The Tale of the Dancing Slaughter Horse

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The Tale of the Dancing Slaughter Horse Page 16

by Shade, Victoria;


  “I’m going to prescribe a medication called Isoxuprine, he’ll need twenty pills a day—ten in the morning, and ten in the evening.”

  Twenty pills? That’s so much! I can’t believe it’s that bad! I thought.

  “Thanks so much, Dr. Danberry.”

  I went to the office to cancel my lesson. I waited for Carol to come in from teaching so I could tell her what was going on.

  “Hi Carol, Moony’s lame,” I said when she came into the office.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “The vet says he has Navicular Disease.”

  “Oh, ok. Did she leave you Isox?”

  She knew about Navicular Disease. I was comforted.

  “Yeah.”

  “Great, start him on it, we’ll give him the week off, and see how he is next weekend.”

  __________

  The following weekend, Carol was her usual chipper self.

  “Hey there! How is Moony feeling?” she asked.

  “He’s not lame!” I exclaimed. I had been nervous all week.

  “Always a good starting point,” she joked. Then she got serious, when she noticed my feeble smile.

  “Look, it’s not a death sentence. We just have to watch it. If he starts feeling ouchy, then we’ll back off. He’s a strong little horse, he’ll be OK.”

  “What about the arthritis in his back legs?” I asked.

  “That makes things tricky. With arthritis, exercise helps, but with Navicular, the more he’s worked, the more the bone degenerates,” she explained.

  “Great, so I have to work the back legs and not work the front legs,” I stated.

  “Basically, yeah,” she agreed.

  “How do I do that, cut him in half?” I was growing frustrated.

  “No, we’ll just keep doing the dressage. As you guys progress, you will start to collect more, which means Moony will start rocking his center of gravity from the front half of his body to his butt. That will take more weight off the front legs, and rotate it back to his hind legs.”

  I was thrilled that she had a solution. I adored her for being able to make the best of this situation that I feared would be career-ending.

  “Thanks, Carol,” I looked at her and smiled.

  29

  My grandmother was quickly deteriorating. She hated being at the hospital, so when it was safe to unplug her from all of the medical devices, she came home. She was much calmer at home than at the hospital, where she could be with the dogs that she loved so much, sleep in her own bed, and eat familiar Romanian food that my mother prepared, although it was nowhere near as tasty as her own cooking.

  “Plegh! What is this garbage?” she spat in Romanian at the dinner table one night.

  My sister and I laughed in unison at my grandmother’s insult of my mother’s cooking.

  “It’s your favorite—stuffed grape leaves, just eat it,” my mother replied.

  “This is disgusting!” she declared, throwing her fork at her food.

  “Mother, please. Look, Dad is eating it,” she responded to her mother, as she nodded her head toward my grandfather, bent over his plate, chewing quietly.

  “That hog will eat anything!” my grandmother cried out.

  “Mom, can you please just try . . .” I could detect the weariness in my mother’s voice.

  “Ugh, I just want to die! Oh, God! Please, just take me now! I am so sick of this miserable life!” my grandmother wailed.

  “OK, Mom, time for bed,” my mother got up to help her out of her chair and take her to her bedroom.

  “Girls, you can go watch TV when you’re done with dinner,” she said.

  “Yes!” we exclaimed as we picked up our plates and rushed to the TV in the living room.

  A few days later, my grandmother was back in the hospital. She was in and out of the hospital until the following spring.

  __________

  One day after school, after my sister and I had arrived home, we found my mother on the phone, sounding rushed and worried. My grandfather was holding my grandmother’s hand as she lay on the couch, tears in his eyes.

  “Girls, pack her things, I am trying to get the doctor on the phone!” she shouted to us.

  “You pack, I’ll help her get up,” I told my sister.

  “Tati, can you help Baby pack?” I asked him in Romanian. He looked weary and exhausted. My sister and I were fresh from school, but he had been dealing with my sick grandmother all day, and the past few years. We had the energy to help.

