It is strange now to talk of such things, but these are the moments I remember, chonorroeja, this was my childhood, I try to tel it to you as I saw it then, and as I felt it then, when I was not yet shunned, when it was al stil free and open to me, and for the most part it was happy. The Great War hadn't yet begun and, although the fascists sometimes hunted us to give us another dose of their hatred—we were no more than wild animals to them—we settled as far away from them as possible, kept to our own ways, and made music where we could. That, back then, was enough.
In the new camp there was another girl the same age as me. Conka had red hair and freckles in a band across her nose. Her mother had sewn a string of pearls in her hair. Her dresses were threaded with silver, and she had the most beautiful voice of al , so she too was kept awake at night to sing. The canvas flap of the singing tent was pul ed back for us. We stood on buckets so we could be seen. Grandfather shoved his hat back on his head and lit up a smoke. Everyone gathered in a half circle around us. The women played the harps at a furious pace, once or twice they bent a fingernail backwards in the strings, but stil they kept going.
My voice was not as sweet as Conka's, but Grandfather said that it hardly mattered, the important thing was the right word, to pul it out, or squeeze it short, and then dress it up with air from my lungs. When we sang, Conka and I, he said that we were air and water in a pot and together we boiled.
In the nighttime, we tried to fal asleep by the fire, but our favorite stories kept us up late and when a story was real y good we had no legs to hold us up. Her father slapped us and told us to go to our beds, we'd waken the dead. Grandfather carried me and put me beneath the eiderdown where my mother had once stenciled a harp using thread that came from cottonwood trees.
One evening, Grandfather carried home a carpet of a man's face, and he hung it on the wal above the drawer ful of knives. It was a portrait of a man with a gray beard, a strange gaze, and a high forehead. It's Vladimir Lenin, he said. Don't tel a soul, you hear me, especial y the troopers if they come along. Later that week he bought a second carpet—this one was the Holy Virgin. He rol ed the Virgin into a tight circle with string, and positioned her above Lenin, so that if a stranger came into the caravan, he could reach up with his knife and cut the string and the Holy Virgin would come down on top of Lenin in a rush. Grandfather thought it hilarious and sometimes he cut the string just for fun, and if he was drunk he would talk to their faces and cal them the greatest of bedfel ows. If there was a rumble outside in the camp, he would quickly cut the string and shove his leather-bound book into a hidden pocket at the back of his jacket. Then he stood outside with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.
He would sooner have invited in typhus than a trooper.
If they forced a check on us they pushed their way past him without asking, stomped their boots on the floor, but they never found Lenin or the book. They tore the place up and tossed teacups to one another. From outside we could hear the smashing, but what was there to do, we just waited until they came out, down the steps, their boots shiny at the knees and scuffed at the toes.
When they were gone, we cleaned the mess, and Grandfather rol ed up the Virgin again, let Lenin look out once more.
Grandfather went to the Poprad market one day and didn't come back for four more. He had built a wal for a man who had given him a wireless radio. He carried it into the camp with great fanfare, put it down by the fire, and music jumped out. Vashengo's father came to look at it. He liked the music indeed and everyone gathered around and fiddled with the knobs. But in the morning, a group of elders came and said they didn't like the children listening to outsiders. It's only a radio, said Grandfather. Yes, they said, but the talk is immodest. Grandfather took Vashengo's father by the arm and they walked down by the river and worked out a plan: he would only listen to music and not the other shows. Grandfather took it with us to our caravan, turned it very low, and listened anyway. It's my duty to know, he said, and he ran the little yel ow dial along the glass panel, Warsaw, Kiev, Vienna, Prague, and the one he loved the most, though it didn't get any sound: Moscow.
One day I heard him slam down the wooden backing on the ground: This bloody thing needs batteries, can you imagine that?
He came back a couple of days later with a sack ful of batteries over his shoulder and his clothes covered in flecks of gray. He told us that the gadze now wanted wal s held together with cement—al his other wal s he had built with rocks and air—but if that's what he had to do for batteries, that's what he had to do.
Soon everyone grew to like the radio. Mostly we listened to music, but every now and then government voices came through. In the caravan, Grandfather tuned it in to whatever he could find, al the different languages. He spoke five—Romani, Slovak, Czech, Magyar, and a little Polish—
though Eliska said he should forget al that red gibberish, he sounded the same in every language, he should come back in the next life as a loudspeaker strung up on a lamppost. He said that loudspeakers were fascist and just you wait, you black-haired chovahanio, you witch, when the good ones, the Communists, final y get power. She shouted at him that she couldn't hear him, that she must have been asleep when he was talking.
He shouted back: What the hel did you say, woman? I thought that Eliska might lift her skirt to shame him, but she did not, she just turned away. She got a lash of his tongue, and he said something rude about her little enamel brush and where she could sweep it. Soon everyone began laughing and joking and it was forgotten.
Stil , Grandfather got in fist-thumping arguments about the book he carried. He sat with the elders around the fire and tried to talk to them of revolution, but they said that our men were not meant for such things. Petr the violinist nodded in agreement with Grandfather, and Vashengo too, but Conka's father was loud against him.
Did you ever hear such nonsense! If Marx was a worker, how come he never worked? How come he just wrote books about working? Tel me, did he just want to keep pissing on a hot stove?
Grandfather clicked his fingers, stood up, and shouted: Whoever is not with us is against us!
He and Conka's father stepped across the pots and came to blows.
In the morning, they drank their coffee and began al over again.
So you never answered my question, said Conka's father. If Marx loved the poor so much, how come he had time to write books?
Grandfather took me down to the river. He tipped his hat and brought me across a fal en log, and he held my hand as we balanced near the edge.
Listen to me, Zoli, he said. The river here, it doesn't belong to anyone, but some of them say they own it, they al say they own it, even some of us say we own it, but we don't. Look there, see the way the water is stil moving underneath? It'l keep on moving. Only inches below, girl, the owning is gone, even ours, and you have to remember that, otherwise they wil make a fool of you with their words.
The next day he led me to the schoolhouse.
I had heard about schools and did not want to go, but he pul ed me under the green overhanging roof. I tried to run away but he caught me by the elbow. Inside, the desks were arranged in neat rows. Strange pictures with lots of green and blue hung on the wal s—I did not yet know what a map
was. My grandfather talked with the teacher and told her I was six years old. The teacher arched her eyebrows and said, Are you sure? Grandfather said, Why wouldn't I be sure? The teacher's hands trembled a little. Grandfather leaned forward and stared at the teacher. The teacher went white in the face. Bring her here, sir, she said. I'l gladly look after her.