Gypsy Heroine

By Pablo Zaragoza

Pablo Zaragoza looks at another group of people facing persecution by the Nazi regime. In Gypsy Heroine, he weaves World War II history throughout the story of a gypsy grandmother living in self-imposed isolation in England. Her granddaughter – born of her estranged daughter who had distanced herself from her gypsy heritage and married an American – travels to Lancaster to broaden her understanding of her ancestry. In the process, around a campfire in the woods, she listens with rapt attention as her grandmother weaves heroic accounts of her attempts to rescue fellow gypsies from the Nazis. More surprises are in store for both.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pablo Zaragoza
• Release date: Mar 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215438480

Book preview

GYPSY HEROINE

Pablo Zaragoza

To my family – my children, father, mother, brother,

uncles, and cousins – whose stories inspire me to write.

Special appreciation to Susan Giffin for

her excellent first-line editing of all my books.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Epilogue

About The Author

Also By Pablo Zaragoza

Copyright

PROLOGUE

I had to pinch myself to realize I was almost in England, a country with ancestral ties. My mother, Rosella, had left there when she was just eighteen, running away with Dad who was a U.S. Air Force mechanic. They met at a pub where she was working. I was one of those full-grown premature babies that servicemen and their wives have when they’re posted abroad.

The reality set in quickly when I landed at Gatwick Airport in the evening and picked up my rental car, a small Peugeot 505GTI. It took a bit of getting used to sitting in the driver’s seat on the right side, not to mention driving on the wrong side of the road. The speed signs seemed more like suggestions, and cars zipped by me in a blur. For some reason, though, it felt natural, like I had come home.

I checked in at a charming inn, took a short nap, and then went to the dining room for traditional roast beef and mashed potatoes dinner, complete with Yorkshire pudding. I couldn’t resist trifle for dessert. It was beyond my expectations. The wait staff was most gracious to this stranger in their land. Map at the ready, I planned my route to Lancaster, home of my maternal grandmother, Kezia Fanna.

The next morning, I enjoyed a hardy English breakfast: bacon, eggs, toast, tomatoes, and mushrooms. Then, with a bellman’s directions, I found my way to M40. I skirted most of the hustle and bustle of London and traveled for two and a half hours to the manufacturing city of Birmingham. The scenery along the way was beautiful, especially the rolling green fields with stone walls and small towns with flowers everywhere. The English must love flowers! They adorn even the smallest front yards. Birmingham now is known for more than manufacturing and sprawling canals. It’s also a mecca for rock music and international cuisine.

One of my early impressions was how old the buildings were. I felt I was stepping back in history. In the United States, old buildings are expendable for parking lots and modern mini malls.

I stopped at an ivy-colored tea shop. A rosy-cheeked lady with grey hair served tea and a scone with clotted cream and strawberry preserves on lovely English bone china. I noticed the china patterns did not match: my cup and saucer, the little teapot, the plate of scones, and the jam dish, all varied but eye-catching. I sipped slowly and chatted briefly with the lady.

I was eager to complete my trip, so with no time to browse in the local shops, I headed north on M6 to Lancaster. In that two-hour leg of the trip, my excitement grew.

My mother had dismissed my grandmother as an old gypsy who lived in the woods. It was best to let the old woman rot there. Mother said her father, a tall, tanned gypsy, had left one afternoon while Kezia was napping. Her mother raised her. One day at the age of sixteen, Mother packed up and left. Young raklies, gypsy girls, do that because they get tired of living alone in the woods. It didn’t sound like any traveling folks I had ever read about in books or in my work as a journalist.

Mother met my father, Henry, an American from Ames, Iowa, at the RAF Menwith Hill Air Force Base not far from Leeds. They married and went to the United States, essentially making her an outcast to her own people because she married a gorjo (a white non-gypsy).

Whenever I raised the subject of gypsies, my mother would yell at me, Gypsies are the scum of the earth: thieves, prostitutes, and vagabonds. You don’t need to know anything else about them. You are an American. Be proud of that.

I was proud to be an American: The Fourth of July with fireworks, Thanksgiving with turkey and stuffing, and Memorial Day parades gave me a day off now and then, but I wanted to know why my skin was a little darker and my eyes black like tar. I have few of ancestral Scandinavian traits from Father: no blonde hair, no blue eyes, but I did like lutefisk, a dried whitefish cured in lye. I learned how to eat it when I visited Dad’s parents on a farm in Iowa.

My father’s people were good Midwesterners, reserved and hardworking, but who were these wild, free people, the Romani, residing in wagons and living off the land? I couldn’t believe that they were all thieves and prostitutes just off the grid. Not knowing my grandmother made me feel incomplete.

