But nothing else is as I expect it to be. Shining marble palaces, says the Swatura. Splendid towers, vast concourses, broad highways, gleaming temples of many columns. No. That is Atlantis, not Romany Star. We built differently in our second home, and forgot that we did. Here is beauty also, but of another sort, less formal, less monumental. Nothing seems permanent. They use no stone here. They have woven this city of some delicate reed; everything is pliant, everything is yielding. Towers, yes, and bridges and boulevards, but they ripple in the gentle breezes, and change form at a touch. There will be nothing left of this place when the time of the swelling of the sun arrives. A dry wind, a gust of heat, a puff of flame: and then nothing but ashes within hours. No charred monuments for future archaeologists to puzzle over; no stumps of fallen obelisks; no foundations, no walls, no mosaics. Nothing. Ashes. Instantly. It is all very beautiful now; it all will perish in a very beautiful way, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, leaving no doleful relicts behind.
Hundreds of people stream past me into a building larger than the others just across the way from me. I join the flow and enter with them, unnoticed, unhindered. A green light shines inside, but its source eludes me. I pass through corridors strewn with woven mats into rooms that yield to other rooms, and at last I come to one room of great size, plainly a meeting-hall, where the citizens of Romany Star have assembled by the thousands.
At the far end of the room a sort of hammock which is also a sort of a throne has been strung high above the floor. It is occupied by a man who by his look could well have been my brother. There is kingliness about him: I see it at once, and.1 would have seen it even if I had simply met him in the street and not come upon him enthroned in a great hall. His hair is braided in the ancient way and he wears the beaded clothing. But his face is mine, his eyes are mine. He is my brother. No, we are closer than that. He is me.
He is speaking to his people. Not a word that he says can I understand; and yet I feel reassurance emanating from him, I feel his strength, his calmness. He speaks gravely and they listen to him gravely. It is a long speech, and everyone remains perfectly still to the end of it. Then, in silence, one by one, they go to him and they touch their hands to his. The ceremony continues for hours, an endless procession of the people to their monarch. I find it tremendously moving and I am unable to leave; the line edges forward and I edge with it, until I see that I am near the front, that in another moment I will be at its head. There is no way that I can turn away. I am visible to them all. It would be a dire insult to spurn this man's blessing now, whatever it may mean. So I go forward and I stretch out my hands and he touches his hands to them. Even though I am here as a ghost, he touches my hands, just as he has touched those of his own people.
For all the others, the touch was only a moment. But me he holds, me he detains. I feel the tremendous vitality of him flowing into me. I see the great sadness and wisdom of his spirit shining in his eyes. Yes, he is a true king. There are only a few kings born in any epoch, and they know from birth who they are. I am one, even if I have not always lived up to my kingliness. This man is another. We are of one soul, he and I. I love him for his strength; I love him for his sadness; I love him for his wisdom. I love him as one loves a king. I love him as one loves a father. I love him as one loves one's own self.
He holds me a long while. It seems like hours.
He says nothing, but I feel that we are conversing at length. Much is passing from him to me, and from me to him. Behind me no one moves; we could be alone in the hall. In the spark that travels from his hands to mine and from mine to his are all the Rom who ever lived; we bridge the race from end to end, this king and I. Within him is a sense of all our destiny to come, and within me is a sense of all that has befallen us; and we pass these things back and forth between each other. Time past, time future, pointing to one end. Which is always present.
He offers me courage. There death is not the end of anything, he says. It is only an interruption. Men die, women die, planets die: but certain things continue. What matters is to continue; and there are many ways of continuing. We have sent our sixteen ships out into the Great Dark. That is our way of continuing.
And in return I give him hope. You have achieved what you meant to achieve, I say. You have allowed us to continue; and we have done the job. Look, I am here to show you that we still exist at the far end of time. We are all part of the grand kumpania, all we Rom, your people and mine. One blood, one people. One grand kumpania. We have continued you. We have wandered very far, as was the gods' decree for us, but we have not lost our sense of who we are. And-look-I am here to pledge to you that soon we wanderers will be coming home, to this place that has always been ours.
I am you, I tell him. And you are me. I am you, he tells me. And you are me.
He releases me. When I walk away, I carry within me the fullness of this great Rom civilization of Romany Star: its grandeur, its tragedy, its wisdom, its poetry. Its grandeur is its tragedy; its wisdom is its poetry. These are people who are waiting to die. I know now when I have arrived. The omens have come, the lottery has been held, the sixteen ships have been built and have gone off into the Great Dark. These are the ones who were left behind. They will die. Everyone dies, and for each it is the end of the world; but for these millions here the death of one will be the death of all. They have made their peace with death. They have made their peace with the end of the world.
And in their end is their beginning. For I am the emissary from worlds to come, testifying to their continuation down through the passageways of time. I have come to tell them that the circle will be made whole, that the exile will soon be ending, that I am the one who will bring our people home. ven reeds again, this I find myself outside this great building of wonder palace of the last king of Romany Star.
I stare at the red sun that nearly fills the sky, until my eyes begin to throb and ache. aring right Ah there, you red sun, you are Romany Star, and I am St at you! I tremble. O Tchalai, the Star of Wonder. O Netchaphoro, the Luminous Crowng the Carrier of Light, the Halo of God. There you are hanging in the heavens before me! Star of wonder, star of night. And star of day as well. Star of Gypsies, toward whom we have yearned throughout all our days. There you are.
I tremble and the red star trembles with me.
It seems to me that its color has deepened and that eddies and whirlpools are moving on the face of it. This is the last day. The air grows warm. Yes, yes, the red star is warmer now. Swelling. Churning.
O Tchalai! O Netchaphoro! This is the moment, yes, the time of the swelling of the sun, the moment of Romany Star! The Rom have come forth from their houses by the thousands, by the millions, and they stand beside me in the streets, joining their arms together, watching. Waiting. Someone begins to sing. Someone else picks up the song. And then anotherg and another. The language in which they sing is unknown to me, though it must be some grandfather of the Romany that I speak. Nor do I know the words of the song, nor the melody. They are all singing now, and now I join them. I throw my head back, I open my mouth, and my heart gives me the song; and I sing, loud and clear. I can hear my own voice above all the others for a moment, and then it blends with them in a perfect harmony as the red sun grows larger and larger and yet larger in the sky.
THEN A WRENCHING, A TWISTING, A PAINFUL SENSE OF being torn loose. Of movement across time, across space. The smell of burning was in my nostrils when I opened my eyes. As though I was breathing ash; as though the air itself was singed. I felt lost. Where was the red glow of Romany Star? Gone. Gone. The sound of the singing on that last day still echoed in my ears; but where were the singers? Where was I? Why had I not been allowed to remain with them for their last moment?