by Frank Coates
Naturally her mother didn’t know that Emerald and Fiona had arranged to meet up with the Oxford boys before then. Emerald allowed herself a little daydreaming about what a few days alone with Peter might look like. It was electrifying.
Things continued in the same vein with the refugees all afternoon, until a young man, wearing a brown hat and a black coat too large by at least two sizes, came forwards.
Emerald ran her eye over the front page. He was Goran Papasov, age twenty-four, originally from Czechoslovakia, but now living in a refugee camp at Heathrow.
The subsequent pages of his application were largely incomplete.
‘Are you having trouble completing the remaining questions, Mr Papasov?’
He shrugged. ‘No,’ he said.
‘But you haven’t filled in the section on which country you wish to emigrate to.’
‘It is not important. I do not care where I go.’
‘Do you have family members who have emigrated?’ she asked.
‘I have no family.’
‘Then you have a choice. There are a number of countries taking refugees.’ She consulted her notes. The Australian government were seeking labourers and skilled workers for something called the Snowy Mountains Authority.
‘How about Australia?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer.
‘Mr Papasov? Would Australia suit you?’
‘Do they have Romany people in Australia?’
‘Romany people?’ She lifted her head from the form, but he did not meet her eyes; nor did he elaborate. He was a serious-looking fellow, dark eyes and hair, olive skin.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said.
‘Gypsies,’ he said, and still he kept his face averted.
‘W-why does that matter?’
He finally looked at her, and Emerald almost flinched from the intensity of it.
‘Because we have been hunted to death everywhere else,’ he said.
He looked angry. This situation had not occurred before. The confidence she’d built up during the day evaporated. She stared at him, lost for words.
‘Have you heard of the Nazis?’ he asked, then added, after reading her name badge, ‘Miss Northcote-Middlebridge?’
‘Of course I have,’ she answered, indignant in spite of her unease.
‘Then you would know of the Jews and the Holocaust.’
‘I don’t see what the Nazis and the Holocaust has to do with your application to emigrate to —’
‘But you haven’t heard of the persecution of the Romanies, have you?’
She hadn’t, but refused to surrender any further ground.
‘Up to four million gypsies were exterminated during the war, but nobody really knows because most were illiterate and not registered in the camps. Nobody cared enough to count them.
‘You see, Miss Northcote-Middlebridge, Himmler also had a Final Solution for the gypsies. My family was sent to Auschwitz, to a special Gypsy Family Camp. A nice name, ah? Even better, my little brother was put in Dr Mengele’s dormitory they called The Zoo. We never saw him again.
‘My father was part of a sterilisation experiment. He was bombarded by X-rays from two powerful machines day after day until the skin peeled from his private parts. My mother tried to save him from the infection that was killing him by cutting off his genitals.’ He paused, watching her reaction. ‘Of course, he died.
‘Few people know the Nazis’ persecution was not the first, or the last of it. Do you know, for example, that here in England, the enslavement of the Romanies was only abolished in 1856? In France we were branded and our women’s heads were shaved? Elsewhere we had our ears cut off so people would know a gypsy when they saw one.’
He sat back and folded his arms across his chest. ‘That is why I don’t care where I go.’
Emerald felt ill and couldn’t think of a response. Was there anything she could say to him to express her utter dismay?
‘But that’s … that’s terrible. Why haven’t I heard of all this before?’
‘Because we gypsies are not rich, and we have no powerful friends to represent us. We are like nothing.’
Papasov dropped his head into his hands. Now that his anger and hatred had been spent, he went limp like a rag.
Emerald reached a hand to him, but stopped short of resting it on his shoulder. She felt useless, ashamed of her ignorance, and guilty because of her sheltered position of privilege.
She wondered if that was what Elsie meant by heartache.
Emerald and Fiona took the train to Henley for the regatta, but had a two-hour wait at Twyford for the connection. They took a stroll along the railway lines to kill time, and arrived at a field with dozens of carts and caravans.
‘Oh, it’s gypsies,’ Fiona said in a lowered voice, although they were still fifty yards from the nearest of them. ‘They swarm around Henley this time of year for the regatta.’
Emerald had seen gypsy camps before, but having met the gypsy refugee, she was now more interested in them.
‘Romanies,’ she said, more to remind herself than to inform Fiona. ‘That’s their proper name.’
‘Awful, dirty people. Let’s go back.’
‘Look,’ Emerald said. ‘There’s someone wanting us to come.’
An old woman with a red and white head scarf was waving to them.
‘Come on, Emma, let’s go back and wait at the station.’
‘I wonder what she wants.’
‘Your money, I suspect. Thieves, the lot of them. Don’t look at her; let’s just go.’
‘Wait a moment, Fiona. I’ve learned a bit about these people. I want to see what she wants.’
‘Emma, if you think I’m going anywhere near that gypsy camp, then you’re quite mad. Now, I’m going back to Twyford station. Are you coming or not?’
Emerald looked at the old woman again. Even from where they were standing, her smile revealed few front teeth. She wore a tattered dark green cardigan and a blue apron.
Fiona was inclined to be bossy with Emerald. She decided to make a stand. ‘You go, Fiona,’ she said. ‘I want to see what she wants.’
