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Gypsy Fire by Liviu Oltean CHAPTER ONE The passenger sitting next to me checked his watch and I got a glimpse of it: 10:05 A.M. I figured there was less than half an hour before the train would get to the border. I looked outside the window at the trees and the telegraph poles that seemed to be running in the opposite direction and prayed that everything would go well. A Serb refugee whom I met in Vienna told me that crossing the German border was like a walk in the park. They ask for your name, where you are going and for how long and that’s it .“Make sure you put out your best German accent,” he said, “and you’ll have no problem at all.” For two years I’d heard stories about how the German economy was booming and how many jobs there were for everyone, including foreigners. They had lost a lot of men in the war and now they were opening their borders to anyone who wasn’t afraid to handle a shovel or a hammer. They had all kinds of training programs, and my dream was to become a machinist, working with lathes and mills in a big factory, and to make good money, buy a small house, and hopefully one day get married and have kids. Two men in uniform walked into the train car from behind me and they started to check people’s tickets. The first one was dressed in a dark blue uniform like most railway employees, while the second one was dressed in a grey uniform, which made me think he was border control; instantly I could feel my heart beating faster. “Stay calm, stay calm,” I said to myself and closed my eyes, pretending I was sleeping. “Your ticket, please,” I heard a voice say to my left, and I opened my eyes. I handed the ticket to the man in the blue uniform, without looking at him. “You’re going to Munich, right?” “Yes, indeed,” I said. “Well, in that case, the gentleman with me will need to see a passport,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have my passport with me,” I said, trying to remain calm. “How’s that?” the other man asked me. “Do you have another form of ID, by any chance?” “I’m sorry, but I don’t . . . all my papers were stolen a week ago in Vienna.” “Then you won’t be able to cross the border today,” he said. “But I need to be in Munich today.” “Not without an ID. I just need an ID, any kind of ID will work,” he said; then he added, “if you are an Austrian national.” “I am not.” “In that case you must have a passport,” he said, stressing the word must. “You need to get off the train at the next stop, in Braunau, which is the last stop in Austria.” “All right,” I said, thinking it wasn’t really worth it to argue with those men. “I will get off.” “Thank you very much,” the border official said, and they walked ahead to the next passengers. “This is my kind of luck,” I said to myself, wondering, why did I have to listen to that dumb Zoran, who probably heard from a friend of a friend how easy it was to cross that goddamn border. Now the money I spent on the ticket was wasted, because I had acted like a naïve kid, instead of coming up with a real plan. I remembered again my uncle’s words, “Stop acting based on wishful thinking, and come up with your own ideas when you are in a special situation.” As much as I was upset with my uncle, who was partly responsible for the mess in which I found myself, I could not deny he was a smart man and he always had something worthwhile to say. “Do you know who is the dumbest person on the face of the earth?” he asked my cousins and me one day when we were sitting around a campfire, in the country. “Duba, the village idiot,” answered my youngest cousin. “He can’t even count to three,” she added, and we all started to laugh. “No” said uncle Laitza, “that’s not the right answer. The dumbest person is the one who takes advice from dumb people. What I mean is that you can be the smartest man in the world, but the moment you take advice from a stupid person, you become instantly the dumbest person in the entire word. You understand that?” Now I understood very well what he was saying then, but I also knew I had to move on and come up with a plan, and execute it right. I had to get to Germany as soon as possible, and after all it wasn’t the first time I had to cross a border illegally. The train started to slow down, so I stood up and picked up my small backpack and walked toward the door, ready to check out the small town I was arriving in and take a look at the actual border. I stepped off the train and went to an old cast iron water fountain, which somebody had just painted in green. I took the bottle from my backpack and filled it with fresh water, then walked to a bench located at the western side of the railway station and sat down. I was watching the people getting off the train, passing through the main building and heading toward the town. The two men who had checked my ticket were standing by the train talking; I couldn’t hear what they were saying from where I was sitting. Then I saw them shaking hands, and the one in grey uniform left and walked toward the station building, passing only a few yards from me, but seeming not to pay any attention to me. I pulled a loaf of bread from my backpack, broke off a quarter of it and started eating slowly. There was one freight train stopped in the station and I figured it was headed toward Germany, so I decided to wait there and watch a little what was happening. After a while, my train started to move slowly and I looked at the big clock hanging on the front wall of the building. It was 11:05. Ten minutes later the freight train started to move. I noticed that besides the two engineers in the locomotive, there was one more employee at the end of the last car standing on a small covered platform holding an orange flag in one hand. Most of the cars were closed, with wooden side doors and vents on their roofs, while the rest had open tops, covered with tarps and without any doors. I got up and started to walk along the rails, trying to get as close as possible to the border. I walked almost two miles before I could see a bridge with tall metal beams, and right by it, a small brick building, which I thought was a checkpoint. The bridge crossed a river which I figured was probably the actual border. I didn’t want to get too close to that building so I cut across the fields, heading north toward the town, until I got to the river bank and stopped in a spot where I could see the checkpoint. I decided to stay there and wait until the next train came, to see if they would stop it and check anything before it crossed the bridge. The river was probably sixty feet wide in that spot, but seeing the steep embankments, I