The Origin of the Romany...

From "King of Thieves"... "My mother was a virtuoso. Her violin playing, my father told me, was breath-taking. Then, there was Sonia…” “Sonia?” “She was a mistress of Peter the Great.” “Wow!” He smiled. “Yes…” I picked up immediately on his words, --- ‘my father told me’. “Your mother is dead?” Alexandre’s dark eyes were huge and sad. “She’s gone. We don’t know if she’s dead, but we strongly suspect it. My mother's name was Lyudmilla Davlovna Kozlov. She was of the Ruska Roma, very wild, strikingly beautiful, an erratic enigmatic, fiercely free spirit. Truly, I picture her as Esmeralda in ‘The Hunchback Of Notre Dame,’ and my father told me that wasn’t far off! My father also told me a priest even condemned my mother like the archdeacon Frollo condemned Esmeralda in ‘The Hunchback Of Notre Dame’!” “I remember the story from the movies, --- the Disney animated movie, and then, the movie with Salma Hayek and Mandy Patakin!” “The book was much darker. Esmeralda is only sixteen in the book. She’s taken advantage of by a captain of the guards, who just wants her. She’s eventually hanged, and Quasimodo is broken-hearted over her death. Esmeralda is the only person who was ever kind to him. He believes he has nothing left to live for, so he dies, clutching her skeleton. Many years later, the two skeletons are found together, Quasimodo’s deformed skeleton with it’s bone-arms around Esmeralda’s ribcage bones. When guards try to separate the two skeletons, Quasimodo’s skeleton crumbles to dust.” “What a tale!” “Yes, there’s very good reason why the story is so famous!” “I should read it!” “Yes, and…” He shrugged, smiled. “My father said that my mother was, --- how did he put it?... ‘Singularly spellbinding, --- like a blue rose’.” “A blue rose?” “Da, --- a blue rose. There’s no such thing as a blue rose. Roses don’t have the gene for the color blue. Blue roses don’t exist. For many, many, many years rose growers have been trying to create a truly blue rose. The best they’ve done is a purplish rose. So, it’s a clever analogy to compare my mother to a blue rose because my father said she was also impossibly beautiful. Practically every man who saw her wanted her, but no man could have her for all her life. My father and my mother ran away together. Then, one day, she told him she was pregnant with me. There was no question of trying to return to her family. They wanted her death for disobedience and my father’s death too, of course. So, my parents kept running and running and running, and hiding and hiding and hiding.” “That’s so romantic!” “It wasn’t too difficult for them to be unfound. Eventually, father's large wealthy family protected them but... When I was about three years old, my mother simply disappeared. She left no note of goodbye but, she did take her violin with her. Maybe, she didn’t run away. Maybe, she was kidnapped and later killed. That’s what my father thinks, and, perhaps, he’s right! But, my stepmother, --- I call her ‘Maman,’ thinks my mother, Lyudmilla, may only be hiding and protecting her ancient violin, the main heirloom of my family, that my mother, Lyudmilla, believed was worth more than her life.” “Wow, you have such a vivid, interesting background!” Alexandre nodded. “But, so do you, Theresa!” “I guess!,” I said. “I think, probably, a lot of people have interesting family backgrounds, if only their family’s care to remember!... So, when my father and stepmother Irina discovered I’d inherited my mother’s talent they made sure I had the finest instruction but, I’ve not only inherited my mother's talent. I’ve also inherited her primitive nature. Oh, well, there is nothing I can do about it.” He shrugged again, looked a little sad again. “Would you like to see a picture of my mother?” “I sure would!,” I said. I followed him into the living room. He opened a drawer in a hutch and took out a photo album. He went through the pages and when he found what he was looking for he passed the album to me. “There,” he said, pointing to a photo. “It’s the only one we have of her. Of course, it doesn’t do her justice. No photo can capture the vibrance of life. Although photographers can try!” I smiled. “You definitely have your mother’s hair, --- and her dark eyes!” “Spasibo! Yes, I have her color eyes, but my father said one of her eyes had a cast in it.” “A cast? You mean an imperfection?” “Yes, a shadow, like a bluish-gray cloud, although her vision in that eye was unimpaired. The Rom believe that meant she’d be, --- a seer said, that she’d be ‘feral’.” “‘Feral’?’” “Yes, my father said that was the exact word the seer used.” “Your mother looks like Hollywood’s version of the ultimate stunningly beautiful Romany woman!” “That’s what I think too. My memory of her is the first thing I can recall. She was singing to me. Then, she picked up her violin and played. The melody was magical, --- an enchantment, like music from a faerie world, or like the music of a jinn…” “A ‘jinn’?” He smiled. “That’s what my father said. Her music was a jinn’s music. A jinn is another word for a genie.” “Oh.” “Yes, her music, my father said, was sweet and light, but, howling of mysteries, lushly fierce and terrible, fraught with ancient and wordless secrets... I could imagine it coming through the mists of a very early morning over the steppes, --- and also, even through time… Those are some of my father’s words about my mother’s music. Of course, he heard a lot of it. I only heard a little. Some of my father’s words that I remembered…” He smiled again, softly and sadly. “Music coming over --- ‘the steppes’?” “Da-da, --- the steppes! They were the vast and fertile grassy plains of Russia, extending across much of northern Europe too, and further, into Asia! Of course, they’re greatly diminished now. The Cossacks lived there, all the Cossacks, establishing their wild, freedom-loving, semi-nomadic way of life there, farming and battling, galloping their herds of horses over the steppes.” “Your ancestors…” “Yes, my ancestors…” “I can almost see it!,” I said. “Yes.”" --- Copyright 2026, by Sorelle Sucere.