I became so engrossed in my task—inspecting and sorting through the gold coins—that it was some time before I first sensed some interference, the presence of some extraneous force, one that was subtle and precise, as if the wind were exerting the slightest of pressures from one direction. I lifted my head, wondering what it could be and whether some vagrant or bandit were watching me from behind, inadvertently transmitting to me the intensity of his covetousness. I slowly surveyed the ruins from left to right and failed to discover anything suspicious; but although it was quiet, and the fragile, lingering silence would have been abruptly shattered by the slightest crunch of snow or clatter of debris, I did not dare to turn around for so long that I finally rebelled against myself. I turned around suddenly. The pounding of blood resounded in my heart and head. I jumped to my feet, scattering the coins, but was already prepared to defend them and seized a stone …
Around a dozen paces away, among the jumbled and deceptive shadows, stood a tall, thin man, hatless, and with drawn, smiling face. Head bent and arms by his sides, he was watching me silently. His teeth gleamed. His gaze was directed over my head, and he wore the look of a man trying to think of something to say in a difficult situation. From the back of his head a straight black line rose up, the end of which was hidden from me by the upper edge of the embrasure through which I was looking. A backward surge of blood, rushing now toward my heart, revived my breathing, and, stepping closer, I examined the body. It was difficult to decide what it was—murder or suicide. The dead man was wearing a black satin shirt, a decent overcoat, and new boots, while not far away lay a leather cap. He looked about thirty. His feet were dangling a foot off the ground, and the rope was tied around a ceiling beam. The fact that he had not been undressed, as well as a certain fastidiousness in the fixing of the rope to the beam, and, moreover, the diminutive, feeble features of the face, which was encircled by a tawny beard around the hollows of the cheeks, inclined one to a verdict of suicide.
I proceeded to gather up the coins, stuffed them into the purse, and hid the purse in my jacket’s inner pocket; then I put several questions to the void and the silence that surrounded me in this remote corner of the city. Who was this joyless and sorrowless witness to my reckoning with the inexplicable? Had he pricked himself on a thorn while trying to pluck a rose? Or was he a desperate deserter? Who knows what brings a man to a pile of ruins with a length of rope in his pocket? Perhaps it was an unsuccessful administrator who hung before me, an apostate, someone disillusioned, a merchant who had lost four wagons of sugar, or the inventor of perpetual motion, who accidentally beheld his own face in the mirror as he was testing the device. Or was he a predator, whose relatives had zealously shaken him by the beard, saying over and over: “That’s what you get, you vulture, for this thieving life of yours!”*—and, unable to take it, did away with himself?
This and more was possible, but I could not bear to sit there any longer, and, after walking only one block, I came across just the thing I had been looking for—a secluded tearoom.
A yellowing sign hung in the basement of an old, gloomy building; part of the sidewalk was illuminated from below by the misted windows. I descended the steep, narrow steps and entered the comparative warmth of a spacious room. In the midst of it a brick stove crackled warmly, while its iron chimney led off into the semidark depths beneath the ceiling, and light radiated from the dim electric lamps, which glowed wanly and with a reddish hue in the damp air. Yawning and scratching under her arm, a bareheaded woman in felt boots dozed by the stove, while the barman, sitting behind the counter, read a tattered book. In the kitchen somebody was heaping on firewood. The place was almost empty—only in the second room, where the tables had no tablecloths, were there half a dozen shabbily dressed men, who looked like travelers, sitting in a corner; under the table, their bags lay at their feet. The men ate and conversed, holding their faces in the steam that rose from the saucers of hot chicory.
The barman was a young fellow of the modern type, with a lean soldier’s face and a look of intelligence about him. He looked at me, licked his finger to turn the page, while with the other hand tore a tea coupon out of a green booklet and rummaged around in a tin box of candies, tossing me the coupon and the candy together.
“Take a seat. You’ll be served,” he said as he engrossed himself once more in his reading.
