Gypsy Music

by

Peter Grandbois

His mother’s fingers reached across the table, but Jeremy moved his own hand, reaching instead for his cup of café con leche. His mother distracted herself by counting the dried, cured pig legs that lined the walls of the café. He knew she was trying to ignore the smell, not only of the café, but of the entire old quarter of Granada, where he’d been living for the past nine months.

“I’m happy here,” he said and sipped his coffee.

She’d come to Spain determined to see him. He was changing, she’d said when she called to tell him of their trip. This scared her. Jeremy’s father didn’t like to travel, but accompanied her reluctantly.

“Why do I need to go anywhere,” he’d always said, “I have everything I need right here.”

But, this time she’d stood up to him; she wasn’t going to lose her son. The tone, if not the argument, Jeremy knew already, knew as history, as fact. She turned now toward his father, pouting. At one time her pout would’ve been enough to make Jeremy reconsider, but now it made him sure of himself.

Jeremy’s father leaned forward, moving his café americano to the side of the table as he spoke. “What your mother’s trying to say is we’re worried about you. How’re you going to make it? Where are you going to get money?” He leaned back in his chair and clicked his teeth together, an old habit. It made him appear nervous and old.

“I’m doing translation work,” Jeremy said. “Besides, I’m not saying this is a permanent thing.”

“Son, playtime is over.” His father clicked his teeth again.

Jeremy focused on the lines around his father’s eyes as he talked. He knew his father worried about him, but Spain had changed things.

“Life isn’t going to wait around for you,” his father continued, “Employers aren’t going to wait. They’re only going to allow for so much when it comes to a gap in a work history.”

His father and mother owned an employment service. Jeremy recalled the fights at the dinner table when he was growing up. Almost always over business. The first thing his mother did when she arrived home was shower. She said she couldn’t stand the smell of all those people on her—the people for whom she found jobs. They’d sit down to eat, and his father would start. You’re afraid of risk. If we don’t move into the accounting market now, we’ll lose out. Then his mother, I don’t want to talk about it. When the meal ended, his mother always scraped the food she didn’t eat off of her plate and on to Jeremy’s. He never said anything. Just ate it.

Now, his mother waved her hand in front of her face, blinking her eyes. “I’m sorry, dear, but could you tell the waiter we need to move tables. That man there is smoking next to us.”

This is exactly what I’m talking about, Jeremy wanted to yell. He didn’t. “No, Mom, this is Spain. I’m not going to tell the waiter—”

“—Um, sir…seenyor!” Interrupting, his mother waved at a waiter. “Excuse me, but do you think we could move to a different table? That man over there is smoking, and it bothers my eyes.” She spoke loudly, exaggerating her enunciation.

Jeremy recalled a TV program he’d seen once on facial yoga. People went out into a park each morning and stretched their facial muscles. They said it helped them laugh more easily throughout the day. His mother’s face was fluid in the same way; it helped her in the battles with his father.

The waiter raised his eyebrows, “You Americans,” he said after a pause. “You sell us the tobacco, then you complain about the smoke.” He walked away, shaking his head.

His mother’s mouth gaped open slightly as she stared at her son. “Do you think he understood me?”

“Yes, Mom, he understood.” Jeremy sat back in his chair. “Listen, I’m not going back.” He did not look at her, but he didn’t have to. He felt her stiffening in her seat, then her hand reaching out, only to pull back. Jeremy waited. Finally her gaze shifted to the floor. And he knew what she was remembering. A month before he’d left for Spain, she’d laid down beside him on the couch, resting her head on his lap. He’d gently caressed her head, his fingers running through her hair. She’d held him close—had needed to hold him, after fighting again with her husband—and he’d comforted her, as he always had.

Almost imperceptibly, she now started to cry, wiping the tears from her face with the backs of her hands.

Jeremy wrapped his fist around his coffee cup. “Mom, I’m thirty.”

“That’s just our point, son.” His father leaned forward again. “We were concerned enough when you went back to school—then this study abroad program, and now you’re telling us you want to stay a while. Isn’t it time to come back to the real world?”

“Dad, this is the real world.” Jeremy felt his anger rise, and he didn’t want that. That was his father’s way. “You think working eight to five, then following up a nice argument with your wife by sitting down with a six pack for an evening of TV is real?” He regretted it the moment the words were out of his mouth.

His father sat back. “I don’t have to take this.” He rose to leave.

“Dad, I’m sorry. Please.” Jeremy tried, but his father wandered off in the direction of the bathrooms as though he hadn’t heard him.

Watching his father go, Jeremy noticed an old man drinking brandy at the bar. Dressed in a blue suit and wearing a black beret, he drank, sitting with perfect posture, one elbow poised on the bar, and gazed out the open doorway of the café. Although the café was a favorite of his, Jeremy had never seen the man before, but he imagined him to be someone distinguished.

Feeling his mother’s eyes pulling at him, Jeremy looked away, followed the man’s gaze out the door to a path he knew well. Often he’d leave the café late at night, when it was so dark and empty the walls along the alley closed around him. But the darkness didn’t scare him. Instead, he felt the mystery of lives lived.

