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Description
                                                                                               April 10, 1945

My Wife,

I do not wish to tell you everything that has gone on here: it is horrors beyond what one can even imagine…It is a huge, roaring monster that is extremely difficult to quell and which we must attack from all sides. What they are doing to the people here…it haunts you in your sleep and  chills you to the core. It seems like Hitler is going to fight until the last German…
I have cried at night, and the men mock me. They tell me I need to just think of them as the “enemy” and remove all emotions, for that is the only way to survive. It is so very hard, though. I kill people almost every day, people like me, with dreams, hopes, fears, and ambitions, I take all those away from them. People who had wives like I do that they were praying to come home to, children they were praying to come home to, family they were praying to come home to…I destroy all those prayers and still must live with myself. I create widows and orphans in the blink of an eye, and it feels like I am the only one who realizes it. I know it’s necessary, everyone does, but how I WISH there was another way!
I have found another cause though, besides my country and my will to live(which is you, my love): it is the protection of your people. For no, it is not only Jews they are thrusting these nightmares upon, it is your people. The Travellers. They, too, are herded like cattle. It makes me sick to think of all the massacres that are now a normality.
Do you know how I keep myself together? Well, I shall tell you: it is you, my life my heart, my dear Cosmina. I hold our memories close to me, and it is a light in this terribly dark tunnel of this war I have been drafted into.
I remember when I would sneak out to the Gypsy Camp to see you, and you would lift the flap of your tent and let me in, quietly. You taught me the words of your language: Rom. Or Romany. Forgive me, but I can’t recall which. I know you said you were of the Romany people, or the Rom, but you would use both to describe your words. No, wait it, you called it “Romane”, I believe.
Ah, such a beautiful language from such a beautiful girl! The exotic words sounded like a sort of music,  like you were trying to drink them while you were talking, a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. I loved learning them, though I only know a few phrases and words you taught me. You matter-of-factly told me the meaning to your own name: order and beauty. How fitting!
Do you remember when we first met? It is one of my most precious memories, so I only recall it when I am desperate, otherwise from being relived in my mind so much it will grow faded and dry, and I couldn’t bear that.
I was with my family, a rather naive boy of seventeen, for I thought we were only going to have a good time, to the Ferris wheel maybe, get a few hot, sticky treats from the stands and play some games…No. They just knew the brightest and wealthiest would be there to meet, greet, and then commence gossip about once another once they had left. Mainly, they wanted to find a girl of good decorum and breeding for me, no doubt some porcelain, bland thing that let others dress her however they wished and would nod at anything I said.
Little did they know I’d fall for quite a different sort of girl…
My mother, father, and detestable brother were going to bet on some horses, and I wanted to stay, so they let me.
I almost passed by the colorful tent set up, but paused. You were sitting in the front of it, a smaller child that looked like you holding your hand. With your other hand you were drawing a red star onto your skin. You were wearing a red headscarf(you told me later it was a “diklo”*), a gold skirt that reached the ground, and a white blouse with puffy, long sleeves.
What did I think of how you looked? I thought you looked stunning but dangerous: skin the color of coffee with cream, eyes sea green-blue and piercing lined in kohl, lips as full and red as a pomegranate, dark hair the reddish-brown of cedar.
But I came to you nonetheless.
“Fortunes and palm reading ten dollars, written analysis fifteen, henna ten,” you told me bluntly with an accent, looking like a cat: taking everything in with a lazy yet knowing gaze, scorching my soul without even trying. I would have been infuriated if I weren’t so enchanted.
“Uh…palm reading, please, miss.”
“Chavi.”
“What?”
“An unmarried Rom- I mean gypsy, as you call us, is called Chavi. I’m no miss, Gadje.”
“Gadje?…” I asked, confused to the point of insanity.
You sighed impatiently. “Someone who’s not one of us. Someone like you.”
Then you turned and went inside the tent. While I stood there dumbstruck you called, “Are you coming or not, boy?”
If I did the “not” it would be giving in to the cautiousness. I didn’t want to do that, so I followed you.
The room smelled smoky, burning incense wafting gray smoke on a black table with engraved flowers. A clear, round sphere on a base of shiny copper sat in the middle.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to it.
“Oh, it’s…” You bit your lip, and said, “I don’t know why, but I feel that I can trust you, even if you are a Gadje*…” Looking around anxiously, you muttered to yourself, “No, father and the others are not here…”
“It’s supposed to be a crystal ball, what you use to see things, but truthfully, it doesn’t help at all. It’s just for show. People come up with their own stories about us, and sometimes we are glad to appease them, as it means food on the table. We CAN see the future, but we find a place in our mind, the Dreamland, focus on the person asking, and divine it.”
“I see,” I responded, pretending to comprehend.
As you glided into a chair, I sat at the one opposite you. You took my hand, and traced the line on the edge of my palm, between my first finger and thumb.
“It is straight and close to the edge, so you have not explored love much and lead a very sheltered life…you are also very careful,” you proclaimed.
Two of your fingers danced on a line above the previous one. I noticed they were long and elegant.
“There are two crosses here…this means you will have to make major choices. Soon.”
“What choices?” I asked nervously.
“You will have to answer that one for yourself, Gadje.”
“Joseph.”
“What?”
“I do have a name, you know.”
“That is irrelevant.”
“Is it?” I asked, distractedly, impulsively taking your hand. It was one of those things you don’t think about, but later can’t take back. It meant something, anyone could see that.
Your face became flushed.
“I…it…I mean, of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be? You will pay me and go on your way, like all the others.”
“Maybe I won’t go away. Maybe you can’t make me.”
“Maybe I CAN.”
“Maybe you CAN, but CAN you honestly say you want to?”
This was veering off a palm-reading fast, and we both could sense it. We were both  balancing on the edge of a cliff.
“In any case… “ You pushed the tip of your pinky slowly over the third line.
“This one is long and curved upwards, which means-”
Stopping abruptly, you yanked off your finger like it was on fire.
“No. No. You- you can go. You don’t have to pay, because I didn’t finish. You can go.”
“What?’
“GO!”
“No.”
I threw twenty dollars onto the table.
“There. Now you must finish.”
With trepidation, you took my hand again.
“It means you will give all of yourself for love, no matter what the cost,” you choked out, rapidly going to a line that started at the very base of my palm and flew somewhat diagonally across my hand.
“This line determines your fate, which crosses into other lines, meaning there will be shadowed times when your destiny is opposed by others.”
“Could you at least explain what-”
“I don’t know what it means any more than you do! I just know, vaguely, what will come,…Joseph,” you added softly as an after thought.
“Let’s see, your Marriage line…there is a fork at the end, which means there will be a separation.
“A divorce?” I asked, baffled. My parents had told me divorces were only something unseemly people did.
“Not necessarily.” Your eyes got a misty, far-away look. “Sometimes the Atlantic Ocean is separation enough…”
“Excuse me?”
“Hmmm? Was I saying something?” You shook your head.
“Other lines also meet it, which means there will be children in the marriage. Another line also cuts it off, which means a death will end it.”
“Aren’t all marriages ended with death…?”
“Sometimes,” you replied cryptically.

