Summer of The Dancing Bear

by Bianca Lakoseljac

Roza cut in, drowning Grandma’s words: “All day I spent! Brewing Turkish coffee! Dishing out my apple cake to neighbours! Come over, I said to them. The old gypsy’s coming. Telling fortunes.”

  “We’ll talk tomorrow, Roza dear,” Grandma said.

  “This can’t wait! It’s that old gypsy of yours. Where is she? I come to talk to her.”

  Kata jumped out of bed and squeezed in next to Grandma.

  “The women came,” Roza said. “The gypsy looked at their palms. Told miracles. Miracles! But when I put my hand out? Nothing.” Roza stood with her palms upturned, staring into one and then the other. “Hardship, she said. Prepare for hardship! Then she got up and left. Her great grandson, she said. Leaving. Had to see him off. What about me, I said. I don’t need a fortune-teller for that. I live hardship! Lived it all my life. After my poor mama died …”

  “Calm down, Roza dear. What gypsy are you talking about?”

  “She’s a sorceress, I tell you! For all I know, she could’ve put a curse on me! Goya. Her name’s Goya. I saw her here at your house. Not long ago. So I’m here to ask her to take the curse off me. She said I had a good heart! What good is a heart with a curse on it?”

  “Goya’s long gone, Roza dear,” Grandma said, firmly. “Get hold of yourself.”

  “She put a curse on me, I tell you! The moment she walked out, I knew. I dropped my buklija, my old clay jug. My dear father, God bless his soul, used it to invite my wedding guests. Filled it with best slivovica, all decorated with rosemary sprigs, every person in the village drank from it – and they all came to my wedding. How could they not? My buklija was as good as they came. And now it’s broken! Then I looked for my ducats! Three of them! Belonged to my dear mother. My dowry to my Alex! How many brides have three ducats to bring to their husbands? Ha? They’re nowhere. Nowhere! Those thieving gypsies. Stole my ducats! Put a curse on me …”

  “Stop it, Roza. Now!” She took Roza’s extended hands with upturned palms and placed them at Roza’s side.

  Kata was stunned. Grandma never used this tone of voice with a neighbour – only with Mother and that very seldom.

  “Think, now, Roza. Where did you put your ducats? Hide them somewhere? Before the gypsy came? Retrace your steps.”

  Roza’s eyes opened wide. Her lower lip dropped, leaving her mouth agape. She slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand and gasped. “Oh, my dear Lord!” She ran off.

  “She just remembered where she hid them,” Grandma said with a sigh. “Goya doesn’t put curses. She’s a healer, the true Chovihani. My pen, my sister in spirit. We’ve both had a tough life. Lost our husbands, our protection. But we’re surviving, each in our own way.” She stopped suddenly as if only now remembering Roza was no longer there. Then she shook her head a few times, closed the door and returned to bedside. She inhaled deeply, settled her face back into the same reverent pose, and continued praying.

  Kata was almost asleep when Grandma climbed into bed and said: “Goya went to say good-bye to her great grandson, going to be a university student in Madrid. Only 16. Skipped two grades. Tall and handsome like an angel. She’s so proud.”

  Kata’s body tensed. With effort, she dismissed the sudden notion. But it crept back, invading the hidden crevices of her thoughts, until her mind burned with anxiety, like the red-hot iron tongs that hissed when dunked in sugar tea. She sat up in bed. Goya’s great grandson is … Lorca?

  “Most gypsies don’t like sending their children to school,” Grandma said, as she struggled out of the high bed. “But in Goya’s family, education counts.”

  At the armoire, she climbed unsteadily onto a chair and brought down the basket piled high with bunches of herbs. She reached in and pulled out a package wrapped in white paper, tied with a thin purple ribbon.

  Grandma held out the package. “Here, this was left for you. I almost forgot.”

  Kata looked at the package, her thoughts still trying to solve the identity of Goya’s great grandson.

