Horses, and: Berlin

Abstract

Horses, and: Berlin Rachel Mannheimer (bio) Horses There were two movies that summer about boys and their horses.In the first, we didn’t cry when the horse was killed, but near the end.We didn’t watch the second one. I cried all through the trailer, not knowing who might die. This before Nebraska, where,driving to the Hy-Vee, we saw two horses standing side by sidebut back to front, so that I thought I’d seen a single being with two heads. Like feelings. I could never say which were distinct.I only knew the names of three and sometimes, like my mom—top of the stairs, late afternoon—I’d holler the wrong one down. [End Page 34] Berlin Maybe Dan was right. When we see a bodystilled—poisoned rat, bird that hit the glass,don’t know what happened to the squirrel—it startles us. But we’re accustomed to a photograph.So a picture of a personis no person. Something made. He didn’t call or write after my mom died.I’d forgiven worse. Forgetting himbetween the times I saw him was essentialto the way I loved the shadows on his face. At the Gemäldegalerie, there were so many waysto be a mom—so many babies one could have.Botticelli’s sweet, walleyed Maria,the infant vain and knowing on her lap.And then these Flemish babies—one a jointed, bleached-wood doll,one a hairless cat. Madonna and child in the Maso di Bancoregard each other like a fond and fussy couple—he reaches out as though to steal a morselfrom her plate. All their sons died young and terribly.Loyal to so manyalready-livingpeople,I didn’t want to meet someone brand-new. [End Page 35] Rachel Mannheimer Rachel Mannheimer was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, and lives in New Haven, Connecticut. Her first book, Earth Room (Changes Press, 2022), was the inaugural winner of the Bergman Prize, selected by Louise Glück. Copyright © 2021 Middlebury college