As if on cue, they walked beyond the shadow, shoulders pressed together. The man sitting on the grass stood, towering over them. His dark, shoulder-length ringlets shadowed his face. But Kata could discern the deeply-set eyes, a cleft chin, and the lips she knew were the shade of overripe cherries.
****
Arranged by height like students lined up at gym class, the three figures walked along the narrow path through the cornfield. They were within sight of Maja’s house.
“Now that you mention it, Kata, I do recall. I did have some of your cookies.”
“How?” she replied playfully. “They were all gone, Lorca, there were none left.”
“One of my little cousins stuffed a cookie in his pocket, saved it for me, crumbs and all. Just how my people are. Everything’s shared.”
“That’s great!” Kata blurted out. “I wish I were one of your people.”
“Maybe you should just watch me walk home from here,” Maja said meekly. “So my dog doesn’t bark her head off. Or I’ll be in the biggest trouble.”
“You sure you’re all right from here?” asked Lorca in a fatherly tone.
“Yes,” answered Maja. She turned to her friend: “Come with me half-way.”
The two girls walked down the narrow path enveloped by the soft green and yellow summer grain about to ripen. Half-way, Maja stopped. She hugged Kata tightly, pressing a burning cheek against her friend’s. Then she stepped back and whispered: “I didn’t think anyone like him could exist. Ever!” She turned and ran toward her house.
Kata headed back toward Lorca, heart pounding. Alone. She would be alone with him.
“But you are,” he whispered as she came close.
“Pardon?”
“One of my people. At heart, you are.”
“Oh,” was all she could say.
“When I saw you bring those cookies,” he said, “I had such an urge to laugh. You were just a child, and you just wanted to share. It’s a rare gift.”
They entered the woodlot, walking side by side. Every once in a while she got a whiff of musky horse tang and wondered whether Lorca had been the man she’d seen grooming the stallion. As they walked, their arms came so near they almost touched. For the first time ever, she passed the corner of the woodlot without remembering the fallen soldier.
The brief silence seemed an eternity. She began to speak, saying whatever came to mind in the hope of concealing her still-pounding chest: “When I met you, you weren’t that much older than me. But you acted as if you were my parent.”
“Actually,” he said, “I was two years older than you are now. So you realize how an eight-year-old appears to you. Am I right?”
Kata knew he was right but was becoming annoyed by his teacherly tone.
“You were so curt,” she said, hearing the hurt in her own voice. “Almost rude. Refusing to talk to me.”
“I thought of you on occasion,” he said. “It even surprised me, when I caught myself. You reminded me of a … cartoon character. Awkward and … ”
“And what?” she asked expectantly, glad that he had at least remembered her.
“And persistent. A few years later in one of my classes, we studied the Art for Art’s Sake concept. And would you believe it? I began laughing as I pictured you with your cookies.”
“A cartoon character, huh?” She was again an eight-year-old with bruised shins.
“As I said, my droning professor defined the doctrine that art is its own excuse for being, that its values are aesthetic and not moral, political, or social and so on.”
Only half-understanding and not caring, Kata listened to his voice – disarming, hypnotic. Then she heard a tune in her head. I could dream to his voice. I could stroll, run, to his voice. I could skip, dance, sing, to his voice … pray … sleep … I could sleep to his voice. She clenched her whole body to freeze the chanting.
“You were too young to understand. Wanted to make friends with me. But I couldn’t risk getting into trouble, or getting my uncle or clan in trouble for that matter.”
He paused, glancing at her, expecting a response? She continued walking without returning his glance. That would be risky. Keep talking, keep walking, Lorca.
“But you simply wanted to share. No motives, no social taboos. I named you … Kata stands for Katarina, correct?”
She nodded, glad that the rhyme in her head had stopped. The only person who ever called her Katarina was her mother and that always in anger. She’d always hated it. Yet, when he said her name, it sounded different, somehow important. She liked it.
“So I named you Katarina the Giver,” he said.