figured it must be quite deep.I wasn’t a good swimmer, so I knew it wasn’t such a good idea to try crossing. There were a few clouds in the sky and the sun was hiding behind them, which was really helpful since there were no trees around and I was sitting in an open field at the top of the river bank. I took a sip from the water bottle, then put it on the ground in the tall grass, hoping that would help keeping it cool. The good news was that the border control seemed to be fairly loose, with no patrols. There seemed to be people only at the checkpoint, which made me feel confident. Up the river, maybe one mile away from where I sat, I could see another bridge on a highway, where every once in a while a car or a truck crossed the river. I got up and walked a few hundred feet toward that bridge, leaving my backpack and water bottle on the ground. It looked like there was only one checkpoint, on the German side at the other end of the bridge, while the Austrian end seemed not to be guarded. On both sides of the river there were houses, and on the German side there was a long stone wall, which looked like a medieval castle wall, or maybe it was there just to protect from flooding. I walked back to the place where I left my only belongings and sat there waiting for a freight train to come. I picked a rock, thinking to throw it in the water, but I changed my mind, not wanting to attract anyone’s attention. I stepped carefully lower on the bank, close to the water and sat down on a boulder, watching the river flow. All of a sudden all kinds of thoughts came to my mind, and I started questioning why I was trying to cross that damned border; after all, what was I actually trying to accomplish? I thought I heard my uncle’s voice lecturing me on how I should not rest, but rather scout the terrain and come up with a plan as soon as possible. “Leave me alone,” I found myself saying out loud. “After all it’s all your fault, you old smart ass.” I threw the rock I still had in my hand, far away in the water and told myself how much I was hating all bodies of water, since they always brought me bad luck and even now they were preventing me from getting where I wanted to go. I walked back to where I left my water bottle and checked it. It was half empty and it was getting warmer. I finished it off, then sat down watching the railway bridge, while trying not to look at the river and avoiding any thoughts from the past coming into my mind. It must have been nearly an hour later when I saw a freight train coming slowly from the east, from the Austrian side. I sat there on my knees, waiting to see what was going to happen. After a few minutes the train came closer to the bridge and stopped with a loud screeching sound, fifty feet from the bridge. From where I was I could see two men in the locomotive talking to each other. One of them leaned outside through the open window and looked ahead, then withdrew and said something to the other man, but nothing else happened for a few minutes. Then I noticed a traffic stoplight on a black steel post right where the locomotive had stopped. From a distance I couldn’t see the actual lights because of the long shade covers, so I walked quickly backwards, until I got to a point where I could see the traffic light, and noticed it was red. Only after another ten minutes or so did the light turn green, and the train started to move slowly. It went over the bridge at the same slow speed. The last ten cars had open tops and they were covered with tarps, like the other train I saw before. Once it got on the German side, the train picked up a little speed, which puzzled me, since I was expecting it to stop to be inspected. “That’s really great,” I said to myself. I went and picked up my backpack and put the bottle in it. Now I had a plan. I was going to walk back along the railroad tracks until I found another traffic light; I would wait there for a freight train, get on a car with an open top and hide under the tarp. I had a feeling there was grain or corn under those tarps, and that it would be a good place to hide and comfortably ride for a few hours. I decided to do all that at night, so I started to walk toward the town, to see what was going on there, get fresh water and maybe buy another loaf of bread to have for the upcoming train ride. I entered the town from the southern side and it felt really good to walk on pavement instead of the dusty fields. The streets where clean, had narrow sidewalks, small white houses with red clay shingle roofs and neat tiny gardens. The streets were so quiet, one would have thought everyone was sleeping, but I knew people were at work and the housewives were working in the kitchens or cleaning inside the house. To my surprise, when I reached the main street, I noticed quite a bit of activity. There were a few groups of people gathered together and some were holding flags in their hands. It looked like they were getting ready for some kind of town parade, but I didn’t see any of the red and white Austrian flags. Most of the flags were dark red with golden sewn crosses and lettering. I walked closer to one group to hear what the people were saying and to get an idea of what was going on, but in their characteristic way these Austrians were talking in calm and low tones so I could not figure out what was happening. I was standing there on the sidewalk, watching the people getting organized in what looked like a military formation, with the flag bearers in the first row, when I heard a voice behind me saying, “Young man, aren’t you getting ready?” I turned around and saw an old man wearing a dark green hat with a short feather and lots of lapel pins, smiling at me. He had a backpack and looked more like he was going on a trip than attending a parade. “Grüssgot mein herr,” I saluted with the best German accent I was capable of. “I am from out of town, and don’t know what’s going on here.” “Oh, I see,” he said. “You’re from out of town; but you’re still going on the pilgrimage, I mean the Saint Mary march?” “I sure am,” I lied, and realized in a heartbeat that it was August 14th and the next day was St. Mary’s feast. “Well, then get in line, ‘cause we’re taking off in a couple of minutes.” “And we’re heading to . . .” “We’re going down the street to the bridge, right there –” he pointed west toward the bridge I had seen before. “That bridge . . . to Germany?” I asked. “Sure, we’re going to Altoetting, to the Schwartze Madonna church.” “Ohhh,” I said. “I don’t think I have my passport with me . . . I wanted to go to see the Schwartze Madonna, but for whatever reason I thought it was here in Austria.” “No my friend, it’s