Fiona muttered something about rape and murder, and then stormed off.
The old woman smiled her toothless smile; and a scruffy toddler ran and hid behind her apron as Emerald approached.
‘Ah, eyes like emerald,’ she said. ‘You very beautiful lady.’
‘Thank you.’
The urchin poked his head out and looked up at Emerald. When she moved to touch his head he dived for cover.
The old woman cackled. ‘Him not like English lady. You like fortune-telling?’
Emerald looked around the camp. It was empty except for a handful of tiny children and a few tethered horses.
‘Where is everyone?’ Emerald asked.
‘Gone to Henley. You like me tell your fortune?’
Emerald looked back towards the path. Fiona was gone. Her fortune would be something to laugh about when they were together on the train.
‘All right,’ she said, and followed the woman to a table and chairs set beside the caravan.
Emerald laid her hand, palm upwards, on the table. The gypsy woman took it; her skin was as dry as parchment, but she held Emerald’s hand as delicately as she would a bird. She lowered her head over the table and began to mutter inaudibly in a foreign language. After some minutes, Emerald began to grow bored with the old woman’s charade of authenticity.
‘Am I going to marry a rich and handsome man?’ she asked, smiling.
The gypsy remained hunched over the table, mumbling.
‘Well? I haven’t got all day, you know.’
The woman lifted her head and Emerald recoiled. Her eyes had rolled back into her head: with only the whites showing, she was a ghostly sight. Emerald shifted her chair, ready to rise and flee, but her hand was caught in the woman’s now surprisingly strong grip.
‘I see … I … you. I see babies. Half black, half white.’
; The white eyes stared at her, seeing but unseeing.
‘Who are these babies? Are they my babies?’ Emerald asked, not sure what she thought now. It was too bizarre.
‘No. Black and white. Boy and girl. Black and white. Man and woman. They call … far away. They call you. I hear … recha.’
‘Recha? What is recha?’
The gypsy was silent for a long moment.
‘I hear recha.’
Her head nodded forwards. A moment later she sat up, eyes wide.
‘Are you all right?’ Emerald asked, startled by the sudden transformation from white-eyed sleepwalker to haggard old woman.
The gypsy blinked, and cackled. ‘Two bob,’ she said, her wrinkled hand turned up on the table.
‘Two bob!’
It was outrageous, but Emerald had no recourse. Thieves indeed. She stood up in a huff, angry with herself for succumbing to the rort. She tossed the two shillings onto the table.
‘Two bob for two minutes or so,’ she muttered. ‘Highway robbery if you ask me.’ She was about to leave, but turned back. ‘Anyway, what does recha mean?’
‘Recha?’
‘Yes, you said recha. What does it mean? In English.’
The old woman appeared puzzled. ‘In English it mean … I don’t know how you say.’
‘Oh! Never mind.’
She stormed off.
Emerald arrived in Henley with Fiona, a day ahead of Peter and Michael. They found a group of about a dozen young men lounging about on their cottage porch. Fiona whispered they were some of her brother’s friends from Cambridge. The young men pretended to take no notice of the girls, barely interrupting their conversations to be introduced by Fiona’s brother, Laurence.
The men wore a mixture of the latest fashions: fedora hats, double-breasted pin-striped suits with wide shoulders and high-cut baggy pants in brown or navy. The wide trousers tapered down to very narrow cuffs sitting on spectator brogues in black-or brown-and-white, very popular for jitterbugging — the latest dance craze. Their short, wide ties were boldly coloured or striped. There were elaborate clasps to hold the ties and suspenders to hold up their trousers. Cigarettes hung from their mouths, Bogart-like, and their slicked hair was parted arrow-straight down the left.
They were all very sophisticated and similar, except for one, who wore what appeared to be worker’s trousers of coarse blue denim and a polo shirt under an old knitted vest. He was tall, and had uncontrollable blond hair and an unfashionable moustache. His name was Raph.
‘It means wolf,’ he said to Emerald when Laurence left them alone after the introductions.
‘I see,’ she said, thinking that his face had something of an angular shape to it, wolf-like. ‘I have no idea what emerald means.’
‘Don’t be fucking daft,’ he said.
She flushed, but noted he was studying her closely. She controlled her response, which under normal circumstances would be to simply walk away, however she noticed there was a smirk lurking behind his guarded expression. She stayed, mainly because she didn’t want to reveal she was shocked by such language.
‘It’s your eyes,’ he continued after it was obvious she wouldn’t respond to his crudity. ‘Unless of course you were born in May, in which case you’ve been named after your birthstone. If you believe in that stuff.’
‘You do,’ she responded, ‘otherwise you wouldn’t know it was the May birthstone.’
‘I don’t believe in any of that bullshit.’
‘What do you believe in?’ she asked. ‘If anything.’
‘I believe in the struggle of the working classes.’
‘What does that mean? Exactly.’
‘It doesn’t surprise me you don’t know. You’re one of the moneyed class. You have servants you couldn’t give a shit about, with first names you don’t know. You have a big house in town and a holiday house in at least one of the counties. Your father owns factories and pays the workers shit, and your mother does charity work for the poor who wouldn’t be so poor if they got a decent wage in the first place.’