  She pulled on the longer end of the purple ribbon, silky and wiggly as if it had a life of its own. Then she slowly unwrapped the white covering to reveal a powdery pink, semi-transparent, scented, paper. She rubbed the wrapping with her fingertip and the object felt smooth, like a perfectly polished surface. Carefully removing the pink paper, she stared at … a puzzled face with flushed cheeks, dark bushy hair, and bewildered eyes. She almost didn’t recognize the disarrayed reflection of her own face in the mirror.

  “Goya said to give it to Kata,” said Grandma, sounding far away.

  Gingerly, the way one handles precious objects, Kata lifted the gift by the string: a cookie-heart necklace – with the largest pink heart made of the hardened dough that she’d ever seen and a round mirror imbedded in its centre. White tulips and purple violets and green leaves of icing encircled the mirror. She stared, puzzled by the mysterious gift yet bedazzled by its size and colours as it swivelled on the satin cord.

  “Are you sure this is for me, Bako?”

  “Goya was very clear.”

  “But why? Why would Goya …”

  “It’s not from Goya, dear. She was just a messenger. She said you’d know who the giver was.” Grandma looked surprised. “Don’t you?”

  ****

  Kata sat up in bed and listened to her grandma’s even breathing. Stealthily, she tiptoed to the window, and opened it. Ever so carefully, she perched on the wide wooden ledge. All was calm: the soft moonlight and the long shadows stretching across the courtyard. The invisible crickets chirped on and on. Here, enfolded in the safety of the night, she could relive the last two days, sort out the events.

  Far away, a gentle melody floated on the tepid night air:

  my dress in rags

  jewels of stardust

  my home gypsy carts

  i sing and dance

  for copper coins

  and i sell cookie hearts

  A violin wove its haunting tune and the refrain resumed in a quicker tempo.

  i’m a poor gypsy girl, just a poor gypsy girl

  with no ducats of gold

  but my heart and my soul, soar with a swallow

  it can’t be bought or sold

  Sleep? Where reality ceases to exist and only the floating lightness of being wafts effortlessly from one castle in the sky to the next? Not for Kata. Not on this night.

  Chapter VIII

  The Holy Water

  All around, the reverent eyes of the saints looked down from the large icons looming on the walls. Kata dipped a silver spoon into the bowl of holy water and brought it to her lips. The liquid was cool and soothing. She lifted the dish and began drinking, swallowing large gulps.

  First, you cross your heart, kiss the cross, and clear your thoughts. Then you can sip a teaspoon of the holy water. Otherwise, it’s blasphemy, dear. Grandma’s voice was reproachful in her head.

  The next moment, Kata was standing in a puddle of holy water, watching the bowl as it rolled across the boards. It took awhile for reality to sink in.

  She crawled under the table and sat between the wooden lion claws. She squinted and made the tiny cutout leaves and miniscule flowers dance in the white embroidery of the tablecloth above her.

  Water … Holy water … Where can I find a bowl of holy water?

  The answer came to her. She ran to the well, drew a pail of water, and filled the bowl. In the guestroom, she retrieved a paper pouch of incense, the tiny copper burner and a box of matches from the armoire. She lit the incense and the intoxicating smoky fragrance filled the air. Slowly and reverently, she crossed her heart and kissed the wooden cross lying on the table. She recited words she had heard the priest chant – “bless this house” – and dunked the bough of dried basil into the bowl of water. Next she lightly sprinkled the walls and the furniture, just like the priest. Then she set the bowl on the table.

  Head hung low, she walked out into the courtyard, feeling odd. Everything about her seemed changed, somehow foreign and distant. The linden leav
es fluttered gently, secretly waving to her. The grass, covered in morning dew, shimmered like a wobbly mirror that didn’t quite reflect her face. But could that large, glittering surface see her? The swallows, wings swishing in perfect semi-circles, called out, spreading news. And the sunflower, looking at the ground from its twisted stalk, snuck a sideways peek at her. Did everything know what she’d done?

  If this morning had begun strangely, it was only a prelude to a series of events so bizarre it would be forever the day every resident in Ratari would remember.

  It was the third day after the dancing bear, the day the two-year-old girl disappeared. The whole village embarked on a frantic search. All eyes turned to the gypsies. The stories that had been told and retold over the years became infused with new life as if now somehow they’d all been proven true.

