Gypsies on the Train
Lock the Door
“Make sure that you lock the door to your sleeper compartment, like this.”
The young Hungarian, an attendant on the long-distance Eurorail train car, twisted the small knob on the inside of my compartment door. As it turned, two stainless steel dead bolts, each about a half inch in diameter, shot out of the small door frame without finding the latch end because the door was halfway open. He wanted to make sure that I understood. I thought the lock was exceptionally rugged looking for such a small door on a very old train, which was preparing to leave Prague for Hungary. We would leave just after midnight and would travel all night, arriving in Budapest in the morning at 7:35 am.
“Will you be taking my passport,” I asked. It was common practice on many European night trains for passengers to give their passports to the attendant and then be given them back in the morning, shortly before the train arrived at the final destination in another country.
“No, keep your passport, but have it ready to show the border police. There will be three passport checks tonight,” he said. The blond attendant looked tired, with puffy red eyes. Though he busily prepared his car for the new group of passengers, it was apparent from the exhausted look on his face that he had not just boarded the train at Prague’s Hlavní Nádraží station, unlike me. He had a long, sleepless working journey ahead of him, all the way through eastern Europe.
He repeated again, quite seriously, for such a young and weary-looking man, “Make sure you lock this door after I leave, and do not open it unless you see me or the police through this peephole.” He made direct eye contact with me as he repeated these instructions, for the second time, putting his finger on the small glass fish-eye on the inside of my door. I nodded that I fully understood. As he began to move away toward the next compartment, I leaned slightly out into the hallway where he stood, and I quietly asked, “Where is the toilet? And if I want to buy some water or food—”
Brusquely, he interrupted. “The toilet is down at that end, and I’m down there too in the last compartment. There is water and some food that you can buy with euros. Remember to lock the door. Good night.”
“Good night,” I replied, slowly closing the door to my sleeper compartment. I turned the knob, and the double bolt easily slid into place with a metallic clack. I gave the door, with its shiny linoleum wood-grain veneer, a sturdy shake; it didn’t budge, and there was no play in the lock at all. I stared through the peephole. It distorted my view into something like the reflection off the back side of a spoon, but at least I could see partway down the hall in either direction. As I peered out into the hallway, I began imagining Czech, Slovakian, or Hungarian border police standing outside my door. I tried to remember whether their uniforms would be army green, navy blue, black, or khaki. But this just made me tired, so I backed away to a seat as the train slowly began to chug out of Prague station in the total darkness. I sat wondering what—or who—was the cause for such concern about security.
• • •
Egyptians
The word Gypsy (sometimes spelled Gipsy) derives from the word Egyptian. Gypsies were initially believed to have come from Egypt, but this assumption has never been documented or proven. The Gypsies’ true ancestors were a group of people who left India between 800 and 950 ce. The best estimates have dated their earliest official appearance in Europe, in modern-day Turkey , to around 855 ce; however, it is possible that there were Gypsies in Europe before this official recognition.
Romani (or Romany) is the language of the Roma, peoples often referred to in English as Gypsies. Analysis of the Romani language has shown that it is closely related to those spoken in northern India, Punjabi in particular. The Romani language has lent many words to English over the centuries, including posh, pal, dukes (as in the expression “put up your dukes”), lollipop, and the slang term for knife, shiv or chiv.
Gypsies, or Roma, as they prefer to be called, are a race of nomadic people. The Roma of nineteenth-century Europe traveled the countryside, carrying all their belongings in covered wagons and pitching tents wherever they stopped. For Gypsies, traveling, or wanderlust, is not a pastime or leisure activity but a way of life. In the Gypsy world it is considered as natural to move as it is for the majority of the population to stay in one place. Whatever the source of the Gypsy itinerant lifestyle, it made it necessary that their occupations involve mobility, and it was in this economic sphere, then, that Gypsies interacted with settled society.