a few miles across the border. We go there every August 14th and get back late on the 15th. But I don’t think you need a passport; I mean, I never had one. We’re a border town and so is the German town across the river and we can walk back and forth, within a few miles, no passport required. If you are in a car or on a motorcycle, you probably need one, but walking is different.” “Are you sure about that, sir?” “Absolutely,” he said. “In that case, I would be so happy if I am allowed to join the group and get there . . . I really appreciate your telling me that.” “Then get in line, young man,” he said with a joyful voice. I got in line and smiled to the other people, most of them ladies – more precisely, middle-aged ladies. The old man with the Tyrol-style hat went away and came back a few minutes later. “Young man,” he said to me. “What’s your name?” “Thomas,” I said. “Thomas, come here,” he said. He walked with me to the front of the group and asked a man to give me a large maroon flag with golden fringe. “Hans, give this guy the flag. His name is Thomas. Let’s have the young colts do the hard work, while we can enjoy the walk,” he said with a laugh. Hans smiled and handed me the flag, after instructing me how to hold it, and to always look at the man to my left and keep the same pace while walking. “Can you sing, Thomas?” he asked me. “I sure can, sir.” “That’s good, ‘cause we’re going to sing all the way to Altoetting,” he said and started laughing. I was ready to sing, do cartwheels or whatever they wanted me to do, as long as it helped me cross the border. The group in front of us started to sing a hymn and then moved. We proceeded too, leaving a space of about thirty feet between them and us. After ten minutes we reached the bridge, and I noticed two border employees watching us and smiling. Instinctively I lowered the flag a little so it covered my face, and I looked to the other sidein an effort to pass unnoticed. The bridge was less than three hundred feet long, but it seemed as if it took hours to cross it. At the other end there were people in German uniforms watching us with neutral expressions on their faces and again I lowered the flag to hide my face, like a scared kid. The moment I set foot on the German pavement and passed the border people I started singing even louder and thanked God for helping me get there easier than I ever thought. I became more peaceful and relaxed than I have ever been and started a conversation with the men to my right. We marched singing down the main street of the old German town, while people on the sidewalks were waving to us, then left the city on a black-top road with very little traffic. Every once in a while a car passed us on the left, driving slowly and beeping the horn as a sign of support. That march was obviously a tradition for the people of that small Austrian town and every detail seemed to be rigorously planned and timed. We walked for two stretches of fifty minutes each with a ten minute break, stopping where there was shade and a water fountain. Then we walked for two forty-five-minute stretches with a fifteen minute break, and by the time we reached the gate of the town, the ancient clock on the stone wall showed exactly 7:00 P.M. Once we entered the town we merged with other groups of pilgrims coming from the railway station; and one hour later, when it was starting to get dark, we entered the town plaza which was adorned with colorful lights. It was a huge square paved with cobblestones, with three old cathedrals on three sides and the town hall on the fourth. In the middle stood a humble church which looked sosmall in contrast to the other buildings surrounding it. I was told that it was the Black Madonna church, erected in 1762 on the foundation of an even older church. The small church had a wrap-around covered porch and the outside walls displayed many small icons, painted in a naïve style, which made me think they were done by lay people. Someone explained to me that it was a tradition for people who received a miracle, survived a war or car accident or whatever, to paint such an icon describing what happened to them and to hang it on the wall. There were so many such paintings, some being hundreds of years old, that the monks stored them in a warehouse and hung them on the walls in a monthly rotation. The old man I first met came up to me and said, “Now Thomas, I imagine you don’t have any arrangement for overnighting here.” “Indeed,” I said, “but don’t worry about me, sir, I’ll find a spot. I’m not picky when it comes to lodging.” “Well, the hotels are all booked for tonight, but there’s a Franciscan monastery, right behind that church,” he said, pointing to the Northern side of the plaza, “and I’m sure they’ll find a place for you for tonight.” There was a short ceremony that night in the plaza; people sang hymns and we walked around the small church three times. It was around 10:00 P.M when it all ended, and I handed back the flag to Hans, said goodnight to everyone and went to where the old man told me the monastery was. Before I exited the plaza I saw a bench and decided to sit down and gather my thoughts for a few minutes, before going anywhere. It had been a long day, one that started rather badly when I had to get off the train that was supposed to take me to Munich; but things took a different turn and here I was now, on the other side of the border in a quiet little town, only sixty miles away from my destination. I watched the crowds dispersing through the narrow cobblestone-paved streets that converged in the plaza, until there was no one left there but me. I picked up my backpack and started walking down a deserted street vaguely illuminated by a few lanterns. I crossed a stone bridge over a small creek and headed toward a large building with a wrought iron fence. The gate was open and there was a small engraved plate on it which I could hardly read in the dim light. It was the Franciscan monastery indeed. There wasn’t any lighted window so I decided not to knock on the door, but to find a place to sleep outside, since it was a warm night and I had found such places to sleep before. I found a wooden bench in the garden, set my backpack at one end to use as a pillow and I lay down. I fell asleep almost instantly. *** I don’t know if it was the cold breeze, the chirping of the birds or something else that woke me up, but I opened my eyes and got up. It was still dark, but not too long before sunrise, because I could see the garden better than last night. Beside the bench I had slept on was a small alley paved with river stone. The lawn was bordered by carefully trimmed bushes, and