White Stallion of Lipizza Read online

  It was true. He heaved casks of pickles and apples to his shoulder and moved them from basement to kitchen. He sorted the hundreds of doilies that were used under every glass of water, under each and every plate. With a quick hand he layered the spotlessly clean ones to be used again, and tossed the others into a hamper.

  His major task, however, was as busboy, a work he once loathed. Carrying mountains of dirty dishes had always seemed the worst kind of drudgery. But now, with a big tray held high, he felt like Atlas holding up the world. He exulted in his strength. He could feel his arm and chest muscles bulging and even his leg muscles hardening as he balanced himself in and out among the tables.

  • • •

  His schoolwork, too, showed a new zest. Each night after supper he hurried to the library to do his studying. It was easier to concentrate there. In his bedroom if his eye wandered, he was lost among the Lipizzaners on his mirror. But in the library his mind stayed put. Besides, there was Fräulein Morgen, the librarian, who often stopped by his table. “How are you getting along?” she whispered, so as not to disturb the other patrons. Often this came at the very moment he was butting his head against a seemingly insoluble question. It was a relief to pour out his problem to her. Like some genie she suddenly disappeared and as suddenly reappeared with an armful of books, each marked with a sliver of pink paper. Just by reading those pages he found the thing that puzzled him coming clear.

  Some nights the books she brought were so exciting that he read on and on beyond the marked pages and Fräulein Morgen had to tap him on the shoulder. “Eight o’clock, Hans. Time to close the library.” And so his schoolwork improved even as his pockets filled with groschen.

  Already Hans had put a red circle around March 30th as his goal. By then he would have money enough to walk right up to the visitors’ door and buy his ticket. His father had agreed to act as delivery boy on that Sunday morning.

  “Creaky as my old bones are, I’ll climb on the wagon and deliver for you,” he said. “You have earned your treat.”

  On the last Saturday in March Hans had to buy new shoes. His old ones were beyond repair. But even so, he still had one beautiful schilling left!

  And so at dawn the next morning he loaded the cart and hitched up Rosy. The day had arrived! He climbed up next to his father, watched the gnarled hands lift the lines and slap them against Rosy’s rump. With a lurch the old mare took off, as if eager to have the business over with and to get back home.

  The morning was dark and bitter. Pinpoints of snow rode slantwise on the wind. Herr Haupt pulled on his finger mittens. “Put yours on, too, son,” he said to Hans.

  The boy obeyed, even though his hands were still warm from the trays of hot bread.

  Rosy’s iron shoes rang noisily on the cobbled streets. No one was up and about, except a street cleaner, and a pair of lively dachshunds running away with a fat man whose muffler snarled out behind him like the tail of a kite.

  Hans laughed.

  “Papa,” he said, “today you won’t see the white stallions crossing the Josefsplatz.”

  “So?”

  “This morning even I won’t see them cross.”

  “How’s that?”

  Hans laughed again for sheer joy. “Because they don’t go out early on Sunday. That’s why! They perform at ten and I’ll be inside seeing them!” And he clapped his hands until Rosy caught his joy and broke into a trot.

  As they pulled up in front of the Palace, Herr Haupt held on to Hans’s sleeve. “Look and listen for both of us, son,” he said with a trace of wistfulness.

  “I will, Papa. And I thank you with all my heart for doing my delivery work today.”

  Hans jumped out and faced the visitors’ entrance. It looked big and remote, like a stage setting before the play begins. Not a soul was there. Not a soul in sight. He was first in line! Already he was savoring the prospect of seeing the stallions in action. He wondered what Rosy’s friend, the biggest one, did.

  The March wind sharpened with the morning, and the snow worsened as Hans stood there alone in the cold. Now he blew on his fingers through the mittens. When he stopped blowing, his breath made a hoar frost on the black wool and his fingers were colder than before.

  To pass the time he did a kind of dance on the two stone steps that led to the entrance. And he ate the crescent-shaped rolls in his pocket.