Mother was wrong about gypsies, at least those in America. The Roma came to the states in the 1880s as coppersmiths, and the Romanichal Travellers (English gypsies) were involved in the horse trade. After World War I, they were basket weavers and crafters of rustic furniture. There were many others from Bosnia, Austria, and Russia, all looking for a better life in America. Some, like the Lun, settled in big cities like Maspeth, a section of Queens, New York.

Navigating a car in England can be tricky because there are few if any road signs, making it easy to get lost. Finally, after many twists and turns and a little backtracking, I saw a clearing off one of the dirt roundabouts on the outskirts south of Lancaster. There, surrounded by towering trees, was a vardo, a wooden wagon with doors in front and back and wooden wheels reminiscent of Conestoga wagons that had crossed the America in the 1800s. The exterior had intricate patterns of bright colors in shades of blue, gold, and red without a single black line. Surrounding the vardo were herbs, flowers, and shrubs. It looked like it had been there for many years.

I parked the car on small white stone gravel and walked up to the vardo. A woman poked her head out and yelled, Who the bloody hell are you, and what are you doing on my fucking property?

The face was tan and smooth with only a few crow’s feet around her eyes and a firm chin. A bright purple scarf covered her head, allowing her hair, a mixture of gray and black with a few blonde streaks, to flow down her back. She looked like a snarling pirate in an old movie. A ring of gold coins dangled from the edge of her scarf to keep it in place.

She came down the steps, wrinkling her nose and flashing fire in her eyes. She wore a multicolored full-length skirt with a belt made of gold coins. Her blouse was red, yellow, and purple in patchwork designs and fabrics, as was her apron. Although on in years, she walked erect and proud. Her figure was of that of a young woman. Her hands were calloused, her fingers long and slender, and her long fingernails polished a flaming red.

She came closer to me and looked me straight in the eye. I know this face. It is my face when I was a young woman, she said.

I hope it is. I’m your granddaughter, I told her forcefully, showing that I was not afraid.

She placed her cold hands on my cheeks. I could see age spots among the wrinkles and two scars on her right hand. She kissed me profusely. Your mother?

She’s in America and works as an accountant.

Your father is Roma?

Roma? I asked.

Gypsy.

No, he’s a white American.

I guess it was good that she married outside the tribe. Her father was a pig. I threw him out years before your mother left. Several years back, they came to tell me he was dying from cirrhosis of the liver due to excessive drinking. I went to see him. His belly was huge and his eyes yellow. He looked at me and said, ‘I forgive you.’ I spat in his face and walked out. He should have asked for my forgiveness, the swine. Your name, child. What is your name? she asked in a tender, loving voice.

Mary.

She grabbed my hand and led me up the stairs. The interior was as ornately painted in the same hues inside as it was outside. A small cast iron stove stood on one side and a large feather bed in the back. A chest of drawers had been built into the wall, and an armoire had a full-length mirror. The place was extremely tidy. She opened up the skylight, making it seem like the sky was falling on top of us. She opened the two windows on each side of the vardo and let the pine-scented breeze fill the indoors.

She quickly put a kettle on the stove to boil water. She served tea Arabic style in a glass without milk but plenty of sugar. We sat on pillows on the floor. She stared at me again for the longest time. She finally broke the silence. So, little one, why have you come to see this wrinkled old piece of shit?

Grandmother, you are so much more than a few wrinkles. I wanted to know you, not just what Mother said about you.

I’m sure she wasn’t happy when she heard you were coming here.

No. She said that the only thing I would get were fleas and old stories about how hard it is to be a gypsy.

You came anyway, but why? Just looking at you I see the Fanna fire in your blood, not accepting things as they are but wanting them better.

I want to know about my people.

You are American. Those are your people.

Yes, Dad is German, Swedish, and English, but I don’t know about Mother’s people.

"There was a time when up to a hundred families banded together and formed kumpanies (bands). We helped one another; we had community as we traveled from place to place. We’d elect a voiode, a chieftain, who served for life, and a phuri dai, a woman who looked after the welfare of women and children, but all of that is gone. The modern world needs doctors, nurses, electricians, and computer scientists, not tinkerers, brickmakers, thieves, and fortunetellers. Most of our stories have gone into the wastebin of history. We were always a marginal people, not really belonging, having no country of our own, moving from place to place."

Grandmother, I came here to learn about our family, about what our people have endured.

I will tell you what I know, but promise you will stay here with me. I don’t go into the village except to buy tea and a few other things. There are all kinds of people living there now: white, black, and brown. It has changed so much.

