The Winter Horses by Philip Kerr

see?” said Kalinka. “I knew you had an interesting face. Besides, it’s a perfect night for a story, don’t you think?”
    Max nodded. “That it is,” he admitted. “And I daresay mine will do the job right enough if it’s a story for going to sleep that you’re after.”
    “It isn’t,” said Kalinka. “Tell me about yourself. How did you come here? And when? And why? Please, Max. It’s been a long time since anyone told me a story at bedtime.”

M AX LIT HIS PIPE and looked into the distance for a moment as he tried to recollect the details of his life and how he first came to work for the baron.
    “The reserve at Askaniya-Nova owes its existence to a German,” said Max.
    Kalinka pulled a face. “If it has Germans in it, I don’t think I’m going to like your story,” she said.
    “Believe me, not all Germans are like the SS,” said Max. “Even today, I’m sure that back in Germany, there are good Germans. The baron—the baron Friedrich Falz-Fein—was just such a German, for he was a wonderful man. It was he who created this place back in 1889. In its day, this was the largest private zoo in Europe, with over two hundred species of birds and more than fifty species of animals with hooves, such as bison, camels, deer, antelope, llamas and zebras. And, as well as a widevariety of birds that commonly make their home in this part of the world, there are cranes and pelicans from Africa and even a few ostriches. You should see the eggs they lay for breakfast. Enormous!” Max laughed, then continued.
    “I was just twenty when I came to Askaniya-Nova from my hometown of Sevastopol, in 1897, as a groom for Baron Falz-Fein’s Hanoverian horses, a breed that is one of the finest in the world. But it was 1902 before the first Przewalski’s horses joined us here, and 1904 before a stallion arrived—a gift from Tsar Nicholas the Second—enabling the baron to begin a breeding program on his nature reserve, where the conditions for Przewalski’s are more or less ideal. And together he and I oversaw a substantial increase in the number of Przewalski’s horses, which is to say the numbers of these horses at Askaniya-Nova more than doubled in less than ten years.
    “Even today, it’s for the Przewalski’s horses that the nature reserve is best known. These prehistoric horses are thought to have diverged from the modern horse about a hundred and sixty thousand years ago. Easily recognizable on ancient cave paintings found all over Europe and Asia, the Przewalski’s horse is the rarest horse in the world. Until an explorer saw the horse in 1881 on a trip to central Asia, it was thought to be as extinct as the dodo.”
    “That’s a bird, isn’t it? From the island of Mauritius.”
    “Aye, that’s right. Sailors killed them all for food. Theyreckon the last dodo was seen in 1681. Curious-looking creature. Can’t say I think much of it. It’s no wonder you don’t see any cave paintings of dodos, in my opinion.”
    The old man puffed his pipe for a moment, which seemed to stimulate a memory of something. “Here,” he said. “I’ve got some pictures of those cave paintings. If I can find those books the baron gave me.”
    He began to search the cottage, and while he was opening a cupboard, some old newspapers fell on his head.
    “Well, don’t stop telling me your story,” insisted Kalinka. “You can keep telling it while you look for them, can’t you, Max?”
    “Yes,” said the old man, brushing the dust off himself. “I daresay you’re right. Well, where was I?”
    “You were saying how you and the baron doubled the number of Przewalski’s horses in ten years.”
    “So I was. This is where my story gets interesting, I suppose. That’s another way of saying that life has a funny habit of playing tricks on anyone who happens to be enjoying it, as I was. The same way I daresay lots of people were enjoying their lives in this part of the world. Fifty years of history has been very hard on