Prince of Ponies

Soon they reached the shops, passing the corner café where elderly ladies like Frau Schmidt would sit and chat for hours on the white leather banquettes and dine on the dainty fruit tarts displayed in the window. Beside the pretty café was another bakery; this was the one where Mira’s mother worked. It was a very modern bread shop by German standards – her mother made Turkish breads here too and Syrian flatbreads along with the traditional German pumpernickel and rustic farm loaves and pretzels, all of it displayed side by side on wooden racks in the plate-glass window.

Mira looked in, hoping for a glimpse of her mother, who had left for work at 4 a.m., long before Mira woke. There was no sign of her, so they turned the corner and pressed on past the florist’s, the windows filled with pink and white long-stemmed roses, and then the Pets Deli, the first stop of their morning journey.

The Pets Deli was busy – as always. Dogs swarmed on the pavement and Mira had to duck and swerve as Rolf beetled through the throng, darting between the legs of the low-haunched German shepherds, diverting round the broad-shouldered Dobermanns in their studded collars, and barging past the bristle-coated wolfhounds to get in the door.

“Good morning, Frau Weiss,” Mira greeted the woman, who was slicing venison on the machine behind the counter. “Can Rolf have his usual table, please?”

Frau Weiss grunted, “It is ready. Go on through.”

Rolf did not need to be told twice. He was already heading towards the rear of the shop, where the doorway opened to reveal the courtyard restaurant.

The dachshund jumped up on to his favourite chair and Mira sat opposite him. Around them, the dogs and their owners were browsing the menu, but Rolf didn’t bother. He knew what he liked and always had the same thing.

Frau Weiss was serving at the table beside them now, fawning over a woman whose blow-dried blonde hair perfectly matched the silken coat of her Afghan hound. Frau Weiss laughed a fake, tinkling laugh as she took their order. Then she came back and, without a word to Mira, she slapped Rolf’s meal down on the table in front of him.

Perhaps she never bothered to be nice to Mira because she didn’t think the girl spoke good enough German? It was true that Mira sometimes got the odd word confused but she spoke it so much better than her mama, who still struggled to make the most basic of sentences. Mira had the advantage because she’d lived here since she was seven and had to speak German at school.

Now she was twelve and it was still Arabic that she spoke at home. When they’d lived in Sonnenallee, all the local kids spoke Arabic too. Sonnenallee, the Arab district, had been their home for the first five years when Mira’s family had arrived in Germany. As part of the refugee programme, they had been given a place to live, a tiny one-bedroom apartment for all four of them. Her mother got a job at the cake shop on the corner of Sonnenallee and Weichselstrasse, a local hangout that specialised in Middle Eastern delicacies like pistachio slice and halva. Mira and her brother and sister went to school during the day and in the afternoons they ran loose with the other kids of the neighbourhood, playing football in the park on the corner of Reuterstrasse, dangling from the climbing frame, until it was too dark to see and they were forced to go home.

Six months ago, they’d moved to Roseneck to be near her mother’s new job. Her mother had said that Mira would get used to the neighbourhood but Mira still hated it here. Her mother had always worked hard before but now it was like she didn’t exist. She’d already left for work by the time Mira woke up in the morning and she was never home until after Mira had put her brother and sister to bed at night and was asleep too. The rent cost more here, Mira’s mother said, and working long hours was the only way to make a better life. But Mira wanted to know why they couldn’t just go back to their old life in Syria. Or at the very least back to Sonnenallee, where she had friends.

In the corner of the dog café, Mira sat at the table and watched Rolf as he polished off his luncheon, relishing each bite with a little growl of delight. He ate in stages, licking the gravy off the liver and veal first, then moving on to the main dish before toothily devouring the bigger chunks of chopped-up blood sausage. Finally his pink tongue circled the dog bowl to get the very last bits and then, licking his chops, he looked up at Mira.

“Ready to go, habibi?” She smiled at him. “Come on!”

Out on the street, Rolf immediately began straining at the leash. His tummy was full and he was keen for his morning walk. And for once they had perfect timing. The bus was waiting for them at the corner.

