The Snow Gypsy(11)

“Vous pouvez acheter.” You can buy. “Cette fille.” This girl.

A child of about seven years old, with tumbling curls and a gap-toothed smile, was pushed forward. Before Rose could say a word, the child had climbed onto her lap. Her hair smelled of woodsmoke with a tang of patchouli.

“Elle est très intelligente.” All the Gypsy art of persuasiveness was concentrated into the look the mother directed at Rose. For a fleeting moment she allowed herself to imagine taking the little girl. To have a child without the ties of marriage was something she had often fantasized about. But not like this. How could any mother sell her own flesh and blood? And how could anyone buy another woman’s child? She had never encountered anything like this among the English Gypsies. It was a delicate situation. How was she going to get out of it without offending them?

“Quel dommage—ce n’est pas possible.” What a shame—it’s not possible.

She kissed the little girl’s head and lifted her gently to the ground. Without a backward glance, she clipped Gunesh’s lead onto his collar and heaved her rucksack onto her back, closing her ears to the muttered oaths that followed her down the street. The dog, quick to sense the antipathy, turned his head and snarled.

“It’s all right, boy,” she murmured. “Shush now.”

Her colleagues at the veterinary practice in London had looked at her askance when she told them she would be traveling through Europe unaccompanied. To them it was dangerous and foolhardy for a lone woman to contemplate such a journey—especially sleeping in a tent. But she’d never felt afraid with Gunesh at her side. And there was nothing lonely about sleeping out in the open when he was curled up at her feet.

“Quel beau chien!” What a handsome dog!

A tall, pale man dressed entirely in black stepped out of the shadows. His dark hair hung down to his neck, and his cheeks sprouted long side whiskers. He stroked the Afghan’s neck, bending his knees to a squat so that his head was level with the dog’s.

“His name is Gunesh,” Rose replied in French.

“Gunesh?” The man glanced up at her, a puzzled look on his face.

“It’s Turkish. It means sun—because of his golden hair.”

“Ah!” This brought a smile to the pale face. He straightened up and stuck out his hand. “Jean Beau-Marie.”

“Rose Daniel.”

He cocked his head to one side, searching her face. “Où habitez-vous? Pas en Turquie?”

“No. My father was Turkish but I’m from England.”

“Gitane?”

She could see that he was really confused now: a girl who looked like a Gypsy but came from England with a dog whose name was Turkish.

“I’m looking for somewhere to camp,” she said, sidestepping the question.

He nodded. “I can show you.”

He offered to carry her rucksack, but she politely declined. As they walked he told her that he was a Gypsy chief from Alsace-Lorraine in the north of France. Following behind him, she thought what a somber figure he made in his black clothes, walking with his shoulders hunched over like a crow. Despite his friendly manner there was an indefinable sense of sadness about him. She wondered if she should trust him.

He took her to the edge of a field, close to the temporary paddock where the horses that pulled the Gypsy caravans were quartered.

“You don’t mind the smell?” He wrinkled his nose, waving a hand at a patch of ground beside the fence. It was just about big enough to take her tent.

“No, I don’t mind.” She smiled. There was something very wholesome about the smell of horse dung. And it seemed fitting that her search for Nathan had brought her close to the animals he loved so much.

Jean helped her to erect the tent and brought her firewood so that she could boil water. He looked puzzled when she offered him tea, so she brewed coffee for them both instead. He told her that he was the bell ringer in the church for the Gypsy fiesta. “Ring out the bad and the cruel,” he said, grim faced. “Ring in something better.”

She wondered what had happened to him during the war. The look in his eyes made her wary of asking questions. Instead she told him about her brother and her quest to find out what had become of him.

“There are Spanish folk at the fiesta.” He nodded. “There used to be more Spanish than any others, apart from we French.” He lifted the tin mug of coffee to his lips, draining the scalding liquid in one go. “Of course, there are less of all of us here than in years gone by.”

Rose glanced at the vardos parked beyond the paddock. It still seemed like a terrific number to her, so she could only guess at what it must have been like before the Germans invaded. She should have realized, of course. It had been yet another shocking revelation in the harrowing litany of war crimes: that Hitler had destroyed thousands of Gypsies in the same monstrous way he had wiped out Jews.

“Have you spoken to any of the Spaniards yet?” Jean asked.

Rose shook her head. “I haven’t had the chance.”

“Do you speak Spanish?”

“I learnt it at school, but it’s been a while since I spoke it.”

“Well, your French is excellent.”

“That’s because my mother was French. I learnt her language before I learnt English.”

“The Spanish Gypsies speak to each other in kalo,” Jean said. “Do you know that tongue?”