The Last Wild Horses

Maja Lunde

• Publisher: Scribner UK
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781471175688
• eBook ISBN: 9781471175664
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

The sensational new novel from the author of The History of Bees 

Translated into 36 languages, winner of the Norwegian Bookseller’s Prize, and the most successful Norwegian author of her generation, Maja Lunde returns with a heart-wrenching tale, set in the distant past and the dystopian future, about extinction and survival, family and hope.

Mikhail lives in Russia in 1881. When a skeleton of a rare wild horse is brought to him, the zoologist plans an expedition to Mongolia to find the fabled Przewalski horse, a journey that tests not only his physicality, but his heart. In 1992, Karin, alongside her troubled son Mathias and several Przewalski horses, travels to Mongolia to re-introduce the magnificent horses to their native land. The veterinarian has dedicated her life to saving the breed from extinction, prioritizing the wild horses, even over her own son. 

Europe’s future is uncertain in 2064, but Eva is willing to sacrifice nearly everything to hold onto her family’s farm. Her teenage daughter implores Eva to leave the farm and Norway, but a pregnant wild mare Eva is tending is about to foal. Then, a young woman named Louise unexpectedly arrives on the farm, with mysterious intentions that will either bring them all together, or devastate them one by one.

Spanning continents and centuries, The Last Wild Horses is a powerful tale of survival and connection—of humans, animals, and the indestructible bonds that unite us all. 

Translated from the Norwegian by Diane Oatley

THE STORY OF MY VOYAGE TO MONGOLIA AND WHAT I FOUND THERE

Written in St. Petersburg, September 1882

CHAPTER 1 AN EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY

The house is silent except for the sound of the maid rummaging through the kitchen cabinets. I am sitting at my desk and have decided to write my story. I have been trying to put words down on paper for a long time, have written long letters, all of them to the same man, but every single one of them ended up like a hard-packed snowball in the wastepaper basket. Today, after a stroll through the Summer Garden, I finally understood that my attempts at correspondence are futile. I am not supposed to be writing letters; Wolff isn’t supposed to be my reader. This story is not about him and me, it is about the wild horses. This is their story, and somebody has to tell it before too many of the details fade into oblivion.

Hopefully, my text will find its way to a reader or two, the story of our search for the wild horses and about the life lived by both animals and humans on the steppes. It should capture the interest of all those with even a modest interest in zoology and ethnography and, if you are one of these readers, I would request your forbearance with any superfluous details or tedious digressions. Out of respect for the actual events, I haven’t dared omit much, because who knows what may prove to be of significance for posterity?

My tale begins on an ordinary Monday morning in May of 1880 with the sound of iron horseshoes clattering against cobblestones slick with rain on the street outside the apartment and the coachman’s loud ptro. I then heard the sound of the carriage door being opened and footsteps against the ground and, in the next second, three loud raps of the front door knocker.

On that day, as now, I was at my desk in my study on the second floor. Mother had just gone out to do run some errands. I was alone and was intending to review the accounts one more time before leaving for work. I felt a slight irritation over the metallic pounding of the knocker against the front door, but also a certain sense of relief. The accounts for the zoological garden were anything but jolly reading. No matter how many times I examined them, the figures showed no signs of improvement. I caught myself hoping they might move around, change places, that plus might become minus and minus plus, that they could live, become equals, as spontaneous and warm-blooded as the animals they represented. The evening before, I had, in fact, studied the account books after four stiff drams in hopes that the inebriation might cause them to start dancing. But not this time, either. My field is the natural sciences and mathematics is considered a part of this, but the path from the living creatures to which I, as assistant director of Petersburg’s zoological garden, had dedicated my life, to these blue lines of ink on grayish-white paper was as long as from here to Mercury.

The problem was Berta, a hippopotamus I had insisted we purchase from Germany a few months ago. The director left the acquisitions to me; he took care of operations and staff, while the animals were my affair, and Berta, therefore, my responsibility, including the challenges the acquisition entailed. She did indeed attract visitors; yes, in fact, the Petersburgians loved this colossal, slow-moving animal. There was always a small throng of people standing outside her cage and the public cheered every time she emitted the smallest snort or grunt. For my own part, it had been a long time since I had cheered about Berta. Yes, she was, what should one say, a striking animal—many even called her magnificent—but the cost of shipping her here from Hamburg had been even more magnificent.

