Echoes From a Distant Land (36 page)

‘He was not leading me,' Emerald said, interrupting. ‘I was leading him.'

This caused the sergeant to pause and regather his thoughts. ‘As I was sayin', I observed two persons leaving the main path by stepping over a rope line and removing themselves to the shrubbery behind the Agricultural Society's pavilion. I understood that the path led to nowhere in particular, so I followed same to inform them of this fact. When I got to where they were standing, I saw … ahem … the young man taking liberties with the young lady here.'

‘Liberties?' Dana asked.

‘Certain … um … liberties, ma'am.'

Dana turned to Emerald, aware that her face was as pale as her daughter's was flushed.

‘We were kissing,' Emerald said. ‘Actually, I was kissing him, and he, well …' She giggled. ‘He didn't know what to do.'

‘Emerald!'

Her daughter dropped her head and shrugged. ‘It wasn't anything … bad,' she said.

Dana turned back to the policeman. ‘And what did you do, sergeant?' she asked.

‘I enquired as to his name and address, mum.'

‘He gave him a nasty poke with his baton,' Emerald said, giving the sergeant a scornful look.

The policeman's top lip tightened a fraction. ‘I thought it a very poor state of affairs,
mum
. He and the young lady an' all. The chap's up at Oxford. Ought to know better how to behave 'imself. And Miss Emerald 'ere is only a child.'

‘I'm nineteen,' she said, pouting.

‘Emerald. I don't want to hear another word from you.' Turning back to the policeman, Dana said, ‘Thank you for your time, sergeant.'

‘I thought it best to be discreet, mum, but I have the young man's name and address. That is, if you are wantin' to take the matter further.'

‘I think not. Thank you again.'

Dana led the way to the front door, grateful for the fact that the butler had taken the day off to visit his ailing mother.

As she closed the door behind the policeman, she firmed her resolve. She had to take steps she'd been mulling over for some time. But first she had to talk with Oswald.

After Emerald went to her bedroom, Dana found her husband in his office, paddling among his papers. ‘Darling, I'd like to have a word to you about Emerald,' she began.

Oswald looked at her over his glasses. ‘Emerald? Certainly, darling. What's been happening in her busy life?'

‘The usual, but I've been meaning to discuss taking her overseas with me for the season.'

‘The season? Why, it's half over already.'

‘I'm talking about the next season, dear. In New York. It opens in September with the Metropolitan Opera. And then there's the international debutante ball in December. It would be so good for her, Oswald.'

‘How long would you be gone?'

‘The season runs through to Easter.'

‘Oh, but I shall miss her too much. And you, of course, my dear. What does Emerald think of the idea?'

‘I haven't asked her yet. I thought it best to discuss it with you first.'

‘Thank you; I'm glad you did. I really don't think she should be away so long. She's too young.'

‘Oswald, she's going on twenty.'

‘Good lord! Even so, another year or two shouldn't matter. Let's say you take her next year. Soon enough by far, if you ask me. Yes, when she's twenty-one will do.'

The Red Cross office was a converted factory in Beddington. It had two rows of tables in the middle of an open space and benches around the walls where the applicants for emigration assistance sat awaiting their turn.

Elsie, the woman who showed Emerald around, had her grey hair tucked into a hairnet, and wore a pair of white elasticised cotton sleeves pulled to her elbows to protect her cardigan against wear. When Emerald met her that morning Elsie had expressed surprise at her youth.

‘I thought all you young people would be working or at least looking for a job,' she said.

‘I don't need to work,' Emerald said, then regretted it. Elsie let her surprise show, but resisted further questions on the matter.

Elsie was very thorough in her briefing, paying particular attention to what she called the professional distance needed between the Red Cross volunteers and the refugees.

‘You know, my dear,' she said near the end of her briefing, ‘the Red Cross aren't always able to find a country that will take these poor souls. And many times we can't reunite them with their loved ones. There are cases where people have disappeared during the war and we can't find hide nor hair of them. Vanished into thin air, you might say.' She looked over her glasses to deliver her next words. ‘It would never do to become too involved, too friendly. It only leads to heartache.'

It was such a quaint sentiment, Emerald almost smiled.

‘Well then,' Elsie said, ‘you're ready to start.'

And she did, working through the rest of the morning and into the afternoon on emigration requests. Her tasks were simple enough: she helped the refugees complete their paperwork, checked their documentation and then, depending upon a set of guidelines Elsie
had given her, stamped:
Approval Recommended
or
Approval Not Recommended
on the form. The final decision was made elsewhere, but she enjoyed the sense of power her part of the processing gave her. On her say-so hung the future course of many people's lives.

She was becoming quite adept, even bored, with the repetitive nature of the work, and she began to think of her trip to Henley and the regatta the following week.

Her mother couldn't be reassured Emerald would be safe — by that she meant chaperoned — until she called Fiona's mother, who told her that Fiona's older brother would be there to supervise matters until she herself arrived on the weekend. He was a sensible young man, she said, coming down from Cambridge with a few friends to see the races.

