Chapter 16: Waiting with the Gypsy

Madam Huldah's opened at noon. She was unwilling to open it any earlier no matter how much extra money Jim offered to pay her to do so. "Proper rest is essential in the fortune telling business, as in life," she offered. So, for the second day in a row, Jim arrived at Madam Huldah's before she unlocked the iron grate protecting her storefront. Madam Huldah arrived ten minutes after Jim. She was, despite Jim's eagerness to get started as early as possible, right on time. Jim knew that Madam Huldah had negotiated for more money than she could possibly make in a single day and she didn't even have to read any fortunes.  All she had to do was sit with Jim and watch the street until the stranger walked by. She raised her rates because she told Jim that she was going to have to reschedule a number of the appointments that she had with regulars and she was charging Jim for the loss of goodwill. Jim didn't care. It was his client's money.

"Good morning, Jim," Madam Huldah said, as she stepped passed Jim, reaching to unlock the padlock holding the grate down. "Do you mind?" she asked, handing Jim her cup of coffee so that she had two free hands to work the lock.

"Whatever you need," Jim replied. Madam Huldah had on the same dark eyeliner as she wore the day before. She was wearing a flowing green dress and had matching bracelets running up and down both her arms. As she leaned down to unlock the gate, Jim noticed a small tattoo midway between Madam Huldah's shoulder blades. It was a small brown triangle facing downward, as if pointing further down her back. Jim would have expected something flashier. "Can I ask you about your tattoo?" Jim asked as Madam Huldah stood up, pulling up the rumbling grate as she did so. She turned back towards Jim and took her coffee from him.

"You can ask," she replied, turning away from him to unlock the actual door. 

"Does it have any significance?" Jim asked. 

Madam Huldah opened the inner door and turned back towards Jim. "During the Holocaust, Jews were made to wear stars on their clothes. Homosexuals were made to wear pink triangles. Gypsies like my grandparents, were made to wear brown triangles. Please, come inside." Madam Huldah held the door open for Jim and he stepped into the waiting room.

"I guess your grandparents made it out?" Jim said. He didn't sit down. He waited to be offered a seat. 

"When my grandmother realized she was pregnant with my mother, she put a spell on one of the Nazi guards and made him fall in love with her." Madam Huldah smiled at Jim as she spoke, seemingly enjoying retelling a story that she had told many times before. "Can you imagine, Jim?" When she said Jim's name, it flowed smoothly between her lips. The way she said it, the "j" was soft and she held the sound of the "i" so that the word Jim rhymed with the word stream. "A Nazi in love with a gypsy?" Jim didn't respond, wanting her to continue uninterrupted. "The spell was meant to protect both my grandmother and my grandfather but the guard became so jealous of my grandfather that he killed him. When he saw how distraught my grandmother was at this, the guard helped her escape. He knew that she would never love him but he still could not live with the idea of her hating him. So, he felt that this was the only way that he might be able to get her to forgive him."

"What happened to the guard?"

"He had made my grandmother promise that once she was safe that she would write him a letter. He waited for her letter for weeks and, when he received it, he killed himself with the same gun he murdered my grandfather with." 

"That's quite a story," Jim said. "Do you believe it?"

"I heard my mother tell this story many times."

"But do you believe it?" Jim asked again. He smiled at her, trying to read her but it was like trying to read a menu written in a language that you don't speak. Some words looked familiar but it would be risky to make guesses without help.

"The story has been told enough," she replied, "that even if it never happened, it is true." She stopped and looked around the waiting room. "So, where should we be sitting for our stake-out? Do we need to rearrange the furniture?" Jim was glad that she offered. The furniture had been situated so that only one seat faced the window. The other seats had their back to the window, facing the inner chamber. Jim guessed that, when Madam Huldah sat in the waiting area, she faced out so that she could see the world but that when her clients sat in the waiting area, they sat facing in, so that the world couldn't see them. Jim suggested that they move the love seat to the other side of the room, perpendicular to the single chair. Then he let Madam Huldah pick where she wanted to sit. She chose to sit in the chair. Jim sat alone in the love seat. From where he sat, Jim had a clear view of the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

Jim paid Madam Huldah in advance, not knowing how long they would be sitting there before the stranger walked by. Neither of them spoke at first. After roughly half an hour, Madam Huldah broke the silence. "So what do we do?"

Jim shrugged. "We watch," he replied. "When you see our guy, let me know but don't motion towards him, just calmly describe him to me. I'll get a good look at him; maybe I'll even follow him to try to figure out where he's going or to at least find out something about him. Maybe I'll take his picture," Jim lifted up the small digital camera that he had in his lap. 

"That's it?" Madam Huldah asked.

"That's it," Jim replied.

"It is going to be long day," Madam Huldah said, leaning back in her chair. "I hope he comes soon." Silence came again. This time they didn't speak for over an hour. Jim lost himself in the faces of the people walking passed them. He looked at the face of every man that walked by and wondered if this was the person. He studied their gates. He watched their strides to see how each one of them walked. He tried to compare how each man walked with the strides of the figures he had etched in his mind from the zoo footage. Madam Huldah's job was much less interesting. She knew what the person looked like. She saw him nearly every day. For her, the waiting was simply waiting.

"Would you like me to do a reading for you?" Madam Huldah broke the silence again after nearly two hours. "You've paid," she shrugged.

"We can't leave the waiting room," Jim answered without taking his eyes off the passersby across the street.

"I can only do crystal ball inside, but I can do Tarot Cards here." She patted the small table in front of them. The table was strewn with the same types of magazines you might see in the waiting room of a dentist's office.

"I don't want us to miss anything," Jim said.

"Madam Huldah does not miss anything." She smiled at him almost flirtatiously. Jim knew that this was how she sold her reluctant male customers. Only, with Jim, she wasn't interested in money. She simply wanted something to do. "Perhaps you will learn something," she finished, the flirtatiousness dropping from her voice.

"Fine," Jim replied. "But I have to warn you-no offense-- but I don't believe in any of this stuff." Jim waved his hand around, dismissing everything around him.

"What do you believe in, Jim?" Madam Huldah asked. Jim just smiled at her and shook his head. "Still looking for something to believe in?" she asked.

"I stopped looking a long time ago," Jim replied. "But if you think you can do my reading without it distracting you from keeping an eye out on the street, feel free."