“I don’t mind rats,” said Paras. “They clean the place up.”
“They are ruthless. There has never been a rat who let an egg be!” screamed Sid. He walked up the face of a large rock, and plopped down in the sun. Sunny days were few and far between lately, but Paras didn’t much mind the rain. It was easier to live outside in all weathers than it was to be confined to a dark stall, unable to see much, but hearing every little thing, day and night. All the horses complained about being cooped up, even the least curious ones. And then, when the humans took you out, they got spooky when you were startled by something. The better riders just sat there, and said, “Ah-ah,” but a sensitive filly like Paras could feel in her very bones that their hearts were pounding. If you lived out, there wasn’t much that surprised you. Paras could see things all over the Champ de Mars—humans large and small, dogs large and small, birds of all kinds soaring and swooping. If you lived out, every noise had a reason, every sight a before and an after. No surprises. Pretty soon, Nancy joined Sid on the rock, and both of them seemed to go to sleep.
Paras stretched, shuddered all over, and stepped out into the open space. In the last few days of rain, there hadn’t been many humans around; the sunshine would bring them out, so Paras thought she should go for a little trot before they showed up. She jumped the fence and headed down the allée, head up, ears up, pace brisk. It felt good. She flicked her tail and rose into a canter. The footing was firm, wet but not at all slippery. She enjoyed the sound of her own hoofbeats. She had been bred to race thirty-two hundred meters; a good gallop gave her the opportunity to blow out her lungs and get some exercise. At the big building at the far end of the Champ, she came down to an easy walk, turned around, and trotted back, pausing here and there to take some bites of grass. The few humans running not far from her either didn’t notice her, or pretended not to notice her, but their dogs kept barking: “Who are you! What are you doing here! I never saw you before! You don’t belong here!” Paras ignored them, and if a human looked her way, she lifted her head and trotted all the more proudly. Frida said that there was a way to conduct yourself “as if” you had your own human about. You were calm and proud and never threatening, because you didn’t want to scare anyone. You kept your distance—humans did not like strange animals to come too close to them—and you did not ever look at them unless they were looking at you. In that case, you could give them a friendly glance—I would like to know you if I had the time, but I am busy at the moment. The other important thing was to be as clean as you could be, and so Paras tried to roll in wet grass as often as she could, and to stay out of the mud. Paras was a well-bred horse, so she liked to be clean, anyway.
When she got back to the pond, Frida had returned from the market. There were, of course, fragrant apples and pears, arugula, a few carrots, and an artichoke. Paras ate the artichoke first. It was a bit like taking medicine, but she enjoyed them—you couldn’t eat sweets all the time. Of course, Frida had also brought Nancy’s, and especially Sid’s, favorite item—blackberries.
It was Paras who noticed the boy.
There were occasionally boys in the Champ de Mars, and there were occasionally girls, but boys and girls were always attached to regular-sized humans. If she had ever in her life seen a solitary boy, Paras could not remember it. But now here was a boy. He was, in addition, staring at the five animals eating their treats, his feet wide apart, his hat pushed back on his head, and his hands in his pockets. As Paras watched, he took two steps toward them and stopped again.
Raoul finished his arugula and noticed the boy. He cawed several times, flew upward, and landed on Paras’s haunches. Frida said, “What are you talking about?,” because the wind was blowing in the wrong direction for her to scent him; then she saw the boy. Raoul said, “Chase him off.”
“Oh dear,” said Frida.
“What? What?” screamed Sid.
Paras knew that Sid was upset because the boy was not far from the building site of the new nest. Nancy kept her opinions to herself.
Frida said, “I saw this boy down the street from the market. I didn’t realize that he was behind me.”
“He followed you and you didn’t even notice?” cawed Raoul.
“The bag was very fragrant. I couldn’t smell anything else.”
“Chase him off,” cawed Raoul.
The boy held out his hand.
Now Raoul started walking around in small circles, cawing like mad. Twice he flapped his wings, but the boy didn’t understand the hint. He just stood there. Paras could see that Nancy and Sid were torn between eating the remaining blackberries and taking off. They kept watch on the boy and snatched a few. Frida sat. The boy took another step toward them. He was looking at Frida, but then he glanced at Paras. Frida suddenly stood up, and said to Paras, “Let’s go.” She took off, running away from the boy, toward the other side of the Tour, a less protected part of the Champ de Mars. Paras cantered after her. In a green area beyond the other pond, they stopped and looked back. Raoul had flown away; Nancy and Sid were nowhere to be seen. The boy was standing, staring down at their treats. He squatted and touched something, then stood up and walked away. In the grand panorama of the Champ de Mars, he looked very small.
PARAS HAD a dream. Perhaps it was the apples that gave her the dream, but she didn’t dream of apples—she dreamed of oats. She was standing in a summery green field with other horses, nibbling shoots of grass that grew among the yellow flowers. A gate opened, and a fellow came through, wearing a hat and carrying four buckets. He hooked the buckets to the fence, and Paras and the other horses went over and thrust their noses into the buckets and started munching on the oats. They were sweet and crunchy. When she woke up from the dream, it was early—not even the barest shimmers of light at the far end of the Champ de Mars. Frida was stretched out beside her. Paras rolled up onto her chest and then levered herself to her feet. Frida didn’t wake up.
If a curious filly wanted to walk down a street, her hooves clanging on the pavement, to look into windows without being seen by humans, then this was the time to do it, the only time when all was quiet. She crossed the field, glanced down one street, then turned down the next one. There may have been humans who awakened in their warm beds, looked at the dim windows, and said to themselves, “What is that noise?” They may have pulled the covers over their heads and decided they were dreaming, or they may have gotten up, looked out the window, and seen nothing. Possibly, it was that time of day when the security guards stationed here and there and a couple of members of the gendarmerie had the greatest difficulty staying awake, and so they didn’t watch the street as carefully as they might have. At any rate, Paras loitered and stared as she strolled along. Doors were closed, awnings were rolled up, windows were dark, the smell was mostly the damp pavement itself. She touched her nose to the cool metal of the automobiles, and the cool surface of the glass, and the stone buildings. She sniffed iron fencing, and nipped off tiny fugitive plants that grew through cracks in the pavement. She looked ahead, she looked back, she even looked up. A single dog was out and about, but he circled around her, his head low, his tail low, his ears low. He looked like a sad dog, not at all the proud beast that Frida was. There were cats here and there, squatting in corners, their paws tucked under their chests, their eyes slitted. They saw her—she knew this, because their heads turned as she passed. One, a black one, gave off a low meow as she walked by. Paras nickered in response. She might have seen a fox, too, slipping around a building, waving its orange brush, but foxes were elusive.