Conversation was difficult, not because there was nothing to talk about, but because Lotka, Fardi’s comely wife, returned at every opportunity to the subject of my study carpet. I had invited them to afternoon tea and they were taking it in my room, behaving with the perfect propriety Gypsies always observe under circumstances in which the manners and self-possession of a British workman would fail. But my carpet was thick and soft, catholic in its colour-taste though red in the main, and decorated with a large angular sprawling Indian pattern—and Lotka had fallen in love with it. She had proposed to take it up at once and transfer it to her tent at Tranmere, waiving aside my objected fear of cold feet with the reply that I could go to bed then and buy a new one in the morning. All will sympathize with my eagerness to change the subject who know what serious Gypsy begging means: it is dangerous as oratory, convincing a man against his reason, and leading to bitterly repented sacrifices. But those who have experienced it will know also the impossibility of escape. Like a skiff in a whirlpool our talk might seem to be sailing pleasantly North, South, East or West, and yet be tending inevitably towards the central peril. No matter what conversational subject was started it led relentlessly back to the carpet.
Amongst other fruitless devices for escape which ingenuity, quickened by despair, suggested, was the production of albums of Gypsy pictures, the leaves of which my guests turned indifferently, punctuating their talk with contemptuous exclamations of “Sinte”—but the talk was still of carpets. There were photographs of real Gypsies from everywhere on earth, engravings of artists’ Gypsies such as have never been seen anywhere in the world, highly coloured illustrations of camps, and ancient woodcuts of the costume Gypsies wore of old; but none represented “Our Roma” and for Fardi and his spouse all were devoid of any kind of interest. In the middle of a page, however, was a somewhat mean picture-postcard which had reached me through several hands, but came originally from Lemberg in Galitsia. It represented a troop of elaborately costumed performers, whom I had always taken for “counterfeit Egyptians,” dancing and playing huge accordions on an artistically decorated stage, and the subscription was “Gypsies from the Caucasus.” Fardi never allowed his emotions to appear conspicuously, but it was evident from the close scrutiny he and Lotka made of the postcard that they were genuinely interested: “Our Roma,” they said, approvingly, but without surprise. Then they gave me the names of some of the party, and apropos of the stage-drapery, reverted to the subject of carpets.
During the next few days occasional questions showed that my guests had carried news of the picture to the camp, and that the tribe hid beneath their affected indifference some curiosity as to how it came to be in my possession. But I was totally unprepared for the demonstration of deep concern which the paltry print was to wring from the great Kola’s dignified wife. Taking me quietly aside she invited me to sit near her, told me that she had heard about the photograph, and expressed a desire to see it. I gladly seized the opportunity to give her a cordial invitation to come with her husband to tea. Without such an excuse I should not have dared to suggest a visit; for, absurd as it may seem to those who do not know these people, I felt instinctively that the chief and his lady were personages of rank so high that it would have been presumptuous to ask them to my poor house. My instinct was probably just, for Tinka refused politely, alleging as excuse the weakness of her chest. Unwilling to renounce the honour of entertaining royalty, I offered to take her and the chief by rail to Liverpool and thence to Alfred Street in a taxicab; and, when this proposal was rejected, to bring the taxicab to the camp, cross the river on the luggage-boat, and take them all the way without change. But Tinka was adamant and demanded that the book should be brought to the tents. The idea of subjecting my treasured album to the eager unwashed hands of working coppersmiths did not commend itself to me, and I replied that the book was too large and too heavy to bring. “Tear the page out” she ordered, royally regardless; but I refused to mutilate the volume. Then she begged, the queenly Tinka, begged just as Lotka had begged for my carpet—earnestly, eloquently, passionately, almost irresistibly. Hardening my heart to withstand this more than usually distressing exhibition of skill in the ancient Gypsy accomplishment, I turned to look at my tormentor—she was weeping bitterly! Instead of a typical case of adroit Gypsy imposture I had found an equally typical case of Gypsy family affection. With a voice broken by sobs she offered in exchange for a brief glance at the picture, first a silver plate a foot in diameter, and then a great gold ring such as she herself wore. For among those whose portraits appeared on the card was her brother, and she had not seen him for twenty years.
