A Table of Green Fields (19 page)

We saw bright colors down through the trees. I made out a flounce of orange and red that seemed to be a skirt. The wagon was a caravan all pink and yellow.

Fants! Florent said. They are fants. I said in a whisper that they looked like gypsies to me. Fants or gypsies he whispered back. Romany people. Look at the second wagon. That's the man in the white hat we saw yesterday. We could see several women in strange shawls and ruffled dresses on foot. The horses were in silver-studded harnesses. The men wore leather vests and had long moustaches. The violin! Florent whispered. There is the violin.

There were more wagons. All just below our rock. We scampered backward and got into our shorts and shirts. We pondered whether we ought to lie low. Florent pocketed his watch. We crept back to the edge.

Five wagons. Several women walking. I felt as if I were back in my place above the beach watching the gypsies looking for things the artillerymen had left behind. They were a handsome and dark people with an easy dignity to their bearing.

Florent pointed out the man with the gun and the woman with a baby at her breast. And a man in a vest all buttons.

But I saw the bear first. Behind the fourth wagon was a bear! A fat old pigeon-toed muzzled bear stepping along in a rolling lope. The man who had him on a leash carried a whip and a tambourine. I looked at Florent and Florent looked at me. A bear.

And when I looked back I saw Tarpy.

He was on the seat of the last wagon. His golden hair stood out among the gypsies like a single dandelion on a sward. I could not speak. My mouth made the shapes but not the sounds of words. I grabbed Florent's wrist. Then I remembered that he had never seen Tarpy.

Tarpy!
I sang out.

A gypsy looked up. Florent pushed me back down from the edge of the rock.

He looked at me wildly. I had never seen his eyes so serious. I said that Tarpy was down there with them. That boy with the light hair on the last wagon is Tarpy.

Don't call again! Florent hissed at me. He had me hard by both wrists. He asked me if I was absolutely certain. I had begun to cry. I tore loose and went back to look again. A gypsy was looking up at me. But I saw only the back of the last wagon. They were all but gone by.

Tarpy!
I hollered.
Tarpy!

Florent pulled me back and pushed me down. I hit him as hard as I could with the sharp of my elbow against the mouth. He pinned me and held me tight.

Let me go!
I shouted. My voice was like a rifle shot in the

quiet.

We could hear the caravan rumbling on and away.
Uste!
a voice sang out. Florent turned me around and looked at me. Blood dripped from his chin. There were tears in his eyes. My mouth was open and dry. I tried to swallow but my tongue and throat were as dry as paper. I was breathing in gasps. My sides were stitched with pain.

I broke and ran. Florent tripped me and sat on me. He 
held my mouth. I bit his hand. He did not move it. I kicked.
Jens!
he said quietly. We will follow them and see if it really is Tarpy. But we can't put ourselves at the mercy of such people. They are thieves. They would think nothing of taking everything we have. They would think nothing of killing us out here miles from anywhere.

I hated him. I wouldn't look at him when he turned me loose. I walked away into the trees. I was barefoot and my heart hurt. My stomach was a tight knot pinching in. I cut and ran.

O did I run! I sprang over big rocks without looking. I plunged through bushes. I suddenly had all the strength in the world and no end to it ever in sight. I had something keen and fine that I had never had before. There was nothing that could stop me. I could fly if need be. Nothing could puzzle me. Nothing dared puzzle me. I knew how to circle and come out exactly where the gypsies were. I was God knows where in a thick and tall wood but I was not lost. I ran like a rabbit. Whether Florent was following me I couldn't be bothered to stop and find out and moreover didn't care. I would never see him again.

I ran and ran and ran. The world was nothing to me. The world was merely something negligible underfoot. Something to brush aside. I even knew when I had to begin to be cautious.

I had to see the gypsies before they saw me. Florent had put the doubt in my mind that I might have seen not Tarpy but someone I mistook for Tarpy at that distance through branches. Yet I knew that it was Tarpy. Only when I slowed down to a jog crossing a stream with a tearing splash and running up a long boulder like a monkey and jumping from the other side without the least fear of what I would come down on did I begin to think how Tarpy could be with the gypsies. He had escaped from the institution or had been let out. He had joined the gypsies. The gypsies had stolen him.

