A Perfect Madness (35 page)

“
You are a Jew?” the
pregnant woman asked.

Too terrified to answer, Josh inched
closer to Julia.

“
We are all Jews,” Julia
said, taking Josh’s hand. “We have no quarrel with you. All we ask
is to stay the night where it is warm and beg a little food. Then
we will leave when the sun is up.”

The man who was standing with the old
woman by the edge of the woods walked over to Julia, studying her
face and eyes. Taller and older than the rest of the men, he
carried himself with the authority expected of him as an elder. An
imposing man by any means, heavy muscled and square jawed, with
skin darker than those around him and deep-set eyes that told you
nothing. But his voice was gentle and musical, like someone singing
softly to himself.

“
You are running from the
Germans, yes?” he asked.

“
At one time we were, but
they are no longer following us now,” Julia answered.

“
Only the morning will
tell us whether that is true, yes.”

“
No, I am certain,” Julia
said, steeling her eyes on the man’s, whose were fixed on her every
move and expression.

“
Come sit down with me by
the smaller fire and tell me everything that I will know to be true
or a lie,” the man said, taking Julia by the arm and waving for Eva
and Josh to follow.

As Julia told her story with approving
nods from Eva, and answered the questions that came from him, she
became fascinated with the heavy strangeness of this man. Like many
Jews in Prague, throughout her entire life she had spent no more
than fifteen minutes talking to a gypsy man or woman. Where she was
and what was happening seemed as unreal to her now as Rabbi’s
Loew’s golem had been in her youth. The only story kept hidden from
him was that of the British and Czech intelligence, and the role
she and Eva were playing, though Julia believed he knew.

When they were through talking, the
only thing Julia had learned from the man was his name, Django,
nothing more. He then asked that his people gather in a circle once
more around the big campfire, and he would tell them about what he
had learned and what they must do. Django walked slowly to the
center of the circle with Julia and Eva and Josh by his side.
Speaking Romany, a language neither Julia nor Eva understood, he
told what he knew about them and that they should be welcomed to
rest for awhile before moving on. When he came to the episode of
the two dead soldiers and where they were hidden, approving smiles
and laughter broke out among the group. The tale of Josh’s loss of
family brought a chorus of wistful sighs and looks of sorrow around
the circle. Ending, he turned to Julia first and then to Eva,
extending his hand in friendship as he told them all he had said to
the gypsy families. Then he lifted little Josh in his massive arms
and kissed him on the forehead, mumbling something to him that no
one heard. Later in the night around the fire, songs were sung and
stories told and new dreams made, none that Julia and Eva had heard
before.

***

TWENTY-FOUR

Czechoslovakia, 1942

J
ulia stirred at dawn
after spending her first night with the gypsies huddled with Eva
and Josh by the fire, now only a few smoking embers. She had made a
small bed on the forest floor, using heavy straw taken from
Django’s cart where he slept warmly, unconcerned about the weather.
Wrapped together like a large cocoon, with Josh squeezed tightly
between their bodies, Julia and Eva kept the cold away and slept as
best they could. As the first light from the rising sun made its
way through the woods, Julia saw the first of the many strange
sights that would come to her during her stay with the gypsies.
Back in several openings in the woods, hidden by the night when she
arrived, were several small earthen mounds rising no more than
three feet above ground. Covered with pine needles and twigs and
tree limbs of all sizes and shapes, they were largely indiscernible
to the eye at first glance. Inside, still sleeping, were the
families she and Eva saw gathered around the fire, families they
would come to know well and love. She had assumed they slept like
she and Eva had, huddled together with those they loved and covered
only by the heavens above them.

“
You and Eva must build
your own forest nest today if you are to stay with us for a little
while,” Django said, coming up behind Julia, startling
her.

Turning to him, she saw a different
face than that of last night. Somehow it seemed less gentle, more
rugged and weathered than she remembered. Looking at him closely as
he walked around stirring the campfires, she realized there was
nothing more astonishing than a human face, how the slightest of
shadows can create a new and different person, only to change again
when the light comes and the shadows drop away. Much of life was
this way, she had learned, for those who exist only among the
shadows, and see nothing more than images of truth.

“
You will teach us then,
if we stay for a few days?” Julia asked, as he walked back to where
she was standing.

“
Yes, before night comes
again, you and your friends will have a warm place.” Saying nothing
more, Django walked away from Julia, much like he would do many
times in the two months she and Eva would stay with his family of
gypsies.