  At last the bells of St. Michael’s chimed the hour of seven. Almost at once people began queuing up in little bunches as if the striking of the bells had hurried them. They came in two’s and three’s, and by whole families.

  Only Hans seemed to be alone. He wished now he had saved enough money to bring his father too, but it had never occurred to him. He thought of his father as living behind his newspaper in a veil of tobacco smoke. He thought that his pipe and his bakery were all his father lived for.

  The minutes wore on. The line stretched out until it was many meters long. But Hans knew there was no danger of his being turned away. He was first!

  A group of teen-age boys on vacation from their school in Switzerland broke into a rollicking song. Everyone applauded them, to keep warm as well as to encourage an encore. The boys tried yodeling next, and Hans yodeled with them. Never in his life had he felt happier. All these people had come to see the only true horse ballet in the world. And he, Hans Haupt, was one of them!

  Someone called out the hour. It was time for the doors to open. There was a quick silence of expectation. Then suddenly the morning air was torn apart with the sound of his own name screamed out.

  “Hans! Hans!” It was his mother breaking through the line, sobbing hysterically. “Hans! Hans! Rosy is home, bleeding. And no cart at all. Go find Papa!”

  Chapter 4

  WITHOUT THE DREAM

  Hans was running now. He looked up at the cross on the little church of St. Michael’s. He tried to pray, but he didn’t know how to begin. He’d never needed help this desperately. He thought of his childhood prayer, but it didn’t fit at all. He said it anyway as he ran:

  “Now I lay me down to sleep,

  Please, dear God, your child do keep;

  Your love be with me through the night,

  And wake me with the morning light.”

  He felt better then, and doubling his fists he ran with renewed energy. He knew the route. Down the Josefsplatz, past the library, past the Opera House, to the Sacher Hotel first. “My papa . . . has he been here?” he asked at the service entrance.

  A man washing down the steps nodded. “Sure. Long time ago. What’s the matter, Hans? Go on in. Cook will give you hot cocoa.”

  But Hans was whirling about, muffler and coattails flying. Out of the courtyard gate, out again onto the Sunday street. He ran fast, and faster, dodging the churchgoers, almost falling over the wilderness of silver-knobbed canes and umbrellas. An Italian chestnut vendor tried to stop him, to grab hold of his muffler. “They’re hot. They’re delicious,” he sang out. “Only ten groschen a bag.”

  Hans broke loose, ran on. He flew past the windows of wax dummies, past the gallery of pictures. At crossings he dodged bicycles and motorcycles. He turned into the driveway of the Imperial Hotel and bumped into the head waiter, who was arriving at the same time.

  “Boy!” the man snorted angrily. “Are you out of your mind?” He brushed his topcoat as if nearness to the panting, disheveled boy had ruined it.

  Hans let out his breath in a gasp of pain. “It’s my father, sir. I’ve got to find him.”

  A kitchen window opened and a waitress threw out a handful of crumbs for the birds. “Good morning, Hans. Come and help me fold napkins.”

  “My father,” he called, “has he been . . .”

  The girl’s head was gone an instant, then popped out again. “Ja! Already your trays are half empty.”

  Eyes blinded by tears, Hans plunged on, flying along the Parkring from one coffeehouse to another. Always the answer was the same. “Sure, Hans. He’s been and gone.”

  Almost
down to the Danube canal, at the last coffeehouse on his route, Hans stopped and stared. Lying on a curb was a jumble of sticks and wheels. He would never have recognized it except for the blue letters of the word Kipferln. It was all that was left of the bakery cart.

  A gang of boys were poking in among the ruins, looking for anything still fit to eat. Hans charged into them.

  “Go ’way!” one yelled. “We were here first. You don’t belong in our neighborhood.”

  “Just tell me what happened,” Hans begged. “And where’s the driver?”

  The boys seemed not to hear.

  “Didn’t you see it?” he asked in desperation.

  Now the boys felt important. They all spoke at once.

