The Witch of Portobello

I'm about to say: "And even if I did, I wouldn't have enough money," but I stop myself in time. She might think I was asking her for something.

"...and besides, I have too much work to do."

Silence falls again. She finishes her soup, lights a cigarette, and her eyes give nothing away, no emotion.

"Did you think you would ever see me again?"

I say that I did, and that I'd heard yesterday, from the Rom Baro's wife, that she'd visited his restaurant.

"A storm is coming. Wouldn't you like to sleep a little?"

"I can't hear anything. The wind isn't blowing any harder or softer than before. I'd rather talk."

"Believe me, I have all the time in the world. I have the rest of my life to spend by your side."

"Don't say that."

"...but you're tired," I go on, pretending not to have heard her remark. I can see the storm approaching. Like all storms, it brings destruction, but at the same time, it soaks the fields, and the wisdom of the heavens falls with the rain. Like all storms, it will pass. The more violent it is, the more quickly it will pass.

I have, thank God, learned to weather storms.

And as if all the Holy Marys of the Sea were listening to me, the first drops of rain begin to fall on the tin roof. The young woman finishes her cigarette. I take her hand and lead her to my bed. She lies down and closes her eyes.

I don't know how long she slept. I watched her without thinking anything, and the voice I'd heard once in the forest was telling me that all was well, that I needn't worry, that the ways in which fate changes people are always favorable if we only know how to decipher them. I don't know who saved her from the orphanage and brought her up and made her into the independent woman she appears to be. I offered up a prayer to that family who had allowed my daughter to survive and achieve a better life. In the middle of the prayer, I felt jealousy, despair, regret, and I stopped talking to St. Sarah. Had it really been so important to bring her back? There lay everything I'd lost and could never recover.

But there too was the physical manifestation of my love. I knew nothing and yet everything was revealed to me: I remembered the times I'd considered suicide and, later, abortion, when I'd imagined leaving that part of the world and setting off on foot to wherever my strength would take me; I remembered my blood and tears on the tree trunk, the dialogue with nature that had intensified from that moment on and has never left me since, although few people in my tribe have any inkling of this. My protector, whom I met while I was wandering in the forest, understood, but he had just died.

"The light is unstable, the wind blows it out, the lightning ignites it, it is never simply there, shining like the sun, but it is worth fighting for," he used to say.

He was the only person who accepted me and persuaded the tribe that I could once again form part of their world. He was the only one with the moral authority to ensure that I wasn't expelled.

And, alas, the only one who would never meet my daughter. I wept for him while she lay sleeping on my bed, she who must be used to all the world's comforts. Thousands of questions filled my head--who were her adoptive parents, where did she live, had she been to university, was there someone she loved, what were her plans? But I wasn't the one who ha

d traveled the world in search of her. On the contrary, I wasn't there to ask questions, but to answer them.

She opened her eyes. I wanted to touch her hair, to give her the affection I'd kept locked inside all these years, but I wasn't sure how she would react and thought it best to do nothing.

"You came here to find out why..."

"No, I don't want to know why a mother would abandon her daughter. There is no reason for anyone to do that."

Her words wound my heart, but I don't know how to respond.

"Who am I? What blood runs in my veins? Yesterday, when I found out where you were, I was absolutely terrified. Where do I start? I suppose, like all gypsies, you can read the future in the cards."

"No, that's not true. We only do that with gadje as a way of earning a living. We never read cards or hands or try to predict the future within our own tribe. And you..."

"I'm part of the tribe. Even though the woman who brought me into the world sent me far away."

"Yes."

"So what am I doing here? Now that I've seen your face I can go back to London. My holidays are nearly over."

"Do you want to know about your father?"

"No, I haven't the slightest interest in him."

And suddenly I realized that I could help her. It was as if someone else's voice came out of my mouth. "Try to understand the blood that flows in my veins and in your heart."