The River Palace: A Water Wheel Novel #3

by Gilbert, Morris

  “Good,” Gage said with relief. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I’d really like to learn about you, because I think you’re very interesting, and I like learning about new things. I have about a thousand questions to ask you, besides the catfish one. And now the Gypsy one.”

  “Don’t say catfish,” Nadyha said with exasperation. “And I don’t have time to answer those questions, much less a thousand more. When Niçu finishes talking with Baba Simza, he’ll want to talk to you. And now Tinar and Saz are here, and we must take care of them.”

  She nodded her head behind his back, and he turned to see two horses standing to the left and a little behind the lean-to. Both of them were gorgeous, flashy horses, black and white, with long satiny manes and tails, and feathered hooves. They weren’t tall horses, about fourteen hands, but very powerfully built, with broad chests and thick strong legs. He saw with amusement that Matchko, the cat, was lying down on top of one of the horse’s withers, his front paws tucked neatly under his chest. “Those are beautiful horses,” Gage said admiringly. “I’ve never seen any quite like them. Are they some sort of European draft horses?”

  “That’s another story we don’t have time for right now,” Nadyha said, now obviously baiting him. “Are you going to help me or not?”

  “I’d love to. I was just about to ask about my horse, Cayenne. Watering him, and so on.”

  “Behind the lean-to we have bales of hay stored, and the mangers, and they water at the pump trough. Come with me. And go ahead and bring your horse, he’ll like Tinar and Saz.”

  Gage whistled for Cayenne, and he saw the Gypsy horses prick their ears alertly. “Which is which?” he asked Nadyha.

  “Tinar is the one that Matchko is sitting on,” Nadyha said with amusement. “Matchko always tries to sit on and ride Saz, and not once has he ever let him, but Matchko keeps trying. Stupid cat,” she said affectionately.

  Cayenne came plodding up, and the three horses all touched noses warily, and stared at each other for awhile. When Nadyha and Gage brought out the three small mangers, they lined up with a will, expectantly. As they were stocking the mangers with hay, Gage asked, “You don’t picket them?”

  “No, they always come home in the evening, and stay here at night,” Nadyha said. “There’s very good grazing all around, especially one field that’s full of red clover this year. It’s about a mile from here. Do you tie up Cayenne at night?”

  “Not usually, but since Anca and Boldo and Rai come and go here, I’m not too sure he’ll stick around,” Gage answered uncertainly.

  “He’ll stay with Tinar and Saz,” Nadyha said confidently. “Now, we need to go see about Dennis.”

  Gage noticed that she called him “Dennis,” a slight crack in her hostility. Denny was stirring and coughing in his sleep. Nadyha woke him up, gave him another dose of anisette, made him cough and spit, and then let him lie down in peace again. “He’ll do well,” she said with satisfaction. “You’ll see.”

  Niçu came out of Baba Simza’s wagon, and his face was now thoughtful instead of antagonistic. He came to sit cross-legged by Nadyha. She said, “Niçu, this is Gage and this is Dennis. This is my brother Niçu.”

  Niçu nodded to the two men, though he didn’t offer a handshake. “My grandmother has told me about how you helped her, Gage. She says that she knows it’s right for you two to be here with us, and for my sister to take care of you, Dennis. Now I’ll tell you this. I’ve only known one gaje family that ever treated the Gypsies fairly, that ever gave us a chance. That family is almost gone now, except for a widow and two children. I’ve never trusted any other gaje in my life, and if it were left up to me, I would never let you stay here, in our camp. But Baba Simza is our chivani, our head Phuri Dae, and I trust her wisdom in all things. So I welcome you, and I and my familia will help you.”

  Both Gage and Denny murmured their thanks. Gage said, “Denny here is very ill, and too weak to help out in any way. But I’m not. I’d appreciate it, Niçu, if you’d let me know how I can be of use here. I can hunt, I can chop wood, I can take care of the horses, I’ll do anything I can to help.”

  Niçu’s expression lightened a bit with approval. “You’ll find that no matter what you’ve heard about Gypsies, we all work hard around here, and I agree with you, if a man’s a guest he should do his best to help out his hosts. But for now, Nadyha tells me you’ve said you’ll take care of your friend. Just do that, Gage. Baba Simza says it’s right.”

