Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley
“I do kind of collect them. Anyway, this mare who’d gone up to New Bolton, she was shedding salmonella, they said, and the other mare—”
“But I have a hard time with them sometimes.”
“They had to euthanize her after about four days, and when they autopsied her—”
“This one, for example, really bothers me.”
“She had salmonella abscesses everywhere. It was amazing she lived that long. This bothers you, huh?”
“It does.”
“Here’s what I think—”
Krista crawled around to the hind end of the mare and lifted her tail. What she saw was reassuring—the two little feet, properly offset, and the little nose. Another contraction pushed the head out up to the ears, and then another contraction pushed the rest of the head out. Krista gave a large sigh of relief. One, or at the most two more contractions, and the foal would be out. With her little finger, she cleared the baby’s nostrils. Margaret said, “She’s given up for some reason. Come on, Mama. Give the little fellow a push.”
But the mare seemed uninterested, perhaps exhausted. “Lazy girl,” said Margaret. “Come on, mare, push that baby out.” Still nothing. Krista and Margaret exchanged a glance, and Krista felt the panic that she had been deflecting hit her full-force. You could tell by the size of the foal’s head and feet that he was a big one, and needed something extra from the mare. But Donut was lost in space somewhere, as gone as if this weren’t even happening to her.
“You can never tell what a maiden is going to do,” said Margaret. “Who is this, that mare from Black Oak? She was a nice jumper. One time—” But then she said, “Okay, baby, old Margaret’s going to drag you out of there.”
She sat down in the straw, facing the mare’s tail, and put a booted foot on each of her buttocks. Then she reached into her and grabbed the slippery foal around the cannon bones above the fetlocks. Then she bent her knees, bent her back, bent her head almost into the nose of the baby, and suddenly gave a huge heave and grunt. The foal moved forward about three inches. Margaret said, “Let me try to get a better hold here.” She wiped her hands on her jacket, then grabbed the horse’s legs again. This time she cocked her body so that she could exaggerate the torsion on the foal’s shoulders, forcing them to come out one at a time instead of together. She gave another heave and another grunt, and suddenly her knees straightened and the foal shot out of the mare into Margaret’s arms and lap. They sat still for a moment, then Krista laughed. Margaret gently smoothed the amnion away from the foal’s face. The baby snorted and took a deep breath, and Krista said, “Oh, wow.”
“Big boy,” said Margaret.
“No,” said Krista. “Big girl.”
“You know,” said Margaret, “your grandfather always chose the ones he was going to keep and the ones he was going to sell within a few hours of birth. It depended on how they faced life.”
The mare was out of it, so they wiped the filly down where she lay. She was dark, but she had a fan-shaped white star between her eyes and a snip of white between her nostrils, as well as one white foot, the left hind.
Margaret said, “This mare better wake up and look at her baby. Maidens are so unpredictable.”
The filly, though, was wide awake and looking around. Two or three times, she turned her gaze to Krista’s face and regarded her for a few seconds. She also turned to look at the bulk of the mare, who at last lifted her head to look at the filly. Now was the moment for a maiden, Krista knew. Some maidens were so amazed by what had happened to them that they couldn’t take it in, couldn’t relate to the foal, couldn’t give way to their hormonal drive to nurture. But Donut nickered—not loudly, but firmly. The filly looked at her and nickered back. Krista had the eerie sense that the foal knew more than the mare did. After another moment, Donut understood, got to her feet, stepped through the straw, put her head down to the filly and nosed her, then started licking her face. The filly turned her face up to her mother, and the mare ran her tongue here and there with increasing conviction and pleasure. Margaret and Krista stood up and moved away, not without patting the mare on the neck.
“Okay, then,” said Margaret.
“Seems to be,” said Krista. “Thank you.” The mare would go down once more and birthe the placenta, but that was almost never a problem.