a larger alley led to the entrance to the monastery. In the doorway I noticed the silhouette of a man dressed in a long brown robe. “Good morning,” he said to me when he noticed I saw him. “Good morning, father,” I said and walked toward him. “Sorry I stayed uninvited in your garden. I came late last night into town and didn’t have anywhere to sleep.” “Why didn’t you try the door?” he asked. “It’s always open. You could have slept inside.” “I didn’t want to disturb anyone. It was really late. Sorry about that. I am going to leave now.” The man was in his sixties, had a short white beard and was looking at me with a smile on his face. “You came here in pilgrimage?” he asked. “Yes. I mean, it just happened. I met a group of pilgrims and I joined them.” “Where from?” “From Austria, just over the border. We walked all the way.” “You must be really tired, then. Come inside; it’s still early and there’s a place to sleep.” “Thanks, but I feel rested now.” “As you wish . . . but how about a cup of tea?” “I’d like to have a cup of tea,” I said and he showed me in. We went through a large hall with a marble staircase and entered a room with stone columns and arches and a tiled floor. There were four long tables and enough chairs for at least fifty people in that room. “Is this the refectory?” I asked. “Yes,” he said with a smile. “Have you been in a monastery before?” “Yes, indeed. I lived in one for a few years.” “You’ve lived in a monastery?” “Yes, though I’m not a monk.” I returned his smile. “But I did some work for the monasteries.” He went through a small door and came back with a cup of tea and a bun and invited me to sit down. “Where was that, if you don’t mind me asking?” “In Austria. I lived for eight years at St. Magdalene in Burgenland, working in the shops. I also spent two weeks at Melk.” “You’ve been at Melk? How about now? Where are you heading to?” “Oh, now I just want to get a job. I mean after today’s feast. I want to go to Munich; I heard there’s a lot of work there.” “There’s a lot of work everywhere nowadays . . . after the war and all the destruction,” he said. “Lots of plants being built or rebuilt; there’s a few in this area, too.” “Really, right here in town?” “There’s a chemical plant, in the next town south from us. I’m sure they’re hiring.” “I might give it a shot,” I said. We talked for another ten minutes or so, then I got up, thanked him and headed toward the door. “Don’t forget your backpack!” he said. “I won’t, it’s all I have. I left it outside on the bench.” “What’s your name, young man?” “Thomas,” I said. “Thomas,” he repeated. “I am really glad you stopped by. I am Brother Johann.” “Thank you for everything, father,” I said. “Say, Thomas, is it something that attracts you to monasteries, or is it just coincidence.” “I’m a monastery gypsy, father,” I said. “That’s a good one,” he laughed. “Take care, Thomas, and God bless you.” *** CHAPTER SIX It was on a June morning when I left the Franzinnis’ home in Bucharest. Alberto, that arrogant young man who was somehow related to Don Francesco, told me I had to leave. He said the Franzinni estate was now the subject of dispute between the two sides of the family, plus the bank, and the fight was going to be ugly. “There’s no place for you here, Tomaso,” he said. “We’re going to sell the house and the grocery immediately, before the bank gets its hands on anything. Normally you would be entitled to some inheritance but the adoption papers got stuck at the notary and the process is incomplete, so you are back to square one. Go back to your relatives, or get a job and support yourself. After all you’re fifteen, you’re almost an adult.” He gave me some money, which at first I hesitated to take, then I changed my mind and put it in my pocket. I turned around without saying anything and walked out the door. I went straight to the railway station which was only ten minutes away, to check the train schedule and the ticket pricing. I decided, though, to save my money and not get a ticket. I walked for half an hour along the tracks until I got to the place were the freight trains were formed. There were a multitude of tracks, and locomotives were pulling freight cars from one track to another until an entire new train was formed. I checked the shipping papers which were placed in a small metal frame outside each car, hoping to find one that was going in the direction I wanted to go. I finally found the right train but the locomotive wasn’t there yet, so I decided to wait a hundred yards away from the tracks in the shade of a shabby tree, which the locomotive smoke was killing slowly. Two hours later the locomotive showed up and a railroad worker locked it to the first car. I waited for the man to go away and jumped in an empty car, then closed the sliding door, leaving it cracked a few inches so I could see outside. When the train started moving slowly I opened the door a little more and sat down on the floor with my legs hanging down outside the car. It was a warm summer day, typical for the southern Romanian plains, and I took off my jacket and placed it behind me to make sure it wouldn’t be sucked outside by the breeze. My mother’s village was less than twenty miles away, east of the city, but the train had to make several detours before getting onto main line headed east. About an hour later I got off the train at a traffic light and started walking along the tracks. The village was to my left not far away, but I could not see it from where I was, because it was behind the woods. On the right was the lake and I could see the three towers of the monastery’s church. I decided to go there first to talk to the monk I had met at my mother’s funeral, and after that to go to the village. The road leading to the monastery, winding along the eastern side of the lake, had been paved many years before, but it was still in decent shape compared to the others in that area. The wrought iron gates were open and I walked all the way to the main church to see if the monk was there, but found the church deserted. I got out and turned right into an alley that led to the small houses where the monks lived. A younger monk wearing a grey robe and a small round grey hat was walking toward the church and I greeted him when we crossed paths. “Where are you going?” he asked without responding to my greeting. “To see father Alex.” “What for?” he asked again in a tone I didn’t like. “It’s private,” I said and walked away. “Damn Gypsy,” I heard him say, but I didn’t turn around. “No wonder they send you to Transnistria,” he added, and I had a hard time not stopping to let him have it, but I decided to bite my tongue and