Lycanthropos (2 page)

-from the Avesta

 

And all the world wondered after the Beast, and they
worshipped the Dragon which gave power to the Beast, and
they worshipped the Beast saying, Who is like unto the
Beast, and who can make war with him?

Revelation 13: 3, 4

The cold wind whipped through the frozen trees, and the old woman pulled
her heavy woolen shawl tight around her throat. Cold such as this was not new to
her. She had spent the better part of her long life wandering the plains of central
Hungary
and the mountains of
Romania
, and the biting cold of the bitter winds of late winter was an old friend to her. But the years were beginning to tell, and she no longer felt able to bare
herself to the elements with the abandon of youth. There had been a time when she would have thought nothing of dancing half naked at this time of year, when their
caravan made one of its frequent visits to the local villages. The cold would not
have stopped her from enticing the peasants to toss a few forints her way while her brother
sneaked through the attentive crowd, picking pockets; but she had ceased
such activities years ago. Let the young girls dance while the old women read tea
leaves and palms and assured the fools from the villages that their futures would be
bright and prosperous and happy. It had always been thus, for longer than anyone
could remember. The Gypsies moved from village to village, from province to province, even at times from country to country, dragging their meager possessions
with them in their ramshackle wagons, waiting for the time when the young girls could dance and the young men could pick pockets and purses, when the old
women could tell fortunes and the old men could make music upon violin and
mandolin and pipe.

Theirs was a hard life, the old woman reflected as she tossed a few more
handfuls of acorns into the pot of boiling water which rested upon the blazing fire
in front of her. They lived from day to day, from hand to mouth, boiling in the
summer, freezing in the winter, making do with whatever food they could manage
to purchase or find or steal. The fools in the villages seemed almost to envy the
Gypsies their freedom, their apparent lack of responsibility.
Freedom!
the old woman thought to herself, snorting with irritation. Freedom to do what? Freedom to starve? Freedom to live without a home, without land, without the protection of
the law? Freedom to fear each petty official? Freedom! Bah!

She shivered. The warmth of the fire did little to comfort her, and it was as if
she were half burning and half freezing as the fire roasted her face and the bitter
cold assaulted her back. She dipped the old iron ladle into the cauldron and drew forth a small portion of the brown, steaming liquid. She brought it to her lips and
sipped it cautiously. It was bitter and salty, just as it should be. The stew was
almost ready, as ready, at least, as it would ever be. Just so much could be done with squirrel meat, acorns, field greens, water and salt. As the old woman spat a generous mouthful of tobacco juice at the burning logs and watched it sizzle, she shook her head and sighed, wondering why the people who lived in the villages
and the cities would begrudge her people their precarious existence. And now there were even greater dangers, she thought. She was illiterate and oddly isolated in her
incessant nomadism, and was thus only dimly aware of the events in the world outside her little tribe and their caravan, but she knew that a war was raging, she
knew that
Hungary
, the unwilling host country of the Gypsy tribes, was involved in it. She knew that
Hungary
was somehow controlled by the Germans, and she knew
that, for reasons which were far beyond her understanding, the Germans were
everywhere arresting Gypsies and Jews. This much she had learned from the people
upon whom she and her tribe depended for their livelihood, the villagers whom
they entertained and deceived and robbed. But why the Germans were arresting her
people and the Jews, this she did not know.

The old woman looked over at an old man who was sitting on the rear steps
of a wagon, changing a string on his mandolin, and she said, "Grigor. The stew is
done. Tell Lara to serve it to the others." She picked up a battered metal bowl and
began to spoon a helping of the meal into it.

The old man watched her and asked, "Is that for Blasko?" She nodded her head as he shook his. "He should get his own food, Mother. Why should you be his servant?"

She threw him a quick, irritated glance. "Do you know what night this is?" The old man did not reply. "Do you want to keep watch over Kaldy while Blasko eats?" Again there was no reply. "No, I thought not," she muttered, and then repeated, "Tell Lara to serve the others." Holding the steaming bowl with both hands, the old woman walked slowly past the wagons and the score of cold, tired,
hungry people. The two campfires which had been built were giving forth enough
light to dispel the murkiness of the impending sunset, but she walked out into the rapidly darkening forest that surrounded the clearing. She walked along a dirt path, one wide enough to admit the narrow Gypsy wagons into the woods but yet narrow enough to discourage the entrance of motorized vehicles. The once bright colors of her long, woolen skirt had faded away years ago along with the roses in
her cheeks, and she was now a gray shadow moving through the woods. She heard
the jangling of chains nearby and turned in the direction of the sound. "Blasko?" she called out into the dusky haze. "Where are you?"

"We are here, Mother," a voice responded.

She squinted her old, myopic eyes, peered into the deepening gloom, and then snorted with disapproval at the sight that presented itself to her. The man to whom she had called out, the man named Blasko, was wiping the sweat from his wrinkled
brow despite the bitter cold. In his hand he held some heavy chains, and he was uncoiling them as he said, "Hello, Mother." Another man stood close to Blasko, a younger man, his hands folded calmly in
front of him, his sad eyes gazing vacantly off at nothing. The old woman knew that Blasko had been preparing to bind the other man and that the other man had stood there calmly, awaiting the restraint. From the pocket of Blasko's dusty trousers
protruded a few flowering twigs.

"You are behind your time, Blasko," she said. "The sun is almost down."

"I know, Mother," Blasko said. "There is time. You have no need to fear."

"I'm not afraid, not of him!" she spat, nodding at the other man with an
expression of contemptuous dismissal which she did not truly feel. "If I fear
anything, I fear for you, not for myself. I have lived long enough."

