Short Story - The Gypsy Purge of Airopa: Parte Uno

She had been expecting it to be a shack.

But instead, the place that stood before her, just outside of Denadoro, on the line between Cernilia and Rubato, was quite possibly the biggest house she had ever seen. It had balconies, and bay windows, and stories upon buttressed stories rising up towards the high afternoon sun. There was a long right wing that stretched along like the branch of a tree over to the cliffs on the east, and the corridors that could be seen through the windows were filled with countless shelves of yellowing books. The front door itself was a large wooden affair studded with gold, and an ornate doorknocker shaped like a whimsical fairy stared out at passersby with wings outstretched. Some people claimed that the house was haunted, but such houses like this always drew colorful rumors.

Cadenza shifted the heft of the bag hanging from her shoulder, checked her pocket for a charm, and stepped up to grasp the doorknocker. It banged against the door with a ringing, hollow sound that seemed to echo throughout the entire mansion. "Eerie," she thought, standing and waiting for some kind of response. "And we wonder why people think we're witches."

There were heavy, irritable footsteps, accompanied by a grumbling voice and lots of jangling metal jewelry. It approached the door and then there was a noise like a jar full of marbles tumbling to the ground as the door was swung open and an old, leathery tan face stared out from behind a beaded curtain that was still clacking and clattering with motion.

"Who are you?" the voice as wispy as a snake's hiss--ruined only by a bad smoker's cough--demanded.

"Gypsy," Cadenza shot back, pulling the charm from her pocket and holding it out as if it were some sort of badge, or maybe a mint to ward off bad nicotine breath.

The old woman's eyes fell on the little brass and copper sun, studying it curiously at length, stepping back a little into the house and making the bead curtain sway and clatter again. "Navarre tribe," she uttered finally in recognition, in a thoughtful tone that said she'd turned the name over several times in her mind and had dredged up all the history that came along with it. "Which generation?"

"Hell if I know, Signora. Certainly not one of the first. I'm not even from Castile--but anyway, that's not the sort of history lesson I quite came for. I'm told you have the most extensive library of gypsy records and diaries this side of the Seria Ocean. That true?"

The woman had undergone a perceptible change in mood at the mention of the library. Suddenly her eyes became suspicious, protective. "Why?" she rasped, erupting into an unpleasant cough. She paused for a moment to pop a foul-smelling lozenge on her tongue, then said, sucking as the throat drop clacked against gold teeth, "What must you research in my library?"

Oh yes, Cadenza had noticed it, despite all the distracting noises and smells. The stress on "my". This indeed was a woman who'd been troubled before for the controversial knowledge stored in her home, a woman who, if the stories were right, was of a family who'd been chased out of Airopa during the very purge and knew some of the darkest, seediest tales of it. The truth was always found in the blacker parts of history, Cadenza'd always thought. The parts people wanted to hide.

"The reason we're here in this desert, Signora. The purge. The reason why you saw that old Navarre charm and knew it was one of the last of its kind that'd ever be made. Because that tribe's been just about wiped out. As have most of the ones from that time."

The old withered gypsy seemed to consider this, stroking her drooping chins with a handful of large antique rings as she swallowed her throat drop. She ran another judgmental eye over Cadenza, as if seeing her for the first time, and then squinted hard in concentration, her furry brows knitting together. "You are... Sonya's child, yes? Girl I made earrings for...? And now... you've grown so very much... and come to learn your roots, is that it?"

"That's why I remembered you... Sonya always spoke of Signora Carla della Foncé as the most talented and knowledgable gypsy we had left in the community," Cadenza answered, trying to lay the compliments on thick. "I think she took me to you when I was four."

"Yes, I remember..." the thin red-lipsticked lips curled into a grin, "bright-eyed child, sort of curious, a little wary around strangers. Very excited to learn though. You stayed close to your mae the whole time. I think I frightened you a little," the old woman gave a hoarse cackle like a cat dislodging a stubborn hairball. "I thought I might see you again someday."

"Yeah, well... here I am. Now can I come in and have a look at that library?" the younger woman said impatiently, wanting to steer away from the drive further down memory lane.

Carla nodded and drew aside the curtain, taking a step back further into the dimly-lit interior of the house, "Come, come. I shall put a pot of herbal tea on. Good for the lungs."

"Yeah, heh, you would know."

The old woman seemed to ignore the wisecrack, taking Cadenza by the shoulder and leading her into the smoky kitchen full of burning incense and old pots and pans hanging from hooks on every flowery-wallpapered wall. She seemed to have enough cookware to serve an entire army.

"...Got grandchildren or something?"