kept walking. Father Alex was an old man with a long white beard, and from what I knew he was almost blind. He was in the garden in front of his small house picking weeds between four rows of tomato plants. “I kiss your hand, Father,” I said, and he turned around looking toward me. “Good day, son,” he said, squinting. “My name is Toma,” I said, knowing he couldn’t see well. “I am Mara’s son.” “Of course, of course,” he said now that he knew who I was. “God bless you. Toma. Come here into the garden, my son.” I stepped carefully over the short fence made out of crooked tree limbs and got closer to him. “What brings you here, son?” “Well, I was wondering if you could do a memorial service for a few relatives,” I said. “You mean . . . for your mom and dad?” “Yes, for both my parents, but also for my adoptive parents.” “What? Your adoptive parents died?” “Yes, they died in a car accident three days ago.” “So, what are you going to do now?” “I don’t know. Apparently the adoption papers weren’t complete when Don Francesco and Senora Gina died and the relatives kicked me out of there.” “That’s terrible. People without a heart . . . Where are you going to live now?” “I am going back to the village. I’ll stay in the old shack, where my mother died.” “But you know the village was raided a month ago. I heard it’s deserted now. Maybe just a few people who didn’t get caught are there now.” “I heard something. It was in the papers, too.” “You’d better find another place. It’s not safe to live in a village like that nowadays.” “It isn’t safe here, either,” I said. “What do you mean?” I told him about the young monk in the alley and what he had said to me a moment ago. “I know,” Father Alex said. “It’s a sad story but the Iron Guard is recruiting members even here at the monastery. There are some people out there who think it’s all right to walk with the cross in one hand and a pistol in the other. Makes you wonder how far is the end of the world.” I didn’t say anything but took out of my pocket a piece of paper and a few coins. “What do you have there?” “My parents’ names and some money for the church.” “Well, just tell me their names son, ‘cause I hardly can see anything. As for the money, you know I don’t touch that . . . put it in the donation box on Saturday or just keep the money for yourself; you’re going to need it.” “You said Saturday?” “Yes, this Saturday we’ll have a big memorial service. Tell me their names now.” “Well, it’s for my mom Mara, my dad Neli and for Mr. Francesco and Mrs. Gina.” “Now, Francesco and Gina, what kind of names are those?” “They are Italian.” “Were they Christian, too?” “I’m sure they were. They had a big cross with Jesus Christ on it hanging on the wall in the living room.” “Yes, I see . . . but do you know if they were Orthodox or Catholic?” “I think they were like us. I don’t know what the difference is.” “You’re right, you’re right . . . we’re all one flock with one Shepherd. In that case, come back Saturday and don’t eat anything in the morning.” I kissed his right hand and walked back toward the iron gates. *** The village streets were empty and the warm summer wind was raising clouds of dust in the air. The small houses were all made of clay, had tiny windows and straw roofs. I walked down the main street hoping to see a face I knew. On the front porch of a house I saw an old man with a worn-out hat sitting down and working on something. “Good morning,” I said when I came to the house. “So caré Tomo” he asked me in Roma, without raising his eyes. He was tapping with a small hammer on a small strip of silver set on a round wooden stick. He was making a ring, using the traditional Gypsy silversmith tools, like I had seen before. “I’m all right,” I said. “I’m thinking to spend a few days here.” “Really? Why is that? I thought you were doing pretty well in the big city with your new family.” “They’re both dead. They died in a car accident.” “Sorry to hear that,” he said, looking at me for the first time. “And you’re not afraid to live here?” “No, I’m not.” “The police might come back at any time. They must know that a few people like me escaped that night.” “How many people are still here?” “Maybe two dozen. I was lucky, I couldn’t sleep that night. I heard the cars’ engines and woke up my daughter and her kids and we ran into the woods. A lot of other people weren’t that lucky. The police beat the hell out of them and loaded them into trucks. I heard they’re taking them to Siberia. It’s bad . . . it’s very bad.” “They took them east of the Dniester river to Transnistria.” “Whatever, it’s still very bad. We’re going back in time; no, it’s actually worse. We used to be slaves, now they treat us like animals and slaughter us like cattle.” “It won’t last. We’ll be good again.” “Who told you so?” “My grandpa said so. We’re survivors.” “Your grandfather was quite a man. He was the greatest silversmith ever. You know I was his apprentice? And your great-grandfather was a bulibasha, a great leader. Everyone respected him. How about you? What plans do you have?” “I don’t know now.” “See, that’s what they’re doing to us. Young people like you don’t have a future anymore.” “We’ll be fine; God is with us.” “Really . . . who told you that?” “A monk.” “You talk to those crooks?” he said pointing toward the west, where the monastery was. “Yes, I do. I’ll actually have a memorial service for my parents on Saturday.” “Are you crazy? You know why people call us Monastery Gypsies? Because we were their slaves for centuries. Working their fields and doing all kind of chores so the monks could live a lavish life. The people of God! Where in the Bible is it said that you should have slaves?” “I don’t know. I never read the Bible.” “Well, I am telling you then, the Bible says you should treat everyone else like a brother. Do not enslave them and don’t treat them like animals, that’s what it says. We’ve been free for eighty years now and if it wasn’t for prince Cuza, we would be still slaves. That’s the truth about churches and monks.” “All right, all right . . . I’m going now. I want to see what’s left of our house.” The house’s fence was gone. Someone must have used it to burn in the stove after my mom died. I pushed the door open and went inside. There was only one room with two small windows and cracked walls. The only furniture left was a small table by the window and a wooden bed without a mattress, the bed in which my mom died a few months ago. In the corner was a copper bucket. I picked it up and went outside and walked to the village fountain. A woman came out of a house and asked me how I was doing and why I was there. I told her the same story I told