Blasko laughed. "And you will live longer yet, Mother. I often think that you
are immortal." She was by far the oldest person in the Gypsy band, and was thus
addressed as ‘Mother' by everyone, even though none of the twelve children to
whom she had given birth were still living.

She returned his gentle laughter with a shrill, brittle cackle which seemed to
shoot forth from her toothless mouth. "I have survived for more years than I care to
remember, Blasko. And immortality does not attract me." She walked forward and
smiled maliciously into the face of the other man. "What do you think, friend
Kaldy? Is immortality all that people think it is?"

The other man did not respond. Indeed, from the blankness of his expression it might have almost seemed that she had not spoken to him at all. Blasko regarded the old woman with a cautious, rather respectful disapproval. "Mother, please. Leave him
be."

"I'd love to leave him be," she muttered, placing the dish of stew on the
ground beside Blasko. "I'd love to leave him here and go on our way without him. I
don't know why you seem to feel that you have to..."

"Mother..." Blasko began, and then smiled. "Thank you for the food." She
recognized his thanks as the dismissal it was intended to be, and she turned to walk
back toward the camp. She was about to mutter a parting criticism when the sound of gunfire shattered the dusk and screams and cries of fear mingled with shouted orders in the nearby Gypsy camp. The old woman seemed to fly through the forest back toward her people as if her absence was somehow related to whatever was now happening, as if her presence would somehow serve to protect the others. Blasko followed her after a few moments...they were his people too, after all...and, after an even longer hesitation, the other man, the one whom the old woman had addressed as Kaldy, followed Blasko.

The shouts grew louder as they drew closer to the camp, and the old woman drew in her breath loudly, fearfully, as she saw the reason for the commotion. She was not so learned in the ways of the world that she could identify by the soldiers who had invaded the camp, but by the flickering firelight and the
dying rays of the sun she was able to see the insignia they wore, the skull and
crossbones upon the black cap, the two lightning bolts upon the collar, the black, twisted, hooked cross within the white circle upon the red arm band. She did not know what the
Schutzstaffel
was, she had never heard of the S.S., but the presence
of danger communicated itself to her and spoke to every fiber of her being. She had known danger all her life, the danger that can be known only to those who never rest, are never safe, never welcome, never truly home.

Blasko came up behind her and was soon joined by Kaldy. They stood and watched as the black-garbed Germans herded the Gypsies into a circle near the fire
and kept them motionless under the barrels of their guns as the wagons were first
searched and then put to the torch. Blasko, Kaldy, and the old woman stood off to the side and watched, as if what was happening was something in which they were
not involved; but then they were seen, and the S.S. commander barked a few words
to two of his soldiers, and they ushered the three stragglers into the circle with the
tips of their gun barrels.

A few moments of tense silence preceded the words of the commander of the
S.S. squadron. He walked forward into the circle of captives and allowed his cold
blue eyes to drift lazily and with undisguised distaste over the assembly. He was a
tall man, thin but muscular, with a cruel mouth set beneath a thin nose, and his
bearing and demeanor bespoke confident arrogance as he placed his balled fists
on his hips and demanded, "Do any of you speak German?" There was no response at first, and so he repeated his question a bit more forcefully. "If you
value your lives, you will reply. I know what you Gypsy scum are like. You travel all over
Europe
, stealing and polluting. Some of you must speak our language." He noticed that a few of the captive Gypsies were glancing furtively at one of the three who had been found lurking at the edge of the camp, and so the commander turned to him. "You! Do you speak German?" Janos Kaldy looked at the S.S. officer with what seemed to be disinterest, a fact which the commander found extremely irritating. "Answer me, pig, if you can. Do you speak German?"

Kaldy emitted an almost inaudible sigh and then replied in German, in an
unusual and somehow antique accent, "I have some knowledge of the tongue."

"Good," the commander said sternly. "Then you will serve as translator for the time being. Tell your people that they are to be relocated, by order of S.S.
Reichsführer
Heinrich Himmler. Tell them that their days of wandering and stealing and spreading disease are over. Tell them that they will cooperate and do
what they are told. Tell them that any resistance will lead to their immediate
execution. Tell them that this applies to women and children as well as men, to the old as well as to the young."

Kaldy sighed once again and then muttered a translation of the German's
words. A babble of frightened voices arose at once from the Gypsies, but silence was restored when the commander nodded curtly at one of his men and the latter
released a few rounds of machine gun fire over the heads of the captives. "Tell them
that no questions will be answered and no protests will be tolerated," he said to Kaldy." Tell them that they will come with us to the trucks on the road at the edge of this forest and..."

"They ask no questions and they make no protests," Kaldy interrupted him. "They have a request."

The commander frowned. "Indeed! What is it?"

"They want you to bind me with chains, and they want you to leave me here."

A stern look from the commander silenced the muffled laughter of his men.
He turned back to Kaldy and, ignoring his words, said, "Because you can speak
German, I shall speak to this rabble through you. You are responsible for their
behavior. If any resistance is shown, you will pay for it. Do you understand me?" Kaldy did not reply. He returned the commander's haughty gaze with an impassive
one of his own, and the commander felt slightly unnerved. He was accustomed to
prisoners being frightened and obsequious, at times rebellious and violent; but this Gypsy seemed unimpressed, unconcerned about his plight, not so much brave as
bored. Making a promise to himself that he would make this scum pay for his arrogance, the commander barked a few orders to his troops, and the captives and
their captors began to move from the clearing onto the narrow pathway through the
woods.