American Gypsy (13 page)

 

COFFEE BEAN

Every morning in our little apartment, I woke up to the comforting aroma of strong coffee.

Mom drank it in a tiny espresso cup, always black and barely sweetened, a cigarette poised in one hand. It was one of the most prevalent customs of Armenian life; a young girl's ability to make a good cup of coffee increased her chances of catching a husband.

After she'd finished and the grounds had settled thickly at the bottom of the cup, Mom would turn it over on the saucer to allow the remnants to run down the sides and dry. When the dried grains had transformed into intricate designs, the fun part began: the telling of one's fortune.

Usually Mom read only her own cup or those of other adults. But sometimes I convinced her to let me have a drink so that she could glimpse my future, too. “My dear,” she'd say, “you are destined to marry a prince and have so many diamonds you could use them for backgammon pieces.”

Unlike Olga's fortune-telling services, my mother's coffee reading was a hobby, one shared by plenty of Armenian women who regularly gathered at one another's houses. Aunt Siranoosh claimed that this interest in divination might've come from the time when Romani travelers first camped out on Armenian land, sometime in the eleventh century. When Romani made their way from India to Europe (a journey that took hundreds of years to complete), it was the first country to allow the travelers to settle on its land. They stayed for so long that even today many Romani dialects contain Armenian words.

Mom reminded me of Agrefina. She was remarkably accurate in her predictions without the use of incantations or the need to stage a “spiritual place” to get people in the mood.

Rosa marveled at Mom's ability to see things in the black grounds, and I found our landlady's fascination with fortune-telling puzzling. Was Olga onto something with her predictions that she could make money in this city?

Inside a week, the neighbors came knocking on our door, each with an apologetic smile and a strong premonition about their mother, their job, their sex life, their dog's eating habits.

“This is good!” Rosa said as she paced our kitchen one morning, strategizing. “Susan from B12 asked about her son. He's in the military and he has gas problems. She hope is no cancer.”

“Why is good?” Mom said. “I no hev much coffee.”

“I tell you why, Nora. Because I tole her to pay you ten dollars and she said yes.”

At first Mom was adamant about not taking money for readings; in Moscow, a priest at our family's church, who was also a close friend, had cautioned against reading for monetary gain, warning that it'd bring terrible luck.
Dvoeverie
was as Christian as it was pagan. The priest was a well-known oracle, or, to use proper churchspeak, he had the “gift of discernment”—a new term to coat an ancient concept. But no one dared call
him
a fortune-teller because his sight came directly from God. Years later, a number of his predictions in regard to our family came true. He'd predicted my parents' divorce, an estrangement from family, and even the gambling addiction my mother would struggle with in the future.

But Rosa argued a good point. “Everybody here charge. Even kids who bring newspapers,” she said. “Ju run out of money. How will bills get paid?” When Mom didn't answer, Rosa nodded with renewed conviction. “Nothing wrong with ten dollars. Later, we charge twenty.”

Truth was, Mom and I had recently discussed the increasing money deficit. She'd come back one afternoon from a job interview at the Russian Market, ten minutes from our place. Imagine my mother, all made up, wearing her best turquoise silk dress and sleek pumps, strolling into a business whose only purpose is to produce the same greasy foods sold in stores back in the old country. And now picture the indignity on her face when the manager tells her she'd have to chop, marinade, and bake in the back of the store for ten hours along with three other Russian ladies (who all used to be somebody, by the way—one of them an engineer). All this for twenty dollars a day, cash. “In America our titles abandon us,” he'd said with a smirk when she questioned his sanity.

“An engineer?” I said when she tossed her pumps aside and reclined on the couch later that afternoon.

“Plus a kindergarten teacher
and
a general's wife.”

“Well, it's better than no job.” My version of encouragement.

“For someone your age, but not for distinguished women like us.”

