Summer of The Dancing Bear

by Bianca Lakoseljac

  Angela took her father under the arm and, with Papa Novak’s help, walked him through the gate. The whole time Ivan waved his cane angrily.

  Roza leaned over and whispered to the neighbour: “Killing a gypsy. The only way, people say, to avenge his daughter, to reclaim her honour. His honour.”

  The musicians changed their tune and quickened the pace as another fiddler joined them. The melody rose as the instruments blended in harmony, weaving a tempestuous tune Kata had not heard before. A young gypsy woman pulled the elastic off her loosely-tied bun and shook long, dark hair that fell to her waist. She flipped the hair away from her face and preened, using her whole body. With a few quick steps, she edged into the circle where the bear had danced, hands raised above her head and fingers snapping. Everyone turned her way. Then she swished her skirt, revealing multicoloured layers along the bottom that resembled a dahlia blossom. A bare-chested gypsy man stepped up, replicating her brisk steps in time with the melody. The woman began to sway her hips and thrust her breasts forward. The tune was hypnotic, and Kata wished it would go on forever. The man followed the woman’s steps, rhythmically, one moment facing her and the next striding to her side, his muscular arms and chest gleaming with sweat. They trailed each other, holding their gaze, as if one dancer’s vision flowed from the other dancer’s eyes.

  Roza stood with her bare feet in dust, hands propped on her hips, eyes focused hard on the dancers. She leaned over to a neighbour. “See him? Eyes like a devil.” She thrust her chin toward the dancers. “Must be careful not to look a gypsy in the eye or you get weak in the knees.”

  Kata stood on tiptoes to see the man’s eyes, but he was turned the other way.

  “See her, the dancer?” the neighbour said to Roza. “A gypsy, yes, but still a woman, can’t resist him.”

  Roza shuddered. “Whooo! Gives me the shivers just to think. They can read your mind. Make you do things you’d never do. You’d rather burn in hell. But you’d do anything … when you’re under their spell.”

  She swayed one shoulder then the other, quickening her pace to follow the dancers’ rhythm. Then she caught herself and stiffened. Crossing her arms tightly across her ample bosom she whispered to the neighbour: “They say, that one, with the devil’s eyes, is the father.”

  “Whose father?” Kata asked.

  “Angela’s baby. Who else?” Roza snapped. “You’re just a girl. Shouldn’t listen to grownup talk.”

  The villagers egged the dancers on, some stamping their feet to the tune, some humming, and some calling out, “Flamenco! Flamenco!” One elderly farmer was shouting “cha cha cha!” while dancing in circles, fingers snapping. With the farmer’s checkered brown shirt hanging loosely over brown pants, Kata thought he resembled the bear more than the dancers. Other farmers were leaning on shovels and rakes, laughing and clapping.

  Kata stared at her neighbours’ faces, all parched from the sun, a jumble of grins with white and yellow teeth and dark gaps, faces she’d always known. Then she glanced at the group of gypsies who weren’t dancing, huddled around a few baskets, each filled with a baby. Their tanned faces were also parched and smiling – the same jumble of grins, the same white and yellow teeth and dark gaps.

  They don’t look scary, the gypsies. I am not afraid of them, of the stories. They look the same as … Roza … or any of the neighbours.

  Through the mingling crowd, she spotted the lone figure of a boy – no, young man. His black, unruly hair cascaded in ringlets to his shoulders, some drooping over his face. He pushed his hair to one side enough to show one eye – the green of oak leaves high up in the tree crowns at Vila’s Circle. The narrow bridge of his nose arched over thinly drawn lips the colour of overripe cherries. A square chin with a deep dimple heightened his angular features.

  “Go and mix a pitcher of cherry juice, Kata,” Grandma’s voice interrupted.

  Kata stared, blankly, as if the voice was coming from far away.

  “Go, go, and hurry up! Bring it out, quickly!”

  Kata ran through the barnyard to the kitchen. She found the pitcher and a bottle of sour cherry syrup. She was glad the water pail was nearly full, saving her the scary task of having to draw water from the well.

