I have corresponded back to a Madam Zsófia Sala, at Frumoasa Han in Bistrita, Romania, who it was that sent me these sheets, at great effort and expense. She is the self-same woman mentioned in the article, and was very fond of my father during their brief acquaintance. She has agreed to seek rumours or answer to his whereabouts, and to send any personal goods or effects, should they be located.
She seems an honest and simple woman, though she claims this article was delivered to her in the middle of the night, by a great black bird.
My humble appreciations,
Olivia Fogg Cruthers
Manchester
December 1899
II.
Letters Home: London to Bucharest
23 January
Gulo Mamo,
I really hope Káko Ray came by already to tell you I called and am fine and every mailman in the whole kingdom is striking, It’s something to do with a pay rise, and there are plans to authorise private posts, but not yet. So, this letter may be quite long, writing on it until I can send it.
Anyway, Káko told me you can use the telephone any time you want, even to call me in England, and no charge, no problem. Only it means you and Nena Domino have to be in the same room with no yelling.
Do this for me? For your most vestacha and only chej? Otherwise, you will hear nothing of me until the when and if of this strike ends, or private posts open for business, and even then, who knows how long this will take to reach you? The best and fastest mail to București takes a week, even inside Europe.
And yes, Mamo, I know how excited you were to have me stay with family, but amaro vitsi lives in the White City Estates—it is far west London, not near the university. London is so much bigger than we could imagine. I would have to take the train after dark to get to and from. I know that would worry you.
The London Szgany would have moved me right in, if I asked. You are right—familia si familia, no matter what. Blood is blood, even on just meeting. But I am a grown up woman now, whether you like it or not, and I’m going to university in i bari luma, the big world. I am going to only study and practise, practise and study, and I need some space and some privacy, and there’s none of that in a good Rom household, full of bustle and nosing.
(I am sworn, though, to never miss a single Sunday lunch there. On my honour, as a Szgany.)
Instead, I found a room in Hoxton with three other university students. The flat is very close to school, and I have my very own room with a door that closes and shuts out and in my music.
Mamo, I love this little flat. The windows face east, and there are two water closets (yes! two!). We share a television and a telephone, in the flat, not the building. Know that my flatmates might answer when you do call, so be friendly, Mamo! They are nice, and they are close to their families, too. I think you would like them when you meet.
Emily is also studying music—she is studying operatic voice. We have a lot of classes together, even though I am officially now studying “Composing and Composition.” She’s a fan of Gypsy jazz, especially Django Reinhardt (you remember, that Belgian Manouche famous for guitar).
Nance and Sookie are my other two flatmates. They are studying at the art college, and have been friends since they were in nappies, as they say. They dress in so many colours, I would think them Gypsy, except that they wear trousers, instead of ankle-length tsóxa like good romni.
Sookie’s family hired me part-time, too, to help sell flowers and jam at their arcade stall in Covent Garden. Their people have held the same stall for 75 years! It’s just a little money, and it won’t interfere with my schoolwork or Kurko lunch at the Estate. I will only work on Friday and Saturday, and my classes are Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
My flatmates tell me this weather is as cold as we will get, and I almost laughed! It is nothing compared to how it is right now at home. January with so little snow, it is almost none. I will miss crunching through fresh falls of real snow, and how nice it is to come inside afterward to a hot bowl of ciorba. The way you make it, of course, lemon and meatball. Even if the postmen settled the strike tomorrow, I will always be sad you cannot mail soup (or even better, pišota with sweet cheese... ahhh! I want).
I like London. There is more that I have not seen than what I have, yet. It is busy, and so flat. If the buildings were not tall, I bet I could see straight across the city. I like the parks, nature in the city, and the big, black ravens and crows, and stone grey pigeons who grew up with people and nearly tame. I like the pieces of wall that were built by the Romans a thousand years ago, ruined bits you just come across between buildings here and there that still survive. This place is like a quilt made of scraps and bits stitched together.
I am learning so much. But do not worry, Mamo. Learning more does not push other things out of my head. I know who and what I am, and living in London, and living with white girls will not change me. It will only add more and more. Please try not to worry. Please try to be proud.
I am going to pause here. Today is Thursday and so it is my study day. I have to write down for my composition teacher the notes that make up one of the scales I am used to. Our music uses different ways of ordering higher and lower notes than most Western classical music. My teacher wants me to pull these apart and present on Monday.
So, for now, me kamav tu, and I will write more later.
Yours,
Lolo
23 January
Dearest Kezia,
You baro moy!!!
You can’t tell miri Mamo what I told you about Nico. Now she knows I am going to give him back his ring at Saintes-Maries, and she is going to worry more. I have not heard from her, but muro Káko asked, which means miri Mamo told him. And she could only have heard it from you. Unless you only told muro Káko or Nena... and miri Mamo would never believe it from them.
No. You had to tell my mother. She forced it from you. She could always get what we were up to from your mouth. And she is going to worry more, living with English girls, rather than Szgany, that I’ll toss all my modesty away! She is going to imagine I have my legs behind my head, wiggle walking around the big city on my buttocks, like some sort of lubn’i! Ha ha ha!
