Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(6)
Pale as death, Irina shot up from the bench seat, then slipped to the floor in an honest-to-God Hollywood faint.
Startled, Romy’s glance leaped from the gracefully sprawled body to two helmeted and armed soldiers in black uniforms stalking toward the vardo across from hers.
“Move your feet!” the hag Marta urged.
“Old Duke,” Romy protested, “I canna leave him. He’s on his deathbed.”
“His spirit has most likely already left, girl. These old feet can’t leave fast enough. I’ll keep the wake with his corpse.”
There was nowhere to run. But it took Romy only a five-count to realize her own destiny presented her with the opportunity for change – a change of places with the unconscious Irina.
Quicker and defter than a card shark could crimp an Ace, Romy stripped off her head scarf and donned Irina’s white beret, carefully pinning and tilting it to the left and exposing the single, pearl earring drop on the right.
After that, it was only a matter of collecting Irina’s white coat draped on the back of the chair, a ruthless removal of her lace-up high heels – no time to loose her fine, silk hosiery from her garter fasteners – and a snatch of her purse, with all its valuable identification.
Lucky Romy!
The heels were a wee bit large, and she wobbled toward the doorway. She almost tripped over a carelessly cast-aside castanet she used when performing with the street music vendors.
As warty faced Marta shuffled toward the vardo’s bunks and Old Duke, she called after Romy, “May luck be with you, Romy!”
Wielding a bayonetted rifle, clearly stockpiled from WWI, an SS soldier met Romy at the wagon’s top step. At once, she pasted on a wide gamine smile. “Nein, nein, wait. I am not one of those thieving gypsies. I am – ”
Who the hell was she? Irina. But Irina Who?
“Halt die Klappe! H?nde hoch!“
She didn’t need her left ear to understand perfectly his orders. Shutting her klapper, she shot her hands, white suede purse and all, into the air.
His bayonet nudged her out the door, down the steps, where she joined a line of other Gypsies trudging toward the railroad tracks. Peeking over her shoulder, she saw neither old Marta nor Irina in the herded roundup.
Lucky them.
But Old Duke? If his heart was even still ticking, he wouldn‘t stand a chance. And would Rainbow end up on some hungry person‘s plate? Romy blinked rapidly. Tears never made anything better.
To her dismay, she found herself crammed along with other frantic Gypsies inside one of the train’s cattle cars. In that stifling space where the smell of humanity’s fear was at its worst – if she discounted the cow shite – the musty smell of old hay made the nauseating odors more bearable.
Her vardo’s querulous, scabby neighbor Florika peered at her in disbelief. “Romy?”
“Irina to you,” Romy told her out of the side of her mouth.
The avidly curious crone chastised her with a clucking noise, but Florika was essentially harmless. However, Romy’s ignorance of her new identity was not. She needed to peruse Irina’s purse.
Which presented an obstacle. She and the other gypsies were wedged so tightly shoulder to shoulder that most of the prisoners’ arms were rendered immobile. When the train lurched forward, the Gypsies staggered to keep from falling beneath the feet of their companions.
Narrow slots toward the top of the train car` permitted thin slices of sunlight to tumble on frightened faces. Near her, a bairn’s soiled diapers spilled over it stinking contents. An old man’s reedy voice begged God for help. A child wailed. Others wept. She would bet her last pfennig that Gunter’s train compartment was a far cry from this squalor.
If she hoped to pass herself as a law-abiding German citizen, distinctly separate from her dirty, malnourished clan, then she’d better know something about her body double.
Well, not exactly a body double. Blonde hair of sorts and eyes that might be construed as blue, though Romy’s were an unmistakable pale green. And Irina was slightly taller, with softer, subtler features but a body definitely more muscled and well-fed.
Shoulders scrunched by the press of others, Romy riffled through the I.D. Irina Klockner. Yes! One step closer to a new identity. When she pulled from a small zipper side pocket a clipped and wrinkled Berlin newspaper article, neatly folded, she understood why Irina’s body was so beautifully honed.
Romy might not be able to read proficiently, only picking out one and two-syllable words at best, but she could identify the photo and some words in its subtext. It was Irina Klockner of Poland, two years earlier, standing at the bottom of the three-tiered podium in her short skirt and ice skates, with her bronze medal glinting between her taut breasts. She had won third place in the Olympic women’s figure skating in Bavaria, Germany.
As ucht Dé! Romy could curse in Gaelic as well as any leprechaun. She knew there was no way in hell she could pass herself off as an athlete of that caliber. A preferably barefooted free spirit, she could not even stand balanced in Irina’s high heels much less the young woman’s ice skates.
She was given little time to stress over that issue, as within the half hour, the train car’s doors were unlocked and slid back with a grating squeal. Blinking at the sunlight, she shouldered forward out of the car.
Above the grim building ahead waved a huge flag, a black swastika against a black and red background. And before her, she made out the word inscribed in an iron-lettered arch over the building’s cement block entrance.