American Gypsy

by Oksana Marafioti

  “I thank you, Avadata, Azhidana, and Kevoidana, for acknowledging my plea,” Dad said. Taking the cross from Olga’s fingers, he dipped it into the three saucers filled with holy water. He handed it back and came around to face Tanya. “Release the physical body and show your true self.”

  The voices I heard came from somewhere within Tanya’s circle, but none of them sounded like her. Then came the knocking, traveling around the room in an uneven, syncopated rhythms.

  “Release the physical body and show your true self.”

  Tanya’s fingers bent into arthritic claws.

  Suddenly she crumpled to her knees and started to gag. Her body convulsed with dry heaves. Something invisible to my eyes pounded on her back, but her face remained set in stone, void of any outward signs of agony.

  Time dragged. I tried to swallow again, my throat scorched with panic, and wiped the sweat from my palms.

  Tanya kept throwing up. After a while, the wooden floor inside her circle was sullied with tiny puddles of bile. My own stomach churned.

  It seemed like nothing else could possibly come out of her body when a dense puff of smoke escaped her lips, followed by another. With a sob, Tanya collapsed. The orbs hovered, held captive by the salt.

  “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” my father said. The final prayer was recited faithfully. Dad and Olga continued it through the earsplitting wails, the source of which I could not locate. They grew frenzied, like the screeching of cats.

  Dad and Olga prayed, their eyes closed, heads bowed in concentration, and I with them. They still murmured after the noise abruptly ended. The candle flames reached their swaying bodies up toward the ceiling once again. The spirits had gone and so had the demons.

  Judging by the candles’ half-burned stems, a few hours had passed since we started. It felt like an eternity. I raced out of that room as soon as I could move my legs. And from that day on, no amount of Olga’s marriage threats and my father’s reminders of our deal could make me agree to learn the craft.

  PAVEL

  The exorcism spooked me for a long time, even more so because it actually worked. Soon after, Tanya moved back to Russia, health and happiness restored. But in Los Angeles, nightmares still drove me to cower beneath my blankets. Every minute of that experience played through my mind like a car crash, frame by frame.

  I prayed that my father would stop performing exorcisms, but after Tanya, the word of his expertise spread. Soon more clients came for help. Some demanded he sign a vow of secrecy, to protect their identity lest they end up in The National Enquirer under the headline THE BIG HOLLYWOOD SO-AND-SO TURNS TO GYPSY PSYCHICS TO RID HOME OF DEMONIC INVASION.

  If done through religious means, an exorcism has to be sanctioned by the church higher-ups. The priest requesting it must attest to the need. On average it takes months to hear back, and frequently the requests are denied based on insufficient evidence. Dad’s clients could not wait.

  Once, he confided in me that 90 percent of the “possessed” were not possessed at all. Many suffered from psychological disorders such as depression and simply needed a mental nudge in the right direction—a spiritual purge, if you will.

  After a particularly draining session, he’d often admit that the line between Hell and neuroses got so blurry that he didn’t know what kind of treatment to provide. Regardless, he always advised his clients to see a doctor before his sessions. A strong mind and a healthy body are more likely to withstand possession as well as illness.

  When Dad first started getting into the more serious stuff, he took every safety precaution he knew. But like a cop desensitized by the daily atrocities he sees, psychics too frequently experience unwanted aftereffects. Dad and Olga cleansed the house at least three times a week to get rid of any spiritual residue left over from clients. This was done with incantations and the burning of special herbs. But as time passed and they continued to fight, they started to neglect their own rules, and the atmosphere inside the house began to rot.

  It is difficult to explain, but if you’ve walked into a mortuary and felt the heaviness in the air, or if you’ve ever left a mental hospital and breathed easier, then you’ll know what it was like inside that house. It felt like a dumping ground for all the garbage that people carried in their souls. They came, unburdened their troubles, and left happier. Meanwhile, the black muck accumulated in the corners of our house.