Need I add that in my book a blank space, of which I am prouder than of my rarest Callot, bears witness to-day to the fact that Tinka had her will? “Aunt,” I said, “you have been very hospitable to me. I do not want your silver plate, I will not take your gold ring; but to-morrow you shall have the little picture.” And when I brought it, framed gaudily, to give it some semblance of a gift for presentation to royalty, the Gypsies crowded excitedly round, and Tinka, almost in tears again, raised her proud hands to Heaven, and called down blessings on my head in showers so liberal that, if but a tithe be sent, I shall be among the most fortunate of men.
7. THE SICK BOY. [38]
Sedateness was characteristic of the coppersmiths’ camp. Even when the air reverberated with the tapping of many hammers there was no bustle; work went on steadily, certainly, slowly, and with dignity. The arrival of a stranger was the pretext for an animated and noisy chorus of begging by the women, but on ordinary occasions the foreign Gypsies applied themselves solemnly to labour, or still more solemnly to interminable divans. Blood-curdling oaths in gentle Romani were hurled even at the spoiled children when they manifested their spirits and happiness too noisily; yet among them there was one who was privileged to be as troublesome as he chose without reproof, and he was the sick boy.
His exceptional position seemed to have had a malign influence on his character, for he was not a nice child. With the want of their robust health he lacked also the sturdy independence of his playmates. They were self-reliant, forward, often impertinent, but always lovable—he was petulant, fretful, even peevish, and instinctively one pitied rather than liked him. Yet in all the tribe there was nobody—man, woman, or child, from the great chief Kola himself to the half-naked little ones—who would have hesitated to make any effort or any sacrifice by which to mitigate the sick boy’s distress. To his mother he was more than all the world. She was Zhawzha, the chief’s daughter (though to those who were not of the afición, she would have called herself Sophie), a strangely pathetic figure in whose face one could see traces of great beauty marred by bitter anxiety for her son. Among our first duties as friendly visitors to the camp were those of acting as her dragoman in the local surgery and bringing an eminent specialist from Liverpool to visit the patient. But we discovered gradually not only that she had consulted other doctors in Birkenhead, but also that she had prescriptions and drugs, enough to have stocked a pharmacy, which she had obtained from continental physicians. And all had prescribed bromides, prohibited excitement, and bidden the distracted mother wait patiently and hope—for the boy was epileptic.
He was the one disturbing influence in the tribe, and when the illness seized him, always suddenly and unexpectedly, frantic crises of shrill emotion broke the tranquillity of the camp. From all sides gesticulating women would rush screaming wildly, and the men would leave their work to return soon after in gloomy silence bending their heads to an inevitable fate, while the poor little figure in all the ridiculous bravery of his gaudy clothes and pale blue plush hat would be carried under shelter and nursed tenderly. The distracted mother, meanwhile, would pace the ground, her face distorted with agony, clutching convulsively at her hair and singing a wild lament; and even the queenly Tinka would sink to the ashes where she stood, raise her kindly face to heaven and weep aloud. Such scenes were frequent and very painful. Even more painful was one’s sense of impotence afterwards, when Zhawzha offered all she had, even the gold coins from her hair, in exchange for her boy’s health. Time alone could give what she demanded; but she scorned patience and would not wait.
No cure which anybody recommended was left untried, it mattered not what it was nor how much it cost. And so the child wore amulets, and to the tent-pole mysterious bunches of thorn-twigs were tied. But the malady was stubborn, and recourse was had to quacks who poisoned the little fellow with excessive doses so that he ceased even to speak, and wandered aimlessly in a comatose condition. And then, most wonderfully—for which of us in our own land could find, at need, a sorceress?—they discovered that there was a witch-doctor in Bradford. Letters were dictated, symptoms described, medicine bought at exorbitant prices, and Harley Street fees paid. A lock of hair was cut and sent, untouched by human hands, for some kind of sympathetic magic. But this, like everything else, failed to effect the instantaneous cure the mother demanded, and she and her lad, with his father, a very black and rather stupid little Gypsy named Adam Kirpatsh, journeyed to Bradford for a personal interview.