Natalia’s Voyage
Near Przemyśl, Austro-Hungarian Empire
November 1887
Henry shivered. He sat down by the campfire. Snow fell on the leaf-covered ground in the field around him. The young man waited for Natalia to come out of her grandmother’s tent. It was dusk. Beyond the fire, their two voices could be heard yelling from inside the structure’s thick fabric walls.
Three months had passed since Malka had gone to her demise at Jasna Góra; Henry now found himself an unwitting traveler with Natalia’s troop. His Romanian language abilities were still a work in progress, and the youth couldn’t discern exactly what the gypsy leader and her granddaughter were discussing.
The whoosh of the tent’s flap reached Henry’s ears. He jerked his blue eyes in its direction. A gnarled hand pitched a curve-shaped box out onto the quickly whitening ground. It clattered end over end, causing the leather strap that held it shut to snap. The case came to a stop. Its lid fell open, revealing a reddish-brown violin.
A few seconds later, Natalia stormed out of the fabric structure, her gaze downcast. Golden Fingers’ bulbous form followed on her granddaughter’s heels. The woman stopped in her tent’s doorway. The Roma girl turned back to her grandmother.
“Whether you asked for it or not, Natalia, you will be expected to lead this Sălaşa one day. If you cannot get your priorities straight, I shall do so for you.”
The rotund woman glared at her granddaughter before dropping her right hand to her side. The tent’s flap fell back into position.
Natalia’s brown eyes looked over at the fire where Henry sat. She stalked through the rapidly accumulating snow towards the violin case. The gypsy girl kicked its lid shut. Henry raised his left eyebrow. He stood and walked in her direction.
“Hey, don’t take it out on the violin. What happened?” the blue-eyed youth asked in English.
“I tried to steal this without permission. I got caught. Masha had to, like, you know, distract the police so I could get away.”
Henry hunched his shoulders.
“Well, you could look on the bright side. At least you got away with a new violin. Besides, Golden Fingers kind of has a point. It doesn’t seem like you thought too much about what could happen.”
“Yeah I know, right? It was just, like, some stupid distraction.”
Henry shook his head.
“Um, that’s not what I meant. So what if you’re not the best thief in the camp? You’re a really good musician and a tough fighter. If your grandma has an issue with that, that’s her problem.”
Natalia glared at him.
“Quit talking like that.”
She pushed him out of the way. The girl stomped off in the direction of her wagon, leaving the instrument case lying open in the snow.
Henry knelt and picked up the violin case. The American-born youth tucked it under his arm. He sighed and followed Natalia, ascending the steps of the wagon he shared with her and Golden Fingers. The youth ducked as he entered the covered space.
The gypsy girl sat with her legs tucked under her thighs. She stared at the wooden floor. The blue-eyed youth placed the violin by the wagon’s entrance. After a few seconds, Natalia looked up at him. Her eyes burned with a fatigued nostalgia.
“Leave me alone.”
Henry shook his head. “I can’t. I live here too, remember? And the weather kind of sucks right now. So while we’re stuck inside, you might as well tell me what has you so bothered. Normally, you’re the one who whines about how your grandmother treats you.”
“It’s nothing, Henry. Just let it be.”
The blue-eyed boy’s expression fell. Natalia didn’t look away. His eyes explored her haunted face. Henry’s brow raised in realization. He moved to sit by her side.
“Natalia, what happened to your parents?”
The camp-born girl sighed heavily. Her brown eyes looked at the floor. She took in and released a few breaths. Henry waited beside her.
Eventually, Natalia reached over to the stack of sheet music that lay next to her sleeping pallet. Her long delicate fingers extracted a folio from the very bottom of the pile. The girl placed it in Henry’s hands. He raised his eyebrows at the smears that marred its score.
“How did this…?”
Natalia shook her head. A few more seconds passed in silence. When she spoke, all of the filler words that usually characterized her English speech were gone.
“Six years ago, my family and I spent a summer southwards, away from the Sălaşa. We were walking back from my final performance before heading back. My father shoved that piece of music into my hands….”
***
“Thanks, Dad.”
Natalia looked at the newest piece of music in her collection. Her parents and elder brother walked beside her down Kassa’s Hlavná Street. The three of them were fairly pleased with what they’d managed to accomplish over the past few months.
Natalia sighed. Her father observed the girl’s reaction.
“What’s wrong? It is the one you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Another sigh.
“All right, Natalia. Out with it. What has you so upset this time?” her mother’s voice echoed with a slightly sardonic note in the girl’s left ear.
Her brother, Mihai, moved to indicate the bulging sack over his shoulder. “Yeah, people are supposed to get nervous before they have to perform. That is, unless you happen to be my sister. Then you’re just worried all the time. Will you relax for once? Your act made a great distraction while we did our thing.”
