Borders

BY JOHN DELELLO

 

In the past eight hours we'd moved only a hundred yards. I was exhausted from not sleeping a wink the previous night. Eventually we'd get to Istanbul. I hadn't got out of the bus since it rolled out of Budapest nearly 24 hours ago.

 

The sky was grey and the air was cool and humid here on the Romania-Bulgaria border. About 30 soldiers with their fingers on the trigger guards of AK-47 style machine guns paced back and forth along the railroad tracks which led into Bulgaria.

 

Ugly concrete high-rise apartments spread everywhere like a reproducing bacteria gone mad. Along the railroad tracks filthy dark gypsy children from 4 to about 12-years-old smoked cigarettes and threw bottles as hard as they could, shattering them over the tracks and the bed of rocks that lined the tracks. I'd never seen so much broken glass before, let alone in one place. I could tell that bottle­breaking was the primary form of childhood entertainment here.

 

After eight hours of watching the gypsy children breaking bottles, the soldiers making their rounds, and enduring smoke (everyone including the driver smoked), I finally braved it and went out.

 

After hitting the latrine I walked over to an isolated part of the tracks.   Careful not to cut my hand, I tunneled through shards of glass and picked up three dark, heavy rocks and started to juggle them. I opened up into under the legs and some of the harder tricks. I sent a rock behind the back and then threw a rock into the air and caught it with the back of my neck.

 

I snapped the rock from off my neck and back into the juggle, and when I looked ahead to that center point where all the objects you juggle intersect, what I saw scared me. Within just a few feet of me were three little gypsy kids. I hadn't heard any jingling of the glass or rocks as they approached.

 

Having been warned by people in the Czech Republic who had been robbed by gypsy children in Romania, I knew that you never wanted to be surrounded by them. I hadn't any idea how many were behind me and how many splits of a second I had before they all converged upon me. Their height made them very good at grabbing hidden valuables in the waist pack, where everyone assumes the goods are safe.

 

Immediately I dropped all three objects and spun around 180 degrees. To my surprise there was no one there. No less paranoid, I spun back around to face the three gypsies I previously spotted.

 

One of them, maybe eight or nine years old, had three rocks going himself. Another one was on the verge of getting it. The third, who looked to be the youngest at about eight years old, was clueless.

 

In slow motion I showed the littlest one the pattern, and then physically hopped the rocks from one of his hands to the other several times. I've taught many people how to juggle in my life, but never before had I seen eyes so intent, so focused, so determined to learn.

 

The oldest one and head of the crew at about 11 years old tried to communicate with me, "Turkey? ltalia?." he asked.

 

I realized he was asking where I was from. "United States of America," I said.

With me speaking not a word of Romanian or Bulgarian and them not a word of English, that was the last verbal communication we had.

 

I continued to teach them the pattern, show them with the rocks how high to throw them, when they should intersect, where they should look and the other details which separates those of us who juggle from those of us who can't. Remarkably, without a single word exchanged, all three of them picked it up in under 15 minutes.

 

From time to time, they'd point at me and motion their hands as if they were juggling. I took this to mean they wanted me to give them a show. I'd do so, doing my best to think up new tricks like running or hopping on one leg and juggling, or juggling over­hand or with two in one hand and one in the other. They'd cheer and clap and I'd drop the rocks and continue instructing them, my fastest-learning pupils.

 

A few minutes later one of the soldiers came over to me and started yelling at me in some language I've never heard, and motioned me over to the busses with the barrel of his machine gun. Without a wave or good-bye, I left them and rushed back onto my bus.

 

About five hours later after an extensive search we went through the border and continued on to Turkey.

 

In a country where the president was killed by his own people and all-out revolution erupted less than five years ago, one which problematically lies between the Soviet Union, mainland Europe and the Middle East, and one which is as poor and destitute and dirty as any place I've ever seen, it was reassuring that without exchanging a single word I taught three kids something that could better their lives.