Pegasus: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

do with them, and especially his son. The news had come as a shock to Paul.
    Tears filled Paul’s eyes as he went on, but he didn’t move from his seat. He could
     see that Nick was already stunned by everything he had said. “He came to warn me,
     so that I could alert you. He said that someone has started a file on you, and your
     ancestry through your mother is known. This could be disastrous for you and your boys.
     It takes very little to tip the balance now. You and your children could be seized
     and sent away, and not allowed to remain here, or own property. Heinrich feels that
     to be safe, you and the boys must leave Germany at once. If not, with the dossier
     on you andyour heritage, it’s only a matter of time, and a very short time he believes, before
     the three of you will be sent to some kind of camp for ‘undesirables.’ It is almost
     a crime now to be a Jew in Germany, and even being a quarter Jewish puts you and the
     boys at great risk. They have been using Dachau, near Munich, for ‘undesirables’ of
     all kinds, which now applies to you and your children.” Tears rolled down Paul’s cheeks
     as he said it.
    “Heinrich said it’s going to get worse. I asked if I could speak on your behalf, or
     if we could get some kind of special dispensation when they go after one-quarter Jews,
     but he told me without question that anyone with any Jewish blood or ancestry is in
     danger in Germany.” As he said it, Paul coughed to cover a sob that lodged in this
     throat like a fish bone. He looked as if his heart were about to break. “My darling
     son, you and your children must leave. Now. Soon. Before anything happens to you.
     According to Heinrich, there is no time to waste.” There was an endless silence in
     the room as Paul’s tears ran off his cheeks onto his desk. Neither of the two men
     moved as Nick stared at him, and it sank in.
    “Are you serious? I have to leave? That’s ridiculous. I’m not Jewish. My mother may
     have been, but you’re not. I’m not. I didn’t even know. And the boys are even less.”
     Their mother had been Catholic and was related to a bishop.
    “Not to them. Not to Hitler’s government. If you have any Jewish blood at all, whatever
     religion you practice, you’re a Jew,” Paul said bitterly. “It’s not about religion,
     it’s about race, and you’re not a pure-blood Aryan German in this country now.”
    “That’s absurd.” Nick stood up and walked around the room, unable to believe what
     he’d just heard. “I have nothing against the Jews, but I’m not one of them.” Nick
     was dumbstruck.
    “You are as far as they’re concerned,” Paul repeated. “I won’t haveyou taken from your home and sent to a labor camp. My friend in the Wehrmacht said
     they could come here to take you away, and almost surely will, to make an example
     of you. They don’t care who you are or how you’re living—people of Jewish ancestry
     must go, or risk what will happen if they stay. And who knows what they’ll do next.
     They’re sending Jews to labor camps now and calling them a ‘criminal element,’ in
     order to make it more acceptable to lock them up, along with homosexuals, Gypsies,
     and anyone else they don’t want in Hitler’s Germany. Jewish teachers cannot work,
     Jews are being eliminated from their businesses and fired from their jobs, they can’t
     go to parks or swimming pools. Where do you think this will go next? You can still
     get a passport to leave Germany, with special permission. You have to take the boys
     and go while you still can, before it gets worse.” And now Paul was beginning to believe
     it would. He spoke to Nick with a tone of urgency.
    “How much worse can it get?” Nick said, skeptical. “We are respectable people, Papa.
     You own one of the biggest estates in Germany. We come from one of the oldest families,”
     Nick argued with him with a look of desperation. He was fighting for his right to
     stay in the