don’t get me started on Roosevelt. Anyway, the Germans wanted to get their Trakehner horses out. The Trakehners were the best German breed of horse there was … beautiful, powerful horses … a unique breed ofhorses … and the big Trakehner stud farm lay right in the path of the Russians, in a part of Germany that later became Poland. Well, they asked me to help out, and I did. A German officer who’d lost an arm in the war and myself got a hundred mares and stallions to what’s now West Germany. Altogether, about nine hundred horses were saved. I might go back there one day and visit the descendants of those horses. I might even look up that German officer. We had a lot in common. We both grew up on farms where horses were raised. If he’s still alive, I’d like to thank him. You know what he did?”
“No sir, what?”
“After we got the horses to the farms where they were going, he looked the other way and let me escape to the Allied front.”
I thought it was a very exciting story. I especially liked the part about the one-armed German officer looking the other way. It expressed a kind of camaraderie I wanted to believe existed in the larger world. But one point bothered me, a point having to do with patriotism. My grandmother would no doubt have advised me to leave well enough alone (for we had now
had
a successful conversation), but I wanted to clear up something. Why was it considered all right, by such people as Mr. Mott, that Abel Cristiana had helped the enemy save their horses, when Julian DeVane was criticized simply for staying too long in a country that sympathized with the enemy? Mr. Mott had said Mr. Cristiana had had a good war, whereas, according to Aunt Mona, he considered Julian DeVane practically a traitor. I decided it must have something to do with bravery. Mr. Cristiana had proved his bravery by getting shot down, whereas Julian DeVane hadn’t joined up until the war was almost over. But to Julian DeVane, music came before fighting; hadn’t Ed said that, even when he was young, Julian DeVane would not fight with his hands because of his talent? Julian DeVane had been pursuing his talent in Argentina, and Mr. Cristiana had been true to his love for horses in enemy territory. But Mr. Cristiana had been brave, and Julian DeVane hadn’t. I wondered how Ursula DeVane would defend her brother on this question.
“Did you ever feel you were being disloyal,” I asked Mr. Cristiana, “when you were helping the Germans?”
“I wasn’t helping the Germans, I was helping the horses.
They
didn’t cause the war. The
horses
didn’t vote for Adolf Hitler. If we’d left them there for the Russians, the breed would probably be extinct by now. Those Bolsheviks would have made horsemeat out of them.”
“Oh,” I said.
“On a scale between Russian and German,” pursued the horsebreeder more heatedly, “give me German any day. We’ve got more in common with the Germans. And while we’re on the subject of loyalty, I’ll tell you something else: I had a lot more respect for that German officer riding all that distance when he’d just had an arm amputated, in order to save those lovely Trakehners, than I have for some of my close neighbors.”
And he scowled so angrily at the houses, as we turned into Lucas Meadows, that I thought he would have gladly sold us all—especially one talkative young girl—down the river for the sake of that German officer. But after I had thanked him for the ride, and he had looked at me as though I hadn’t turned out to be quite as silly as he had expected, and had said, “You come back and ride again,” and I was starting up the front walk of our yellow house with its lamp in the window, I knew he had probably been thinking of one particular neighbor over on Old Clove Road.
IV.
O
n Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend it rained, so Mr. Mott could not cut the grass. He telephoned to say it was supposed to clear up by early afternoon; meanwhile,
“No sir, what?”
“After we got the horses to the farms where they were going, he looked the other way and let me escape to the Allied front.”
I thought it was a very exciting story. I especially liked the part about the one-armed German officer looking the other way. It expressed a kind of camaraderie I wanted to believe existed in the larger world. But one point bothered me, a point having to do with patriotism. My grandmother would no doubt have advised me to leave well enough alone (for we had now
had
a successful conversation), but I wanted to clear up something. Why was it considered all right, by such people as Mr. Mott, that Abel Cristiana had helped the enemy save their horses, when Julian DeVane was criticized simply for staying too long in a country that sympathized with the enemy? Mr. Mott had said Mr. Cristiana had had a good war, whereas, according to Aunt Mona, he considered Julian DeVane practically a traitor. I decided it must have something to do with bravery. Mr. Cristiana had proved his bravery by getting shot down, whereas Julian DeVane hadn’t joined up until the war was almost over. But to Julian DeVane, music came before fighting; hadn’t Ed said that, even when he was young, Julian DeVane would not fight with his hands because of his talent? Julian DeVane had been pursuing his talent in Argentina, and Mr. Cristiana had been true to his love for horses in enemy territory. But Mr. Cristiana had been brave, and Julian DeVane hadn’t. I wondered how Ursula DeVane would defend her brother on this question.
“Did you ever feel you were being disloyal,” I asked Mr. Cristiana, “when you were helping the Germans?”
“I wasn’t helping the Germans, I was helping the horses.
They
didn’t cause the war. The
horses
didn’t vote for Adolf Hitler. If we’d left them there for the Russians, the breed would probably be extinct by now. Those Bolsheviks would have made horsemeat out of them.”
“Oh,” I said.
“On a scale between Russian and German,” pursued the horsebreeder more heatedly, “give me German any day. We’ve got more in common with the Germans. And while we’re on the subject of loyalty, I’ll tell you something else: I had a lot more respect for that German officer riding all that distance when he’d just had an arm amputated, in order to save those lovely Trakehners, than I have for some of my close neighbors.”
And he scowled so angrily at the houses, as we turned into Lucas Meadows, that I thought he would have gladly sold us all—especially one talkative young girl—down the river for the sake of that German officer. But after I had thanked him for the ride, and he had looked at me as though I hadn’t turned out to be quite as silly as he had expected, and had said, “You come back and ride again,” and I was starting up the front walk of our yellow house with its lamp in the window, I knew he had probably been thinking of one particular neighbor over on Old Clove Road.
IV.
O
n Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend it rained, so Mr. Mott could not cut the grass. He telephoned to say it was supposed to clear up by early afternoon; meanwhile,
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