“And you got a good amount of donations yourself.” Her father, who looked to be in his mid-thirties, smiled down at her. “You should be proud, especially at your age.”
Natalia directed her gaze to the violin case she carried in her left hand. Change jingled softly inside of it. The four of them strolled past the gray stones of St. Elizabeth Cathedral. The grand church’s hue mirrored the sky’s color. Summer had come to a close.
“I know. But still not as much as you, Mihai, or Mom.”
“You could look on the bright side, Natalia. You spent the past three months getting to perform while helping us meet your grandmother’s quotas.”
“I don’t know. Maybe grandma is right. I only do this because I couldn’t meet them otherwise.”
“Natalia, you have a talent you enjoy. We enjoy seeing you pursue it. Regardless of whatever issues my mother-in-law may have.” Her mother uttered the final sentence in a lower tone.
“I know that. But what’s going to happen when we rejoin with the Sălaşa? Grandma wouldn’t approve of this if she knew what we were doing.”
Her father laughed, making his deep baritone apparent. They turned right on a road that led to the train station.
“No, I imagine not. But your grandmother means well. I wouldn’t worry about that forever.” He smiled again at his daughter. This time she gazed up at him. “You, my daughter, are looking at the next Başbulibaşa of our camp.”
Her fourteen-year-old brother looked over at her with a sardonic smile on his face. “Right, and then after Dad, you’ve got me. Will you calm down already? Just give it a few years and you’re all set.” Natalia felt a similar look cross her features. A few moments passed in silence. The family passed Kassa’s main train station; they drew wary looks from passersby. A frown returned to the ten-year-old’s face.
“But, Dad. What if something happens to you? What if the police come after us? What if my grandfather finally comes for our Sălaşa? Or what if…?”
Her father batted a hand through the air. He shook his head. “Natalia, I swear you have got to be the biggest worrier I’ve ever seen.”
“Come on, Dad. Why did you stop her? I was waiting to see how many more ‘what ifs’ she’d come up with if you just let her run.”
Her father shook his head again. He continued to smile.
“The split took place over twenty years ago, Natalia. Nobody in our Sălaşa has seen a member of your grandfather’s troop since we fled north. As far as we’ve heard, they’re still in Romania somewhere. The police have yet to catch any member of this family. You’ve literally got nothing to worry about.”
The girl sighed. “Okay, I guess.”
The three kept walking. They reached the outskirts of town, turned left, and headed up a small hill that was mostly covered with leafless trees. Eventually, the quartet made it to a clearing where they had concealed their wagon and horse, which stood tied to an oak next to the conveyance. A frigid wind blew. A few white flakes began to fall from the slate-gray sky.
Natalia’s mother lit a fire and began cooking beneath a tarp that extended from the wagon’s side. Natalia’s brother and father inventoried the contents of their sacks, as well as the number of coins that had been donated to Natalia’s violin case.
The snowfall intensified. It began to obscure the leaf-covered ground. Natalia watched Mihai walk off into the quickly falling snow, she assumed with the intention of relieving himself before the weather got any worse.
“Not bad for a summer’s efforts,” her father said as he came back to where Natalia had taken a seat by the fire.
She plucked her violin, beginning to get her head around the new piece of music she’d gotten earlier that evening.
The girl looked up at him.
“Yes, Dad. It was.” Natalia sighed “Do we really have to go back?”
Her father smiled, slightly. “I know you don’t want to go back to theft lessons with your grandmother. But it doesn’t mean you can’t still keep practicing your music.”
Natalia allowed herself to smile at him. “I guess you’re right. There’s always next summer.”
“Dinner is ready, Mihai,” Natalia’s mother called from the other side of the fire.
Natalia’s brother remained nowhere to be seen.
“Mihai?” his mother called again from where they sat under the tarp.
Still nothing. The family continued to look towards the trees into the increasing dimness.
The crack of a branch snapping somewhere amid the forest ricocheted through the clearing. A distant rustling followed. A few seconds later, two uniformed men stepped out from the tree trunks. They had Natalia’s brother slung between them. Mihai’s arms were tied behind his back, his mouth gagged with a piece of black fabric. The skin of his neck was discolored with a reddish tone that suggested he’d been garroted from behind.
Natalia’s father immediately jumped to his feet. He stepped out into the snow. “What is the meaning of this?” he asked the policemen in Magyar.
The officers remained silent.
Natalia’s mother moved to stand next to her husband. “Why did you tie my son up? He hasn’t done anything to you.”
“He’s been accused of stealing,” the one on the right responded.
“That’s no reason to tie him up like that,” the boy’s father continued calmly.
“Let him go,” Mihai’s mother demanded.
The policeman who’d spoken handed Mihai’s struggling form to the other officer. He strode toward Mihai’s father. Natalia stood up, her violin still in hand.
“Let my son go,” her father stated quietly.
