Gypsy in Black: The Romance of Gypsy Travelers (16 page)

“
You lie!
”
  Bossa hissed th
rough her teeth, the smile gone
from her face. 
“
You lie, gadjo gypsy.  But that is expected
because of who you are!  I
t lives in your blood
.
  You have
secretly longed for this without
even knowing!
  Now it is here,
gadjo gypsy.  And you do not know
what to do with it!  You have a
husband you do not know nor love.
Yet, you are happy because you
have found it.  The life that is
inside you!  You deny loving it
because hating makes
it easier.
”
  Bossa eyed Sahara
inquisitively. 
“
Am I not right?
”

Stunned, Sahara stared at the woman.  Her heart beat faster
as she
repeated to herself what Bossa had ju
st said.  Hadn't
Emilian
said the same thing to her?
  Amazed, Sahara wondered about
the gypsy woman standing in fr
ont of her.  Deep down, she did
like the freedom and the laziness. 
“
You...you are right.
”

“
Of course I am right.  Or you
would
have run away, yes?  Even if you
r drunken father was a horrible
Irish gadjo, yes?
”

Her head snapped as her wide
eyes stared at Bossa.  Drunken
father?  Irish gadjo?  The words
rung in her ears as she took a
step toward the gypsy.  There had been no
women there that night. 
And certainly she could not hav
e learned that he was a drunken
Irishman.  Distrustfully, Sahara
asked,
“
How do you know that?
”
 
Sahara noticed the sudden dismay in Bossa's face. 

Quickly, Bossa began to busy herself around the te
nt,
heading for the flap. 
“
I know
nothing.  Nothing.
”
  Her voice
betrayed her lie. 
“
I have work n
ow, yes?  It is time for you to
leave, gadjo gypsy.
You should be taking care of your own tent and husband now.
”

Leaping forward, Sahara gra
bbed Bossa's arm.  Whirling her
around, Sahara moved her face inches away fr
om Bossa's as she
spat out,
“
Tell me
how you knew that about my father!
”

“
Let go of my arm!
”

Before Sahara could
say another word,
she
felt herself
jerked into the air and carr
ied away.  Her body struggled
in
Nicolae
's arms as he dragge
d her away from Bossa.
A
crowd stood behind them, part gyps
y and part
gadjo. 
They watched the scene, their faces a mixture of amusement and concern. 
Sahara
stumbled and
fell back to the ground
but
Nicolae
kept pulling her arm
,
half-dragging
her to her feet.
  Grinding his teeth,
Nicolae
swung
his fiery wife over his shoulder a
nd hurried away from the amused
crowd.  Surely his father would
hear of the incident and order
punishment for the unruly, trouble
some girl.

Nicolae
carried her to their tent
.  Beside the
Rom Baro
's wagon,
it was far away from the commoti
on Sahara had caused.  Throwing
Sahara onto the mattress,
Nicolae
towered over her.  Trickles of
blood dotted his bare back and ar
ms from where her nails had dug
into his flesh. 
He looked down and saw the blood.  Quickly, he wiped at it with his sleeve. 
“
E Martya
, S’hara
!  T
hat is what you are!  The angel of
death!
”

Sahara sat up, ready to g
et to her feet
.
“
The truth, Nicolae! 
I
want to know the truth
.
”

Nicolae
took a deep breath as he rubbed his sweaty foreh
ead. 
“
You are causing all this trouble, S'hara, because you want to know what?
  What is this truth that you seek?  What would it change?
”
 

“
Something doesn’t make sense, Nicolae!  I feel it.
”
  She stood and reached for his arm. 
He tensed up, his muscles constricting under her touch.
“
No, I know it.  You must tell me or I cannot go on.
”
 

He poked the side of
his head with his finger. 
“
It is here!  In your
imagination!  You are crazy!
”

“
You're lying!
”
  She
faced
Nicolae
as he glared
furiously at her. 
“
If I am ima
gining this, how did that woman
know my father was Irish?  Why di
d
Emilian
tell me I'm gypsy?  And why,
”
she lifted her chin
as she
met his gaze
, pleading with him
. 
“
Why did you, a
gypsy, marry me, a gadjo woman
?
  How can this marriage survive if I don’t know why, Nicolae?
” 
Dropping his hand from his head, he stared do
wn at her. 
There was a hesitation in his face, a moment of decision.  His eyes clouded over and, for the briefest of moments, he was not with her.  He was somewhere else.  She could sense it.  She knew it was the past but she didn’t know where.  She knew it was important but she didn’t know what. 
“
I need to know,
”
she whispered. 
“
Do I not have that right?
”

Her words broke his trance. 
H
e reached ou
t a hand and caressed
her cheek.  To his relief, Sah
ara let him, pressing her cheek against his
hand. 
The warmth of their skin touching melted his final reserve and he sighed. 
“
You are so be
autiful, S'hara
.
You are even more beautiful that I imagined.”
  He
hesitated as he
spoke
, choosing his words carefully for his initial
words h
ad not registered to her.  “Our marriage was arranged long before we met, my beautiful wife. You say that you have no home to go to but, my precious wife, you are indeed home now.”

