Holy Fire

At the base of a nearby hill, a gypsy did public stunts on a motorcycle. His ancient and incredibly hazardous vehicle had no autopilot of any kind. The spitting, fluid-powered machine beat its combustive pistons with a bestial roar and spat blue clouds of toxic smoke.

The gypsy stood on the seat, did handstands on the handlebars, roared up the hill and down, zipped up a ramp and flew over an iron barrel. He wore boots and a spangled leather jacket and he had no helmet.

At last he leapt deftly from the machine and flung his arms wide and did a brisk little jig on the damp tire-torn earth. The gajo were stunned by the man’s insane courage. They applauded wildly. Some few of them threw a thin scattering of little gleaming disks. A young Romany boy picked them eagerly from the dead winter grass as the hero wheeled his brutal machine away.

“What did they throw at him?”

“[Coins. Silver coins. The gypsies are silversmiths. You deal in old coins if you want to deal seriously with gypsies. Their use of coins deeply confuses all modern taxmen and auditors.]”

“A black market in old metal money,” Maya said. “That’s klasse.” She tasted the word. “Klasse. Super.”

“[Yes, today we’ll be bartering our tiresome bunch of stolen luggage for some silver coins. Coins are easier to hide and store and carry.]”

“Will they be genuine silver coins? I mean, genuine historical European currency?”

“[We’ll see. If some gypsy tries to pick our pockets or break our heads, then yes, they’re probably real coins. Otherwise, they’re useless slugs. Lead. Fakes.]”

“You’re making these Romany people sound really awful.”

“Awful? What makes them awful?” Ulrich shrugged. “[They never declared a war. They never started a pogrom. They never enslaved another people. They have no God, no kings, no government. They are their own masters. So, they despise us and they rob us and flout our rules. They are an alien people, truly outside society. I’m a thief and you’re an illegal, but compared to them, you and I are spoiled children of the polity, we are nothing but amateurs.]” He sighed. “[I like the Romany and I even admire them, but to them, I’ll always be just another gajo fool.]”

The gypsies were selling paper flowers, clothespins, carpet beaters, brooms, coconut mats, quilts, old clothes, used tires, car upholstery. Some of the tables offered luck charms and herbal perfumes and various weird species of curdled tincture. The gypsies seemed fanatically attached to their aging cars and trucks, their bulging multicolored trailers all plated and enameled. There were even some sheep on exhibit, clipped and groomed like museum pieces, and some horses in jingling harness that looked as if they were meant to do actual horse work.

Spirited bargaining was going on, with a lot of arm waving and beard stroking, but not many goods were actually changing hands. What’s more, the women posted at the tables didn’t seem to be taking retail work to heart. “Ulrich, this is really interesting. But this isn’t major economic activity.”

“[What do you expect? There aren’t any efficient, industrial gypsies. Gypsies who get efficient and industrial don’t stay gypsies.]”

“I can’t believe they’re not on extension treatments. They don’t get checkups or anything? Why not? Why do they want to live and die like this? What’s really driving them?”

“You’re very curious, treasure.” Ulrich crossed his fleecy arms. “[All right, I’ll tell you. Fifty years ago, there were gypsy pogroms all over Europe. People said that dirty gypsies carried plague. They said the gypsies broke the quarantines. And people, absolutely normal civilized European people, picked up hatchets and shovels and chains and iron bars and ran to Romany ghettos and Romany camps and they beat the Romanies and tortured them and raped them and set fire to their homes.]”

Maya felt stunned. She gaped at him. “Well, those were dreadful times. All kinds of aberrations …”

“No aberrations at all!” Ulrich declared cheerfully. “[Racism is very authentic. Despising other people and wanting them dead—that’s a dear and precious thing to the human soul. It never has to be taught to anyone. People do it every single chance they get.]”

He shrugged. “[You want the real truth about gypsies? This is Europe, and it’s the end of the twenty-first century. The people in power today were alive sixty years ago, during those plagues and those gypsy pogroms. Today, they don’t kill gypsies. No, today, when they notice the gypsies at all, they act like superficial sentimentalists and genteel snobs who need a feudal relic to coddle and patronize. But another pogrom would happen tomorrow if there were another plague.]”

“That’s a dreadful thing to say.”

“[Dreadful, but it’s very true. The Romany probably were carrying the plague, Maya, that’s the funny part. And you know something even funnier? If the Romany weren’t complete racial chauvinists themselves, then we’d have absorbed the last one of them centuries ago.]”

“You’re being very nasty, Ulrich. Are you trying to shock me? There aren’t going to be any more plagues. The plagues are all over. We exterminated every one of the plagues.”

Ulrich snorted skeptically. “[Don’t let me spoil your fun, treasure. You wanted to come here to do business, not me. You have the list of goods, don’t you? Go see if you can sell something.]”

Maya left him. She gathered her courage and approached a gypsy woman at a table. The woman was wearing a patterned shawl and smoking a short clay pipe.

“Hello. Do you speak English?”

“A little English.”

“I have some items that are useful to travelers. I want to sell them.”

The woman thought this over. “Give me your hand.” She leaned forward, minutely examined Maya’s palm, then sat back down on her folding canvas seat. She puffed a blip of smoke. “You’re a cop.”

“I’m not a cop, ma’am.”

She looked Maya up and down. “Okay, maybe you don’t know you’re a cop. But you’re a cop.”

“I’m not polizei.”

The woman pulled the pipe from her mouth and pointed with the stem. “You are not a little girl. You dress like a little girl, but that’s a lie. You can fool the little boy over there, but you don’t fool me. Go away and don’t come back.”

Maya left in a hurry. She was badly shaken. She began to hunt for someone dealing at a table who wasn’t a gypsy.

She found a young Deutschlander woman with styled reddish hair and bee-stung lips and a big consignment of used clothes. This situation looked a lot more promising.

“Hi. Do you speak English?”

“Okay, sure.”

“I have some things I want to sell. Clothes, and some other things.”

The woman nodded slowly. “That’s a nice jacket. Tres chic.”

“Thanks. Danke.”

The woman stared at her in forthright Deutschlander fashion. She had two precise arcs for brows and long crimped lashes. “You live in Munchen, yes? I saw that jacket at the Viktualienmarkt. You came to my shop twice, to look at clothes.”

“Really?” Maya said, with a sinking feeling. “I’m staying in Munchen, but I’m just passing through.”

“American?”

“Yes.”

“Californian?”

“Yes.”

“Los Angeles?”

“Bay Area.”

“I could have guessed San Francisco. They do that work in polymer. You know, they could have done that jacket in Stuttgart in just a few hours. Better, too.”

Ulrich came over. The woman glanced up at him. “Ciao Jimmy.”

“Ciao Therese.”

They began speaking in Deutsch. “[New girlfriend?]”

“[Yes.]”