“I know Anca needs to get out of her cage,” he’d told Nadyha with his mischievous grin. “And we’d hate for her to get arrested again.”
They all enjoyed their mornings together, but the women had noticed that for the last four days Nadyha hadn’t invited Gage to join them. When she first suggested spending their mornings together in her staterooom, her family and Cara had understood that it was to be an every-morning routine. But Gage, of course, would never presume to go to a lady’s stateroom without being invited, and Nadyha knew that. But since the first day of their trip, Nadyha and Gage had met down in the cargo hold at dawn. Nadyha insisted that she alone take care of Tinar and Saz instead of letting crewmen do it, and Gage had done the same. So every morning before breakfast they mucked out the horses’ stalls and fed and groomed them. Then Nadyha asked Gage to come to her stateroom for breakfast with everyone.
The last four mornings Nadyha had told Niçu to check on the horses when he woke up, and she would go down after breakfast to do the work. Niçu, who was after all a man’s man and not very insightful, hadn’t asked any questions, and had merely told Nadyha that he’d muck out and feed the horses, and Nadyha could groom them anytime. Nadyha hadn’t said anything else, and she had started going down to do the grooming while everyone else was having luncheon. She knew she wouldn’t meet Gage there then.
Cara, Simza, and Mirella were all sitting at the table, tatting lace. Nadyha, Anca, and Boldo were out on the deck. Nadyha stood at the rail, watching the rising sun begin to light up the western shore of the river. As it had been since they had passed Memphis, the land was mostly wide stretches of farm fields with the occasional little river landing for surrounding plantations. Nadyha still loved to watch the scenes as they glided along the great river, even miles of flat farmland. The landscapes were alien to her eyes, and with each moment the quality of light made the river change its persona. Right now, just after dawn, the sun tinted the Big Muddy with gold-tinged rays.
Inside, the three women exchanged meaningful glances at they watched Nadyha standing so still and silent. Baba Simza sighed and shook her head, then continued the conversation. “Cara, you’re going to be the—the—what is it they call it? The bellringer of the ball?”
Cara smiled. “It’s the ‘belle’ of the ball, spelled with an ‘e.’ And I doubt that very seriously. There are so many pretty ladies, so many pretty rich ladies with such fine dresses. And I don’t even have a hoop skirt.” Then, her eyes growing wide, she hastily continued, “Oh, please, please forgive me for complaining! It’s so kind of you, Baba Simza, and you, Mirella, to help me with my dress. I would have thought that you would think I was just a foolish, silly gaji to want to go to a ball. But now I know one thing, I’ll have finer lace than any fashionable woman there.”
The Queen of Bohemia would reach St. Louis this evening, and the boat overnighted there, its last port of call. Tomorrow night was the Captain’s Ball, the grandest entertainment on the Queen’s two-week round-trip journey. Denny had asked Cara if he could escort her, and she had very politely declined, saying that she would rather stay with the Gypsies, who, of course, wouldn’t attend. But Baba Simza had found out that it was because Cara didn’t have a ball dress, and she had taken it upon herself to tell Cara that they would fix her old sky-blue muslin and then proceeded to accept Denny’s invitation on behalf of Cara.
Simza smiled at her. “Why should we think a dance is foolish? We dance much more than gajes do! And I for one will be glad when my ankle is so well, I can dance again!”
Niçu came in, smelling of horses. He sprawled on one of Nadyha’s beds, putting his hands behind his head. “They were making bacon for breakfast down in the Sumava. The smell just about starved me to death. You might know they think about ten o’clock’s the right time to serve breakfast to first-class people, like my hoity-toity sister.”
Nadyha came in to sit cross-legged on the other bed. “You’re complaining about getting first-class breakfast served to you in a first-class stateroom. So who’s hoity-toity? And get your filthy boots off my bed.”
“It’s not your bed, it’s Boldo’s,” Niçu said, but he did angle up his legs to take his boots off without rising. “Hey, Nadyha, Gage asked me about you this morning. He said he hasn’t talked to you in days, he was just wondering if you were ho-kay.”
“I wonder he’s had time to worry about me, with that lubni and her wretched mother and babbling fool of a father hanging all over him all the time,” Nadyha snapped. “What did he say?”
“Huh? I just told you, he said he hasn’t talked to you, he asked if you were ho-kay.”
