The Travellers

by Ann Swinfen

  ‘Would you like to see the horse fair?’ István asked Kate.

  ‘I didn’t realise there was one.’

  ‘Whenever a group of gypsies gather, there will be a horse fair. It’s only a small one, in the village meadow.’

  They walked out of the square and beyond the last houses at the side of the village. Here the gypsies had set up their camp. Most of them, Kate saw, drove east European cars, with flashy silver caravans like the ones used by the gypsies in England. But a few still owned the traditional wooden, horse-drawn wagons. A rough enclosure had been roped off, where perhaps twenty or thirty horses were tethered to stakes hammered into the hard earth. When a potential buyer appeared, young gypsy boys, lithe and handsome, would mount the horses and ride them bareback around the makeshift ring, showing off both the horses and their own prowess. There was one girl too, a wiry little thing of nine or ten, who was displaying two of the horses – great, wild-eyed creatures which looked as though they would never tolerate a saddle.

  As Kate and István strolled up – clearly not potential buyers – the girl was riding a huge black brute around the ring. It was wearing only a halter, and she was guiding it with her knees. A heavy-jowled, cruel-looking man shouted something to the child and she urged the horse to a canter, then stood up, balancing gracefully on its back. Once the horse had moved into a smooth gait she placed her hands on either side of its back and did a handstand, her cotton dress falling down over her head, showing that she was completely naked underneath. The horse-buyer leered at the gypsy, who was probably the child’s father, and made some remark at which they both laughed. Kate, angry for the girl, was suddenly reminded of the child Eva, beaten if she did not practise the violin hard enough. Yet even in her nakedness there was a kind of lithe innocence about the child which should have shamed the bystanders. The gypsy girl turned a somersault, and landed on her feet with her arms outstretched, then she slid down to sit on the horse’s back and slowed it to a stop. The two men were shaking hands, and wads of money were counted out. Clearly the child, like Eva, was useful to her father.

  When the stranger led the horse away, the girl came up to the man and said something, holding out her hand and gesturing with her head towards the village square. He cuffed her hard on the ear, and turned on his heel, heading down towards the beer tent set up by the Blue Heron. The child ran off to the edge of the meadow, where she began to practise handstands and cartwheels, springing through the movements with such apparent ease and natural grace that it was easy to forget what hours of hard, rigorous training must lie behind such a performance.

  ‘Why is Hungary so famous for producing acrobats and clowns? And musicians?’ asked Kate. They watched the new owner lead away the black stallion, rolling its eyes, to the nearby barn which was serving as temporary stabling for the horses.

  ‘Why do you suppose?’ István threw back at her.

  ‘Are they all gypsies? Does Hungary have a particularly large population of gypsies?’

  ‘Many of them are gypsies. And yes, we do have many, many gypsies. There are many also in Transylvania, which used to be part of Hungary until after the first world war, when it was taken away from us and given to Romania. The gypsies have always worked with horses, and the children learn to perform circus tricks when they are very young, as you see.’

  They began to walk back towards the square.

  ‘I suppose the life of a professional acrobat, working in a circus, is a kind of extension of the nomadic life of the gypsies themselves,’ said Kate.

  ‘Yes. And for those who are successful it offers an escape from poverty. For make no mistake, the gypsies of Hungary are desperately poor, and although they form a large proportion of our population there is only one gypsy member of parliament – and to have even one is so unusual people remark upon it all the time. As for the gypsy musicians – they are a special caste, you know, and think themselves superior to the gypsies who work as brick-makers or other labourers.’

  ‘And the clowns?’

  ‘Ah, now,’ he said, taking her arm, ‘don’t you think that is the most apt profession of all for a displaced and despised people? How does the aria from I Pagliacci go? “Ridi del duol che t’avvelena il cor!” That’s something like “Laugh at grief, though it is breaking your heart.” Aren’t clowns said to be the saddest people on earth? Driven to create laughter to drown out the sound of a weeping heart.’

