It is estimated that between 220,000 and 500,000 Romany people were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators between 1939 and 1945.
By the time Hava and I reached my side of the city the moon was out, the early evening light a pale blue. I looked at the shadows of trees branching out, their wide shapes dusting the buildings. Tendrils of low mist caressed the ground.
The people in the streets seemed less frantic. There was an odd moment of calm.
‘The silence, Simone,’ Hava exclaimed. ‘Do you hear the silence?’
There was no sound: no cars, no one selling bread. The bakery, the fishmonger, the butcher all closed, their empty windows covered with dark shutters.
‘We must hurry.’
Hava and I walked briskly beside each other, her hand in mine; the hand of a pianist, an artist, or potter; the hand that washed her hair, picked lilacs, held a book or two. Hava could have been a conductor of a grand symphony. I was grateful she was my friend.
As we walked there was a sudden, vague jingling in the distance.
‘Do you hear that, Simone?’
We stopped walking. Hava let go of my hand and held her hand to her ear. ‘I hear them!’
‘Who?’
‘Listen, Simone. They’re getting closer.’
There was a distinct jingle and jangle. Bayonets? Helmets? Belts of bullets and brass medals on proud chests? I folded my arms, ready to protect my arms, ready to flee the advancing Nazis troops.
‘They will not cut off my arms, Hava. I won’t let them.’
‘Who?’ Hava said.
‘The Nazi soldiers. They’re coming, I hear them too.’
The approaching noise included wheels against the cobblestones, pots and pans clanking together, the hooves of horses in a slow cadence.
‘Simone, they aren’t soldiers. They’re gypsies!’
I had been on my way to school the last time I’d seen them, before the war began: two brightly painted horse-drawn wagons full of gypsies.
The wooden wheels bounced on the cobblestones and the buckets and tools that hung from the rear made a magical clatter. The horses had paper flowers stuck in their harnesses, just over their ears. Beautiful brown women, their heads wrapped in colourful silk scarves, leaned out of the small windows. Barefooted, curly headed children ran alongside.
I had been enchanted! For a girl painfully conscious of the narrow limits of home and school, the gypsies had brought awareness of the open road, the reality of other, more exotic cultures . . . the possibility of freedom.
‘Look, Simone. Gypsies!’ Hava repeated, as a brightly coloured wagon appeared under the linden trees; a brightly coloured wagon that looked like a little house on large wagon wheels. The wheels were painted yellow. The side of the ‘house’ was decorated with scrolls of swirls and lines. I remember the images of fruit and horses, birds and vines. The paint was maroon, dark blue, and green. Two strong, colourful horses pulled the wagon through the rising mist. A man sat high atop the wagon, guiding the horses with reins that were entwined with strings of little bells.
‘I don’t think they’ll hurt your arms, Simone,’ Hava said as we watched from the side of the road.
The wagon made its way up the street and as its shadow passed over Hava and me, the man at the reins looked down, nodded, and drove on. As it continued, a small door at the back of the wagon opened and a girl, wearing a bright purple dress and a crown of wildflowers, stood in the door frame. She waved, smiled, and then blew us a kiss.