“What did you say?”
Niçu looked puzzled. “I said you were ho-kay. What was I supposed to say?”
“Nothing,” Nadyha said moodily. “It’s stupid anyway, we did the show last night, I saw him then.”
“Yeah, but he said you didn’t talk to him,” Niçu said uncertainly. “Why didn’t you talk to him?”
“Because I have nothing to say,” she said, flouncing out onto the promenade again.
Thoroughly bewildered now, Niçu asked the women at the table, “What’s going on? What’d I do?”
Mirella said soothingly, “It’s nothing you did, Niçu. How are Tinar and Saz and Cayenne?”
They talked about the horses, the show, the ship, and the people until breakfast arrived. Niçu had exaggerated, they were served breakfast at about eight o’clock every morning. Nadyha came back in and they all settled down at the table and began pulling the silver covers from the platters of bacon, soft-boiled eggs in eggcups, toast, chops, and hashed potatoes. Niçu said a blessing and they began to eat hungrily. Even 8:00 a.m. was late to them.
Nadyha burnt her finger on a piece of bacon, it was so hot. Then she cracked her egg so hard it shattered, bits of shell and runny egg sliding down the sides of the eggcup onto the marble top of the table. Jumping up, muttering darkly to herself, she went into the bathroom and they heard water running. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Nadyha in such a narkri mood for so long,” Niçu complained. “Isn’t anyone going to tell me what’s the matter with her? I am her brother, after all, I want to take care of her.”
Nadyha came back in, holding a steaming-hot rag. Rubbing savagely at the egg-and-shell mess on the table, she said sharply, “There’s nothing wrong with me, I am not in a narkri mood, and I don’t need anyone to take care of me, not even you, Prala.”
“But Phei—” Niçu began but stopped as Simza shook her head at him, a warning. “Sorry, Phei,” he finished lamely.
Nadyha dropped her head and stopped scrubbing. Then she looked up at her brother and said repentantly, “No, I’m sorry, because I am in a narkri mood. I don’t know why. I mean, there’s no reason why. I mean—oh, forget it! I’ll just be better, that’s all.” She whirled and stalked out of the stateroom.
“Don’t try to tell me anything,” Niçu said to the women, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Because now I don’t even think I want to know.”
THEY DIDN’T SEE NADYHA again until they went to the Sumava Mountains Restaurant, and in this, the restaurant for third-class passengers, it was still called dinner when you ate at noon. Denny had tried and tried to get the Gypsies to eat in the Bohemian Restaurant, which was for first- and second-class passengers, but after two dinners they had avoided it assiduously. The women stared at them and made faces at them, and on both nights one couple, the fabulously wealthy and highborn Creoles, the St. Amants of New Orleans, had swept out of the restaurant and gone to complain to Captain Humphries. Captain Humphries had passed on their complaints to Zedekiah Wainwright, who had talked to Denny about it.
“So the women go barefoot,” Denny said carelessly. “That’s one of the things that makes them so exotic, Uncle Zeke. And don’t you dare tell me about their bare arms, when we have the Captain’s Ball I’ll bet you’ll be able to see Mrs. St. Amant’s arms and a lot more besides that, if you know what I mean.” The current fashion for
ladies’ evening dresses was to show lots of bosom.
“But not at dinner,” Uncle Zeke said. “And she’ll be wearing shoes.”
“Then you explain it to Nadyha,” Denny retorted. “I’m sure she’ll be reasonable about it.”
“Er—can’t you talk to her?”
“Oh, no, huh-uh. I’m not the one who doesn’t want them in the Bohemian. Personally, I think most people are so fascinated by them they don’t give a fig if they’re barefoot. In fact, I think we ought to let Anca and Boldo eat in first class, too.”
And so neither Denny nor his uncle said anything to them, but on their own the Gypsies decided that they preferred the Sumava anyway, and Cara agreed with them. People still stared, and they made themselves free to come to their table to talk to them, but in general they were just curious about them, and often asked them for autographs.
