Gypsies I have known…

As a teenager, although I had long claimed a Gypsy heritage, that is, I knew I was at least biologically related to the Roma people as an ethnic group via my biological father; I still had little concept of what it was like to be among “my people,” much less observe their treatment by the rest of society.
However, in the Spring of 1995 I found my way across the Atlantic; first to work in a homeless shelter in London where I met quite a lot of Scottish and Irish Gypsies, dubbed “tinkers,” but it wasn’t until I backpacked my way through eastern Europe that I encountered Roma; first in Athens and later in Budapest, Prague, and Paris.
At a youth hostel in Germany, I was warned of various “Gypsy tactics” where a crowd of Gypsy children will surround the hapless traveler, and a Gypsy mother throws a baby at the traveler, who invariably scrambles to catch the baby, at which point the mother starts screaming that her baby is being kidnapped while the rest of the kids pick the poor backpacker clean.
I never actually saw this happen, but I heard the same story at a number of hostels, and I reckoned it must be some sort of urban legend.
In Budapest, a great open-air market lined the western bank of the Danube River, and there was a semi-permanent cluster of shops/huts at one end—the Gypsy end—the end I was warned to avoid by the “kindly” folks at the hostel in Pecs.
“They’re so dirty! And they’ll rob you blind if you’re not careful.”
I more or less ignored my hosts, and much to my amusement and secret delight, because I looked like one of them, I wasn’t even approached by any of the many panhandlers in the Gypsy market.
Ah! At long-last I fit in! Forever, it seemed like I would always be on the outside. Other kids when I was growing up in Montana thought I was Mexican or maybe Italian. I certainly didn’t fit the mold of fair skinned, blue-eyed WASP’s. But here, below the walls of the Imperial Palace, I passed within, if you can dig it.
In Budapest, I just saw my brethren as peddlers, beggars maybe, but as I moved on to Prague, where the largest music festival of the year was just kicking off, I was entranced (as many of their audiences were, no doubt) with the vibrant music and intricate dances the Gypsies performed, impromptu; deliciously medieval in the shadow of the great gothic cathedral; skipping in the moonlight across the cobble-stoned bridges.
Sadly, when I headed back to Western Europe, I chanced upon one of the darker realities of Gypsy life, this time in Paris, during the WWII Victory celebration mid-May (akin to America’s Memorial Day.)
Along the Champs d’Elysee, tourists could not help but fumble for a few bits of spare change every few blocks, because they were entreated with the most adorable puppy-dog eyes looking up from quaintly dirty, cherubic faces, mutely begging a franc or two, while the Gypsy child, sometimes no more than 2 or 3 years old, fingered a toy accordion.
At sundown, like something from Oliver Twist, an old Gypsy woman in a massive coat and dress arrived and gathered up each child and its earnings. The children disappeared into the folds of her cloak, just as she herself melded into the crowd of evening window shoppers and disappeared like smoke on the wind.
It was fascinating and terrible to watch, but what could I, a green-behind-the-ears kid from Montana, who just barely spoke enough French to get by in a café—what could I do to save those poor kids?
What child welfare authorities could I turn to?
Who would want to take care of a bunch of Gypsy kids (thieves, hoodlums, ragamuffins)?
Who was I saving them from?
What if they didn’t want to go?
Who the hell was I to make such judgments?
I stood there on the pavement beneath the Arc de Triomphe confused and upset.

I still don’t have the answers.