  I found even more excuses to get out, preferring the company of Cruz and Annie to that of my family when I wasn’t at work or school; they’d become my sanctuary. Olga discovered more illicit gambling halls to pour her savings into. When the money ran out, her diamond rings vanished one by one. Dad, preoccupied, didn’t seem as keen on teaching me the craft anymore. He found more gigs and more women. On occasion I’d hear him mention Baba Varya’s curse. He felt that his neglect of it was bringing this odd unrest into our house. We didn’t set the table as often, but then again, the guests didn’t stay as long as they used to.

  It was during this time, at the beginning of my senior year, that Olga’s cousin Pavel finally came to visit from Ukraine. He was tall and thin-boned, with the best posture I’d ever seen in a man, the imaginary string at the top of his head taut all the way to Heaven. A giant bushy mustache drooped over his upper lip. When he ate, some of the food hung off it like a stranded climber. I felt embarrassed to mention it. He was a priest, after all.

  “Throw away that book and light a candle at your church” was the first thing he said after Olga gave him the details of her and Dad’s business.

  We had moved into the living room after dinner one night. Dad and Pavel reclined on one of the leather couches, and Olga took the one across. I’d brought out a tray with tea and pastries and offered our guest a cup, an eldest daughter’s duty that I usually disregarded. At this, my father lifted an eyebrow; my noncompliance had become legendary among our guests. But that night I had my reasons. I found Pavel’s profession strange but also a most fortunate coincidence. Who if not a priest to talk sense into my father? On several occasions I wanted to ask if Pavel had proof of his vocation, a wallet-size seminary diploma, perhaps.

  When I was a little girl, Pavel was one of the best dancers in Grandpa’s show. His Gypsy flamenco shook you like a hurricane taunting roof shingles. His polyrhythm (tapping two different rhythms simultaneously) was legendary among the Tzigane.

  My first memory of Pavel was of watching him adjust the small oval plates at the bottom of his high-heeled flamenco shoes before one of the shows. He sat in a chair, one foot resting on the opposite knee with a shoe balanced on top of his shin. With a screwdriver, he was loosening the tiny screws on an ivory-colored tap.

  “What’s that for?” I remember asking.

  Pavel lowered the shoe to the floor and beat it against the dusty planks, which produced two sharp raps.

  “You see? Spanish dancers. Their sound is thick, heavy, because they use rows of metal tacks. But for a Rom like me to dance a proper Vengerka, these loose hollow plastic plates will create a crisper sound, almost like hands clapping.”

  Pavel was nearly as good at dancing as he was at stealing other men’s wives. That’s why for the longest time no one believed the rumors of his transformation. I remember the last time I saw Pavel onstage. It was the summer of 1984.

  * * *

  With a delicate caress of the bow, the violin began its song. The Taborny dance started off slow, with a woman’s graceful hands and the froth of her emerald skirts.

  From my usual spot in the wings behind the curtain, I watched the audience, because every time Rubina took center stage, people leaned forward in their seats. Her cat eyes slanted at the corners and she smiled down at the crowd, unfurling her arms with a swan’s elegance. And it seemed that was all it took to enchant them further.

  Most of the men in the ensemble were either in love or in lust with her. At least that is what Grandma Ksenia said. She did not approve of her presence in the troupe, but since
Rubina was one of the most talented dancers, Grandma kept her opinions to herself.

  At ten, I was old enough to understand the reasons behind her complaints. When Romani kids grow up on the road, backstage, in hotel rooms, they mature quickly. Not to say that our parents behaved any way they pleased. But when you saw a Romani perform, you experienced the range of pure, untainted emotion. You knew, through her voice, the sorrow for a lost love. Your heart flared at the rhythm with which his feet tapped out the beat of rage itself. Every performance was tears, loneliness, pleasure, delirium.

  In a cloud of skirts, Rubina gave the stage one generous turn, her raven hair gleaming in the spotlights. With a shoulder-shimmy and a toss of that mane, she drew delighted shouts from the audience when she bent back until the top of her head brushed the floor and then straightened up in one fluid motion. One more turn around the stage, to catch her breath and for the audience to settle down.