Piotr, the houseboy, entered the room and placed a silver tray bearing a business card in front of me, while informing me in his aloof manner that I had a visitor.

I picked up the card and studied it. Ivan Poliakov, Zoological Institute.

“If sir permits,” Piotr said, “I would like to mention that Poliakov was red in the face and out of breath, as if it were a matter of some urgency.”

“Thank you, Piotr. Please show him in.”

A minute later, the door opened and Poliakov, my closest colleague at the institute, stood before me. I did not see the biologist often. From time to time, he might contact me with news concerning large animal shipments to Europe with an eye to new acquisitions for the zoo but he had never come to see me at home before. He was, indeed, both red in the face and out of breath, but what Piotr had neglected to mention was that Poliakov was also smiling so broadly that his face was virtually straining at the seams, revealing two full rows of brown teeth.

“Welcome,” I said.

“My dear Mikhail Alexandrovich,” Poliakov said. “My good friend.”

“Ivan Poliakov,” I replied. “I hope all is well with you, with your wonderful family. Your lovely wife and beautiful children.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, indeed.”

I had apparently overdone it. Situations such as this, where I found myself one-on-one with other men, often knocked me off balance. I took care not to appear arrogant and cool, but also feared that my behavior would be perceived as fawning.

Poliakov, however, did not seem to notice my uneasiness. Without waiting to be asked, he took a seat by the coffee table. Then he corrected himself, got to his feet again as if the chair had nipped him in the behind.

“My dear friend, have a seat, please,” I said. “I apologize for my lack of manners. I am a bit distracted. It’s the accounts. It’s that time of year. You know how it is…”

I didn’t finish the sentence. He knew absolutely nothing about the state of the finances, and I would presumably not meet with any understanding. As an employee of the Zoological Institute, his salary was paid with the same uniform precision as the stride of the emperor’s marching soldiers.

“Be that as it may,” I said. “I can see you have some news that you are eager to share with me. And here is Piotr with the samovar. Let us have some tea. Would you not like a glass?”

“Tea? That’s not necessary, but since you offer…”

With a swift movement he grasped the glass held out to him, his hand trembling slightly. He put the glass down on the table with a light thump causing a few drops to spill over the lip. He picked up the sugar tongs and dropped no less than three clumps of sugar into the hot beverage, stirred five times with a spoon, and poured the entire contents of the glass down his throat in three large gulps.

“I would like you to accompany me to the institute,” he said hurriedly. “I have something I must show you. A dispatch rider delivered it yesterday evening with a shipment from Mongolia.”

“Mongolia? And you have come here personally to tell me this?”

“From Colonel Przewalsky. He is on his way home, but the package arrived before him. I would very much like you to take a look at the objects.”

“And what exactly are these objects?”

“An animal hide and a skull.”

“A dead animal? I prefer to have doings with the living.”

“From a horse, a wild horse.”

“Is that right?”

“I have never seen anything like it,” he said and again his mouth opened into a broad, brown grin.

---

Before continuing my rendition of the events, I think it necessary to begin with some biographical information about the main character of this story, that is to say, the undersigned. Not to say that I am the most important personality in this peculiar tale. I would never make such a claim and I am quite certain that my name will be omitted from the history books when the official accounts are written in due course. But you might well remember me, at the very least.

My name is Mikhail Alexandrovich Kovrov. I was born in Petersburg in 1848. The same year as the Paris Uprising and subsequent abdication of the throne by Louis Philippe of France. Unrest spread through Europe; in Austria, the chancellor was obliged to step down, but our own emperor showed strength, as always. And when sparks of insubordination were ignited in Moldovia and Walkachia, he crushed every sign of rebellion. I, of course, knew nothing of these events. My life was about my mother’s lap and my father’s strict, but fair, form of justice. We lived in prosperity. My father, Aleksander Kovrov, enjoyed great respect as a captain in the cavalry. When he and my mother met, her most fertile years were already behind her and they conceived only one child. It was, nonetheless, my clear impression that their marriage and brief life together was both happy and satisfactory and that they held one another in the deepest regard.

