Vodník

  “Was she?” Katka repeated.

  “Yeah—a big one. She was holding it and staring at the fountain, almost as if she—”

  “You are not crazy.”

  “What?”

  “In Slovak folklore, Death appears as a woman. She is always dressed in black, and must kill certain number of people each day. She carries scythe with her. This woman’s name is Zubatá.”

  My stomach took a bungee jump off a very high bridge. This was exactly the line of thinking I’d been trying to avoid. “You mean you think I saw Death? Come on. I mean, it was a woman. She didn’t even have a hood, and I could see her face.”

  Katka held up her hand. “Not Death. Not so bad. Just Zubatá.”

  I forced a laugh, then picked at the bench we were sitting on. The paint was peeling. “What a relief. You had me going there for a minute, but I should have known. I mean, the scythe thing is so cliché, and—”

  “This proves what you are seeing is real.”

  Crap. I stood up and started walking back toward the church square. Katka followed. “You mean you actually believe me?” I said.

  “Before, no. Now, yes. You did not know about Zubatá, but you described her.”

  “But I don’t even believe it myself. It could be my imagination, or—”

  Katka grabbed my right arm and pointed at it. “This is not imagination.”

  I jerked it back and stopped walking. “This was from an accident. Your dad was the one who saved me. I was drowning.”

  “Then how you get burned in water?” she asked.

  I glared at her. “I don’t know. But it didn’t have to be from some fairy or troll or witch or Death wannabe.”

  This was always how it started in horror flicks. Guy sees freaky looking person with a hook (or scythe), and by the end of the movie, the guy has the scythe buried to its hilt in his eye socket. I wanted to believe that all I needed was some rest, and then I’d stop seeing little old ladies running around with farm equipment.

  “Tomas, this is great opportunity. This Ohnica said a vodník lives in this town. A vodník still able to drown people. If we can prove he is causing the curse of the town, then maybe we can do something about it. Help other people. Get everyone to stop resenting Roma so much. Prove they are wrong.”

  I cleared my throat. “Didn’t you hear me when I said it wanted to kill me?”

  Katka nodded, her long ponytail bobbing enthusiastically. “All the more reason to know where it is and what it is doing. We will start at the public pool.”

  “The pool?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Many people have drowned there over the years. We can go and watch and see what happens. If we’re lucky, we’ll see the vodník, and then we’ll know.”

  Since when was dying a spectator sport? Around us, hundreds of people walked by, none of them having to worry about mystical water creatures wanting to steal their souls. “I’m not going to go watch people get offed in a pool,” I said.

  “We won’t let the vodník kill them. We’ll stop it before it happens.”

  I fell back on my stubborn nature. I looked Katka straight in the eye and said, “There is no way in hell you’re getting me anywhere near a pool if there’s some insane mythological water guy out to kill me.”

  But arguing with my cousin was like dealing with a force of nature. It didn’t help that I’m just a big pushover to begin with. What else was I going to do in Slovakia? Katka was my only friend. In about ten minutes, she had it all arranged. She was going to pick me up at my apartment the next morning, and we were going hunting for drownings.

  Heaven help me.

  Morena was inducted into the Death Hall of Fame back during the string of plagues in Slovakia in the late seventeenth century. Despite the tremendous extra workload during that stretch, she let only a single soul escape her grasp, a remarkable feat for a Death in any country. She is famous for her work ethic, her ruthless pursuit of victory, and her addiction to throat lozenges. Morena, we salute you!

  Two weeks went by. Katka had explained to her dad that she wanted to help me study and needed time off, which she got. She had an interesting relationship with my uncle. With her mom dead from cancer and him working at the castle so much, she had free rein of the city. She didn’t have a car, but in a European city, you didn’t need one. Anywhere you wanted to go, you could walk or take the bus.

  You’d be surprised how much language you can pick up in two weeks, especially when your mother did her best to raise you bilingual. After the first week, I was understanding pretty much what everyone said to me. After the second, my own Slovak had shaken off the rust and was improving. Almost all my conversations were in Slovak now. It wasn’t that I’d never learned it—I’d just never had the desire to use it. Living in the country that speaks it does a lot for desire.