the old man. She asked me if I had anything to eat and I said I didn’t. She gave me piece of bread and told me to come back later to get a pillow and a blanket. I came back to the house with the bucket full with water, ate a little bread and lay on the wooden bed for a while, then fell asleep. I got up late in the afternoon and decided to do a village tour. I walked the streets for a couple of hours, stopping to talk a little with the few people who were still there. They were all depressed and scared. I got back to my family’s house around sunset, carrying a few things that people gave to me: a candlestick, two glasses, a porcelain dish, a pillow and a blanket. I was planning to go next morning to the woods to pick mushrooms and then walk to the next village to a bakery and get some bread. I got in bed, but couldn’t sleep. All kinds of random memories came to my mind, and I realized I was totally disoriented, without any plan for the future. I decided to put a little order in my thoughts, at least chronologically. I asked myself, who was I, after all? The answer was simple: a Gypsy – or a Roma, as we called ourselves. My mother was born in that village, where everyone was a Kaldera Gypsy. Men were skilled mostly in general metal-working, while a few others, like my grandfather, were silversmiths. They traded the things they made at flea markets and fairs, and sometimes they traveled with wagons and horses to Bucharest and sold their wares on the streets. My father was a Roma from Transylvania who came to Bucharest in 1924. He was a skilled welder and got a good job in a factory. He met my mother one year later, and they got married and moved into a house in the city, away from the Gypsy village. I was their only son and to this day I believe we were a real happy family. That is, until the war started in 1940 and my dad was drafted to join the military. That was really hard for my mom. She got a job in a grocery store in the center of the city. She had to wake up before seven in the morning to get everything ready for me to go to school, then she left for work. She rode the streetcar for an hour and a half each way, and arrived home around seven in the evening, only to start cooking and to wash clothes. We went to bed early and she told me stories until I fell asleep. The one story I liked most was about an old couple who didn’t have children. One day the old man found a small snake and brought it home, and the couple decided to keep it as their child. It turned out that the golden snake, which is sumnakuno sap in the Roma language, could perform miracles for them, getting them a nice house, money and all sorts of things. One day the king of that country let everyone know he was looking for a groom for his daughter. The snake asked his dad to go to the court and say he had a son for the princess. The king asked for the son to build a golden bridge, and the snake built it; then he asked for the son to kill a dragon, and the snake did that too. In the end the king was impressed and asked to see this brave young man. The snake told the old man to take him to the court, and so the man put him in a small bag and went there fearing the king would be offended and would chop off their heads. But when the snake got out of the bag he rolled over three times and turned into a handsome young man. He married the princess, inherited the kingdom and everything ended up great. It was kind of a dumb story, now that I think about it, but at least it was optimistic and encouraging for a kalaro, a dark-skinned kid like myself. My mom worked for an older Italian couple. They treated her well and the pay was decent. Early in 1941 she got sick, though, and I remember she went to the doctor a few times. She seemed to be worried, but she never told me what was going on with her health. One afternoon in December a soldier knocked on our door and my mother almost passed out. It was bad news: my dad had died in the line of duty on the Russian front. The soldier handed my mom a small booklet, my dad’s military ID. On the last page someone had written in black ink: “Dead in combat on December 12, 1941. Cited for decoration.” That news affected her health even more. She went again to the doctor and a few days later wound up in bed even sicker. She went to the Department of War a few times to see if she could get a pension from my dad’s death, but things seemed to be complicated. Very soon she realized her health wouldn’t allow her to work any longer. One cold morning in February she told me I wasn’t going to school that day. She made me dress with my best clothes and we left home to take the tram to the city. That’s when I met Mr. and Mrs. Franzinni. He was a man in his fifties with a thick moustache, while she seemed to be quite a bit younger; I thought she was really pretty. They didn’t have children and they talked to me about all kinds of things – their house, their business, their friends and so on. They said they talked to my mother about me living with them for a while to allow her to take care of her health issues. I was worried, but my mother asked me to do what was in our best interest and move in with the Franzinnis; I didn’t have any choice but to accept that. I remained at their house that day, and next morning Mrs. Franzinni took me to a school in the city. They bought me new clothes and gave me my own room on the second floor, with nice furniture and toys like I had never seen in my life. I was thinking of my mother all the time, and praying to God that she would get well as soon as possible. I imagined her sitting at the window in our house, thinking of me and crying. In reality she moved into her parents’ house, which now was deserted in that Roma village outside Bucharest. She died there three months later, among the people she grew up with. Mr. and Mrs. Franzinni were really careful when they gave me the bad news, and I remember I cried all night in my bed. We went to the village cemetery for the funeral the next day. There were a lot of people there and the service was done by the blind monk, whom my mother knew for a long time. The casket was closed and I didn’t get to see her. Mrs. Franzinni explained to me that mother wanted me to always remember her as she was before getting sick. I was fourteen at that time and figured a boy of my age should be able to handle that kind of stuff as a man and show little or nothing of what was going on inside him. In the morning I was going to school, then in the afternoon I was working in the store. Mrs. Franzinni was a great cook, and many times I watched her cooking in her kitchen. She grew her own herbs in a small garden in their