Meanwhile, the woman, tucking her hair behind her ear, sighed and went through to the kitchen to fetch some boiling water.
“What are you reading?” I asked the barman, having glimpsed the words “my bright-eyed princess …” on the page.
“He-he!” he said. “Nothing much, a play. The Princess Far-Away, by Rostand. Care to take a look?”
“No, thanks. I’ve read it. Do you like it?”
“Yes,” he said indecisively, as though embarrassed by his impression. “It’s a fantasy … about love. Take a seat,” he added, “you’ll be served right away.”
I did not leave the counter, however, and began to talk about another matter.
“Do many gypsies come this way?” I asked.
“Gypsies?” the barman repeated. He evidently found this abrupt transition—from his extraordinary book to the ordinary—odd. “They do.” He automatically directed his gaze to my hand, and I guessed what his next words would be:
“Why do you ask? Are you looking to have your fortune told?”
“I want to do a drawing for a magazine.”
“I see … An illustration. So you’re an artist, citizen? Pleased to meet you!”
But I was still disturbing him, and, smiling as broadly as he could, he added:
“Two bands of them come here regularly. For whatever reason, one of them hasn’t yet come today. I’d imagine they’ll be here soon … Your tea is ready!” With that, he pointed to a table behind the stove, where the woman was laying out crockery.
I was gripping one of the gold coins, and now I liberated its hidden power.
“Citizen,” I said mysteriously, as the circumstances demanded, “I’d like to have a little something to eat and drink, to perk myself up. Take this roundel, from which you can’t even make a button since it has no holes, and reimburse my paltry loss with a bottle of real spirits. I’ll have some meat or fish to go with it. And a decent amount of bread, pickled cucumbers, and some ham or cold cuts with vinegar and mustard.”
The barman lay down his book, stood up, stretched himself out, and dissected me into my constituent parts with a gaze as sharp as a saw.
“Hmm …” he said. “What an awful lot you’re wanting … But what sort of coin is this?”
“It’s a Spanish coin, a gold piastre,” I explained. “My grandfather brought it over”—here I was only half-lying, for my maternal grandfather lived and died in Toledo—“but, you know, these aren’t the times to prize such trinkets.”
“That’s true enough,” agreed the barman. “Wait here while I step out for just a moment.”
He left, and when he returned two or three minutes later, his face was much brightened.
“Step this way,” the barman announced, leading me behind a partition that separated the bar from the first room. “Sit yourself down. Everything will be here shortly.”
As I examined the cubicle into which he had led me—a narrow room with yellow and pink wallpaper, stools, and a table with a grease-stained tablecloth—the barman appeared, closing the door behind him with his foot and carrying a tray of lacquered iron, decorated in the middle with a bouquet of fantastically colored flowers. Atop the tray was a large teapot of the kind found in taverns—dark blue with a gold relief—with a matching cup and saucer. A dish of bread, cucumbers, salt, and a large piece of meat surrounded by potatoes was brought in separately. As I had surmised, the teapot contained spirits. I poured and took a drink.
“There won’t be any change,” said the barman. “And, please, keep it quiet and proper.”
“Quiet and proper,” I assured the barman, pouring a second helping.
At that moment the creaky entrance door slammed, and a low, guttural voice sounded a strange note among the basement hush of the Russian tearoom. Heels banged, shaking off the snow; several people immediately began talking loudly, rapidly, and incomprehensibly.
“Pharaoh’s tribe has arrived,” said the barman. “Take a look at them if you like; perhaps they won’t do!”
I went out. The same group of five gypsies that I had seen that morning was standing in the middle of the room, looking around and trying to decide where to sit and with what to begin. Noticing that I was staring at them intently, the young gypsy girl trotted up to me with a brazen and shameless look about her, like a cat catching the smell of fish.
“Come, I’ll tell your fortune,” she said in a firm, low voice. “Happiness will be yours, I’ll tell you whatever you want, you’ll discover your true thoughts, you’ll live well!”
