The Gypsy

by Stephen Brust

  "Madam Moria?" he ventured.

  She took in a deeper breath, blinked several times. She reached for her black cane, thumped it weakly on the layered rugs. "Where is that tea?" she demanded, but her demanding now seemed more piteous than imperious.

  "I'll check on it," Stepovich told her, and started to stand up, but Ed was pushing the tapestry aside with his back and ushering in a small tray. It was silver, the etched pattern old and lovely under the patina of years. A fat ceramic pot sat on it, and beside it an elegant cup of fluted bone china. None of the items matched, yet they obviously belonged together just as old friends do.

  "Pull up… that table. Any table." She seemed suddenly a very old woman in a way she had not before. Stepovich didn't even smile as Ed carefully poured her tea and offered her the cup. She took it,and though her hand trembled, not a drop escaped as she raised it to her mouth and noisily sucked at it.

  "She tell you anything?" Ed asked in an undertone.

  Stepovich shrugged. "Not really," he answered, and wondered why it felt like a lie.

  Ed went into a heavy crouch beside her chair."How about it. Madam Moria? Can you tell us anything about Cynthia Kacmarcik?"

  "I can tell you she made better tea than this! Who taught you to put water only warm on the leaves?Better the steam stands out a foot above the kettle before you pour it! Tea like this, Cynthia would pour on the floor!"

  "But can you tell us…"

  "Young man, I am tired. You think an old womanlike me, she can stay up all night and talk and not be tired? Stupid. You want to know more, you come back another time."

  "Maybe you could just-" Ed began, but Stepovich shook his head at him silently. Ed got the message and rose.

  As they turned to the door. Madam Moria thumped a cane on the floor. "Fifty dollars!" she said, when Stepovich turned back. "You think I do a seeing for free? No! Fifty dollars. Wolf."

  Ignoring Ed's incredulous look, Stepovich gave her the twenty-three he had in his wallet. She took it disdainfully. "Next time you come, you bring the rest.Or I will tell you nothing at all. Nothing at all."

  They were in the Cadillac and headed back to Stepovich's before Ed spoke, "Not healthy," he observed, shaking his head.

  "Well, she's pretty old," he conceded.

  "Not her." Ed snorted in disgust. "She's a healthy as a horse, behind the phony wheeze of hers. Hell, that cast-iron teakettle of hers must weigh twenty pounds. If she's hefting that every day, it's probably as good as a Jane Fonda workout. Her hair hasn't even gone grey.No, I wasn't talking about her. I mean you."

  "Me? I'm not sick. A little indigestion now and then, but you show me a cop who doesn't get an acid stomach, and I'll show you a cop who's too dumb to be scared."

  "Naw, Mike." Ed gave a sigh. "It's the way you're living. It's starting to bug the shit out of me. At first,I thought, well, it's just going to take him a while to get used to things. But it's been more than a while,and you just aren't adapting."

  "What the hell do you mean?" The sudden anger he felt was unreasonable in its intensity.

  "I mean like that kitchen of yours. It doesn't look like you live there. I mean, it's more like you're camping out for the weekend, and expect to go back to Jennie and the kids next Tuesday or something."

  "I don't like clutter."

  "The hell you say. I'm not talking about clutter.I'm talking about having something besides ketchup in the cupboard, or more than three forks in the drawer. When's the last time you bought a carton of ice cream, or ate some meat that didn't come out of a can? You don't even have a real salt shaker, only those cardboard things from the store. And I'm talking about having books. You used to read all the time,in the break room. And I'm talking about the way you fall asleep on the couch most nights rather than go to bed and admit you're sleeping alone. And why you're sleeping alone, I don't know. And-"

  "Ed. Give it a rest, okay?"

  "I've given it a rest too damn long. You can't just put your life on hold. You got to-"

  "Look." Stepovich was having trouble keeping his voice level. "You've made your point. Let it go. I know you're my partner, and-"

  "No, Mike. I'm not your partner. And that's another thing. Who's your partner is that big green kid who isn't learning a damn thing because you aren't bothering to teach him. 'Cause you think maybe he isn't permanent. Well, you ignore him long enough,he damn sure won't be permanent, because he'll be dead."