yard, plants you couldn’t find in the Romanian fresh markets. The Franzinnis told me they were going to adopt me and I felt good about that; at least I knew in which direction my life was going and felt more secure. In May I heard about the raids the Nazi government was conducting against the Roma people, but I didn’t realize the magnitude of the events, and I couldn’t imagine that such bad things could happen to my relatives, my people or to myself. But it did happen indeed. One month later, my entire world collapsed again when a police officer knocked on our door to tell the maid that Mr. Francesco and his wife had died in an accident. They were coming back from a meat processing plant in Sinaia, when their truck went off the road and fell into the Prahova river. They both died on the spot. Right away there was a family reunion at the Franzinni house, with closed doors, and I got kicked out of the house. Now I found myself in a deserted house, in an almost deserted village, with no money, no friends and no relatives around. I finally went to sleep around midnight. *** I woke up all of a sudden and jumped out of bed. I thought I heard someone knocking on the door. I went to the window but it was so dark outside I couldn’t see anything. Then I heard a man’s voice whispering, “Putrel vudor Tomo!” I knew that couldn’t be the police, since the voice was asking me to open the door in the Roma language, so I calmed down. “Who’s there?” “Laitza, your uncle.” I opened the door and all I could see was a man’s silhouette, wearing a broad-brimmed hat. “Come on in, uncle.” “No, you come outside, I’m with my wife and children. I need to talk to you.” I got out and he hugged me. The clouds were covering the moon and that’s why it was pitch dark. A few moments later the moon showed up between two clouds and I could see a little better. Some twenty yards away in the street was a small wagon with round bows supporting the canvas cover. It was pulled by two small horses. “Let me light a candle,” I said. “Forget about that. The moon is out now, you can see very well.” We went to the wagon where a woman was sitting on the front bench. It was my aunt Rada. Their two daughters were probably sleeping in the back of the wagon and I couldn’t see them. “Good to see you, Toma,” she said. “I heard you had a lot of bad happenings lately. I’ve been praying a lot for you . . .” “Yeah, yeah, but we don’t have time now for whining,” my uncle said. “Toma is a man now, he can handle things like that. We have other things to worry about and we need to get the hell out of here as soon as we can.” “How did you know I was here?” “I didn’t. We were on our way to Bucharest for a meeting of the Association, when we heard what the government was doing to our people, so we decided to stop and hide in the woods for a few days.” “What association are you talking about?” “The General Association of Roma people, you dumb ass. Don’t you know I am a member of the directing council?” he asked me, and I could tell he was very proud of that title. “I knew you were a Roma judge, a krisari. I never heard about the Association.” “I am not a krisari, Toma. I am actually a krisitori, a senior judge. That is, when the Stabor gets together to judge a Roma trial, the krisitori is the one who leads the entire process.” “Can you stop bragging and tell the boy why we’re here?” my aunt intervened, a little irritated. Laitza told me how things were going to get even worse so they decided to go north to Transylvania. They had a house near the city of Sibiu and it looked like things were calmer there. They were stopping in this village to warn my mother and take her with them, since they didn’t know she had passed away a few months ago. An old man of the village told them about my mom and that I had arrived the day before, and that I was now at the old house. “Listen Toma, you’ve got to come with us. We’re going to travel only at night, and during the day we’ll stay out of sight, hiding in the woods or wherever. Once we get in Transylvania we’re safe . . . I mean safer, in any case.” I told him I didn’t have any plans anyway and probably didn’t have any other relatives other than them, so I was going. “Great, Toma, I’m glad you’re coming. After all I have a lot of things to tell you.” “What kind of things?” “Mostly about your father and about the relatives you never met and apparently you don’t even know about. Let’s go now!” Aunt Rada got into the back of the wagon close to her two children and I took her place next to my uncle. The horses started moving and a few minutes later we were riding out of the village on a narrow road winding between corn fields and wooded groves. Traveling only at night was slowing us down and so we arrived at the outskirts of Ploiesti only two days later. My uncle asked me to walk into the town early in the morning to buy some food. I was dressed like a city boy and so was less likely to attract people’s attention. He gave me money and a military backpack and asked me to get a can of paint and a paintbrush. Three hours later I came back with three loaves of bread, pork, eggs, sausage, a bottle of milk and a can of paint. My aunt dug through the backpack and she looked really happy now that she had food for the children. The wagon was stopped between a small patch of trees at the border of a wheat field and my uncle started a small cooking fire; soon we had plenty of coals to grill the meat. My cousins Dina and Mira were jumping joyfully around the fire, each holding slices of freshly baked bread in their hands. “Don’t ruin your appetite! Wait for the food to be ready,” Aunt Rada yelled at them, as she was scrambling eggs in a cast iron pan. I hadn’t had a meal like that in a long time. We forgot all our worries and even cracked some jokes as we sat around the small fire eating. “Say Laitza, why did you ask this boy to get black paint this morning?” asked my aunt. “I didn’t say black paint.” He turned to me. “Did you really get black paint?” “That’s all they had in the store, besides yellow.” “Whatever,” said my uncle after a moment of thought. “Black will do, if we need it.” “If we need it for what?” asked my aunt. “If we need to paint the wagon.” “Why paint the wagon black? You want to turn our wagon in a hearse? That’s the craziest idea I ever heard,” she said and I could tell she was really upset. “Shut up, woman. I didn’t say we were going to paint it for sure. Just in case we need to . . . if push comes to shove. If we are forced to travel by day, in crowded places, we’ll take the cover and bows off and paint the wagon.” Now I knew what my uncle was thinking. Their wagon was painted in blue and