  Between each pour of the red drink into glasses, she craned her neck hoping to catch a glimpse of him. But he was nowhere to be seen as the grownups were taller than her and tiptoeing through them only yielded a better view of their necks. She ran back to drop off the pitcher in the kitchen. Taking a shortcut, she jumped over the rocks bordering the fire-pit in the barnyard. The next second she was sprawled on the cracked earth, a sharp pain piercing her shin. The shattered fragments of the pitcher were scattered about, as the last drops of red liquid rolled into wobbly bubbles of ash and dust.

  “Are you hurt, little girl?”

  “Can you stand on your leg?”

  Kata tried to look up, but, blinded by the sun, she could only squint through one eye and then the other. Through the green hue revolving in her vision, she could make out three gypsy women leaning over her. One was brushing the dust off her dress, another picking up the shattered glass around the rocks. A tin flask was pulled out of a large bag, and a ray of sun caught in the metal slashed through the whirlpool in Kata’s vision that was now turning orange. Some liquid was poured over the scrape on Kata’s shin. The smell was unmistakable. It was slivovica, Grandma’s first-aid remedy as well, and it stung.

  “Give me your hand,” a gentle voice beckoned.

  Two large, almond-shaped eyes and a halo of reddish-black hair bent over Kata. She placed her hand into the firm grip and was lifted.

  As the rainbow hue began fading from Kata’s vision, the women walked away, chatting constantly. And then the auburn halo turned around, and smiled.

  “You have a strong hand, little girl. Sign of a strong character. You will have many adventures.”

  The compassionate voice, the drawn-out enunciating of each word, sank deeply into Kata’s mind and engraved itself in her memory.

  The women blended into the crowd. Kata tried to follow them with her eyes, but all she could see were village women handing food items. Roza cradled a loaf of bread wrapped in a dishcloth. Nana Novak held a greasy brown paper bag with what Kata knew had to be a slab of smoked bacon. Miladin’s mother also had a brown paper bag. Suddenly the bottom of the bag gave way, releasing shiny apples, red on one side and green on the other, to a patch of dry grass. The gypsy woman holding a straw basket with a baby’s face bobbing over its side bent down and helped Miladin’s mother pick up the apples.

  Is she the one who lifted me up, Kata wondered? But she wasn’t carrying her baby, then. And her hair was now hanging down, lopsided, over one shoulder. Kata was not sure.

  Another gypsy woman gathered the hem of her flowery skirt to create a makeshift sack and began filling it with apples. And then Miladin’s mother looked about fearfully and walked away, taking a shortcut through the orchard. Kata glimpsed an approaching figure and realized it was Miladin’s father.

  The pain in Kata’s shin had become intense to the point of nausea but all she could think about was whether he had witnessed her fall. Spotting an empty wooden crate nearby, she turned it over and sat, observing the crowd.

  Grandma was in the middle of the gathering, pulling the squawking cockerel out of her wicker basket. She handed it to an elderly gypsy who shoved the bird under her arm to prevent its wings from thrashing. Kata thought her grandma seemed quite transformed, talking exuberantly with the elderly woman, motioning with her hands, without the measured manner that was her habit when speaking to people she did not know. Was this gypsy an old friend? She scanned the group again, hoping to catch sight of him.

  And then she spotted him next to the horse and wagon just outside the barnyard. He was seated on a gigantic upturned copper kettle, so new that the sun on it was blinding.

  The pain in her shin had subsided and she hobbled toward him, eagerly, as if she had seen an old friend. Then she s
topped, feeling as though her body still lunged forward. Unladylike, Grandma’s reproachful voice rang in her head.

  She stood, motionless as an icicle hanging off the eaves trough. Their eyes met. She felt the ice cracking, falling from her limbs, blood rushing back to her face. She moved one stiff leg forward and then the other.

  “Hullo,” she said huskily from a throat suddenly gone dry.

  He remained seated on his throne, head cocked to one side, a wry smile on his face, left eyebrow raised in a questioning gesture.

  She moved a step closer and smiled. “My name is Kata!” she announced, the sound of her own voice now back to normal.

  “Hello Kata,” he replied flatly.

  “What’s your name?”