Naturally her mother didn't know that Emerald and Fiona had arranged to meet up with the Oxford boys before then. Emerald allowed herself a little daydreaming about what a few days alone with Peter might look like. It was electrifying.

Things continued in the same vein with the refugees all afternoon, until a young man, wearing a brown hat and a black coat too large by at least two sizes, came forwards.

Emerald ran her eye over the front page. He was Goran Papasov, age twenty-four, originally from Czechoslovakia, but now living in a refugee camp at Heathrow.

The subsequent pages of his application were largely incomplete.

‘Are you having trouble completing the remaining questions, Mr Papasov?'

He shrugged. ‘No,' he said.

‘But you haven't filled in the section on which country you wish to emigrate to.'

‘It is not important. I do not care where I go.'

‘Do you have family members who have emigrated?' she asked.

‘I have no family.'

‘Then you have a choice. There are a number of countries taking refugees.' She consulted her notes. The Australian government were seeking labourers and skilled workers for something called the Snowy Mountains Authority.

‘How about Australia?' she asked.

He didn't answer.

‘Mr Papasov? Would Australia suit you?'

‘Do they have Romany people in Australia?'

‘Romany people?' She lifted her head from the form, but he did not meet her eyes; nor did he elaborate. He was a serious-looking fellow, dark eyes and hair, olive skin.

‘I don't understand,' she said.

‘Gypsies,' he said, and still he kept his face averted.

‘W-why does that matter?'

He finally looked at her, and Emerald almost flinched from the intensity of it.

‘Because we have been hunted to death everywhere else,' he said.

He looked angry. This situation had not occurred before. The confidence she'd built up during the day evaporated. She stared at him, lost for words.

‘Have you heard of the Nazis?' he asked, then added, after reading her name badge, ‘Miss Northcote-Middlebridge?'

‘Of course I have,' she answered, indignant in spite of her unease.

‘Then you would know of the Jews and the Holocaust.'

‘I don't see what the Nazis and the Holocaust has to do with your application to emigrate to —'

‘But you haven't heard of the persecution of the Romanies, have you?'

She hadn't, but refused to surrender any further ground.

‘Up to four million gypsies were exterminated during the war, but nobody really knows because most were illiterate and not registered in the camps. Nobody cared enough to count them.

‘You see, Miss Northcote-Middlebridge, Himmler also had a
Final Solution
for the gypsies. My family was sent to Auschwitz, to a special
Gypsy Family Camp
. A nice name, ah? Even better, my little brother was put in Dr Mengele's dormitory they called
The Zoo
. We never saw him again.

‘My father was part of a sterilisation experiment. He was bombarded by X-rays from two powerful machines day after day until the skin peeled from his private parts. My mother tried to save
him from the infection that was killing him by cutting off his genitals.' He paused, watching her reaction. ‘Of course, he died.

‘Few people know the Nazis' persecution was not the first, or the last of it. Do you know, for example, that here in England, the enslavement of the Romanies was only abolished in 1856? In France we were
branded
and our women's heads were shaved? Elsewhere we had our ears cut off so people would know a gypsy when they saw one.'

He sat back and folded his arms across his chest. ‘That is why I don't care where I go.'

Emerald felt ill and couldn't think of a response. Was there anything she could say to him to express her utter dismay?

‘But that's … that's terrible. Why haven't I heard of all this before?'

‘Because we gypsies are not rich, and we have no powerful friends to represent us. We are like nothing.'

Papasov dropped his head into his hands. Now that his anger and hatred had been spent, he went limp like a rag.

Emerald reached a hand to him, but stopped short of resting it on his shoulder. She felt useless, ashamed of her ignorance, and guilty because of her sheltered position of privilege.

She wondered if that was what Elsie meant by
heartache
.

 

Emerald and Fiona took the train to Henley for the regatta, but had a two-hour wait at Twyford for the connection. They took a stroll along the railway lines to kill time, and arrived at a field with dozens of carts and caravans.

‘Oh, it's gypsies,' Fiona said in a lowered voice, although they were still fifty yards from the nearest of them. ‘They swarm around Henley this time of year for the regatta.'

Emerald had seen gypsy camps before, but having met the gypsy refugee, she was now more interested in them.

‘Romanies,' she said, more to remind herself than to inform Fiona. ‘That's their proper name.'

‘Awful, dirty people. Let's go back.'

‘Look,' Emerald said. ‘There's someone wanting us to come.'

An old woman with a red and white head scarf was waving to them.

‘Come on, Emma, let's go back and wait at the station.'

‘I wonder what she wants.'

‘Your money, I suspect. Thieves, the lot of them. Don't look at her; let's just go.'

‘Wait a moment, Fiona. I've learned a bit about these people. I want to see what she wants.'