What exactly did he mean by that? She shot him a swift glance. Was she imagining it or did his eyes contradict his smile? She stumbled, but quickly regained her balance.
“The cookies were an excuse to talk to you,” she retorted, as if he had wronged her somehow. “But you made it difficult.”
She felt exposed, vulnerable. He knows, he knows I’m dizzy just hearing his voice, just being near him. She needed him to speak, anything to help calm her feelings.
“Had to return to school,” he said, as if reading her mind. “But as for the rest, perhaps now you’re old enough to know.”
“I understood after Angela’s baby,” she said – and wished she could retract the words even as she uttered them.
“Ah,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “That’s partly the reason I’m … we’re here. With approval from the authorities … Anyhow, that’s a long story.”
She glanced at him, hoping for more. But his eyes hardened and she knew he would say no more about it.
“Almost home, now,” she announced.
They were at the end of the field, a short, rutted path away from her gate. In a changed, cheerful tone, he said: “So will you come tomorrow evening for my sister’s wedding? You and your friend, I mean.” Then more teasingly: “If you can get permission, that is.”
“Permission?” Kata said, imitating Lorca’s sardonic look.
Chapter XV
Jasmine
The armoire and the dresser drawers hung half-opened, their contents in a heap on the floor. Nothing Kata tried on felt right. She brightened when she saw Grandma’s hope chest in the corner. But then realized that Grandma’s clothing had been removed.
“What am I looking for?” She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. Drawn to the chest, she knelt and carefully piled its contents on the floor: white terry-cloth bedspreads, white sheets with white lace trim …
Her fingers wrapped around a garment and she sensed a familiar texture, a simultaneous crudeness and softness of the homespun cloth that had once filled this chest. To her surprise, the rumpled bundle was of homespun linen, its natural, greyish hue soothing to the eyes. Flattening it revealed a slip with wide shoulder straps Grandma used to wear under her dresses. She buried her nose in it and inhaled the faint whiff of lavender. She undressed and slid Grandma’s slip over her head. It was a perfect fit – the cut widening below her arms creating a half-circle when she twirled. This is it! I found it!
Opening the dresser’s top drawer, she foraged for the familiar package – the pink cookie heart. Gingerly, she removed the white wrapping and for the first time placed the necklace around her neck.
The cookie heart pendant covered most of her chest. She stepped into the guestroom and stood in front of the bevelled mirror. The image smiled back – a lopsided grin; long, dark, bedraggled hair and a large pink cookie heart with a mirror in the centre. Perfect for the occasion, she thought. Or was this it?
****
“You girls hiding all the way up here?” Lorca called out. “If I didn’t know your secret tree shadow I never would’ve found you.” Kata and Maja stepped out from under willow’s canopy into the softness of the twilight. “You ladies look … lovely … like moon fairies.”
The two girls squeezed each other’s hand in delight.
He peered at Kata’s pink cookie-heart necklace and paused: “Is that …?”
“You kept it all this time?”
“You’re surprised?”
“Hmm. It was such an impulsive gesture. Seemed a fair trade at the time – a cookie for your cookies. Yes? Only later did I realize how it could be … misconstrued.”
For the first time he looked baffled, and she was glad. For a moment, he appeared awkward in his festive attire – a purple silk shirt, tight black pants, black boots with a prominent heel and a checkered diklo, the traditional gypsy neck scarf, knotted around his neck. And his long black curls tied in a ponytail. He cleared his throat, quickly composing himself. Assuming his typically confident stance, he waved a hand toward the gathering: “Come and meet the others!”
They followed him to a makeshift table. “What will it be? Some cherry soda?”
“We’ll just walk around for a while, if that’s all right,” Maja said.
“Make yourselves at home,” he answered, scanning the surging crowd. “I’ll find my sister and introduce you.”
Hand-in-hand, the girls moved into the gathering. After a few steps, they stopped and faced each other.
“Amazing. It was from him,” Maja exclaimed.
