Holy Fire (15 page)

“I had no idea Stuttgart looked so much like Indianapolis,” Maya said.

“You have visited Indianapolis?”

“Telepresence.”

“Oh, yes.”

She looked at the distant towers and sighed. “They say Stuttgart is the greatest city for the arts in the whole world.”

“Yes,” Ulrich said meditatively, “Stuttgart is very artificial.”

Large green hills surrounded the city. The hills were compacted rubble, from the former urban structure of
Stuttgart. Stuttgart had suffered very harshly during the plagues of the forties. Most of the city had burned down after the panic-stricken population had abandoned town. The scorched infectious wreckage had been demolished by the returning survivors, and Stuttgart had been entirely rebuilt during the gaudy and visionary fifties and sixties. The architects of the new Stuttgart had had nothing left of their past to restrain them, so they’d rolled up their sleeves in a fine biomodernist frenzy and attempted to create compelling icons for their own cultural period. People often got a bit hysterical when they were trying to prove to themselves that they had some right to be survivors.

The car left the highway. The drizzle had cleared off and a pale winter sun emerged. The hillsides were very nicely wooded in leafless young chestnut trees. Occasional chunks of stained concrete rubble broke picturesquely through the topsoil.

They parked and climbed out. Ulrich set the car off to wander by itself, to come when he called for it. “[The car will be much safer out on the roads,]” he said, slipping the netlink inside his shirt on a cord. “[We don’t want to park a car next to these people.]”

They headed uphill, through the young woods. They passed two men in patchwork brown leather coats, with dark beards, metal necklaces, earrings. The men sat under a large umbrella, on folding chairs beside a small wicker table. One of the men methodically photographed every passerby. The other was chatting into a cellphone in a language Maya couldn’t recognize. As he talked and nodded and grinned, he deftly twirled a yard-long alpenstock. The stick was nicely polished, hefty, very solid. It looked as though it had seen a lot of nasty use against the sides of people’s heads.

The two guards nodded minimally as Maya and Ulrich worked their way past them, up the slope. A trickle of Euro bourgeoisie were working their way through the trees, interspersed with big knotted crowds of the aliens,
who greeted one another with uncanny whoops of laughter.

They emerged in a clearing on the far side of the hill. The far slope had been taken over by big sloping black tents, smoldering campfires, and folding tables heaped with merchandise and junk. Dozens of used cars sat in roped-off lots, where gangs of bearded, beaded men in spangled hats and silver necklaces were loudly bargaining. Dark-eyed women walked through camp with bright striped skirts and braids and earrings and silver anklets. Astonishing numbers of children raced underfoot.

Ulrich was ill at ease, face tight, smiling mechanically. A lot of Deutschlanders picked their way among the junk tables, mostly young people, but they were far outnumbered by the aliens.

These people were truly extraordinary. She was seeing a cast of features on people’s faces like she hadn’t seen on any human being in forty years. Faces from outside of time. Crow’s-feet, age spotting, networks of crabbed lines. Women gone gray and sagging in ways in which women simply weren’t supposed to sag anymore. Ferociously patriarchal old men in barbaric finery whose walk and gestures radiated pride and even menace.

And the children—entire packs of shrieking little children. To see so many little children in one place at one time was very strange. To see large packs of children all from a single narrow ethnic group was an experience beyond the pale.

“Who
are
these people?” Maya said.

“[They’re
tsiganes
.]”

“Who?”

“[They call themselves Romany.]”

Maya tapped her ear. “My translator doesn’t seem to understand that word, either.”

Ulrich thought it over. “These people are gypsies,” he said in English. “This is a big gathering camp for European gypsies.”

“Wow. I’ve never seen so many people in one place who weren’t on medical treatments. I had no idea there were this many gypsies left in the whole world.”

Ulrich went back to Deutsch. “[Gypsies are not rare. They’re just hard to notice. The Romany have their own ways of movement and they are good at hiding. These people have been Europe’s outcasts for eight hundred years.]”

“Why aren’t the gypsies just like everybody else by now?”

