him, streaks of yel ow and blue and red under his cap, his hands almost entirely black. He was afraid that he didn't sound Slovak enough, but he
gave everything to it, listened to the workers, developed the same accent, strode out with them under their banners. After a while his arguments grew more defined, with stronger edges. It was like watching a piece of wood being carved right in front of her eyes, and she had liked the surprise of it. Certain men in the kumpanija could sculpt a spoon, or a bowl, or a bear at their fingertips—with Swann, he would sometimes create an idea and then hold it out as if it were something she could touch.
He suggested once that she always carry a book around to defeat their notion of her. Even if she did not read it, the others would see it. That was enough, he said. Just let them see you. Astound them by writing it al down.
As if books could stop the massacres. As if they could be somehow more than harps or violins.
From the arch of the doorway hangs a red velvet rope-pul , the tasseled end cold to the touch. A woman in an embroidered dress answers, her feet in slippers, hair in a blue string net. She leans out the door, looks down the length of the al eyway, and in one quick movement pul s Zoli inside.
“Yes?”
“I have some things.”
“I do not trade,” says the woman.
A single shaft of light shines through the dark of the smal house, onto a cupboard lined with large china plates.
“My grandfather was here many times,” says Zoli. “Stanislaus. You knew him by that name.”
“I've no idea who you're talking about.”
“It was a different place then, but you knew him by that name.”
The woman takes Zoli by the shoulders, turns her around, stares down at her feet.
“I have good horse teeth too.”
“What did you say?”
“I am here to sel my things. That is al .”
“You people wil be the death of me.”
“Not before you have everything we own.”
“You've an errant mouth for a Gypsy.”
“I've nothing to lose.”
“Then leave.”
Zoli measures her steps back to the doorway. The rattle of the doorknob. Silence from the street outside. The woman's voice behind her, once, twice, higher now but stil measured: “And if I was interested what might you have?”
“I have told you already, the best.”
“I've heard that so often even my ears tire me.”
Zoli snaps the door shut and opens the giant bundle made of Swann's bedsheets. The woman feigns nonchalance, blows air from her cheeks. “I see,” she says. She shakes the keys and leads Zoli through a series of dark-paneled rooms to a rear parlor where a bearded man sits on a high stool with what looks like a smal jar dangling at his neck. In front of him sits a solitary game of tarock. He adjusts his stomach in his waistcoat. With an exaggerated sweep, he takes out his handkerchief and blows his nose, then tucks the cloth back in his pocket. She watches with a shiver of disgust.
“Yes?”
Zoli places Swann's wireless radio on the nicked wooden counter. The jeweler lowers his head, pushes the buttons, fingers the dial.
“Useless,” he says.
He examines the underside of a picture frame, purses his lower lip: “You're wasting my time.”
“And this?”
She lays Swann's gold watch upon the counter, stretching out either end of the strap.
The jeweler takes the monocle from around his neck and examines the watch, looking up twice at Zoli. On the table lies a switchblade knife with a black onyx handle. He flips open the back clasp of the watch and looks at the inner workings, a smal universe of dials and cogs. He clips it back, laces his fingers, stretches his hands wide on the table. They are, she notices, ancient and liver-spotted.
“It isn't worth much.”
“I'm not one who bargains,” says Zoli.
“These things are English.”
“I wil take two hundred.”
“I cannot sel them, they are foreign.”
“Two hundred,” she says. “No less.”