  He squeezed her arm. ‘I’m sorry. This is no time for such sad reflections. The band is tuning up. Didn’t András say he was going to teach you the csárdás?’

  They joined Sofia and the Buvaris and Imre at a table under the walnut tree, and drank some of the strong local beer which Imre had brought out in a jug from the inn. Dusk was falling and the strings of fairy lights slung round the square had been switched on. The carousel was still doing a brisk business, but its music was drowned out by the sound of the gypsy band, which was playing a languid, melancholy tune.

  ‘That is the lassu,’ András explained to Kate. ‘It will be followed by the friss, and then comes the csárdás.’

  Couples were getting up from the tables, and some of the older children drifted over from a stand topped by a red and white awning which bore the familiar legend ‘Coca-Cola’. They began to dance, with slow, formal steps, working their way round the area near the platform which had been cleared of stalls. At the end of the hot, colourful day, the dreamy rhythm made Kate feel detached, and she sat back in the creaking wicker chair watching the dancers with her eyes half shut. The lassu seemed to go on for a long time, then the rhythm changed abruptly.

  ‘That sounds like a military march,’ said Kate.

  ‘The friss,’ Sofia answered.

  More dancers joined the group in the square, and the people sitting at the tables tapped their feet in time to the strong, marching beat. Kate sat up. The music had become more compelling. András was sitting on the edge of his chair. In his embroidered waistcoat and best trousers he looked older, and Kate could see a foreshadowing of the man he would become, taller than his father, more like István in build, but with József’s thick eyebrows and prominent cheekbones. His feet were beating the rhythm impatiently, and he turned and held out his hand to Kate.

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘I can’t!’ said Kate. ‘I don’t know the steps.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Magdolna, getting up and taking József’s hand. ‘Just hold on to András and do your best.’

  She found herself amongst the crowd of dancers, which was growing by the moment. With András pulling her round she began to catch the general drift of the dance. Then the music changed once more. It speeded up and became wild and terrifying.

  ‘The csárdás!’ cried András, whirling her around until the coloured lights and the flower-covered front of the inn and the faces of the few people still sitting at the tables became a blur, one tilting, frantic, spinning mass of incomprehensible shapes. She was possessed. Her feet seemed to understand the music and carry her around with this crowd of people into which she was now absorbed, like the throbbing heart of some great beast. Was she breathing? Were her feet even touching the dusty earth?

  Then gradually the music slowed, and the mass of dancers slowed, and staggered a little, like a top nearing the end of its spin, about to fall. Gradually the music released them, and they flew off the edges like drops of water, and fell, gasping, into their chairs.

  Kate was gulping for air, and the table, as she clutched it, seemed to dip and sway. István laid a steadying hand on her arm.

  ‘Breathe slowly, and do not try to speak. Did you know that it is said that a master musician of the gypsies can, if he wishes, compel people to dance the csárdás until they drop down dead?’

  ‘Now,’ Kate croaked, ‘now you tell me. What a country! What crazy people!’

  ‘Quite crazy.’

  * * *

  It was growing dark, and the band was playing Hungarian folk songs. Here and there the villagers joine
d in with the nasal but compelling voice of the gypsy woman singing with the band. The older people, including Sofia, drifted off to bed. Mothers began rounding up their children. Magdolna, István, József and Kate sat on at the same table under the tree, amongst the litter of empty glasses and bowls which had held gulyás. András had gone off somewhere with his friends. The carousel had ceased turning at last, and a pleasant somnolence drifted over the square as the staff from the Blue Heron wandered amongst the tables, gathering up dirty dishes and joking with the customers.

  Suddenly someone sitting on the far side of the square near the church gave a cry. Everyone turned to look. From the direction of the meadow there came a flickering glow. Chairs were pushed back and fell with a thud on the ground. The farmers realised first what was happening. There were shouts and men running.

  ‘What is it?’ cried Kate. József had rushed off with the rest, István was on his feet.

