Midnight Train to Prague - Carol Windley Page 0,48

got back, he started the Bugatti and instructed her to keep her foot on the gas pedal while he poured water into the radiator. He was no mechanic, he said, but they would hope for the best. It was almost two in the morning by the time they reached Kastély Andorján. They sat in the car, listening to the overheated engine ticking as it cooled down. She started to open the door, when Miklós put his hand on her shoulder. She turned, he kissed her. His hand brushed her cheek, he smiled, kissed her again and then drew back and said he was sorry, he shouldn’t have done that. In reply, she kissed his mouth. A long kiss. Should she then apologize? Would it go on like that, first a kiss and then an apology? She would like that.

When she got to the portico, she remembered the parcels in the car. He would bring them to the kitchen. Go inside, out of the cold, he said. Everything will be different now, she thought, everything will be changed, and she did not sleep, thinking of him and how she loved him and how it was all right, now, to admit this to herself. But in the morning, when she went to the kitchen, he scarcely looked up from his newspaper, except to say good morning. “Good morning,” she said. He excused himself, saying he had work to attend to, and took the newspaper and a cup of coffee up to the tower room. The next day, he arranged for the Bugatti to be shipped to a garage in Budapest. Then he sat outside reading Sarfatti’s biography of the Italian Fascist dictator, in preparation for an upcoming trip to Italy, where he had been granted an interview with Mussolini. Margherita Sarfatti was certainly not an unbiased biographer, he said to Natalia when she came out to tell him dinner was being served. Sarfatti, he said, was Mussolini’s closest adviser and friend, his publicist and propagandist.

* * *

Mr. Petrus, the veterinary surgeon, stood in the kitchen, eating Magdolna’s still-warm plum cake from a plate he held in his hand, while informing the countess that his earlier diagnosis was confirmed: Trajan had congestive heart failure and fatal locomotor disease. These were serious, irreversible conditions, he said.

Naturally, Rozalia said, health declined in a horse Trajan’s age. One expected it. But Trajan was fundamentally sound, his lameness sporadic, the pain treatable.

“If it was my horse, I know what I’d do,” Mr. Petrus said.

“Perhaps we need a second opinion, Mr. Petrus.”

“By all means, if that’s what you want. But soon, Countess, or your horse will go on suffering.”

“Very well,” Rozalia said after a moment. “If that is how it is.” She asked Natalia for her walking stick, saying, “I suppose I am next to be put down for lameness.”

Vladimír had settled Trajan on a bed of clean straw. Rozalia knelt beside the horse. Trajan raised his head, straining to see her face, and at that Natalia turned away. She saw the vet filling a syringe and wanted to cry out: No, what if the countess is right and you’re making a mistake? She covered her eyes and then felt ashamed at her weakness. But she was not alone in her distress. Miklós walked out a moment after Mr. Petrus gave the injection and Trajan’s breathing became more labored. And then there was silence. The familiar smell of leather, straw, and oats, the slanted, heavy light, the stillness of the horse, his dignity and strength in surrender, brought tears to Natalia’s eyes. She and Vladimír helped Rozalia to her feet. The countess was controlled, dignified; she held herself stiffly and said Natalia should go to Ilka. “Horses sense these things. Let her know you are thinking of her.”

As soon as Natalia reached the paddock fence, Ilka trotted over and took a sugar cube from her hand. She stroked the mare’s nose and assured her that all was well, all would be well, and they would go for a ride soon. She loved Ilka, she thought, and was afraid she was going to cry for Trajan and that once the tears came, they would be unstoppable, not only because of the horse but because of everything. Miklós walked over and stood beside her. He was wearing a soft, much-laundered collarless shirt, and it was charming on him, that shirt. She stared at his hands on the fence rail.

“Before he was my mother’s horse, my brother rode him,” he said.