  For one thing, Mom instituted an “Only Allowed to Watch Movies in Slovak” rule—one which Dad had the nerve to go along with. That was an enormous motivating factor by itself. Of course, I was stuck with what was on television—we didn’t have the budget to get a whole lot of movies to own just yet. I quickly discovered that Slovak translations of English movie titles could get a little . . . strange. “Ghostbusters” is much different than “Tamers of Ghosts.” I mean, it’s not like Bill Murray was getting Slimer to jump through hoops in the circus.

  But when you’re dying of thirst, any water’s better than no water.

  The other main reason I wanted to learn the language fast was so I could understand all the snide remarks people made at me.

  Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like the entire country was always frowning at me—it only felt like that. Going from a place where my ethnicity was only a matter of the occasional mistaken (for Hispanic) identity to one where at times it was seen as my defining characteristic . . . it made the transition to Slovakia a lot more difficult. Many people in the city seemed afraid to get close to me, as if I had leprosy or was going to pick their pocket. A shopkeeper once stopped me when I was leaving the grocery store and practically strip-searched me to make sure I wasn’t trying to steal something.

  There weren’t many other Roma in the city, so we stood out quite a bit. You’d think Roma, at least, would be friendlier to us. You’d be wrong. I tried striking up a conversation with a Roma guy who was waiting for the bus next to me one day. He was friendly at first—confused by my accent, but open and congenial. Then Katka came to stand by me, and he shut down, nodding once or twice before apologizing that he had to go. After that, all the Roma I saw avoided me. Katka said it was because they all felt like we’d turned traitor—given into the Slovaks. Assimilated. Maybe the best comparison would be like an African American “passing” for white—a betrayal of your roots.

  Great. So we weren’t accepted by Slovaks, and we weren’t accepted by Roma.

  Having Katka there was the only thing that kept me sane. She’d been dealing with this stuff since she was little, and she knew how to handle it. And if being her friend didn’t help me much with the Roma in the city, it did wonders for the Slovaks. She was well-known. Or rather, her father was. No one wanted to risk incurring the wrath of a trained knight with a whole arsenal of medieval whoop-ass at his disposal.

  I didn’t understand why people had such a problem with me. “What is it about being Roma that’s so bad?” I asked Katka in exasperation about one week into my stay. “Why do people hate us?”

  She took me to the train station. There were a few olive-skinned men sitting on benches, talking to one another and laughing, each with a bottle in his hand. Farther down, a few Roma kids were playing, their hair oily, their clothes clearly unwashed and raggedly patched in places. You could practically feel the resentment pouring off the Slovaks that passed.

  Katka’s green eyes were passionate. “When Slovaks think of Roma, this is what they think of. People who don’t work, who live off the State. These Roma, they live in a rundown house near here. The government gave it to them for free. They have destroyed
it. They drink, they steal, they’re awful. But are they awful because they are Roma? Slovaks would have you believe we are born like them. It’s in our blood.”

  “Are Roma here all like that?” I asked.

  Her shoulders slumped a little. “Many. There are more in Eastern Slovakia. From what I read, the same problems are throughout Europe. Hitler didn’t just send Jews to the concentration camps. Roma were sent too. But where Jews at least have Israel now, Roma still have nothing. No place where they are accepted and treated as equals. No jobs. Unwelcome at school. Would they still be like that if they were given a real chance? This is not genetics any more than your street gangs in America are genetics.”

  I watched the children playing, their parents completely ignoring them. They were climbing on the fence bordering the train tracks, shaking the chain link and howling with glee. What chance did they have to grow up to become fully functioning members of society? At the same time, I wanted to yell at them—to tell them to wash up. Stop being so wild.

  Stop making life harder for me.

  Katka and I left the train station, but it was several days before I could get the image of those children out of my head.

  When Mom checked on me before she went to bed that night, she asked how things were going. I unleashed a bundle of pent up frustration on her, all of the experiences I’d had pouring out of me, like they’d just been waiting for her to ask before they all came to the surface.