The officer took another step towards him. He extended his left arm, placing it firmly on the shoulder of the Roma man.
The gypsy continued to stand calmly in front of the officer.
A moment passed before the officer sneered. He nodded once to his partner.
Both policemen unclipped batons from their belts. The one who restrained Mihai raised the weapon high over his head.
The girl closed her eyes. Her mother shrieked; there was a wet crack. When Natalia opened her eyes, her brother lay on the snow-covered earth. A blunt gash took up his forehead. Deep crimson mingled with white crystals on the ground.
Her father put up his arm, attempting to block the arc of the second officer’s cudgel. Natalia’s mother rushed toward her fallen son. The policeman who had been occupied with him stepped into her advance. He raised the blood-smeared club over his head with both hands.
Natalia started towards her family. Then she noticed something that caused her to freeze.
Two brown eyes. Barely visible in the snowy darkness of the forest beyond. They gleamed with a frigidness Natalia had never experienced before. A certainty, the source of which she could not pin down, overcame her; she knew who watched the scene as if he were a choreographer appraising the performance of his own creation.
More blows assailed her parents. The girl wanted to look away. The eyes bored into her. She continued to watch, her feet rooted to the ground.
Her parents’ wordless screams continued. Natalia felt her arms move, slowly raising the violin to her chin. Her initial note carried a wavering intonation. Another followed, one full step down. Then another, three levels below the second. The music’s first phrase began to take form.
Her father screamed. A jump, one octave higher. The tone repeated once. Metal connected with her mother’s spine. Two steps down. Then another two. A wet fracture. A triplet that ended one level higher. A slur. Two more tones ascended. The phrase reached its terminus.
Natalia kept playing. The cold eyes pierced into her. Tears streamed down her face. She played and played until the mangled forms of her family were dragged away into the darkness beyond the clearing. The red smears on pure snow disappeared into the obscurity. Beyond them, the eyes continued to glare.
The officers returned from the darkness. Natalia wanted to move her legs. They wouldn’t budge.
The eyes began to come closer, moving into the clearing. Its relative light gave their owner form. Natalia saw who she knew she would:
A man about the same age as her grandmother, his skin tone identical to Natalia’s.
The slightly overweight features of his face remained set on the girl. She took in a breath. The officers were practically upon her, but she still couldn’t move or look away from the older Roma gentleman.
The eyes’ owner lent itself a voice. “Leave her,” it boomed.
The officers froze.
Their master stepped under the tarp, nearer to the fire. Natalia remained rooted in place. He knelt on his haunches. His pupils bored directly into hers.
“I have a message I want you to convey to your grandmother.”
He stood up, continuing to squint down at her. The older Roma grabbed the violin and bow from her grasp. He walked back into the snow toward the tree where the horse was tied. His hand swung the instrument in an arc. Its body smashed against the oak. Wooden shards fell to the snow-covered ground. The neck followed them. Next, the bow cracked in his palms before joining its counterparts.
“Tell Daniuta, the day is coming.”
The man turned his back on her, finally breaking eye contact, as if Natalia ceased to exist. The two policemen stood before him. The Roma gentleman reached into his inside coat pocket. He extracted two clipped piles of fifty-forint banknotes and handed one to each of the officers. They each nodded once.
The brown-eyed man walked back towards the forest. His form receded into the darkness until it seemed he had never been there. The officers followed into the nothingness. The snow continued falling. Crimson smeared the clearing’s white floor. Soon, even those marks were gone.
The ten-year-old Roma stood alone. Blood-soaked sheets of music at her feet.
***
“I stayed that way until the sun came up. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I had no idea what to do. Finally, I grabbed the sheet music, got onto the horse somehow, and rode north.”
Snow continued to fall outside as Natalia finished her recounting to Henry. She’d left out something about the eyes in the forest; a secret that remained too deeply held to confide. The girl stared hollowly towards the view beyond the wagon. Her voice choked as she finished.
“That was it. They’re gone now; I’ve got to become someone I was never meant to be. Anytime I try and think of my future, it all comes back in a flood.”
Henry’s mouth hung open. He said nothing.
Natalia looked at the floor, shaking her head. The girl brought one knee up toward her torso. She rested her forehead on it and sobbed quietly.
Henry reached toward the Roma girl. He encircled her in an embrace. She returned it.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
The gypsy girl clung tighter to him, as if grateful for his empathy. “It was so senseless.”
Natalia whispered what she knew to be a lie close to his ear. The two of them stayed that way for some time. Snow fell silently in the darkness outside. Between sobs, Natalia began to sing the same piece of music she’d played on the night her life had changed forever:
“Va pensiero, sull'ali dorate….”
Fly thought, on golden wings…. Henry’s mind discerned the English translation as he brushed his arm across her back. Her voice dissolved into quiet tears at mid-phrase.
Natalia surrendered to the memory she knew would damn her people’s future.