“Why can't you ask Grandpa Andrei for help?” I said. Roxy and I hadn't spoken to Dad's parents since we'd moved. I thought it was too expensive to call but, judging by the shadows mobilizing on my mother's face, I'd been mistaken.

“Grandpa isn't talking to us.”

“That's not true,” I said.

“I don't know what your father told him, but our lines are cut. Forget about them.”

“But it doesn't make sense.”

“Not everything has to,” she snapped.

I should've been used to cutting lines by now. After all, I had felt the snip of Aunt Varvara's scissors.

I crouched down and rested my elbows on Mom's knees. The fragrance of her French perfume clung to her dress. The bottle was long empty, but she still rubbed its lid over her clothes to get every last bit of the vapors.

“He's their son, honey. Who else would they side with?” She tucked a wisp of hair behind my ear and kissed me on the forehead.

“Would you take their money if they offered to help?”

“No,” she said, and I believed her.

An idea came to me then. “What about Grandma Rose? Aunt Siranoosh? You know they would send us money.”

“They mustn't know,” she said. “Not yet. Not before I fix everything.”

I was devastated by my grandparents' choice, but not as surprised as I should've been. Was I becoming unbreakable?

*   *   *

The coffee readings took place inside our kitchen in the evenings, after most kids were sound asleep and the only light outside swam from the bottom of the pool like a smoky blue phantom.

I stayed up, on account of my new job as the fortune-teller's interpreter. Well, it was more like an apprenticeship, considering I worked for free and with substantial help from my Russian-English dictionary. But at least it forced me to practice my language skills on real people instead of mirrors.

I can imagine how uncomfortable it must've been for the clients to open up in front of a sixteen-year-old girl, especially one listening with fascination. But their worries always overcame that small inconvenience.

The readings reminded me of the game of telephone. First, the clients explained their trouble. Second, I completely misinterpreted everything they said. Third, Mom, suspecting difficulty in communication, simply told them what she saw. Good thing she got it right nearly every time.

“Ms. Nora, my wife is acting strange. Is she having an affair?”

“Mr. Kipfer says his wife is crazy.”

“She's not. Tell him she's just pregnant.”

“How will I know which man to marry? They have both asked, but I can't decide.”

“Celia wants to get married twice.”

“I see only one man in her cup, with a number seven below him. She should only marry the one seven years younger than her.”

“I want to buy a bakery. Can you tell me if that's a good idea?”

“He wants to buy a bakery.” Sometimes I did get it right.

“He should.”

How many conversations I botched during those sessions, I'll never know, but the readings acted as some kind of psychotherapy. People left happier, more focused on hope instead of worry.

As per Rosa's predictions, the money helped, and we now had enough for a little more than the absolute necessities. I knew that our situation was all wrong, that my father never should've let it get this bad. But I was too fond of the fragile peace between my parents to confront either of them about it. That's why I went back to Dad's house on the weekends, per my parents' arrangement. Even while Olga and I kept snapping at each other like crabs, I wanted Mom to think all was well so as not to give her a reason to forbid contact. Also, I didn't trust my stepmother with Roxy. Although Mom never once asked for a thing, Dad assured Roxy and me that he would help out as soon as the business took off, and we passed on the message, thinking it'd make Mom feel less depressed. It didn't.

We got home from one of our weekends at Dad's, and Roxy immediately stuck her wrist in front of Mom's face. “Dad got me this bracelet at the Venice Beach boardwalk. It's magic.”

One glance at the bracelet made of thin beaded leather strips, and Mom looked fit to burst.

“I make sure you have something to eat every day! That you have clean sheets to sleep on! But, oh, thank goodness you have a father who can afford to buy you a magic bracelet!”

Even though Mom apologized later, Roxy began to hide her trinkets in her backpack.

Mom was having a difficult time accepting the fact that we had officially joined the ranks of the underprivileged. I knew how she felt. The disparity between Dad's lifestyle and our own pointed to only one thing: we were poor. The idea didn't fit into anything I'd ever experienced. There was a time when money held no value for me.