Mira took Rolf in her arms and jumped on board. They sat like that, her cradling the dog in a seat near the front. It wasn’t a long ride. Only three stops from the shops to reach the gates that led into the forest of the Grunewald.

A paved avenue swept from the street into the car park, and from there the path turned to sandy loam and began forking off in all directions through the conifers and the birch trees. Today they were taking their usual route, which led all the way to the Grunewaldsee lake. It was going to get hot and Rolf might fancy a dip.

Once they were on the sand paths, Mira bent down and unclipped Rolf’s leash to let him loose. As soon as he was free, Rolf shot off, sprinting away and then scampering in a ragged half-circle before running straight back towards her, his little legs churning like mad, his pink tongue lolling out to one side. Mira laughed at him. It was always the same, this moment of over-excitement. Soon he’d calm down and trot along with her companionably. But first he needed to burn off some energy.

Mira watched the little dog as he bolted ahead of her to do his second sprint-and-circle-back, running at breakneck speed round the curve of the path until he was out of sight. She strode on briskly after him, expecting that when she turned the corner she would see Rolf there, panting and exhausted, heading back towards her on the path ahead. But when she came round the corner, there was nothing. The wide path that cut through the forest was empty. Rolf was nowhere to be seen.

“Rolf!” Mira called out. “Rolfie?”

She whistled for him. And then, with more urgency in her voice, she called again, “Rolf!”

The sound of yelping broke the silence of the forest. Rolf! His bark was echoing through the trees to the east of the path and he was going bonkers! Had he caught scent of something? A squirrel, perhaps? Rolf lost all common sense when he was confronted with a whiff of prey. And these woods were big. If he got away from her, it would be all too easy to lose a little dog like him!

Mira began dashing through the trees, following the dachshund’s caterwaul. Rolf’s barking had now become one long, persistent hunting yowl, which meant he must have that squirrel trapped up a tree. Were squirrels fierce? What if Rolf got into a fight with it and it bit him? Frau Schmidt would blame Mira if the little dog should come to any harm.

Mira’s heart was pounding as she came into a clearing in the woods and saw Rolf. He was pronging up and down furiously on the spot, all stiff-legged and wild-eyed as he bailed up his prey. Her relief at finding the dachshund was immediately replaced by shock at the size of his adversary. Because it wasn’t a squirrel that Rolf held captive at all.

It was a horse.

The miniscule dog stood bristling and barking furiously, while right in front of him a white stallion, barricaded in by the pedestrian turnstiles and rails of the rustic fence that ran beside the forest path, was stamping and fretting, turning back and forth in his futile attempts to evade his tiny foe.

Their eyes were locked on each other in the same way that a matador engages a bull in battle. This fight, however, seemed to be rather more one-sided. The horse had to weigh at least six hundred kilos more than Rolf, and he towered over the dog as he manoeuvred back and forth in front of him. Despite the difference in size, the stallion seemed genuinely scared of the dachshund. Mira could see the fear in him, the way his dark eyes turned wide and his nostrils flared and snorted with each tempestuous breath.

With his neck arched and tail held high he was so beautiful he appeared almost otherworldly. At first sight he had struck Mira as alabaster white, but now she saw the faintest bloom of dark dapples on his rump, and the darkness of his mane and tail, which were burnished steel.

The stallion kept trying to outmanoeuvre the dog, pivoting on his hocks, turning and trotting back and forth, and then reversing abruptly, trying to double-back and duck past. It seemed ridiculous that he could be kept prisoner by Rolf. And yet here they were, locked in an impasse.

Rolf, for his part, had failed to notice that the horse was a hundred times his size. Determined to hold his prey, he kept blocking the horse at every turn and making little darting leaps, threatening to bite if the stallion stepped out of line. If the horse stepped too far forward, Rolf would snarl and lunge to push him back. And whenever the stallion tried to go sideways and break into his magnificent floating trot, Rolf would sprint forward and dash to head him off, forcing the horse to skid on his hocks to a stop, pinning him to the fence once more.