However, as Gage had noted, there were three young toughs that came very close to making nuisances of themselves over Nadyha. Now, as they enjoyed a sumptuous meal (on the Queen of Bohemia, even third-class food was always fresh and well-prepared) of tenderloin steak with an assortment of summer vegetables, Frank Yargee, E. B. Aikin, and Leroy Hinkle stopped by their table for a friendly chat. Without an invitation, they drew up three chairs and sat in a semicircle surrounding Nadyha. Frank hitched his chair so close to her that Niçu frowned and said, “Yargee, give my sister some elbow room, she can hardly lift her fork.”
“Aw, she don’t mind, do you, Yer Highness?” Yargee said.
“Actually, I do, Mr. Yargee,” Nadyha said evenly.
He hitched his chair about a half-inch away. “Here you go, wouldn’t want you not to be able to git to your grub.”
Frank Yargee was squarely built, seemingly as wide as he was tall, just like an ox. His head was square too, with long, tangled, greasy brown hair and small, dark eyes and an iron jaw. He dressed in a manner that, even to the Gypsies, was cheap and flashy. He wore a brown felt bowler hat that he never seemed to remove, even in the dining room, sack coats that were usually in garish checks or plaids, and his favorite waistcoat was a bright crimson satin with yellow lapels and big gold buttons. He also had two gold teeth, his two front uppers, and he thought that they were so dashing they made him simply irresistible to ladies.
His two friends, as often happened with loud overbearing bullies, were mousy and timid. Both of them worked at a barrel-making factory, and because they were both heavy drinkers they had become Yargee’s best buddies. E. B. Aikin, whose name was actually Edra Boaz although he never told anyone that, was a short man with long, straight hair that would have been like straw, except that it was such a neutral sandy brown color that it was nondescript. He had rather vacant watery-blue eyes that were usually red-rimmed from drinking. Leroy Hinkle was average-sized, prematurely completely bald on top, but he had let the black fringe that started just above his ears grow down to his shoulders. He, too, wore a dirty bowler hat that he never removed, mimicking his best friend, who he thought was a real tough. Hinkle was a tad smarter than E. B., but his favorite joke in the world was his friend’s name. “He be achin’,” he’d always say, and laugh like a lunatic howling at the moon. He had been laughing at this joke since they had been friends, for twenty years now.
Yargee leered at Nadyha. “Y’know, Nadyha, I’ve seen some dancing girls in my time, but I don’t think I’ve niver seen one that can shake it as good as you did last night. When’s the next show?”
Niçu slammed down his knife and fork and leaned over the table. “Yargee, you’re out of line. Leave my sister alone.”
“Oooh, the little Gypsy knife man’s gittin’ upset, E. B.,” Yargee said. “Why don’t you tell him what my nickname down on the docks is?”
E. B. Aikin smirked. “It’s ‘Scargee.’ Not, Yargee, yer git it? ‘Scargee.’”
Yargee’s thin lips curled as he leaned over toward Niçu. “See, my old dad owns a saloon down in N’awlins, name of Yargee’s Levee Saloon. And I’ve allus kept the peace at Yargee’s Levee Saloon, which ain’t no simple thing with them roustabouts and wharf rats and all that trash. And you know how I done it, ever since I were fourteen year old? I don’t fool around with no fist-fightin’ nor no clubs nor even no guns. I done it with my knife, my real-true Bowie knife I named Belle. And Belle, she’s left some scars on some folks that I done thought got outta line, and I know when folks get outta line, and I’m a-tellin’ you, Gypsy, for all your fine toothpick-juggling, I ain’t outta line with Nadyha.”
Niçu jumped to his feet, his face dark and fierce. “I want you to leave right now, Yargee. And from now on you stay away from my family.”
Yargee hopped up too, knocking his heavy black walnut chair backwards into Leroy Hinkle’s lap. “And what are you gonna do if I don’t, Gypsy?”
Niçu’s black eyes glinted. “You want to settle it with knives? I’ll be happy to oblige, right now.”
Yargee’s lip curled. “Yeah, I bet you would. And I’d cut you up, and then me and my buddies would git kicked off the boat. Oh, no, huh-uh. But you ain’t gonna tell me where I can sit or walk and who I can talk to, little man. So from now on you just better watch yerself.”
He marched out of the dining room, with his two friends trailing him, glancing back at Niçu with expressions of idiot glee. Niçu sat back down and resumed eating.
Baba Simza shook her head and said with a hint of regret, “The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble.” With relish she took a big bite of steak.