  At first Rubina did not notice when another dancer joined her: a tall man with burning black eyes. Tosi was her husband in real life, but during this number, I always forgot that he already had her. They regarded each other like curious lovers. The violin swept down into more opulent registers, and with a strum of fingers, a twelve-string guitar staccatoed underneath.

  Husband and wife touched fingertips as the two instruments painted their melody with longing and uncertainty. Draping an arm around Rubina’s waist, Tosi was determined to steal a kiss, but she fled his possessive embrace to where I stood hidden in the wings, and I reached out to feel the silk of one beaded sleeve.

  Another guitar announced a third dancer. Judging by Pavel’s arrogant stance, his polished boots, and a fine shirt the color of garnet, he was rich and wanted for nothing. Until now. The three dancers gathered, Rubina in between her two Romani suitors, and the music ignited like a flash of dynamite, setting the audience ablaze with the struggle of wills onstage.

  The men circled. With a sharp whip, a pair of shiny knives appeared in their hands, and they lunged and parried on the wings of jealousy and lust. Rubina drove her way between them. Just as Tosi jabbed his knife.

  I heard a collective intake of breath as Rubina’s lifeless body slid to the floor and the music dropped away.

  The audience was silenced, bound by shock: something every artist yearns for and dreads. One by one, the people stood, and my heart jumped as if my own life depended on their reaction. The dancers stepped to the rim of the stage to take their bows, faces flushed with elation to mirror that of their admirers, but they didn’t hold hands, and I caught Rubina smiling at Pavel the way she should’ve been smiling at Tosi.

  Taborny dance

  I remember that on the morning after the concert, the ensemble members gathered in scattered groups in the hotel’s crumbling courtyard. The bus that would take us to the nearby village for the day’s performance waited at the sidewalk. Its faded yellow paint and wide but uncomfortable seats gave an impression of a public bus well on its way to retirement. No surprise there. Not many Soviet artists traveled in style back then.

  As I came out of the hotel lobby and headed for the ancient clunker, I felt a nervous kind of energy among the performers. I should’ve been used to that, since this group’s comings and goings resembled a long-running soap opera. I found my mother smoking Cosmos by a white marble fountain of a sputtering merman. Aunt Laura gave me a tight smile as I joined them.

  “Gone? Are you sure?” My mother’s face registered worry. She glanced back toward the hotel doors.

  “Tosi’s drunk. You know that’s never a good sign,” Aunt Laura said, leaning closer with a conspiratorial pursing of lips. “Lenka said she saw Rubina and Pavel talking backstage last night.”

  “Talking is no crime.”

  “But the rumors.”

  “Mom, what happened?” I said.

  “We’re leaving in a few, Oksanochka. You better go find a seat.”

  As I started toward the bus, I heard a loud shriek and turned around to see Tosi storming out of the hotel lobby and down its uneven stairs. In one hand he gripped an ax.

  Mom pressed me closer to her, hands on my shoulders. “My God, how can this be happening. Who gave him an ax?”

  “Probably swiped it from the custodian’s closet,” Aunt Laura said.

  Four men followed behind Tosi as he made for a lonely cluster of taxis at the far end of the parking lot. Like an ocean tide, the rest of us rushed after.

  “They’re gonna get arrested,” someone exclaimed.

  I fought my way to the front of the crowd gathering around the taxis, just as my grandfather’s voice thundered above our heads. “We have a concert tonight. You’re not going anywhere.”

  Tosi’s pupils swayed before settling on my grandfather. “That son of a whore stole my wife.”

  “We’ll deal with this after the concert.”

  “You think I give a fuck about your concerts?” Tosi said, spittle flying from his lips. “What am I supposed to do, wait until all of Russia knows I’ve been cuckolded?”

  Nobody spoke. Confrontations with the leader were a rare occurrence. The fact that Grandpa stood well over six feet intimidated others enough to think before arguing with the man. But Tosi, who in different circumstances never would have crossed his boss, glared at the older man with a stubborn mix of desperation and principle. “Fire me if you want, but I’m going after them.”

  My grandfather studied Tosi with a frown that could split an oak.