I miss you, i amalni. I like my gazhya flatmates, but they are no Kezia. Why do you not have a telephone yet? Even the Szgany here have their own, in their house. You cannot see my face, but I am pouting.
(We even have a television! But I truly have not had any minutes to sit and look at it.)
How are you? And... how is Peti? Have you ridden in a wagon together yet, with someone’s Baba (bet she had fuller beard than his!) to chaperone? I am only teasing. I am jealous of how you feel for Peti. If I felt a tenth of that, I’d happily marry Nico and be a good bori and have ten chavvies and take care of lesi Mamo and live happily ever after. I imagine it’s almost torture courting at turn of the century speed, like we’re all living back in Ardeal vardos, travelling up and down the Borgo Pass.
But once you are married and have your own house... I will hope it comes soon. But not so soon that I am not home to dance at your wedding and drink all your wine. Ha ha ha!
I am doing well. I love London, I think. I wish I could show you. It’s more than we imagined. London is every colour, every smell, every sound, all at once. Budapest is like a village compared. I could sit in one spot all day and all night for a week, and maybe never see the same person twice, or more than that. I try to not be overwhelmed. I have people. The London Szgany took me in right away, and I am to visit and eat with them every Sunday, without fail. I will write more about them in a bit. Something about them is strange to me, even for family, and I cannot seem to quite name what it is. I wish I could talk it out with you. You always help me untie my thoughts when they are in knots. My dear, sweet bigmouth Kezia.
Let me see. I said I like my gazhya flatmates. They are nice to me, though they call me a “country mouse.” I think it is teasing; there is no meanness in their faces when they say it, and they worry over me getting take
n advantage of when I am on my own (they don’t yet understand that I am Romany!).
I do not think I understand anymore the fear of gazhe like we have back home. My gazhya flatmates are like you and me.
If there are differences, it’s that they do not seem to know shortage or hard times. They throw away things in the rubbish we would never at home, and I have to stop myself from pulling back out good things. They throw away empty tins and bags, bones and apple cores still with meat! They also tease me over this. Nance told me I am “just like me gran, who lived thru the war, wit’ rations an’ all.” But then she said I am the “fittest gran ever,” which means I’m too pretty to be a granny, and so I know she means it with sweetness. I am pretty sure.
They also tease me because I feed birds. Here in England, it is actually a pastime for old people! But it makes me less homesick and I talk Rumanian and Romany and they cock their heads and listen to me, so long as I have bread.
(Oh! On a different note, the girls envy my hair. My hair! All that pravo bal that I wished would curl is in fashion here on me, “fit gran.”)
I have to study today, soon, so I will write more later. I am not rushing, anyway. All the postmen are on strike everywhere in England. And since you do not have a telephone...
When I come back, I will tell you all about school, and if anything interesting happens in the meantime.
Peace,
Lolo
24 January
Salutări Profesor Văduvă,
Many warm greetings from London, sir. I am enjoying classes, very much; London and the University are much like you described. I hope this short note finds you well.
I have already completed a short work to present to my classmates in Music Theory. Our instructor was interested immediately in my “Gypsy idiom,” and how the early/late tempo and unusual pitch sequencing developed my ear. I have enclosed a draft of my presentation on the double harmonic scale, fifth mode of Hungarian minor for you. I hope you enjoy.
I accompanied the presentation by playing a selection from one of the few examples I could find in classical Western music: Debussy’s “La Soirée dans Grenade.” If you have other suggestions, please do let me know.
As always, your grateful student,
Lolo Szgany
PS: Pardon the untimeliness of this letter. I am not sure if the news reached Romania, but there is a country-wide postal strike, and mail is being routed to the continent in a circuitous way. We all hope it is resolved soon. Again, my fondest regards.
27 January
Mamo,
It is now Sunday evening, and I have returned from Sunday lunch with the entire Szgany kumpania (so it feels). I am overfull, in every way: this, Mamo, is exactly why it is good that I can visit the estate, and then can come home to a small and quiet piece of the world that is mine. To recover!
Anyway, I think I met fifty uncles, fifty cousins, fifty bari phenya, fifty phure, fifty borya. I must have met some twice. And some, they tell me, were not even here!
You are laughing now. I can hear it all the way here! “You should be happy to have so many people, when we thought most dead.” It is baxtali to have our family close by, and I do know I am lucky not just for me, or for you, but for all our familia buried at the Borgo Pass and lost in the Porajmos. The Szgany are many.
And most overwhelming!
It isn’t as cold, like I said, as home, but it is cold enough. So there isn’t enough space inside for all the people and all the food at Kurko lunch. The tables sit outside, ringed with fires in steel cans to keep us warm.
No one sits, though. We eat and talk. And eat some more. They fed me until I had to push my jaw up and down with my hands to chew.
Then, there was boxing, not on the television, but every man and boy, age seven and over. Beating each other.
Men are the same everywhere, I guess.