And now here we are, my darling…
How is little Helena? My sweet light? Tell her she is precious and lovely, and that her Father misses her and loves her so. Oh, and tell her if she whispers at night and listens hard enough, she can hear me singing her lullaby. Tell her when I come back I will read her the story of Sleeping Beauty five million times if she wishes it. Ask her if she likes the silver locket I sent her for her sixth birthday. How long ago was it? Time is very peculiar for me here. I believe it was three weeks past, but I cannot say for certain.
How is Cristian? Tell him also that his Father misses and loves him. Tell him that he will make a fine man one day, to listen to his good Mother and to take care of his little sister. Tell him I know him to be kind and humble, and to never lose that. Tell him that when he comes of age in two years, I hope he has learned more than I had at eighteen.
Know that I miss YOU! Know that I think of you day and night, that you are always in my prayers and my thoughts. My family is too, but you came first. My life didn’t begin until after I met you. You are my Life, my Love, and my Heart.

Your Ever Loving and Loyal Husband,
Joseph

I grabbed the very last letter, at the very bottom..

Dear Mrs. Balitu-Russell,
We regret to inform you that your husband, Joseph Russell, is “missing presumed to be dead”…

I stopped reading. A tear glided down my face, then another tear, then another…
Slowly, I got into my bed and fell into a dreamless sleep snap-fast.

