Cursed Be the Child (32 page)

“Stories are told of Puri Tibbo’s miraculous skill in foraging, his splendid luck,
bahtalo,
in always finding chickens and pigs and sheep and cows when others were fortunate to find even berries. Hah, the
kumpania
of Puri Tibbo
never went hungry, you may be sure and never once did the
Gaje
policemen
lell
old Tibbo to jail for his foraging skills.

“Yes, Puri Tibbo was clever, so clever that he once sold a three-legged mare to a blacksmith! There was a cleverness in his hands as well. Puri Tibbo could juggle a dozen sharp
tshcuris,
no knife ever giving him even the slightest cut.

“And with such hands, you might think Tibbo was a grand musician, and so he was, but remember, one needs both hands and heart to make true music. When Puri Tibbo played the guitar, all people, Gaje and Rom, wept; when he played the mandolin, people and animals, crawling and flying, large and small, wept, and when he played violin, people and animals and
vila,
all manner of spirits, good and evil, wept.

“Puri Tibbo was a good man and a clever man, and you might think being good and being clever sufficient gifts for any man, but Puri Tibbo had wisdom as well—uncommon wisdom.

“What is wisdom, you might ask-and there are more foolish questions by far. The wise man sees what is as it is.

“And that is how Puri Tibbo saw everything. It is told how, when Puri Tibbo’s oldest and best beloved son died of
tate shilalyi,
the chills and fever, old Tibbo wept and danced for three days. ‘I weep in sorrow,’ Tibbo told the
kumpania,
‘because my son is dead,’ and all the Rom could understand this. But why did Puri Tibbo dance? ‘I dance in joy,’ Tibbo told the kumpania, ‘because I had a wonderful son,’ and, I am sorry to say, that not all of the
kumpania
had the wisdom to understand this.

“Ah, the wisdom of Puri Tibbo…It was said of Puri Tibbo that doctors sought his advice on how to dispense medicine, that judges sought his advice on how to dispense justice, that priests sought his advice on how to dispense salvation.

“Now, as must all people, Puri Tibbo died, only
O Del,
the good God, is eternal. Can it be too great a surprise that the death of a
Rai,
a noble and wise man, should be a noble and wise death?

“It happened that the
kumpania
of Puri Tibbo was obliged to pass through a land in which the Rom were despised and cruelly treated by the Gaje, a country in which Gaje law said Gypsies might be imprisoned or beaten or killed for the crime of being Gypsies. Thanks be to
O Del,
the caravan safely journeyed nearly the length of this wicked land, coming at last to a wide, rain-swollen, rushing river. Furious white explosions of foam burst against huge, jagged boulders in the path of the waters. The river roared like a thousand hells. It was a fearsome place and an awesome place, and on its bank, waving his hands in the air, was a Gajo dressed in the clothing of a farmer. He was screaming, ‘My child! My baby! Someone save my little baby!’

“And there, far out in the water, being swept downstream was something small and pink.

“Puri Tibbo swept off his hat and stepped out of his shoes and started for the river.

“At that very second,
Baht,
fate itself, appeared to Puri Tibbo, and in such a way that
Baht
could only be seen by Puri Tibbo. Such a thing is strange and miraculous, of course, but as we know, much that happens in the life of each and every one of us is strange and miraculous. ‘Tibbo,’
Baht
said, ‘do not go into the river. You are strong, but the river is stronger. You see, this is my river,
O Paya le Baht,
the Waters of Fate. You are safe on the land. The water will surely kill you.’

“Roughly, Puri Tibbo pushed
Baht
aside and leaped into that awful river.

“A short but most violent time passed, and then, bones broken, lungs full of water, Puri Tibbo was hurled on shore far down river. Death, black and cold, was crawling within him.

“In Puri Tibbo’s strong arms was a piglet, an eyeless freak with a split snout. The ugly piglet was the kind of sport the Gaje thought it bad luck to eat, and so it became sport, a killing joke on a Gypsy.

“Again,
Baht
appeared before the eyes, now growing dim, of Puri Tibbo. ‘Tibbo, you knew you would perish if you went into the river. This time, Fate itself gave you a choice!’

“‘No,’ Tibbo said, not at all regretfully, ‘You are mistaken. You,
Baht
, made me what I am,
Mandi Rom.
I am Gypsy man. So I had no choice. I had to try to save a drowning child.’

“Then Puri Tibbo again said,
‘Mandi Rom;
I am Gypsy man. I have lived a good life.’ For a moment, Tibbo’s vision cleared and above him he saw the infinite blue sky; he would die outside befitting a man of the Rom.

“So he would say, ‘Now I have a good death,’ which is what he did say before he closed his eyes forever.

“May we all be able to speak so when it is our time to go into the nation of the dead.”

— | — | —

Thirty-Five

Walking along Michigan Avenue at 8:30, Tuesday morning, Selena Lazone felt a touch too warm in her London Fog coat. She doubted anything she could have worn would have been exactly right for today. It was chilly but not actually cold; today struck her as neither the end of autumn nor the beginning of winter. It seemed a day between seasons, a time between times, a temporary suspension of chronology and progression.