  “Then it must be right,” Gage said, his blue eyes sparkling. “Would it be—uh—improper of me to ask to see her? I mean, if she would want me to.”

  Niçu grinned as he rose, and only then did Gage see a resemblance to Nadyha. While Mirella had a pleasant expression, both Niçu and Nadyha had a habitual stern set to their faces. When they smiled, it was a sea change, the sun suddenly breaking through black clouds. Niçu answered, “Baba Simza has already told me, among about a hundred other things, that she wants to see you and talk to you. But no, gajo, you shouldn’t go into her wagon. Tomorrow, though, she has told me that I’d better have her a chair made so she can sit outside. She said she’s already sick of living in the vardo.”

  Nadyha rolled her eyes but she looked amused. “She’s not living in the vardo, this just happened this morning. Anyway, we do stay outside all the time, except for sleeping,” she explained to Gage and Denny. “I know how she feels. C’mon, Niçu, I’ll gather the lanterns and help you with the chair. I’m sure she’s told you exactly what she wants and how to build it. Gage, supper will be ready in about an hour, and Mirella’s fixing a special broth for Denny and Baba Simza.”

  “Can I help with the chair?” Gage asked.

  Nadyha and Niçu exchanged amused expressions. “He doesn’t like sitting still, does he?” Niçu asked.

  “I don’t know what he likes,” Nadyha said with a toss of her head. “But he’s just going to follow us around, begging for work, like some gaje traveling tinker. We might as well let him help.”

  “I don’t know much about Gypsies,” Gage said, feigning offense, “but the gaje think it’s rude to speak of a person as if he’s not standing right there listening.”

  To his relief, both Nadyha and Niçu laughed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The garish Louisiana dawning sun sent horizontal slivers of yellow light through the willow-curtain, and one beam fell on Gage’s face. He woke up, instantly alert and feeling rested and refreshed. Sitting up, he looked around to orient himself to this still-strange world. The horses, including Cayenne, had disappeared. The cougar was still asleep under Nadyha’s wagon; the bear was on his cushion, still snoring; and the hawk looked headless, as he had tucked his head underneath his wing. Denny slept soundly, and Gage thought that his breathing seemed just a little easier than the day before; and it didn’t have so much of that wet, mucky sound. He heard soft voices from Baba Simza’s wagon.

  Then they started what to him sounded like a chant. He grew wary, for though Gage didn’t know much about Gypsies, what he had heard about them was pretty much what Denny had said. He’d heard that the women were fortune-tellers, and cast spells, and had the “evil eye,” and that the men were lazy and ignorant and con men and thieves. But what bothered Gage most was the occult leanings. Vaudou, an African religion, was practiced widely in New Orleans, headed by a “voodoo queen” named Marie Laveau, and her daughter, creatively named Marie Laveau II. Gage knew nothing about voodoo, and didn’t want to know; and likewise, he didn’t want his fortune told and didn’t want to know about Gypsy superstitions, or whatever supernatural practices they held to.

  But as the quiet voices came to his ears, they had a cadence, a rhythm, that seemed very familiar to Gage. It was like hearing a far-off strain of music, and knowing that you knew the song but couldn’t name it. He concentrated, and realized that it wasn’t just his imagination. This was no strange Gypsy chant, it was something he had heard many times, if he could just put his finger on it.

 
Amaro Dad,

  kai san ande o cheri.

  Ke tjiro anav t’avel svintsime;

  ke tjiri amperetsia t’avel;

  ketu keres sar tu kames pe phuv sar ande o cheri.

  De amenge adjes amaro manrro sakone djesesko

  Yertisar amenge amare bezexendar,

  sar vi ame jertisaras kudalendar kai amisaile amende.

  Na zurnav amen,

  Numa skipisar amen katar o xitro.

  Ke tuke si, ande sa le bersh kai avena,

  e amperetsia, e zor thai o vestimos.

  Anarania.

  The chant ended, and Nadyha, Mirella, and Niçu came out of Baba Simza’s wagon, talking quietly. Mirella went to the campfire, which was already blazing high, and the homey smell of baking bread came from a big Dutch oven suspended over it. Niçu gave Gage a casual nod, and went to the lean-to.

  Nadyha came to speak to Gage, who was standing and stretching. “How was Dennis in the night?”

