SIX
Now that she had explored the Champ de Mars, eaten oats out of Anaïs’s bowl a few times, and in general made the best of her surroundings, Paras could not quite remember, or even imagine, her former, regimented life. To stand in a stall all night and most of the day? To hear the other horses banging their buckets, kicking their walls, making grunts and whinnies, pawing the straw, knocking their chests into the door? To go out always at the same time every morning? To eat what they put in front of you day after day? Yes, she had banged her stall door when she heard the food coming, but it was not exactly because she was hungry, it was because she had nothing else to do. Paras knew that she had left because she was curious and didn’t know any better, not because she was dissatisfied, but, well, this freedom, these friends she had made, and this strange field were all more intriguing than anything else she had ever seen. When the grass was spare or the ground was frozen and the wind howled, it occurred to her to go back, but she was well aware now of what she would be giving up. Horses did what they were told—every yearling learned to be led here and there, learned to spend most of his or her time in a stall, learned to be groomed and tacked up, learned to step forward and step back, learned that humans had their foibles and their faults, but it was better to go along and get along. Every two-year-old you met had already been mounted, ridden, galloped, and, sometimes, raced. Horses who got injured came back and reported that they had stood around day after day, week after week, with nothing to do and no one to relate to—a good reason not to get injured.
Delphine and Rania had treated her kindly, and she had had no complaints about them. The other woman she saw sometimes, her “owner,” was also kind and gave her plenty of cookies and carrots. Not all of the other horses she spoke to out on the course could say the same, and some of them, even the nice ones, quite resented how they were handled—the whipping and the spurring especially. Or their trainers hardly knew their names, much less their preferences. And she had enjoyed racing—the hot, stretching efforts of the galloping, the coiling spring over the fences, the exhilarating sense of competition. Here on the Champ de Mars, there were no winners or losers, just humans and animals and birds going about. A canter was a canter, a trot felt good (especially when it was cold, and it was getting colder by the day). But the thrill of racing seemed a part of the past, something worth giving up in order to be able to satisfy her curiosity and do things as she pleased. She enjoyed Frida and Raoul and Nancy and even Sid. There was an owl who dropped by in the night, when Raoul had gone to his nest, and the owl had a few things to say. There were foxes who appeared, even though Frida told them repeatedly to stay away, barking with that deep, resonant bark she had that was so startling when you first heard it. Possibly, there was a human, too, because from time to time a carrot or an apple or a lump of sugar would appear on the concrete abutment beside the pond, and certainly these treats were meant for her, since they were horsey sorts of treats. But that human, whoever it was (and Paras did not think it was the boy), was making himself or herself scarce.
Sid made up his mind about the nest. He put it exactly where it had been for the last three years, among the weeds under the thickest branches of the trees to the north of the pond, not far from where Paras curled up each day—she could just see it from her spot. Once it was built, Nancy made a home of it—she wallowed about in it, stamped on it, worked it into a comfortable shape, then settled in and stayed there for long periods of time. After completing his work, Sid took off, with complaints, for the south. “Screech-screech-screech, you should come with me, I won’t be gone long, I will linger around Évry in case you change your mind.” Nancy put her head under her wing. After Sid was gone, Paras asked, “Where is Évry?”
“A day’s flight. He says that every year, even though I never go.”
For many days, the weather was tolerable and the grass was thick enough in spots; but it got dark earlier, and the number of humans in the Champ de Mars diminished day by day. Paras was hungry, and she visited Anaïs more often. Anaïs was not like Delphine or Rania—she was shy with Paras, and, Paras thought, a little afraid of her. She rarely came too close, and she put her hand out to touch Paras as if it were at the end of a pole. But her touch was gentle and smooth. She would lay her palm under Paras’s very abundant mane and stroke her from the cheek to the shoulder slowly, her hand flat, like a smooth cloth. Paras had always been ticklish with the curry comb and the brush, but she had enjoyed the rag they used to shine her up so that the sunlight gleamed off her coat. When Anaïs gave her the oats, she held the bowl away from herself, as if Paras might step on her (she would never do that), and Paras was careful to eat slowly, neatly, not spilling any oats onto the pavement. She offered Paras a few other delicious things, too—bran, wheat bits mixed with molasses (something Delphine had fed her as a treat). She mixed shredded carrots in with the oats, and once she had fed her an apple tart. Each time Paras visited her, she lingered as long as she could, but if the sky was beginning to lighten, or the dogs were waking up, or an automobile could be seen passing on the Quai Branly, Paras made sure to walk away, always in a different direction, so that Anaïs would not see her heading back to the pond. She had never seen Anaïs in the Champ de Mars. Anaïs, like all humans, had given her a name; it was “Chouchou.” Since Anaïs was at the shop every time Paras went there, Paras assumed that the shop was where she lived.
Paras’s coat was thicker this year than it had ever been—if she were still at the racetrack, Rania would have clipped her by now, and she would be wearing blankets, light during the day, heavy at night, and even a wool square over her haunches during training. Her coat kept her plenty warm, though—as long as she stayed fairly dry, it fluffed up nicely whenever she moved around. Trotting about, really moving, was the most warming thing, but she was, as always, careful in her choice of when and where to get this exercise. Her fluffy coat was the reason, when she left Anaïs this time (honey, shredded beets in the oats!), that she got back to the pond without realizing what Frida pointed out after she jumped over the fence. Frida said, “You do understand that you’re covered with snow, don’t you?” Frida was lying with her forelegs and her hind legs curled underneath herself. Now that she thought about it, Paras could just feel a little cold weight along her spine. She put her head down and shook herself. Snow lifted off and fluttered around her. Where it landed, she touched it with her nose. It was light and intriguing.
Frida said, “Look where you came from.”
Paras turned around. She hadn’t thought she was trotting through snow. She knew snow—quite often it crunched under your hooves. Once, when she was a yearling, she and her three companions had been let out in new snow. They had frolicked and floundered, the thin, frozen surface giving way so that they dropped through it and then leapt out of it again. Now she saw that the whiteness receded into the distance, and there, in a long line, leading to the spot where she had jumped the fence, were her hoofprints, round and dark in the smooth, blank field. Frida said, “You’d better hope that those fill in by morning.”