Fires in the Dark
Page 48
When they had stopped laughing, she said, ‘And I will teach our children to respect their father at all times.’
He touched her arm. ‘I will teach them never to let anyone write down anything about them, and to remember that the gadje hate us.’ We will call our first daughter Marienka, he thought, after Marie. Our second daughter must be Anna, in memory of my mother. And the third, Tekla. He wanted sons as well, of course, but he liked the idea of a few daughters first. He saw himself in old age, bewhiskered and white-haired, sitting beside a fire while his girls argued about which of them should have the honour of bringing him his lime-blossom tea.
‘You must not frighten them until they are older,’ Marie said, her voice lightly scolding. ‘When they are little, we must just hold them and hold them and feed them so much they get as fat as puppies.’
‘Marie,’ he said, thoughtfully, taking her hand and rubbing one of her fingers between his forefinger and thumb, ‘what is your real name?’
She looked at him, querying, then shrugged. Yenko frowned. ‘But didn’t your mother whisper your real name into your ear when you were born, didn’t she put out bread for the Three Spirits on the third night?’
Marie smiled and shook her head. ‘We lived in a cottage like everybody else. Nobody keeps up those old customs any more.’
Yenko was silent.
She dipped her head and moved closer, tipping her face so that she could put it close to his. ‘You can teach me if you like
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, do I? I’m a man. I don’t know the women’s secrets.’ There was a pause. ‘Anyway,’ Yenko said, picking up a stone from the grass and tossing it on to the path in front of them. ‘They were only superstitions …’
‘Have you got a real name?’ Marie demanded, suddenly interested.
He thought for a moment, then said, ‘Yes.’
She waited, but he shook his head.
Marie stood up carefully, wincing a little. ‘Turn your back,’ she said. He looked at her, then turned. After a moment, she said, ‘All right.’
He looked at her. She was standing straight in front of him, hands on her hips and an expression of pride on her face. He saw, on the bush next to her, his handkerchief, blood-stained and draped over a twig. He nodded solemnly, knowing this was her gift to him, the only one that she could give, and hoping his face did not betray his distaste. He looked up at the empty sky. Is this your sign, O Del? It isn’t enough.
Marie had turned from him, to look out over the city. ‘It’s still warm,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be a lovely evening.’ She stretched her arms out wide. ‘Oh, Emil,’ she said. ‘This air, being able to breathe, up on a hill.’ She tipped her face upwards. ‘I could grab the sky!’ Her hands clenched and unclenched in the air.
Yenko gazed at her expression, her small face with the light upon it. He looked upwards, struggling for the strength to believe her optimism. The sky was still an honest blue, still empty. A few low clouds were drifting in from the east.
POSTSCRIPT
Estimates of the number of Roma and Sinti people killed by the Nazis have varied from 250,000 to 500,000, although some historians regard these numbers as massive under-estimates. In the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia, there were 6,500 Roma at the start of the war. Fewer than 500 survived.
The internment camp at Hodonín near Kunštát was opened in 1942 and closed in 1943 following a typhus epidemic. The majority of its occupants, all Roma, were transported to Auschwitz where they perished. The names and characters of the prisoners and staff that appear in this novel are all fictional, but the events that take place are based on historical fact.
The camp at Hodonín was re-opened later in the war as a billet for soldiers of the Wehrmacht. After the cessation of hostilities in 1945, it was used as a holding camp for German civilians who were being forcibly repatriated to Germany. Later, it was used as a prison camp for dissidents of the communist regime. The site still exists and, following extensive refurbishment, is now used as a holiday camp. A swimming pool has been built. Only one of the original concentration-camp barracks remains. It houses a table-tennis table.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In 1999, the British Council sent me to be Writer in Residence at the Masaryk University in Brno, in the Czech Republic, where I did the initial research for this book. During that visit, I received considerable help from Professor Ctibor Nečas, Renata Kamenička and the staff of the Museum of Romany Culture. Much of that work was written up while I was undertaking an Artists’ Residency at the Banff Centre in Canada, the perfect place to write a novel. Further research was undertaken with the financial help of the K. Blundell Trust and a Writers’ Award from the Arts Council of Great Britain.
The following historical works were invaluable to my research: Oldrich Misa’s memoirs, published collectively as Under the Sign of Pisces, particularly Part I, Childhood, and Part II, Escapes from War; the series The Gypsies During the Second World War, published by the University of Hertfordshire Press; the work of Ctibor Nečas, in particular The Holocaust of the Czech Roma; Mateo Maximoff’s articles on Kalderash language and customs in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society; Na Bisteren, published by the Museum of Romany Culture in Brno; Lidice: Sacrificial Village by John Bradley; and the definitive Prague in the Shadow of the Swastika by Jan Kaplan and Callum MacDonald.
Particular thanks to: Thomas Acton, Suzanne Baboneau, Moris Farhi, Ian Hancock, Antony Harwood, Jane Hodges, Jan Kaplan, Donald Kenrick, Jacqui Lofthouse and, of course, Jerome Weatherald.