“[That’s a very interesting question,]” Ulrich said, pleased to hear it brought up. “[I often wonder that myself. I might learn the truth if I became a gypsy, but they don’t let
gajo
do that. We’re both
gajo
, you know. You’re American and I’m Deutschlander, but we’re both just
gajo
to these people. These people are nomads, and outcasts, and thieves, and pickpockets, and swindlers, and anarchists, and dirty
lumpenproletariate
who don’t use life extension or birth control!]” Ulrich looked them over with a certain proprietary joy, then his smile slowly faded to a deeply troubled look. “[Still, all those fine qualities don’t prove that they’re entirely romantic and wonderful.]”

“Oh.”

“[We’re trying to sell these people some stolen property,]” Ulrich reminded her. “[They’re going to try to cheat us.]”

Three Romany men passed them, carrying a lamb. A crowd of gawking
gajo
gathered quickly. She couldn’t see over the shoulders of the jostling men, but she heard the lamb’s last anguished bleat, and the crowd’s eager gasp. Followed by delighted gasps and groans of shock and titillation.

“They’re killing that animal over there,” she said.

“[Yes, they are. And skinning it, and gutting it, and putting its carcass on a stick, and roasting it over a fire.]”

“Why?”

Ulrich smiled. “[Because roast mutton tastes lovely. A
little bit of mutton can’t hurt you.]” His eyes narrowed. “[Also, eating the animal makes you feel better about the dirty pleasure you took in seeing it killed. The bourgeoisie … they will pay well to eat a thing that they saw killed.]”

At the base of a nearby hill, a gypsy did public stunts on a motorcycle. His ancient and incredibly hazardous vehicle had no autopilot of any kind. The spitting, fluid-powered machine beat its combustive pistons with a bestial roar and spat blue clouds of toxic smoke.

The gypsy stood on the seat, did handstands on the handlebars, roared up the hill and down, zipped up a ramp and flew over an iron barrel. He wore boots and a spangled leather jacket and he had no helmet.

At last he leapt deftly from the machine and flung his arms wide and did a brisk little jig on the damp tire-torn earth.
The gajo
were stunned by the man’s insane courage. They applauded wildly. Some few of them threw a thin scattering of little gleaming disks. A young Romany boy picked them eagerly from the dead winter grass as the hero wheeled his brutal machine away.

“What did they throw at him?”

“[Coins. Silver coins. The gypsies are silversmiths. You deal in old coins if you want to deal seriously with gypsies. Their use of coins deeply confuses all modern taxmen and auditors.]”

“A black market in old metal money,” Maya said. “That’s
klasse.
” She tasted the word. “
Klasse
. Super.”

“[Yes, today we’ll be bartering our tiresome bunch of stolen luggage for some silver coins. Coins are easier to hide and store and carry.]”

“Will they be genuine silver coins? I mean, genuine historical European currency?”

“[We’ll see. If some gypsy tries to pick our pockets or break our heads, then yes, they’re probably real coins. Otherwise, they’re useless slugs. Lead. Fakes.]”

“You’re making these Romany people sound really awful.”

“Awful? What makes them awful?” Ulrich shrugged. “[They never declared a war. They never started a pogrom. They never enslaved another people. They have no God, no kings, no government. They are their own masters. So, they despise us and they rob us and flout our rules. They are an alien people, truly outside society. I’m a thief and you’re an illegal, but compared to them, you and I are spoiled children of the polity, we are nothing but amateurs.]” He sighed. “[I like the Romany and I even admire them, but to them, I’ll always be just another
gajo
fool.]”

The gypsies were selling paper flowers, clothespins, carpet beaters, brooms, coconut mats, quilts, old clothes, used tires, car upholstery. Some of the tables offered luck charms and herbal perfumes and various weird species of curdled tincture. The gypsies seemed fanatically attached to their aging cars and trucks, their bulging multicolored trailers all plated and enameled. There were even some sheep on exhibit, clipped and groomed like museum pieces, and some horses in jingling harness that looked as if they were meant to do actual horse work.

Spirited bargaining was going on, with a lot of arm waving and beard stroking, but not many goods were actually changing hands. What’s more, the women posted at the tables didn’t seem to be taking retail work to heart. “Ulrich, this is really interesting. But this isn’t major economic activity.”

“[What do you expect? There aren’t any efficient, industrial gypsies. Gypsies who get efficient and industrial don’t stay gypsies.]”

“I can’t believe they’re not on extension treatments. They don’t get checkups or anything? Why not? Why do they want to live and die like this? What’s really driving them?”