Description
                                                                                               April 10, 1945

My Wife,

I do not wish to tell you everything that has gone on here: it is horrors beyond what one can even imagine…It is a huge, roaring monster that is extremely difficult to quell and which we must attack from all sides. What they are doing to the people here…it haunts you in your sleep and  chills you to the core. It seems like Hitler is going to fight until the last German…
I have cried at night, and the men mock me. They tell me I need to just think of them as the “enemy” and remove all emotions, for that is the only way to survive. It is so very hard, though. I kill people almost every day, people like me, with dreams, hopes, fears, and ambitions, I take all those away from them. People who had wives like I do that they were praying to come home to, children they were praying to come home to, family they were praying to come home to…I destroy all those prayers and still must live with myself. I create widows and orphans in the blink of an eye, and it feels like I am the only one who realizes it. I know it’s necessary, everyone does, but how I WISH there was another way!
I have found another cause though, besides my country and my will to live(which is you, my love): it is the protection of your people. For no, it is not only Jews they are thrusting these nightmares upon, it is your people. The Travellers. They, too, are herded like cattle. It makes me sick to think of all the massacres that are now a normality.
Do you know how I keep myself together? Well, I shall tell you: it is you, my life my heart, my dear Cosmina. I hold our memories close to me, and it is a light in this terribly dark tunnel of this war I have been drafted into.
I remember when I would sneak out to the Gypsy Camp to see you, and you would lift the flap of your tent and let me in, quietly. You taught me the words of your language: Rom. Or Romany. Forgive me, but I can’t recall which. I know you said you were of the Romany people, or the Rom, but you would use both to describe your words. No, wait it, you called it “Romane”, I believe.
Ah, such a beautiful language from such a beautiful girl! The exotic words sounded like a sort of music,  like you were trying to drink them while you were talking, a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. I loved learning them, though I only know a few phrases and words you taught me. You matter-of-factly told me the meaning to your own name: order and beauty. How fitting!
Do you remember when we first met? It is one of my most precious memories, so I only recall it when I am desperate, otherwise from being relived in my mind so much it will grow faded and dry, and I couldn’t bear that.
I was with my family, a rather naive boy of seventeen, for I thought we were only going to have a good time, to the Ferris wheel maybe, get a few hot, sticky treats from the stands and play some games…No. They just knew the brightest and wealthiest would be there to meet, greet, and then commence gossip about once another once they had left. Mainly, they wanted to find a girl of good decorum and breeding for me, no doubt some porcelain, bland thing that let others dress her however they wished and would nod at anything I said.
Little did they know I’d fall for quite a different sort of girl…
My mother, father, and detestable brother were going to bet on some horses, and I wanted to stay, so they let me.
I almost passed by the colorful tent set up, but paused. You were sitting in the front of it, a smaller child that looked like you holding your hand. With your other hand you were drawing a red star onto your skin. You were wearing a red headscarf(you told me later it was a “diklo”*), a gold skirt that reached the ground, and a white blouse with puffy, long sleeves.
What did I think of how you looked? I thought you looked stunning but dangerous: skin the color of coffee with cream, eyes sea green-blue and piercing lined in kohl, lips as full and red as a pomegranate, dark hair the reddish-brown of cedar.
But I came to you nonetheless.
“Fortunes and palm reading ten dollars, written analysis fifteen, henna ten,” you told me bluntly with an accent, looking like a cat: taking everything in with a lazy yet knowing gaze, scorching my soul without even trying. I would have been infuriated if I weren’t so enchanted.
“Uh…palm reading, please, miss.”
“Chavi.”
“What?”
“An unmarried Rom- I mean gypsy, as you call us, is called Chavi. I’m no miss, Gadje.”
“Gadje?…” I asked, confused to the point of insanity.
You sighed impatiently. “Someone who’s not one of us. Someone like you.”
Then you turned and went inside the tent. While I stood there dumbstruck you called, “Are you coming or not, boy?”
If I did the “not” it would be giving in to the cautiousness. I didn’t want to do that, so I followed you.
The room smelled smoky, burning incense wafting gray smoke on a black table with engraved flowers. A clear, round sphere on a base of shiny copper sat in the middle.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to it.
“Oh, it’s…” You bit your lip, and said, “I don’t know why, but I feel that I can trust you, even if you are a Gadje*…” Looking around anxiously, you muttered to yourself, “No, father and the others are not here…”
“It’s supposed to be a crystal ball, what you use to see things, but truthfully, it doesn’t help at all. It’s just for show. People come up with their own stories about us, and sometimes we are glad to appease them, as it means food on the table. We CAN see the future, but we find a place in our mind, the Dreamland, focus on the person asking, and divine it.”
“I see,” I responded, pretending to comprehend.
As you glided into a chair, I sat at the one opposite you. You took my hand, and traced the line on the edge of my palm, between my first finger and thumb.
“It is straight and close to the edge, so you have not explored love much and lead a very sheltered life…you are also very careful,” you proclaimed.
Two of your fingers danced on a line above the previous one. I noticed they were long and elegant.
“There are two crosses here…this means you will have to make major choices. Soon.”
“What choices?” I asked nervously.
“You will have to answer that one for yourself, Gadje.”
“Joseph.”
“What?”
“I do have a name, you know.”
“That is irrelevant.”
“Is it?” I asked, distractedly, impulsively taking your hand. It was one of those things you don’t think about, but later can’t take back. It meant something, anyone could see that.
Your face became flushed.
“I…it…I mean, of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be? You will pay me and go on your way, like all the others.”
“Maybe I won’t go away. Maybe you can’t make me.”
“Maybe I CAN.”
“Maybe you CAN, but CAN you honestly say you want to?”
This was veering off a palm-reading fast, and we both could sense it. We were both  balancing on the edge of a cliff.
“In any case… “ You pushed the tip of your pinky slowly over the third line.
“This one is long and curved upwards, which means-”
Stopping abruptly, you yanked off your finger like it was on fire.
“No. No. You- you can go. You don’t have to pay, because I didn’t finish. You can go.”
“What?’
“GO!”
“No.”
I threw twenty dollars onto the table.
“There. Now you must finish.”
With trepidation, you took my hand again.
“It means you will give all of yourself for love, no matter what the cost,” you choked out, rapidly going to a line that started at the very base of my palm and flew somewhat diagonally across my hand.
“This line determines your fate, which crosses into other lines, meaning there will be shadowed times when your destiny is opposed by others.”
“Could you at least explain what-”
“I don’t know what it means any more than you do! I just know, vaguely, what will come,…Joseph,” you added softly as an after thought.
“Let’s see, your Marriage line…there is a fork at the end, which means there will be a separation.
“A divorce?” I asked, baffled. My parents had told me divorces were only something unseemly people did.
“Not necessarily.” Your eyes got a misty, far-away look. “Sometimes the Atlantic Ocean is separation enough…”
“Excuse me?”
“Hmmm? Was I saying something?” You shook your head.
“Other lines also meet it, which means there will be children in the marriage. Another line also cuts it off, which means a death will end it.”
“Aren’t all marriages ended with death…?”
“Sometimes,” you replied cryptically.

