By Monkey

Chapter 30

Gypsy's Kiss

     Indiana Jones and Vadoma Maniskelko sat by the window inside the warm little café sipping cups of hot cocoa and watching busy shoppers pass by outside on the cold sidewalk of the Leiderstraat.  Indy was quiet, waiting for Vadoma to speak first, and resume the conversation they’d left off outside about her mysterious …gift, as she called it.  But her words were not forthcoming, instead she just sat and stared out through the window, as if hypnotized by something; something that she alone could see.

      “What are you thinking about?” Jones finally asked her.

     She turned to him and gave a slight smile, “Oh, nothing.”

     Jones took a sip of his hot chocolate, “Are you sure?” He said.

     She was silent for another moment, and then said, “Indy, do you believe that people in this world are…” she seemed to be searching for words, “do you believe that your fate is already decided even at the very hour of your birth?”

      “Where did that question come from?” Jones asked.

      “Just tell me, do you believe it?”

     Indiana Jones paused to ponder the question, “How can such a thing be proved, or disproved?” he said after a moment.

      “That’s not an answer Indiana Jones,” Vadoma now smiled warmly at him.

     Indy drank in her warm, beautiful smile.  She seemed more beautiful and vibrant than at any time since he’d met her.  Maybe it was the new clothes, he thought.  Or maybe it was because this was the first time in the past twenty-four hours that the two of them had been able to truly relax.

      “The Greeks believed it,” Jones said, “that’s where the word ‘fate’ comes from…the ‘fates’ controlled the future of everyone on earth and in the heavens, both mortal and immortal.”

     Vadoma stared down at the floor.

      Jones could see that the question held a lot more meaning for her than just as a conversational curiosity.  But he also felt it was something best left alone for the moment.  Besides, he felt an overwhelming curiosity about Vadoma’s ‘gift’ that he could no longer contain.

     He looked into her eyes, “Tell me Vadoma.  Tell me about your ‘gift’.”

     She looked at him for a moment, and then nodded.

      She gazed out the window as she spoke, “It goes back to my ‘duy’…my mother, and my father,” she said. 

     Her dark brown eyes took on a searching look, as if going far back into her past and revisiting places from long ago.  Indiana Jones studied her lovely features as she stared out the window and began to tell him of things that he knew she usually kept in a secret place within herself.

      “My mother was a very loving woman,” she continued on, “she was beautiful, but she was even more beautiful inside.  Her heart was pure.  Everyone who knew my ‘duy’ could not help but love her.”

     Vadoma spoke with a quiet passion about her mother.  She paused for a moment but Jones remained silent.  After a time she spoke again.

      “Everyone loved my mother, except….”

     This time the pause was longer, and Jones felt compelled to say something, “Everyone except your father?”  He said with a lucidity that surprised her.

     She turned her gaze from the window and looked into Jones’ eyes, “Yes,” she said, “my father.”

     She turned back towards the window, “My father was not a true gypsy Indy.  He was from Russia, but he was not truly Russian either.  He was from the part of Russia that is far to the east, beyond the Urals.”

      “Siberia?  Mongolia?” Jones guessed, and thought that might explain the Asiatic, almond eyes that added an exquisite final touch of mysterious beauty to Vadoma’s already captivating features.

      “Perhaps,” she said, seeming to not really know the true answer to the question, “I just know that he was from very far away.”

     Jones gazed out the window.  The clear skies of the afternoon were now clouding over as the first day of 1938 progressed into evening in Amsterdam, Holland.  A light powdery snow was even beginning to fall.

      “My father was very, very handsome,” she continued on, “he was so handsome that all of the young girls wanted to be with him.  He had a magic, a …what is the English word….,” Vadoma searched for the right word to use, “a…a charisma.”  She smiled in triumph at having located the word.

“It seems that he passed that quality down to you,” Indy said, and then was confused by her reaction to what he meant as a compliment.

     Vadoma looked down at the floor and closed her eyes for a moment before once again staring out the window, “Yes, my father could have any woman he chose…and so it was that all of my mother’s love was not enough for him.  Before I was even born he left her….left us.”

      “I’m sorry,” was all Indiana Jones could think of to say.

      “My mother was so terribly sad.  I was told that for weeks she cried almost every day.” Vadoma’s eyes began to water, and Jones knew that she was fighting back a tear at the painful thoughts, “There was a very old woman at the time in our kumpania,” she looked over at Indy, “our clan.”

     Indy nodded his understanding of the gypsy word.

      “Her name was Anya,” Vadoma went on, “She came and stayed with us and helped to take care of my mother …and after I was born… me as well.    After I was born my mother’s sadness became overwhelming.  In my face she saw the face of my father, and it reminded her of him, whom she had loved so much.  But it was not a bitter sadness.  My mother did not resent me.  If anything she loved me even more because I looked like him.  But her sadness was killing her; everyone knew it…and Anya knew it too.”