Cara glanced around at her in disbelief. The Gypsies all were calmly finishing their dinner. “But aren’t any of you—upset? Niçu, that man is like a brick wall, he’s twice your size! Mirella, aren’t you afraid? And Nadyha, what are you going to do?”
Mirella answered, “No, I’m not at all afraid. It doesn’t matter how big a man is, it’s how smart he is. Niçu’s got more sense—and courage—in his pinky finger than that didlo gaje does. Niçu can take care of himself. And he can take care of us.”
Cara watched Nadyha as she took a sip of coffee. “But Nadyha, what if that man somehow gets you alone? I honestly think he’s dangerous!”
Nadyha shrugged. “You’re never alone, if you’re not in your stateroom. It won’t happen.”
But she was wrong.
MIRELLA, SIMZA, AND CARA usually spent the early afternoons after luncheon sitting on the promenade on the Promenade Deck. It was ten feet wide, with a six-foot overhang for a roof, and so it was shady and cool, with the constant breeze as the Queen of Bohemia steamed along. Nadyha rarely sat with them; most of the time she enjoyed walking Anca or Boldo around. But on this afternoon she sat with them, tatting in her lap un-tatted, as it were, simply watching the shore. She had taken a chair next to Baba Simza. Her grandmother let her sit in silence for awhile, but finally, in Romany, she asked, “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong with you, child?”
Nadyha came out of her dark reverie, looked down, tatted two stitches, then dropped the sewing again to look straight into her grandmother’s wise old eyes. “I can’t. I can’t even think about it, much less talk about it.”
“You do think about it, too much. Maybe you should talk to me, maybe not. But I do know you don’t pray about it, Nadyha,” Simza said gently. “I mean, you don’t pray about him. And I think that’s really what’s wrong with you.”
Nadyha wasn’t at all startled by her grandmother’s shrewdness; Baba Simza knew her as well as any human being can know another. But it irritated her, partly because of her much-hated tangle of emotions for Gage Kennon, and also because deep down she knew she was rebelling against God, and she felt guilty. “Grandmother, please. I am a grown woman, and I can work this out myself. I just need—need—some time.”
“Away from him? Hmph, that’s not going to be so easy,” Simza said dryly. “Oh, maybe today, though. It’s going to storm, so Gage and Niçu won’t have their show this afternoon. So for tonight at least you can run away from him.”
&nbs
p; Nadyha stared out over the railing. All she could see was a bright sunlight happily lighting up miles of cotton fields, and a strip of periwinkle-blue sky.
But as usual, Baba Simza knew. By three o’clock that afternoon, it was as dark as midnight. The black storm clouds were so low they seemed to hover just above the Queen of Bohemia’s smokestacks. The thunder was deafening, and angry bolts of lightning flashed all around them. The warm soupy rain was almost horizontal, and everyone was forced to go inside.
Nadyha retreated to her stateroom, grateful that she didn’t have to do Gage’s show tonight. It never occurred to her to simply refuse; she had said that she would do it, and she was a woman who kept her word. But she felt vast relief, and she was enjoying the storm. To her it was a kind of dancing-close-to-danger that she loved. She wasn’t at all afraid. Throwing open the French doors, she stood on the threshold, getting soaked but reveling in the spectacular storm. It made her forget about Gage Kennon.
After some time she realized that the carpet of her stateroom all around the doors was getting soaked, and with regret she closed them. Anca was in the far corner of the room, watching Nadyha with disdain, while Boldo was crouching down behind the bed, anxiously sucking his paws. “Oh, poor Boldo bear,” she said, patting him on the head. “Don’t be scared, it’s just a silly old thunderstorm. Here, you sit up here on your bed and I’ll get you some grapes.” She went to the sideboard and unlocked the cabinet below; if she didn’t keep it locked, Boldo got into it and ate all of the fruit, bread, and cheese that the Queen stocked for all of the first-class passengers.
After Nadyha set a bowl of big purple grapes on the bed, he lumbered up there and started eating, all fears forgotten. Quickly Nadyha changed into dry clothes, one of her old shapeless blouses and a gray skirt with the ragged hem. Taking off her diklo, she wrung it out—it was dripping wet—and then hurriedly toweled her hair.
The River Palace: A Water Wheel Novel #3 Page 25
