Horse Heaven

by Jane Smiley

  Rosalind knew that everything about her was a topic of conversation among her friends, several of whom faithfully repeated all the gossip about her to her. They greeted her so enthusiastically, even affectionately—Darlene and Max, Wanda and Fred, Danielle and Isaac—partly because they had been discussing her just moments ago. She set the bag of dog gently in the corner and went around the table, kissing and smiling and exclaiming. She was glad to see them. She didn’t mind that Max snapped at Darlene, Darlene whined at Max, Wanda laughingly exhibited Fred’s failings to everyone, Fred drank, Isaac’s voice could be heard all over the restaurant, and Danielle brought out a little scale for weighing her portions and talked only about grams of fat on the menu. She didn’t mind that they speculated about her, that they doubted whether she could make the gallery go, that they thought Al’s new business interests were keeping him away from home a lot of the time, that her attachment to Eileen seemed eccentric. She didn’t mind that they guessed she had had, was having, an affair, but no one could figure out with whom.

  She ordered the risotto with saffron and bay scallops and the crispy zucchini with flecks of arugula and chanterelle mushrooms for herself, and a half-order of mashed sweet potatoes for Eileen (“Hold the mint”). And then it only took her a minute or two to grant everyone’s wishes. Fred exclaimed, “My God, they’ve got a Badia a Coltibuono. It’s seventy-eight dollars, but I’ve always wanted a taste of that.” Max picked up Darlene’s hand and put it sweetly to his lips; Darlene said, “I know where I can get that money for those geezers. Rosalind, don’t you know someone at the Rockefeller Foundation?” “I do,” said Rosalind. Wanda said, “You know, my shoulder was aching all day from this weather, but it feels fine now.” Isaac said to the waiter, “Are there onions in that dish?” And the waiter said, “No, sir.” And Danielle said, “Oh! Bon! The ladies’ room has come free. I’ve been waiting at least twenty minutes!” This happened all the time now. As soon as Rosalind gave the signal, and she herself didn’t know what that was, the wishes of everyone around her were satisfied at once. Actually, it was a good indicator—only about 10 percent of any group were wish-free at any one moment. Rosalind was rather surprised at that, especially now that she herself was one of the wish-free ones.

  The granting of wishes did not have a prolonged positive effect, but it was good in the short term, as a form of relief. It was like when Rosalind used to smoke, in her twenties. Smoking had not made her feel good, only feel the cessation of the desire for a cigarette. Wishes coming true, she noticed, did not make her friends feel good, only feel the cessation of that particular wish, and the more she noticed that, the fewer wishes she herself had. Her meal was set before her. She tasted it. It was good.

  Max said, “Think about it. Here we are, seven spouses accounting for, what, eighty or a hundred years of marriage all told? I was listening to my daughter talk on the phone to her fiancé. First she talked about where they were going to find an apartment, then she talked about how they were going to furnish it, then a restaurant she wanted to go to, then she told him how to go about doing something that she had decided she wanted him to do, then she told him about another friend of hers who was getting engaged, then she went out of the room, and Darlene and I talked about her, then we talked about something we were going to buy, then we talked about a vacation we were going to take, then we talked about the Morrises, you know she has filed for divorce, then we talked about something Darlene wanted me to do.”

  “And he said, ‘Isn’t it better just not to talk at all?’ ” said Darlene. She turned to him. “I do not agree with you that marital conversation is more or less like having the TV going all the time.”

  “What is it, then?” said Max.

  “I don’t think this is a safe topic,” said Wanda. “Farting in marriage is much safer, if you ask me. At least when you talk about that you aren’t revealing anything personal to everyone.”

  “The Morrises always had great conversations, you know,” said Isaac. “Wide-ranging, erudite, smart, funny. You could sit and watch them converse for hours. It was like a movie.”

  “But think,” continued Max. “What’s the last actual topic you discussed with your spouse? Not a grievance, not a plan, not the children, not an assigned task, not gossip, not checking up or ordering around. Just something of general interest.”

  “Last night,” said Wanda, “I told Fred about a guy in a sex column in a magazine who wanted to hook up his girlfriend to his stereo system by the rectum and give her a buzz.”

  “The author of the sex column said there was specially made equipment for that. News to me,” said Fred. “We talked about that for a half an hour at least.”

  “Fred remembers it today, too,” said Wanda.

  “We talk about Clinton every day,” said Isaac.

  “Oh my God,” said Wanda. “That’s pathological.”

  “Sometimes Mitterrand,” added Danielle.

  “We talk about God,” said Darlene.

  Rosalind looked at her.

  “Every day,” said Darlene.

  Rosalind looked at Max.

  Max looked startled for a moment, as though his cover had been blown. Then he said, “What do you and Al talk about, Rosalind?”

  “Horses.”

  “Art?”

  “Al doesn’t like art. I talk about art with other people.”

  “Talking about art is all opinions,” said Danielle. “Or gossip. Very boring. God is much more interesting. I would not have thought this of you, Max.”

  “I didn’t know you were religious,” said Wanda. “You don’t seem religious.”