  ‘Fire,’ said Magdolna. ‘A haystack, or a barn. It’s this drought... Once a spark catches...’

  The crowd milled about, heading towards the glow. There was more shouting, and men came past with buckets, forming a chain from the nearest house, where the window had been flung open and women were filling the buckets and passing them out as fast as they could. Kate saw Imre and István pushing through the crowd from the far side of the square, from the direction where József and Imre had their fields. They seemed to be wreathed about by the coils of a great snake.

  ‘Of course,’ said Magdolna. ‘The sprinkler system.’

  The two women began to run in the direction of the meadow, and Kate lost Magdolna in the crowd. She was surrounded by strangers, all shouting to each other in Hungarian, and she found herself elbowed to the edge of the crowd.

  She could see now what was on fire – it was the big old timber barn at the side of the meadow. Flames were shooting up one side in a wall of fire, and sparks were exploding from the wooden roof tiles and cascading down on to the dry grass of the meadow, where they sparked off little satellite fires.

  Fire.

  Kate veered off to the edge of the meadow, to come at the fire from the side. The bucket chain was working smoothly now, but it was hopeless, hopeless against this roaring, greedy monster. A group of men was struggling to set up the sprinkler, wrestling with the lengths of pipe, trying to fasten them together. There had been problems with the joints. Someone had said that. She could see István and József. András went running off down the village street waving something and calling to people in the houses.

  Fire.

  Then there was a scream. It sounded half human. The horses. There were horses in the barn. They screamed and no one was trying to rescue them. Kate ran on, around the edge of the meadow, and she could see only the flames and hear only the screams of the terrified animals.

  Suddenly someone grabbed her and pulled her back roughly.

  ‘The fire,’ she sobbed. ‘The horses.’

  Her arms were pinned at her sides, but she struggled and fought, with the cries of the horses ringing around her.

  ‘They are bringing the horses out of the other door. Around on the far side.’ The voice spoke in English, but she couldn’t at first understand, continuing to struggle, her face against cloth.

  She was jerked around so that the blaze of the fire and its heat filled her sight, then she saw, beyond it, people leading horses, with cloths over their eyes. Incredibly the little gypsy girl was among them, leading the black stallion, without a rope, talking to him, coaxing him along.

  ‘If I let you go, will you promise to stand still?’ said the voice.

  She looked round blankly, then stumbled away to the ditch at the side of the field and knelt there, swaying and retching. István knelt down beside her and put his arms around her.

  ‘It’s all right. They’ve managed to rescue all of the horses, and they’re getting the fire under control.’

  Kate began to shiver violently.

  ‘Hush,’ he said, holding her and rocking her as a mother rocks a terrified child. And Kate, whose mother had never held her, clung to him.

  The shouting had died down. The hissing of the water as it met the fire drowned out the roar of the flames. The horses, still whickering in distress, were led away to the rope enclosure and tethered there. People began to drift back to the square as the flames died away and the farmers hosed down the whole of the smoking barn.

  István led Kate to a fallen tree on the other side of the ditch and made her sit down. He wrapped his jacket around her and after a while the shivering became less violent.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Kate in a shaky voice. ‘I don’t know what came over me. It was the screams of the horses...’

  István turned her arm so that it caught the edge of light coming from the square.

  ‘It was a fire, wasn’t it?’

  She looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  With the tip of his finger he traced a patch of skin on her arm which was slightly paler and shinier than the rest.

  ‘These scars. I thought from the start they looked like burns. You have them on both arms, and on your legs. Not very noticeable, but at a certain angle to the light...’

  Kate stared down at her arm. ‘I’ve always had those...since I was a child...’

  ‘But you don’t remember when you were a small child. These were burns, Kate. At some time you’ve been badly burned.’ His voice was gentle but firm. ‘The nightmare you spoke of... is it about a fire?’