  Ivan, the accordionist, stepped out of the crowd. “Andrei Vasilyevich,” he said respectfully to their leader, “I know where they’ve gone. Pavel’s cousin has a house only two hours from here. Let me go with him. We’ll be back in time, I promise.”

  My grandfather raised a hand against an onslaught of incoherent protests. “Quiet! This is not a free show for the gadjen,” he said. A mute congregation of passersby watched while pretending not to. “All right. You.” Grandpa pointed at Ivan. “Make sure you get back to the theater no later than six, and for God’s sake, take that ax away from him.”

  “Got it,” Ivan said.

  “And don’t let him drink any more.”

  Ivan shoved Tosi into the taxi, but the man refused to give up his weapon. “He’ll sober up on the way. Everything will be fine.”

  “Leonid and Stepan will go with you. No fighting. I’m not bailing anyone out of jail.”

  Once the taxi disappeared around the corner, everyone piled into the bus. Subdued Roma make for a troubling sight. The theater was about an hour’s drive down unpaved roads, and we bounced all the way there. It was a wonder people could actually perform after the miserable experience of that bruising ride, but then again, most of us were used to these conditions. Someone usually found something to complain about, even if only to break the monotony of riding through the bullion-colored fields of wheat stalks shimmying hypnotically in the wind. But not this time.

  As was customary, most people were onstage doing one final run-through before the show. Only the kids and a few of those who had finished rehearsing were backstage when the men barged in through the back door.

  Tosi dragged his wife by her hair down the dark hallway between the dressing rooms. Shrieking, she fought to steady herself, her fingers clawing at his hand. I was shocked to see that all her beautiful hair was now gone, chopped off into a disheveled mass of uneven clumps. A Romani woman’s hair was her pride, her greatest asset. If cut short, it was like the letter “A”: a telltale sign of adultery.

  Splatters of blood stained Tosi’s white shirt. He still had the ax, and Pavel was nowhere to be seen. The men followed behind with somber expressions.

  Fear-stricken, I pressed myself against the wall in order to let the group pass. Given the ragged state they were in, my mind immediately painted a picture with Pavel’s decapitated body as its focal point, and I made a quick sign of the cross, forcing the image out.

  I was about to take off in search of my parents when Aunt Laura rushed by me. “What did you do?” she ask
ed Tosi. In the gloom of backstage lights, her face lacked its normal healthy glow. “Where’s Pavel? Devlo. Did you kill him, you idiot?”

  Ivan tried to get Tosi to loosen his grip, but failed. “Pavel’s fine. A few missing teeth and a face not so pretty anymore. But he’s fine.” He tugged on the ax. “All right, chavo. That’s enough.”

  “I’ll decide when it’s enough.” Tosi jerked and shoved his friend back. “You think I’m drunk?” His lips thinned in a challenge. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  Down on the floor, Rubina sobbed. Between a wail and a cry, she whispered, “What have I done?”

  “Shut up, witch,” he growled, but his voice came in a hush, drained of the rage I had heard earlier that day. “How could you betray me like this? How could you shame me? I’d do anything for you. Am I not enough that you have to fall for that shit-eating skirt chaser?”

  “Please, Tosichka. My love. My golden. Please, forgive me.” Rubina’s eyes pleaded. She wrapped her arms around her husband’s legs. “Let’s be happy like we used to be.”

  “I should’ve killed the bastard.” Tosi tossed the ax to Ivan.

  Ivan shook his head as he caught it. “Hospital food will finish him for you.”

  With the ax gone, Tosi’s face softened around the drawn lines of his mouth and eyes. He pulled Rubina to her feet. Tears ran down her flushed face in tracks of black mascara. He wiped at them with the sleeve of his shirt, silent, wide-eyed. He stroked her hair, burying his face in it. By now quite a few people were watching, but the couple might as well have been standing in the cosmos of that wheat field we’d passed on the way. As tension slipped out of the hallway, jokes bounced back and forth.

  After the incident, Rubina and Tosi danced with the unbridled fire of newlyweds. After the well-deserved thrashing at Tosi’s hand, Pavel never came back. Another dancer took his place. This one was bowlegged and married to a fierce Romani with a gap-toothed smile.