Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(79)



To which, Gideon, doffing his own felt fedora that he favored, responded amiably, “The two of us may well need King Solomon to decide who gets her, cowboy, and I for one do not think our Romy would care to be severed in half with a sword.”

Her scowl matched Duke’s. “Will ye two stop speaking of me, as if I am not actually flesh and blood in the room! I will decide for meself, ye hear?”

Nevertheless, well past midnight, while others slept, she withdrew the deck of regular playing cards from Irina’s purse and shuffled, dividing the deck into three piles atop the kitchen table. The modern playing cards lacked the mysticism and magic of her mum’s ancient Tarot ones; however, Romy instinctively felt the American’s Bicycle cards still held a message for her.

Ridiculous, by any sane person’s accounting. But no one ever accused her of being sane.

Before she turned up the bottom card off each of the three piles, she once again, playing off practicality against the ethereal world of the metaphysical, took into consideration her three options. And there were always more than two options in life. It was never an ‘either or’. There were invariably, at least, three options awaiting any questing and questioning soul.

As far as she could determine by logic, the three options allotted her were: escaping with Gideon to lushly green Ireland, Old Duke’s querenica, that place that called to his soul; leaving with young Duke for dry and hot west Texas, the last place Old Duke would want to exhale his final breath; and then there was the lorry driver, who would be waiting for her, and Old Duke, on the morrow – admittedly, a Wild Card, but a path that allowed for further freedom of choice.

Hesitantly, she glanced at each bottom card of the three collected piles. But, of course, the King of Clubs. Creative, forceful, and charismatic. Duke. And the next one was, predictably, the King of Diamonds. Smart, communicator, diplomatic. Gideon. And then, naturally, the Queen of Clubs – Intuitive, artistic, and reliable.

Reliable? Would anyone with even an average IQ consider her reliable?

Scanning Irina’s well-appointed flat, with the infant Adrian sleeping soundly in one room, Romy grasped that the Queen of Clubs was surely, Irina and not herself.

Huge disappointment came crushing down on her. And she did not know why, since she didn’t believe in fortune telling. Did she?

The fookin’ cards!

Still, there remained one card that determined the fate of the three prior ones, whomever they represented. Some goodly long fifteen seconds passed before she could bring herself to turn over that fourth card, the one atop the three piles, now collected and reshuffled.

Not the anticipated Ace of Spades she turned over but the Ace of Hearts! The highest of happiness – if one but chose rightly. And it was up to her to choose.

She threw the deck against the wall – only to have one flutter atop the table. Aghast, she stared at it, the Ace of Spades.

By God, she would not let cards determine her fate. Nay, her fate would be influenced by Old Duke. She would demand to be rejoined with him before she made her own decision.

§ § §

As the October morning was crisp but rainy, the five met, not in the Café Central’s garden, but inside the hall itself. Over her steaming expresso, while watching Duke add his habitual two spoonsful of sugar to his café noir, Romy told the four she wanted to be reunited with Old Duke before any decision was made.

“Well, that is easy enough to do,” Irina said, holding up her demitasse cup daintily, with her little finger extended. “Your grandfather and Marta have an apartment near the upper crust Spandau’s Brauhaus. He’s not that far from here. Marta tells fortunes to support them.”

“Marta?” Romy asked, “Warty old Marta?”

Irina smiled serenely. “One and the same.”

The gothic Brauhaus was cited as the oldest building in Berlin, part of Spandau’s Renaissance fortress on the Haver. Once again, an in-your-face hiding spot. Together, the five climbed the creaking wooden stairs to the second floor flat.

When Marta opened the door, Romy thought the old woman had to keep Maybelline in business.

Beyond the heavily made-up old woman, a vision of familiar carnival duplicity presented itself to Romy’s innate skepticism, although a mark would behold with wonder the room’s multi-colored veils and scarves and crystal balls and be caught off guard by the strong smell of patchouli that rendered a pleasurable feeling. It also masked the smell of pot.

Then, too, the carnival-like mystery tended to attract fae creatures, flawed like Old Duke, Marta, and, most of all herself.

At once, her muscle-knotted shoulders lowered, at ease. She grinned at the mummified Marta, replete in gold headscarf and a flounced and sequined, long-sleeve dress. “So, ye did it, did ye? Outwitted those fookin’ SS troopers?”

Marta hugged Romy fiercely, her answering grin displaying a scattering of teeth. “Old Duke pulled off the sleight of hand. Told them we were infected with the white plague. Guess they figured it was a waste of their bullets to kill us then and there.”

Marta looked past Romy, Irina, and Giorgio, sighting the other two men. “You bring customers?” And before Irina could reply, Marta bobbed her scarfed head at Gideon and Duke. “Those two there will light a woman’s fire. Don’t need no crystal ball for that.”

“Collaborators, not customers,” Giorgio hissed in a lowered voice. “They are here to help get Old Duke’s grandson out of Sachsenhausen.”

Parris Afton Bonds's Books