And now here we are, my darling…
How is little Helena? My sweet light? Tell her she is precious and lovely, and that her Father misses her and loves her so. Oh, and tell her if she whispers at night and listens hard enough, she can hear me singing her lullaby. Tell her when I come back I will read her the story of Sleeping Beauty five million times if she wishes it. Ask her if she likes the silver locket I sent her for her sixth birthday. How long ago was it? Time is very peculiar for me here. I believe it was three weeks past, but I cannot say for certain.
How is Cristian? Tell him also that his Father misses and loves him. Tell him that he will make a fine man one day, to listen to his good Mother and to take care of his little sister. Tell him I know him to be kind and humble, and to never lose that. Tell him that when he comes of age in two years, I hope he has learned more than I had at eighteen.
Know that I miss YOU! Know that I think of you day and night, that you are always in my prayers and my thoughts. My family is too, but you came first. My life didn’t begin until after I met you. You are my Life, my Love, and my Heart.

Your Ever Loving and Loyal Husband,
Joseph

I grabbed the very last letter, at the very bottom..

Dear Mrs. Balitu-Russell,
We regret to inform you that your husband, Joseph Russell, is “missing presumed to be dead”…

I stopped reading. A tear glided down my face, then another tear, then another…
Slowly, I got into my bed and fell into a dreamless sleep snap-fast.