His apartment was in a building that was nearly a thousand years old. He lived there with a girl named Margarita until his parents had arrived. She’d moved in with some friends while they visited. He and Margarita use to lie in bed for hours after making love, and she told him stories she imagined about the people who had lived in the apartment before them: gypsies, with their curses and magic, but most of all their music. Then she sang, imitating the gypsies: a voice ripe with despair and violence, passion, and joy. Sometimes he could hear the rhythmic pulse, the mournful cadence of their voices singing to him through the walls. What strange music to embody such contrasts of life—strange but exhilarating. Someday, he told Margarita, they would become gypsies themselves and live in a cave outside of Granada. Though Jeremy had mentioned Margarita to his parents, he hadn’t told them she lived with him.

The waiter returned to their table carrying a plate of tortilla de patatas and three clean plates.

His mother smiled, her mascara streaked. “I love this potato omelet, Jeremy. You’ll have to show me how to make it.” She looked up at him. “And I’m really looking forward to seeing the All-Ham-Braa today.” She massaged her hands as she talked, grasping two fingers at a time and pulling them with her other hand. Jeremy hadn’t noticed this behavior before; he wanted to ask her about it, but he didn’t. She’d know she had him then.

Jeremy’s father breathed heavily as he climbed back up the stairs from the bathroom. “Listen, son,” his father said, placing a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “Your mother and I would like to retire. We want you to run the company. You’ll have a generous salary. It’ll make things a lot easier. Then, someday, if you want to return to Europe, you’ll have the financial wherewithal to do it properly.”

His father sat down again, but immediately his eyes locked on something behind Jeremy; his mother leaned back in her chair slowly, as if pushed by some unseen force.

Jeremy smelled him before he saw him, the gypsy standing beside his mother with his palms out.

Por favor, solo necesito un poco de dinero, por favor.

The gypsy’s skin was dirty, his hair knotted. His red shirt fitted loosely over brown and white striped pants. Jeremy looked from the gypsy to his mother, who plugged her nose with her left hand and shooed the gypsy away with her right. Jeremy closed his eyes as he listened to the gypsy yell at his mother:

Tu eres una puta Americana.

When Jeremy reopened his eyes, the gypsy gestured violently in front of his mother’s face. She leaned against his father, eyes wide, her mouth tightly closed.

Puta Americana. Me cago en ti. Voy a mataros, eh…Voy a matar a los Americanos.

Jeremy stood then, the blood hot in his face. Vete, antes de que te mate cabrón.

The gypsy looked at him, surprised. They glared at each other.

Os esperaré fuera, eh. The gypsy gestured with his hand like a knife across his throat. Then he walked out.

Jeremy looked from one parent to the other. His father slumped in his chair; his mother’s mouth moved, but no words came out. She massaged her fingers again. No one in the café paid any attention; the old man at the bar still sat with his back to them; behind him, the waiters talked loudly. Most of the other tables in the café stood empty, as it was early for lunch. Jeremy jumped at a sudden outburst of laughter from the waiters, thinking they were laughing at him, but they weren’t looking in his direction.

“Someone really ought to do something to control those types around here.” Jeremy’s father said, holding and gently rubbing his wife’s hand.

“He just wanted money,” Jeremy said.

“Tell him to get a job, then,” his mother said. She pulled her hand away from her husband’s hold and stirred her coffee. Her spoon clinked against the sides of the cup as she fought to regain control.

Jeremy breathed deeply, then found that he couldn’t breathe at all; slowly, he felt himself falling from his chair.

His mother leaped to help him. “Are you all right dear? Oh, my God! Here, drink this.” She shoved a glass of water in his face. Jeremy heard his own voice telling her he was dizzy; he needed to go to the bathroom. He stumbled across the cafe. The stairs at the back were narrow, and the air grew hot as he descended. Somewhere in the café, a plate crashed, shattering on the floor.

In the bathroom, Jeremy spit in the sink, tasting his own bile. Then he washed his hands and face. The water felt cool and clean. He leaned toward the mirror, staring at himself, as if by moving closer he could better discern who he was. People said he had his father’s eyes, his mother’s mouth, but he couldn’t see it. He washed his face and hands again and proceeded up the stairs. At the bar, the old man was gone.

His mother reached out and took his hand. “Are you all right now? I worry so much about you...”

Her fingers in his hand felt swollen, the skin frail. She still trembled. He held her hand tightly. He knew what he needed to do.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He gestured for them to follow him. “I better walk you two back to the hotel, in case that guy is hanging around.”

They left the café and moved slowly down the narrow alleyway, the ancient stone walls of the old quarter rising around them. As they walked, Jeremy listened to the walls, but moving toward their destination, he heard nothing.

Peter Grandbois holds an M.F.A. in fiction from Bennington College. He is currently in the Ph.D. program in fiction at the University of Denver. He has a translation forthcoming from the University of Wisconsin Press and an article on imagery and the imagination forthcoming from The Writer’s Chronicle. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.