A Table of Green Fields, Guy Davenport [ebook reader screen .TXT] 📗

gypsy was looking up at me. But I saw only the back of the last wagon. They were all but gone by.

Tarpy! I hollered. Tarpy!

Florent pulled me back and pushed me down. I hit him as hard as I could with the sharp of my elbow against the mouth. He pinned me and held me tight.

Let me go! I shouted. My voice was like a rifle shot in the

quiet.

We could hear the caravan rumbling on and away. Uste! a voice sang out. Florent turned me around and looked at me. Blood dripped from his chin. There were tears in his eyes. My mouth was open and dry. I tried to swallow but my tongue and throat were as dry as paper. I was breathing in gasps. My sides were stitched with pain.

I broke and ran. Florent tripped me and sat on me. He held my mouth. I bit his hand. He did not move it. I kicked. Jens! he said quietly. We will follow them and see if it really is Tarpy. But we can't put ourselves at the mercy of such people. They are thieves. They would think nothing of taking everything we have. They would think nothing of killing us out here miles from anywhere.

I hated him. I wouldn't look at him when he turned me loose. I walked away into the trees. I was barefoot and my heart hurt. My stomach was a tight knot pinching in. I cut and ran.

O did I run! I sprang over big rocks without looking. I plunged through bushes. I suddenly had all the strength in the world and no end to it ever in sight. I had something keen and fine that I had never had before. There was nothing that could stop me. I could fly if need be. Nothing could puzzle me. Nothing dared puzzle me. I knew how to circle and come out exactly where the gypsies were. I was God knows where in a thick and tall wood but I was not lost. I ran like a rabbit. Whether Florent was following me I couldn't be bothered to stop and find out and moreover didn't care. I would never see him again.

I ran and ran and ran. The world was nothing to me. The world was merely something negligible underfoot. Something to brush aside. I even knew when I had to begin to be cautious.

I had to see the gypsies before they saw me. Florent had put the doubt in my mind that I might have seen not Tarpy but someone I mistook for Tarpy at that distance through branches. Yet I knew that it was Tarpy. Only when I slowed down to a jog crossing a stream with a tearing splash and running up a long boulder like a monkey and jumping from the other side without the least fear of what I would come down on did I begin to think how Tarpy could be with the gypsies. He had escaped from the institution or had been let out. He had joined the gypsies. The gypsies had stolen him.

I knew I was near and began to look to the noise I was making. But the wood came upon no opening. No road.

I stopped. I listened.

I knew my mind. Knew that my body was in absolute control. I could run a hundred miles. I could climb the highest tree and jump down. I could hear for miles. I could call to Tarpy from where I was if I was so minded. My cocked ears heard the jingle and clop of horses I knew I would hear.

I crept forward. I made haste slowly. I commanded the bushes not to betray me with sounds. Finally I got a glimpse of a wagon. The gypsies seemed to be pulling into a clearing. I heard their voices. I was close enough to see a horse being unharnessed from its traces.

Then without any warning my knees began a spasm of trembling and I was cold all over with sweat. I had sense enough to know that it was because I had no notion what in the world to do next. I hated Florent even more deeply for planting the doubt. If it was not Tarpy I could run. I knew I could run. If it was Tarpy he would know what to do.

Who are you? a voice said and I jumped with a sickening stab of fear.

A gypsy woman was laughing at me. She had slipped up behind me. She was carrying firewood. Her smile showed long white crooked teeth. Gold bangles across her forehead and throat and rings in her ears. She was old and marvellously wrinkled.

Boy! she said. Who are you and what you want? Fright not. Eh! Uva tu?

I stammered Tarpy's name, Jeg talar irtte mycket svenska. Tarr pi? When I pointed to the wagons she took me by the hand so that I arrived as a curiosity led sheepishly among the gathering gypsies by a tall woman who seemed to take enormous pleasure in surprising everybody by turning up not only with a bundle of sticks for the fire but with a barefoot boy drenched with sweat and trembling as well.

A man in a bandana squatted before me and studied me with wide eyes. I looked wildly for Tarpy.

And saw him.

He was with two gypsy boys in red shirts. He was himself in gypsy dress. An orange blouse. His eyes looking at me were eyes in a dream. He stared with a strange concern as if he had known me a hundred years ago and could recall my face but not my name.

Tarpy! I saw you from a rock down the road! I called but you didn't hear me.

He kept looking at me. One of the boys in a red shirt said something in gibberish. Tarpy answered him but not me.

The old woman came between us. You know him? she said to me. You know our gadjo niglo?

Tarpy! I said again. I was determined to have him answer to the name.

The old woman spoke to him. Her voice rose and made a kind of song. It was the voice grown-ups wheedle children with. But it was a kind and good-natured voice. She had a jolly way about her.

She turned to me with lifted hands. But he says