And since I bring up men... you know, by now, that I am going to give back Nico’s ring... and I know you have been waiting all letter for me to mention it.
I have not even told Nico yet, but I am sure that he knows. I will see him in May, at the processions for the Maries and kali Sarah, and I want to do this in person. Nico is a dear sweet boy; I like him very much. But I do not love him.
Gulo Mamo, please trust in me. You did not raise me to be any simple chej. When you took us to Bucharest, you did this so that I would have chances. You were lucky to go to school, and you made sure I had more than luck behind me. You suffered without, to buy me a concertina, then a fiddle and a guitar, so I could learn to play better than a man. You did so much. And now here I am, at a university in one of the greatest cities in the world.
Trust you did a good job.
And when you can’t, remember Del tut dukhel. God sees all, right?
Right now, Mamo, I do not want to marry anybody. And when I do, I will marry for love.
This is not the last I will hear of this, and it is not the last I have to say. In the meanwhile, I will be good, behave, practise and study, and work very hard.
So, about that. I finished the homework I told you of earlier, and presented it. I mailed a copy to Profesor Văduvă, so he can keep up with my progress. I worked at the flower stall with Sookie, her mother, father, two brothers, grandmother, and other flatmate Emily. The market is like a Christmas market, but all year round. I smiled a lot, wrapping flowers for buyers that grow wild at home, violets and oleander, and some dark roses, and all that smiling did well for sales, Mrs. Ridgeway said. They are happy to have me, and I pull my weight (again, said Mrs. Ridgeway).
It is time I gather together for tomorrow, and sleep. Class is early, and I present to my class on scales.
Again and still, me kamav tu, and will write more soon.
Your Lolo
28 January
Sar’shan, Kezia,
I have to tell you about Sunday. I am bursting apart wanting to talk to you. I both have so many thoughts and have no idea what I think.
Imagine the biggest wedding and imagine the biggest saint’s day, then put them together over foldable tables set with enough Sunday lunch to feed all of them, plus fifty other people not yet arrived. Now, imagine, all those people are related to you, by blood, somehow, and it is dizzying to try and figure out how, because it can’t be possible... and yet, here we are. There are fifty, I think, of everybody—fifty uncles, fifty aunts, fifty cousins. Fifty babies, fifty grandmothers, on and on until I am dizzy.
Remember in maths when we learned that everyone in the whole world, anyone, anywhere, Romany and gazhe, are all sixteenth cousins?
Anyway, keep imagining how each one of these fifty relatives ask you the same question, and the answer is always unmarried chej should be in their mother’s house, and not at university because all chej are too delicate and too pure, like flowers, to be exposed to the wicked world of gazhikanes without withering under the weight of evil and pollution. We need to be protected by the familia, by a husband. You know.
Now, keep thinking of this as the same fifty refill your plate with more food, more food until you are almost nodding in agreement that romni girls are i luludyi, innocent and corruptible, and you do not even realise you are nodding along, worn down like the record grooves of your favorite song (only this is your least favorite song). But you nod, worn, and you hate it. And you hate that you hate it because your mother wants you to love it, and I am a terrible daughter, maybe, but I am not a flower.
The lunch was over, and the men gathered, and the old women lit cigars. I expected music. But here, the old women puffed their cigars and the borya carried dishes inside. And I was left with all the other unmarried fragile, shukari cousins to mind the babies and littlest chavvies.
That was okay, but disappointing. But then the men filled the courtyard, replacing the tables with a boxing ring. And all the men and the cikno romni, 7 or 8 years old, stripped down to short pants and shirt sleeves, and set to beating on each other to prove their manhood.
I left soon after, s
lipping out to catch the train. And on the ride, I started thinking thoughts, and grew angry. First at myself, then at everyone.
No one asked about my school or my music, and there was no place made for me to mention it. I was welcomed, but as another worn down romni nodding her head, which made me angrier still.
Who raises these boys and these men? Women. Who spoils these boys and these men, so much that they can act like beasts and make the decisions? Women.
You think I’m talking shesti, but will Peti let you keep studying? You are smarter than he is. And he won’t, so you won’t, and he is still a kind and forward-thinking Romany, and you love him very much. I know this.
Here is a thought I keep thinking: do we teach the men to hate us? Do we hate ourselves?
I am not going crazy. And I am not ashamed of being Romany. But I have to tell you, and swear you to secrecy, that I like living with these English girls and I like that they are not ashamed of being girls. At first, I was shocked. They keep their pads and cloths right in the bathroom, and if a man came to visit, he would see them, along with stockings drip drying in the bathtub and maybe even brassieres.
But then, why not? Is it such a surprise to a man that women bleed? Is it such a surprise that we wear stockings and panties and something to hold up those breasts they love so well, and that feed their sons? Do you think Peti does not know, that he thinks you are pushed up and in and out by magic and innocence? Does he really think he will be polluted if you cook during your time, or you brush him with the hem of your skirt? No. I think not. I think not, or you, my dear friend, would not love him so well, and he would not be worthy of your love.
Dracula: Rise of the Beast Page 24