  “He had a high fever three times, and I bathed him in your tonic there, and it broke pretty quickly. You were right, about every two hours he’d start coughing, so I woke him up, dosed him, and made him cough up as much as he could.” Gage glanced down at him. He was stirring slightly, but hadn’t yet opened his eyes. “It seems like he’s breathing a little easier already.”

  Nadyha nodded. “Today I’m going to make him blow the whistle. And Baba Simza is going to lay hands on him. He’ll get much better.”

  Hesitantly Gage said, “I heard you all chanting, or something. Is that some kind of Gypsy—uh—charm, or incantation?”

  She looked exasperated. “I don’t know what an incantation is, but I can guess. No, it’s not Gypsy at all, we just say it in Gypsy. It was the Lord’s Prayer.”

  “Of course!” Gage said with revelation. “I knew it! I mean, I knew the rhythm, the beat of it. I just couldn’t think of what it was.”

  “Yes, we actually pray, gajo,” she said spiritedly. “Not all of us cast spells and the evil eye and tell fortunes.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Gage said guiltily. “I was wrong to just assume . . .”

  Nadyha shrugged carelessly and changed the subject. “Baba Simza says she’s coming outside if she has to crawl. But then she ordered you to carry her, and that made Niçu mad but she doesn’t care. Will you?”

  “Sure,” Gage said. “Whenever she’s ready.”

  Nadyha knelt down by Denny, who was awake and coughing now. Gage went to help Niçu, who was setting up the chair they’d made the night before. Niçu was quite a craftsman, and he had already made half a dozen chairs out of light cypress, the seats and backs of woven cane with patterned holes in them for cooling. The clever thing about them was that they folded up, and so were very easy to store in a corner of the lean-to. The previous night Niçu, with a little assistance from Nadyha and Gage, had made a chair like that, only with an extended piece added to the seat, so that Baba Simza’s legs were supported, and it also folded up. Gage had seen chaise lounges before, but he’d never seen any that were so light but steady and sturdy, and yet folded up. They set Baba Simza’s chair under the tree closest to the campfire, by Niçu’s and Mirella’s wagon.

  “You’re the beast of burden,” Niçu said sarcastically. “Go get her. You’re probably going to have to carry her around half the morning until we get the chair in the right place.”

  “Okay,” Gage said meekly.

  He knocked on Baba Simza’s door and she called, “Come in, Gage.” He went in the wagon and was astonished to see how well the woman looked. She was sitting upright on her bed, with two fat pillows behind her. Her wrinkled dark cheeks had a good color, her eyes were bright. She was dressed in a full skirt made of rainbow-hued cotton and a dark blue blouse with puffed sleeves and three ribbons—yellow, blue, and green—sewn down the front. On her head was a scarf of bright blue and yellow plaid, tied at the side of her neck, and trimming the scarf were silver coins that lay low on her forehead and down the edges of the tie, making a light tinkling sound when she moved her head. Her hair was loose beneath the scarf, thick black hair with startling white streaks all through it. Two light strips of pine, carefully sanded to a sheen, made her splint, wrapped with white muslin. She held a cup in her hand, and Gage could smell chicory and lemon.

  “Good morning, Gage,” she said brightly. “So you’ve come to get me out of my prison?”

  “Miss Simza, I can’t believe how well you look,” Gage said. “Aren’t you in pain? You had a bad day yesterday, a bad accident.”

  “I would like for you to call me Baba Simza, if you want,” she said casually. “Pain, yes, maybe. But your gaje medicine, it works well. I just have to make sure I don’t take so much that it makes me silly and dizzy, like wine bibbers. But just enough, and it makes the pain ho-kay,” she said with relish. “And a good report maketh the bones fat. I have had a good report from miry deary Dovvel, and so my bones are getting fat instead of broken. Now, take me outside, I’m smothering, I need to see cam, the sun.”

  Gage carried her outside, and indeed she did harangue Niçu for several minutes until he got her chair fixed just right. Gage carried her from here to there to here like a queen in a palanquin, as she pointed and gesticulated and fussed. Finally she settled on a spot underneath the overhanging roof of her wagon, facing right across the campsite. Her bare feet were in the hot sunlight, but she said, “When cam gets a little higher, I’ll be in the shade.”

  They had breakfast, which was fresh bread with sweet butter, jacket potatoes, and a starchy-sweet crunchy green shoot that the Gypsies dipped in strawberry preserves. “This is good,” Gage said, holding up the celery-like shoot. “What is it?”

