“Here! Let me carry those books. They’re too heavy for you,” she said, in a voice Kata recognized as pretend chirpy.
“Please, Miss. I like carrying them.”
Miss Pavlova quickened her pace. As she placed her weight first on one spindly leg and then the other, her knees seemed to bend in at the front and bulge out on the back, just slightly, the way birds walked. Her shoulder-length hair was pinned behind her ears, with bangs standing up in a puff over her forehead, like the cap of a skylark. And now Kata recalled her teacher’s singing in the classroom – sweet and melodious.
“Well, here we are. Where would you like these books?”
Kata looked around. They were home.
****
Hidden in the guestroom, Kata appraised the front cover of Tom Sawyer. She flipped to the first page. Somehow, the words that usually reeled her in seemed ineffective: lifeless black symbols imprinted on a white page. Instead, she was drawn to the picture of a scrawny boy on the cover. What was the real Tom Sawyer like? He appeared to have a smudged, freckled face, and muddy pants. He did not, in any way, resemble Lorca.
She thought about the boys from school. They were usually silly, or aggressive, or annoying. Some were dirty – not just dusty or dressed in patched clothes. The ones with unwashed faces, sleep crusts in the corners of their eyes and un-brushed teeth – these she despised. And those who bullied the younger and weaker kids or worst of all those who belittled girls.
The courteous boys who were her friends never made her feel awkward and light-headed, and most of all, disheartened – the way Lorca did. He mocked her every time she tried to get to know him. What made it more painful was that she was accustomed to doing the rejecting.
She crawled deeper under the starched white sheets of the guest bed and inhaled the soapy sweetness of sun-dried linen. This room remained cool even on a hot summer day, and after a quick bath in the lukewarm water Grandma had left in the washtub to heat in the sun, Kata felt refreshed and glad that the major part of the day was over – the thrill of the dancing bear, the indignity of the broken pitcher, and most of all, her exasperation with the young man who wouldn’t talk to her. It all reminded her of walking in the dark and stepping into potholes, bumpy and unpredictable. The bruise on her shin, resembling a potato that had turned blue after being left in the sun, pulsated with a dull pain.
****
Where are you? The voice from far away sounded familiar. Kata opened her eyes, jumped out of bed, and barked a sharp “ouch” as her bruised shin hit the bedframe. Maja’s voice floated up again. Kata limped to the open window and waved to her friend. She noticed Grandma and four other women in the shade of the linden. Katia recognized the two grandmothers – Maja’s and Miladin’s, sitting on a wooden bench. The third woman was Nana Novak. But, with only a glimpse of the fourth woman’s back, she was unable to guess her identity.
Most elderly women in the village wore their hair either in a tight bun tied at the nape of the neck, like Grandma, or in one or two braids pinned tightly in a circle wound around the top of the head. Nana Novak was an exception. Her hair-bun looked as if a scraggly grey-feathered bird were perched precariously on her head. The fourth woman, the one Kata couldn’t recognize, had long grey hair with black streaks that spilled out from under a blue kerchief, over her shoulders, ending at her knees. And then she turned and Kata realized who she was.
“That’s the gypsy my grandma was talking to at the bear dance,” Kata said out loud, just as Maja entered.
“How do you know?” Maja’s asked.
“Because I saw her there,” Kata replied as she ran toward her friend and hugged her tightly.
Although Maja was only a year younger, she was almost a head shorter than Kata, and smelled like baby powder and warm milk. She wore a faded cotton dress, the original pink still evident in the seams and creases. Kata released her friend from her embrace, amazed as always at Maja’s clear light brown eyes, and the gentleness in her softly squared face: straight nose; full lips; silky, shoulder-length, light brown hair; and rosy, flushed complexion. It would be many years before Kata would realize why only one word – sublime – would adequately describe her friend, and why she thought Maja the most beautiful girl she’d ever known.
The two friends had much to tell each other. They spoke in spurts, completing each other’s sentences, questioning, exclaiming, every once in a while clapping their hands in unison and jumping up and down.
Maja told of her morning at the market in Obrenovac, where her mother sold cheese and eggs; of picking out fabric for her new dress; and of the gypsies with the dancing bear at her house later the same afternoon. Kata talked about the same group of gypsies and of course Lorca, who – to the unbearable disappointment of both girls – had not shown up at Maja’s house. After a brief debate the girls agreed that Kata was in love.
“But isn’t Lorca a girl’s name?” asked Maja.
“No!”
“Are you going to marry him?”
“I don’t know. Do you think he wants to marry me?”
“You never said you liked any of the boys. And now you want to marry Lorca? What are we going to do?” Maja bounced a few times and clapped her hands eagerly, as though the marriage ceremony was planned for the following day.
“He doesn’t like me,” Kata said morosely. “He wouldn’t even talk to me. At first, he wouldn’t even tell me his name.”
“But you don’t know he doesn’t want to marry you. Maybe he does. How do you know?”
“He probably thinks I’m just annoying.”
“But you love him. Don’t you?”
Kata wondered whether all this enthusiasm was a good or a bad thing. Maja, who was Kata’s voice of reason, was persisting, with unusual exuberance.