  "Let me off here," Stepovich's words were cold and hard.

  "Oh, fuck you," Ed replied unhappily, and drove the rest of the way to his apartment in silence.

  NINE

  The Old Woman and the Devil

  AUTUMN, LATE MORNING

  It seems like I been on this road

  Ever since I was a kid;

  I could tell if I was sorry

  If I remembered what I did.

  "RED LIGHTS AND NEON"

  The Gypsy spent the night below the freeway bridge,waking up to morning fog and a promise of more snow. He stared straight up, unmoving, and tested his memory. Yes, he was the Gypsy, a name that would do for now. And, yes, he had sworn, long ago,to bring light to the world below-Her world, if you will, because all worlds that don't have the warmth of the sun, the promise of the moon, or the beauty of the stars are Her domain. He had sworn to bring the light to a dark place, in spite of Luci; that much he remembered.

  But what had She done that made the memories come and go? And what had happened so that She was now in his world? Had he ever known? Would it come back, the way his recent past was beginning to?Most of it was there: The capture by the cemetery,the knife, the Wolf Who Waited Before Striking. All that was missing were his brothers.

  He pulled himself up, and breathed city air, faintly cloying with traces of exhaust and humanity. Cars and trucks roared by overhead, and he marveled that man could build bridges that would stand up to such traffic.Harsh fog from the sewers swirled before him. He called to it, "Stay, brother mist. Stay and speak to me. You who travel beneath our feet through the length and breath of the city, you who hear all we say, stay and tell me whereto find the old woman." On a sudden impulse, for no reason he knew, he threw a piece of garlic and the cord from his trousers into the mist, and was not surprised when he failed to hear them strike the ground.

  The warm air swirled before him.

  It was no voice that spoke out of the mists, but the Gypsy heard words saying, "You must do this no more."

  "Do what?"

  "Use the skills of another world in this one. This time, I can protect you, but-"

  "Protect me from what?"

  "Those skills have no place in this world, and your memories of this world have no place in the other. You cannot have both."

  "I think I understand, but-".

  "Do not forget again."

  "But-"

  "And you must neither eat, nor drink, nor must you sleep."

  "Not eat or drink? Not sleep? That is impossible."

  "Not for you."

  "Why?"

  "Fool! Do what I say!"

  "Who are you, and how can I help you?"

  "Who am I? You know who I am, you have asked the Wolf to set me free. And to help me, here, you must make a spinning wheel from the mist, and send it to me. It will keep the fair Lady from tormenting me while I do what I must."

  The Gypsy began to make his hands spin, and soon the mist was spinning with them. As he did so, he said, "Is there anything you can tell me, that will help me drive the Fair Lady back to Her own realm?"

  "You must find the Coachman."

  "But where?"

  "Where? You'll find him driving a coach, fool." The voice was very faint now. "And you must find your brothers. And you can do nothing if the Wolf eats you,and eat you he will unless you place yourself within his jaws. But only at the right time. Too early and he will devour you, too late and he won't protect you."

  "How will I know the right time?" he asked.

  But there was no answer. A soft breeze bl
ew the mist away, and he was staring at a foggy street and the beginnings of the morning traffic.

  SOMETIME

  I don't know why

  You don't cry

  For freedom.

  "IF I HAD THE VOICE"

  The fair Lady puts down Her knitting and frowns. The midwife glances up and says, "What is it, mistress?"

  "I don't know," says the fair Lady. "Something is wrong."

  The midwife, who has also been knitting, sticks her tongue out and wags it around. Perhaps she tastes the thickness of the air, perhaps the flavor of the woodsmoke."Perhaps it is the prisoner, mistress. I will check on her."

  But before she can move, the nora comes scampering into the room on his hands and feet. "Mistress, mistress," he cries.

  "Well, what is it?"

