by Stef Penney
This morning, we were woken up at six o’clock by a giant groaning, roaring noise. I leaped out of my bunk and looked out the window—and it turned out we had pulled onto a bit of land right next to a factory, and all the machinery was starting up for the day. We all got up really quickly, and sure enough, in a few minutes a man came over from the factory to shout at us. I’m not sure what he said, but we kept saying “Lourdes” and pointing to Christo and Great-uncle’s wheelchair, and eventually he calmed down and went away.
Lourdes is kind of a weird place. The shrine seems quite separate from the town proper. For a while we drove around, not sure where to go; then I realized that we had to follow the signs to “Sanctuaires” to get to the grotto, where it all happens. There are lots of churches, and there are a lot of people. Lots of coach trips and people in uniforms. Most of the people are old. Some of them really old. I watch this one coach spewing out its load of passengers, and it takes ages. The ones who aren’t in wheelchairs can hardly walk, and cling on for dear life as they clamber down the coach steps. They’ve all had plenty of life. Between them, there must be a couple thousand years in that one coach alone. Literally. Christo’s had only six years, and all of them with the disease. I think he deserves a miracle more than any of them. I hope God takes note of this.
We park in a coach park and set off for the grotto first, as that’s where Mary apparently appeared to Saint Bernadette many years ago. Ivo carries Christo, and I push Great-uncle. It’s funny. Now that I’m here, I’m quite excited. I really feel that something might happen, even though I’ve been secretly doubtful up until now. I mean, Bernadette was this girl who had special needs—a retard, in other words. And she was my age. I can’t imagine anyone appearing to any of the girls I know at school. Most of them are incredibly stupid or really tedious, or both. Helen Davies, for example, who is supposed to be such a devout Catholic, would love it if something appeared to her, as she could be even more high and mighty than usual. But she’s totally prejudiced against Gypsies. Then I wonder what Saint Bernadette thought of Gypsies. Great-uncle is always saying how in all parts of Europe people have persecuted us, usually much worse than they have in Britain, so actually we’re quite lucky. Like, during the Holocaust, Gypsies were gassed like Jews. But if you were only a quarter Jewish, you counted as not Jewish and were allowed to live. But if you were only one-sixteenth Gypsy, then you were still a Gypsy and they would gas you. That’s how much they hated Gypsies. And in Romania, for centuries and centuries Gypsies were actually slaves, bought and sold like cattle. They don’t teach you that in school. But Great-uncle tells me. He knows a lot about it. So maybe Bernadette was prejudiced against Gypsies, too. Maybe no one’s ever asked. I did wonder at first whether we shouldn’t go and ask for a miracle from Saint Sara—who is the patron saint of Gypsies, after all. Her shrine’s not that far from here—and we could all go to the seaside at the same time. But no one listens to me.
There’s a railing along the side of the road, next to a cliff, and Bernadette’s grotto is up above our heads. You can’t actually climb up to it because of the railings. People wander past, quite casually, as if it’s no big deal. I wonder if they all really believe in how holy it all is—they don’t look that bothered, most of them. There’s a big candelabra thing at the bottom, also behind the railings. It’s pretty. I prefer it to the statue of Mary that’s in the grotto—which is rather plasticky, in my opinion. I shut my eyes, though, like Gran, and try to pray. She has her eyes shut, and her lips are moving silently. When I open my eyes, Christo is gazing up at the statue with a look of total calm. I wonder what he’s thinking. At this point, Great-uncle suddenly swings his chair around and starts pushing himself off as if he’s in a hurry. He doesn’t say anything to any of us. I start to go after him, but Ivo puts his hand on my arm.
“Leave him,” he says. Gran opens her eyes and looks furious.
After we’ve looked and prayed, Ivo takes Christo off to the bathhouses. This is where the afflicted are bathed in the holy water—presumably where the miracles take place, if they’re going to. Before we got here, I was a bit worried about whether I would manage to explain things to people here, but there are lots of helpers here of different nationalities—in fact, most of the young people you see seem to be helpers rather than supplicants. That’s what we are—supplicants. Ivo has found one who speaks English, although he’s actually a French-Canadian called Balthazar (cool name!), and he goes to the bathhouses with them. Ivo doesn’t look him in the eye, as though he’s embarrassed about the whole thing. I wish he’d make a bit more of an effort. I ask Ivo if he wants me to go with them, but he says no. He has a towel around his shoulders, although it’s really warm and sunny, so I don’t think he needs to worry about Christo getting cold. I’m sure Lourdes will have thought of that, anyway. Maybe they have hair dryers.
Then Gran and I are left behind. Gran joins the queue to touch the walls of the grotto and look at the spring. She wants me to stay with her.
“I don’t want you wandering off by yourself. What if something happened to you?”
“Like what?”
“We’re abroad. Anything could happen!”
I point out that we are in a place of pilgrimage that’s full of unhealthy religious people. Christians aren’t going to do anything bad to me, are they? And I can speak French, unlike her. She can’t think of a reply to that, so I promise to come back—she’s obviously going to be stuck in her queue for ages—and she sulkily lights a fag.
