The wife stood Tinka before the mirror. Orb thought that was a mistake, but it wasn't; the woman was verifying the hang of the dress, making final adjustments.
"Lovely!" the storekeeper exclaimed, and his voice rang with a sincerity not entirely inspired by the money he had made on this transaction.
Tinka heard. For the first time she spoke—but her words were unintelligible to Orb.
"What language is that?" Orb asked quietly.
"Calo," the storekeeper said. "She's a Gypsy wench. I thought you knew."
"But I don't know Calo!"
"Why would you want to? Teach her English."
Orb took the girl back to her apartment. Again the villagers affected not to notice, but Orb knew they were watching more closely than before. Apparel could make a significant change in the appearance of any woman, but Tinka's transformation was remarkable. The girl even held her chin higher and walked with more confidence, as if conscious of the impression she was making.
Orb fixed something for them both to eat, not certain whether Tinka was conversant with civilized food, but the girl had no trouble.
At last Orb tackled the problem of teaching. "Can you sing?" she asked, and when the girl did not react, Orb brought out her harp and sang a brief song.
Tinka smiled. In a moment she was humming along, picking up the melody immediately. Her pitch was perfect, her voice good. She could sing, certainly.
But that was not what Nicolai wanted from Orb. He wanted the magic.
Orb put her hand on Tinka's arm. Then she sang, using the magic. She knew that the girl heard the sound of the hidden orchestra.
Indeed she did. She spoke a veritable torrent in the Gypsy language. She wanted to learn this.
"But I can't understand your words," Orb said. "It would really be better if we understood each other."
Tinka, having heard the magic, was eager to cooperate. She was not a stupid girl, and soon she was meeting Orb more than half way. She pointed to herself and said her name, then touched her new dress and said a word for it, and a shoe with its word. She was telling Orb her language.
Orb considered only briefly. It occurred to her that if she wanted to get real information from the Gypsies, it would help to speak their language. It should be as easy to learn Calo as to teach Tinka English.
There was a great deal more to it, but that was the point of decision. Orb proceeded to learn the Gypsy language, and Tinka learned to invoke the magic orchestra. They went at both projects with almost total immersion, so that in a day Orb knew a few basic words and some of the syntax, and Tinka had succeeded in making the orchestra respond in a minor way. In a week they were communicating freely with each other on both the verbal and musical levels, though with far to go on each.
Orb discovered that the Gypsy language had no words for what in her own were rendered as "duty" and "possession." This was because these concepts were foreign to the Gypsy nature. Gypsies felt something like duty only in the manner they honored their own culture, and they owned only what they wore and used. They had no vested property, no estates, no mortgages; they acceded to such things only in deference to the demands of the other cultures with which they interacted.
This explained a lot. Others might call the Gypsies thieves—but how could there be theft, when there was no ownership? Others thought them shiftless—but that only meant that the Gypsies felt no need to do anything other than survive. To hold a regular job, to serve in a nation's armed forces—this sort of thing simply did not relate to the Gypsy nature. The bad qualities the Gypsies were judged to have were mostly the misunderstandings of outsiders. Gypsies did have values, and these, when understood, did honor to them. Music, joy, sharing, love, loyalty to one's own the Gypsies were like one huge, scattered family, and Orb related to that. She had always wanted to belong—to something.
Tinka stayed with Orb, at Orb's expense. It was obvious that the Gypsies had no money; this was the only way it could be done. Orb didn't mind; she had never dreamed she would be in such a situation, but she felt really fulfilled when she worked with the Gypsy girl, making steady progress. The quest for the Llano could wait long enough for this.
One day the urchin showed up again. "Nicolai says come to the dance."
"Dance?" Orb asked blankly.
But Tinka came alive. "We must go," she said in Calo. "I know where."