  She pulled her arm away from him and buried her face in her hands.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Some older boys and girls, dragging me along, and my own hand holding a burning bundle of sticks, and then an animal screaming – a dog, I think. But the first time I started to remember it was near Sofia’s cottage.’

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘Then someone found an article from an old newspaper. I would have been about ten at the time. An outbuilding at Sofia’s cottage was set on fire, and I think I must have been the one who lit it.’

  ‘That is very easily settled. We will ask Sofia.’

  ‘No!’ she cried, grabbing him by the arm. ‘No, please, no! I couldn’t bear it. I’ve made up my mind to confront my parents when I get back to Dunmouth. I don’t want anything to spoil this time in Hungary. Please don’t say anything to Sofia. To anyone. I am so ashamed.’ There were tears running down her face now, and he felt in his pocket for a handkerchief.

  ‘If that is what you wish,’ he promised, ‘but as a doctor, not just as a friend, I think the sooner you can lay this ghost the better. If there were older children, is it likely that you were responsible? I don’t think so. Be logical, Kate.’

  ‘I am overwhelmed by guilt,’ she said simply.

  * * *

  On Sunday Sofia declared that she was tired, and intended to spend the day reading in the back garden of the Blue Heron, perhaps snoozing a little if the mood took her.

  ‘What will you do today, my dear?’ she asked Kate.

  ‘I think I shall go for a long walk. I don’t want to hang about the village while they dismantle the fair – it’s such an anticlimax.’

  She did not add that she wanted to avoid István after last night’s embarrassing breakdown.

  ‘If you walk through the gardens of the manor, there used to be a lane on the other side which led south to the next village, Virgon. It isn’t far – perhaps five miles? And a very pretty lane, if it is still the same – with shady trees and a small lake about halfway along.’

  ‘That sounds perfect. If you don’t mind being left alone?’

  ‘Of course not. Why don’t you ask Mihály to give you a packed lunch, and take your time about it?’

  Kate followed Sofia’s directions, echoed by Mihály’s, and found the leafy lane which might almost have been in England, except for the dust underfoot and the hot scent floating off the fields. She dawdled by the lake, watching some brown ducks of a variety she didn’t recognise, and three or four families of mo
orhens. The water was shallow and clean, and wonderfully cool under the shade of the trees. She took off her sandals and plunged her feet into it. The place was deserted. She had not seen a soul since she left Szentmargit. Somewhere ahead of her a church bell rang, presumably from Virgon. She picked up her sandals and waded around a curve in the lake shore. There was a little hidden bay, with more ducks, a single swan and in the distance a heron fishing.

  On a sudden impulse, she put her lunch and her shoes on the bank and pulled off her clothes. The water was silky and cool on her hot, dusty skin. She slid down into it, where the bottom of smooth mud sloped away from the bank, and felt the tension which had kept her awake for most of the night melt away. She swam and floated quietly until the ducks, which had scattered at her first approach, ventured out and circled round her. One of the ducklings, bolder than the rest, made a tentative peck at her toe.

  ‘Ow!’ She rolled over and swam the full length of the little lake, then swam back again and climbed out to lie on the grass beside her clothes. The sun was so hot that she dried before she fell asleep, and dreamt of nothing but slipping through the marshes in the blue boat.

  She was woken when a grasshopper landed on her nose, and came awake confused, fetching up on the shore of consciousness. She stared about her, at the water sparkling under the unclouded sun, at the heron standing motionless on one leg in the shallows, and stretched luxuriously.

  That morning she had taken out her journal, not filled in for the previous day, and written firmly, This must stop.

  Here, alone in this quiet and beautiful place, she felt in control, surer of herself than she had ever done before. István, the doctor, was probably right. Her memory of whatever had happened to her in the fire – if there had been a fire – was confused by fear, by the burning she had somehow suffered, by the distortions of childhood perception. Her sense of guilt was probably no more rational than her old sense that her mother did not love her because she was in some way sinful. It was a beautiful day, in this beautiful country, where she felt clean and new-born.