green, the traditional Roma colors with small red and white flowers decorating the sides; even a five-year-old kid could tell it was a Gypsy wagon. I got a cover from the wagon and went to find a place to sleep in the shade, since I had been up all night. We hit the road again at sunset. I was sitting by my uncle and listened to the stories he was telling me. He was a wise man and he was well known and respected in the Roma communities all across Romania. He could speak more dialects than anybody else, and trust me, there are more than a dozen dialects out there. According to the tradition, a Gypsy will never sue another Gypsy in a court of law, but any litigation will be resolved in a Roma court, which is known as a stabor. There are usually three judges or krisari in a stabor and they travel around the country to wherever they are called. Apparently Laitza was a head judge now and he was called to judge not only in Transylvania, where he was originally from, but also in Wallachia, where my mother was from, and even in Moldova. He was my dad’s step-brother and I think he was five or six years younger than my dad. At night when I was sitting next to him on the front seat he told me a lot of things that I did not know about our history. He said that our ancestors came all the way from India, and many settled north of the Danube in the three Romanian territories Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania. There are documents from the fifteenth century that tell the story of Gypsies in Moldova and Wallachia who were enslaved by the boyars and the monasteries and forced to live in villages on their domains. In Transylvania, which was then under Hungarian rule, they were free people, and king Sigismund gave a law granting all the Gypsies living in cities the right of free circulation. In 1424 the king placed them under the jurisdiction of a Gypsy voyevode or a prince, who at that time was Thomas of Aiud. According to Laitza, one of our forefathers was a voyevode who had in his possession at his house in Sibiu an old chalice called a tahtai, a symbol of the power that was passed in the family for five hundred years. Needless to say Laitza was proud of our ancestry, and even the wide-brimmed hat he was wearing was a sign of Roma nobility. In 1588 though, the Transylvanian Diet annulled the right of Gypsies to have their own voyevode and restricted their freedom of traveling, in order to tax them more severely, but they were not turned into slaves as happened in Moldova and Wallachia. In Moldova there was a way to become a free man, by joining the military. A renowned Gypsy soldier was Razvan, who entered the Polish army and was promoted to the highest ranks by king Stefan Bathory. In 1595 he removed from power prince Aron of Moldova and became the ruler of the country. He was defeated, though, by the Movila boyars, and after the fight of Areni he was capturated, tortured, mutilated and finally impaled by his enemies. Harsher times came for the Transylvanian Romas during the reign of Maria Teresa, who decreed that they could no longer own wagons and horses, imposed new regulations for inter-racial marriages, and stipulated that all men above age sixteen may be drafted for military service. At the same time Moldova was relaxing the slaves statute, allowing the masters to release all Gypsies who served them faithfully for a number of years. This was done under the rule of Prince Ghika. Another decree regarding the Gypsies was issued in Transylvania in the eighteenth century by emperor Joseph the 2nd. It was published as “De Regulatzione Zingarorum” and stated that Gypsies shouldn’t speak their language anymore, but had to blend in with the local population, attend church regularly, send their children to school and play their music only on special occasions. Three years later in 1785, the same emperor decreed that relations between masters and servants had to be voluntary and based on a written contract, which is probably the most progressive legislative act in centuries regarding Gypsies. A few years later in both Moldova and Wallachia, young progressive boyars like Ioan Campineanu started freeing their Gypsy slaves. Although between 1840 and 1844 a few Moldavian and Wallachian rulers issued decrees freeing the Gypsies, and the church vowed to release all slaves, the abolishment of slavery took place only in 1855 in Moldova under Gregory Ghika and one year later in Wallachia under prince Barbu Stirbey. All these things I learned in 1942 from my uncle Laitza, while riding at night toward Transylvania, and that made me feel proud of our ancestry; but at the same time, it made me feel sad that now we were hunted, enchained and forced to live in work camps as in medieval times. “One thing it took me a long time to understand,” said Laitza one day when we were already in the mountains and able to travel in daylight, “is why so many artists, writers and people of culture kept secret their Roma origins.” “Like who?” I asked, not knowing any Gypsy to be a prominent cultural person. “Like Deleanu, for example.” “Budai Deleanu?” “Yes.” “But he wasn’t a Gypsy.” “Yes he was. What book did he write?” “He wrote Tziganiada. We learnt about that in sixth grade.” “See, he is in the school books, every single kid in this country reads his poems, but no one knows he was a Roma. What is Tziganiada about?” “It’s about Vlad Dracula putting together an army of Gypsies to fight against the Turks. But I thought it was a satire and makes fun of the Gypsies.” “It doesn’t. It’s all hidden . . . it actually pokes fun at the Hungarian nobility and the Wallachian church; otherwise it presents to the readers a lot of traditions and history of the Roma people.” “The teacher didn’t tell us he was Roma.” “Of course they don’t like talking about that. That’s why people like him hid their origins, otherwise they couldn’t have made it to where they did. There are a few letters he wrote to other members of the so-called Transylvanian School where he talks about their common roots.” “So you’re saying that other members of the most prestigious Romanian cultural movement were Gypsies?” “That’s exactly right; and whether they were one hundred percent Gypsy or mixed with other ethnic groups, it doesn’t matter, but they definitely had Gypsy roots.” “I had no idea.” “I know, and that’s why I am telling you these things, so one day you can tell them to your children.” “Hope I make it to that day.” “It’s going to be all good, Toma. It’s tough now, but better days are coming.” *** www.ljoltean.com Buy this book with one click for your Kindle, pc, iPhone, iPad, Mac or BlackBerry device from amazon.com $4.95