‘What makes you think you know anything about my family?’
‘I can tell by the way I shocked you with my use of the old-English word fuck.’
‘You didn’t shock me at all, just confirmed my low opinion of Cambridge men.’
‘I’m not a Cambridge man, I’m proud to say.’
‘I’m sure Cambridge would be pleased to hear that.’
He shrugged.
‘Then what are you, if I may ask?’
‘I’m an artist.’
‘Really? What kind of artist?’
‘A photographer.’
‘Hmmph, I’m not sure photography qualifies as art.’
Fiona joined them and whisked Emerald away to help her make tea.
During the course of the afternoon, Emerald caught sight of Raph in deep discussion with others among Laurence’s group of friends. He seemed very intense. He didn’t seek her out and she certainly had no intention of renewing her conversation with him.
Fiona came to her late in the afternoon to excitedly whisper that a young man named Lance had invited her to a nearby pub to listen to some music. She asked Emerald to go with her.
‘What about Michael?’ Emerald asked.
‘It’s only an outing,’ she said defensively. ‘Anyway, it’s not as if Michael and I are engaged or anything. Won’t you come?’ she pleaded.
Emerald didn’t want to be left alone with the crowd of Cambridge men, and agreed.
She went inside to collect her coat.
Raph stopped her in the hall.
‘It is art, you know,’ he said. ‘Photography, I mean.’
He surprised her by his conciliatory tone, but she wasn’t about to drop her guard. ‘If you say so,’ she said.
‘I’d like to prove it to you.’
‘Oh? How is that possible?’
‘I’ll take you to an exhibition by one of England’s best photographers.’
‘You must be joking,’ she said, and continued out of the house with her coat over her arm.
Fiona was in the garden, gaining the necessary assurances from her brother that he would say not a word to her parents about her outing. While she waited in the garden, a few of the young Cambridge men passed. They were leaving. Raph was among them.
‘Day after tomorrow,’ he said, barely pausing as he walked past her to the gate.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Emerald said.
‘You heard. Day after tomorrow. Friday.’
‘If you think I would go anywhere with you, after what —’
‘Around four,’ he added, then was gone.
Fiona and Lance led Emerald and four of the Cambridge men across the Hart Street Bridge to the Red Lion Hotel — a solid brick building of three storeys with several racy little sports cars parked outside its red-brick portico. From the street they could hear the sound of drums and some kind of reedy flute. It wasn’t jazz or jitterbug music, but it had a compelling, almost savage rhythm.
They followed the sound down a long hall. The hotel’s dining room had tables packed together around a tiny dance floor and a small bandstand where two black men were pounding large drums and another was playing the flute. A fourth black man, bare-chested and wearing a short leather skirt, was leaping high in the air, his black and white fur leggings flailing with every kick. His female partner was wearing a colourful loose-fitting cotton blouse and a thick grass skirt, which bounced as she gyrated her hips in time with the beat.
Emerald sat with Fiona and Lance while the others either stood against the wall or found what seats remained. She was fascinated by the spectacle. She’d been to many dances and loved the jitterbug and the bop, but this was like nothing she’d ever seen or heard before. The drums, which she now noted had two different tones, beat a constant accompaniment to the flute, which carried the melody. At first it was the melody that carried her along with the dancers as they leaped and gyrated, until she realised it was the unr
emitting drums that drove them. As when she heard the compelling beat of train wheels on a track, her heart, her mind, fell into tempo with the incessant rhythm of the drums. The more she listened to their beat, the more she was spirited away to whatever dark country they’d come from.
Suddenly, and with a final booming crescendo of drums, the music stopped.
A stunned silence fell over the crowd before a roar of applause went up. Cheering and whistling, the crowd demanded more, Emerald as much a part of it as anyone.
The sweating dancers smiled; and the drums began again.
This time the beat was slower, like a heartbeat, and sensual. The dancers came together with snaking arms and swaying movements like trees in the wind. The flute played in and around them, vying with the drums.
As the dance progressed it was obvious it was a story of seduction. The black man thrust his hips forwards and the woman retreated. He tried again and again with the same result until a subtle shift in the beat changed their rhythm and now they were synchronised: he thrusting and she receiving him. The couple were almost making love on the dance floor.
The air was thick with smoke in the crowded room. Emerald’s lips were dry. She couldn’t swallow. Someone should open a window, she thought. She needed a drink, but couldn’t take her eyes from the performers. It was the most thrilling and exciting dance spectacle she’d ever seen.
When the group headed home across the bridge an hour later, they hardly spoke.
The drums had ended, but they remained inside Emerald’s head; even while looking down into the swift dark waters of the Thames, she could feel their surge moving the blood through her veins in the same beat.
‘Where do the dancers come from?’ someone asked.
‘I think it’s the Belgian Congo,’ another answered.
Emerald had no idea where the Belgian Congo was. She’d never been interested in Africa and, although her mother had told her she’d been born there, it seldom came up in conversation. On one of her weekend visits she’d asked her father about his life in Africa and he became annoyed. She never raised it again.