I’ll stay with you and record everything you tell me.

I don’t mind.

She took me outside and started a fire in a campsite. The stars were twinkling, and here in the woods, I could see thousands of them. Sparks came from the burning embers and swirled around in the fire. She brought an iron kettle from behind the vardo. When she returned with some meat, a large Irish Wolfhound followed her. His name is Cesar. He’s big, but he won’t hurt you.

She made a rabbit stew, which I’d never had before. She minced garlic and red peppers with onion and cabbage. She skillfully cut up the rabbit, so all the meat was in the iron kettle and none on the bone. She threw a few of the bones for good measure, she said to give it more flavor, and the rest of them she gave to Cesar.

What kind of work do you do? she asked.

I studied journalism at the University of Iowa and worked for a newspaper in Des Moines.

She said she was very proud of me and my mother. She thanked God that we both had found happiness.

It was late when we slipped under the covers on the big bed. Before dozing off, she said, Tomorrow, we’ll start at the beginning. I know that both of your grandmothers love you.

I felt warm in this place with a woman I didn’t know. She had accepted me because I was family, no questions asked, no need for a photo ID. Good enough was my word and the fact that I looked like her.

CHAPTER ONE

As soon as Grandmother’s head touched the soft down pillow, she fell asleep. She didn’t snore or toss and turn, which I appreciated. It took me a while to fall asleep, looking through the skylight to see shooting stars now and then. The constellations whirled overhead. I kept hearing noises under the vardo, perhaps some animal trying to keep warm from the cool night breeze or Cesar trying to get comfortable.

I heard an owl hooting and leaves rustling. Every sound sent chills up and down my spine, wondering if some animal might find its way inside and maul us. I was a big baby, scared of little noises. Mother disliked camping because it reminded her too much of gypsy life, and so we never went. Her idea of roughing it was staying at Motel 6.

After a sound sleep, I awoke to the aroma of coffee and sizzling bacon. Grandmother had set out a small neatly folded skirt and blouse on the bed. I picked them up and went to the door. She was by the fire, tending the bacon.

Good morning, I said.

She looked up. Ah, I see you found the clothes. They should fit. There is a water cabinet behind the vardo. The water is cold, but Roma women have been showering in cold water since the beginning of time.

I smiled as I walked down the steps. I went to two wooden cabinets: one, an outhouse which I’d seen only in pictures; the other, an open shower with a wooden barrier for privacy, save for a watchful blue jay on an overhead pine bough. It wasn’t really a shower, just a cane-shaped pipe without a showerhead. I turned on the faucet, and a burst of freezing cold water hit my body, almost knocking me down as I shrieked. Goosebumps covered my body, and my teeth began to chatter.

You all, right? Grandmother asked.

Yyyeeesss!

I grabbed the soap hanging from the faucet and quickly lathered myself. I was shivering uncontrollably as I walked out of the stall and noticed there was no towel. I yelled, Grrrannndddmotherrr, no towwelll.

She hurriedly brought a towel and rubbed me down. Poor child, I’m sorry. What was I thinking? You’ve never had to shower in the woods. I’m sure you live in a nice house with indoor pump and a water heater. Grandmother lives out here with none of those luxuries.

I took the towel from her and wrapped my hair. I put on the orange and purple outfit, although the hem of the skirt touched the ground, a bit too long for this modern girl.

She stood there watching me. Finally, she said, Your mother ever tell you that you look a lot like me when I was young?

To be honest with you, she didn’t speak much about you or being gypsy.

First, listen. Before breakfast, don’t use that word; it’s derogatory.

Why?

When the Roma people came to Europe, since we were dark-skinned Arab-looking people, folks thought we were Egyptians, and so they called us gypsies for short. It didn’t matter to them that we didn’t speak Arabic. Over the centuries, that word has meant thief, vagabond, whore, and fortuneteller.

Then what should I tell people who I am?

"You are Roma. Be proud of that name because it means you are free!" She said it with much gusto and pride.

As we walked over to the campfire, I saw chickens in the backyard pecking away at the ground. Two goats were tied to an apple tree, and a pen was home to several rabbits. I guess I knew where the rabbit had come from that I ate last night. I squatted next to the fire, still cold from my shower and from a breeze coming from the North.

As I stood up, Cesar jumped up and put his paws on my shoulders. He must know you are family. He doesn’t do that with just anyone. As she said this, she put several spoons of sugar into a tin cup of black coffee and handed it to me.

Two wooden chairs stood next to the vardo. She moved them fireside, and as she did, Cesar scooted under the vardo. After a while, he came out and stretched, smelling that the bacon was done, I guess. He looked at me with a sad face.