Satisfied with that, the urchin departed. Now Tinka became the instructor, getting Orb properly dressed for the occasion. This was a special challenge, as Orb had no wardrobe of her own, only the magic cloak. The girl had to describe the necessary costume, and Orb asked questions about detail, and finally they got it right. Orb now looked very much like a Gypsy woman, and the mirror told her that this guise became her.
They went out, as evening closed. Tinka led the way, but was guided by Orb's cautions about steps, buildings, and traffic.
Hundreds of people were gathered at the central village square, dancing in pairs, snapping their fingers with marvelous precision. The beat was so accurate that Orb suspected that some of her own magic ran in the blood of the Gypsies—for indeed, these were Gypsies, revealing themselves to her at last. She realized that Tinka was her pass; she had come with the blind girl, and the girl was obviously in good health and spirits. Perhaps Nicolai had spread the word—or perhaps it had been enough just to be seen with Tinka, on those prior days. Certainly it was no liability to be seen with Tinka now; the girl was radiant, a stunning beauty.
Soon a young man came for Tinka. Orb didn't know whether the girl could dance, but let her be her own judge of that. It turned out that she could, and quite well, when guided by a competent partner.
Orb, gazing about the throng, caught the eye of Nicolai. He was playing his fiddle along with other Gypsies, and their music was lively and wonderful, but he was evidently not totally taken up by it. When he had Orb's attention, he nodded, slowly. Then she knew how pleased he was to see his daughter dancing. Tinka had the skill, but she had probably not been much in demand, before. Tonight she glowed, and in the dance it was hard to tell that she was blind.
A young man came to ask Orb herself to dance, but she demurred. "I really don't know this kind of dance," she explained. "I would rather just watch."
He left, not pushing it. But soon another came, and she turned him down, too, as politely as she could. She just didn't want to get in over her head.
Then old Nicolai came, handsome even in his age in his worn but elegant dress-up clothing. "If you would be a Gypsy, you must learn the Gypsy ways," he said, and held out his hand to her.
Orb could not refuse. She could tell by the reactions of the others that this was a signal honor. So she danced with him, and Nicolai was a veteran dancer and made it easy for her, though she did not know the nuances of this one.
"Tonight there is only one more lovely than my child," the old man murmured. Orb smiled; it seemed to her that none of the other women present looked better than Tinka, but she was not going to debate the matter.
Before long they stopped, and Nicolai returned to his playing. Tinka returned, breathless with constant dancing; her feet really were not up to it, and she had to rest. "They say my father danced with you," she said in Calo. "He has not danced in years, not in public. Only when he taught me."
"I know he is pleased with you," Orb said.
"He is pleased with you!" Tinka said. "Because you have helped me. He has given you the mark of favor."
"You have helped me, too," Orb said warmly. "You are teaching me your language."
The girl found her hand and squeezed it joyously.
"He mentioned that there was one here more lovely than you, but I did not see her," Orb said, curious.
Tinka turned her face to Orb, astonished. She laughed.
"I don't understand," Orb said, nettled.
"Since my mother died, no one has ever been lovelier than me, in my father's eyes," Tinka said. "Until now. He meant you."
Orb found herself blushing. Sh
e had missed the import entirely!
Then the pattern of the dancing changed. The music was similar, but the motions and style were completely different. Man and woman glanced sidelong at each other, and their bodies assumed provocative postures. The erotic suggestion was infinite; it was as if they were indulging in a prolonged sexual act in public. Orb felt her face flushing for a new reason.
"That dance," she whispered. "What is it?"
Tinka of course could not see it, but she knew. "It is the tanana," she said. "Few outsiders are allowed to see it."
Orb watched, fascinated despite her revulsion. She had never been exposed to such raw invitation, yet it had beauty, too. The man desired the woman, as men did; but the woman desired the man, too, and was aggressively leading him on, assuming postures calculated to inflame his passion. The whole was stylized, and each couple was coordinated; it was indeed an established dance. Watching it. Orb could understand why the typical Gypsy girl was sexually active before menarche, and a mother in her early teens. For children were dancing, too, exchanging the same suggestive stares. She saw girls no older than six flaunting their hips and showing their thighs. It could have been a joke, but was not; every motion was choreographed, just so, even the most lascivious. Orb could appreciate how a man could be excited by the youngest of such girls, and she herself experienced a rush of desire as she watched the men.