  “Sure we did. What a crash!”

  “Ja. A brand-new Mercedes hit the cart broadside.”

  “And the old man flew out like a bird and landed in that bush. See? It’s all broken.”

  Hans knew his father was old, but he winced at the word. “But where is he?”

  “An ambulance took him off.”

  One boy burst out in laughter. “What was really funny was that nag.”

  Now the others were convulsed. “No one could catch her,” they guffawed. “She lit out like she’d been shot from a gun.”

  Hans turned for home. His lungs still ached. He couldn’t run any more. He had to walk slowly, and with each step the burden of his responsibility weighed more heavily. In all Vienna, which hospital might it be? There was no way to know. All he could do was go home and try to calm his mother, and Rosy, too. Then to wait.

  By the time he reached his own lane and stood in front of the narrow wedged-in house with the stucco falling off, he felt himself an old man, older than his father. He pushed open the door.

  A policeman was already in the kitchen, explaining politely to his mother: “Dear Frau, no need for weeping. It’s only one leg broken, and some bruises. Your husband can come home, maybe next week. Meanwhile,” and he smiled at Hans, “you have a stout and dependable son here. Every morning at seven I set my watch by him. He goes to work the same time the Lipizzaners do.”

  • • •

  The man in the Mercedes replaced the smashed cart with a shiny new one. But neither time nor money completely restored the father’s shattered leg. His limping step dragged on the floor and up the stairs, a constant reminder of the accident.

  Yet family life went on almost as before. Herr Haupt could knead and bake regardless, and Hans went on delivering in the early morning and studying by night in the library. It was a bittersweet pleasure to look at the Lipizzaners on his mirror or parading from stable to Riding Hall, for there was no one now who could drive Rosy on a Sunday morning, and what went on in the Riding Hall would have to remain a mystery.

  One night when Hans came home from the library, his father was alone in the kitchen. He had turned off the electric light and was sitting in front of the window in a pool of moonlight, his leg propped on a stool.

  “Hans,” he said when the boy had hung up his jacket, “you and me—we must talk things out. There is something you should know. Come, sit down.”

  Hans felt a clutch of uneasiness. His father was a quiet man; he didn’t believe in a lot of talk. This must be important.

  “That accident,” the father began, then faltered. He struck a match and lighted his pipe, taking longer over the job than usual. “That accident,” he began again between puffs, “was my fault.”

  “Then why did the man in the Mercedes pay for Rosy’s cart? And your hospital bills too?”

  “He was rich, and he was kind.”

  “But how did it happen, Papa?”

  The father leaned forward and spoke in whispered confidence. “Coming out of that driveway I . . . I dizzied.”

  “You what?”

  “I dizzied. And next thing I hear a siren screeching, and I’m in the car making the siren noise. And it’s an ambulance.”

  “Oh, Papa! I should have been driving.”

  “No, son, sometime it had to happen.” He had more to say.

  Hans waited.

  “We are not rich, but we make ends meet, don’t we, son?”

  “Sure we do, Papa.”

  “Now look at it another way, son, and we are rich. We have great reserves—of will and strength.”

  The boy sat up straighter.

  “So you try to cheer your mother. And no matter what happens to me, Hans, you keep on dreaming of the Lipizzaners. Without the dream you begin to die a little. And you are too young to die, yes?”

  Chapter 5

  A MOMENTOUS CABLE

  Except for a few scars that were responding to goose grease, Rosy was none the worse for the accident. She still whinkered to the white stallions each morning, and each morning there was the biggest one who glanced her way. But he and the others were totally unmindful of their effect on her and on the boy staring from the driver’s seat.

  At school the new term had begun, and homework doubled. At the coffeehouses the tables were busier than ever, now that the Lenten season was over. Hans worked from sunup to dark. There was no possibility of time off on Sundays. They seemed busier, if anything, than the other days. People seemed to eat more and oftener on the day of rest. So Hans could not queue up again at the Palace entrance.