  “Heart of cattail,” Mirella answered. “It’s very good in salads, in soups, mixed with vegetables.”

  “Cattails?” Denny said with amazement. Though he hadn’t been able to eat much, he had taken a bite of the mysterious crunchy vegetable. “I didn’t know you could eat cattails.”

  “Neither did I,” Gage said with a hint of regret. How many times had his army been starving, and had passed by stands of cattails with never a second look?

  When they finished breakfast, Simza told Gage, “Bring the gajo to me.”

  Gage went to Denny’s pallet and said, “Baba Simza wants to see you. I think she’s going to pray for you. Will you come?”

  “Yes, if you’ll help me,” he said. Gage helped him walk to Simza’s chair and sat him down by it. Denny had enough strength to sit there, childlike, looking up at her. “Hello, Dennis. I am Simza, and if you like, you may call me Baba Simza. Nadyha has told me all about you, and your sickness. Are you a Christian, Dennis?”

  He looked slightly dazed, and answered, “Not exactly, ma’am. I mean, I believe that there is a God, but I don’t know much more about all that.”

  She nodded with understanding, and placed both her hands on Denny’s cheeks. “Then you bow your head, and close your eyes, and you say to God whatever you can think of. Tell Him if you’re mad at Him, or that you believe in Him, or that you don’t believe in Him, or that you thank Him because He can heal you, and He will.”

  Obediently Denny bowed his head and closed his eyes. Simza laid her hands on his shoulders and closed her eyes. Her lips moved, though she made no sound. After a few moments she smiled and said, “Anarania. Now, Dennis, you can look up again. Go on back and take your medicine and do what Nadyha tells you. The Lord is going to heal you, whether you believe Him or not.”

  “Thank you, ma—Baba Simza,” he said.

  Denny went back to his bed, which was now, thanks to Nadyha and Mirella, a dreamily thick mattress of Spanish moss with some sweet-smelling rosemary mixed in it. Nadyha gave him his dose, made him cough and spit, and then said, “Today you blow on the whistle every time you take the medicine. Here.”

  She took a small hollow reed out of her pocket with one small notch cut in it. Fitting it to Denny’s lips, she ordered, “Blow.”

  Denny blew, but no note came
out of the reed, only a weak hissing sound. “Harder,” Nadyha said sternly. He obeyed, and for a second one tiny note, high and weak, sounded, but then he started coughing. “That’s good for now,” Nadyha said. “All day, try to make the note sound on the whistle.” Now exhausted, Denny laid down and went promptly to sleep.

  Gage was watching them, puzzled. Nadyha said, “It will make his chest stronger. Don’t worry, gajo, I’m not playing a Gypsy trick on him.”

  He started to say, “No, I know you wouldn’t do that,” but she tossed her head and walked away.

  Gage went to sit cross-legged by Baba Simza’s chair. She was sewing a white shirt, squinting a little. She greeted him with a smile. “I have something to tell you. You taught me a good lesson yesterday.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, and it took me all night to think on it.” She looked down at him and searched his face with her penetrating dark stare. “Because it was a hard lesson, too, for me. For a Gypsy. Do you know how we came to be called Gypsies?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “It’s said that when the baby Jesus and the Holy Family went into exile in Egypt, we sheltered them. For that we were driven out, exiled forever. The name ‘Gypsy’ comes from Egyptian, Egyptienne, ’gyptian, Gypsy. And so we became a lost people with no homeland, and ever since then we’ve been wanderers. And we have been despised. We’ve been cast out, hunted, tortured, hung, burnt, murdered in cold blood. Here in America it’s not so bad. But some of our kin tell of Gypsies accused of stealing. They can be hung and all of their possessions taken and not a word said, nothing done. Everywhere Gypsies go they know that threat hangs over them.”

  Gage said thoughtfully, “I didn’t know any of that. I mean, I’ve heard of Gypsies, and I’ve seen them once or twice in New Orleans. People think—they think they’re—” He hesitated.

  “Oh, yes, the gaje think we’re all fortune-tellers, sorcerers, soothsayers, cheaters, tricksters,” Baba Simza said with a dismissive wave of her sewing needle. “If we don’t get caught stealing, it’s because we have ‘wicked devices’ as the Proverbs say.” She stabbed the shirt vengefully.