     Vadoma paused to sip her hot cocoa, and to gather her thoughts for a moment.  Jones was fascinated by her story, though he was anxious to know how Vadoma’s ‘gift’ figured in to it.

      “Anya loved me and my mother very much.  But Anya was very old, and…she was dying.  One night, she came to my mother and told her she would die in twenty-six days.”

      “Anya or your mother?” Jones was a bit confused.

      “Anya would die in twenty-six days, and she knew it.” Vadoma answered him.

      “How did she know?”

      “She knew,” Vadoma said with conviction.  “She wanted to relieve my mother’s sadness about my father leaving us and so she told my mother that she was going to give me, her baby daughter, a special gift.  She said that it was not a gift to be given lightly, but that now that she was dying she felt she needed to pass it on.  And she thought that it would make my mother happy.”

     Indiana Jones patiently listened to the gypsy woman tell her story, though he wished she would come to the point about what the ‘gift’ was.

“What did she give to you?” Jones finally asked.

     She looked at him, “Never would I, my mother’s daughter, ever have to worry about any man leaving me.  I would have the power to make any man love me, and only me, for as long as we both lived.”

     Jones looked curiously at Vadoma.  He even suspected that she might be just a little bit delusional, “What on earth are you talking about Vadoma?”

      “My kiss,” she said simply.

     Jones stared at her for a moment, “Your kiss?”  He said, indicating that he wanted more of an explanation than just that.

     Now Vadoma paused for a long time, glancing alternately at the floor, out the window, and at Indiana Jones.  Finally she said, “Any man that I kiss, will love me for as long as we both live.”

      “But you just kissed me on the neck, out there,” he motioned with his finger to the small park across the street.

      “I am talking about a kiss of passion,” she said.

      “I see,” Indy said, and looked away for a moment to absorb what she was telling him.  He turned back to her, “So you’re telling me that if you kiss a man passionately, that he will fall instantly in love with you?”

      “A passionate kiss on the lips,” she further clarified.

     Jones looked at her skeptically, “You know Vadoma, you are a beautiful woman.  Did it occur to you that maybe a man would fall in love with you anyway, and that your kiss doesn’t really have any kind of ….supernatural powers or anything?”

     She shook her head, “I did not think that you would believe me,” she said.

      “Well I’m sorry but it is kind of hard to believe,” Jones countered.

      “There’s more to it than just the kiss though,” Vadoma looked out the window again and continued on with her story, “with the ‘gift’ came also a curse.”

      “What curse?”

      “Anya, because she would die in twenty-six days, she said that I would have very bad luck in the twenty-sixth year of my life.”

     Jones’ eyes shot a wordless question.

“Yes,” she nodded, “this is the twenty-sixth year of my life.”

     Indiana Jones sat back and sipped his hot cocoa slowly and contemplated all that Vadoma had just told him.  He was skeptical to say the least.  But nonetheless he could see how strongly Vadoma believed in what she was saying.  Who was he to doubt; he who had seen more than enough of the strange and paranormal in his own life.

      “So why didn’t you kiss me out there?” Jones asked her, “You don’t want me to love you?”

      “It would not be fair to you, or to me.”

      “Why not?”

      “Don’t you see Indiana Jones?  I don’t want a man to fall in love with me just because of my gift.  That is not real love.”

       “Did you use your ‘gift’ on Richard Malboury?”

      “Yes,” she answered without guilt or hesitation, but neither did she say anything more.

     Jones was a little bit surprised at how quickly she had answered, “Were you and Malboury lovers?” He asked bluntly.

      “Do you need to know that?” Vadoma answered, her low voice conveying both dignity and defensiveness.

      “I guess not,” Indy said, “I guess that would be none of my business would it.”  Indiana Jones turned away from her and downed the rest of his hot cocoa.  His whole demeanor seemed to change in an instant and his voice took on a sudden businesslike tone.

     He glanced at his watch, “Look, we’ve got to go soon.  We’ve got a train to catch at eleven.”

     Vadoma studied Indiana Jones for a few seconds, and then the hint of a smile played on her full, red lips, “Indy …you’re not…jealous are you?”

     Jones feigned indifference, “Jealous of who?  Look, I don’t know about any gypsy curses or ‘gifts’.  But I do know that in about three hours we need to be on a train.  Let’s go.”

     They rode the taxi back over to Van der Moot’s house in silence.  Indiana Jones was deep in thought.  Did he believe in Vadoma’s gift, and her curse?  He didn’t know what to believe really.  He’d seen how ‘curses’ tended to work; most of the time it was nothing more than just the strong power of suggestion at work.  Take Voodoo curses for example, Jones thought to himself.  For the man who believes strongly enough in Voodoo it is enough just to tell him that he is cursed.  Throw in a little chicken blood and bird skulls for effect and he is convinced.  Then tell him that he will die…. Sometimes the mind can control the body.

     There were plenty of men in this world who could easily fall in love with a woman as beautiful as Vadoma, kiss or no kiss.  And as for the bad luck in her twenty-sixth year, well, Jones thought she could count herself pretty lucky that he had showed up when he had at Scotland Yard on New Year’s Eve.

