Colum McCann - Zoli

The soldier's uniform was crisp and gray. He had not yet seen us, but Grandfather couldn't help staring, watching his manner-a Rom knows another anywhere.

Grandfather pulled hard on my elbow. I turned away, but just then the young German soldier saw us and his face slid like snow from a branch. He could, I suppose, have walked away, but he hitched his rifle to his chest, cocked it back, stepped across and ignored, with no great difficulty, the pleading of my eyes. He stared at Grandfather, picked the toothbrushes out of his pocket one by one, and then replaced them just as slowly. A dog loped away to the side of us and the soldier aimed a kick at it.

And what is it you have to say? said the soldier.

What is it you want me to say?

The soldier prodded him in the chest, hard enough that Grandfather took a step backwards.

It was demanded of us that we give praise to Tiso and then, if required, to say Heil Hitler with a snap of the hand. Grandfather let the first of the salutes out easily. He had learned to say it so often that it had become as easy as a simple hello. Good, said the soldier, and then he stood waiting. The bobble in Grandfather's neck grew. He sucked in the skin of his cheeks, leaned towards the German soldier, and whispered in Romani: But you are one of us, you have colored your hair, that is all. The German soldier knew exactly what he was saying, but he thumped Grandfather on the cheek with the butt of his rifle. I heard the jawbone crack and Grandfather went down to the ground. He rose and shook his head and said: Bless the dear place your mother came from.

He was knocked down a second time.

On the third time, he rose again and said Heil Hitler and his boots snapped together smartly at the heels.

Do it again, said the soldier, and this time click your heels together better and while you're at it, salute.

This happened eight times. In the pocket of my grandfather's jacket, the toothbrushes were all bloody.

Finally the soldier nodded and then he said in perfect Romani: Thank yourself, Uncle, that you and your daughter are alive. Now walk on and do not look back.

Grandfather put his head on my shoulder and tried to clean the lapels of his jacket. Hold my elbow, he said, but do not look at my face.

Slowly he put one foot in front of the other on the steep, slippery stones. At the door of the streetwalkers, he leaned down and commenced to cleaning the toothbrushes in a puddle. A fly settled on the balding spot at the top of his long hair. He looked up and said an old thing, but in a new, weary way: Well, I guess the horses didn't shit, too bad.

I got married when I was fourteen. Petr and I had a quiet linking of hands under the trees. Stanislaus had picked him out for me. I had no choice. He was older than a rock, slow to walk, quick to sleep, but Petr was hailed as a violinist amongst our people. He was big-shouldered and still full-haired. And Conka was right, he could make his violin stand up and play, it still had rosin, we laughed at that, although I wept on the morning when the sheets were checked. The women all asked me about it, Eliska did not stop, but for a long time Petr's rough hands didn't lose their charm for me and, besides, I wanted to make my grandfather happy, that has always been our way.

I do not care for your protests, he said to me, but from here on, now that you're married, with no exception, you will just call me Stanislaus, do you understand?

I watched Stanislaus walk away to sit in a rough-hewn chair by the bushes. He fell asleep with a bottle of fruit wine in his jacket pocket, and, when he woke, it had spilled across his shirt. What's my name? he said. I laughed at him. Not much of a name, he said. I unbuttoned and changed his shirt. He fell asleep again. Petr walked across and righted Stanislaus in the chair.

Further along, down among the caravans, the wedding music began. Our names were called, the sound of my own so strange alongside Petr's.

The rest of the day still shines in my mind, but in truth it is not my own marriage that I remember the most now, daughter, no, it was the wedding of my heart's friend, Conka, that was, in the end, the most splendid affair of wartime. Her young husband, Fyodor, came from a family of wealth. He seemed to smile out loud as he walked along. The marriage was announced far and wide. Curfew was defied, and our people came, some on trucks, some on foot, some on horses, already tuning their instruments, and the harps had been dug up from the ground and cleaned, tuned, rosined. He wore silver bands of coins around his waist. Most everyone had visited the tailorshop in Trnava where the young man behind the counter liked us-he took the risk and made clothes without the fancy price of other tailors who didn't want us in their shops anyway.

Stanislaus picked out a thin tie and he put the Marx pin underneath one flap so that when he danced the badge jumped around. His jacket was light blue velvet. My own skirts were tripled over, the top one made of silk-better clothing than I had worn for my own wedding just a month before.

Petr had me sit at his right-hand side all the way through Conka's ceremony, and I did not leave, except to sing songs, my favorite was the one about the drunken man who thought he had seven wives when in truth he only had one, though he called her a new name each night of the week. It was a funny tune and my husband rose to his feet in pride, in his hat and waistcoat, and played alongside me. He tucked the violin against his shoulder, raised his bow with one hand, gripped the neck with the other, and a shadow of joy smoothed his brow.

We watched Conka and the sparkle of her as she stepped under the new brooms we held aloft. A few cars were lined up along the hedges, their lights shining. The white skin of the linden blossoms spun and caught and scented the ground. The moon was a half-cut apple above us, and just as white. The best animals had been slaughtered and the longest tables laid out leg to leg, filled with hams, beef rump, pig ears, hedgehog. Lord, it was a feast. Earthenware jars full of plum brandy. Vodka. Wine. So many candles had been hollowed out from potatoes that there were not enough insects to gather round them. Conka and Fyodor stood opposite one another. A few small drops of spirit were poured into their palms and they drank from each other's hands, then a kerchief was tied around their wrists. Afterwards they threw a key into the streambed and were wed. Conka unbound the kerchief and tied it in her hair. Feather blankets were laid out on the ground. We sat under the stars and we put a few coins in the bottom of a bucket so the money would get bigger under the moon. No Hlinkas came, no farmers walked up with pitchforks, it was the most peaceful night imaginable, with hardly even a raised word about dowry, mistrust, sin.

Men kept their blackened hands behind themselves so as not to dirty Conka's dress, and even Jolana's little Woowoodzhi, who was born strange, danced. It seemed to me that the night could have go on for more than the three nights it did; we were blind with happiness.

It was my first night drunk-I had not been allowed to drink at my own wedding. I whispered to my husband, Get rosin on your bow, Petr, and we went off into the night, that's exactly how it happened and, although I know that a wall to happiness is expecting too much happiness, it still makes me smile.

While there were times that I yearned for a softer face to touch, or a neck without folds, it was never shameful to think that I slept content with my neck at the crook of Petr's arm. He lay under the covers with a string vest on. I suppose I began to think that I too had suddenly grown older beside him. Between one moment and the next, chonorroeja, I had grown a lifetime. The younger boys looked at me and made jokes that I should not buy any green bananas for Petr. They each had the eyes of Bakro, my suitor, but I did not gaze their way.