the hard beauty of the thing, and this was something we understood at Walden. Maybe those two, Mick and Karin, had little in common but love of horses. But that’s not insignificant. Like having an ear for melody, or a
sense of rhythm, a feeling for horses connects you in all kinds of ways to others who share it.

  Longo wasn’t a bad rider. He’d show jumped at quite an advanced level before giving it up to practice law. But horses to him were just expensive machines, more or less like his Mercedes. Pieces of action, not living beings.

  Karin made Longo get up awfully early for tennis. One morning, cycling past the clay court on my way to work, I saw him miss a return. Perhaps it cost him the set, because he started cursing and banging his racket on the clay. I kept cycling, but I didn’t mind seeing Longo lose his sangfroid.

  That evening I visited Mick in his room above the stable and was shocked to find Karin sitting on his bed, an old army cot. A lot of gear and trappings around the Walden stables were war surplus. Trainers and exercise riders wore army horse boots; military saddles and tack were used on walking-out horses. Some grooms still wore their field-gray tunics.

  Karin smiled. “Hello, Billy.” She was perched at the foot of the bed. Mick was sitting at the other end, knees drawn up.

  Was she annoyed at my intrusion? Probably. But she didn’t show it. We were old friends, after all. Her legs were bare and brown, no stockings, nor shoes. Her feet were dirty. She wore an evening dress, loose on her slight figure and at the same time revealing. The sort of dress, I thought, the goddess Diana might have worn.

  Her mother would have been stunned if she’d known Karin was in the stable quarters, visiting a groom.

  “Billy’s a wise lad,” said Mick. “Billy knows a horse from a donkey.”

  Karin was looking at me. “He does.”

  “We’ve been down some lanes together, have we not, Billy?” Mick said.

  “We have,” I agreed. “Stealing salmon.”

  “And that old peeler who was after shooting the pony. Worse than the Tans, those lads. Billy’s your man,” Mick said to Karin. “You may rely on old Billy there, he’s got the stuff, he won’t let you down.”

  “Your Mick is leaving,” she told me. “I’ve asked him not to, but he says he must.”

  I was confused. Everyone knew Mick was going for America.

  “He’s emigrating,” I said.

  “He is,” Mick said. “Sick of mucking stables. Can’t find a place for himself, this side of the water. Wants a piece of America. Crossing over to see what he can get.”

  “I’d go with you,” she said.

  He laughed. She was smiling. But I knew she was serious.

  “Flatbush, Brooklyn,” Mick told her. “Uncle Jer’s a sergeant on the New York police. He’s offered me a bed. But he’s got six kids, or seven.”

  “We needn’t stay with Uncle Jer.” She was smiling and her voice was light.

  It had been a warm day. A scent that was sweet hay, horse dung, and old dry timbers rose from the stalls below. Were they going to run off to America? Together? Could two people not much older than myself take their lives in their hands that way?

  A car horn broke the stillness aggressively. I recognized the sound of Longo’s Mercedes. Longo and Karin were going off for the evening, that explained why she was dressed as Diana.

  Without another word she got up and left. We listened to her run lightly down the wooden staircase.

  Mick raised a finger to his lips. “Don’t say a word, Billy. You weren’t here. Didn’t see nor hear anything, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Let’s go for a walkabout and a smoke.”

  Longo wasn’t getting the attention he thought he deserved. That probably explains everything that happened. He was too much of a snob to believe Karin could be seriously interested in a groom, but he was certainly irritated by the hours she spent on horseback with Mick that week. That’s where the idea of the excursion originated. Longo wanted to get Karin into the front seat of his powerful Mercedes car and out on the roads where she’d be much more in his hands.

  Longo needed people to be fascinated with him. Unusually for a German, he’d gone to school in the United States—two years at Choate—while his father worked at Morgan’s bank in New York. Longo spoke excellent American English. Like me, he enjoyed westerns. He was a Gary Cooper fan. We went to the cinema together a few times. He insisted on paying for my ticket.

  He could be charming and lively, though the grooms weren’t fond of him and neither was my father. Longo shouted at the horses and used the crop too much.

  There were grains and streaks of kindness and empathy in Longo’s character. Along with charm and money and beautiful clothes, he had a natural warmth and liveliness, which explained his large circle of friends.

  His scheme had been to go off with Karin alone in his car, but Lady Maire would not hear of it. My being included in the party made it acceptable. An eighteen-year-old boy could hardly be considered a proper chaperone, but from Lady Maire’s point of view I was my parents’ son, so my trustworthiness and devotion to the Weinbrenners’ good name was taken for granted.