Jews living with gypsies would have
been a very odd anomaly at any time in history, but war has a habit
of changing relationships and dismissing culture, when staying
alive is the only topic on the table for discussion. So it was with
Julia and Eva and all the gypsies they found themselves living
with. Each knew little about the other, though they quickly decided
their Gods were the same, which made them happy. At first Julia was
puzzled because, though the gypsies were Christians and had their
Jesus, He seemed very different from Angie McFarland’s Jesus. He
seemed more mystical, like everything around them, especially their
amulets and talismans and good luck charms, which they kept with
them at all times. It was Eva, though, much to the surprise of
Julia, who became fascinated with their belief in the existence of
bad luck,
bibaxt
, they called it. Through all the droughts
her family had suffered that destroyed their grain and vineyards,
she had never once thought of it as being the doings of an alien
power that had its own existence instead, always accepting that’s
just the way life was. Now she wasn’t so sure, and it bothered her
deeply that she had learned such a thing as bibaxt. Neither she nor
Julia took issue with their healing rituals, which came to them
early the third day they were there, the day they had planned to
leave the camp. Josh had awakened, coughing and unable to breathe,
fighting for what air he could pull in to his small lungs in quick
gasps. The chest cold that had set in the morning after their first
night had seized his body and would take him away, Julia believed,
and she had no way of stopping it. She had watched her little
sister die from the croup when she was no older than Josh. Nothing
anyone did mattered, not even praying. But Django came and took
Josh from her arms, and, summoning two women to bring their amulets
and talismans, placed him close to the fire. Then a healing ritual
with chanting words unknown to Julia and Eva began as the women’s
amulets were emptied on and around Josh, while some kind of warm
fluid was forced down his throat, which seemed to help him breathe
better. Julia wondered if they were calling on God in their words,
or to a separate power of healing, like bad luck was thought to be.
Later Django would tell her that God was seldom called on, or
mentioned, though he might have been there with them a few times.
Yet he couldn’t explain Josh’s healing when pushed by her to talk
about it. All he would say was that it wasn’t Josh’s time to quit
living, as if one’s existence was somehow tied to the sands of an
hourglass, which Julia didn’t believe. What was certain, though,
was that she and Eva would have to remain with the gypsies for an
uncertain time until Josh was well enough to travel.

In the days ahead, spring came and
life began again. The barren brush throughout the forest turned
bright green and armies of wildflowers pushed upward from beneath
the thick blanket of thistles and pine needles that had kept them
warm through the long winter, while young fawn danced and played
nearby. For Julia and Eva, new things would be learned in an
existence neither could have ever imagined.

For Julia, more than Eva, the time she
would stay was like living in a theater of wondrous lore, offering
something new each rising day, something that had never reached her
soul before. It was like when she was a child. Her father would
take her to the Vltava River and teach her how to carefully select
the flattest of rocks and skip them three and four times across the
dark moving waters. It seemed like magic to her then. And so it was
with Django and the gypsies. Their music, more than anything, would
bring her to her feet, clapping as a child would in the delight of
the rhythms and sounds. All they had was an old guitar and a
tamboura and a badly scarred violin, but the music that came from
them filled the forest with song as if there were a thousand
strings playing. Julia soon learned that anything that could create
a sound became an instrument. Rubbing fingers on brass surprised
her the most, creating a magical melody for Josh and the other
children. One night when the dancing and singing started, the music
became tribal and wild and unshackled, with several men jumping
through the fire as if responding to some ancient voice within.
When Julia entered the circle of dancers, she was quickly joined by
Django, who held her tightly around the waist as she struggled to
keep up with the rapid beat. Their bodies never touched, yet they
were close enough that the scent of their sweat aroused their
senses. Later, when she asked about such music, Django would say,
“It is who we are when we are free,” and walk away into the
darkness of the woods.

Later that night he came for Julia and
took her deep into the woods where they would stay until the early
morning hours, talking of things that mattered most in their lives,
but nothing of war. She was fascinated that Django would care to
discuss so deep a subject as death, with it always being so close
to him, living as he did. Yet he spoke with the passion of a poet,
choosing each word carefully, so that who he was as a man could not
be misunderstood. She decided he was a good man, raw and uneducated
as he was.

Although Django was a Christian, he
was quite different from the ones she had known and cared about,
particularly his belief in what happens to us when death does come
to take us away. Coming back to earth again was very real to him,
much like it was to many of the first Christians, but not as a
human being. He would return as a wild animal, but never one of his
own choosing, God would do that for him. When Julia asked about
such a strange belief his only words were, “It’s from the ancient
roots of my blood that came out of India with my
people.”

“
What animal do you hope
God would choose for you?” Julia asked, watching the exuberant
expressions on Django’s face as he expounded on his
beliefs.

“
Perhaps a wolf, or a
deer, like those in the Black Forest that are free to sleep and
play under the stars.”

“
I would want to be a
bird,” Julia said.

“
A bird—they are too
puny.”

“
Yes, but they sing with
such joy, even though their world might be ending, and they fly
away from all that is bad,” Julia said, as if she believed all he
was telling her.

Then she told him of the Old Jewish
Cemetery and Rabbi Loew and his golem and how she would like to be
buried there someday when she lived again in Prague. But when she
told him how the bodies were stacked on top of each other, he
became upset.

“
How could they go before
God that way?” he asked in an uneasy tone.

“
I don’t know, but I’m
sure at least their souls do if they have one.”

“
Well, I will be buried
alone, standing up, so I can walk as a man before Him. I have been
on my knees too long.”

“
That would be good,”
Julia said, which seemed to please Django.

Then he asked her what she thought
about going before God as a Jew and not a Christian, which was not
the kind of question she would have thought necessary to keep a
ready answer for.

“
I don’t know what you’re
asking. The ancient Jews were afraid of Him, our book says, but I’m
not,” Julia said rather proudly.

In a while Django told her of his
wife, who died two years back from blood poisoning, dying over
three long days and nights in agony. When asked about the healing
ritual for her, like that of Josh’s, he had no explanation for its
failure, except maybe she had done something terribly wrong in her
life, or perhaps he had, though he wasn’t sure what he had done
that would have made God angry enough to take her from him. Perhaps
God would tell him someday when his time came to go. With that,
Django stood up and said they should get to their beds, that it
would rain soon.

But as he was leaving he took Julia’s
hand and simply said through tears, “It is when the spring rains
come that I weep for her because our love was born
then.”