Eventually, a sense of monotony set in. Nothing really mattered. Even acting in school plays, which next to reading and daydreaming used to be her favourite pastime, lost its meaning, for Grandma wasn’t there to watch her perform.
Now, the return of the gypsies breathed new life into Kata. She became exhilarated by the prospect of seeing them again – as if they would somehow reunite her with her grandmother. As hard as she tried to dismiss this notion she understood to be absurd, her feverish enthusiasm refused to give way to reason.
****
“Can’t go with you, tonight,” Miladin announced in a slurring voice, his words barely understandable. “Off to the market with dad. Sleepin’ in the cart.”
“You’ve got to,” Kata pleaded. “You promised! I want to see them at night, when they play music and dance around the fire.”
“Do your own spying,” he said, head cocked to one side, one corner of his mouth drooping, his chin hair twitching in a nasty grimace.
“You’ve been at it again, haven’t you?” Kata said, leaning in to smell his breath. “Drinking. Like your father.”
“So why d’you wanna go?” he said, ignoring her comment. “Don’ you remember Angela’s baby?” He stumbled and burped before regaining his balance. “You think you’re gonna see your gypsy boy, don’ you?” he stammered, glaring at her with his puffy, blood-shot eyes. “Lorca? Univerees … ity big shot? You think? A gypsy at a unive … re … esity, when pigs fly! Is what I say.”
He turned and staggered off toward the gate, his shoulders waggling like his head.
A feeling of sadness and loss engulfed her. Usually she would have argued, insisting that he truly understand her point of view. But that was when his opinion had mattered. Miladin had changed to the point of no return. He was about to become the person he would have resented only a short while ago.
She considered calling on Maja, but quickly dismissed that thought. Her friend could be fully trusted with everything but this. She was a smart girl but cautious.
Kata stepped closer to the black-and-white portrait of her grandma and pressed her palm on the glass. She remembered many nights waking up and placing her palm on this cheek – in the darkness, the softness and warmth dissipating her fear. She recalled Grandma’s words: When people die, their spirit remains with their loved ones. It takes on the role of a guardian angel. As we pray to the saints, we can also pray to the spirits of our loved ones and seek guidance.
Kata knelt on the pine floor where Grandma used to pray and settled her face into a reverent pose.
Dear God, she began, I know I am not as good as I should be, but please don’t blame Grandma for it. Please let her live in heaven for she is the kindest person in the world. And please let her find her Mihailo. And please, please allow Grandma to be my guardian angel.
And then, a very strange thing happened. In the corner of her vision, she thought she saw her grandma’s portrait smiling. A sense of comfort enveloped her, as it used to when Grandma sang lullabies or whispered prayers. She had feared that she had lost this feeling, forever. She closed her eyes tightly until darkness gave way to circles of glorious light, and began to pray. Grandma was smiling and God was listening, she was sure.
She wasn’t sure, however, how long she remained in that posture. The prayers had turned into tears, and she thought that she must have dozed off right there on her knees. When she stood and looked around, the last rays of sun streamed through the cherry tree branches and into the room. This night was a risk she’d never thought she’d dare, much less on her own. Kata felt a strange effervescent energy and no longer wondered if, but rather how she should do what absolutely must be done.
****
The yellow moon cast long silhouettes. Her gaunt shadow seemed to stalk her down the narrow path through the cornfield, breaking and bending only to grab onto her stealthy form. Every few moments, Kata looked back … sensing another pair of feet behind … another shadow. She was approaching the corner of the woodlot where a soldier had been killed during the Second World War. A young man, 19, pursued by Nazis, as he fled toward his parents’ home a mere kilometre away.
A faint memory arose, something she’d overheard a villager say, long ago: He ran through the cornfield, bent forward so they wouldn’t see him … and just at the corner of the woodlot where the path curves, they fired so many bullets, his blood leaked like water through a sieve.
Bathed in moonlight, Kata stood at this corner squinting through the scraggly tree shadows that swayed over the tall grass. It was midnight. She thought Miladin might show up, after all. He may have been testing her.
Then she spotted the cross. It was leaning to one side, almost hidden in the grass. A dry wreath she knew had to be Ivanjsko cvece hung on it. Kneeling, she tried to straighten the cross, and it shifted, just a little. But the lantern where she had seen candles burning was nowhere. Patting the grass, her fingers touched metal – scraps of the rusty lantern next to the cross.
Who was this solder running to his parents’ house? And who was his mother lighting candles? No one ever mentioned her name. And why have I always thought of this soldier as some stranger? Someone I had been afraid of. Afraid of what? His departed soul?
A scene rose up, a fragment of a distant memory. It was the autumn after Angela’s drowning. She and Maja had been walking home from school, passing the corner. A small candle had been burning in the lantern – with no one nearby. Then, at the far end of the long woodlot, Kata had glimpsed the slumped figure of an old woman. Now, she recalled something familiar she had not heeded at the time. The back of the woman’s head looked as if a grey scraggly bird were perched on it – just like Nana Novak’s hair bun.