When I was seven years old, however, our existence changed. The fatal event that would turn everything upside down occurred on an afternoon in January. It was already dark, as winter afternoons are up here in the north. My father was on his way home from work and about to cross the street. I don’t know if he saw the horse-drawn carriage that came driving at a ludicrous speed or if he died instantaneously. But both the coachman and the pedestrians who happened to be standing in the vicinity spoke of the sound of the horses’ hooves against my father’s body on the cobblestones—hard iron horseshoes against a soft human body. I kept trying to imagine how that must have sounded; on one occasion, I even lay down on the floor of the library and dropped a rusty horseshoe onto my bare, little boy tummy, which did not produce any special kind of sound whatsoever.

This happened at the exact same time that Tsar Nicholas I contracted a horrible case of pneumonia, refused treatment, and regrettably passed away. While the nation was in mourning, we mourned as well. The tsar lay in lit de parade for two whole weeks, and my mother cloistered herself in her bedroom with her tears. When she finally emerged, it was to see the deceased emperor. I remember that we passed the bed where Nicholas I lay very slowly, that Mother pressed my face into her skirts and sobbed that she didn’t know for whom she was crying the most, the nation’s little father or my father, while I carefully tried to turn my head to catch a glimpse of the corpse. Since then, I have always associated significant life events with the tsar’s family.

After this, Mother and I were alone. There was some comfort in the fact that we were not left destitute. My father’s pension provided for us handsomely. Not that we could live as before, mind you, but we were able to keep our home, the spacious apartment on Grivtsova Lane, and had sufficient means to live a modest, but relatively comfortable, life.

I will always associate my childhood with the large, quiet rooms of our home and my mother’s warm presence. She was truly a self-sacrificing mama. There were no compromises made when it came to my well-being. I received the best cuts of meat at the table and was sent to a good school.

School, yes… a brief and brutal part of my life. I remember the first day very well. My mother had followed me to the gate, kissed me goodbye three times, and waved when I took my place in line in the yard outside the large, dark building. I did not speak with any other children, was not acquainted with many of them, but I immediately liked the system. It was as if the school were organized in long rows, as if we weren’t individual boys but merely a part of a formation. We stood in lines; we marched in step. At least until the school bell rang. Then, all of a sudden, I was alone.

The way the other children ignored me coldly during the first days was something I could live with but, eventually, as most of them found places in groups, a new dynamic emerged: the boys began searching for confirmation that these affiliations were precisely right. Such confirmations were often elicited through the incitement of conflicts with other herds, but even more so by humiliating those of us who were left out.

I remember my new slate. I had been so proud of it when I started school. I remember how it was smashed, how the boys made bets about what was the hardest, my skull or the slate.

My skull was the hardest.

When for the third time I came home to Mother with inexplicable injuries and refused to say how they had been inflicted, she told me that she had looked into hiring a private tutor.

“A private tutor?” These were the most beautiful words I had ever heard.

After that, most of my life transpired inside the apartment. In the company of the most proficient teachers Petersburg had to offer, with lessons in both Russian and French, I was spared having to move any further away from home than our front gate.

Three doors down vis-à-vis our building was the Geographic Society. Early on, I had noticed the different gentlemen entering and leaving the premises. They were often dusty and dirty, arrived almost always alone carrying canvas bags covered with stains and suitcases, the original colors of which had been virtually eroded away beneath nicks and scratches. Their skin was weathered, their hands tanned and powerful, every bit as worn and scraped up as their baggage. I listened eagerly to the gentlemen’s conversations. I cocked my ears trying to catch all the details of where th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Eva
• Chapter 1: An Extraordinary Discovery
• Chapter 2: A Man of Many Trades
• Chapter 3: A Financial Challenge
• Chapter 4: An Unexpected Traveling Companion
• Chapter 5: An Illuminating Conversation
• Chapter 6: A Dramatic Incident by the Canal
• Chapter 7: A Laborious Start
• Chapter 8: An Even More Laborious Sequel
• Chapter 9: A Much Longed-For Light
• Chapter 10: A Dreadful Outcome
• Chapter 11: A Matter of Nourishment
• Chapter 12: An Exceedingly Large Capture
• Chapter 13: An Animal from the Worst of My Nightmares
• Chapter 14: A Peculiar Shift
• Chapter 15: An Unavoidable Farewell
• Chapter 16: A Sensible Decision
• Postscript
• A Note from the Translator
• Copyright