As Grandmother handed me a plate, Cesar almost put his face in it. Grandmother pushed him away. Bad dog! That’s not for you. He walked away, hanging his head low until she gave him a rasher. He licked her face as if to thank her for the treat and to see if there was any more.

Cesar, go eat your breakfast like a good dog.

She turned to me, He eats more than I do.

Grandmother poured a second cup of coffee for me. The cup was so hot, I almost burned my lips. She noticed that I winced. Blow into the cup to cool it down. I guess you never drank out of a tin cup.

This is the first time.

I guess you’ve never had freshly laid eggs or butter made from goat’s milk. I don’t like to keep pigs, so I get bacon from a market in town.

I never knew that goat’s milk could be made into butter.

Child, your mother grew up on that, and on fresh eggs, rabbit, deer, and hedgehog. The Roma eat what the land provides.

Well, when you make hedgehog, don’t tell me, I warned.

She laughed a deep hearty laugh.

When I finished breakfast, I went to the rental car which was small enough to navigate narrow country lanes. I took my overnight bag from the boot, the English term for trunk.

I walked back to my chair and sat down. I reached inside my bag for my small hand-held cassette recorder. I took out a steno pad and pen to jot down questions that came to mind for me to ask her later.

Grandmother looked at me curiously. Child, what are you doing?

Getting ready to interview you.

Interview? I’m just going to talk about our people. I’m nobody, certainly not the prime minister or president. I’m just an old woman.

To me, you are much more. You are my grandmother, and I want to know everything about you and our people.

Her almond-shaped eyes began to tear up, and the drops rolled down her cheeks.

I never thought I’d ever hear that.

What?

Someone calling me Grandmother. It’s a beautiful sound, especially coming from you. She came over and hugged me, tears spilling on my blouse.

She went back to her chair, picked up her cup, and took a sip. What do you want to know?

Where we do come from, who are we, why is there no written history of us? I want to know it all.

"Our language is not a written language; we have only a few records of who we are. We have an oral tradition carried out by chieftains and phuri dai’s. When I was in the camps at night before lights were turned off, I heard the old ones tell stories about better days."

Camps?

"The Zigeunerlager, the camps the Germans set up to exterminate gypsies, Jews, and anyone else who didn’t fit into the master race, Meisterrennen." She rolled up her right sleeve and showed me her tattoo.

I never knew…

"We don’t talk about Porajmos, the devouring, which the Nazis did to all people that were different than them. Let me tell you how we came to Europe and how all this hate began."

She took an old pipe from her pocket and stuffed it with tobacco, picked up a twig and lit it. She inhaled deeply and slowly exhaled rings. She took a long pause before starting her story of our people, the Roma.

"We are not native to Europe, as you can tell by the brown skin you, your mother, and I have. We share this with no one else in Europe because we traveled far to get here. Our people come from the lower Indus River Valley. They were pastoralists, farmers, musicians, and artisans. This is what gives us our skin color.

In time, these people moved north looking for greener pastures, and they found their way to Jat in northwest India. They were a happy people with wide pastures and open fertile fields. Many of them turned to professions other than farming. They became goldsmiths and brick makers, but they acquired fame as musicians, singers, and dancers, too. There were few people in the region when our people first came into the plains of Jat. The old women in the camp told us they were the closest things to Shuvani we had during those dark days.

Shuvani? I asked.

These were high holy women who, even in this desolate place, maintained our traditions. While death and misery were all around us, the young girls listened and learned.

As she spoke, I imagined men farming their fields and musicians, singers, acrobats, and magicians traveling in their brightly colored wagons and performing in remote villages.

These were our ancient ancestors in times when there were no kings, sultans, or other royal people governing the area. They lived a carefree life, these nomads, until a powerful warlord sold them into slavery to a powerful Persian king named Bahram V. His father, Yazdergerd, had taken a Jewish wife, Shushandukht, who, by all accounts, was the most beautiful woman in the kingdom.

Grandmother, isn’t this the story of Scheherazade and how she kept Shahryar from killing her by telling him a thousand and one stories?

Child, I would never weave a tale to deceive you. This has nothing to do with Arabs and their bedroom practices but how a king brought our people to Persia.

Forgive me, Grandmother.