Balthazar told us where we could get holy water to take home with us—you help yourself to it, which is very Christian of them, so good for Lourdes. You can buy little plastic bottles to fill, which have a picture of Mary on them and the word “Lourdes,” but I realize that actually you can use anything you want. So I go all the way back to the trailers and get a couple of plastic jerry cans.
I join the queue at the tap. Most people have got little bottles—mainly official Mary ones, although some people are filling Coke bottles and water bottles as well. Some of them look at the jerry cans and mutter, but I don’t know what they’re saying, so I don’t care. When it’s my turn I hold the jerry cans under the tap and fill them up, ignoring the muttering that’s going on behind me. Honestly, it’s just a tap coming out of the ground, like a standpipe on a site. I don’t know what makes it so holy— it’s supposed to come from the spring under the grotto, but it could come from the river—how can you tell? And lots of people have splashed it around, so I don’t think it can be that precious. All in all, I reckon that, a) it’s fine to fill the jerry cans, and anyway, b) Christo’s illness is quite severe, so he probably needs more than most people.
The downside is that afterward I am staggering along with two full jerry cans of water. I take them back to the trailers and leave them, along with a big note saying it’s holy water and not to be used for washing up (exclamation mark!). I draw a little picture of Mary with a halo underneath, just to be on the safe side, although everyone in my family, except Christo, can read, at least a bit. Belt and braces, as Gran always says, twice. Belt and braces!
I go back to the grotto to find Gran, who is waiting on a bench by the river. There’s no sign of the others. She’s worrying about Great-uncle, but I’m so hungry I can’t worry about anything until I’ve eaten, so we walk off to find lunch. Eventually we find a place—it’s almost in the town itself, where we can get a bit of lunch for a prix fixe (even Gran understands this) of only fifteen francs, which is cheap. It’s delicious—an omelette and a pile of thin, crispy chips, which they serve with mayon-naise on the side. Weird but nice. Gran eats it, which surprises me, as normally she won’t touch gorjio food. She’s in such a good mood that I bring up the idea of living in France. She smiles in a tired sort of way, like she does when I’m talking amusing nonsense. I don’t think she realizes that I actually mean it.
Later that evening, after Great-uncle reappears—he found a bar and talked to a French Gypsy—and Ivo and Christo have come back f
rom the bathhouse, we all go back to the grotto. After dark, it’s much nicer—the candles on the candleholder are all lit, and a soft light shines on the statue of Mary, so that it no longer looks plasticky but could almost be a real person—or a vision, like the one that appeared to Bernadette at night, all those years ago. All around us, around the town, there are lights on the steep wooded hills, and on the highest one, far above us, a huge lighted cross. It’s a warm, mild, beautiful night. There are insect noises in the trees, and millions of stars—far more, and brighter, than I’ve ever seen at home.
A priest gives some sort of service. His voice is beautiful—he sort of sings the words, rather than talking. Gran keeps annoying me by asking me what he’s saying, but I don’t know. I catch maybe one word in ten, but I like not being able to understand what he says—it makes my mind wander to new places, freed from its usual boring habits. I look up at the lighted cross and the stars, and the statue and the candles. All the people around us are murmuring answers to the priest. Then some music starts up from somewhere—soft, soothing music, with a woman singing. I want this to work so much, I don’t dare look at Christo anymore. It actually makes me cry. Gran puts her arm around my shoulders. She’s crying, too.
At that moment, I really believe it. I believe it all.
Eventually, we have to leave the grotto to get something to eat. Gran pushes Great-uncle up ahead, and Ivo carries Christo, who has fallen asleep in his arms. He must be really tired after all that holy stuff. Ivo gives me a cigarette. He seems much calmer now.
“Was it good—the baths?” I ask. I can’t really picture what must have taken place in there.
“Yeah. It was good.”
“It’s good it’s so warm, isn’t it? I’m sure Christo is fine.”
“Yeah.”
“Was it the same as when you came before?”
“Yeah, pretty much. They have more helpers now.”
He stares off into the dark night.
“Could you tell at the time—when you were there, I mean—that you were being cured?”
“Not at the time. It was just water. Just like any water. Quite cold.” “That’s what I thought,” I say. I’m relieved, though. I had always wondered if he knew right away that he was cured.
“Balthazar wanted me to go back and talk to the priest about what happened to me.”
“Yeah? Maybe that would be good.”
I’m a bit doubtful of this. Maybe they feel they own you, if you’ve had a miracle. And I know from his voice that he won’t, not in a million thousand years.
“What did you get up to, kid?”
“We had omelettes and chips. It was great. Oh, and . . .”
I can’t believe I forgot until now.
“I got four gallons of holy water!”
Ivo smiles at that. Then he laughs—a happy laugh, not a mean one.
He actually laughs. I haven’t heard that for a long time.
10.
Ray
“Mrs. Hearne? My name’s Ray Lovell. I’m trying to get in touch with your brother and your nephew.”
“My brother?”
“Tene Janko. And Ivo.”
There is a silence.
“Is this a joke?”
“No, not at all. Mrs. Hearne . . .”