It was an ominous day.

She went into the Hamlin Building. Her first appointment wasn’t until ten, but there were notes she wanted to check over. She anticipated her ten o’clock client. A nice, normal, 26-year-old woman, she thought. That is, a nice, normal, 26-year-old neurotic who couldn’t sustain a relationship because she was still working out all the old Oedipal schtick for her father.

She crossed the gleaming tiled lobby. She smiled at Hank, the soon-to-retire security man. Then she stepped into the empty elevator, pushed eight, and as the doors came together with their metallic whisper, she realized she was not alone.

The hairs at the nape of her neck rose as she turned to see Kristin Heidmann. For an instant, Selena believed herself truly face to face with the girl, the living child.

No, Kristin Heidmann said.

Reality, Selena Lazone told herself, was the vibrating floor under her feet as the elevator rose smoothly and the hum of the overhead ventilator.

Reality was a
mulo,
this ghost child, who had come to confront her, to accuse her, to condemn her for her failure—as she had been condemning herself.

“Kris,” Selena whispered, “I am sorry.”

Sorry, yes, but not frightened anymore.
Mule
and
vila,
ghosts and spirits, had their roles to play in this world as they did in other worlds.

“It is all right,” Kristin said.

Kristin touched Selena’s cheek. The spectral fingertips felt like the tickly brush of seedling dandelions.

“I didn’t give you the chance,” Kris said, “but it’s all right. It really is. Maybe it wasn’t right to kill myself, but I’ve found peace now, Selena, peace and forgiveness, so it’s okay. I can handle it, you know? I mean, Selena, I can handle being dead.”

“Kris,” Selena said, “if you accept your fate”—
Baht!
—“then why have you returned? Why have you not passed on?”

“I never said thank you, Selena,” Kris said. “You helped me.”

“I did try.”

“You helped me, Selena. Things wouldn’t be all right now if you hadn’t. I want you to forgive yourself, Selena. You’re not to blame for my suicide. And now, Selena…”

She knew what Kristin Heidmann would say then. Selena could not even be sure she wasn’t saying it to herself.

“There is a child who needs you. She needs special help.”

Yes, there was.

“Help her, Selena.”

Selena nodded.

“Then there’s just one more thing I have to ask you to do for me.”

Again, the comforting ethereal hand touched Selena’s face, and Kristin Heidmann,
mulo,
asked Selena Lazone for a prayer.

Selena had a prayer. In Romany, the language of the truth of the heart, she whispered:
“Putrav lesko drom angle leste tu na inkrav les ma but palpale mua brigasa.
May the way be open before you in your world beyond as I release you from all chains of this Earth and my sorrow.” To herself, Selena added, and as your forgiveness has released me from my chains of guilt.

The
mulo’s
image seemed to flicker, then blur as though Selena were gazing at her through a rainy window.

“Kris, Kristin Heidmann…
Akana mukav tut le Devlesa.”

The
mulo’s
eyes flashed grateful understanding and farewell at Selena’s words; “I now leave you to God.”

The elevator’s doors opened to the eighth floor.

Her ten o’clock appointment whined the usual whines. “My father just never seemed to have time for me, you know? Oh, he worked hard all his life, had to, really, to take care of my mother with her multiple sclerosis and all…”

She had only one other appointment for late this afternoon, and she cancelled it. Then she called the apartment. David was in. Could he meet her for lunch at Bennigan’s, just across the way?

She needed to ask him some questions. She had to talk about what she could not speak of last night.

An hour later, sitting at a window table in the bustling restaurant, she appreciated the noise all around her. Conversations and glassware clatter and the TV sets from the center bar blended together as a comforting curtain of sound that freed her to say anything. Of course, the vodka martinis also helped.

But most of all, looking into David Greenfield’s fiercely black eyes, she thought, Yes, he is
tacho rat.
His soul is a Gypsy soul, and I can tell him anything.

“The Barringers, David. Vicki, Warren, and their daughter, Melissa. They came to the office. You know them.”

“Yes.” If he was shocked or surprised, he did not show it.

“I sensed that.”

“Dukkeripin,”
he said quietly.

“Yes. I’ve tried to deny that sixth sense, or at least ignore it, but it’s there and it’s real. The Barringers, David, their little girl is obsessed by a
diakka.
”

Selena went on. “I sensed a lot of other things, too, David.
Baht
itself brought the Barringers to me. Fate has a plan for all of us, for the Barringers and you and me, David. I sense the possibility of death for all of us—or some of us. And…” Her voice became less than a whisper, a voice that would have been incapable of speaking anything other than tshatsimo, the truth. “I am afraid. I could die, David. I am even more afraid that you could die.”

He smiled mockingly. She understood he was not mocking her. Instead, he was taunting
Baht.
“And if you refuse to be part of fate’s strategies?”

“Then the little girl, Melissa, will be…”

Selena hesitated, searching for the word. It was not death; it was destruction of self—and worse. “The child will be lost.” Then the Romany words came to her, far more precise and terrible.
“Detlene mulano,”
she said “a lost child spirit, wandering lonely and afraid forever in the void, the gray realm between the world of the living and of the dead.”