“You want me to come over tomorrow and help you check the placenta? You’re going to have Sam over in a day or two to check for uterine damage, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sure,” said Krista. “Look at her. She’s a lovely filly.” And then the filly unfolded herself and rose to her feet.
APRIL
24 / OUT OF ADJUSTMENT
WHAT DICK WINTERSON did when he found out on the morning of the race that his wife, Louisa, planned to come out was not anything. He did not discourage her and he did not call Rosalind to warn her. He was already full of dread at the prospect of sitting between Al and Rosalind with the damned dog staring at him and letting him know in every possible way that should she learn to talk she would tell Al everything first crack out of the box. Dick was so full of dread that there was no amplification possible, only a kind of wrong-end-of-the-telescope experience where all of these people seemed to be coming at him in tiny vehicles from very great distances. He was standing at the pass gate, smiling. He could hear the announcer, Tom Durkin, calling the fifth race. Laurita was running in the seventh race, the Rokeby Stakes, a Grade Two race for three-year-old fillies, a mile and an eighth. Al, Rosalind, and Eileen emerged from the Mercedes. It was driven away. They whirred toward him as if on wheels. They were very small, bright, and sharply defined. He greeted them. He said, “Do you mind if we wait here just a few more moments? My wife, Louisa, wanted to see the race, too.”
“Lovely,” said Rosalind instantly, smiling.
“Yeah?” said Al. “She a racing fan?”
“Not really, no. I don’t think she’s been out to Aqueduct in years. Once in a while she goes up to Saratoga in the summer. We used to rent a house there that we liked very much, but now I understand it’s been sold. I don’t quite know what I’m going to do this summer. That house—”
“How’s the filly?” said Al, knowing bullshit when he heard it. But he didn’t wait for Dick to answer. “You know, that filly might go in the Breeders’ Cup. I’ve been thinking about it. If we start thinking about it now, then we might be ready when the time comes.”
“Well—” said Dick, but here came Louisa in their Camry, as tiny and bright as the other three. Dick was so dazzled that all of what Al was saying rose on the bright air around him, unheard and disregarded. Louisa pulled up to the valet-parking attendant and sat quietly for a moment, then another moment. “What’s the problem?” said Al. “That her?”
“Yes,” said Rosalind.
The door opened, and Dick started toward his wife. She sat there for another moment, the attendant standing over her and looking down expectantly. Then she got out of the car with a sudden jerk and dropped her purse. The attendant picked it up. By this time, Dick was right there, handing the attendant a five-dollar bill. His hand went out from him into another world, the tiny distant world of the parking attendant. “Hi!” he said cheerily. Louisa gave him the look.
She had offered to come to the race. She didn’t know he was sleeping with Rosalind Maybrick. Now that he had betrayed her, he saw her through a thornier and thornier tangle of words that could not be said, and his love for her filled him more and more, as if the conduit between them, once short and wide and capable of carrying off many acre-feet of love, was now long, narrow, and partly blocked. What could not get from him to her flooded him over and over.
The look was a glance of anguish and remorse, arising from the fact that she was having an agoraphobia attack and had come to the racetrack anyway. The racetrack was an agoraphobic’s worst nightmare—crowded, vast, noisy. Dealing with Louisa when she was having an attack was very much like dealing with a spooky horse. You had to exude self-confidence—her heightened
He introduced Louisa to Al and Rosalind. Rosalind said, “How nice to see you.”
Al said, “We going up to the box? Let me get a Form. Dick, I tell you, I’m not kidding about this Breeders’ Cup thing. She’s a good filly, and let me tell you, I’ve been in this business long enough. What, eleven years? How much money have I spent on this? Rosalind, how much money have I spent on these damn horses?”
“I don’t know, darling.”
“Well, plenty. The Breeders’ Cup is at Churchill this year. We’ve got to—” And then all his words vaporized again. Dick could see his yap yapping, but couldn’t hear a thing. He said, “Better not to count on anything, Al—” Yap yap yap. Now he was barking unintelligibly himself.