Gypsies played important economic roles in society as migrant farm workers, picking fruits and vegetables during harvest time. Many made their primary living by hawking small homemade goods and by tinkering, such as repairing pots and pans and sharpening farm tools. These kinds of employments were plentiful and suited the Gypsy lifestyle perfectly as they moved from village to village.
Aside form these labor-oriented functions, Gypsies have always been famous for entertaining. They danced, sang, and played musical instruments. However, the form of entertainment for which Gypsies are best know for is fortune-telling. Taking advantage of outsiders’ long-held belief that Gypsies possessed magical powers, Gypsy women sold fortunes at fairs, and they read palms and tarot cards and even cast charms and spells, making considerable profits in the process.
Gypsy music and musicians have influenced such European classic composers such as Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms. Contemporary classical musician Hungarian pianist Georges Cziffra is Romani. The distinctive sound of Roma music has also strongly influenced bolero, jazz, and flamenco music, while the Roma people who came to the United States contributed to almost every musical style, including salsa, rumba, mambo, and even country music.
The largest concentration of Gypsy populations are found in eastern European countries such as Romania, with 1.3 million; Bulgaria, 600,000; Czech Republic, 250,000; and Slovakia, 300,000. But Gypsies are a global ethnic minority and can be found living in 140 different countries around the world. Most Gypsies assimilate into the population of their host countries and very often prefer to live on the country’s social security system rather than accept low-paying jobs. This frequently leads to anger against the Roma, as the conditions in which they live can be compared to ghetto environments and breeding grounds for poverty, crime, begging on the streets, and living in shacks usually built ad hoc and near railways.
The Roma who are most visible to the settled communities of eastern Europe today are those who continue to perpetuate the negative image of Gypsies, mainly through criminal occupations such as pickpocket, con artist, modern-day pirate, and train robber.
• • •
Bang, Bang
Relief washed over me because the concern of getting to the station on time, boarding the correct train, finding the overnight sleeper car, and getting situated in my compartment was all behind me.
Hlavní Nádraží station in Prague, at night, had given me an eerie, otherworldly feeling while I waited on the platform for the worn-looking Soviet-era train to finally lumber into the dark, cavernous station. The old train station, referred to in English simply as Main Station, has two levels. The upper level, where I waited, was covered by a huge steel arch that was open on either end; I could look out and follow the trains as they left or entered the station. There was no color in the scene, and I got the sensation that I was a background extra in a black-and-white World War II motion picture. In this film, an agent wearing a trench coat, with the collar turned up, approached me and asked me, with suspicion in his eyes, “Please show me your papers.” Then he ordered, “Come with me. We have some questions to ask you.”
Standing in the center of my sleeper compartment, facing the large window with its red, sun-drained, coarse fabric curtain fully pushed over to one side, I stretched my arms and easily, and at the same time, pressed the palms of both hands against the walls of the tight space. The length, from window to door, was roughly twice the width. Against the wall to my right were two bunks, a bottom and a top bed. They were covered with the same durable-looking reddish fabric that the curtains were made from. I was pleased to see that the cushion on the bottom bunk, where I would be sleeping, had been made up with a clean sheet over a thinly padded quilt, which served as a mattress. There was a single pillow, and it too looked freshly changed. On the opposite side was an undersized writing table, and above the table was a narrow steel shelf, its eggshell-white paint chipped and scratched. Over the shelf, where one might place a book or some personal items, was a frameless mirror secured tightly to the wall. A single-bulb light fixture, yellowed with time and heat, was positioned above the door and provided the only light for the tiny space, barely enough to read from while one was seated or lying in the lower bunk.
This was the extent of the furnishings. Since I was traveling alone and had prebooked the compartment, paying extra for it to be private, I could use the upper bunk to stow my backpack and small suitcase, freeing up precious floor space. At first I felt claustrophobic, but I quickly adjusted to the undersized scale, especially after I convinced myself that that was all the space I would need for sitting, eating some fresh rolls I had brought along, looking out the window, possibly reading, and hopefully sleeping.