“He thinks I’m just a child,” declared Kata.
“Is he old?” asked Maja with such a mixture of surprise and shock that Kata blushed. “Well, is he? Otherwise, why would he think that? You never said how old he is.”
“I dunno,” Kata shrugged.
“He is?” Maja’s face betrayed her dismay. “How old?”
“Just old. Maybe even as old as … your brother.”
“He’s seventeen? And you still like him? My brother’s just awful.”
“Lorca’s not like anybody else.”
“You can do what Ana did, my brother’s girlfriend. She told me she’s going to marry my brother, but she said not now, but she will, she knows for sure, and I can’t wait, she’s pretty.”
“How does she know?”
“A gypsy read her palm and told her she’s going to marry a rich man.”
“A rich man? I thought you said your brother.”
“That’s right. But Ana told the gypsy that she wants to marry my brother, not that rich man. And guess what the gypsy said? ‘Your future husband is not rich now, but he will come into his riches.’ Can you believe that? My brother is going to be rich some day and he’s going to marry Ana.” Maja’s rosy complexion was even more flushed.
A sense of unease settled in Kata’s stomach. Where is that gap, that missing link? She thought it best to leave it alone. Besides, she would be accused of ruining everything. Instead, she asked: “How do you know it’s all true?”
“Because the gypsy told her how to find out,” Maja answered quickly. “For sure.”
“I need to find out, too!”
“We need a mirror, and we have to pick a little branch of rosemary. Just like we make boutonnieres for weddings. But this one can’t be decorated, just plain.”
“And then?”
“We need to pick some creeping charlie,” Maja said. “You put everything together under your pillow. Before going to bed. But first, you look at yourself in the mirror. Then you turn the mirror over and hide it under your pillow. The gypsy told her the rosemary and the creeping charlie must be tied together with a piece of fuchsia ribbon, to make it look happy. But not all decorated or the spell gets ruined. Then you say the magic wor
ds to make the spell work. Then you go to sleep. And don’t talk to anybody before you go to sleep. Or you’ll break the spell.”
Kata waited for further instruction, but when none came, asked: “And then what?”
“That night, you will dream your future husband. And she did. Ana did. She dreamed my brother. So, you see? It’s all true.”
“But how do I know what to say?” Kata blurted out. “The magic words. What are they?”
“Magic words?”
“Yes! What’s the chant?”
“Oh, that? I don’t know. Ana didn’t tell me. She can’t, you see. The magic words are secret. If she tells me, the spell would be broken.”
“Broken? Then how can I do it?” snapped Kata, plunking down on Grandma’s old hope chest.
Maja’s face was solemn. “What do we do?”
“Maja?” a voice called from outside. “Where are you? Time to go home!”
“Got to run,” Maja said. “I’ll come over tomorrow, so you can tell me if you dreamt Lorca. If you’re gonna marry him.”
“How? I don’t know the magic words!” Kata cried. But Maja was already out the door.
Chapter VI
That Other World
The sprig of rosemary and the creeping charlie tied with a piece of fuchsia wool lay safely under the pillow; Grandma’s rectangular mirror face down next to it. Kata picked up the tiny mirror and looked. By the pale flicker of the kerosene lamp, the cutout of her face stared back at her so close from the other side, it was as if she could touch it. But her fingers stopped on the cold glass surface.
The large single eye peered at her through the flop of dark hair. She shut her eyes and with her fingertips traced her own features – they were all there. And when she re-opened her eyes, the eye was still staring at her, as if from another world, as if it was magic. Magic … the magic words … she needed them now.
Eyes squeezed shut again, Matricaria chamomilla, Achillea millefolium, Lavandula vera echoed in her head. Kata whispered the Latin names. Again, she could hear the music. They have music. They are magic. My magic words. She smiled. She had just completed her ritual. She replaced the mirror, ready to sleep.
But sleep would not come. She missed Grandma’s bed, the rhythmic breathing next to her. At last, she heard faint singing, far out there in the darkness. Had the gypsy fairy returned? A distant refrain, like a lullaby, led the way to the land of dreams.
****
Glad to be awake, Kata pushed aside blobs of images that popped up and burst like soapsuds, leaving fragments of her dreams. They tugged at her thoughts and beckoned her back under, to escape the bleakness of her sun-drenched room with the white metal bed, the white bedspread over white sheets, and the sheer white curtains blinding her vision. She shut her eyes, blocking out the austerity of her room.
Write them down, dear – Kata heard Grandma’s voice in her head – then sometime later, you can read them. Dreams can be messages from beyond.
Kata wrote down the first image she recalled: “The dead swallow is under the blue hyacinth.”
There was something eerie about the swallow. She lifted one wing, then another, and unsteadily took to flight. But Kata knew that the bird was dead. There was more. The deep hues of red and green and blue shimmered on her feathers. The feathers grew longer, shaping a figure of a woman in a transparent gown like a rainbow. The nymph from Grandma’s Hyacinthus story? The nymph looked at Kata with her turquoise eyes and, just like in the story, raised a flute to her lips and played a sad tune.