Mira watched as the little dog lunged and snapped, and this time the horse got fed up with this game of cat and mouse with his captor and fought back. The stallion lunged right at Rolf! He had his ears flattened back against his head, teeth bared, neck winding and twisting like an angry snake. He struck out and got so close to biting the dog that Rolf retreated for a split second. But then the fearless dachshund redoubled his efforts, barking and snapping. This war between them was escalating! Mira watched as the stallion went back on its haunches, striking out with a front hoof that narrowly missed cracking Rolf on the skull!

“Rolf! No! Get back!”

Rolf was oblivious to how much danger he was in, but Mira could see that one blow of those hooves could bring about his death.

As the horse rose up to strike out again, Mira found herself running forward to grab the dachshund. But Rolf didn’t want to be saved. He swerved away from Mira, evading her grasp, and she had no choice but to throw her body down on the dirt to get a hold of him.

“Rolf!” Rolling in the dust, Mira clung to his collar and pulled him roughly to her. “You must stop this! He will kill you!”

The horse was now directly above Mira and Rolf. With a startled snort, he went up on his hind legs, striking out violently with both front hooves. Mira let out a shriek and shut her eyes, certain the horse was about to come down on top of them and trample them. But somehow the stallion planted his hooves on either side of her and then he went up again and this time he spun on his hocks, turning away to face the fence that had him trapped.

There was no space to jump but the stallion was undeterred. From a standstill, he gathered himself, rocking back on his hindquarters, and then he popped in one tight stride and stag-leapt, effortlessly clearing the rustic rail with daylight to spare.

Mira couldn’t believe it. The horse hadn’t even needed a run-up. He had just launched himself into the air, as if he had springs beneath his hooves! And the way he landed on the other side was as graceful as a cat. As soon as he touched the earth, he sprang away at a gallop and, with a defiant shake of his mane, he set off towards the other side of the woods, weaving between the birches and conifers so that he became a grey blur between the trees.

Rolf was beside himself: his quarry was getting away! He began baying again and, in a last-ditch effort, he managed to squirm and rip himself free from Mira’s hands.

“Rolf! No!”

This time the dachshund only managed a few short strides before the leather went taut at his throat. Mira, anticipating that he would try to escape again, had already clipped the leash to his collar when she’d tackled him to the ground, and had slipped the loop at the other end round her wrist. Rolf only got to the end of the leash before he was yanked back again.

“Let him go!” Mira admonished him. “What were you thinking? You cannot possibly catch a horse! And what would you do with him if you did catch him? You are crazy!”

Rolf wasn’t listening, though. He was still wild-eyed and hyped up, giving hysterical whimpers and gazing longingly into the trees, even though the horse, having galloped away at lightning speed, was gone from sight.

Mira reeled Rolf back, inching along the length of the leash until she had him in her hands once more.

“Where did he come from?” she asked the dachshund. But she was asking herself more than Rolf. It was not unusual to see horses in the woods, but they were always taken out by riders from the riding school. Horses didn’t turn up in the middle of the forest running wild all on their own!

Rolf, twisting and squirming in Mira’s arms, demanded to be put down and she lowered him back, still keeping a tight hold on the leash.

The little dog shook himself with indignation and then he dropped his head to the ground and began to sniff in earnest.

“Rolf,” Mira cautioned him. “No. Leave it. We need to go home.” She knew what he was doing. Dachshunds like Rolf were renowned for their skill as tracking dogs. Mira had read in a book once that an olfactory trail could be left to go stale for as much as a month and a dachshund would still be able to nose out a scent that was strong enough to hunt by. To Rolf, the smell of the white stallion was fresh in his nostrils and it was irresistible.

“Rolf, ugh … no. This way! The bus stop is this way …”

Mira tried to distract him from the scent trail and turn for home. But Rolf took to whining piteously and refusing to budge, and whenever she tried to pick him up to carry him he darted between her legs.

“Rolf!”

Mira sighed. “You’re so stubborn,” she told him. And then she smiled to herself, because it was something her mother often said to her as well. They were alike, she and Rolf. And, right now, it seemed they both wanted the same thing. Because the truth was, Mira wanted to find the horse too.