  “What’s my name?” he repeated. She sensed irritation in his voice.

  “Yes, what’s your name?” she asked again, thinking that if this was Miladin she would not be so polite.

  He paused, looked at her with renewed curiosity, then smirked and shook his head.

  “Just because I’m younger doesn’t mean you should make fun of me,” she said. For a moment, she considered walking away but her feet refused to move.

  “All right.” He rose, lazily, as if ready to walk away himself. Then he paused. He appeared even taller than before.

  “I’m Lorca. Pleased to meet you, Kata.”

  “Wow! I’ve never known anyone by that name!” She extended her hand toward him, but he looked at it without moving. “I’m Kata,” she repeated, still holding out her hand.

  “I know. You told me.”

  She finally dropped her hand. “I just wanted to say ‘hello’.”

  “And you did.”

  “Well, nice meeting you,” she said quickly and hobbled away, feeling she had stretched the conversation as far as it could go.

  She returned to the kitchen hoping to find Miladin, but he wasn’t there. In her mind, she tried to replay the sound of Lorca’s voice. She couldn’t describe it, at least not precisely. First, she thought that it was like touching velvet … soft. But then she realized it was more complicated than that. More like touching corduroy – it had ribs in it. Then it came to her. It was like caressing Remi’s chin and feeling the tiny rows of dried milk under her fingertips. Lorca’s voice was soft, but slightly raspy, with bumps and rough spots. It was scratchy … with an edge she could not describe.

  She picked up a plate of cookies from the table and carried it outside. The crowd seemed to be the same as when she’d left, cheerful and loud. Lorca was seated on his copper throne again. He was holding a thin wooden stick, tracing figures in a patch of dusty clay. Another man sat on the ground a few steps away chewing on a blade of dry grass and twirling a twig in his hand, and yet another was leaning on the cart, one leg crossed over the other, puffing on a cigarette.

  They seemed not to notice as Kata approached.

  “Would you like a cookie?” she asked, looking at Lorca. A smirk of boredom returned to his lips.

  “Oh, it’s you again. Kata, right?” Black eyelashes lifted and the deep green eyes stared … deep into her soul.

  Her heart thumped; and her head spun; the air in her chest became stuck, right in the centre, with nowhere to go. Those spindly legs, and bony knees. Her mother’s voice mocking. And now her bony knees were visibly wobbling. But an even more terrifying notion struck her: He’s a gypsy. He can read my thoughts. Just like gypsies read fortunes. He knows I … Her hands holding the plate felt weak and unsteady. At any moment she could drop the cookies. And, unlike the apples, they could not be picked up.

  “Would you like a cookie?” she said, her voice emerging in a squeak. Unsteadily, she held out the plate.

  “Did you get your parents’ permission to bring them out?” Lorca asked in a serious grownup tone.

  “It’s fine. They’re not home.”

  “So you didn’t ask, then,” he repeated, curtly.

  She glanced at the other two men hoping they’d come to her rescue, but they paid no attention.

  “My grandma doesn’t mind.” Her voice was now almost back to normal.

  “You must ask before giving things away,” he said and resumed scratching figures in the dust.

  Forgetting the pain in her shin, she turned sharply away and walked toward Grandma, who was still talking loudly and gesturing.

  “Pass them around, and don’t forget the kids,” Grandma called out.

  Within seconds, the many hands of the villagers and the gypsies had emptied the plate.

  Kata stared at the empty plate and then sought Lorca’s face through the crowd. Their eyes met. And for the first time she saw him laughing wholeheartedly and shrugging his shoulders as he pointed at the plate. She walked slowly back to the kitchen and placed the dish on the table.

  Outside, the cacophony of voices seemed to be subsiding. A feeling of disappointment overwhelmed her. She felt as if all the great expectations of the morning had been shattered, and only the unfitting fragments, like cookie crumbs on an empty plate, or shards of the broken pitcher around the stones, remained.

