The Dark Knight (24 page)

I
f you refer to
your father as “dad,” if your good friend is your “pal,” if you protect yourself on the streets by carrying a “shiv” (“chiv”), if something is sweet as “sukar” (sugar), if you call a wild dog a “jakel” (jackal) or if you knock someone over the head with a “kosh”—you are speaking in the tongue of the Gypsies.

The Romany language has its origins in ancient Sanskrit, though it was not a written language until the mid-twentieth century. Today, the same Romany word is often spelled in several different ways. Scholars now believe that the original Gypsies came from northern India and not Egypt, as was commonly thought in the sixteenth century. In fact, the term “Gypsy” is an abbreviated word meaning “Egyptians.” The Gypsies themselves much prefer to call themselves the Rom, meaning “the People.” While the majority of modern-day Rom live in Eastern Europe, over a million reside in the United States, mostly in the warmer climes of California and Florida.

Tarot cards have long been associated with Gypsy fortune-telling since both tarot and the Rom appeared in Western Europe at nearly the same time in the early fifteenth century. Tarot cards were originally used to play a game akin to modern-day bridge, a game that is still played in northern Italy. Fortune-telling with the cards became very popular throughout Europe before the 1500s. A tarot deck consists of seventy-eight cards. They are divided into the Major Arcana of twenty-two face cards depicting allegorical figures, and the Minor Arcana of fifty-six cards divided into four suits: cups, wands/staffs, pentacles/coins and swords. Modern playing cards are an outgrowth of the tarot deck. The cups become hearts, the wands are clubs, the pentacles are diamonds and the swords are spades. The original court cards were four: king, queen, knight and page. Modern decks have only the king, queen and the jack who replaced the knight. The page disappeared.

The Fool
card that is featured in my story is the only one of the Major Arcana to be found in modern playing cards. He has become the Joker—and the Joker is always unpredictable.

ISBN: 978-1-4603-6020-0

THE DARK KNIGHT

Copyright © 2002 by Mary W. Schaller

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