  “Nanni, time to get up,” I said as I took her hand from my grandfather.

  “Victoria? Is that you?” she asked, looking straight through me.

  “Yes, it’s me, can you sit up?” I asked, as I hoisted her frail ninety-pound frame into a seated position on the couch. I had either grown strong from riding, or she had lost a lot of weight, because I felt as though I could easily pick her up.

  “Oh God damn it! What now?” she barked as she opened her enraged eyes. My grandmother had green-hazel eyes, which usually blazed with rage. I avoided eye contact.

  “We’re just going back to the hospital,” I said calmly, as I pulled the covers off of her.

  “I’m not going ANYWHERE! Leave me alone!” she spat.

  I heard my mother’s footsteps approaching as soon as she heard my grandmother scream at me.

  I turned around and told her, “It’s OK, Mom, just call the ambulance.”

  She rushed back to the telephone in the dining room.

  “OK, Nanni, you have to get up now,” I said as I slid my right arm under her back and my left arm under her legs. I started shifting her legs towards the edge of the couch.

  “Get off me!” she screeched. She was defeated, and started to cry.

  “I can do it myself,” she said finally.

  I slipped her dress over her nightgown, got her shoes, and called my mother to get her coat. As we sat, waiting for the ambulance to arrive, she turned to me, looked directly into my eyes and said, “I’m going to die.”

  “You’re not going to die, Nanni,” I said, slightly drained.

  “Yes, I am going to die today!”

  I was too tired to respond, and also knew she would challenge anything I said, so I simply sat with her, stroking her back.

  When the ambulance arrived, my mother grabbed her keys. “Girls, take care of the dogs. Order takeout. I might spend the night. I’ll call later.”

  “OK, Mom,” we were looking forward to the distraction of homework and then dinner in front of the TV.

  Both my mother and grandfather spent the night at the hospital. The dogs wailed and whimpered, as they did whenever my grandmother was gone. We tried to distract them until we were exhausted, and fell asleep with all of them on the couch.

  __________

  The next day was Friday, and I was elated. It had been a draining week, and I was looking forward to escaping to the farm.

  “Hey Sandra, you going to the farm after school?” I asked her at lunch.

  “Yeah, want a ride?”

  “That would be great.”

  “Sure, no problem!” she said.

  I called my mother at the hospital to let her know I had a ride to the farm, and that my sister was going to her friend’s house after school. She didn’t pick up, so I left a message.

  The day was uneventful, which I appreciated. I took comfort in the dull routine of being in school. I was tired. Sandra’s mother picked us up after school and drove us out to the farm. When we arrived, Sandra went to her pony at the far end of the barn, and I went directly to Moonshine’s stall to greet him.

  After my ride, I was untacking Moony in the aisle of the barn, just outside his stall. He had a pile of carrots on the floor to keep him busy while I took off the saddle, bridle, and leg wraps. As I removed
the last wrap, I saw someone appear under the barn’s fluorescent lights from the darkness outside. It was my mom. Just as I was about to greet her and ask her why she was at the barn when I had a ride, I saw my grandfather come in after her. He looked smaller than ever. I knew that his being at the barn meant something was wrong. But my mind didn’t let me immediately go to the worst case scenario—death. Maybe they got into a fight? Maybe she was in one of her moods. Maybe he wanted some fresh air and to be away from the hospital and the house.

  “She’s gone,” my mother said, somber.

  “Oh, Mom, are you OK?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she lied, her face red and weary.

  “Your grandfather is heartbroken,” she added.

  I didn’t say anything to him. I knew there was nothing I could say that would ease the pain of having lost his spouse of over fifty years. I simply went to him and hugged him.

  “Do you want to pet Moonshine, Tati?” I asked. This was the first time he had seen Moonshine.

  “No,” he said, looking straight through Moonshine.

  “Mom, I need a few minutes before I can go, want to wait in the car?”

  “Yes,” she said flatly.