“You think you could do it?” she asked the little dog. It seemed unlikely in a forest this size and yet Rolf seemed so set on it, so determined to give chase.

“OK, then, habibi, darling one. You can do it. Go. Find him.”

Mira kept the leash round her wrist and held on tight. Rolf took up the trail with a yelp and was once again on the hunt, and this time Mira did not resist. This time he was taking her with him.

Rolf was so intent and focused as he sniffed it was as if he held the whole universe right there in the tip of his nose. The scent trail of the horse was so strong to him that the path ahead might as well have been illuminated with fairy lights.

Mira felt his certainty as she was dragged down steep slopes where the leaves had fallen so thick that she was buried to her knees. She slid down, over mossy logs and rotting tree trunks, then found herself clambering and crawling back up again. They were deeper into the heart of the forest now and had left behind the broad, sandy avenues where they usually walked.

We should go back. We’ll get lost and no one will ever find us … Mira was thinking this when Rolf stopped in his tracks, and the leash in her hand went slack.

They were here.

They were standing on the ridge of a hill looking down through the trees to a clearing below. To the right was the pitched shingle roof of a small house, with what looked like a barn attached to it. In front of the buildings, two large yards for exercising horses, with a sandy loam surface, were enclosed by posts and rails.

Rolf cocked his head and let out a whimper as the doors to the stables opened. From inside Mira could hear the echo of horses’ hooves on the cobblestones, then a loud blowing snort and a moment later the grey stallion appeared through the doorway. He came out and as soon as his hooves touched the sand he broke into a high-stepping trot, his strides so elevated and bouncy it was almost as if he floated above the ground. He carried himself in a taut composition of muscle and sinew, his neck arched and his eyes on the woods beyond, his tail held erect so that the silken plumes of it trailed out behind him like gossamer as he circled the yard. He swept along right beside the rails as if he were looking for an escape route, and Mira noticed as he did this that the fence round the yard had been altered. The whole yard had been painted with dark brown fence stain, but there was a newly added unpainted rail that had been roughly hammered on at the top of the fence, which added another half a metre at least to the height of the barrier.

The stallion did two laps of the enclosure, and then, with a sudden prop, he slammed on his brakes, making the sand come flying up from beneath his hooves. He came to a dead stop, pivoted on his hocks so that now he was facing the opposite direction, and broke into a gallop. As he raced across the yard making for the rails, Mira really thought he was going to jump. She was reminded of the effortless way he’d popped in a single stride to vault the fence in the forest. But this fence now was almost twice that size. Mira watched as the stallion came up on to his haunches and then, reconsidering, he dropped down again with a jolt and drove his front legs deep into the sand to stop himself, ploughing a channel as he skidded and crashed into the rails, pivoting on his hocks to turn, bouncing away in frustration, then circling round the fence, snaking his neck and tossing his mane in consternation.

Then he halted, sides heaving like bellows, and looked up at the ridge where Mira and Rolf were watching. His ears pricked forward. He’d seen them! From the yard, he raised his elegant head and gave a clarion call, whinnying out to them.

Mira hesitated for a moment and then she gave the leash a yank. “Come on,” she said to Rolf. “We’re going down there.”

They scrambled down the bank together, a tangle of limbs and dog leash, until they reached the bottom, both of them panting, with hearts pounding. Mira picked Rolf up and felt his little feet waggling in mid-air as he tried to jump down again. She didn’t want him to scare the horse, so it was better perhaps if she went alone from here. She took Rolf’s leash and tied the dachshund to the fence. The stallion was standing perfectly still watching them, his dark eyes wide and calm.

Rolf growled a little, as if he were cautioning Mira when she stepped away from him and circled the fence to move closer to the horse.

She climbed up the rails and the horse stepped closer to her. Then he craned his elegant neck so that his muzzle was only a metre or two away from Mira’s face. She reached an arm out to him. The horse didn’t shy away from her, but stepped in again, stretching his muzzle to her hand. Mira wished she had a treat to offer him instead of her empty palm.