Flustered, Orb wished she could leave before her embarrassment was evident. But she knew she could not—and a deeper countercurrent in her didn't want to go. Her own appetite was stirring, and part of her wanted to participate, flinging away caution and indulging in the passion of the moment with complete abandon.
She spent the rest of the occasion in a kind of fog; it was Tinka who got her safely home. She slept—and in the morning was disgusted. "Any man could have done anything he wanted with me!" she exclaimed, appalled in retrospect. She spoke in Calo, imperfectly, but the feeling was there.
"No," Tinka said. "My father decreed that you are not to be molested."
"I mean that I would have welcomed it!" She spoke as freely as her command of the language permitted, for though her association with the Gypsy girl had not been long, it had been intense, and they were becoming confidantes. Three years separated them, but the Gypsy girl's knowledge of sexual matters was greater than Orb's.
"No shame in that!" Tinka exclaimed, laughing. "For five years I have longed for a man, any man, but few would touch me, because of my faults."
Faults: her blindness and her mutilated hands and deformed feet. But Orb was aware now that the restriction was not because men found Tinka unattractive, but because they deemed her to be unable to perform the role of a Gypsy wife and mother. Sex was much on a Gypsy man's mind, but it was not untempered by practical considerations. "Few?"
"My father got some to come. But I knew..." She shrugged.
Paid love. What girl of any age wanted that? In Tinka's case it was evidently more than dating, but the principle remained. Tinka wanted to be truly accepted and to captivate the love of a man by her own resources. "I think they are more interested now."
"Yes. Three asked me to the bush last night, but I wouldn't go."
"Three!" But Orb had seen how much in demand the girl had been for dancing, and of course the line between dancing and complete sex could be fuzzy, as the tanana showed. Orb set aside her own reservations, knowing that the strictures of her culture did not apply here. "Why not?"
"Because they were riffraff. After I learn what you are teaching me, I can get a noble."
She had a point.
The work continued, though it was a pleasure. Before she knew it, months had passed, and Orb had not only learned the language, she had learned much about the Gypsy culture. Tinka taught her the tanana, though Orb had no intention of ever doing the suggestive dance in public, and other nuances of the culture. Meanwhile Tinka progressed on the evocation of her latent magic and was able to generate the orchestra at will. Orb noted with interest that for the girl it was a Gypsy orchestra, not a conventional one. But its power was as great.
It ended with seeming suddenness. The Gypsies were a traveling people, and the population of the village was constantly changing. They did not have wealth, as that was not a Gypsy objective, but some families were in better regard than others. Tinka encountered a handsome, talented, clever Gypsy man, danced the tanana with him, and touched him constantly, and Orb knew she was playing the magic music for him. This was the one she wanted, and it seemed that it required only five minutes for her to captivate the man entirely. The man was not concerned about her blindness or her hands; he recognized her music as a treasure beyond such matters. Her beauty hardly hurt, however. Before the evening was done, they had agreed to marry.
Orb was sorry to see her relationship with Tinka end, but she knew it was time for her to move on. She had learned as much as she could here and now was far better equipped to pursue her quest for the Llano. The Gypsies of this region did not know where it was, but agreed that the source of Gypsies was the place to look. They were not sure where that was; perhaps the Gypsies of Northern France would know...
Chapter 4 - QUEST
Orb no longer had to ask about to locate the Gypsies of the region she traveled. Now she knew the signals of their presence and could find them directly. Because she now spoke their language as well as many of them did—most were bilingual, speaking the local language often at the expense of their own—she was accepted by them. In fact, her knowledge of Calo enabled her to get along at times when English didn't, because it crossed national boundaries as freely and existed where English didn't.
