Jenthegypsy
We have wandered this earth for more than 1200 years, nomadic craftsmen and entertainers, tellers of fortune and tamers of beasts, betrayed, persecuted and murdered wherever we have gone. No kingdom has left us in peace, no country has given us quarter, no land has welcomed us to make it our own. We settle and move on, settle and move on and have done so for centuries. We carry our homes and our nation with us. We are the wanderers, the travelers, the gypsies. We are Romani.
Many years ago, long before I was born, we journeyed to this part of the world, stuffed shoulder to shoulder in the holds of slaver's ships, locked away in the dark and squalor of our own filth for weeks on end, to emerge in this place of riotous color and light. Brought to the place called Barbados where we were put upon the block with the Africans and the natives and sold to plantation owners from the colonies and the Americas.
We are a resourceful people, and there were moments of opportunity that afforded themselves on those voyages from Barbados to Brazil or Jamaica or Virginia. Ships are sometimes lost in storm or through mischief, and of what consequence is a storm-tossed sea to those who have survived the centuries in places far less hospitable? The waters here are warm and welcoming to those who have the strength to withstand them. We are nothing if we are not strong.
So it was that the fates released my mother from bondage, with the sinking of the small ship that carried her and two-dozen other Roma's toward a life of slavery in Brazil. Eighteen of them survived, holding to the debris and to each other, a human raft which floated at the whim of the currents, drifting for hours, then days, until they washed up on what is known to us now as Final Paradise, our haven – our home. None hunt us for sport there or persecute us to our deaths, none seek to rule us or to banish our existence. We have our simple homes and ply our trade throughout the islands, traveling the sea in our little boats as our brothers and sisters remaining in Europe and the Isles of Britain travel the land in their little wagons.
Now sir, you have been most attentive to my story and have heard me out without interruption, though your hands have not stilled since we came to sit here in the shadows. I can tell by the way that you twine my hair through your fingers that you fancy the bells of silver braided there, as a compliment to the trinkets that you display so proudly in your own mane, perhaps? From the way that your hands skim along the fabric and fret at the edges of the hem, I judge that the silk of my skirt pleases you. I dare say that the feel of my blouse, and what lies beneath it would please you as well.
Know this, good sir. I dance for my coin, or sing haunting songs to men in their cups; I tell the future for the lonely ladies and sad gentlemen of the islands and read the cards for superstitious men bound for the sea. I am no whore - I do not sell what is only mine to give, and when I do offer myself it is with a full and knowing heart.
I would take you to me now, if you will, and would taste the warmth of your smile and the bittersweet of your passion, until there is nothing left in either of us to give.
o o o o o
I am gone before the dawn, leaving him to sleep on the rough wool blanket that has served as our bed, covering him with the great coat to keep the morning chill from waking him. How long will it be before he notices the little silver bell that I braided into his hair while he slept, or wonders at the button that has gone missing from the cuff of his coat?
fini
JULY 3, 2005 FOLLOW-UP TO THE DRABBLE "LIKE UNTO LIKE"