“When they speak of mixed blood ,“ he would tell you proudly, “they speak of Al Jack. I am one-quarter Cherokee Indian, two-quarters Cajun and one-quarter Negro, and the only one who knows more about horses than Al Jack is God himself.”
When he was working, Al Jack had little to say. He would express approval or disapproval by the tone of his chuckles. Al Jack was a man who chuckled all the time. If he told you the world was about to end he would chuckle while he gave you the bad news. After a while Keegan learned to tell which were good news chuckles and which were bad news chuckles. There was also a disaster chuckle but Keegan had only heard it once, when Al jack discovered they did not have crawfish in France. Luckily, he soon discovered that snails were a reasonable substitute and became addicted to escargots. So they were up at dawn every day, working out the horses until late afternoon when they would walk to the village and stuff themselves on escargots, washing it down with Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
“Got us a winner, mon ami,” Al Jack would say in his Cajun patois. “This lady goin’ take the purse every time she go outa that gate.”
“If she doesn’t, it’s off to the glue factory with her,” Keegan would answer and they would laugh and order more snails.
“You know my dream, Kee? My dream is that I save up enough money to buy her first foal when she retires.”
“You got it, Al. Call it a bonus. When she starts losing her speed, we’ll breed her.”
“That’s a damn generous thing t’do, Kee, but I do believe I’d feel better paying for the pony.”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
It was a pleasant enough time, the days filled with hard work, horse talk and good food, but he could not get the singer out of his mind. He never talked about her but she had his heart in her hand and was never far from his thoughts. He and Bert spent the Christmas holiday in Spain trout fishing, then Rudman was off to Ethiopia for a month to report on the country many believed would be Mussolini’s first conquest, his dispatches appearing almost daily on the front page of the Trib. From there it was on to Spain for two months to report on the civil war everyone felt was imminent. Rudman’s style continued to become more formal, more subjective, tougher. With each dispatch he seemed to be more masterful at interpreting the volatile politics of Europe for his readers. His fixation on Hitler, the Nazi movement and the advent of fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain earned him a growing reputation as one of Europe’s most respected correspondents. Keegan spent a month skiing in the Swiss Alps after Rudman left, spent a few weeks in Berlin, avoiding the Kit Kat and doing the usual party rounds, frequently bumping into the little hunchback, Vierhaus, Hitler’s personal gossip, who was always pleasant to the point of obsequiousness. Then Keegan returned to France.
In early March, Keegan and Al Jack moved to Deauville, where they drove the few miles to the beach every morning to let the filly run in the surf, strengthening her legs and building her endurance for the longer European tracks. Keegan followed his friend’s career avidly and was delighted when Rudman finally returned to Paris and came to visit them.
“She learnin’ to run backwards,” Al Jack said proudly, since most of the European races were run from right to left, the opposite direction from the way Al Jack had trained her in the states.
“So, tell me about it,” Keegan asked Rudman as they sat in the dunes watching Al Jack put the mare through her paces. “What’s Ethiopia like?”
“Hot, dismal, dirty, dry, sand everywhere—in your hair, your eyes, your coffee.”
“Is there going to be a war?”
Rudman nodded emphatically. “Within a year the Lion of Judah will be in an Italian cage.”
“That’s depressing. How about Spain? How are the ladies?”
“You know the type. They don’t get insulted when you invite them home and they don’t get mad when you don’t invite them to stay for breakfast. Spain’s very depressing. Civil war’s just around the corner. It’s going to be brutal.”
“That’s the way war is, Bert.”
“I don’t mean that way. Listen Kee, I saw an airfield outside of Madrid with a couple of dozen Heinkel bombers parked in hangars. The Loyalists are all using German weapons. Wait and see, Spain’s going to turn into Hitler’s personal testing ground.”
“You’re getting to be quite the political oracle, aren’t you, pal?”
“Trying.”
“We got some fine horse there, boss,” Al jack said, climbing up the dune and standing ramrod straight in his Sunday finest, his cap pulled down to his eyebrows, as Keegan and Rudman watched Rave On romp in the surf, her breath steaming from flared nostrils as she bucked and jumped in the chilly water.
In mid-April they were ready to move on to Paris where she was stabled at Longchamp, perhaps the most elegant racetrack in the world. Most of the tracks—Chantilly, St. Cloud de Maisons, Evry and Longchamp—were within forty miles of Paris. The plan was to run her in La Coupe de Maisons, then on to Chantilly for the French Derby and after that to Longchamp for the opening of the season in May, building up to the prestigious Grand Prix de Paris in June and the big one, L ‘Arc de Triomphe, in September.
Once they had Rave On settled at the stables in Paris, Keegan joined Rudman in Berlin.
“You’re not going to believe it,” Rudman said when they met for dinner. He was brimming with excitement. “I was just offered chief of The New York Times bureau here.”
“You’re kidding! Will you take it?”
“Take it! Hell, it’s the plum job in Europe. Goebbels has been threatening to lift my visa, now I’ll be too important for the Nazis to throw out.”
“Be careful, buddy,” Keegan said, and he was obviously concerned. “These bastards’ll kill you.”
“They wouldn’t dare,” Rudman said with a grin.
He went off to the States for a month of indoctrination and returned looking fit with the latest news and gossip from home. He was full of enthusiasm for Roosevelt and the future of America and had glowing reports on the Broadway season, babbling on about the new dancer, Fred Astaire, the star of Cole Porter’s new show; about James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizons, which he had read on the boat over; and André Mairaux’s Man’s Fate, which he read on the way back; about a movie called King Kong, about an ape that attacks the Empire State Building; and an animated cartoon based on the “Three Little Pigs.” He had also fallen madly in love with Greta Garbo after seeing her in two movies. For the first time since leaving, Keegan felt a tinge of homesickness. But the excitement of the coming racing season at Longchamp and Rudman’s return soon dispelled that. His horse, Rave On, was looking good and timing well. Rudman would not start the new job until midsummer, so they would have two months to pal around.
“Ever feel like going home for good?” Keegan asked.
“1 can’t, my future’s here,” Rudman said. “You know what my editor at the Times said? He said I have a keener perception of the political dynamics of Europe than any other reporter alive.”
“Good. Can we have that for dinner?”
“You son of a bitch.”
“Well, hell, you ought to. You have politics for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You’ve let your social life go to hell.”
“I see things keep getting worse here. Now they’re boycotting Jewish stores,” said Rudman. “Did you know Jews have been banned from business? Even from schools”
“It’s no secret, they brag about what they’re doing every day in that Nazi rag, The People’s Observer.