  The police searched the gypsy camp several times. The villagers, led by Papa Novak, searched the wells and the pig barns and the haystacks, and the wheat fields flattened by that day’s storm, and the green cornfields, and the farm woodlots. All in vain.

  Day in and day out, gloom clung to Kata like the smoke of the burning incense that had been sticking to her lungs, blocking out the air, since the morning she had committed blasphemy of the worst kind. She existed in a state of hollowness. Until now, Grandma had been able to ward off bad omens. But on that day, sprinkling holy water and chanting prayers was futile. The holy water was not holy. And it was all Kata’s fault.

  In the days that followed, dissent grew among the villagers. Some were so certain that the gypsies had stolen the toddler they no longer questioned if, but only how and why. They asked the police to search the gypsy quarter in Obrenovac as well as the shacks clustered along the main road to Belgrade. Some were certain the toddler was being smuggled to a distant hideaway, and may have already been crippled. Others thought that the investigation was too narrowly focused on the gypsies and that other possibilities were being overlooked.

  Angela, the toddler’s mother, searched incessantly. She could be seen day and night, wandering the fields and yards. Villagers simply allowed her to roam through their homes to appease her torment. She appeared to have stopped sleeping or eating. Within a few days, her clothes turned ragged, her eyes sunk deep in her skull, dark hair in tangles around her face and shoulders. She walked aimlessly, calling out “my baby … my baby …” One whole side of her skirt was torn off. Caked blood from an unattended dog bite streaked down her leg.

  She was seen searching the rose bushes at the edge of the forest where gypsies had been picking rosehips for making jam. Thorns scratched her face and bare arms and legs, as if someone had scribbled all over her. She continued walking barefoot through farmers’ fields, blouse unbuttoned, chest exposed, mud encrusted on her tattered clothes, calling her child.

  Chapter IX

  The Lullaby

  “Sunday,” Kata whispered as she pulled down on the rope that lowered the tin pail into the well. “A whole week since the bear danced. The priest will make real holy water. The bad omens will vanish. The baby will be found.”

  Over the scraping of wood against metal she heard another sound – a faint sorrowful tune swelling from the pit below, then fading away. Kata reflected on the many fairies and witches and devils and the innumerable mythical dwellers of the well. She rushed her task, the quicker to flee the humming well.

  After filling the pitchers, she poured the remaining water into the barrel that emptied through a contraption of pipes into a pig puddle nearby. She stopped, still holding the pail in the air. The faint lilting melody neared and she heard the words:

  sleep my little baby

  sleep in the night

  sleep in your cradle

  under moonlight

  She listened and searched for the voice.

  and if the moon hides

  beneath its lore

  sleep under the stars

  my angel’s soul

  Angela was sitting against the tree trunk by the puddle. She was covered in mud, as if she had rolled with the pigs. The few remaining green branches of the mulberry mingled through the dry tree-carcass above, casting a ragged shadow over the puddle. Kata took a pitcher and cautiously approached the woman. But the voice continued:

  and if the stars hide

  when swallows fly

  chase the swallows

  into the sky

  “Would you like some water?” Kata asked timidly. She lifted the pitcher toward Angela’s lips: “Here, just a sip. It’ll make you feel better. It’s a terribly hot day.”

  But Angela just chanted:

  chase the swallows

  my angel’s soul

  sleep in the stardust

  of gypsy lore

  Carefully, Kata tilted the pitcher until the water was touching the woman’s lips. That’s good, she’s drinking, she thought, but the woman’s voice never faltered.

  Kata saw the water trickling down the woman’s unbuttoned blouse, carving rivulets in the mud smeared across her breasts. Angela continued singing … and humming … arms crossed over her lower belly, gently rocking.

  ****

  That afternoon, Kata vomited all she had taken in. She stayed awake that night, staring at the white ceiling, or chipping the plaster off the wall next to the bed. The next day, she continued chipping the plaster off the outside walls, chipping, chipping, chipping, and vomiting every drop of chamomile tea Grandma coaxed her to sip and every bit of chicken soup and every drop of water.