  "The woman has gotten a piece of garlic from somewhere, and she rubs it on her breast so I can't go near her!"

  The Fair Lady smiles and pats the nora's head. "Is that all? Well, that must be what I noticed. Come, I will attend to that nasty young woman."

  But when she gets there. She finds that She cannot enter,for the room in which the prisoner sits has been tied shut with a piece of trouser cord.

  "What do you think you're doing in there?" She cries,but there is no answer. She calls to the midwife, who sings a gentle song to the trouser cord, and at last it unties itself.When the Fair Lady enters the room. Her prisoner is still there, but she is smiling now, and with her hands she works a spinning wheel, and she is spinning, though nothing appears upon the wheel.

  "Now, though I am a prisoner, you can't touch me,"says the old woman.

  The Fair Lady gnashes Her teeth with anger, and stamps Her feet until the nora is afraid She will stomp them right through to Hell, but at last She is calm again. "I know who did this," She says. "And he will pay for it. And though I can't touch you, here you will remain until you fall asleep at your work, and then you will be mine again."And the Fair Lady slams the door.

  After a while, She goes back to her knitting.

  AUTUMN,1989

  The Coachman smiled down at me

  When he saw I was behind him.

  He said, "Your brother Raven lives,

  But I think you'll never find him."

  "RAVEN, OWL, AND I"

  "Is that what I think it is?" said Daniel.The Coachman looked up at the green-clad gypsy,who had just come back from walking around the city,and smiled.

  The brothers looked somewhat alike, the Coachman decided, and some would say he looked similar,although he knew of no gypsy blood in himself. Daniel was thinner and his mustaches longer and his hair shorter, yet they could have been brothers. The Coachman strained his memory to when he had last seen the three brothers together. They had been young, then, but still the one now called Daniel had been thinner, frailer. The youngest brother was as pale as his yellow shirt, and the other brother, who wore red, was the largest. They had all the same pointed chin, though, and the same deep, dark eyes,and brows that met over the nose. The same hooked nose, for that matter, even as young men.

  The Coachman nodded. "It is, indeed. Help yourself. I'm not drinking just at the moment." He passed the brandy over and Daniel took a healthy swallow,grimaced.

  "You didn't pay too much for it, I hope."

  The Coachman shrugged. "Didn't have much to pay. Is that a fiddle case?"

  "Yes."

  "Ah. The same fiddle as when we first met?"

  Daniel nodded. "I've had work done on it. A new bridge, mechanical pegs, and I had a chin rest added. But it was good work. Sandi would have approved."

  "Sandi?"

  "He taught me to play. Back before-" Daniel's voice caught, then he turned away.

  "Play something for me," said the Coachman.

  Daniel hesitated. "The neighbors-"

  "Can go hang." He looked around at the cheap plaster walls, the single, narrow bed, and the plywood chest of drawers. "In a place like this, one doesn't have neighbors."

  Daniel shrugged, took the fiddle from its wooden case and set it to his chin. He drew forth a low, tentative, hollow sound, with just a hint of vibrato, then began one of the simplest dance tunes- The Coachman smiled and wished for a tambourine player. These gypsies, whatever else one thought of them,could play.

  Daniel began another pass through the melody, this time more boldly, with surprising grace notes, and sometimes holding back the melody for a beat longer than expected. The Coachman sat back and nodded,and Daniel played through it once more, this time accenting the high, piercing notes, sometimes nearly leaving the melody behind altogether, in the improvisations of gypsy dance steps, of gypsy life, of travels through lands foreign and mundane, meeting people dangerous and friendly, harmless and cold. The Coachman wasn't aware of when the original melody had been entirely left behind, save for faint hints and echoes of phrasing; by this time he was seeing colors swirl before his eyes: Hard blue in the rumbling low notes, yellows and greens in the slow,mournful passages, vibrant reds and violets in staccato high notes.