Just as before, I would soon have put an end to this banal recitative before with a sign of the left hand—the so-called jettatura, a conventional sign using two fingers, the index and little finger, to depict the horns of a snail—so now I hastily and willingly replied:
“My fortune? You want to tell my fortune?” I said. “But how much will you want for that?”
While the gypsy men, their blackest of eyes glittering, had taken their seats around a table to await their tea, the barman and an old gypsy woman came over to us.
“Pay us,” said the old woman, “pay us, citizen, what you can, as much as your heart’s desire. If you give a little, so be it; if you give a lot, I’ll thank you kindly!”
“All right, tell me my fortune,” I said. “But first I’ll tell yours. Come here.”
I took the young gypsy girl by—yea, gods!—her little but oh-so filthy, hand, of which I could have made a copy just by pressing it against a clean sheet of paper, and dragged her into my lair. She came willingly, laughing and saying something in her gypsy tongue to the old woman, who evidently sensed a profit. They quickly exchanged glances as they walked in, and I sat them down.
“Give me a crust of bread,” my swarthy Pythia said at once, and, without waiting for my reply, she deftly grabbed a piece of bread, breaking off half a cucumber with it there and then. She proceeded to eat with the characteristic and natural shamelessness of her wild steppe nature. She chewed, while the old woman repeatedly intoned:
“Cross my palm, and happiness will be yours!” Having extracted a deck of cards, black with grime, she licked her thumb.
The barman peered through the door, but when he saw the cards he shrugged and disappeared.
“Gypsies!” I said. “You’ll tell my fortune after I tell yours. I’ll go first.”
I took the hand of the young gypsy girl and began a feigned scrutiny of the lines on her swarthy palm.
“Here’s what I’ll tell you: you’ve seen me before, but you don’t know what you’re just about to do.”
“Tell me, then, and you’ll be a gypsy!” she said with a laugh.
I went on:
“You’re going to tell me …”—and I quietly added—“how to find a man who goes by the name of Bam Gran.”
I did not expect this name to have such a powerful effect. The gypsies’ faces suddenly altered. Whipping off her head scarf, the old woman covered her face, which was convulsed with fear; buckling over, she looked as though she wanted to be swallowed up by the earth. With a bold, savage look, the young gypsy girl snatched her hand from mine and pressed it to her cheek. Her face blanched. She cried out, shot up, overturning the chair in the process, and, after rapidly whispering to the old woman, hurriedly led her off, looking back several times, as though fearing I might give chase. Seeing the smile on my face, she recollected herself and—with a nod to me, now standing in the doorway, gasping heavily for breath—said in a changed voice:
“Hold your tongue! I’ll tell you everything. Wait here. We don’t know you, so we’ll have to talk it over!”
I do not know whether I lost my nerve when the power of this strange name was confirmed to me in so sudden and drastic a manner, but my thoughts came to a crashing halt; it was as if in the dead of night a trumpet blared into my ear, accustomed as it was to silence. Nervously hunched up, I drank another cup of the concoction and bit off a good chunk of the meat—though I did it abstentmindedly, unconscious of hunger through the fog of feelings silently bubbling up inside me. Worried by the uncertainty of the situation, I inclined my head toward the partition, listening to the enigmatic timbre of the gypsies’ talk. They conferred among themselves for a long time, arguing, sometimes shouting or lowering their voices to a barely audible whisper. This went on for some while, during which I managed to calm down a little. Three of them then entered—the two women and the old gypsy man, who cast me a sharp, ambivalent look from the doorway. By now everyone was standing. They stood there as they went on talking, so animatedly that they broke into a sweat; beads of it glistened on the forehead of the old man and at the girls’ temples, and, pausing for breath, the women wiped it off with the ends of their fringed head scarves. Only the old man, paying them no heed, kept staring right at me in silence, as though trying to divine at once, in a hurry, what my face had to tell him.
