by Mario Bolduc
The two men talked for a little longer, and when it came time to part, Max hugged him close. He felt that ailing body against his, that body that had suffered so. Max couldn’t find the right words. Boerescu said nothing, either. They parted in silence.
Max walked back to his car near the cemetery’s gate, knowing he’d never see the old man again. Just as he was about to get into his car, Max heard an accordion’s tune very faintly. He turned around. And there was Boerescu, still in the cemetery, playing his Paolo Soprani, leaning against his walker. Max wondered where Boerescu could have hidden the instrument. He hadn’t noticed it before; it had probably been stashed behind a tombstone.
The music, hesitant at first, slowly became more melodious, stronger. People stopped, kids and adults alike, to watch this old man play a song both familiar and unknown.
A Romani tune.
Max closed his eyes. It was no longer a dying old man playing, no, but a young boy, far, very far away, in another world entirely. A young Romani boy lost amid cruelty and hate, alone, discouraged, looking for love and light in the grey ash of the human soul.
Where Are They Now?
Many people who lived and died in our own time are mixed in with the fictional characters of this novel. At the end of the war Heinrich Himmler was caught by the British but committed suicide before he could be brought to Nuremberg to face his accusers. Eduard Wirths also committed suicide after his arrest. His subaltern, Josef Mengele, found refuge in South America. He drowned off the Brazilian coast in 1979. Johann Schwarzhuber was arrested by the Allies in May 1945, then was tried and condemned to death. Rudolf Höss, captured by the British in 1946, was found guilty at Nuremberg and handed over to Polish authorities. He was executed by hanging in 1947 in Auschwitz at the entrance of the crematorium.
Ioan Antonescu was taken prisoner by the Soviets and brought back to Romania in 1946, where he was found guilty of collaboration with the Nazis and put to death.
Gheorghe Pintilie, the Securitate’s first director, responsible for the arrest and deportation of more than four hundred thousand people, died in 1985. After holding the post of vice-premier of the Soviet Union, Andrey Vyshinsky became the country’s minister of foreign affairs and its permanent representative to the United Nations. At the moment of his death in New York in 1954, Nikita Khrushchev denounced him as the principal herald of terror under Stalin.
The character of Paul Vaneker, the Dutch spy working with the Roma, was directly inspired by Jan Yoors, who told of his activities in the Resistance alongside the Roma in Crossing: A Journal of Survival and Resistance in World War II. He died in 1977 in New York where he’d had a career as a visual artist since the 1950s. Carol II of Romania fled to Portugal, where he died in 1953. His son, Michael, forced to abdicate in 1947, lived with his family in a number of European countries. At the age of ninety-five, he splits his time between Romania and Switzerland; he is the only monarch to reign in the interwar period who is still alive today.
During the war, Slobodan Berberski was a member of the Yugoslav Resistance. A pioneering figure in Romani literature, he died in 1989. In 1978 Jan Cibula was elected president of the International Romani Union at the Geneva congress. He died in 2013. Having served as the director of the Roma Community Centre in Toronto, Ronald Lee remains active in the defence of Romani rights in Canada and elsewhere in the world.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the following people for their help in writing this novel. Author and journalist Ronald Lee shared his deep knowledge of Romani culture and history and offered me telling information about the 1971 Romani congress, which he attended as a delegate. I also drew on his expertise for some of the Romani vocabulary used in the novel. Constantin Anghel, a Romanian Rom, offered rich details on the lives of the Roma in that country. Similarly, Anamaria Luta gave me information on Romanian society before and after 1989. Dr. Gilles Truffy answered my numerous questions on the medical aspects of the story. Francine Landry offered her generous comments and suggestions throughout the writing of this book.
I also want to thank the entire team at Libre Expression, especially Johanne Guay, Carole Boutin, and Jean Baril. I’m privileged to have worked with the extraordinary editor, the late Monique H. Messier, who offered wonderful advice and constant encouragement.
Thanks also to Jacob Homel for this translation, and to editor Michael Carroll, and the team at Dundurn Press.
To get in touch with the author:
[email protected]
In the Same Series
The Kashmir Trap
Mario Bolduc
Translated by Nigel Spencer
Max O’Brien’s nightmare has begun again. Eleven years after the tragic disappearance of his brother, an ambassador in Central America, Max’s nephew, also a diplomat, is assassinated in New Delhi. Max is on the run from police, and this time the professional con man decides to find those responsible for the crime. Determined to track down the truth, he arrives in India just as the country is preparing for war with Pakistan. His inquiry leads him to Kashmir — the heart of the conflict — and the depths of his own soul.
The first book of the thrilling Max O’Brien Mystery series, The Kashmir Trap explores the parallel lives of two brothers who have made very different choices. Violence and the growing tension between India and Pakistan set Max on a course of redemption, revenge, and death.
Copyright © Dundurn Press, 2017
Originally published in French under the title Tsiganes. Copyright © 2007 Mario Bolduc
© 2007, 2012 Éditions Libre Expression
Published under arrangement with Groupe Librex, Inc., doing business under the name Éditions Libre Expression, Montréal. QC, Canada
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.
Printer: Webcom
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Bolduc, Mario, 1953-
[Tsiganes. English]
The Roma plot / Mario Bolduc ; Jacob Homel, translator.
(A Max O’Brien mystery)
Translation of: Tsiganes.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4597-3606-1 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-4597-3607-8 (PDF).--ISBN 978-1-4597-3608-5 (EPUB)
I. Homel, Jacob, 1987-, translator II. Title. III. Title: Tsiganes. English IV. Series: Bolduc, Mario, 1953- . Max O’Brien mystery.
PS8553.O475T7413 2017 C843’.54 C2017-901852-3 C2017-901853-1
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and the Government of Canada.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.
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