I wake up wondering once again, as so often, how the little horse got on the boat in the first place, let alone why it voyaged so far: who let it on, was there no one to lead it off, by its halter, for example, back onto dry land, to its own pastures, that were maybe not so green, but familiar, at least? Why was it by the pier, near the harbour even? I suppose horses do live by the seaside, it is not unheard of, but it vexes me. A horse belongs onshore, as far as I’m concerned, in my inexpertise.
I try to think this through and come up with several potential scenarios, none of which satisfies as an explanation. Perhaps the little horse accidentally strayed onto a cargo ship and was mistaken there for one of the ones that were actually being exported, by coincidence, just then. Maybe it wasn’t so much a coincidence, maybe the horse got friendly with, even enamoured of, one of the horses that—very possibly against their own will or better instinct—were being embarked right now, and just followed it, in equine loyalty and affection.
Perhaps it was being sold: it could simply be that it was ‘mine’—as in the person writing the song, thus narrating the story and lamenting the absence of ‘my’ little horse, wishing it back—only by extension, and really it belonged to the family or to my father, and he, for reasons best known to him (though there are many imaginable: economic hardship, disaffection with the beast, or having gambled it away to a foreign sailor, notwithstanding the riddle as to what a sailor, of all people, would do with a pony – perhaps sell it on?…), maybe he, my father, had exchanged it for goods or money, or forfeited it; and now, as I sit here on my own watching the waves roll in from afar, it has long since sailed away, right over the ocean, over the sea.
Then suddenly it hits me, out of the blue. It has all been a misunderstanding. Where I went to school, in Basel, we had an annual ‘bazar’. I can’t be sure any more was it at this bazar, which everybody pronounced ‘bahtzar’, and which happened a few weeks before Christmas to raise funds for the school, or was it at the summer fete, which happened every year in the summer, probably just before the big holidays, to the same end, or both, but there was a little patch of wood in the school grounds where sometimes, not always, some generous soul would bring along a couple of ponies, so the children could go pony riding for a franc or two. This was almost the only occasion that ever presented itself for me to see, or think of, or hear about, ponies. Even though they spelt ‘Pony’ the same as in English, just with a capital for being a noun, everybody called a pony ‘es Bonny’, pronouncing it with an at best half committed P and without the prerequisite diphthong, making it sound exactly like ‘Bonnie’. For years—years!—I would stand in class amongst my gschpänlis and intone with devotion a plea for someone, anyone really, to bring back, bring back, oh bring back my little horse to me. And for years—years!—I could not fathom why the little horse had ever strayed so far, there just seemed to be no plausible explanation for this. And now—now!—it turns out there didn’t ever need to be.
At last, one of the great bewildering conundrums of my childhood simply, quietly, fades away…
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EDEN by FREI 