"Oh, several. Half the town of Allegre must be related to me somehow, dear. And I served as midwife for the rest, I'm certain."

Cadenza stared at her for a moment, swearing that the old woman was grinning at her. "Er... good genes, I bet."

"You'd win that bet," the woman gave a wink that nearly upset Cadenza's stomach. Wrinkly old women should never wink when wearing false eyelashes like that, she thought--it looked like a spider was crawling over her eye. Carla didn't seem to realize.

The younger woman cleared her throat to bridge the awkward silence that followed. "So... that tea? And I'll just go have a peek at the books, sound good?"

"Sure, dear," Carla was busily wrestling with getting some herbs down from shelves in the pantry. Her skirts and veils billowed and rustled like they were in hurricane winds with her effort. "Start with the mauve book at the beginning of the first low shelf. I find it... sets up the feeling for the rest," she gave a labored cough and stumbled back triumphantly with a handful of green herbs, holding them in the air as if they were her trophy.

As she wheezed in the background and the tea kettle whistled softly, Cadenza strode on to the musty corridors that led to, and seemed to have been taken over by, the library. She strolled by, passing her hands over the dusty volumes, trying to judge what passed for a "low shelf" when she came to a small, two-tier wooden cabinet under a window that had a photo perched atop it. The picture inside the frame was sepia-toned and faded from age, but still very clearly seen was the happy couple looking back at the camera on what must have been their wedding day. The bride was a gypsy... that could be told from the golden bangles and earrings that she wore as her dowry on that day. The man... he seemed Airopan, possibly... from Maximilia? He had that dark hair but fair skin, and the moustaches that were all the fashion of the country at that time. There were names written at the bottom, but the paper had crumbled away and it was too difficult to read.

The gypsy searched through the books until she found a mauve-covered one tied shut with a chocolate-colored ribbon, and pulled it from the shelf. When she untied the ribbon and opened to the beginning, she saw that it had signed the name of Carla's great grandmother, Lupe Maneira della Foncé, and there was a clipping from an old research journal on the very next page...

"Sociological Research of Subject 'Gypsies' - Kingsborough University of Behavioral Sciences"

"...They are a superstitious, subhuman culture, with many strange and unreasonable ways. They do not raise livestock, nor grow crops. They have no doctors; instead, they believe "magic" can cure them. They do not have weapons; they believe, also, that "magic" can protect them. They claim not to reject science, but seem to think they can defy the laws of it. They do not trade their gold, but rather hoard it away from generation to generation and display it garishly on their brides. They are akin to witches, and have many scrolls of "spells" and odd talismans they believe to possess power. They travel from place to place, infecting it with their "traditions" and selling their beads and other worthless trinkets of illogical belief. They speak of "Spirits", and renounce any ideas of Heaven or Hell. They idle away their days and nights in dance and song and strange rituals, only further spreading the plague of their superstitions by having more and more children. They are a pox on this land. We must rid ourselves of them, as other great civilizations have done of their burdensome groups in the past...."

"--Friedrick Samuel Taylor, of Kingsborough, Rochester, 12 May 1750"

"...And she said this would set up the feeling for the rest," Cadenza thought, wanting to slam the book shut, wishing she could slam something else--like maybe a boulder--on the man who'd written these words over two-hundred and fifty years ago. "She was f*cking right, if the feeling she wants me to have is wanting to torch any book that says something like this."

But she didn't get up from where she sat, instead settling for turning the page and seeing what more there was. She had to remind herself that she had been expecting things like this. After the clipping, the actual diary seemed to start, written in Signora Lupe's own curly script.

"Dear Diary,

We have been kicked out of the forests of Osterreich this week. We had simply settled down there to tend to our ill after this recent bout of malaria, but the king declared us a health risk to the neighboring farms and ordered us to be cleared out before dawn, lest we face military action. I don't understand this sudden hostility... we had always been welcome to camp in the Weisse lushlands, in the forests and lakes so long as we didn't disturb the farmers kilometers from them. But now... King Bayern has been facing pressure from other nations, our elders have said... pressure to banish us from his kingdom, and... he must be folding under that pressure. We have now been driven out of Ivanova and Osterreich... what will be next? I fear, soon, we may not even be able to return home to Castile... things are beginning to go very bad for gypsies in Maxmillia, even, where my sweet Claude waits... I do hope he will still wait for me on the day we should be wed. I am carrying his child... I feel the baby kicking from time to time, and it excites me... I do wish very much to be a mother. The midwife says I am doing well...

Write again tomorrow, we must be on the move south to Gardenia.

27 Junio 1751"