I knew I was near and began to look to the noise I was making. But the wood came upon no opening. No road.

I stopped. I listened.

I knew my mind. Knew that my body was in absolute control. I could run a hundred miles. I could climb the highest tree and jump down. I could hear for miles. I could call to Tarpy from where I was if I was so minded. My cocked ears heard the jingle and clop of horses I knew I would hear.

I crept forward. I made haste slowly. I commanded the bushes not to betray me with sounds. Finally I got a glimpse of a wagon. The gypsies seemed to be pulling into a clearing. I heard their voices. I was close enough to see a horse being unharnessed from its traces.

Then without any warning my knees began a spasm of trembling and I was cold all over with sweat. I had sense enough to know that it was because I had no notion what in the world to do next. I hated Florent even more deeply for planting the doubt. If it was not Tarpy I could run. I knew I could run. If it was Tarpy he would know what to do.

Who are you?
a voice said and I jumped with a sickening stab of fear.

A gypsy woman was laughing at me. She had slipped up behind me. She was carrying firewood. Her smile showed long white crooked teeth. Gold bangles across her forehead and throat and rings in her ears. She was old and marvellously wrinkled.

Boy! she said. Who are you and what you want? Fright not.
Eh! Uva tu?

I stammered Tarpy's name,
Jeg
talar irtte mycket svenska. Tarr pi?
When I pointed to the wagons she took me by the hand so that I arrived as a curiosity led sheepishly among the gathering gypsies by a tall woman who seemed to take enormous pleasure in surprising everybody by turning up not only with a bundle of sticks for the fire but with a barefoot boy drenched with sweat and trembling as well.

A man in a bandana squatted before me and studied me with wide eyes. I looked wildly for Tarpy.

And saw him.

He was with two gypsy boys in red shirts. He was himself in gypsy dress. An orange blouse. His eyes looking at me were eyes in a dream. He stared with a strange concern as if he had known me a hundred years ago and could recall my face but not my name.

Tarpy!
I saw you from a rock down the road! I called but you didn't hear me.

He kept looking at me. One of the boys in a red shirt said something in gibberish. Tarpy answered him but not me.

The old woman came between us. You know him? she said to me. You know our
gadjo niglo
?

Tarpy! I said again. I was determined to have him answer to the name.

The old woman spoke to him. Her voice rose and made a kind of song. It was the voice grown-ups wheedle children with. But it was a kind and good-natured voice. She had a jolly way about her.

She turned to me with lifted hands. But he says he knows you never! she sang out. How can it be?

My eyes were blind with tears. I looked at the old woman and looked at Tarpy. My hands trembled. I went to Tarpy and searched his face. Could I be wrong? I blubbered. Tarpy looked at me with interest and then smiled at the boys in the red shirts. He turned his hands palms up as if to ask the gypsies if he could be held responsible for this unseemliness.

Tarpy!
I shouted.

He turned away.

A man took me by the arm. I realized that it was night. Fires crackled and flared. A ring of gypsies parted for us to pass through. I was being led away. Many of the faces were kind.

I had no sense of wanting to say anything to anybody and no curiosity as to where I was being led or as to what I was next to do. We stopped at the steps of a caravan where an old man sat holding a carved staff.

Gadjo!
he laughed. You have known our gold-haired 
niglo?
He is now a
rom.
Forgive him he cannot to you come back. He can say
na janav ko dad m'ro has. Miro gule dai merdyas.
The
gadji
beat him and starved him. We are better people. He has now mother and father. Like you he has a brother.

He raised his hand. And there was Florent. He wore one rucksack and carried the other. My boots were under his arm.

Florent gave me a hard look. He took two
kronor
out of his shirt pocket and offered them to the old man. Who closed his ancient hand upon them with a complacent smile. He raised his staff as if in farewell. Florent threw my boots and stockings at my feet.

I put them on in confusion. He handed me my rucksack but did not help me strap it on.