  “It’s not religion,” said Darlene. “It’s God himself. You know, what are his qualities and preferences. Why does he do one thing and not another, or does he do anything, and if he doesn’t do anything, then why does he allow certain things to be done. Does he take sides, that sort of thing. If you pray for a Mercedes, could he give it to you, would he, should he.”

  Everyone ate. Eileen poked her head out of the totebag and ate the sweet potatoes off their plate. After a while, Isaac said, “Pure speculation.”

  Then Max said, “What is there to say about horses?”

  “What are their qualities and preferences.” Rosalind smiled mischievously at him. “Why do they do one thing and not another.”

  “You’re teasing me.”

  “You shouldn’t be offended,” said Wanda. “As soon as you start talking about God, everyone gets offended.”

  “I’m not offended at all.”

  “He’s not,” said Darlene.

  “Plus whether they’re going to win or lose.”

  “You know,” said Wanda, “I personally feel that it is not acceptable to do it under the covers.”

  Yes, Rosalind thought, they had revealed their marriages—not so much by what they said as by how they sat, how they looked at one another, how they moved in tandem. If Al had been here, what would these friends have perceived about them? At any rate, what she was embarrassed to tell was that she and Al talked mostly about his complaints, or, rather, he talked, and she was silent. She would nod or make a noise or suggest something, but how these others talked to each other, even Max and Darlene, whatever they said, she and Al did none of that.

  She looked around the table. The marriages of New Yorkers always looked different from the marriages of her parents and relatives in the Midwest—more voluntary, more arbitrary—and as she recognized this, she also recognized that she was perfectly set up now to slip into singlehood. That state would be much like this state—the gallery, a restaurant, Eileen, lively comings and goings, the way she had been in her twenties, but enlarged by money and sophistication. Al as her ex-husband would be much the same as Al in Uzbekistan. All divorce would be, it seemed to her, was walking out of Al’s house in Westchester County and locking the door behind herself.

  BY THE NEXT MORNING, when she was on her way out to the track in the Mercedes with Eileen beside her, she had progressed a bit, tow
ard compassion. Poor Al, decades of shooting off his mouth and no one daring to stop him. And he liked to be stopped, didn’t he? He was demanding because he didn’t know how else to be. She thought of herself sitting at the table with him, eating calmly. What it felt like to her was being a stone, rolled over and over by the relentless surf of his complaints, but maybe what it felt like to him was being in an empty room, having to shout louder and louder just to see if there was anyone there. Because who was there inside her containment structure, anyway?

  They got out to the track in no time, found a parking spot right away, passed through the gate. It wasn’t a pleasant day. Riders and horses were bundled and huddled against the cold wind. On the other hand, no sleet, no snow. Rosalind hadn’t thought much about it when Al told her that Dick wasn’t taking the horses to Florida this winter, since Aqueduct had year-round footing, but now that decision seemed to her evidence of masochism. Even Eileen, snapped into her little coat, found nothing to fascinate her today.

  And here was a line of horses in Dick’s colors, crossing to the entrance of the track and passing through. They were lovely, weren’t they, long-legged and tight-bellied, dressed up in blue quartersheets to keep their haunches warm, steam blowing out of their nostrils and rising around their heads and ears. The riders wore gloves and hooded sweatshirts and looked even more dedicated than usual. The first horse in Dick’s line reared as he went onto the track. Its rider leaned forward, and the horse came down bucking and kicking up. Rosalind and Eileen found Dick.

  She did not go up to him right away. For one thing, he was staring intently at the line of horses. He shouted, “Let him trot off, Frankie. Try to contain him, but don’t try to stop him.” The horse leapt forward, and Frankie went with him.

  “Who’s that?” said Rosalind.

  Dick spun around.

  “Oh, you scared me!”

  “Sorry.”

  “That’s a horse named Epic Steam. He won the Paumonok Stakes the other day. He’s a monster.”

  “Big.”

  “Huge.”

  “What about Limitless?”

  “Look right over there. He’s working with that chestnut. I’m glad you came. Did Al come? They’re going to do an official work, the colt’s second.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, he’s been here a couple of months, Krista said—”

  “Watch.”

  The two horses, bay and chestnut, picked up a canter, very slow and easy, and made their way along the outside rail to the other side of the track. Rosalind could hardly see them, they were so lost in vastness and activity. They went along in front of the grandstand, Limitless slightly ahead of the chestnut. At the seven-eighths pole, they turned toward the inner rail, making their way carefully across the track. Then they stood for a second at the pole, and then they were out of there. The chestnut was on the rail, Limitless was beyond him.

  “Look at that,” said Dick.

  “What?”

  He handed her the binoculars. She put them to her eyes. He said, “The reins are practically flapping.”

  “So what?”

  “You can’t run a horse like that. It’s dangerous. The horse is liable to do anything. If all he did was veer across the path of the horse beside him, that would be enough to have him disqualified.”

  “Does he veer like that?”

  “Not so far. So far he runs straight.”

  “Then why worry about it?”

  He didn’t answer. Eileen went over to him now for the first time, and sniffed his shoe. Then she came back and sat down in front of Rosalind and looked up at her.

