Alexander Altmann A10567 by Suzy Zail Read Free Book Online Page A

its holster and the rubber baton hanging from his belt, and held his breath.
    The boy settled into the saddle and Alexander breathed out. He picked up the lead rope and stepped forwards.
    “My son wants to ride, not be led!” The officer stabbed Alexander’s shoulder with his baton.
    “Close your legs against the pony’s sides.” Alexander tried to raise his voice above a whisper. The boy squeezed his tubby legs around Chestnut’s flanks and the pony began walking.
    “I’m riding, Father. Look, I’m riding!” the boy shouted and Alexander felt relieved and angry at the same time.
    “Well done!” he heard the father say. Alexander didn’t need to turn and look at the man to guess that he was probably smiling across at his son, and that the buck-toothed boy was probably swollen with pride and smiling too. Alexander hated them for it. Hated himself a little too.
    “Hurry up!”
    Alexander turned at the sound of a voice and saw a young boy step from the line.
    “It’s hot and I’m thirsty and I’m tired of waiting.”
    The girl in front of him reached out a hand and grabbed the boy’s shirt.
    “We’re all tired of waiting but I’m before you and you better not push in front or I’ll tell my father.”
    The boy grumbled and slunk back into line.
    They’re tired of waiting, Alexander thought, returning to the gate with Chestnut. So am I. Seems all he’d done the last few years was wait. Wait for his father to return from his labour unit. Wait outside the synagogue to be marched into the ghetto. Wait to use the toilets, wait in line for meals, wait naked for the showers, wait to be tattooed. Alexander mopped his brow. Wait and hope that he’d be left alone so he could wait some more, because one day – Alexander bent low and clasped his fingers together – one day the Russians would come and the waiting would be over.
    The buck-toothed boy hopped down and Alexander signalled for the next child. Her father waved her on.
    “This way.” He waved the young girl away from Chestnut’s back end. He would’ve liked nothing more than to watch the pony step back onto her expensive leather sandals and crush her toes, but he needed the job.
    “What’s her name?” the girl asked, tapping Alexander on the shoulder.
    “Chestnut,” Alexander said. The girl had corn-coloured plaits and a smile as wide as a barn door. He couldn’t look at her.
    “Is she a pony or a baby horse?”
    Alexander looked over at the girl’s father. He was leaning on the gate, his face turned up to the sun, his eyes closed against the glare. Probably safest to answer her, he thought.
    “She’s a pony,” he said, as he helped her onto the saddle.
    The girl leaned forwards and waited for more. Alexander cleared his throat. He hadn’t been asked his opinion in a long time. He barely spoke in full sentences any more, and when he did it was always in a whisper.
    “You can tell because she has a thicker mane than a horse and a heavier coat.” He ran a hand over Chestnut’s red hair. “Ponies have shorter legs too,” he said, looking into the girl’s wide eyes. “And they’re never taller than this.” He let his hand hover just above Chestnut’s head.
    They circled the ring and the girl slid off the pony and took her father’s hand. “Can we come back tomorrow, Papi, please?” she begged, pulling at her father’s coat. The officer smiled and smoothed a wet slick of hair from her face. “I have to work tomorrow,
liebling
.” He glanced at Alexander. “Say
danke
to the boy.” He slipped his hand into his coat, took out a cigarette and offered it to Alexander.
    Alexander didn’t smoke. His grandfather had died two days before his sixtieth birthday, when Alexander was six. His mother had told him that it was the cigarettes that killed his
zaida
and that if she ever caught him with a cigarette in his mouth, she’d borrow his father’s belt and pull him onto her knee, no matter how big he was. Alexander took the cigarette