“
Nicolae?
”

He held his finger to her lips, cutting off h
er sentence. 
“
You must listen, yes?
”
  He wa
ited for her to nod. 
He removed his finger but let it linger on her skin.  He touched her cheek then brushed the hair from her neck and laid his hand on her shoulder.
Her black
eyes gleamed as she stared at him curiously. 
“It was
Amaya...
”

She gasped.
“
My mother?
”
Pushing his hand away from her,
she turned around.  She raised a
shaking hand to her forehead. 
Her fingers trembled as she r
ealized what
Nicolae
had said.  Her
heart pounded inside her chest. 
For years, she had lived with the knowledge that her mother had died at such a
young
age but her father refused to speak about her.  A part of him had died when Amaya caught the fever and died.  It was also when he began to drink.  Sahara had only been a small girl, no more than nine. 
She barely remembered her mother, only glimpses of visions and shadows of emotions. 
But the burden of growing up motherless never left her mind.  As the years went on, the memory of her mother had receded until the only thing that was left was a warm feeling in her heart.  She knew she was young and beautiful, that she could remember.  But nothing else. 
Whirling around, Sahara
softly said,
“
Amaya
was my mother's name.  How did you know that?
”

“
S'hara,
when Amaya came over here,
she was with child.
”

“I don’t  understand what you are saying,” she whispered.

“Your mother
was gypsy, yes?  And
you were born on the ship.  Her
kumpania, Afrikaiya, met up wit
h the Machwaiya.  Amaya was the
Afrikaiya
Rom Baro
's daughter.  Al
though she was unwed, her child
had worth.
”
  He paused. 
“You had worth, S’hara.  Our kumpanias merge through marriage.  It is how we continue to grow and survive.  So, a
deal was made for the Afrikaiya
bastard girl to marry the future Machwaiya
Rom Baro
.
”

“
That's you.
”
  Her voice wa
s so soft he almost didn't hear
her.

He hesitated. “
I am the next
Rom Baro
of t
his kumpania, yes.
”
  He stepped
closer to Sahara, gentl
y stroking her cheek
again
. 
“
But you
disappeared, S'hara.  Amaya r
an away with an Irishman.  They
married and vanished.  With the chil
d, S'hara.
”
  He lowered his
voice even more. 
“When I was six
teen, word reached the
Rom Baro
that Amaya died.  At first, it d
id not concern us about you.  I
was married then.  But several years after my wife died, the
Rom Baro
began to ask other kumpania
's if they knew where the child
was.
”

Sahara felt her skin chill.
  She thought back to the night
her father had gambled her away
. 
She remembered watching from the shadows on the stairwell.  Whenever gypsies came through the town, while not too frequently, they always came to the saloon.  Sahara was always banished to the second floor, told to stay in her room.  She had thought it was to protect her virtue.  Now she knew that it was to protect her from her past.  That night, t
he
Rom Baro
hadn't seen her
.  No one had seen her.
But the
Rom Baro
had known she
was there.
She had wondered why, how. 
Of course, she thoug
ht.  It made sense now.  He had
known because he recognized the m
an that had run off with Amaya,
her mother. 
He had known because the gypsies
had come to the town and sought out her father in order to win Sahara back…to take what was rightfully theirs by gypsy law. 
“
When did you find...?
”

Nicolae
waited for her to fi
nish but she didn't. 
“
Find out
where you were?  Last win
ter.  We were at winter camp
in northern Texas
.  Many kumpanias were there.
”
  He stared o
ver her head at the empty space behind her.  How clearly
he could remember it.  The music, the dancing aroun
d the fires, the storytelling. 
At the time,
Nicolae
had thought it w
as the worst time of his life. 
Eight years after his wife's deat
h, he had decided over and over
again not to remarry the many sing
le girls
available
.  Instead, he
had wanted to find Amaya's daughter.  His father had planted
the
idea inside his head and he ha
d heard so many people speak of
Amaya, the wild Afrikaiya girl.  H
er beauty was
indescribable
and
her
feisty
nature made her the flam
e of the fires, they all said. 
Certainly the child resembled the mother.  They all laug
hed,
wondering what the child, now
a grown woman, was like.  Some
joked about the title the lost
daughter unknowingly would give
some gadjo man. 
“
Some lucky gadj
o pig is future
Rom Baro
of the
Afrikaiya kumpania,
”
they teased
Nicolae
.