“You’re very curious, treasure.” Ulrich crossed his fleecy arms. “[All right, I’ll tell you. Fifty years ago, there were gypsy pogroms all over Europe. People said that
dirty gypsies carried plague. They said the gypsies broke the quarantines. And people, absolutely normal civilized European people, picked up hatchets and shovels and chains and iron bars and ran to Romany ghettos and Romany camps and they beat the Romanies and tortured them and raped them and set fire to their homes.]”

Maya felt stunned. She gaped at him. “Well, those were dreadful times. All kinds of aberrations …”

“No aberrations at all!” Ulrich declared cheerfully. “[Racism is very authentic. Despising other people and wanting them dead—that’s a dear and precious thing to the human soul. It never has to be taught to anyone. People do it every single chance they get.]”

He shrugged. “[You want the real truth about gypsies? This is Europe, and it’s the end of the twenty-first century. The people in power today were alive sixty years ago, during those plagues and those gypsy pogroms. Today, they don’t kill gypsies. No, today, when they notice the gypsies at all, they act like superficial sentimentalists and genteel snobs who need a feudal relic to coddle and patronize. But another pogrom would happen tomorrow if there were another plague.]”

“That’s a dreadful thing to say.”

“[Dreadful, but it’s very true. The Romany probably
were
carrying the plague, Maya, that’s the funny part. And you know something even funnier? If the Romany weren’t complete racial chauvinists themselves, then we’d have absorbed the last one of them centuries ago.]”

“You’re being very nasty, Ulrich. Are you trying to shock me? There aren’t going to be any more plagues. The plagues are all over. We exterminated every one of the plagues.”

Ulrich snorted skeptically. “[Don’t let me spoil your fun, treasure. You wanted to come here to do business, not me. You have the list of goods, don’t you? Go see if you can sell something.]”

Maya left him. She gathered her courage and approached
a gypsy woman at a table. The woman was wearing a patterned shawl and smoking a short clay pipe.

“Hello. Do you speak English?”

“A little English.”

“I have some items that are useful to travelers. I want to sell them.”

The woman thought this over. “Give me your hand.” She leaned forward, minutely examined Maya’s palm, then sat back down on her folding canvas seat. She puffed a blip of smoke. “You’re a cop.”

“I’m not a cop, ma’am.”

She looked Maya up and down. “Okay, maybe you don’t know you’re a cop. But you’re a cop.”

“I’m not
polizei.
”

The woman pulled the pipe from her mouth and pointed with the stem. “You are not a little girl. You dress like a little girl, but that’s a lie. You can fool the little boy over there, but you don’t fool me. Go away and don’t come back.”

Maya left in a hurry. She was badly shaken. She began to hunt for someone dealing at a table who wasn’t a gypsy.

She found a young Deutschlander woman with styled reddish hair and bee-stung lips and a big consignment of used clothes. This situation looked a lot more promising.

“Hi. Do you speak English?”

“Okay, sure.”

“I have some things I want to sell. Clothes, and some other things.”

The woman nodded slowly. “That’s a nice jacket.
Très chic.
”

“Thanks.
Danke.
”

The woman stared at her in forthright Deutschlander fashion. She had two precise arcs for brows and long crimped lashes. “You live in Munchen, yes? I saw that jacket at the Viktualienmarkt. You came to my shop twice, to look at clothes.”

“Really?” Maya said, with a sinking feeling. “I’m staying in Munchen, but I’m just passing through.”

“American?”

“Yes.”

“Californian?”

“Yes.”

“Los Angeles?”

“Bay Area.”

“I could have guessed San Francisco. They do that work in polymer. You know, they could have done that jacket in Stuttgart in just a few hours. Better, too.”

Ulrich came over. The woman glanced up at him. “Ciao Jimmy.”

“Ciao Therese.”

They began speaking in Deutsch. “[New girlfriend?]”

“[Yes.]”

“[She’s very pretty.]”

“[I think so, too.]”

“[Trying to move some product?]”

“[Not to you, treasure,]” said Ulrich glibly and in haste. “[I’d never move product in Munchen, I don’t burn people where I live. She doesn’t know any better, so that’s why I came over to stop this. No harm done. All right?]”

“She called you ‘Jimmy,’ “ Maya realized.