Another memory fused to that one. She recalled visiting her grandma’s grave shortly after the funeral. On her way out, she’d heard hushed voices, low sobs. She had turned back and walked among the tombstones, searching for the muffled sounds of mourning, wanting to help without knowing how. Two ancient-looking figures in dark formal clothing had risen from behind one of the tombstones, the man supporting the woman by the arm – Papa and Nana Novak.
“Help her on the other side, take her arm,” Papa Novak had said to Kata. “She hasn’t been well … all these years ever since our dear … son. She sits at that corner … lights candles … frightens the children.” Kata had not made the connection at that time. She’d heard the words. But she had been missing her grandma so much that the words somehow slid by her, dissolved in the beat of rain on her plastic raincoat. But now, everything made sense.
Still on her knees, she passed her hands along the ground, flattening the grass, feeling the earth. His soul departed here … blood drained here … his blood … Kata now recalled odd fragments from Nana Novak’s mumbling and grumbling. She’d heard it many times, but never paid attention to the meaning. Their son. The soldier was Papa and Nana Novak’s son.
Fever flooded her body, a bubble of heat searing her chest. She could not inhale and, searching for breath, gasping for air, she ran in a frenzy. She fled through the woodlot, dodging tree trunks, feet catching the rustling leaves under the tree-shadows. Her head pounded as if some unknown instrument were strumming against every nerve, against every inflamed image, against the words ballooning in her thoughts …
In the rustling of the young leaves
in the growing grass
in the crowns of the slender white ashes
broad black locusts
grasping the sky …
In the crackling of the slender dry branches
from last winter’s storm
in the fluttering of the invisible heartbeats
concealed in the black earth
and in the violet sky …
In the trumpeting of the armies
of the armies
in their razor-edged sickles
reaping the young hearts
crickets chirping hymns
chanting in the sky …
In the groaning of the bl
ood-soaked earth
and in the empty graves
in the rustling of the young leaves
in the growing grass
in the crowns of the slender white ashes
broad black locusts
grasping the blood-soaked sky …
She ran faster, tears blurring the moonlit shapes flashing by, the same words, same tune, visions, rushing through her head.
Chapter XIV
The Gypsy Camp
When Kata stopped running, she found herself at the other end of the woodlot. The strumming in her head and the chanting had stopped. She inhaled deeply, feeling light as if reborn with a sense of understanding, knowing. She now knew who the soldier was, knew why no one lit candles any longer. Nana Novak had passed away shortly after Grandma. Kata made a promise: she would bring a new lantern and continue to light candles under the cross.
All about her was calm, just the faint rustle of the leaves and the endless chirping of the crickets. Suddenly, in a shadow among a clump of trees, a stump seemed to move. It grew, stretched and shifted again. Miladin! Kata thought. He’s come after all.
“Kata? Is that you?” But no, not Miladin. The tree stump spoke with Maja’s timid voice. It waved its arms and teetered out of the dark – a gentle face bathed in moonlight, holding back tears while attempting to smile – like a child refusing to cry after falling off a bike.
The two gangly shadows bent and broke through the silhouetted tree trunks and into an embrace.
“What are you doing here?” Kata said, confused and relieved at the same time.
The story came tumbling out. Maja had seen Miladin earlier that day. He had revealed his plan not to show up, not to help Kata find her gypsy-boy.
“So you came instead? Aren’t you going to get in trouble?”
“No. Nobody knows.” And then added defiantly: “And I don’t care if they do.”
Hand in hand, they set out along the narrow path weaving through the fields toward Farmer Vila’s land, the place where gypsies camped when they came to the village.
At the edge of Farmer Vila’s land, Maja stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Kata said.
“Roza said they’re evil, the vilas,” Maja whispered. “They kill people, especially children. Sacrifice them on the big stone slab.”
“They didn’t kill Farmer Vila. They helped her, enchanted her.”
Everybody in the village knew the story. A farmer’s wife, gone into the forest to pick mushrooms, had not returned that night. Believing she’d been eaten by wild beasts or sucked into the marsh, her grieving husband had gone into the village pub to drown his sorrows. He drank all night, rapt, he said, under the wicked spell of a gypsy dancer who, he swore, charmed the money out of his pockets – he, a life-long victim of witchcraft. But his wife returned the following day. Her boat had sprung a leak. Unable to patch it before dark, she’d spent the night at Vila’s Circle. But she was now a different person. Her husband claimed she had to be an impostor, no longer the obedient woman he’d known. She took charge of all farm matters with a new, steely determination.
Village talk had it that during the night in the marsh she had been under the vilas’ spell. Soon after, she threw her husband off her father’s farm and hired the local gypsies. Some villagers believed it was gypsy luck that turned the farm into such a profitable enterprise. Others swore they had seen vilas dancing in this woman’s fields after midnight, sowing magic. And one summer, after a hailstorm destroyed most crops in the village while sparing hers, everyone agreed – her farm was enchanted. Fearing her wrath, the villagers kept their distance and nicknamed her Farmer Vila.
“Her daughters married gypsy men, didn’t they?” Maja said.
Kata nodded: “That’s why people don’t like them.”