  ****

  “Make sure you pack all your pretty clothes, child,” Grandma said, “and some of your favourite books.” She filled large bags with tomatoes and carrots and bunches of herbs in the spaces between. Papa Novak came to help carry the bags to the bus station.

  “A change will do you good,” Grandma said as they walked along the familiar path through the fields.

  “Three days with no food or drink,” Papa Novak added. “You can’t survive much longer. No nourishment in chipping the plaster.”

  “Look,” Kata shrieked, pointing at a pair of rubber boots with pant legs stuffed in them, lying across the path. The pant legs were connected to a man slumped on the ground, his head and upper body partially concealed by the corn stalks.

  “Dear, Lord. What now?” Grandma groaned and rushed toward the man.

  Papa Novak followed and the two declared in unison: “It’s Ivan.”

  They raised his head and poured water over his face as he grumbled and finally drank from the bottle they brought to his lips.

  “He’ll sleep it off,” Papa Novak said, picking up Ivan’s cane from the path and placing it next to him. “He’ll need this when he wakes up. Slivovica. As always.”

  “Goddam grizzly,” Ivan groaned and rolled over, snoring.

  “As much as we all feel his pain …” Papa Novak said, shaking his head.

  “Fell off a horse, as a young lad, people say,” Grandma added. “But some think different. Got an early start at drinking, picking fights. Once, he was found beaten, almost dead. Rumour had it, to avenge a girl he raped, somebody’s sister, they said.”

  “How do we know what to believe?” Papa Novak raised his arms, exasperated. “That’s a cross no man wants to bear.”

  “You think Angela paid for her father’s sins?”

  “It’s a terrible thought,” Papa Novak said, rubbing his chin. “But he’s always managed to avoid paying for his own. There’s something Machiavellian about the man.”

  They shook their heads, resuming their slow trek to the bus station.

  During the two-hour trip to Aunt Agata’s in Belgrade, Grandma spoke little and Kata slept during much of it. She awoke here and there, her eyes resting on the rushing mosaic of fields and trees and even vineyards, which were rare in her own village. She saw it all from above, floated over it in her cushy plastic chair that reclined back like the dentist’s and allowed for a full view through the large glass window. Each time she fell asleep her dreams blended with reality. One
time it was her cherry tree rumbling along the road to Belgrade with her perched high up in the crown, while Remi purred loudly – until she realized it was the humming of the bus engine. Next it was the smoky voice of Elvis pouring out of the bus radio, rocking and rolling along the bumpy stretch of the road and she woke up fully, wishing Maja were there to hear it. Then it was Chubby Checker singing The Twist and she perked up, wiggling in her seat and humming along.

  She felt that, as soon as she entered this bus-world that rumbled along the paved roads connecting the big cities, everything changed. Things outside of it had nothing to do with her as long as she stayed in this capsule and in her elevated seat. Before long, the bus stopped and everyone got off. She stepped back into the real world and her aunt was kissing her on the cheeks, one, two, three times.

  That evening, Kata announced that the chicken soup tasted yummy, and Grandma was pleased. But she still fussed over her granddaughter and a new network of worry lines had settled on her face.

  “She’s still a child … can’t be left alone … can’t be trusted to just anyone,” Grandma said.

  Then she announced her return home, alone. Kata was to stay a bit longer until, in Grandma’s words, the village calmed down.

  ****

  Although Kata’s health quickly improved, she constantly sought news from the village. Three days and three nights at her aunt’s home was the longest she had ever stayed. She missed her grandmother.

  But soon, because she could talk to the farmers, she began enjoying the daily trips to the market to buy fresh produce. She also looked forward to visiting various exhibits. Her aunt’s friends took turns accompanying her to the Belgrade National Art Gallery, where she happily spent hours memorizing images and their inscriptions. She recited them daily in her thoughts so she could impart her knowledge to Grandma. And she especially enjoyed the evenings at the National Belgrade Theatre. Her aunt, a theatre critic, was always in possession of free tickets and happy to see every play.