  Chapter V

  Foretelling Of The Future Husband

  After the bear-dance letdown, Kata needed the comfort of her treasures. And there they were – Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer among other enticing titles – arranged on her grandma’s dresser. There were more on the night table, and some on the old trunk, and even on top of the armoire – just the way she’d placed them a few weeks back when the school break began. Each time she picked up one of the books she relished the memory of how they’d come to be hers.

  “I’ll be receiving a new order of books and need to make room on the shelves,” the teacher told her. “You’re my helper this summer, so you get first pick.”

  Books were scarce and expensive, and borrowing from a library was a treat, Kata knew. But owning a book was the greatest privilege of all.

  “Are you sure, Miss Pavlova?”

  “I’d be pleased to know they’re well used. So you may select from that pile, any books you wish.”

  Any books you wish, any books you wish, resonated in Kata’s head as she moved books from the enticing piles she inwardly labelled as the must-have pile to the maybe pile to the don’t want to leave behind pile, and then changed her mind and began all over again.

  “Have you made your choice, Kata?”

  “Yes, Miss,” Kata answered and crossed her fingers, secretly, to prevent bad omens for telling a lie. She knew she wanted them all. For the first time ever, she felt as if she were one of the hens in the barnyard greedily fighting over corn kernels. She wanted to grab all the books and scurry home with them, where she could read and reread them as many times as she wished, press wild violets and lily-of-the-valley between pages as bookmarks, peek at certain passages or pictures on a whim, even at night, by the window in the moonlight, undisturbed by the outside world.

  The teacher flashed a coy smile: “You want all of them, don’t you?”

  They placed the books in a cardboard box and, with pieces of jute, tied it to the basket over the back wheel of a bicycle. The rest were stuffed in two cloth bags. The teacher pushed the loaded bike and Kata walked next to her, insistent on carrying a bulging bag in each hand. As the handles began cutting into her palms and her fingers tingled, she felt more and more exhilarated, with each step grasping the heft and the wealth of books that she now owned.

  This new sense of ownership stunned her. Only that morning, she’d never expected to have this many books, not just now but ever in her life. Her surroundings appeared oddly foreign to her, as if she were seeing the wheat and the clover fields for the first time, as if she were walking on the wind swirling the dust around her, rather than the bumpy road she’d always known.

  Miss Pavlova pointed to a clump of wild chamomile flowers and said, in her high-pitched musical tone: “Matricaria chamomilla. That’s Latin for chamomile. Are you interested in botanical names, Kata?”

  “Oh, yes! That sounds like singing.
”

  “They’re easy to remember. ‘Matricaria chamomilla.’ Now you try it.”

  Kata repeated the words. And suddenly, she heard the music in her own voice. The same music Papa Novak heard? The words simply turned into a melody.

  She tried to remember similar mysterious names, but managed only a few. Achillea millefolium, the milfoil flower, she repeated over and over again, planning to impart her new-found knowledge to her grandma, who used chamomile and milfoil in making tea for Kata’s tummy aches and winter coughs. Knowing that lavender was one of her grandma’s favourite plants, she made sure she could recite Lavandula vera as easily as her own name.

  “See that brownish bird with a white stripe under its neck? Under that clump of clover?” the teacher asked.

  “Wow! It has another white stripe that looks like a hair band.”

  “That’s a quail. See how she blends into her surroundings? To keep safe from predators.”

  Predator, that’s the word, Kata thought. She stopped and stared at her teacher. A blue bruise, all puffy and swollen. Predator. That’s what he is. Miladin’s father.

  “What is it Kata? You look flustered.”

  That teacher of yours should marry, Nana Novak’s voice echoed in Kata’s mind. She shook her head and dispelled the voices, the images.

  “I hope you don’t get married. Ever, Miss,” she blurted out.

  The teacher laughed: “What is this about?”

  “Nothing. I wonder why people have to marry.”

  “Hmmm … So they can have children, is one reason.”

  “Angela has a baby and she’s not married.”

  “Well, yes …”

  “Is that why people say bad things about her?” Kata said.

  “Well, they shouldn’t,” said the teacher. Her voice rose, and the last word cracked like a dry branch underfoot, “chu-dnt.” Her brown eyes darkened and her thin nose aimed higher than usual while her face stiffened – like a quail watchful for predators.