“It’s Janko. Miss Janko.”
“I beg your pardon. I’ve been told you might be able to help with your family’s whereabouts.”
“I’ll have to call you back. What’s your number?”
I give her the number of the office. Luella Janko is a suspicious woman. She calls back about ten minutes later, having presumably looked us up in the phone book. Andrea puts her through.
“Why do you want to speak to them?”
“It’s about Rose Wood. Rose Janko. I’m trying to track her down.” “You’re trying to find Rose? That was years ago.”
“Yes.”
Another longish pause ensues. I’m not altogether surprised at this caginess; Gypsies have plenty of reasons to be suspicious of people asking questions about their families. Finally she agrees to meet me, in a café in the center of town. It’s probably another stalling tactic, so that she can do some asking around.
“How will I know you?” I ask.
“I’ll come up and introduce myself,” she says tartly. “What do you look like?”
“Dark hair, brown eyes, five-ten, forty.”
I wait for a second.
“I’m a Gypsy.”
There is a pause at the other end, and then she says, “Right. I’ll know you.”
I get to the café in Reigate town center fifteen minutes early but can’t spot anyone who might be her. I order a coffee, which comes in a tall glass— weak and nasty, like a hot milkshake—and sit in the corner, from where I can keep an eye on the door. Back to the wall, eye on all exits. Something I didn’t need to be taught by my first employer, since I had learned it from Doc Holliday at the age of seven. I have the pictures of Rose with me. There’s something indefinably old-fashioned about them, even though they are less than ten years old. Partly the seventies clothes and hairstyles but also the color of the prints, as though they were taken on out-of-date film, rendered all the more distant and other by chemical attrition.
I’m looking at the wedding picture when a woman arrives at my table. “Mr. Lovell.”
It’s not a question.
“Hello, Miss Janko. Sit down . . . I’m sorry about the other day. There was a bit of confusion over which name you like to use.”
“Since Mr. Hearne buggered off, I’m not particularly attached to that one.”
Luella Janko. The first thing is, she’s younger than I expect. Tene must be pushing sixty; his son Ivo late twenties. Luella must be at the other end of a large family; she looks about my age. All I know about her is that she divorced her Traveler husband, settled in a house, and never sees her family. She is the closest I have got to the Jankos. Physically, she’s small and slight. Her jet-black hair is probably dyed; she wears a little too much makeup, giving her powdery-white skin, and shiny red lipstick. There’s an element of mask to the makeup—almost like a geisha, a front. Her clothes are anonymous but smart: sensible gray trouser suit and one of those giant, slouchy handbags that could cover every eventuality of weather and circumstance. She looks pretty well gorjified, like me.
“So you’re looking for Rose?” she says, when I bring her coffee over. She’s already looking at the photographs.
“Can you tell me anything about her?”
“Like what? I only met her once. At the wedding.”
“Right. That was the last time you saw her?”
“The first and the last.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
“No.”
“What do you understand about what happened?”
“She ran off—with another man, apparently.”
“Who told you that?”
“My brother and sister.”
“Would the brother be Tene Janko?”
“I only have one.”
“And the sister?”
“Kath. Kath Smith.”
“When was this?”
She sighs but appears to be thinking about it.
“About a year after the wedding, I think. Maybe a bit more . . . I didn’t ask a lot of questions.”
“Why not?”
“Why would I?”
She glances at me briefly, then stares out the window. She has light hazel eyes and spidery, mascaraed lashes that emphasize the faint lines around them. Her voice is light and brittle, verging on snappy—though that could be the circumstances.
“I’d have thought it’s normal to ask questions if a relative’s marriage breaks up.”
“Depends on the family, I should think. We’re not close. Although, I suppose, I wasn’t that surprised.”
“What—that she left?”
Luella Janko smiles slightly and looks me in the face for the first time. Assessing me.
“Look, Mr. . . . Lovell—that’s why Leon Wood hired you, I suppose, because you’re one of us? There’s not much I can tell you. I think they’d only met a couple of times before the wedding. She seemed very quiet, very mousy.”
She pauses for a bit, her eyes downcast.
“I don’t think Ivo would be easy to live with. And Tene can be a bugger, too.”
“But she had a child.”
“Yeah, another man to run around after. You know what it’s like for Gypsy girls, Mr. Lovell. She’d have been a skivvy.”
“Could you tell me where I can find your nephew?”
“No. I can only tell you where you might find him.”
“Well, that would be a start.”
I write down what she tells me; it’s vague but better than nothing.
“Why don’t you see your family more often, Miss Janko—if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I do mind. It’s got nothing to do with Rose. Actually, I . . . We’re just different. Me and Tene. I don’t want to live in the past. What’s the point?”
Her tone is matter-of-fact.
“And what is the past, in this instance?”
Her lips tighten.
“Let’s just say that they don’t approve of me living in a house. I’ve gone over to the other side, to hear them talk.”
She shrugs—her movements, like her voice, are abrupt, almost jerky.
“Could Ivo have harmed Rose, do you think?”
Her eyes widen. She turns a withering look on me and smiles—a pitying smile at my foolishness.
