Cast in Doubt Page 19

  I order grilled sardines, a salad, and a bottle of mineral water and the white wine I drink. Fortunately they have it. After one glass, I am tranquil. With the second glass, I am impatient and want more wine and, I suppose, action. John might put it that way. I can almost hear him pronounce it, can imagine his lips loosely forming the words. Horace, you want action, man. I do want something or want for something. For lack of a better word I will name this luck. If I were lucky, a Gypsy would appear and sit beside me at this table. As this does not happen, my meal is unadventurous and undisturbed. Even disappointing.

  I drive toward the coast. I don’t care to stop or to make a detour. I see no strange encampments along the way. Had I chosen the faster way, I would already have been on the southern coast, quite near to the dot on Helen’s map which signified where she had probably gone. But I am not sure if that is the case, or if she had been the one to leave the map lying there, with its mark. Thinking about this is ludicrous, in one way and confusing in another. I drive, plagued by the uncertainty of it all, and of how this isn’t and wasn’t like me, to go flying off in pursuit of a mere girl, even one like Helen.

  I am discouraged, but hasten to encourage myself to have patience. If Gwen were with me, no doubt she’d caustically remark that I need patience but need more to be the patient. I’d bet the conversation would take such a linguistic turn. I would bet that, were she here to take the bet. I swing around on the road, the road to Mandalay, to somewhere. I am indeed going somewhere.

  Gwen says one always goes somewhere, even if it’s nowhere. She entered into psychoanalysis in the late 1960s, but rarely talks about it seriously, or at all, with me, in any case. It is another of her secrets. It may be something that she could share with Helen were she not so antipathetic to Helen, and why is that? Wouldn’t it be beyond coincidence if her analyst were Helen’s father? The idea excites me. Such a fact might easily have created in Gwen the extreme distrust and dislike of Helen she has. It is much too farfetched. It would serve a certain kind of plot. Or fate. Though I do not accept the concept of an externally derived or driven fate, I remind myself that the root of fate—fatum—and story—fabula—is the same, fari, which means “to speak,” and, in the past participle, “to be spoken.”

  One cannot fail to see that there is a way in which a story and a fate proceed similarly, the causes for action or inaction lying within the character as well as within the environment, the conditions surrounding the characters, those the characters were born into. When the situation seems too unlikely, the reader will no longer willingly suspend disbelief, will not accept the outcome. The reader will demur: it does not seem that that could have happened. Didn’t the Victorians change the endings of particularly wrenching tragedies? In a sense, the story itself has a fate, which must be discovered or discerned first by the writer. Yes, that is so, I think. But Helen’s father as Gwen’s analyst wouldn’t do, except as a fantasy. I suppose I oughtn’t to have finished the wine. Still I did mix the wine with water. Fateri means to acknowledge, to confess or admit. Confession is rooted or yoked to fate and story, which makes ultimate good sense. Confession and admission—neither do I do easily or at all. Yet I know they are always a part of what I write, even if inadvertently.

  I have no idea where I am and pull over to the side of the road to check the map again. I seem to be going in the right direction. I rarely get lost.

  Arriving at Kissamos in just over an hour, or perhaps more—I am not timing myself—I decide against stopping. But I do enter the town and drive along several streets, to scan the scene and the people. The stores are similar to my town’s, though the town itself is smaller. Here people beep their horns rather too insistently.

  Uninspired, I continue on my way. My mood shifts, swings down, and I am suddenly overcome by a vexatious idea: I will never find anything or anyone, not the Gypsy, certainly not Helen. I have been on this journey, this adventure, not even a day. It is like me to indulge in hopelessness, in a futility so great I could not imagine a future different from a lackluster present. (I note that future and futility may not have the same root, though future in Latin, futurus, means “that which will be,” which implies fate but not through its being spoken.) This limitation is probably why I am a writer. I do not want to confront the severe differences between what I would imagine and set on paper, and what I might find should I venture to live it, to act upon or to enact it. Mother called me a dreamer. She said it affectionately, even though she knew, as did I, that that very quality was what caused my father to abandon me, in a sense. My mother’s voice had a clear, bell-like tone. Dreamer, Horace, you’re such a dreamer, dear! Even now her words ring like the sweetest of chimes.