  Her grasp of human relations was flawed. I’m sure Karin knew the truth, which was that, as far as I was concerned, she could do anything she wanted. I would accept any number of saber cuts much deeper than Longo’s before I’d ever betray Karin, to her mother or anyone else.

  Our original itinerary included Sankt Goar, the Lorelei, and lunch at a castle belonging to Longo’s relatives. But after he had a telegram from one of his Korpsbrüder, Longo decided we must aim for Heidelberg instead. He was proud of his membership in the Korps-Rhenania and wanted to show Karin off to his friends.

  Having the stable manager’s son along was tiresome but necessary. When Karin said she’d invited the Irish groom as well, Longo gave an impatient snort. “The groom? Invite the bloody groom? Whatever for?”

  “To show him more of our beautiful Germany. Don’t be such a snob, Longo.”

  The excursion was set for Saturday. I worked at Kaufman’s law office until noon, when they would pick me up in the Mercedes.

  Longo’s Mercedes was an S-Class, the young person’s Mercedes. The rich young person’s Mercedes: an open tourer with four bucket seats, a supercharged engine, and a top speed of one hundred thirty kilometers per hour. Painted battleship gray, she had straightforward lines and wasn’t overladen with chrome, as Mercedes cars were a decade later, when they became the chosen steeds of the major criminals.

  They picked me up outside Kaufman’s office in a small street off the Römerberg. The top was down. Karin and Longo had the bucket seats in front; I joined Mick in back. Longo had removed the bandage from his Schmiss. Perhaps the scar had healed enough, or maybe he was impatient to display it to his Korpsbrüder. Karin made fun of it, but probably many young men in her circle wore scars from the Mensur. She moved in a more aristocratic crowd than her parents. The baron’s houseguests were typically scientists or businessmen, many of them Jews. I don’t know if the baron considered himself Jewish at that time. In Breslau he’d been baptized a Lutheran. At Walden they celebrated Christmas, Easter, All Souls’ Day, and I never heard anything about Yom Kippur or Passover. Maybe it wasn’t an either/or question for him. At the house, his wife’s Christian iconography was everywhere, but he wasn’t religious. He was German. Perhaps he felt Jewish sometimes, but most of the time it seemed irrelevant. It was only after his “treasonous” memoirs were published that the right-wing press started referring to him as a Jew.

  Karin, for her part, knew a lot of rich young people from conservative families. She was young, beautiful in an unexpected way, and the granddaughter of an Irish peer, who also held an English title and a seat in the House of Lords. Some of the grandees inviting her to weekend house parties at castles on the Rhine or hunting estates in East Prussia probably whispered horrid things about her father. Maybe they were counting her fortune, plotting their sons would marry her to save their rotten old houses. Probably they were impressed that she would ride their biggest, roughest horses. Karin and her father were much more German than I was, though some people would never consider them such, no matter their hor
semanship or their courage.

  Longo liked going fast. We ate sandwiches in the car and stopped only once, at a creamery, deep in the countryside. Karin ran inside and came out with a bottle of cold milk, which we all shared. There wasn’t much point trying to talk at one hundred twenty kilometers per hour with the top down and the supercharger whining. Anyhow, talk wasn’t needed. I felt supercharged with emotion. It was all I could do not to spill this out in the form of tears, but I wasn’t sad. I felt extraordinarily happy in the company of these three, quite without my usual baggage of self-conscious unease.

  The road was lined with beech trees. We sped down canyons of greenery. Above the flapping leaves, pure blue sky. I’d not often been in such a motorcar, never in one driven so fast, with a young woman in the front seat turning to offer me a bottle of cold, fresh milk and her smile. I experienced for the first time the tranquillity and poise that most of my life have been accessible only in liminal space, at speed, on highways across open country, occasionally in airports. The pure air of transition.

  After the caustic wash of highway speed, Heidelberg’s tight streets felt claustrophobic. Longo drove us straight to the home of his cherished Korps, on the Hauptstraße. The Rhenanenhaus was a pile from the late-Wilhelmian period, nothing modern about it but nothing charming or ancient, either. The ground floor was stuccoed. Steel bars were fastened over the windows. To passersby on the street, it offered the cold, verging on brutal, stare of the official class of Germany. A stonework relief over the door had something of the florid flair of a cuirassier’s brass helmet. The upper stories were more urbane. But it was a fraternity house with the Gestalt of a fortress.

  Korps-Rhenania was the control center of Longo’s value system at that time. Membership in all those Korps was for life. Korpsbrüder and their old-boy networks, the Alte Herren, believed themselves a privileged elect. The Rhenanians were Longo’s family, until he turned traitor on them too.