He looked up when he heard Yola’s voice. She was dressed in a green silk blouse, buttoned to one side across her chest and her heavy red cotton dress reached down to just above her ankles, interleaved with numerous petticoats. She wore no jewellery as an unmarried woman and her uncovered hair was bunched in ringlets over her ears, with ribbons alongside and sewn into, the chignon at the back of her head. Sabir underwent a strange emotion as he watched her – as if he was indeed related to her in her some way and that this intense recognition was in some sense relevant in a manner beyond his understanding.
She turned to him and pointed. Then she pointed down to her hand. She was asking the Bulibasha something and the Bulibasha was answering.
Sabir glanced around at the two surrounding groups. The women were all intent on the Bulibasha’s words, but some of the men in Alexi’s group were watching him intently, although seemingly without malevolence – almost as though he were a puzzle they were being forced to confront against their wills, something curious that had been imposed on them from the outside and which they were nevertheless forced to factor in to whatever equation was ruling their lives.
Two of the men helped raise the Bulibasha to his feet. One of them passed him a bottle and he drank from it and then sprinkled some of the liquid in an arc out in front of him.
Yola came back to Sabir’s side and helped him rise to his feet.
‘Don’t tell me. It’s verdict time.’
She paid him no mind, but stood, a little back from him, watching the Bulibasha.
‘You. Payo. You say you did not kill Babel?’
‘That is correct.’
‘And yet the police are hunting for you. How can they be wrong?’
‘They found my blood on Babel, for reasons that I have already explained to you. The man who tortured and killed him must have told them about me, for Babel knew my name. I am innocent of any crime against him and his family.’
He turned to Alexi. ‘You believe this man killed your cousin?’
‘Until another man confesses to the crime, yes. Kill him and the blood score will be settled.’
‘But Yola has no brother now. Her father and mother are dead. She says that this man is Babel’s phral. That he will take Babel’s place. She is unmarried. It is important that she has a brother to protect her. To ensure that no one shames her.’
‘That is true.’
‘Do you all agree to abide by the Kristinori’s rule?’
There was a communal affirmative from around the camp.
‘Then we will leave it to the knife to decide in this vendetta.’
24
‘Jesus. They don’t want me to fight somebody?’
‘No.’
‘Then what the Hell do they want?’
‘The Bulibasha has been very wise. He has decided that the knife will decide in this case. A wooden board will be set-up. You will lay the hand that you killed Babel with on to it. Alexi will represent my family. He will take a knife and throw it at your hand. If the blade, or any other part of the knife, strikes your hand, it will mean that O Del says you are guilty. Then you will be killed. If the knife misses you, you are innocent. You will then become my brother.’
‘O Del?’
‘That is our name for God.’
Sabir stood near the Bulibasha and watched as two of the men erected the board that was going to decide his life or death. You couldn’t make it up, he thought to himself. No one in their right minds would believe this. Not in the twenty-fi rst century.
Yola handed him a glass of herb tea.
‘What’s this for?’
‘To give you courage.’
‘What’s in it?’
‘A secret.’
Sabir sipped the tea. ‘Look. This guy Alexi. Your cousin. Is he any good with knives?’
‘Oh yes. He can hit anything he aims at. He is very good.’
‘Christ, Yola. What are you trying to do to me? Do you want me to be killed?’
‘I don’t want anything. O Del will decide on your guilt. If you are innocent, he will spoil Alexi’s aim and you will go free. Then you will become my brother.’
‘And you really believe that they will kill me if the knife strikes my hand?’
‘Without a doubt they will kill you. It must be that way. The Bulibasha would never allow you to go free after a Kriss has decided that you are guilty. That would go against our custom – our mageripen code. It would be a scandal. His name would become mahrime and he would be forced to go in front of the Baro-Sero to explain himself.’
‘The Baro-Sero?’
‘The chief of all the gypsies.’
‘And where does he hang out?’
‘In Poland, I think. Or perhaps it is Romania.’
‘Oh Christ.’
‘What happens if he misses my hand and gets me?’ Sabir was standing in front of the board. Two of the gypsies were attaching his hand to the board with a thin leather strap, which passed through two holes in the wood, above and below his wrist.
‘That means O Del has taken the decision away from us and has punished you Himself.’
‘I knew it.’ Sabir shook his head. ‘Can I at least stand at an angle?’
‘No. You must stand straight on, like a man. You must pretend that you don’t care what is happening. If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear. Gypsies like men who behave like men.’
‘I can’t tell you how encouraging that is.’
‘No. You must listen to me. It is important.’ She stood in front of him, her eyes locked on to his. ‘If you survive this, you will become my brother. I will take your name until I take my husband’s. You will have a kirvo and a kirvi from amongst the elders, who will be your godparents. You will become one of us. For this, you must behave like us. If you behave like a payo, no one will respect you and I will never find a husband. Never be a mother. What you do now – how you will behave – will show to my family how you will be for me. Whether the ursitory allowed my brother to choose wisely, or like a fool.’
Alexi upended the bottle into Sabir’s mouth, then finished it himself. ‘I like you, payo. I hope the knife misses. I really do.’
Achor Bale grinned. He lay in a sand scrape he had dug for himself, on a small rise about fifty feet above the clearing. The scrape was well concealed from marauding children by a gorse bush and Bale was covered by a camouflage blanket interleaved with bracken, twigs and other small branches.
