Several rounds of liquor are consumed in a short time, which is characterized by liveliness and gaiety. At some point we all move into a large caravan that is parked behind a clump of trees and bushes, and along with the ouzo and raki and other liquor, which one of them had brewed, there is also some food. I am thankful for that. I am also grateful to them for their hospitality. I can sleep there should I want to. That is also lucky because I should not drive.
The men tell stories; they take great pride in their narrative skills. The storyteller, I know from my reading, is beloved among the Gypsies. In the community, the stature of a man is to a large degree determined by how well he speaks. One of the stories told is about why the Gypsies are the smartest people on earth and another has to do with why the Gypsies steal. The former is long and involved, the latter short and devilishly ambiguous. When Christ was to be crucified, a Gypsy stole one of the four nails meant to nail him to the cross, the one meant to pierce Christ’s heart. Before he died, Christ, out of gratitude for the Gypsy’s theft, stated that forevermore the Gypsies could roam the world and would be the only people free to steal. All the Gypsies laugh loudly at this story. I smile but am confused, perhaps contrite, as this is the very attack that I — and others — would have mounted previous to my brief study of them. It is an awkward moment, but it passes quickly with the arrival of more food.
One of the young men is most intrigued by my desire to find Helen and asks many questions about her, some of which I am not able to answer. What is her birth sign? Will she have children? Where was she born? What is her mother’s name? There is a general discussion about which of their younger women could be with her, but none of them think it likely that they know the young woman. The fetching young man — he is hardly more than a boy, I think — has a ready smile, an easy smile. He is winning and charming, with none of Yannis’ surliness. Even so I decline a card game with him; I have never been a great fan of cards, though I bear a poker face. After I disclose that I am a writer, he shows me some papers which have to do with a Gypsy organization and a conference that had been held in 1971, to press the world for Gypsy rights. About this cause he is impassioned, and he speaks a good, grammatical Greek. He has had some formal education, I think. Though I believe that is contrary to Gypsy dictates.
I am most interested in this young man — his name is Roman — and his involvement in his people. It is, in a sense, not unlike my own. Do the Gypsies, I finally ask, now agitate for their own country or state? At this they all laugh, and one says, how gadje that is of me, or something of that kind, but in a friendly manner. Roman explains that some Gypsies want a territory where they would not be forced to be like everyone else and to obey laws and rules that are not their own. They hope to escape harassment and persecution. We are already a nation, he explains for my benefit, and in Romany, I believe it is, and then Greek, exclaims, All Roma are brothers! Immediately an argument ensues among them about the Gypsies’ having conferences at all as well as questions about their submitting to organizations, which also are seen as gadje. This is stated succinctly by the older woman.
But the argument is cut short. Roman takes out his violin — he can play too! — and I am reminded of Gwen’s association with Django Reinhardt’s nephew. A melancholy and haunting melody fills the caravan. Even though it is a cold night, we drift out the door, and one by one everyone dances under the moonlight. First the young woman in the striped bathrobe sways and claps her hands and strikes a tambourine, and even the children, who are still awake, join in. I too dance. It strikes me that I do not know how the night will end and about that I am nearly ecstatic.
Feeling inconceivably like Noel Coward, I whirl about alone, but then dance with the older woman, whose crinkly amber eyes remind me, and this is uncanny, of my mother, who would have been shocked by the comparison. But does anyone know anything other than by comparison?
The next morning I awake, and all about me is commotion and movement. My head pounds ferociously. Immediately I am in a panic, as I am disoriented by my new, strange surroundings. I attempt to calm myself. Sigá, sigá, I intone silently. I lie quietly in the makeshift bed. I think again of Gwen, who can always reassure me in her no-nonsense way. Where is she now? What did she once quote me — something from Mao Tse-tung, about it’s always being darkest before it is black.
My Gwen. She insists that if one remembers one’s dreams one can shake off the night’s bad news and rise up — at least leave one’s bed. I force myself to remember my dream; I often forget. It comes in bits and pieces, one entailing the next. Ah, yes, I see it now. It must have been influenced by the Gypsies. I too am wandering and homeless. Then I am in a room. It is depressing to inhabit, with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling over a cotlike bed that is unmade. It is the kind of cheap room one might have found on Forty-second Street during the forties or fifties, or in novels about the people who live in those sordid places. I would never. I leave the room to roam about a large building. I take an elevator, which fits one person only, but I must pull a rope in order to make it move. Come to think of it, it is like the freight elevator in the building where my father had his office for many years. And had his secretary! The elevator door eventually opens — I am afraid that I will never reach the right floor — and I walk into the hallway. I am near the principal’s office. It seems to be a school.
That is all, but there is a good deal of anxious wandering in it. I assume it has to do with looking for Helen. If I were Gwen, I might become the punster and enjoy the movement from roam to Romany to romance. I did think, last night, of Bizet’s Carmen when the Gypsy girl in the striped bathrobe danced. The word “Gypsy” comes from Egyptian — the Europeans thought the Gypsies were Egyptians when first they encountered them, hundreds of years ago. They don’t look Egyptian to me. I would like to jot down all these thoughts right now, but there is too much bustling going on about me. I finally move and arise from bed and stick my head out the tentlike structure I slept in. I am in my pajamas, but how I got into them, I do not know.
By the fire is the elderly Gypsy woman who spots me and, in a loud voice, announces that she will read my fortune. Suddenly I remember that, in my dream, the elevator could not go up; it could only go down. That is most ominous. I want to tell the woman that I abjure any kind of fortune-telling, but feel it would be discourteous to do so. I walk toward the group and the fire, my blanket tied around me. Roman, the winsome lad, hands me a cup of strong coffee and a sweet roll. He also hands me a postcard dated from World War II, a well-known photograph, of some Gypsies being captured by the Nazis. I thank him solemnly.
This morning the old Gypsy woman is draped in many layers of clothing, her body lost under the colorful fabrics and scarves that enshroud her. One scarf, of bright blue and green, is tied rakishly about her forehead and covers her gray hair. I have no idea how old she is. Perhaps my age? Silver bracelets dangle from her plump wrists. She takes my left and right hands in her own and pats each palm, as if the skin could be flattened, stretched and unfurled for better reading.