Kata nodded triumphantly. As she glanced about, the sleeping caravan of the night before now transformed into a hive of activity, she also felt a change in herself. A feeling of comfort enveloped her. The cookie heart had been from him. Inhaling deeply the warm wind that had magically come to life, she sensed possibilities shaping. Had she not been part of his thoughts, his life, even of this caravan, in some miniscule way?
Maja pointed to one of two fire-pits, each with a few slow-burning logs alongside and a metal spit across. “Roasting a pig, just like for our weddings,” she said.
Several men and women were gathered around the spit, in their everyday ragged clothes and bare feet, as another man approached them, bottle in hand. He grasped the cork in his teeth and poured a little of the liquid on the ground.
“That’s a Romany ritual, an offering to the god of wine to banish bad luck,” Kata said to her friend, as she watched them pass the bottle from one person to the next, taking long swigs, talking and laughing.
A group of fiddlers tuning their instruments waved Lorca over.
Maja nudged Kata: “I like the silky shirts the fiddlers are wearing. The blue one with yellow moons all over. And the one with honeysuckles.”
“They’re all dressed like Lorca,” Kata added. She thought their boots were well crafted, like those the shoemaker from her childhood had made, except these were in fashion.
A man with a brimless felt hat sprouting a peacock feather handed his fiddle to Lorca. Leaning the instrument against his left shoulder and closing his eyes, Lorca drew the bow smoothly across the strings. He paused and drew the bow again, and again. Then he gently bounced the bow, producing shorter notes. He opened his eyes and adjusted some pegs, then repeated the whole routine.
“Wow! Look at those dresses!” Maja pointed to a group of women, some in long frocks and others in wide skirts with low-necked and tight-fitting bodices.
“Is that all you care about, dresses? Lorca is a fiddler. See? His father was a musician too. My grandma told me.” Kata remained focused on the band and Lorca. In the din of the crowd, she could not quite hear his short notes. Then he handed the fiddle back and the two men patted each other on the shoulder.
As Lorca headed toward the fire-pit, a woman approached him. Her flowery frock was shaped like a bell from the waist down. A tight bodice outlined her generous curves. She clapped her hands as if glad yet surprised to see him and slipped her arm around his waist. She lifted herself on tiptoes and with her other hand, jingling with many silver and gold bracelets, she rumpled his hair as if he were a little boy, all the while laughing and chatting. They stood for a moment, talking and smiling, before a second woman pulled the first one away from Lorca and drew her back into the gathering.
“I like the big, looped earrings,” Maja chirped. “You think I could wear a sash around my waist, like they do?”
Kata shrugged her shoulders. Didn’t Maja see what just happened? The woman who’d hugged Lorca had a sweep of her dark, long hair pinned up with a posy of pink carnations. Did she have to be so beautiful?
As he wound his way through the crowd, Lorca exchanged a few words here and there. He patted the heads of the numerous children running ragged and barefoot around the encampment. The children threaded swiftly through the clumps of adults, disappearing and re-appearing among the women’s frilled skirts – like eels through coral reefs from the pages of the National Geographic magazines Papa Novak kept.
Lorca crouched in front of two little girls cuddling corn-dolls, reminding Kata of her own from childhood. The dolls were fresh young ears of corn with long red-tinged corn-silk braided into a hair plait. After chatting briefly, he smiled and took his direction from the girls’ pointed fingers.
As he entered the tent at the edge of the encampment, Kata’s attention shifted to the children playing nearby. A boy of about seven lashed the air with a leather whip, while a couple of others wielded wooden sticks in a mock sword-fight. Two younger boys were wrestling, rolling on the grass, their excited shrieks making it unclear whether they were playing or fighting. A small group of boys and girls seemed to be competing in cartwheels, flipping their agile, slender bodies and walking on their hands, legs wobbly in the air. A girl of about eight held a baby in her arms, while continuing to play hide-and-seek with other children.
“We used to make dolls like that,” Maja said, pointing to a toddler still unsteady on her feet, with chubby cheeks and shoulder-length curls, dragging a homemade doll almost as big as her. The doll’s head consisted of a nylon stocking stuffed with rags, and the body a ragged skirt gathered around the doll’s neck.
