The Snow Gypsy(7)

“You need to find someone who knows it, then, don’t you?”

“Yes—but how?”

Bill drew on his pipe and breathed out a twisting wreath of smoke. “There’s a place you could find Romany folk from Spain without going all the way there. They’d be the ones to ask.”

“Is there? Where?”

“A big party in France. The biggest in the whole world. They hold it in Maytime every year in the horse country by the sea.”

“Where? Have you been there?”

Bill shook his head. “Can’t take the vardo over the water. But I’ve met folk as have been. It’s coming soon; you’d have to be quick.”

Rose could feel her heart thumping against her ribs. “Do you know the name of it, Bill?”

“The town’s named after the two Saint Marys—the ones who first saw Jesus when he rose from the dead. It’s in a place called Province, I think.”

“Provence?”

“Ah! That’s it.”

Rose jumped to her feet, unable to sit still. Suddenly there was a glimmer of . . . what? Not hope—that was too strong a word. But Bill had shone a light into the gloom inside her head. It was almost as if he had given her permission to do what she’d wanted to do for so long. But could she really go? Was there any sense in searching when there had been no communication from Nathan for eight years? Her head told her that there was little chance of his being alive, but her heart wouldn’t let go. What if he was in prison and unable to write letters? She had to know for certain what had happened to him—one way or another. There would be no rest for her otherwise. Not ever.

“When is it, exactly?”

“It’s always the tail end of May.”

“I could go, couldn’t I? There’s enough time.”

Bill caught the hesitation in her voice. “You’re thinking you might not find him.” He took her hand in his. “You know, Rose, everything that is lost will be found.”

Tears prickled behind her eyes. “Not if a person dies.”

“Don’t you believe in heaven, Rose?”

“I used to, when I was a little girl. My grandfather bought me a puppy when he came to visit from Turkey. I loved it more than anything. But it got sick and died. I wanted there to be a heaven so I could see it again. But . . .”

“When two creatures pair up—be it people or animals—there has to come a time of parting. Perhaps it began when God separated the earth from the water. Dry land and sea. And the rain that falls on the mountain spends a lifetime finding its way back to the place it belongs.” He tapped his pipe against the step and refilled it, his fingers the same leaf brown as the tobacco. When he’d lit it, he said, “What’s binding you, Rose?”

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “There’s nothing to prevent me from going. The practice can survive without me for a month or two. And I’ve got the money from my book to keep me going. It’s just . . .” She couldn’t put it into words, that sickening fear of what she might actually find.

“Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know. That kind of fear kills you without you realizing. Like bleeding inside.”

Somewhere in the trees a bird began calling, the notes as thin and sharp as icicles in the gathering darkness. It was a sound she recognized from that summer long ago. The plaintive song of a nightingale. She’d heard it the night Nathan had come to say goodbye.

“You’re right,” she whispered. “I feel like I’m half-dead already.”

“So you need to do this. Then you can start living again.”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes. Now there was only the warmth of the fire, the smell of woodsmoke and tobacco, and the sounds of the night.





Chapter 5

Bloomsbury, London, England: May 18, 1946

Rose stood by the fireplace, a silver candelabra in her hand. She glanced around the apartment, checking that she had left nothing of her own on the shelves or the windowsills. Tomorrow someone else would be living here: the newly qualified vet who was going to be her stand-in at the practice over the summer. It would save her having to pay rent for the time she planned to be away.

She carried the candelabra over to the cupboard into which she had crammed her books, clothes, and other personal items. Wrapping it in one of her skirts, she wedged it in and locked the cupboard door. The solid-silver menorah was one of a handful of valuable things her mother, Esther, had refused to sell when she was forced to leave the Georgian house in the Cheshire countryside where Rose and her brother had grown up. The seven-branched candlestick had been lit every Friday night before dinner for as long as Rose could remember.

Mother, you haven’t been in a synagogue for years—why are you doing that? Nathan’s voice drifted out of a corner of her memory. She saw his face, a teasing smile on his lips. A remark such as this would often provoke a heated debate. Rose had always tried to avoid taking sides. At boarding school she had learned about other faiths and developed her own brand of spirituality. But she hadn’t wanted to upset her parents by telling them what she believed.

Her hand went to her throat, fingering the pendant her father had brought back from Turkey for her twenty-first birthday. It was a silver-and-gold ?oshen necklace—a rectangular pendant set with twelve different gemstones, one to represent each of the twelve tribes of Israel. It grieved her to take it off. But it was too precious to wear on her travels. It was going to have to go into the cupboard, too.