  Oddly enough, reflecting this way restores me to a better frame of mind, because it is like me to think such things, depressing and poignant as they may seem to others. The familiar is a comfort, whatever that may be, the most inconsequential thing, something insignificant to anyone else. One often cannot explain it to others or even to oneself, still one knows it somehow. Something that would appear to be nothing to a friend is precisely the big nothing to oneself. Now that’s a good title, The Big Nothing, another one for Stan Green. I drive even more slowly so as to write it down.

  The sight of the coast, too, restores my spirits, though I am wondering with some regularity by this time how Yannis is and whether or not Gwen has read my letter and how well or ill she will have taken its contents. Of course I cannot know this, and while it is useless for me to conjecture about it, I do. A particularly stirring view of sky, sea and mountain pricks my attention and I drive down a small road that will take me nearer it. This road is unpaved and rocky and I drive less than a mile, whereupon I reach a clearing and park the car. I get out, stretch my arms and legs, and allow myself the pleasure of contemplation. I am not certain where I am.

  I must record an incident that were I reading this I should probably not accept it as fact. But it is true. In this lonely area, off the beaten path, as it were, and without a thought in my mind. I came upon first a Gypsy woman, not the Gypsy woman, but one who looked as if she could have been her mother, or at least a relation, and then her children, or children, and some Gypsy men. They appeared from nowhere, at least I thought that for a moment, until I realized that I had by chance come upon an encampment. My excitement cannot be measured. It was a dream come true. I was lucky. Still it is really not so strange, as there are at least eighty thousand Gypsies in Crete.

  Happening upon them like this, I am shaken, almost breathless. I had no plan, yet, I exhorted myself heartily, that is the plan. From what I had read about them, I still did not know what to expect, nor had I been tutored or prepared in the ways of greeting them. I knew I wanted them to know instantly that I was not like the others—the gadje for whom they had disdain, yet whom they also feared, from whom they might steal or at whom they might sneer.

  I decide that the best action is inaction—I will do nothing. I will wait.

  With my back to them I stand looking at the view for some time. I have no way of knowing if they are looking at me. I think they must be—at the least they must be aware of my presence. It is better just to let them study me, without any intervention on my part. I am not frightened in the usual sense, my heart is not pounding, but I am very much conscious of the fact that there is only one of me and several or many of them. The odds are on their side should things go awry, I remind myself. On the other hand, I am strangely sanguine. They will quickly learn that there is nothing to fear from me.

  It is growing colder and getting dark. I turn, not too quickly, and walk back to my car. I grab a bottle of ouzo. Without hesitation and with a cheerful alacrity, I carry the ouzo to the older Gypsy woman, who seems to be the clan’s matriarch. There is a younger woman, a girl, beside her, I see now. She is bedecked and bejeweled, wearing a striped dress that looks like a bathrobe I once had. She herself is very like a photograph of a Gypsy I once saw in a New York gallery, I think. They both are, in fact.

/>   The older woman stares at me and accepts my offering. I then announce in Greek that my name is Horace. She nods. Then I state, also in Greek, that I am a gadjo, living in Crete, but that I am originally from America, that I was born there. She appears to be startled, I suppose by my declaration that I am not a Gypsy, for of course she knows without my telling her that I am not one of them. What I was hoping to do was to indicate that I had some knowledge of them, their language and ways, that I was not merely one of the stupid sedentary ones. But after her initial surprise, the woman breaks into peals of laughter and repeats what I have just said to the family, even the children—all have gathered about us—and then she slaps me brusquely on the back. With surprise I too realize that my presentation of self is humorous and chuckle along with her, with all of them. The oldest of the men—the chief of the family, perhaps—opens the bottle of ouzo, from which we all drink. Glasses of many types and sizes have appeared as well as a large pitcher of water. I mix my ouzo with water by the light of a lantern that hangs above us.