  She gave me a half smile and sat down on the bed beside me. “It’ll get better.”

  “What do you mean?” I said. “How?”

  “You’re new right now. People only know you for what you look like. Trenčín doesn’t have many Roma, so we stick out. They see you and wonder if you’re going to be like all the Roma they hear about on the news. Make problems. Bring more Roma with you. They’ll get over it. Slovaks aren’t bad people. They just aren’t used to diversity, so it’s easier for them to fall back on prejudices. When I was going to school here, it took time to make friends. Longer than it would have if I were just Slovak, but friends still came.”

  “Katka doesn’t seem to have many other friends.”

  Mom shrugged. “Katka . . . is different. She takes it all too personally.”

  “And how is that wrong? How can you give the bigots a free pass like that?”

  “It’s not a free pass, Tomas. It’s complicated. Look at me. I’ve already made friends at the school where I’m teaching. People see me, and at first they wonder how a Rom could get a job like this. But then they get to know me, and they judge me for who I am, not how I look. They see I’m not like other Roma.”

  I slapped my bed in frustration, looking down at my burned arm. “So you get to be the token Roma friend? People shouldn’t make assumptions about you based on a single glance. And maybe the ‘other Roma’ deserve the same courtesy.”

  Mom started tracing the quilted lines on my bed’s throw. “People shouldn’t do a lot of things they do.”

  No kidding. We were quiet for a bit, then I asked. “How did our family end up okay?”

  “Okay? I don’t know if you can call it that. Alena—my mother—married a Roma man. Her parents disowned her. Her siblings stopped talking to her. My father died when I was three. I don’t remember him and I don’t know the Roma side of our family very well. They didn’t like him marrying a Slovak woman any more than Mama’s family did. Mama had been married to him a little less than six years. She had to press forward after his death. Raising her two children, providing for us . . .” She trailed off, her expression pained.

  At last she continued, sounding artificially bright and cheery. “I don’t want you to make up your mind about Slovaks yet. Yes, they have some issues, but aren’t we doing the same thing to them that they do to us, if we dismiss them all as bigots? Get some sleep. You’ll feel better tomorrow.”

  Typical Mom: avoid real discussion by ignoring it.

  Typical Tomas: let her get away with it.

  Still, the persecution against me lightened up some once word got out I was L’uboš’s nephew. I had to endure scowls and “accidents” now and then, but compared to the first two weeks, life got better. Even being around the pool felt like a relief. Well, around was a relative word. I stayed near the fence, about as far as I could get and still be at the pool complex. It was a mixture of pros and cons. It had a football field–sized amount of water, but it had plenty of string bikinis too. There were no women made out of fire, no scythes, and no crazy candy cane–backed grannies. Then again, it also had plenty of old fat men in Speedos, and what has once been seen can never be unseen. Like I said: pros and cons.

  It also helped that Katka wore a bikini to sunbathe. Not that I was checking her out, but all the guys who liked to make fun of Roma didn’t miss a good opportunity to ogle one when the opportunity arose. Next to all that hotness, I might as well have been invisible. The first day, I’d been sure everyone at the pool would point and stare at my burned arm. I even debated going in a long sleeved shirt. Once we got to the pool and Katka stripped down to her swimsuit and lay out in the sun, I might as well not have existed as far as guys were concerned: I was scrawny, short, and forgettable. You didn’t bulk up much by watching movies.

  I’d lie next to Katka while I studied the tour routine. It wasn’t overly complicated, but I was never a genius when it came to memorizing, so it was slow going. Every now and then I’d glance up to see what was going on at the pool—death watch, so to speak—but other than that, I buried myself in the tour. The less I had to look at all that water, the better.

  It must have been in the high nineties that Thursday, and I had my scarred arm all lathered up in lotion and sunblock to protect it. I was in my swimsuit and barefoot. Katka had sent me off to get the refreshments, though how anyone could call a pint-sized can of Sprite with no ice refreshing was beyond me. Still, a person had to drink, so I’d gone fairly willingly.