  “Come on, Dad,” she said, taking hold of my grandfather’s elbow, and leading him back outside.

  I led Moonshine into his stall, and gave him all of the carrots I had with me. I ran to Sandra’s pony’s stall, where I was sure I’d find Sandra and her mom.

  “Mrs. Turner, my mom’s here, I have to go,” I breathed out as I saw her.

  “Sure, Victoria. Is everything OK?”

  “Not really, my grandmother passed away.”

  Just as I said “away,” a lump choked me, and I realized what had happened. She was gone. I would never see her again.

  __________

  The funeral was held a few days later. It was small. I had never seen my mother cry so much. My grandfather sobbed as he stroked his dead wife’s hair while she lay in the casket. That was the first time I ever saw a dead person. She looked the same as she did when she was alive; she just looked asleep. The lines of the tubes up her nose left marks all over her face. Even my sister was crying. I didn’t. As much as I wanted to cry, I didn’t want to upset my mother even more. She didn’t need that.

  The day we buried my grandmother was a crisp, spring day. The ground was mushy from the early rain. I watched the casket sit suspended above the hole in the ground. All I could think about was how miserable she always seemed. I wondered if she was in a better place now.

  After the funeral and burial, my grandmother’s absence was palpable. My mother and grandfather were a combination of devastated and empty. Everything was suddenly silent. The house was quiet. The dogs whimpered. The house was no longer filled with aromas of rich Romanian cooking. It was empty, quiet, and sad.

  The farm continued to be my relief from reality. Other than the time my grandfather showed up at the farm, my regular life was totally separate from my farm life, which I loved. The barn was a sacred place that my home life couldn’t invade.

  30

  I was eager to turn sixteen, because it was one step closer to seventeen—the year I could finally drive myself to the farm. I would no longer have to depend on someone else for a ride. I would no longer have to beg my father for money on the long drives to the farm. I would no longer have to listen to my mother’s endless worries about making ends meet. I would no longer have to ask my sister’s classmate for a ride. I could just be alone. And then I could be at the farm, with my horse, for as long as I wanted.

  “So, you’re learning how to drive, huh?” Carol said as I headed out to the parking lot where my father was waiting.

  “Yeah, I’m really excited!” I said, smiling.

  “Well, normally I’d be worried about having another teenager on the highway, but if you drive like you ride, you’ll be fine,” she said.

  “Thanks!” I was uplifted. Carol’s confidence in my driving gave me an even greater sense of confidence.

  Things were looking up, my sophomore year was coming to an end, summer was fast approaching, and I was driving. A few months had passed since my grandmother’s death and we had been forced back into our daily routines.

  I was especially eager for summer to arrive because it was 1996—a summer Olympic year. Not only that, but the Olympics would be in Georgia! We had driven down to Florida several times when I was younger, so I knew it was a drivable distance. The biggest, most prestigious sporting event would be in my country, within driving distance! I was giddy. By the time May rolled around, I could no longer contain my excitement. All I could talk about was how close the Olympics would be. How my idol, Michelle Gibson, who was from Georgia, would compete for a medal in her home state, and how extraordinarily special that was. It was so poetic—who gets to compete in the world’s greatest athletic event in their own home state? And beyond that, the opportunity was given to Michelle Gibson, a superstar, who worked her way to the top. She deserved to win. I wished I could be there to watch history unfold.

  On one of my drives out to the farm with my mother, I said, “Hey Mom, you know the Olympics are going to be in Atlanta this year?”

  “So?” she said, disinterested, obviously not sharing in my obsession.

  “Well, you know they never televise dressage; wouldn’t it be cool to go see it live since it’s so close?”

  “What? You want to go? It’s only two months away! I don’t think we would be able to get tickets now.”

  “I know. Just thought it would’ve been cool to go,” I said.

  In my lesson that day, I told Carol that the Olympics would be in Atlanta, and she was just as disinterested as my mother.