“I heard that gypsies can be thrown out of their tribe if they marry a gawdji,” Maja added.
“They married Farmer Vila’s daughters. Grandma said that Lorca’s in line to be the next chief. I’m sure he wouldn’t be allowed to marry outside of …” Her voice trailed off.
“You still think of Lorca, don’t you? You still think the cookie-heart was from him?”
“It was so long ago when I met him. He’s at a university, far away in Spain. My God, what chance do I have?”
Maja took both of Kata’s hands in her own. Her normally calm demeanour was overtaken by a sense of restless excitement Kata found a little alarming. While she had always hoped her friend would become more adventurous, now that it was happening she felt uneasy. At this moment, she would have preferred her usual guarded, astute Maja.
“And what if he was here? What if you saw him, tonight? And what if, just if, he asked you to marry him? Tonight. To run away with him. What would you do?” Maja’s burning eyes pierced the bubble guarding Kata’s hidden thoughts.
Her usual symptoms came on – stomach churning, head spinning. She thought that, if she had an anxiety attack and began gasping for air, Maja would know the reason, for sure. So she pulled her hands free and quickened her pace.
“Let’s just get there. And can we not talk?”
Despite attempts to stay calm, she couldn’t help envisioning herself in Grandma’s silk dress the colour of ripe wheat. How it tickled her bare ankles and slid over her skin when she had tried it on, before Grandma’s death. A wreath of freshly-picked daisies would support a long bridal veil.
Before long, they were standing on a hill from which they could see the main road that bisected the fields and continued over the bridge. On each side, a row of willows, lined up like the ghosts of ancient soldiers, guarded the bridge’s crumbling pillars.
****
The two girls huddled on the dewy grass at the top of the embankment, their backs against a broad willow trunk. In the valley, encircled by gypsies’ tents and wagons, the last embers glowed in the campfire. Several horses, tied to the wagons, tugged at loose bales of hay. The incongruous collection of breeds, evident even in the moonlight, caught Kata’s attention. She observed a few scruffy-looking horses and a couple of mangy donkeys. With its powerful build a bulky Belgian stood out. Its creamy mane and forelock gleamed against the dark chestnut coat, reminding Kata of the way Roza used to be – hard-working, ploughing through her day one chore to the next, propelling her upper body ahead of her wherever she went. Next to the Belgian was a shaggy Shetland pony. Kata recalled the many rides on the backs of these gentle ponies, when she was little and Grandma took her to the town fairs. Another form outlined against the night sky had to be a thoroughbred – with a graceful, muscled body and elegantly arched neck, a youthful version of the two racehorses Papa Novak tended in his stable. Its black coat and a flowing mane and tail gleamed with a purplish hue under the moon’s soft glow. Could it be the famed Darley Arabian, the one Papa Novak talked about, had been reborn in this stunning creature?
One of the horses let out a prolonged, contented neigh. A shadowy figure crouched behind the wagons. Kata focused her gaze. Stories about gypsies stealing horses flashed through her mind. Darley Arabian, stolen? The man stood up and rubbed the coat of the black stallion in a circular motion, most likely with a currycomb or a coarse rag to remove the day’s dirt and loose hair. Then he began grooming the stallion with downward strokes, from its neck toward its hindquarters, the way I brush my father’s horse, Kidran, she recalled, feeling remorseful for her suspicious thoughts. Two male figures and one female stepped out of a tent and sat on the logs by the fire. Another man approached. He was tall, yet gnarled as a tree-root. He reminded her of stage props crudely imitating the human form. He poked the dying embers with a long, crooked stick.
****
A gust of wind high up in the willow crowns, a rustle in the cornfields below … Kata squinted through half-closed eyes. A firefly flashed its lantern through the jagged overhang of the branches. It took a moment for her to remember where she was. The moon had vanished and the night was much darker. Maja slept, her head on Kata’s lap. The firefly flashed again.
Glancing in its direction, she glimpsed a male figure sitting outside the canopy. The firefly flashed once more, and she realized it was in fact a cigarette, no more than the length of a tree shadow away.
She paused, afraid to move. Then Maja lifted her face and gasped.
“Shhh,” Kata whispered. “There’s somebody here, close by.”
Maja slowly looked around. Spotting the figure she gripped her friend’s arm. “What do we do?”
“You can come out now, children,” a voice announced in a slow, mocking tone. “Don’t be afraid! There’s no one here to hurt you. Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Kata wanted to run, but she couldn’t move. That voice. That mocking voice. The voice that reminded her of the contented rumble that always came when she stroked the head of her cat Remi. His voice – soft, yet with bumps and rough spots and now somewhat deeper. The girls tightened their grip on each other and stood up.
“I think it’s him,” Kata said, startled by the resonance of her own whisper.
“You girls might consider coming out,” the man called again. “Don’t be afraid. I just want to make sure you get home safely. I thought you were some village children spying on us.”
Kata squeezed Maja’s hand, petrified, no longer from fear but from an overwhelming sense of anticipation. Oh, my God, what do I do?
Summer of The Dancing Bear Page 12