  The horses were coming out of the turn. As they approached, it was clear indeed to Rosalind that Limitless could tolerate nothing from the rider. She said, “He taught himself how to run. I’m sure he doesn’t want to get in another horse’s way. Don’t you think he has a plan? I do.” Dick pressed the button of his stopwatch and said, “Wow!” Then he put the stopwatch in his pocket and said, “But I always say wow with him.”

  “The breeder called him that, Wow.”

  “Excuse me, just a minute.” He took the binoculars from her and put them to his eyes. She followed his gaze to the far side of the track again. The big black horse was moving now. Even from this distance he stood out. His edges seemed to vibrate. They were into and out of the turn in no time. They ran past, and then into the second turn. Then they ran around that turn. Dick said, “Could be bolting. Maybe not. I told Frankie to give him a little extra.” The horse seemed to eat up the oval. Dick said, “All I want in this life is to get that horse to a grade-one race without a mishap. The Gotham would be perfect for him.”

  “All you want?”

  “All I want.”

  “Hmm,” said Rosalind. Possibly this was within her powers, but she couldn’t decide, and then the moment passed.

  The dark horse floated to a trot, trotted for several ground-covering strides, then floated to a walk. Dick said, “You know, when they sent me this guy, I thought he was a bad mover. But he just had a broken leg.”

  Rosalind laughed.

  But she saw how he looked at the horse. That was something maybe only an old mistress could see, too, that half-believing disbelief, here she is, here it is, I’ve been waiting for this all my life, please may I not screw it up. It was not so much a look of desire as a look of alertness. It said, this is the one, all the others are all the others. Rosalind sniffed. Limitless was nearby, and she looked at him, but Dick didn’t. Rosalind did not want to be miffed by this, by this simple false thing of having her horse overlooked in favor of someone else’s horse. Limitless and the chestnut came to a halt below them, sideways to the track, and waited. Rosalind regarded her horse. His haunches, of course, were covered by the quartersheet, but she could see his legs. They were very long for his size, a little cow-hocked. The exercise rider sat calmly on him, one hand tucked in his armpit, the other on the buckle of the reins. The horse turned his head and neck to watch other horses galloping on the rail. He had a long neck, a long head, and long ears. The reins sloped from the bit in a long graceful curve, and lay along his shoulder. Was that it? That leather curve? When the two horses turned and began to walk away, she saw that the horse had the back, too, that dipped just behind the withers, then swept under the tiny saddle toward the point of the croup. And underneath him, his four legs looked limpid with speed. She said to Dick, trying to get a rise out of him, “Look at my horse. Doesn’t he look exactly like one of those English racing paintings—Mill Reef walking along, or someone like that?”

  Dick glanced at him. “He is fit.” And then he looked back at the big colt, who was shaking his bit in his mouth. Dick shouted, “Hey, Frankie! Everything okay? He was a monster!”

  And then they followed the horses back to the barn. Eileen stayed close to her heels. Rosalind chose her words. She said, “You like this horse, then? You think he’s got something?”

  “He’s got it all. Size, breeding. He’s won five races already, I—”

  “No, Limitless.”

  “Oh. Well, sure. I mean, he’s come along since the summer. I’m thinking of putting him in a race in about four weeks or so. He’s fast and he loves to run. We just have to show him how it’s done.”

  What was unexpected was that she, or, rather, her body, had absolutely no reaction to his. He could have been anyone. He had gone back into the smooth fabric of the world. Sometime and in some way since last she saw him, he had returned to being not of compelling interest. One of her friends who had had several husbands and lovers always said, in fact, “Oh, I don’t know. There’s always that moment when you look at him and say, So what?” However, it was amazing to experience it. Her eyes went to her horse’s glittering ankles ahead of them rather than to Dick’s face.

  It was true that she didn’t have Dick’s experience. Perhaps there wasn’t much that was special about Limitless (though doubting her own esthetic judgment was not custom
ary with Rosalind), but there was an elastic quality to his whole being that concentrated itself in the movement of his hind legs as he walked back to the barn. She didn’t have to use any of her powers on him; he had powers aplenty of his own.

  She went to Limitless’s head when the groom took him for unsaddling. He was friendly, too; obviously Krista had loved him. He pricked his ears and sniffed her sweater and hands. She stroked his neck and under his chin, scratched his forehead. She called him sweetheart in a low voice. Those eyes. Arresting, kind. The eyes of horses, Rosalind thought, always told you something a little bit beyond your comprehension. They always asked of you more than you were able to give. But even in that context, Limitless’s eyes were uniquely beautiful, long-lashed, prominent, calm, self-aware. She said to the groom, “Do you like him?”

  “He’s no trouble. Good horse.” That was all.

  She followed Dick into his office. Eileen, she noticed, hesitated and then crept in, without her usual self-confidence. Rosalind picked her up. After she had closed the door, he said, “So—how are you?”

  “I’m fine. I don’t have a lot of time, because I want to get back to the gallery before noon. How are you?”

  “I’ve moved. I found a place in Queens that’s quite beautiful, really. Louisa likes it.”

  “How is Louisa?”

  “She’s doing well. She’s been doing some recitals. They love her in the Times, you know. I went to two of them. We’re friends.”