The toddler waddled toward an old golden retriever that lay on its side, yanking burrs from its tail. The girl dropped her plump bottom on top of the dog as if it were a chair tailor-made for her short legs. Then she spotted a woman in a flowery dress stirring a pot suspended on iron legs over a nearby fire. The toddler dropped the doll and headed toward the woman, whimpering as she lifted her arms in the air.
The woman crouched, hauled up the little girl onto her hip and continued stirring the pot. It was the same woman who had “draped” herself, as if she were a heroine in a romantic movie, over Lorca only a short while ago. Kata felt relieved. This was probably her child. She probably had a husband. But this could also be Lorca’s child! And the woman? Lorca’s wife? Kata was overtaken by sudden sadness. Why was she here? She remained standing next to Maja, idly observing the commotion about her as if it were a play.
Lorca emerged from the tent and walked toward them. He held another woman by her arm, as if he’d caught an escaped prisoner. Playfully, she tried to free herself.
“This is my sister, Jasmine,” he said, chuckling. “Born under a jasmine tree.”
“Calo, pralo! Katar avas? Speak Calo, brother! Where do you come from?” Jasmine’s voice was clear as a church bell, her look mischievous.
“I mean,” he said laughing, “she was named after the most sweet-scented, opiate-of-the-heart blossom.” With arms fully extended, he held his sister by her shoulders, gazing at her admiringly. “Our guests don’t speak Calo, my fragrant jasmine.”
“In that case, let me greet your friends,” Jasmine replied. Her smile was the same teasing one as her brother’s. A long, black mass of curls enveloped her shoulders and cascaded to her waist, framing a scant white bodice. Countless folds of thin skirt fabric the colour of a ripe peach clung to her bare legs. Kata thought it strange that the vision from her childhood, the image of a beautiful singing fairy, had come to life, standing before her.
“This is our bride-to-be,” Lorca announced, bowing in an exaggerated curtsy.
“Sit down, ladies,” Jasmine said, lowering herself on the grass and folding her legs under her. “I’m really only bride number two. Your real bride, the y
outhful flower, is over there.” Jasmine pointed to a young woman and man, dressed in festive outfits, sitting on a once-yellow blanket spread out on the grass, staring into each other’s eyes, smiling and whispering as if no one else existed.
“The dresses,” Maja cried out. “And all the hairstyles. All so amazing.”
“They’re waiting for the parents and the elders to close the deal,” Jasmine said, carefully arranging her skirt. “When young people get married, our traditions are closely followed. I’ve done this before. It’s my second time, getting married. And third for my rom, my husband-to-be. We’re just joining in the festivities. Times are lean and life’s a struggle. But we go all out when young people get married.”
Glancing at Kata and Maja, Lorca laughed softly: “Hope you’ll find our customs amusing.”
“A little strange, almost eerie, to be here again,” Jasmine said. “Last time we were here, there was a tragedy. You girls must’ve been young.”
“You mean Angela’s baby?” Maja blurted out.
“Yes! So tragic. My little Marco was just a baby. But he’s a grown boy now. Seven years old. My gold and my heart, my reason for living!”
Kata examined Jasmine’s features. Why does she look so familiar? Was it her likeness to Lorca? It was as if she had seen this woman’s face in a dream. From the day the bear danced? Was it the three red roses tied to hold her hair above her forehead? Kata tried to recall the connection. But the next moment, her eyes were drawn by an elderly woman heading their way.
The woman was short and plump, shifting her whole weight from one leg to the other with each step. A large willow basket hung on her arm, grey hair pulled tight at the base of her neck. Kata stared in disbelief … Grandma’s spirit … disguised … a gathered skirt almost to the ground … a loose shawl enfolding her shoulders … the round face with low-slung eyebrows … the confident air … Kata felt her thoughts teetering at the edge of a vortex.
Summer of The Dancing Bear Page 13