In northern France they told her another story of the Llano. She sat among the several wives of the local chief known to outsiders as his wife's sisters, because polygamy was not an approved family style here—and listened. The women had heard this tale before, of course, but enjoyed it again. It seemed that once in the past a tribe like theirs had been trapped by soldiers of the hostile government, in one of the periodic persecutions of the Gypsies. Outsiders didn't understand about things like stealing food or deceiving the gullible with fortune telling or entertaining men for money with erotic dancing. Orb herself had become more tolerant in such respects than she would have believed a few months ago.
"But today is the day my love and I are to be married," a young man protested as the cordon tightened.
"We are trapped and outnumbered and out of bullets," the chief said. "Most of our men have already been killed. In an hour we may all be dead. How can you think of marriage?"
"I love her! I may have no other chance to marry her."
"We have no food, no wine for the celebration."
"Her lips are wine enough for me!"
The chief realized that he had a point. "You speak like a true Gypsy," he said. "We shall have the wedding!"
They gathered in a circle for the occasion. But their musical instruments had been destroyed by the pursuing soldiers, and they had no bright clothing to wear for the dancing. The soldiers were approaching; shots sounded, and bullets struck the trees beside their camp. They couldn't wait.
One old man among them knew a piece of the Llano. His voice was weak and cracked, but he began to sing, and the young couple danced the tanana to that song. The rags they wore seemed to become bright and new; the tarnished buttons on his jacket took on a glow as of fine gold, and her dull earrings and bracelets seemed to catch fire. The circle of Gypsy women snapped their fingers to the music, and the old man's voice became stronger. Now it seemed to fill the glade and intensify the day; all of them were garbed in color. The bride had been of passable feature and figure; as the song suffused her she became beautiful and provocative, holding all eyes as if magnetized.
The soldiers closed in, firing their guns. Bullets smacked into the bonfire, throwing up embers. But the Gypsies, mesmerized, kept snapping their fingers, and the couple danced with utter abandon. The song expanded to touch the soldiers. They stared, amazed that the Gypsie
s should be ignoring them.
Then a Gypsy girl stepped out of the circle, took a soldier by the hand, and brought him in to the center to dance. The song overpowered his will, and he set down his gun, followed her, and took her in his arms and danced. Another girl took another soldier, and a third did the same, while the song continued. Soon all the soldiers were in the circle, their mission forgotten.
All night they danced. When the morning came, and the old man's voice gave out, and the dancers were too tired to continue, the soldiers looked about, dazed. Each had a lovely Gypsy girl on his arm, and the last thing he wished to do was harm her. How would they explain this to their commandant?
They conferred and decided that there was no way to explain it. They would be executed themselves if they returned. So they decided to remain with the Gypsies and marry the girls they had danced with. The tribe survived, stronger than before, because of the Llano.
"So it may be that the blood of a soldier runs in my veins," the chief concluded. "I do not begrudge it."
But he did not know the Llano itself, or the source of the Gypsies. "But perhaps the Gypsies of Germany can help you," he suggested.
In Germany they had a problem. Consumption had taken out a chief, and the officials had buried his body in a pauper's grave and driven the wives out of town. The women were bedraggled and absolutely filthy. "But I can get you water!" Orb exclaimed.
As one, the three women shook their heads in negation. "We may not wash or touch water until his body has disintegrated completely in the earth," one explained.
So it was that Orb learned of the Cult of the Dead. All Gypsies followed it, including those of France and Spain; there had been no death in the vicinity when Orb was there, so she had not encountered this then. When a Gypsy died, all his scant possessions were burned along with his corpse; in that manner his women were freed of their geis and could be clean again. But when the authorities interfered, then plight was severe. "We can not even feed the grave," they said. For it was the custom to set food on the grave, so that the spirit of the deceased would not go hungry.