She shrugged as if to say there was nothing to forgive. Then she continued, Yazdergerd had many children, and Bahram Gor was the youngest. He was very athletic and a good horseman, but he argued with his father once too often. The king was cruel, and he banished Bahram to the kingdom of al-Hira to the court of Lahkmid. The king of these people, Al-Núman I ibn Imrú’ al-Qays, accepted and educated him as if he were his own son. The Persian nobility and the Zoroaster priesthood assassinated Yazdegerd and his eldest son Shapur V, who was next in line to become king. Bahram raced to Ctesiphon, the royal capital of the Iranian Empire in the Sasanian Era, where the Zoroastrian priesthood crowned him. During a time of war with the Eastern Roman Empire, Bahram V received the gift of our people. In that group was a woman named Lily.

Lily? That’s not a very Indian or Persian name, is it? I asked. I had an incredulous smirk on my face, because it sounded more and more like a gypsy tale. My mother had told me about grandmother’s flight of fancy, telling fortunes which were her made-up stories that clients paid her to hear.

Well, the woman who told me this tale was old and dying in her wooden bunkbed in the Zigeunerlager. She was in the bunk below mine, and at night, she told stories about the Roma.

It’s just that Lily doesn’t sound right.

Well, let’s call her Lily for now, and when I remember her real name, I’ll tell you what it is.

No matter. It sounds like a good story.

"Lily was a dancer in the troupe of musicians and dancers that Bahram V received. He became captivated by the brown girl with the dark almond-shaped eyes. She danced up a fire in his heart, and he wanted her. She was not only beautiful but very cleaver. Bahram tried very hard to bed her, but she wouldn’t give him what he wanted. He pursued her night and day, gave her gifts, offered her special food, and furnished an apartment for her. One night in the gardens of the palace, he confronted her and asked what he had to do to win her heart. She told him that when he set her people free, she would lay with him. He told her that he would make her a princess and set her people free. The next day, he decreed freedom and safe passage to the people of Jat.

It was that easy for them to be free? I asked.

Yes and no. The people didn’t leave the kingdom right away but found work as entertainers. Later, when the king died, Lily told her people to leave the country since she didn’t know what the new king would do about them. She took her two sons and the wealth the king had given her and set out for kingdoms in the West, eventually finding their way to Byzantium.

Grandmother paused and took a long drag on her pipe. A car rolled into the front yard, and several women climbed out, wearing long, colorful cotton skirts with gold coin belts. Their blouses were white and light blue. Grandmother got up and went to them. They all kissed and hugged each other. Later, she told me they were old friends.

She pointed to me and said, This is my granddaughter, Mary.

The women gathered around me, kissing me, hugging me, and telling me how beautiful I was. Grandmother put a mat on the ground so they could all sit around the fire. They mostly gossiped about the other members of the tribe that lived in Lancaster. Most of the Roma had decided to stay in town; only Grandmother insisted that she would die in her vardo.

It was dusk when the women left, and Grandmother started dinner. Old hens. The only thing they do is talk bad about their neighbors. Complain, complain, all they do is complain.

CHAPTER TWO

Mary, what would you like for dinner? There is some stew left over from last night. I have some deer sausage or a little hedgehog you could try. I wrinkled my nose, letting her know that I wasn’t ready to try hedgehog.

She asked me to follow her to the backyard. There, behind the rabbit hutch, was a wonderful garden with tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, carrots, and onions. She plucked a head of cabbage and handed it to me. Go to the sink next to the shower and wash the cabbage well.

This would be my very first cooking lesson. I ate mostly in cafeterias and fast food joints at home. Once or twice a week, I’d eat with Mama and Daddy but only American fare: burgers, steaks, spaghetti with meatballs, and occasionally Irish stew, which surprisingly tasted like Grandmother’s rabbit stew.

Your first rabbit stew was the one you had last night? she asked.

Yes, we eat mostly beef and chicken at home. Thanksgiving, we have turkey, but that is as exotic as it got at home.

Ever have stuffed cabbage, gypsy style?

I had stuffed cabbage once in a Greek restaurant.

That’s shit compared to your grandmother’s stuffed cabbage.

She handed me a handful of thin red peppers and asked me to wash them. She went into the vardo where one of her friends had rigged a small refrigerator to provide free electricity from a generator atop a high-tension wire. She told me that the tribe helped each other in the modern world of television sets, computers, and cellphones.

She brought out a meat grinder with a hand crank, showed me how to use it, and told me to wash the meat first. When I had finished doing that, she told me to put the meat and peppers into the grinder. She went back into the vardo and brought out rice and an old iron pot.

She washed the rice before putting it on the fire, and then she showed me how to take the tender cabbage leaves, which had been boiled in water to make them easy to handle. She rushed to the rice that had been cooking for a while, and when she came back, the rice was fluffy and tender, except for a little hard crusting along the edges of the pot.

You thought I had burnt the rice, didn’t you?

Well, it did cross my mind, I said.

"I’ve been cooking like this