  Then it was no longer colors, but scenes and faces he saw: The roads in the Old Country he had traveled a thousand times before he had met the three gypsy boys, the passage from There to Here, the old man in the gutter asking for coins, the walls and ceiling of the hotels he had stayed in, drunk, night after night.

  Then he saw that which he knew had not happened, yet might happen soon, and he sat transfixed,watching it unfold with horror and fascination, until he became aware at last that Daniel had returned,somehow, to the original, simple dance melody; the music trailed off into silence.

  "Did you show me that on purpose?" he asked.

  Daniel seemed startled. "I showed you something?No, I wasn't aware of it. Perhaps it was your-"

  The Coachman stood. "I must go."

  "Huh?"

  "That you have no notion of what you said makes it no less true, my friend. If I don't return-" He shrugged. "Learn to drive a coach."

  Daniel started to speak, but the Coachman was already gone, his feet fairly flying down the stairs. He took the stairs three at a time, then out the door, into the street, and through the early morning mist.

  THURSDAY MORNING

  "… And Owl still watches all around

  And listens more than speaks.

  But he'll never understand

  That it isn't you he seeks."

  "RAVEN, OWL, AND I"

  A lonely, middle-aged salesman had driven Raymond all the way through Ohio, and had left him off in Ashtabula County, just an hour after sunrise, less than fifty miles from his destination. They had gone through twenty-eight small towns along the lake on I-90, and seen three Highway Patrol cars.

  He hadn't expected to get this far this quickly. He set down his pack, and his tambourine wrapped in an old towel, and waited for another ride. After half an hour, sixty-one trucks, and more cars than he felt like counting, a big, new Peterbilt stopped and give him a lift into Lakota.

  He studied the city disinterestedly as the truck driver,an old wiry man with a few strands of grey hair sticking out from beneath his baseball cap, made conversation.

  Raymond rather liked the ships he saw as they passed near the docks. The driver turned south on I-79 toward Youngstown. Raymond was pleased with the number of parks (nine), though he wished there were more trees in them.

  As they passed one, near what the truck driver said was downtown, Raymond noticed a horse-drawn carriage making its way around it. He asked the driver to let him off there, and they exchanged polite goodbyes.

  He walked over to one of the concrete benches and sat. In spite of his first impression, he found he wasn't comfortable in the park. It was exactly two city blocks square, with concrete walks and trees arranged just so, and it seemed as if the soil under the grass was hardly a foot deep, carefully built up for the lawn. He closed his eyes and thought of the mountain above Boulder, hard and rocky, yet thick with pines. He listened to conversations of the few birds (six) that remained this late i
n the season. It was growing cold.He pulled his heavy wool coat of red and black squares closer around him and wondered what to do next.

  16 NOV 07:18

  Mr. DeCruz won't you shake my hand?

  Do I look too much better than what you had planned?

  I been back since late last fall,

  Now who you gonna call?

  "BACK IN TOWN"

  Nothing was going right today. He hadn't been able to fall asleep, and when he finally had, he tossed through fragmented dreams like clips from cheap horror movies. Giant chickens were scratching on his door. There was a dead dove on his coffee table and he was trying to resuscitate it. Cynthia Kacmarcik dropped in for tea, and his kettle wasn't big enough.When he finally sank deeper into a dreamless sleep,he'd overslept and still awakened with a headache worse than a hangover. Traffic had been awful, and he'd gotten to work before he remembered that he'd given Madam Moria all his cash the night before, so he didn't have a dime on him and no time to go to the bank. And now he was hurrying down the hall,trying to catch the last ten minutes of the morning's roll call, when someone behind him called out, "Oh,Step!"

  He turned, feeling at once weary and impatient,Seemed like the whole precinct was calling him Step now. Fuck you very much, Durand. He tried to summon up a smile for the woman pushing a brown envelope into his hands. He couldn't even remember her name. He took the envelope numbly.

  "What's this?"

  "Oh, just that old case file from New Orleans- I promised Durand I'd have it by this morning, and then I missed him, but he said it was really for you anyway, so I guess I caught the right man after all,right?"