About the Author
Louise Doughty is the author of seven novels, most recently Apple Tree Yard, which was a top ten bestseller, shortlisted for a Specsavers Book Award, chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club and published in twenty-two countries around the world. Her previous novel, Whatever You Love, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. She has won awards for radio drama and short stories, along with publishing one work of non-fiction, A Novel in a Year, based on her hugely popular newspaper column. She is a critic and cultural commentator for UK and international newspapers and broadcasts regularly for the BBC. She lives in London.
By the Same Author
fiction
Apple Tree Yard
Whatever You Love
Stone Cradle
Honey-Dew
Dance with Me
Crazy Paving
non-fiction
A Novel in a Year
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2003
by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
First Floor, 222 Gray’s Inn Rd
London WC1X 8HB
This ebook edition first published in 2014
by Faber & Faber Ltd.,
Bloomsbury House, 74–77 Great Russell Street
London, WC1B 3DA
All rights reserved
© Louise Doughty, 2003
Cover image: background image © Radek Sturgolewski/Shutterstock. Family © ARZTSAMUI/Shutterstock.
The right of Louise Doughty to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–31582–6
Also by Louise Doughty
Apple Tree Yard
Yvonne Carmichael has a high-flying career, a beautiful home and a good marriage. But when she meets a stranger she is drawn into a passionate affair. Keeping the two halves of her life separate seems easy at fi
rst. But she can’t control what happens next.
‘There can’t be a woman alive who hasn’t once realised, in a moment of panic, that she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man. Louise Doughty, more sure-footed with each novel, leads her unnerved reader into dark territory. A compelling and bravely written book.’ Hilary Mantel
‘Doughty is a superb storyteller who knows how to build suspense to breaking point.’ Kate Saunders, The Times
‘Doughty has a particular gift for unsettling stories, for making us ask difficult questions of ourselves, our own relationship choices, and this is her strongest book yet … entirely compelling.’ Observer
Whatever You Love
Laura’s nine-year-old daughter Betty is killed in a hit-and run accident. Her life is turned upside down, and her grief unearths buried memories of her painful divorce from Betty’s father David. When the death is ruled an accident, Laura takes revenge into her own hands, with devastating consequences.
‘A brilliant and brutal novel that continues to unsettle long after the final page has been turned.’ Observer
‘Novels about love and loss are ten-a-penny, but this one brilliantly defies expectations to the very last page … terrifically compelling.’ Daily Mail
‘Like Zoë Heller, Doughty is masterful at combining the texture of ordinary, smugly middle-class, contemporary life with the hidden cliff edges of violence and hatred.’ Sunday Telegraph
Stone Cradle
From the bestselling author of Apple Tree Yard comes this story of three generations of one Romany family in England, as they face family life, love and marriage along with the changes and upheavals for Travelling people at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Clementina Smith is just a young girl when she gives birth to her illegitimate son, Elijah, in a graveyard in Victorian Cambridgeshire. Others have been put out on the highroad for less, but Clementina’s parents stick by her and Elijah grows up greatly loved by his small but tight-knit family. But then he meets Rose, a non-Romany girl.
Based on Louise Doughty’s own family history, Stone Cradle is a love triangle between a mother, a son and his wife that asks whether the Romany spirit and traditions can survive as rural Britain moves into the modern world.
‘Captivating and beautifully written.’ Mirror
‘Doughty has a subtle, unshowy talent that packs an emotional punch … Stone Cradle moves and impresses in equal measure.’ Independent
‘A beautifully written family saga studded with Romany words and customs.’ The Times
‘Doughty’s evocative writing conjures up a lost world, where people lived by Romany lore and the rule of the seasons. The mud and cold, the endless insecurity of a travelling life, and society’s hostility to them are vividly portrayed. It’s a compulsively readable story, both informative and moving.’ Daily Mail
‘Stone Cradle provides a fascinating insight into a neglected corner of English social history, but what’s most impressive is the way this meticulous research comes roaring to life in a timeless story of two women who hate each other with a passion bordering on love.’ Time Out Book of the Week
‘Doughty cleverly challenges all our assumptions halfway through the book, making its denouement as starkly compelling as a thriller.’ Sunday Post (Ireland)
‘Doughty’s novel convincingly brings to life the complexities of life for a family of travellers … Doughty based much of the story upon events from her own family history. A gripping, harrowing and moving saga.’ Scotland on Sunday
‘A novel so readable and a story so engrossing that readers will likely take in this story of several generations of one family in one sitting … Stone Cradle also tells, very tenderly, of the gradual changes that have made the travellers’ way of life almost unrecognisable in modern times.’ Sunday Tribune
‘An evocative novel that paints a vivid portrait of three generations of a family and the ties that bind them.’ Red ‘A rich portrait of a Romany family in nineteenth-century Britain … In the end, this warm, wry, wonderfully engaging novel is as much about the familiar fictional territory of motherhood as it is about the challenges of living with another race.’ New Statesman
‘Stone Cradle takes the form of a popular saga; its style, always crystal clear and occasionally elegant, is well suited to the ordinary people it so warmly brings to life in a story that covers birth, childhood, romance, elopement, marriage, death, war, social change over three generations and collective memory. Doughty gives a good idea how Gypsies see the world.’ Times Literary Supplement