The Rule
By Paul Guthrie
Copyright © 2011 by Paul D. Guthrie
This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locations is entirely coincidental.
Cover image: aggressor/Bigstock.com
Mari tried to concentrate, guiding the stone through a figure-of-eight pattern in the air in front of her eyes. It felt strange to be alone; it felt wrong. She was used to the tumult of the group, the three families of Roma who travelled together. Now there was just the tapping and clinking of Poppi’s tools as he worked on mending the pot. The group was broken and the whole world felt wrong.
The stone fell, clacking on the floor boards of the wagon. “Bloody hell!”
Poppi set down the small mallet and looked up from his bench. “So the gadje would say it. Should you be doing that where gadje can see?” He lifted his head and pointed his white-bearded chin at the stone. “You know the rule.”
“Who is there to see?” Mari swept her arm around. The wagon stood in a pasture between the road and a haystack, the horse unharnessed and tethered to a post. The road was empty, the forest on the other side newly green. Beyond the haystack sat a low lean-to shed, as empty as the road. Beyond the shed was the house, far enough away that no one could see what she was doing.
Poppi frowned, but resumed his tapping. Mari felt the sun warming her and rolled her sleeves to the elbows. She folded her hands in her lap, closed her eyes and concentrated harder, seeing the invisible sparkling essence all around her with her third eye, as Mam had taught her. She made the gather and lifted her stone again. She was almost ready for a bigger one, and hers was already bigger than Mam’s.
The horse whickered and she let the stone fall, opening her eyes and staring around. The road was still empty. Well, perhaps Poppi was right. She picked up the stone and dropped it into the pocket of her apron, then took out the copper penny. She practiced the moves, palming it, transferring it unseen from one hand to the other. If she couldn’t practice the tatcho dook, at least she could practice the hakkeny pokee. She and Mam did that right in front of the gadje all the time and they never knew what they were seeing.
She was a woman of the Roma. She had passed her twelfth name day. She knew how to read the tarot and the stranger’s face, she knew the hakkeny pokee to make a coin disappear and appear elsewhere. She went out to the fairs and markets with Mam and the other women, telling fortunes. It was thus in all the Roma families; the women told fortunes and entertained, the men did tinsmithing, or blacksmithing, or whatever farm work was available, and then they moved on. She could earn her share. It was time for her to marry. But the group was broken.
Mari sighed and put the penny back in her apron. “How much longer?”
Poppi shrugged. “When it is done we will leave.” He picked up a file and began smoothing the mended handle. The pot was small, of the sort used for boiling tea.
“We could just leave now. We won’t be coming back.”
“No, but the others are behind us, and they will need a place to camp. Not so easy to find since the Protestants won. I agreed to mend goodwife O’Neill’s pot if she let us stay the night. We don’t want her to refuse them the use of the pasture, do we? We’ll find your Da and Mam and the others in Dublin before dark.”
The others behind were the two families who had chosen to stay. The others ahead were her aunts and uncles and cousins. You couldn’t marry your cousins.
“Why must I go?”
Poppi looked at her, the file still moving. “Because the Protestant King William has won his war here. The English make slaves of us, who they call gypsies, and send us to their sugar plantations. That is why we came to Ireland when you were a small child. Do you remember?”
“I remember.” The boat had made her ill.
“The other families think they will be safe if they stay away from the Protestants, but more English arrive each month. Our family decided we would go before they take us. Even if your Da and the others have to indenture as smiths, it will be better than being slaves.”
“But why must I go? If I marry Nico I will be part of his family.”
“Because Tanners would not pay bride price for you. They say they don’t have it, but I don’t believe them. Fetch me some water, there’s a good girl.”
Mari jumped down and went to the small water keg strapped to the wagon next to the wheel nearest Poppi. Someone always had to fetch for Poppi, since his leg did not work. She dipped a cup and handed it to him. He drank and returned to his work. She got back up on the wagon seat and took out her stone, then looked around and exchanged it for the coin.
“Will gadje pay to have their fortunes read in Virginia?”
“Why should they not? Gadje in England and Ireland do, and the ones in Virginia came from here. Why should they not be just as much fools?”
Mari passed the coin from hand to hand in the way the gadje never could see. “Gadje are stupid…and unclean. I don’t want to marry one.”
