�Call me �Nick,�� he had said with a grin, teeth flashing white in a tanned face. His hair was thick and wavy, dark blonde or sun-bleached, with a hint of silver reflected in the light.
He was trim and lithe, handsome in a rugged way: eyes of hazel, face creased from the sun, masculine features with no softness to chin or jaw or cheekbones. He was enormously attractive--and old enough to be her father.
Although he had entered the hospital wearing slacks and a sport shirt, she could see the tiny holes in his ear-lobes, for the golden earrings he wore as chief of his tribe.
�Nick� was a Rom, a Gypsy chieftain, and he was assigned as one of her patients. He was to have major surgery to have the portion of his stomach removed that was eroded by an ulcer and would not heal.
He had been ill-at-ease at first, impatient with hospital routine, but he had seemed to trust her, his �little nurse,� and she had been flattered by his asking for her, waiting for her to come on duty to ask her about tests, to convince him they were necessary.
While she went about his daily care, Nick had talked about a Gypsy�s life: the roving, the encampments, living in the open air. He had touched on the hardship, the persecution. �The 'old wives' tales-- We don�t steal children or poison wells--these things are not true,� he had said, indignation in his voice.
He had talked about the celebrations: humming snatches of song, softly snapping his fingers, keeping time-- She could almost smell the wood-smoke of the campfire, see the firelight in the dancers� eyes, feel their heat, their rhythm: sensual, seductive.
That night in her room, polishing her shoes, getting her uniform ready for the next day--she had thought about her patient, wondered what life would be like with the Gypsies, with �Nick�. He hadn�t mentioned a wife, only a teen-aged daughter; he might have sons, she wasn�t sure. Would he be cruel? she wondered...or would he be tender, make her his queen...?
Her fantasy had ended abruptly when she dribbled white shoe polish on her bedspread. She had wiped up the spill laughing to herself in embarrassment; and next day with her patient, she had been self-conscious under Nick�s gaze, as if he might read her mind.
She had been infatuated, as only an eighteen-year-old can be.

After surgery, Nick had returned to his room with tubes everywhere, a very sick man, asking for her. She had been there when the nasogastric tube was passed preoperatively, and she was there several days later when it was removed and he could have liquids, then eat solid food again. She helped him to sit up on the side of the bed to �dangle� for the first time, helped him walk to the lavatory, hospital gown flapping, all attraction forgotten; she was a nurse, he was her patient.
Nick began to improve. Life out-of-doors, in the sun and wind and rain, had toughened him. Able to be up and about, he lost his petulance, his impatience with being sick and helpless and once again he was the attractive, warm and beguiling Gypsy Rom.

Then almost overnight it seemed, he became weakened, then collapsed. It was determined that he was bleeding internally, and she read with dismay the surgeon�s note in Nick�s chart: he thought ligating sutures must have slipped.
That day, as she held a wet cloth to his dry, cracked lips, Nick had whispered to her, asked her plaintively, �What went wrong?� The doctor had told him he must go back to surgery without delay but he had balked, refusing to go. She told him why it was necessary, to replace the sutures, repair the bleeding site.

A mistake? �The doctor made a mistake?!�
Frantically she tried to calm him as he raised up on one elbow, hoarsely cursing the doctor.
He was receiving blood transfusions; the tubes were all in place again. He wanted her at his side, asked for her to stay when her shift was over; but despite her urging he would not give permission for more surgery; he no longer trusted the doctor.
He became hopeless, despondent, refused more blood or any other treatment however much she pleaded with him, and finally she must watch her Gypsy Rom die...


Somehow she had forgotten all of it, until now...
She and her husband were on a vacation trip, driving through the Black Mountains of Wales. The road was twisted, narrow, and as they rounded a curve, a man stood waving imperiously for them to stop. Behind him a tired old shire strained uphill, pulling a brightly painted caravan, and the man in the road had waved another auto out from behind the wagon and headlong into their path!
At his sudden appearance, her husband had slammed on the brakes with a startled oath, shaken and angered by the narrowly averted collision. As they waited for the other car to ease around the caravan, allowing them passage, she had a long moment to study it.
A kerchiefed woman and a curly-haired little boy sat on the bench-like seat in the front, gazing back at her impassively. �Gypsies--� she breathed to herself. Long-buried memories came flooding back and she was eighteen again...

She heard the surgical resident questioning an intern, �Who could have told 'Forty-eight' that his sutures slipped? You can�t be too careful what you say in front of a patient--�
Later, conscience-stricken, she had confided her guilt to the resident. He listened soberly, looking thoughtful, saying nothing. He did not reprimand her, didn�t need to; his look was enough...
As her husband drove on, she stared out the car window at dark mountains brooding in their wraith-like mists, remembering events of twenty-five years ago as clearly as if they had happened only the day before...

On the day the Rom died, members of his tribe, his family, gathered around his bed to watch over his last hours. Some were in tribal dress, looking out-of-place in the sterile surroundings. As she went quietly about her duties, emptying drainage bottles, removing tubing, one woman caught her eye: an older woman, kerchiefed, with a faint growth of facial hair shadowing her upper lip. Her face was stony, her eyes hard as her mouth moved in some silent utterance...

In far-off Wales, she relived her pain at the sure knowledge that she had contributed to the death of her Rom--who had said he would take her to see his caravan when he was well...
Suddenly she remembered something else. Within months of the Rom�s death, his surgeon was dead. Middle-aged, healthy, he had undergone routine surgery and seemed to be recovering when he developed complications: a virulent infection, contracted during surgery, for which no treatment was then known.
Ironic, she had thought at the time. But now, here, she wondered. The Rom, with his angry curse, the woman darkly muttering beside the death bed--had it been more than a coincidence, the untimely death of the doctor?
Unbidden, unsettling, came a new thought:
Had she been forgiven?
For some miles her husband had been forced to drive at a nerve-wracking crawl through the mountains; lowering mists all but obscured the road. Suddenly the mists swirled and parted in ragged tatters, revealing the weak spring sun, and the car descended safely into the valley...

c1983 Gerry Hizer


Original art by Lew Hizer, Sr.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws