Half an hour later I heard the familiar short toot of Mimo’s horn downstairs. I went to the window and gave him the sign… Narcisa was snoring softly and steadily now. I put the note I’d written on the table by her pack of cigarettes where she’d be sure to see it if she woke up and panicked… It said I’d be right back and for her to call me if she needed anything… Just in case she woke up. She woudn’t, God willing, but just in case.. Then I tucked her into the blanket and gave her a light kiss on the forehead.
“Dream with the angels, baby,” I whispered.
I picked up my keys and cell phone, put them in my pocket and went out the door.
“Sar san tu!” Mimo shouted cheerfully, greeting me in his familiar broken Brazilian Romani, flashing me a wide gold toothed smile as I got into his cab.
”Mixzto, prala!’‘ I said, giving him a hug and the customary kiss on the cheek. There were two other Roma I didn’t know sitting in the back seat.
Mimo introduced us and we all made the usual easy-going gypsy small talk, exchanging loose gossip and news of people and friends in the local Roma community as he drove us up the hill to Dolo’s place. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed as the tropical downpour came down. I was glad I’d had time to go back up there to Dolo’s house with a cleaning lady after the “incident” before he got back… God forbid he’d have come home a few days sooner and walked into a literal shit storm up there.
“You got your guitar, Mimo?” I said, turning to my old friend, guiltily hoping to change the mental subject and forget about the recent mess up at Dolo’s place.
“You know I got my girl, Nacho. She’s in back with Rico’s acordian… Rico is best Rom safoneiro in all the Brazil,” he said gesturing to one of the guys in the back seat.
The gypsy, a guy about my age with a full grill of gold teeth wearing a black felt hat and looking like he’d just stepped out of a caravan in the Ukraine just waved his hand modestly and laughed. He said something in a Northern dialect of Calao Chib Romani which I didn’t quite catch, my own grasp of the language of my ancestors being primative at best. For all that though, these local Roma had always treated me as one of their own, not as some bastard half gadjo mixed breed. I smiled back at the guy and stammered in my own broken Romani that I looked forward to hear him play.
Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.
(to be continued….)
honest, and beautiful, as usual…