  Techno music was blasting from speakers set up around the pool, the bass line thumping out beats in a never ending stream of booms. Draco, Gollum, and Jabba were hanging around the snack bar when I walked up. It took them a bit to spot me, but when they did, smirks broke out all around. Together, they got in line behind me.

  “I didn’t realize the pool had gotten so bad lately,” Draco said. “Seems they have an infestation problem.”

  Jabba bumped into me from behind, knocking me forward into the girl in front of me. I flashed an apologetic smile at her, but she frowned at me and edged farther away.

  Gollum snorted up some snot and laughed. I wondered how bad this might get. They weren’t smoking, at least. No burning embers to worry about.

  A voice spoke to my right—in English. “Greetings, young Skywalker.”

  Adam from the castle had walked up. The trio noticed him too. Funny how fast they were able to find something else to do.

  I beamed at him, relief flooding me. Talk about a knight in shining armor. The guy knew all his English from geeky movies, and he never passed up an opportunity to try out lines. “May the Force be with you,” I said.

  He grinned and continued in Slovak. “How are you doing? Adjusting to life as a Communist, or are you still set in your capitalist pig ways?”

  I glanced around him to see the Bigot Gang heading off. Hey—I could call them the BeeGees for short. BGs. It was the little men­tal victories that kept me going. I smiled some more. “Doing great, Comrade. What are you doing down from the castle?”

  He nodded over toward the far end of the pool area, where a woman was playing with two small boys. “Here with the family.” Back in English: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

  I waved good-bye to him, wondering if he knew how creepy that last line had sounded. Probably not, but it would be better to keep him away from any axes for the time being.

  On the way back, I discovered why the BGs had been so ready to retreat. They’d laid an ambush in the form of an impromptu game of soccer between me and where Katka
lay out in the sun. I tried to skirt around it, but no matter which way I went, the soccer game seemed to follow. The ball smacked into my chest, and Gollum ran up to field it. “Oops,” he said, smiling. He kicked it back to Jabba, who returned it. Once again, Gollum just missed it, and this time it hit my shoulder. Passive-aggressive taunting of the Roma kid. Fun incarnate.

  I had to make a choice: I could either skirt closer to the pool than I was comfortable, or I could walk all around the water in the opposite direction. For once, personal pride won out over my phobia. There was no way I was going to let those chuckleheads think they’d gotten the best of me. Stick up for myself—that’s what Katka kept telling me to do. Why not start now?

  After all, it wasn’t like I’d lose my balance walking on a level stretch of land, and the water would still be feet—not inches—away.

  I swallowed and headed toward the pool. It seemed like somebody turned up the sun. I started sweating, and my stomach roiled with nausea. If I blew chunks in the pool, I’d never live it down. Maybe personal pride shouldn’t have won out over my fear of water.

  The ball hit the back of my head, and I heard more laughing behind me. I kept walking.

  Keep calm, Tomas. Just a few more feet, and I’ll be past the pool and on my way back to Katka.

  I was halfway there, and I was beginning to get confident. I was doing it: beating my phobia. It was actually possible. Maybe I’d just need the right motivation to—

  Someone shoved me from behind.

  The Sprite went flying, and I teetered on the edge of the pool. The water stretched out below me, blue and deep and rushing to meet me. I fell with a splash.

  Freezing water was everywhere. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t breathe. My arms and legs flailed around, connecting with something that was either the floor or the side of the pool. Above everything else, my mind was shouting one question: why had I never learned to swim?

  And then there was nothing but rushing wind and blinding light.

  I wasn’t in the body of the fat eight-year-old this time. I was in the body of someone bigger. Someone underwater: that much was clear. When you’re on dry land, the sun doesn’t undulate and the air doesn’t ripple. I glanced up toward the sun, and outside the surface of the water, I could see a river­bank. I’d never been swimming (if you didn’t count what was even now happening to me at the pool—was I drowning? Was this what death was like?), and so the effect of looking out of water was new and strange to me.