     But as the cab pulled up to a stop in front of Van der Moot’s house he let go of all thoughts of gypsy curses for the time being and concentrated his thoughts on the matter at hand.  They were about to embark on a dangerous trip through the length and breadth of Adolph Hitler’s Germany.

     Jones was immensely pleased with the false identity papers that Van der Moot had produced for him and Vadoma.  For the trip through Germany, Italy, and anywhere else it was convenient, he and Vadoma would be Mr. and Mrs. John Marshall, American citizens from Chicago.

     They stayed another hour at Van der Moot’s house, both of them getting a chance to freshen up before the long night trip through Germany that lay ahead.  They departed a little after ten and arrived at Amsterdam’s main train station on Kalverstraat at ten thirty.  By eleven they were on their way towards Germany.  

     As they traveled through western Holland Jones went over the details of their deception several times with Vadoma.  He was an art professor on holiday on his way to the Museum of Modern Art in Vienna.  In case anyone inquired about his wife’s dark complexion and Asiatic features he would simply say that she was of American Indian ancestry.  Once he was comfortable with everything they both finally dozed off for the rest of the two hour trip toward the German Border. 

     They were awakened by shrill whistles as the train approached, and then pulled into the German border station near the town of Emmerich.

     Sleep was quickly dispelled as tension mounted.  Indiana Jones glanced out the train window and into the darkness of night.  As he looked out he contemplated that not only had the dark of night descended, but a different kind of darkness had also descended on the country of Germany itself.  And while the sun would rise in the sky in about five or six more hours, Jones couldn’t know how long it might take for the darkness of Nazism that plagued this once, and future great country to lift its evil veil.

     A German border guard came on to the train and began checking papers and passports.  He appeared gruff and impatient in his manners, snatching the papers from the hands of the passengers and regarding those who were non-Germans with a practiced disdain.  Then again Jones thought, maybe it was just the language.  German was by nature a harsh and guttural language.  Indy momentarily thought of Lupe in Bolivia, and how he liked to hear her speak her jumbled mix of Spanish and English.

     Vadoma of course spoke fluent German.  But Jones had gone to great lengths to coach her not to reveal the fact.  He knew that a sudden reaction, or just a move of the eyes, in response to some spoken German, might jeopardize their deception.

     The border guard now approached them, and stopped in front of them.  He spent several moments scrutinizing the couple.  Indiana Jones became alarmed when the man tilted his head as his curiosity seemed to pique.

      “Papers!”  He nearly shouted at them.

     Jones handed over his and Vadoma’s false identity papers, and said a silent little prayer in his head.  He knew that if they could just get through the border the rest might just be a piece of cake.  But the moment of truth…or in this case deception…was now.

     The man glanced at the photos on their identity papers and then at him and Vadoma, “Americans?”  He asked.

      “Yes,” Jones nodded his head and smiled the most magnanimous smile he could muster, “Americans.”

      “Ya!  America!  Hollywood!  Betty Boop!” The guard said with a smile.

     Indiana Jones nodded his head and continued to smile as well, “Betty Boop!” He said.

      “Why do you come to Germany Mr. …Marshall?” The border guard said in nearly flawless English as his smile suddenly vanished.

     Jones was caught off guard by the man’s command of English, and stumbled over his words momentarily, “We, um, we…I’m an art professor from Chi…University of Chicago.  I, I’m on holiday.  My wife and I, we’re…on our way to Vienna.”

     The German border guard stood stoic and expressionless as Jones stumbled over his words.  Then he carefully scrutinized their papers; even pulling out his flashlight, shining it on to the photos for a closer look.

     Jones’ heart pounded in his chest and a lump rose in his throat.  Vadoma sat seemingly emotionless, but her heart as well beat fast and furious.

      “Why do you want to go to Vienna?”

     Jones gave a little forced chuckle, “Well, why does anyone want to go to Vienna?  For the Museum of Modern Art, of course.  I’m…doing research for my University,” he said, and then nervously cleared his throat.

      “Your wife, she looks like a ….gypsy,” the man said the word as if it were something vile.

     Jones swallowed hard, and struggled to keep his cool, “No, she’s part Indian.”

     This seemed to catch the guard off balance, and he leaned down to examine Vadoma as if she were some kind of scientific specimen.  Vadoma struggled to maintain her composure despite the man’s close examination, not to mention his bad breath.

     He smiled at her lewdly and held his hand up over the top of his head, “Don’t take my scalp,” he said.

     Jones relaxed a little.  The man was obviously an idiot.  He just hoped the oaf would hurry up and be done with them.  But what the guard said next sent a chill up his spine.

      “Museum of Modern Art is it?” The guard said as he directed his gaze back at Indy and narrowed his eyes, “Do you really think you can fool me, Mr. …Marshall?”

     Damnit!  Jones silently cursed in his mind, they hadn’t even made it past the border!  What had given them away?

TO BE CONTINUED…

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