“How do you possess this word?” he said. “What do you know? Tell me, brother, don’t be afraid, you’re among friends. Tell us, and we’ll tell you; if you don’t, we won’t believe you.”
Assuming that this was for some reason a part of their plan to deal with me, I told them, insofar as I could, plainly and intelligibly, the story of the Spanish professor, omitting much but naming the place and enumerating all the accessories. At the mention of each curious thing, the gypsies exchanged glances, uttering a few words and nodding; getting carried away, they no longer paid me any notice, but once they had finished talking among themselves, they all together trained their alarmed eyes upon my face.
“Everything you say is correct,” the old woman told me. “You’ve told the undeniable truth. Listen to what I have to tell you. We gypsies know him, only we cannot go where he is. Go yourself—as for how, I’ll tell you presently. The cards will show you, and you’ll see what you need to do. I cannot speak Russian well; it’s impossible to tell you everything; my daughter will explain to you!”
She took out the cards and, after shuffling them, fixed my gaze in hers; she proceeded to lay out four rows of cards, one on top of the other, then mixed them up again and bade me cut them with my left hand. Thereupon she extracted seven cards and spread them out across the table, leading her finger about them while speaking to the young girl in their gypsy tongue.
The girl, having cleared her throat, leaned over the table, wearing an exceedingly serious expression as she listened to what the old woman was saying.
“Now,” she said, raising her finger and evidently finding it difficult to choose her words. “That place where you were today, go there again, and from there you will get to him. What place it is, I don’t know, only there your heart was touched. Your heart glowed,” she emphasized. “It’s for you to know what you saw there. You promised money and wanted to come again. When you go there, let it be alone, let no one in. Am I saying this right? You yourself know I am. Now, think on what you’ve heard from me and what you’ve seen.”
Naturally, in these instructions I could see only Brock and his painting of the sunny room; I nodded in agreement.
“It’s true,” I said. “What you say did happen today. Please, go on.”
“You’ll get there …” she paused to hear out the old woman and fell into contemplation as she wiped her nose with her hand. “But you cannot get there just like that. Don’t talk with anyone when you’re doing the deed, no matter whom you meet along the way. Whatever you see, fear not; whatever you hear, say nothing—as if you don’t exist. Extinguish the light when you go in, unwrap the tool we will give you and set it aside, then lock the doors so that nobody else can enter. You yourself will understand what happens, and you’ll find the way. Now give me som
e money, place it on top of the cards, give to a poor gypsy; don’t begrudge it, brother, happiness will be yours.”
The old woman began to beg, too.
“How much should I give you?” I asked, not because I was hesitant but to test this force of habit that does not betray them under any circumstances.
“If you give a little, so be it; if you give a lot, I’ll thank you kindly!” both women repeated forcefully and insistently.
Placing my hand into my pocket, I clutched a handful of eight or nine piastres—as many as I could hold at once.
“Here, take this,” I said to the beauty.
With a servile and greedy look, she grabbed the coins. One fell to the floor, and the old man nimbly apprehended it; the old woman rushed from her seat, thrusting her cupped hand at me.
“Cross it, cross my palm, don’t begrudge an old woman!” she began to wail, peppering her Russian words with exclamations in her gypsy tongue. All three of them were aquiver, now examining the coins, now outstretching their hands toward me.
“I won’t give you any more,” I said, though I added a further five pieces to my donation. “Hold your peace, or else I’ll tell Bam Gran!”
This word seemed to have a universal effect. The excitement died down; only the old woman sighed heavily, as though she had lost a child. Quickly hiding the coins in the recesses of her shawls, the young girl, demanding something, stretched out her hand to the old man, palm facing upward. He began arguing, but the old woman shouted at him, and, after slowly unbuttoning his waistcoat, the old man extracted a sharp cone made of white metal. When it glinted in the light, a green line flashed inside it. He immediately wrapped it in a dark-blue handkerchief and gave it to me.
Fandango and Other Stories Page 29