  Several rounds of liquor are consumed in a short time, which is characterized by liveliness and gaiety. At some point we all move into a large caravan that is parked behind a clump of trees and bushes, and along with the ouzo and raki and other liquor, which one of them had brewed, there is also some food. I am thankful for that. I am also grateful to them for their hospitality. I can sleep there should I want to. That is also lucky because I should not drive.

  The men tell stories; they take great pride in their narrative skills. The storyteller, I know from my reading, is beloved among the Gypsies. In the community, the stature of a man is to a large degree determined by how well he speaks. One of the stories told is about why the Gypsies are the smartest people on earth and another has to do with why the Gypsies steal. The former is long and involved, the latter short and devilishly ambiguous. When Christ was to be crucified, a Gypsy stole one of the four nails meant to nail him to the cross, the one meant to pierce Christ’s heart. Before he died, Christ, out of gratitude for the Gypsy’s theft, stated that forevermore the Gypsies could roam the world and would be the only people free to steal. All the Gypsies laugh loudly at this story. I smile but am confused, perhaps contrite, as this is the very attack that I—and others—would have mounted previous to my brief study of them. It is an awkward moment, but it passes quickly with the arrival of more food.

  One of the young men is most intrigued by my desire to find Helen and asks many questions about her, some of which I am not able to answer. What is her birth sign? Will she have children? Where was she born? What is her mother’s name? There is a general discussion about which of their younger women could be with her, but none of them think it likely that they know the young woman. The fetching young man—he is hardly more than a boy, I think—has a ready smile, an easy smile. He is winning and charming, with none of Yannis’ surliness. Even so I decline a card game with him; I have never been a great fan of cards, though I bear a poker face. After I disclose that I am a writer, he shows me some papers which have to do with a Gypsy organization and a conference that had been held in 1971, to press the world for Gypsy rights. About this cause he is impassioned, and he speaks a good, grammatical Greek. He has had some formal education, I think. Though I believe that is contrary to Gypsy dictates.

  I am most interested in this young man—his name is Roman—and his involvement in his people. It is, in a sense, not unlike my own. Do the Gypsies, I finally ask, now agitate for their own country or state? At this they all laugh, and one says, how gadje that is of me, or something of that kind, but in a friendly manner. Roman explains that some Gypsies want a territory where they would not be forced to be like everyone else and to obey laws and rules that are not their own. They hope to escape harassment and persecution. We are already a nation, he explains for my benefit, and in Romany, I believe it is, and then Greek, exclaims, All Roma are brothers! Immediately an argument ensues among them about the Gypsies’ having conferences at all as well as questions about their submitting to organizations, which also are seen as gadje. This is stated succinctly by the older woman.

  But the argument is cut short. Roman takes out his violin—he can play too!—and I am reminded of Gwen’s association with Django Reinhardt’s nephew. A melancholy and haunting melody fills the caravan. Even though it is a cold night, we drift out the door, and one by one everyone dances under the moonlight. First the young woman in the striped bathrobe sways and claps her hands and strikes a tambourine, and even the children, who are still awake, join in. I too dance. It strikes me that I do not know how the night will end and about that I am nearly ecstatic.

  Feeling inconceivably like Noel Coward, I whirl about alone, but then dance with the older woman, whose crinkly amber eyes remind me, and this is uncanny, of my mother, who would have been shocked by the comparison. But does anyone know anything other than by comparison?

  The next morning I awake, and all about me is commotion and movement. My head pounds ferociously. Immediately I am in a panic, as I am disoriented by my new, strange surroundings. I attempt to calm myself. Sigá, sigá, I intone silently. I lie quietly in the makeshift bed. I think again of Gwen, who can always reassure me in her no-nonsense way. Where is she now? What did she once quote me—something from Mao Tse-tung, about it’s always being darkest before it is black.