But he was watching Louisa. Later he decided that this thing that happened was what broke his heart. The first thing was that Louisa cleared her throat. Then she put her palm over her mouth, bent her head back, and closed her eyes, only for a second. Then she ran her hand down her neck, pausing at the base of her throat, continuing until she was pressing on her chest over her heart, as if to still it. All of this took only a second or two, and perhaps she wasn’t aware of him looking at her. At any rate, after that, she took a deep breath and smiled at him, her husband, and said, “Let’s go, then.” There it was, her whole history of not being able to go where he spent his life, in a large, chaotic space where nothing at all could be predicted or even planned, and where he had been perfectly comfortable for many years. How could it be that they had so thoroughly gone their separate ways that they could barely enter each other’s world now? Did he enter hers any more often than she entered his? Perhaps it was years since he had been to the college where she taught, and he hadn’t been to many recitals, either—he found the music she preferred grating and hard to listen to. At home, on their familiar turf, in their living room, kitchen, bedroom, study, dining room, all rooms that she could live in with utter familiarity and apparent normalcy, he was just as she was, apparently normal and apparently happily married. But, he realized, he hadn’t been even as willing to go as far with her as she was to come, again, to Aqueduct. If someone was trapped in a small room, fearful of going out and fearful of staying in, then it was himself, not her. It was a small room that Rosalind Maybrick entered and left at will, as free, Dick thought, as anyone could ever be.
“I’m ready,” said Louisa.
“Good,” said Rosalind, her voice resonating like a bell. And he followed Louisa as she performed the rituals that allowed her to move, longing to take her elbow, but not daring. You never touch an agoraphobic in the middle of an attack.
THEY CAME TO the saddling enclosure. Rosalind looked down at Eileen and told her to sit. Eileen sat right down, boom, the way she always did, as if showing off. The groom and the assistant trainer already had the filly in her slot, though the horses for the sixth race were only just going out. Dick said brightly, “Here she is. You see, Al, she’s got quite a bloom on her.” Rosalind knew what that meant now—that the horse was training hard but in excellent health, well oxygenated and happy, 100 percent, as racing men said. Rosalind picked up Eileen and the four of them entered the saddling enclosure and went over to the filly. The two men then drew off. Rosalind could hear Al’s persistant whine: “It’s April. We’ve got to put her in some of these fancy races. I’m telling you rumble rumble rumble drone drone drone Breeders’ Cup—”
Though she was younger than Rosalind by five years or so, the wife was one of those women for whom time had passed, and not kindly. Her face was a little puffy and her hair a little contrasty, brunette and gray. Of course, Rosalind knew, she was an artist, a singer, and appearance was of secondary importance to her. Rosalind respected that. Today, though, she radiated something that Rosalind couldn’t quite figure out. Pain of some sort. Well, if Rosalind herself didn’t radiate pain, it was only because her containment facility was in perfect order, on a regular maintenance schedule serviced by Elizabeth Arden, Bliss, Isaac Mizrahi, Jil Sander, and Giorgio Armani.
The thing about the wife, that is, Louisa, was that Dick had been married to her for twenty years, with her longer than that. Rosalind had delicately extracted from him the information that he was not a habitual adulterer, that, though not 100 percent faithful over the years, he had learned whatever it was he knew about love and sex through marriage, not outside of it. Rosalind, herself not previously an adulterer at all, was perhaps not as much a connoisseur of the erotic as she was of Persian carpets, American Chippendale furniture, nineteenth-century American painting, or Chinese porcelain, to name four things she had more experience with than sex and had formerly liked more than sex. But she had plenty of experience in being a satisfied customer, and with Dick, she was most assuredly a satisfied customer. At least for a moment. In that moment just after they were finished making love, she was satisfied to the eyeballs, but then, when he turned away from her, to drink something or to go to the bathroom, or to blow his nose or whatever, the satisfaction always began to dissipate, and continued to do so, so that, by the time he left to go wherever it was that he had to go, usually to the track, or she left to go wherever she was pretending she had to go, she was lost and aching again, though she dared not let him know.