Poppi laughed. “They don’t like us, either, except when there’s pots to be mended. They go to your Mam to have their fortunes read, and then they want her to put a curse on a neighbor, and pretty soon someone stands up in church and says the gypsy woman has the evil eye and strangles their children in their beds. That’s why we always move on. It’s worse with these Protestants. Don’t worry so much; there are Roma in Virginia. We’ll find you a husband.”
He put down the file and examined his work. “Good enough. Take this up to the house and give it to goodwife O’Neill. I’ll hitch the horse. When you get back you can lift the bench and tool box in and we’ll be off.” He used his crutch to lever himself upright and balanced between it and the leg that worked. “Go along.”
Mari looked up at the sun. “They’ll not be back from market yet.”
“Well, if the latch string is out, just set it inside the door.”
Mari lifted the pot by the newly mended handle and turned toward the farm house. She avoided the muddy yard between the haystack and the shed, circling the stack on the other side and lifting her skirts just enough to keep them above the wet grass. There was a beaten path from the hay to the house.
When she reached the house she saw that the door stood partly open.
“Mistress O’Neill,” she sung out, “I’ve brung your pot.” She pushed the door further open, stepped inside, and saw a stranger. He was heavy, with a belly and a red face, dressed in town fashion, with a brown coat and breeches over a soiled white shirt and stockings. His boots were worn but his wide-brimmed hat looked new. “Who be you? This is O’Neills’ place.”
The man looked her up and down. “I be Oliver Cratcher and this is my place. Who be you?”
“Mari.” She set the pot on the table. “Mistress O’Neill’s pot, mended by my Poppi in return for camping. O’Neills have left?”
“Not yet. You’re gypsy?”
Mari nodded and edged back. He was looking at her the way the gadje sometimes looked at Roma women at the fairs, when they had drunk too much ale and no longer noticed the Roma men.
“This is my land now, give to me by the King himself. On account of I fought for him at the Boyne last summer. Two hundred acres he give me, and all upon it. Used to belong to Catholics, but no more. I’ll have no Catholic tenants, nor any who’d let gypsies camp. And I’ll have more from a trespassing gypsy wench than a mended pot.”
He reached for her and Mari spun away. The door had swung partly shut again, and as her hand touched the edge she felt her other arm seized from behind. And then he had both arms. He was strong and pulled her back against him, his breath stinking of onions.
“Now, then, let’s have a little service for old Cratcher.”
She writhed in his grip and thought of the stone in her apron, but it was too small to hurt him. She saw the pot on the table…maybe. She froze, gathering, then seized the pot…yes the gather was strong enough. She twisted her neck to aim and slammed the pot into the face behind her. It was deflected by his hat, which flew off, but hit him below the eye. Cratcher bellowed and she did it again, smashing his nose. The grip faltered and she was loose, running.
“Gypsy witch me, will you? I’ll have your hide!”
She heard heavy steps on the wooden floor as she reached the path and she lifted her skirts and ran faster. “Poppi!” she shrieked, “Poppi!”
Cratcher was getting closer. She reached the haystack and saw Poppi sitting on the seat of the wagon, crutch beside him, the horse harnessed. “Poppi!”
As Cratcher rounded the haystack Poppi’s gather flew past her head. There was a noise like a retching cough and when she looked back the gather was clinging to Cratcher’s throat. She slowed and the gather wrapped around his neck and shrank inward. Cratcher’s eyes bulged and his face turned darker, and he made a high-pitched gargley sound, and then he fell on his face.
Mari stopped, drawing breaths in ragged gasps. After a moment the gather detached from Cratcher and went toward the hay. Half of the stack tipped sideways, burying him. He didn’t move.
She looked toward Poppi, who was sitting quietly on the wagon seat. Her heart slowed and she walked toward him.
“Alright?”
She nodded. “I need to wash.” She went to the water keg and lifted the top, The cup and a wash rag were hanging from loops just inside the wagon. She wet the rag and wiped the places on her arms where he’d touched her, and her neck where he’d breathed on her, drying herself with her apron.. She went around to the back of the wagon and lifted Poppi’s bench and tool box in.
Mari climbed up and took her place beside Poppi on the seat, tucking his crutch away underneath.
“What should we do?”
“Follow the rule.” Poppi clucked and the horse started forward. Mari stared at the hay as the wagon moved past. There was only one rule for tatcho dook. Don’t get caught.