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Several years passed before I returned to Eastern Europe, this time spending the winter (sic) mostly in Bulgaria, although my friends and I spent the Christmas holidays in Budapest; traveling there via a Cold War-era train through the snow-choked Carpathian mountains. At one point we were stopped and boarded by “customs” (?) officers in Romania, who suspiciously scrutinized our passports, while we just so happened to offer them a smoke (read: 2 cartons of Marlboro lights) before the train was allowed to continue.
Budapest was freezing cold but cheerfully swathed in holiday colors and welcoming, and our spirits were jubilant.
On our second night, I met a beautiful, raven-haired Gypsy boy; graceful and sultry—he swept me into a passionate, 3-day fairytale romance. Even now, when the wind blows cold, and I have to huddle deep in my jacket to keep nature at bay, my thoughts turn to Tibor…
I pretty much ditched my American friends and went to stay with Tibor in his cold-water flat in Buda, which he shared with several other Gypsies. They were actually all from Serbia, refugees from the never-ending war which tore apart the former Yugoslavia during the 1990’s.
On New Year’s Eve, a dozen or so of his friends gathered at Tibor’s flat to celebrate. One guy brought a fiddle, another a flute; one of the girls had something like a tambourine, but it was strung with little bells rather than cymbals. They started pouring Raki—a plum brandy, which I was told was a traditional Romany drink, and we proceeded to get fairly pissed.
Tibor seemed out of sorts though, moody and restless. His friends invited us to join them to watch the fireworks at midnight down by the river, but he begged off, claiming a migraine. I was his guest, so I stayed with him, assuring him I didn’t need to go see the fireworks; that I dreaded the biting cold—that we could find more interesting things to do alone at his flat.
Still, he seemed nervous.
Tense.
Angry.
Suddenly, he shouted that his friends were just hanging on to a poisonous past with their folksongs and their bastard instruments—there was nothing good about being a Gypsy—that it was some sort of romanticized notion that someone—probably an American—he seethed, came up with to sell crappy packaged tours in Prague and Vienna.
He fumed, “They never bring the tours to the real villages—all broken down cars, and bombed out houses!”
“Except maybe someone wants to come and buy a baby to take back to the States or Canada. But any of the kids over 2 are fucked! Nobody wants a kid that old. Not even us.”
He told me bitterly about his father who left his mother to fend for herself after birthing a third child (him) and how difficult things were for his mother and grandmother to raise three kids.
The war.
Abruptly he asked me, “You want to go out, right? Go out dancing?”
I was at a bit of a loss. He seemed so angry, so bitter, “Yeah, okay, whatever you want to do—,” I stammered while he yanked on his coat and grabbed me by the hand, and we stumbled off into the cold.
At first, it seemed to me like we were just ambling aimlessly through the icy warren of twisting streets. He would start off in one direction, stop and swear, and then jerk me along another pathway, but eventually we came through a hunched-over passage at the top of the Imperial Palace. From a cupola on the outer wall, we had a spectacular vantage point, and we watched the fireworks burst over the Danube, sparkling streamers mirrored on the black, frozen surface of the river.
“I thought you wanted to dance,” he whispered tight against my ear.
I shrugged, but he towed me away from the fireworks, and we started wending our way down the outer wall. Before long I could feel a tremendous thumping—something very loud was beating up from the bowels of the earth. The curtain wall trembled.
“What the—?” I gasped, but he only grinned and turning a corner, we came to a heavy wooden door set into the base of the wall. He gave a secret knock (or so it seemed to me) and the door creaked open onto a stairway dropping into darkness. Tibor passed some money to the doorman and led me down into the catacombs of the Imperial Palace!
After my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I discovered a massive, pounding rave—thumping bass beats and screaming chords echoing in the sub-cellars and dungeons of the Palace!
Only a few candles and flashlights dimly illuminated the frantic, sweaty crowd, who writhed to the beats until invariably a fuse blew out, and amidst much swearing and shouting, the sound crew would manage to restore the music, eliciting a cheer from the crowd until the next one blew out.
The air was 3-parts cigarette smoke;1-part dust sifting down from above; the crowd violent, thrashing, gleeful, and crazed. I broke open the two glowsticks I had brought all the way from America, and I was an instant celebrity, pounded with cheers.
Tibor crushed against me, and we danced to hard-core Euro-techno-trance like there was no tomorrow. The Velvet Underground, indeed! and I was in heaven.
Dawn broke crisp and painfully bright when we staggered out of the dungeons at last, steam and smoke rising from our sweat-soaked clothes, which flash-froze into ice: glazed, cutting, denim-brittle.

On the flight home I tried to make sense of the bewildering holiday, one part laced with tradition—the other at almost hateful odds with the past.
I am still uncertain of what role, if any, I will or should or ought to play in reconciling the dichotomy. I tell myself it is in my blood, but I also ruefully acknowledge I have never danced with anyone quite like Tibor.
Dancing seems a good reason to get involved.