A gypsy said that we could not walk in the dark.

Florent replied that we could walk in the dark.

We had trudged along what I supposed to be the overgrown road for quite awhile before I noticed we were walking in rain. Florent was ahead. I simply followed. My rucksack rode sloppily in the small of my back and my stockings were ruckled messily in my boots. My hair streamed down into my eyes. We plodded on without any word or sign between us. The night was very dark.

I turned my ankle and fell sprawling but scrambled up as quickly as I could find my balance. Florent walked on in indifference. It was so dark that I could only hear him. Hear his measured and even tread. My rucksack was askew. I had to run to catch up. Never knowing where I was stepping. I could feel my face pinch up to cry and fight back the sting of tears and taste their salt in my mouth. I was soaked through to the skin. So must Florent be.

We had got into muddy ground where my boots sank into slush. I could hear Florent's boots sucking in and out of mire. The mud showed me how tired I was. My legs ached. My back ached. My nose ran. Water dripped off my fingers.

Florent went on. I followed.

I began to shiver. A pain across my shoulders made me gasp. My feet had turned to lead and were like cakes of ice.

The rain let up to a drizzle and stopped altogether at a moment I did not notice. A false dawn came grey in the east. I began to make out Florent's back. We seemed to be climbing a hill. I fell on my knees and skinned them and felt a lash of fire across them as I forced myself up. Florent was at the top of the hill in full outline against the cold grey of the sky.

Thank God he was standing still. He was taking off his rucksack. He spoke for the first time. He ordered me to gather sticks. Small sticks from under trees and dry ones if I could find them. He was on his knees blowing on a heap of leaves and twigs when I came back with sticks most of which were wet. He ordered me to lay out the tarpaulin and take off my clothes and get into the bedroll.

Carefully he nurtured the fire. He brought bigger sticks. Dawn and the fire showed me that he was as wet as if he had just climbed out of a river. The fire cracked and lept and danced tall. It was practically a bonfire as he piled on more and bigger sticks. Then he stripped. He dried his hair with a shirt from the rucksack and tossed the shirt to me with orders to dry my hair. We stood naked at the fire red in its light. Florent's underlip was split and swollen ugly.

He handed me slices of dried fruit. Its taste was a kind of blessing. He saw my knees and painted them with iodine. Too tired to stand any more I sat on the bedroll.

Was it Tarpy? Florent asked.

I said that he had refused to recognize me. It was Tarpy all right. Could they have done something to him that he wouldn't know me?

Florent squatted by the sinking fire. He said that they had taken him in. Had given him a home.

I was too tired to think or answer. I fell asleep before Florent joined me in the bedroll. Never had I been so grateful for warmth and rest and sleep.

We woke at noon and packed and set out as if we were in 
a hurry. Florent's split lip throbbed so much that I could see it pulse. He did not mention it. We did not talk. We made camp early and slept as soon as we had eaten dried beef which we did not bother to heat.

Florent asked next day if I wanted to go home. I supposed so. We were tired of each other's company.

Far into the next day deep in a forest with patches of wild flowers and a racket of wind splashing the highest branches together and the smell of green and earth as fresh in the nose as baking bread or butter risen in the churn I asked him to tell me more of the
Iliad.
He did not answer me.

We had a hot supper that night. He lit his pipe for the first time after I had seen Tarpy with the gypsies but did not offer it to me. His lip was healing. We slept back to back in the bedroll.

Our hikes were like a trial of strength. Except for brief rests we walked all day and fell asleep dead tired every night. We reached woods familiar to me. One afternoon we saw the big house in its valley. We were back.

There were carriages I did not recognize in the drive. I saw Papa through a window and Matilda ran out to fold me in her arms and call me dear soul and say that Grandmama had died in her sleep. I wept horribly. Bitterly.

I wanted to see her. She had been buried a week. Papa took me to her grave at the church. There were flowers in vases tilted at crazy angles on the grave. She shared a tombstone with Grandpapa whom I never knew and the date of her death had already been chiselled in raw and white beside her birth-date as dim as the weathered stone itself.