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PERIPATETICS: A Sparrow Is Singing

4 minute read
TIME

One of the world’s most esoteric societies was in crisis. For centuries it had successfully evaded persecution, morality and progress. It had ignored Popes and laughed in the face of emperors. But at length it seemed as though the “candles of the last breath” were burning for the People of Pharaoh, otherwise known as the gypsies.

They have, unaccountably, been in Christendom’s midst for a long time. On the road to Calvary (so a gypsy account goes), an old gypsy woman took pity on the Savior and tried to prevent His crucifixion by stealing the nails that were to be used. When caught by a Roman soldier, the woman begged for mercy: “I haven’t stolen anything for seven years.” One of the Disciples was moved to say: “You are blessed now. Henceforth, the Savior allows you to steal once every seven years.” Since then, the gypsies have roamed the world, cheerfully stealing as often as necessary.

Taking the Bread Away. Trouble comes in threes, say the gypsies—from the devil, his wife and their son. It was that way after World War I; the gypsies were beset by the passport,, the factory and hygiene (they called doctors the “makers of dead men”). Hungary introduced compulsory bathing for gypsies; in Moravia, they were shorn bald; in Soviet Russia, they were put to work in factories and on collective farms—their songs, complained the Communists, were too melancholy. “Astrologists and psychologists are taking away the bread from the mouths of our wives and mothers,” complained the chairman of a Rumanian gypsy congress. In Poland, gypsies developed a kind of gypsy Zionism, demanding that Britain grant them a national home in India, the country of their origin.* Nothing came of it.

During World War II, Adolf Hitler did his best to exterminate them. They joined his other victims in the gas chambers. No one knows how many died thus; the gypsies were never good at bookkeeping. Now, new forces are trying to mold them into new patterns. In Bulgaria, they have their own deputy in Parliament; in Yugoslavia, they have their own party (which faithfully follows the Communist line).

The Blue-Papered Bedroom. Last week it was again time for gypsydom’s traditional pilgrimage to Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a small fishing village in the wild Rhone delta, to pay homage to their patron Saint Sarah.t Once Romanies from all over the world came; last week, only the French gypsies were there. The others were unable to move across the world’s new frontiers and new orders.

The ones that did come went through their traditional devotions, joined by a papal legate, ten bishops, hundreds of priests and thousands of faithful Frenchmen (Stes.-Maries is a shrine not only to gypsies but to Catholics). Rain whipped across the swampy, sandy Camargue plain; in front of the fortresslike church, the officiating legate stood beneath a bright green umbrella. The drenched gypsies carried statues of their saints to the shore while Gardians (Provencal cowboys) charged ahead into the sea. A bishop blessed the sea and the gypsies cried: “Vive Sainte Sarah!” The other pilgrims responded: “Vivent les Saintes Maries!”

At night, gypsies held watch over St. Sarah’s tomb, the faint flicker of smoky yellow wax candles reflected in their jet-black eyes. They also remembered Cou-cou, their last “king,” who had settled down in a house with a blue-papered bedroom. Recently, possibly because of his overly soft life, he had passed on to the realm “where a sweeter music is and where the prince of fiddlers plays.”

In front of his rickety wagon, an old gypsy said: “The past is dead. Gypsies cease their wandering. The race is the same but the spirit is going. Too many gypsies have grown rich. Even Coucou settled down. No one can take his place just now, maybe never.” The old gypsy’s grandchildren were busy admiring the shiny new trailer of a rich gypsy family camped alongside. On a lot nearby, young gum-chewing gypsies jitterbugged.

Only here & there, the old gypsy songs were still heard, like the strange Romany version of the French Malbrough s’en -vat-en guerre:

Challo Malbruk chingarar, Birandera, birandera, birandera . . .

(Marlborough goes off to fight; he will never return again … a sparrow is singing over his grave: .”Sleep in peace.”)

* Contrary to a popular belief that gypsies come from Egypt.

† Not recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, but gypsy legend claims that when Mary Magdalene, Mary Salome and Mary the mother of James the Less fled persecution in Judea and crossed the Mediterranean, a gypsy called Sarah received them and became their servant.

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