The horse stepped closer again and now he was standing almost side-on to her. All she needed to do to get on to his back at that moment was to stand up on the fence rail and turn sideways a little and make the leap. If she did so, she would find herself sitting on the horse’s back!

Behind her, she could hear Rolf give a low warning growl, but she didn’t turn to see what the dachshund was grumbling about. Her total focus was locked on the horse that stood there in front of her. She stood up, wobbling a little as she found her balance, perched on the rail on the balls of her feet, her hands still clinging on to the top rail. Her heart was pounding as she shimmied herself along the rail a tiny step or two, so that now she was in the perfect position just next to the horse’s broad, silver-grey back.

As she leapt, two things happened at once. The first was that the horse did not stay still as she’d expected him to do. Instead, he gave a startled snort at the sight of the girl propelling herself through the air, and he bolted. The second, more remarkable thing, was that Mira found herself suspended in mid-air and then abruptly jerked backwards again, so that when the horse disappeared out from under her, she didn’t fall to the ground. She had been grabbed from behind and now she found herself not falling but being held in strong arms and eased down gently to the earth.

And then, in her ear, louder than the sound of her own heart pounding, came the staccato bark of a woman chastising her in furious German. Mira turned round to see that the person who’d taken hold of her was an old woman, and the lady was yelling at her in rapid-fire language, speaking so quickly that Mira couldn’t possibly hope to keep up with the words.

It was hard to believe that this frail, elderly figure in front of her had been the one who’d just pulled her back from her daredevil leap. And yet that seemed to be the case as she was now standing there, arms waving wildly as she gave Mira a piece of her mind!

The old woman was dressed in an ancient flowery silk blouse tucked into faded green tracksuit trousers. She had brown knitted woollen slippers on her feet and her fine white hair was swept up into a loose bun that was twisted and pinned with a wooden clasp at the back. She was still barking away in German but it had at least slowed down from the rapid-fire shouting to a mild yelling. Mira tried to understand her, listening hard to decipher what was being said. Something about a king? No, not a king exactly. An emir! And then the penny dropped and Mira realised: that was his name! The horse – his name was Emir, and the woman was talking about him.

“What did you think you were dealing with here? Some tame riding school pony?” she was asking. “Emir is sensitive, powerful, highly strung. You are lucky that he did not kill you! If I had not got to you in time, this would have ended very badly for you.”

“I’m sorry,” Mira muttered.

“You should be!” the woman snapped. “Now clear off! Get out of here. This is private property, you know. Not the public forest. If you want a riding school, there is one in Grunewald near the Waldsee. Go there instead!”

“I …” Mira was too terrified to respond.

“Go on! What are you still here for?” the woman barked. “Are you simple-minded? I told you to leave!”

“I need … to untie Rolf,” Mira replied. She pointed over the woman’s shoulder to the little dachshund, who was still hitched up to the fence post. Rolf, seemingly unaware of the tension between Mira and the old lady, was standing up on his hind legs rather adorably and, at the sound of his name, he began yipping and wagging his great plume of a tail.

His foolish antics made the old woman lose a little of her bluster. “Yes, well,” she harrumphed in a gentler tone. “Of course. Fetch your dog and go.”

“He’s not my dog,” Mira said.

“What?” the old woman growled.

“Rolf is not mine,” Mira said. “I take care of him for Frau Schmidt. I’m not allowed a dog of my own.”

“Why on earth not?” The old woman frowned.

“A dog is another mouth to feed.” Mira was repeating her mother’s words, the phrase she used whenever Mira had asked for a pet.

“Who cannot afford to feed a mouth this small?” the old woman scoffed. “Typical, though, I suppose. People always think of themselves first, never of the animals who suffer …” Tutting and muttering away, she bent down and patted Rolf. The dachshund, oozing charm now, stood up on his hind legs to meet her and all the anger in the old woman disappeared and she gave a little laugh.

“Do you know, I had a dog like him when I was your age. Well, not really like him. Olaf was a Polish hound, much bigger than a dachshund, but he was a good dog. And he was so loyal, just like lovely little Rolf here …” She looked as if she were about to continue the story, but her eyes turned misty and she trailed off and turned back to Mira instead.