Kata’s visions were becoming words: “The sky is turning into a white light, burning my eyes.”
She felt a sense of dread. Her whole body shivered under the cold spell of the white light. She continued writing as the images appeared and disappeared behind the lace curtain that was being blown by the wind through an open window, as if playing hide and seek: “I open the book on my lap and see the dancing bear. He lifts one foot, then the other and walks off the page. He is in the fields far beyond, bounding through the golden wheat.”
Kata left the white room and tried hiding in her favourite tree crown, but the shadows stalked her. She continued writing. Then she read the lines. They seemed nonsensical. She scratched out some. Numbered them in the same order as they occurred the previous night. Rewrote them. Again and again. By late afternoon, they began making sense:
the dead swallow under the blue hyacinth
flutters her wings
colour shimmers on her feathers
i look up
and the swallow is playing a flute
i look down at the open book on my lap
at the picture of the dancing bear
and he steps off my page
brown and furry and playful
a large, light-as-air teddy bear
leaping through the golden wheat
following the swallow
into the white light
She went back in and hid the notebook in the top drawer of Grandma’s dresser. Had the magic words from the night before gone awry? Could she not simply forget the whole thing? But the images resurfaced, one moment fairytale funny and the next terrifyingly alien.
Was this dream a bad omen? Had it to do with the man she would some day marry? She re-examined her marriage options:
Would it be a village priest? He would be young and handsome, and he would, of course, have a helper to kill chickens.
Or would it be someone educated, who would respect me, as Papa Novak said?
Or could it be someone with a hissing voice, like Miladin’s father, who yells at Miladin’s mother and punches her in the eye?
Or could it be someone like Grandpa Mihailo, who allowed himself to be killed and left Grandma with a broken heart?
Or would it be someone like my father who doesn’t believe in ‘women’s idle talk,’ and looks above my head when he talks to me?
Or could it be someone kind and funny, like Professor Papa Novak, who reads all the newspapers and knows everything? And best of all, who looks like an actor in Shakespeare’s play?
Or would it be … could it be … someone who would make my head spin and my knees wobble and my hands so weak that I might drop the cookies in the dust? Could it be someone … like Lorca?
Recalling Lorca’s refusal to tell her his name, his refusal of a cookie, and his refusal to even talk to her, she concluded that Lorca was … moody, like Zeus. How does one talk to someone who looks like Lorca and makes her feel the way he does, but who is moody like Zeus? But why is he so gloomy? Other gypsies seemed happy, smiling and singing and dancing.
She gazed toward the bench in the garden and saw Grandma hunched over the low wooden table sorting the herbs into her willow basket. She was peaceful. The day before, talking to the gypsies, she was uncommonly chatty, even cheerful. It was unlike her.
Kata walked over to the bench. “Why do gypsies make you happy, Bako?”
The serene features lifted in surprise. “Hmm. I never realized. I think you might have something there.”
Grandma paused for a long while and then said: “With gypsies here, I feel as if I’m living in my other world. Where Mihailo is alive. Everything was better then.”
Kata shut her eyes and tried to picture that other world. But she could not see it, could not see herself in it. And yet, she could see the dancers from the previous day and she could hear their music.
“Did gypsies play their music in your other world? When Grandpa was alive?”
“They certainly did, my little swallow. That music you heard, after the bear danced? That’s for us, the gawdjo, the farmers. That’s what they play at weddings or at town fairs. They keep their most exquisite melodies, the ones that have a special meaning to them, only for their own people. Music is part of their soul, their whole being.”
“How do you know all this, Grandma? Have you ever heard it?”
“Certainly have. When Mihailo was alive and they worked for us during harvest time. They’re close families. We a
lways welcomed their children and their elderly. In the evenings, they would sing and dance. They’d ask us to come and listen.”
Grandma was transposed into her other world, this time into a wonderful and magical corner. Kata wished she could have prolonged the moment, but Grandma’s face quickly settled into its usual sadness.
“It’s their philosophy of life, my Mihailo used to say. They own nothing and have everything. Now, think of that.”
“What was their special music like, Bako?”
The clouds on the melancholy face cleared again.
“Can’t describe it, dear, in words. After hearing gypsy music, words are … hollow.”
Kata closed her eyes and listened. And there it was, she could hear it – from the previous summer and every other summer as far as she could remember – the gentle singing far away in the moonlight. She did not realize that she had finally forgotten her distressing dream.
Chapter VII
The Cookie Heart
That evening, Kata crawled into bed earlier than usual. It was only dusk. After the restless night in her own room, the muffled sound of Grandma’s feet on the wood planks was as comforting as the lullabies she used to sing.
Grandma knelt on the floor next to the bed and began her long evening prayer.
From the courtyard, Roza’s voice broke through the calmness: “Where’s everybody? Gone to bed with the sunset? Like the chickens!”
Kata winced. Grandma did not like interruptions during her prayers. But Roza continued calling.
Grandma rose slowly. She walked to the door and opened it, her long nightgown outlined in the dusk: “They’re all at the market, dear. Staying for the week. It’s been a long day. We’re off to bed.”
Summer of The Dancing Bear Page 8