  My Gwen. She insists that if one remembers one’s dreams one can shake off the night’s bad news and rise up—at least leave one’s bed. I force myself to remember my dream; I often forget. It comes in bits and pieces, one entailing the next. Ah, yes, I see it now. It must have been influenced by the Gypsies. I too am wandering and homeless. Then I am in a room. It is depressing to inhabit, with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling over a cotlike bed that is unmade. It is the kind of cheap room one might have found on Forty-second Street during the forties or fifties, or in novels about the people who live in those sordid places. I would never. I leave the room to roam about a large building. I take an elevator, which fits one person only, but I must pull a rope in order to make it move. Come to think of it, it is like the freight elevator in the building where my father had his office for many years. And had his secretary! The elevator door eventually opens—I am afraid that I will never reach the right floor—and I walk into the hallway. I am near the principal’s office. It seems to be a school.

  That is all, but there is a good deal of anxious wandering in it. I assume it has to do with looking for Helen. If I were Gwen, I might become the punster and enjoy the movement from roam to Romany to romance. I did think, last night, of Bizet’s Carmen when the Gypsy girl in the striped bathrobe danced. The word “Gypsy” comes from Egyptian—the Europeans thought the Gypsies were Egyptians when first they encountered them, hundreds of years ago. They don’t look Egyptian to me. I would like to jot down all these thoughts right now, but there is too much bustling going on about me. I finally move and arise from bed and stick my head out the tentlike structure I slept in. I am in my pajamas, but how I got into them, I do not know.

  By the fire is the elderly Gypsy woman who spots me and, in a loud voice, announces that she will read my fortune. Suddenly I remember that, in my dream, the elevator could not go up; it could only go down. That is most ominous. I want to tell the woman that I abjure any kind of fortune-telling, but feel it would be discourteous to do so. I walk toward the group and the fire, my blanket tied around me. Roman, the winsome lad, hands me a cup of strong coffee and a sweet roll. He also hands me a postcard dated from World War II, a well-known photograph, of some Gypsies being captured by the Nazis. I thank him solemnly.

  This morning the old Gypsy woman is draped in many layers of clothing, her body lost under the colorful fabrics and scarves that enshroud her. One scarf, of bright blue and green, is tied rakishly about her forehead and covers her gray hair. I have no idea how old she is. Perhaps my age? Silver bracelets dangle from her plump wrists. She takes my left and right hands in her own and pats each palm, as if the skin coul
d be flattened, stretched and unfurled for better reading.

  “Ah!” the woman exclaims, “ah! You are in someone’s mind, someone’s heart. You are in their dreams. You are needed. You are looking for someone.” She stops abruptly as if stung by a bee. She peers closely at, nearly through, it seems, my palms. She shakes her head from side to side. The woman continues: “I see something…” But then she stops again and removes her eyes from my palms to seek my eyes, into which she stares intently, even angrily. She lets go my hands, sharply. They drop to my sides pathetically. “You cannot see,” she intones. “You do not learn. You only look for the right things.” Then she turns away from me to poke the fire.

  Her fierceness is stunning. Though I accept nothing that she has spoken as the truth, for I reject prophecy, and remember all too well how much I myself spoke last night and how much I drank—every Gypsy knew I was looking for Helen and much more—I am rather disconcerted. It is early in the morning to hear such things. Probably it is Helen who dreams of me, who needs me. If I were to believe any of this, and I do not. It is as if I were thrust into that scene in Macbeth when the three witches chant over a steaming caldron. But one sentence particularly provokes me. “You only look for the right things.” It seems a paradox, for how does one know ahead of time what is or will be the right thing to look for?

  Pondering a paradox, with a blanket wrapped around me in the midst of an encampment of strangers, I must be a foolish spectacle. Perhaps it is—I am—an amusement to the others who stand nearby. Embarrassed and ultimately annoyed by the old woman’s presumption, I decide to leave that very instant. I return to the tent where I slept to dress and gather my belongings. Then I make my way around the group to offer thanks for their hospitality.