Memorycemetery

“I’ve seen you where you never were
And where you never will be
And yet within that very place
You can be seen by me.
For to tell what they do not know
Is the art of the Romany.”

Have you ever thought about gypsies? What is it, being a gypsy: belong not to place but the road? Gypsies are famous for telling fortunes and for their craft, which is selling luck to everybody, while always insisting they have none. I tested this fact with an old gypsy woman selling amulets when I saw her last time: “What bâk the divvus?”-”What luck today?” “Kekker rya“-”None” was the reply, as usual, -”I never have any luck.” Being gypsy is like being a mirror that reflects all things but not itself, and shows you what it knows not.

That gypsy woman though knew her trade well, and was famous for her charm and luck bringing amulets: some were of very elaborated designs. I had to travel quite a way to meet her first time and once again few months later to take it; I have heard about people who waited for their amulets for years : “the time didn’t come yet”, or being refused to have one.

My one was a necklace; a string, made of a black thick horse tail hair, with silver coins, snake, a moon and stars on it and some knots; this string was adjourned with a little heart shaped nut and a chip of wood. “It will work as long as you believe in it”, said that woman. - “Never cut this string with knife and be careful not to lose it, otherwise your fortunes would be reversed”.

I had it for years since then. It worked fine, bringing me protection and good luck. I have quite a few amulets, from different places and serving different purposes, but to that gypsy’ one I grew attached and never let it go from me. I would never leave home without wearing it on my neck. If you think that I am superstitious, read this clipping from a newspaper dated around a century ago from my archives:

“By command of Queen VICTORIA, Mr. MARTIN, Director of the Institute for the Blind, has attended to the making a cradle for the newly-born child of the Princess of Battenberg. The cradle is to be made entirely by blind men and women. The Queen firmly believes that objects made by blind people bring luck.”

Anyway. I had in my possession a strange Hindu knife with an enormously broad blade, six inches across towards the end, with a long handle richly mounted in bronze with a little silver. I kept it in my library, along with other curiosities making up my small but carefully selected collection of artifacts.

Once I had met in England an Indian gypsy, a well known palm reader. He told me he had belonged to a wandering tribe or race who called themselves Rom, or Romani, who spoke Romani jib, and who were the Gypsies of the Gypsies, and had learnt his skill from them. He asked me to show his palm, after examining it for a while he concluded that I have something important what doesn’t belong to me. He asked me what it could be. At that moment I thought he was talking about my gift of fortunetelling, as I always felt I was rather drawn into this craft and assigned some powers, rather than chosen my path. Let’s leave the details aside; when I was leaving his place he told me we’d meet again. Few years passed since then. One day I received a phone call from him. He asked me if he could visit me… I invited him to my place without giving it a second thought. We had met, and after a short conversation he asked me if he could have a look at my collection he have heard of. We went to the library. As soon as we entered there, his keen black eyes rested on that Hindu knife. He studied it for a moment, and then said: “I know this knife. It is very old, and it was long in use; it was the knife used by the public executioner in Bhotan. It is Bhotanî.” I asked what it was, and learned that it had long been used in some place in the East for the express purpose of sacrificing young girls.

He asked me about there my knife came from. I told him, what I inherited it: my grandfather was into antiques’ business, and kept some of the things he came across; he bought this knife, as far as I knew, at one of the auctions in Germany: that auction was set to sell off one aristocrat’s collection, which apart of other items included a great number of executioners’ swords, some of which were used for centuries. That gentleman had a special fondness for this kind of bric-à-brac, and for many years collected them.

Suddenly he took out a knife. It was precisely like mine, but smaller. It was what we might call the feminine counterpart of my knife. As he came closer, I sensed some danger. He said: in other circumstances I would have kill you. But as long as it was not you, who took away our Bhotanî, and because you have a gypsy’ protection amulet on your neck (with these words he took the string of the amulet given to me by that old gypsy in his hand), I can not kill you.

He pulled the string a bit stronger, looked in my eyes, and said: you don’t even know how lucky you are. I froze, being hypnotized by his eyes and words. He cut the string with his “female” knife, took the amulet off my neck, picked my Bhotanî on his way out and left.

I have never heard about him since then.

Maria Cohen

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