Ascension by Steven Galloway Read Free Book Online Page A

towards
gadje
, other than a healthy measure of wariness when dealing with them. His mother’s sister had even married a
gadjo, a
Hungarian, and they now lived quite happily in Budapest. Salvo had visited them before the war, and he remembered his aunt and uncle as kind people. He also remembered the old priest, who was a good man, but he was a priest and thus subject to different conditions than an ordinary
gadjo
.
    He continued his jog down the road and turned onto the street of the girl who András liked to visit, but when he got there all he saw was an old woman attempting to milk a goat that was little more than skin over bones. Salvo went further down the street, hoping to stumble upon him, until he reached the end of the road, at the foot of mountains, where there was a withered bit of forest few ventured very far into. He backtracked up the street and onto the main road. He ran for a short distance and turned onto a street where no Roma lived, but where there was a man who often bought goods of dubious origin, a man that the Ursari family and András in particular often had dealings with. The man’s shop was closed up, however, and there was no sign of his brother.
    There was a place back on the main road where Roma went to drink gritty coffee and smoke acrid cigarettes, and it occurred to Salvo that his brother might very well be there. He was beginning to worry that he had been gone from the house for too long. He wondered how long it had been since he had started his search. Perhapshalf an hour? Maybe longer? He had no way to tell. Salvo was still contemplating how much time had elapsed when he stopped dead in his tracks. Coming down the main road like a legion of ants was a mob of
gadje
, brandishing clubs and sticks and various other weapons. Some, the ones who had been soldiers, even had rifles. They were shouting, swearing, and they were moving fast.
    Salvo ducked into the stable beside the blacksmith’s, moving rapidly towards the rear of one of the horse stalls. He didn’t see the smith and didn’t know if the smith had seen him. He edged in beside a sable mare, putting his head up against the horse’s flank, smelling the horse smell and speaking softly to the animal. As the throng grew closer the horse became agitated, shaking its head and snorting and stamping a poorly shod hoof against hard-packed earth. Salvo was afraid that the horse would crush him against the side of the stall, or catch him with one of those steel-clad hooves, and he realized that if he were to be discovered hiding here, it would be assumed that he was attempting to steal the horse. He cursed himself for not having taken the time to find a better hiding spot.
    As the mob passed the stables he knew that he had made the right decision. He heard the words
gypsy
and
revenge
stand out among the furious drone, and he knew that if he had seen the mob, it was at least possible that someone in the mob had seen him. He was only one pair of eyes and there were many contained within the crowd.
    Just when he thought that the raven horse was about to squeeze out what little breath was left in him, and just when he was sure that someone would discover him, the mob had passed. He could hear it moving down the street in the direction he had come.
    Salvo waited until he was sure the mob was well away before emerging from the horse stall. He thanked the horse for notcrushing him, the sound of his voice soothing the frightened animal. The street outside was quiet and deserted. It was hard to tell if the people who were supposed to be there were hiding from the mob or if they had left to join it. Either way, there was no one on the street but himself. He stayed to the side of it, ready to conceal himself if he encountered anyone he shouldn’t, but he went all the way to the last place he thought his brother might be without seeing a single person.
    The café was empty but it was not locked up, and there were tin cups of coffee sitting on some of the