‘Emma, if you think I'm going anywhere near that gypsy camp, then you're quite mad. Now, I'm going back to Twyford station. Are you coming or not?'

Emerald looked at the old woman again. Even from where they were standing, her smile revealed few front teeth. She wore a tattered dark green cardigan and a blue apron.

Fiona was inclined to be bossy with Emerald. She decided to make a stand. ‘You go, Fiona,' she said. ‘I want to see what she wants.'

Fiona muttered something about rape and murder, and then stormed off.

The old woman smiled her toothless smile; and a scruffy toddler ran and hid behind her apron as Emerald approached.

‘Ah, eyes like emerald,' she said. ‘You very beautiful lady.'

‘Thank you.'

The urchin poked his head out and looked up at Emerald. When she moved to touch his head he dived for cover.

The old woman cackled. ‘Him not like English lady. You like fortune-telling?'

Emerald looked around the camp. It was empty except for a handful of tiny children and a few tethered horses.

‘Where is everyone?' Emerald asked.

‘Gone to Henley. You like me tell your fortune?'

Emerald looked back towards the path. Fiona was gone. Her fortune would be something to laugh about when they were together on the train.

‘All right,' she said, and followed the woman to a table and chairs set beside the caravan.

Emerald laid her hand, palm upwards, on the table. The gypsy woman took it; her skin was as dry as parchment, but she held Emerald's hand as delicately as she would a bird. She lowered her head over the table and began to mutter inaudibly in a foreign language. After some minutes, Emerald began to grow bored with the old woman's charade of authenticity.

‘Am I going to marry a rich and handsome man?' she asked, smiling.

The gypsy remained hunched over the table, mumbling.

‘Well? I haven't got all day, you know.'

The woman lifted her head and Emerald recoiled. Her eyes had rolled back into her head: with only the whites showing, she was a ghostly sight. Emerald shifted her chair, ready to rise and flee, but her hand was caught in the woman's now surprisingly strong grip.

‘I see … I … you. I see babies. Half black, half white.'

The white eyes stared at her, seeing but unseeing.

‘Who are these babies? Are they my babies?' Emerald asked, not sure what she thought now. It was too bizarre.

‘No. Black and white. Boy and girl. Black and white. Man and woman. They call … far away. They call you. I hear …
recha
.'

‘
Recha
? What is
recha
?'

The gypsy was silent for a long moment.

‘I hear
recha
.'

Her head nodded forwards. A moment later she sat up, eyes wide.

‘Are you all right?' Emerald asked, startled by the sudden transformation from white-eyed sleepwalker to haggard old woman.

The gypsy blinked, and cackled. ‘Two bob,' she said, her wrinkled hand turned up on the table.

‘Two bob!'

It was outrageous, but Emerald had no recourse. Thieves indeed. She stood up in a huff, angry with herself for succumbing to the rort. She tossed the two shillings onto the table.

‘Two bob for two minutes or so,' she muttered. ‘Highway robbery if you ask me.' She was about to leave, but turned back. ‘Anyway, what does
recha
mean?'

‘
Recha
?'

‘Yes, you said
recha
. What does it mean? In English.'

The old woman appeared puzzled. ‘In English it mean … I don't know how you say.'

‘Oh! Never mind.'

She stormed off.

 

Emerald arrived in Henley with Fiona, a day ahead of Peter and Michael. They found a group of about a dozen young men lounging about on their cottage porch. Fiona whispered they were some of her brother's friends from Cambridge. The young men pretended to take no notice of the girls, barely interrupting their conversations to be introduced by Fiona's brother, Laurence.

The men wore a mixture of the latest fashions: fedora hats, double-breasted pin-striped suits with wide shoulders and high-cut baggy pants in brown or navy. The wide trousers tapered down to very narrow cuffs sitting on spectator brogues in black-or brown-and-white, very popular for jitterbugging — the latest dance craze. Their short, wide ties were boldly coloured or striped. There were elaborate clasps to hold the ties and suspenders to hold up their trousers. Cigarettes hung from their mouths, Bogart-like, and their slicked hair was parted arrow-straight down the left.

They were all very sophisticated and similar, except for one, who wore what appeared to be worker's trousers of coarse blue denim and a polo shirt under an old knitted vest. He was tall, and had uncontrollable blond hair and an unfashionable moustache. His name was Raph.

‘It means
wolf,
' he said to Emerald when Laurence left them alone after the introductions.

‘I see,' she said, thinking that his face had something of an angular shape to it, wolf-like. ‘I have no idea what emerald means.'

‘Don't be fucking daft,' he said.

She flushed, but noted he was studying her closely. She controlled her response, which under normal circumstances would be to simply walk away, however she noticed there was a smirk lurking behind his guarded expression. She stayed, mainly because she didn't want to reveal she was shocked by such language.

‘It's your eyes,' he continued after it was obvious she wouldn't respond to his crudity. ‘Unless of course you were born in May, in which case you've been named after your birthstone. If you believe in that stuff.'