  “Do you know the Olympics are going to be in Atlanta?” I said to her at the end of my lesson.

  “Yup,” she responded.

  That was it. Just “yup.” Why didn’t anyone care about this monumental event coming so close to home?

  __________

  School finally let out in the second week of June. My mother picked us up on the last day of school. I was first to the car, so I opened the door to the passenger seat. As I was about to sit, I noticed two airline tickets, and two envelopes with the Olympic logo on them. I picked them up as I sat.

  “What’s this?” I asked my mother.

  “What you wanted,” she replied.

  I tore open the envelopes—inside were tickets to all four of the dressage events!

  “Oh my God, Mom! The Olympics!” I whispered. I couldn’t say the word out loud. It was too special.

  “How did you even get these? I thought it was impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible if you want it badly enough,” she replied.

  I was too elated to be annoyed by her spiritual talk.

  “Mom, I don’t even know how to thank you for this. This is a dream come true,” I said, still in shock.

  “I know,” she said. After a long pause, she began, “There’s more, though.”

  “What?” I said, still looking at the Olympic tickets in my hands.

  “Well, you know how I was a jumper rider in Romania?” she started.

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, in Romania, during the war, it was a different system for equestrians. There were not a dozen barns from which I could choose to ride. There was only one barn, on the army base. Since it was the only barn around Bucharest where everyone could ride, it had both jumper and dressage riders and trainers. The best trainers in my country trained at this army barn,” she said.

  “I know, you told me before,” I reminded her, hoping she would cut to the chase.

  “Well, one of those trainers was George Theodorescu.”

  “No way!” I exclaimed, “You knew George Theodorescu?”

  George Theodorescu was an incredibly famous and successful dressage trainer. Not o
nly was he an accomplished rider himself, being an Olympian, but he was also a highly sought after trainer. He had trained hundreds of top riders, including Robert Dover. I had researched and memorized the biographies of almost all of the American, German, and Dutch equestrians, so I knew that most of the riders who had qualified to compete in that year’s Olympics had trained with Mr. Theodorescu.

  George Theodorescu had a distinctively Romanian name, but he lived and trained in Germany, where all of the best riders, trainers, and horses were. Germany had won every single individual and team gold medal in dressage in the Olympics since the early 1900s. The Germans dominated the sport, and Americans frequently flocked to Germany to train with the best.

  The Theodorescu legacy lived on, after Mr. Theodorescu retired from competition, through his daughter, Monica. She was often featured in the equitation magazines I read. I saw pictures of her magnificent steeds, and read about her success—two World Cup Championships, multiple Olympic Team gold medals, and several individual Olympic silver and bronze medals.

  I was astounded when my mother announced that she knew this dressage icon.

  “Yes, I knew him. I mean, not well, since I was just another kid who did jumping, and he was this elegant, sophisticated dressage trainer, but we would say ‘hello’ in passing,” she continued. “Anyway, after World War II, during one of his international competitions, he escaped communist Romania and fled to Germany. He left everything behind—his home, his friends, and his horses,” I sensed her tormented nostalgia from reminiscing about her youth in Romania—her home and her prison.

  “So he has been living in Germany ever since then, and now his daughter is also an Olympian,” she continued.

  I scoffed, “Yeah, Mom, I know. Monica Theodorescu.”

  “Yes, well Mr. Theodorescu goes with her to all of her Olympics, of course, and this year he is also the team coach for the French dressage team.”

  “So?” I wondered where this was all leading.

  After a long pause, she said, “I have arranged for you to meet him in Atlanta,” she concluded.

  No WAY! I thought. I was screaming in my head. A hurricane of excitement and disbelief rushed over me. I was dumbfounded. It was as if I had just been handed the impossible on a silver platter. Just as I was about to shriek with glee, she added, “The only catch is I can’t be there for the whole week because I have to work and take care of the dogs and your sister,” she stated. “I will be there the first couple of days, but your father will be there the whole time.”

 

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