  The only really happy time came after supper when, with pencil and notebook in pocket, he ran to the library. He suddenly felt unbound and free. Free of the waitresses coaxing him to help with their work. Free of his mother’s lecturing him to wear his rubbers, to wash his hands, to clean his fingernails, to do this, to do that.

  Even at sight of the great National Library his spirits soared. High above the building, on an overhanging shelf of stone, the great god Apollo drove his four-in-hand across the face of the sky. The horses were bigger than life!

  And once inside the library, Hans felt lifted into another realm. The ceilings were high-vaulted and frescoed in gold, with paintings of battles and crusades and angels and horses. And there were beautiful white marble statues in niches and on pedestals. The smell, too, was nice. Never any worrisome odors of butter burning, or almonds. Instead, the pleasant mustiness of old books. Best of all, in the library he had no sense of working when others were playing. All about him people were studying, too. All kinds of people. University students, looking like owls behind their dark-rimmed glasses. Rabbis scruffing their black beards as they read. Serene-faced nuns, their white hands turning the pages. It was like being part of something big and important. Maybe like playing in an orchestra.

  One night when he had finished his homework earlier than usual, he began drawing from memory the statue of Apollo driving his fiery team across the heavens. At closing time he shyly presented his picture to Fräulein Morgen.

  She held it in absolute silence. Hans’s face reddened. Was it so poor she could think of nothing to say? Crooking her forefinger, she motioned him to follow her into an inner office. There she carefully tacked up his picture on a bulletin board which carried no other pictures, only a few typed notices.

  “I like it!” she said, standing back to admire. “You have not traced it from a book. You do horses very well,” she added. “Do you know, Hans, the reason for this particular piece of sculpture on the coping of the library?”

  Hans shook his head.

  “Well, a long time ago the ground floor of the library housed the horses of the Spanish Court Riding School.”

  “It did?” Hans asked in surprise. “No wonder I like it here!”

  Fräulein went on explaining. “Later, Charles VI ordered a new wing built and an arcade to join it to the old stables. Today,” she smiled, “two centuries later, traffic roars through this same arcade.”

  “I know!” Hans exclaimed with feeling. “I drive through it every morning just so I can watch the white stallions go by.”

  Fräulein nodded. “Often I have seen you when I come to work early. Once I even spoke to you, but you were so intent on the horses you couldn’t see
or hear anything else.”

  In sudden inspiration she began searching for something in her desk. Her fingers riffled along until they picked out a cablegram.

  “My cousin from the United States was arriving in Vienna this week,” she explained with a smile. “But today I had this cable from him from Washington. You see, he is a member of the President’s staff and . . . Well, here, I’ll read it to you.” She unfolded it carefully and read: “ ‘Necessary to accompany President on inspection trip of new dams. Regret postpone holiday in Vienna.’ ”

  “That is too bad,” Hans said politely, wondering what this important stranger’s change in plans had to do with him.

  Fräulein was picking up a white envelope from her desk. “So now, Hans, if you can get away on Sunday, you may have the ticket he had ordered to the Ballet of the Lipizzaners. I myself have twice seen it.”

  All the blood left Hans’s face. He felt sick, soul and bone. To have heaven offered and have to refuse it!

  Fräulein waited, puzzled.

  “I cannot get away,” Hans said when he could speak. “My father cannot deliver for me. People eat on Sundays too,” he added bitterly.

  “Of course they do. But, Hans, do your deliveries take more than three hours?”

  “No, Fräulein, but I have no time to wait in line.”

  “But you won’t have to wait in line!” Fräulein Morgen stood up, and her laughter was gay as wind chimes. “Here, Hans, is a reserved seat! My cousin was given the best seat—in the very front row of the Imperial Box. You have only to be at the visitors’ entrance by ten twenty-five.” She got up and placed the envelope in the boy’s hands.

  Hans couldn’t utter a word. He was afraid he might cry.

  Chapter 6

  FROM THE IMPERIAL BOX