One day when I was ten, Zhanna and I were walking down busy Arbat Street in Moscow. January had frozen the ground into sheets of ice. Our breath clouded and our fingers froze. I'd jammed my hands into the jacket pockets and one of them ripped, sending a scattering of change over the sidewalk.

“Oh God, I can't even feel my knees to bend down,” I pouted.

“What's the big deal? Leave it,” my cousin said. We moved on, but as I glanced back, I saw an old woman crouched down on all fours as she carefully picked up the money we had discarded.

And now Rosa was driving us to the Hollywood welfare office, maintaining that one really could receive money without having to work.

Mom refused to accept this. “How anybody give you money? For what?”

“Ju are a single mom in need of help.”

“How will we pay it back?” I asked.

“Don't have to,
mija
. Thas why is called public assistance.”

It sounded too simple and not quite right to take money for doing nothing. But the first check came, and it covered rent, bills, and the groceries, leaving eighty-five dollars for the rest of the month.

Since we hadn't been able to celebrate my sixteenth birthday in our usual style, or Mom's birthday in November, or even New Year's, we split thirty dollars and bought one another one present each. Roxy got a play makeup kit, Mom got a sterling silver ring Roxy and I found at the DollarDream, and I got a pair of gloves.

Mom had never needed to manage money before. Growing up, I'd never heard my parents say, “We have no money.” Whenever we needed something, like a new car, or a monthlong vacation to the Black Sea, they found a way. Often Grandma Rose helped, or my parents just played extra gigs.

In America, it seemed there wasn't enough money
to
manage, so like in the old times Mom splurged, baking a giant turkey she bought on sale the day we received the first check, and preparing her famous scallion mashed potatoes with two sticks of butter.

We had meat, vegetables, and bread that night, Roxy's fiancé serenading us with “Careless Whisper” from a mini tape player we had recently bought. Now all we needed were more people to share our joy. We invited some of our neighbors, and as I watched the people around me dancing, and eating, and joking, for that evening I forgot that the next day we'd be poor once again.

 

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

Many people upon hearing the term “Romani” or “Gypsy” promptly conjure up tarot cards, nomadic caravans, uneducated children, and dirt-poor families who are either too lazy to work or too carefree to give a damn. In Europe, the words “thief” and “swindler” are synonymous with “Romani,” and the conflicts between cultures often end in violence. The roots of this animosity span centuries, and trying to make sense of them would take up an entire book on its own. Ask ten different people to explain it and you'll get ten different answers.

While living in Italy many years later, I met Milosh, a student of the Romani who tried to clarify some of it for me. The original Roma nomads, those who didn't settle in the Middle East and the Caucasus regions, eventually reached medieval Europe. For a while they shared the land with their neighbors and hosts, living in accord. But that didn't mean that either side wanted to change their way of life to accommodate the other. Paying taxes was a foreign concept to the self-contained Roma; so was submitting to a king they'd never met, considering how they had their own royalty chosen by the Romani and their councils of elders. Like Europeans, Romani considered their race pure. This was reinforced when they, like the Native Americans, began to encounter mysterious illnesses that sometimes wiped out entire caravans. They were convinced that the Europeans were plagued by evil and therefore avoided dealing with outsiders.

In some countries the rich made a sport of hunting Romani for money. “Gypsy hunts” were lawful as a means to drive the nomads out and became so popular that even commoners were encouraged to participate. You got an especially large prize if your kill happened to be a Gypsy clan leader. And if you had trouble telling a Gypsy from the normal folk, the identifying brands on their chests, enforced by most feudal lords and the Church, came in handy. The Romani of medieval Europe were in the wrong place at the wrong time, one of the unlucky groups caught in the war between Church and monarchy. Many a Gypsy was burned at the stake during the Inquisition, along with the mentally ill, those unfortunate enough to anger a neighbor or a city official, or simply because somebody wanted their cow.