Now the filly was saddled and they followed the groom, the horse, Dick, and Al out to the walking ring. The jockey had appeared and was walking along between the two men, cocky as could be, chatting them up. Rosalind could hear herself talking to Louisa—You just decided to come out suddenly, you don’t come out very often, then, racing isn’t my cup of tea, either, really—but she wasn’t actually looking at her until they came into the stands above the paddock and she heard Louisa inhale sharply and cry out. In front of her, Dick stiffened like he’d been shot, and Rosalind felt herself emerge from her shell of self-involvement and take notice. She said, “Are you all right?” She put Eileen down again.
A terribly anguished look passed over Louisa’s face and she took Rosalind’s hand. She said, “Just hold my hand until they open the gate and let the horses out.” Rosalind made up a reassuring smile, and they stood there while the horses moved out onto the track and began walking around to the gate. Eileen on her leash trotted right behind them, her head about ankle high in the crowd, but nevertheless, as always, undaunted. Louisa let go Rosalind’s hand when they mounted to their box, and then Dick paused long enough for the two of them to catch up to him, still talking to Al. Al, of course, was still babbling about his rights and privileges as a racehorse owner. Rosalind passed Louisa to Dick and he gave her a little smile, grateful, unlike any other smile they had shared. Rosalind expected to see him put his arm around his wife and draw her against him, but he didn’t. He let her pass in front of him, then he followed her up the steps and over to the box. She sat down and seemed to coil up, her hands in her lap and her feet under the seat. Dick sat on one side of her, and Rosalind on the other, with Eileen in her lap. Eileen got up, put her forefeet on the railing, and pricked her ears as if ready for the race. Al sat on the other side of Dick. He said, “About time this filly got back out here. It’s been two months since her last race.”
Dick said, “She’s ready today. And, Al, if you want to go to the Breeders’ Cup, you’ve got to let her save something for later.” He sounded enthusiastic, but as the horses approached the gate, Rosalind knew from conversations they’d had that he was worried. He hated the starting gate. One thing for sure, since the onset of her illness, which was how she thoug
Dick put his glasses to his eyes, as did Al, and Laurita went into the gate second. She was in the seventh position from the post, a good position in this race. The last horse to go in resisted, and Dick coughed, a sign of distress. Did Al recognize this? Did Louisa recognize this? Perhaps only Rosalind knew enough about what was going on with Dick to recognize that cough. Then the horses were in, the bell rang, and they were out again, streaming over the green grass in a bunch. Rosalind, who had no binoculars, couldn’t make out which one was Laurita, but that was okay. She let Al and Dick take care of winning. She herself only took care of safety. She closed her eyes, gripped Eileen around the shoulders, and exerted her powers. Her hearing was good. She could hear eight horses, sixty-four legs, everyone safe and sound. This was a newish thing for her, knowing that the horses were safe by the separate and even beats that all of their hooves made in the track surface. She might have been astonished by it, but she had seen Rain Man, and she knew that the power to make order out of chaos was a fairly common one among the mentally unusual, which she now was. She could hear the horses round the second turn. If you closed your eyes, a race seemed to go much faster than it did if you watched it, which she considered a blessing.
And then Louisa rose out of her seat like a missile through the still surface of the ocean and ran. And Dick rose out of his seat and went after her as if on a string. And Eileen gave a single bark. Al said, “What’s up with them? The race isn’t even over.”
Rosalind remembered to turn her eyes to the homestretch, where, sure enough, Laurita was flattening out to hold off the bid of another filly, who had attained her shoulder but could attain nothing more and, at the wire, dropped back to Laurita’s hip. They jumped up, cheering, and Rosalind exclaimed, “That filly works hard for you, Al.”