Not wanting to undo any of my belongings, which I had tightly rolled into my pack, I decided that I would sleep in my clothes, a baggy pair of khakis with extra pockets and a T-shirt, both already wrinkled and comfortable. I kicked off my low-cut heavy hiking boots and got into the bunk facing the window. With the light in my cabin turned off, I could see an abundance of stars outside in the clear late-September night sky as the train sped along the tracks trough the Czech Republic on its way to Budapest.
Bang, bang, bang! “Passport, passport!” Bang, bang, bang! Somebody was pounding at my door—not knocking with a fist but using something rock solid, like the butt of a flashlight or a nightstick. I jerked up, my forehead barely missing the top bunk, as I had fallen fast asleep. My dreams were an ocean away from the Czech Republic, and it took a few moments for me to remember that I was on a train to Hungary. I couldn’t stay in a fog for long, however, because the noise at the door was nonstop and the voices were loud and authoritative: “Passport, passport!”
Despite my confused sate of mind, I somehow still remembered to the check the peephole for security. There were two stern, impatient faces, and the men attached to them were wearing uniforms with the short sleeves rolled twice over bulky upper arms. I said, “Yes, yes—one minute, please.” I kept my passport on my person at all times, for safekeeping, but my bush khakis had so many pockets that I forgot where it was. I frantically felt around for its square shape against my legs and backside until I finally located it in my left thigh pocket. While unsnapping the pocket with the fingers of my left hand, I simultaneously, and in almost total darkness, felt for the dead bolt with my right hand and unlatched the door.
The two men were Czech border police. “Passport, please,” the one closest to my door said, and I replied, “Yes, of course—here it is.” He flipped through the pages until he found my photo, gave it a glance, and gave me an equally quick look. Without any change in his facial expression, he slapped the passport back into my hand, and they both proceeded onto the next cabin. It was actually a long-handled flashlight they were using on the doors to wake everybody. I saw them strike it against my neighbors’ door rapidly three or four times. I had seen the man and women while I was boarding the train earlier in the night. I remember smiling to them. I didn’t think what they spoke was English as they struggled getting their luggage into their own cramped compartment. They had returned my smile as I entered my own sleeper for the first time that night.
• • •
Slovakia
The former Czechoslovakia is now the Czech Republic and Slovakia. They became two countries following the dissolution of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic in 1993. To travel by train from Prague to Budapest, one must cross through the southwest corner of Slovakia to get to Hungary. I tried looking out the window to see what the Slovakian landscape was like, but I couldn’t see too far beyond the tracks into the blackness. I looked up at the stars one more time just to see if the sky was still clear; it was. I hoped for fair and sunny weather in Budapest, as all cities make much better first impressions under bright skies instead of gray clouds or rain. I reclined into my lower bunk with my feet toward the window. I must have been very tired, because I fell back to sleep on the as it swayed farther into eastern Europe.
I checked my watch—3:10 am—when I heard the first loud voices and a big commotion in the hallway. I assumed that another passport check was going on. This time, I would be prepared when the flashlight began so rudely beating against my door, but the anticipated pounding never arrived. I looked through my peephole, and to my surprise, I didn’t see any police or the car attendant. I did hear different frantic voices coming from both ends of the train car and even from outside the train. I realized then that the train was stopped; I gathered that we were at a small station in a village somewhere in Slovakia. I took a step back from the door and sidestepped over to the window side of my dark compartment. I shoved the red curtain aside to see if who was outside and what was going on. Before I could see, the knock on my door finally came and a powerful voice on the other side boomed, “Stay in your compartment. Keep your door locked; do not come out. There is a problem on the train!”
A problem on the train? A shock wave coursed though my body. What the hell is happening? I thought to myself. Where the hell am I? What could possibly be wrong? A fire? A crash? I’d felt nothing that would have indicated a crash, and I’d smelled no smoke. It must be a mechanical problem. This thought gave me a momentary feeling of comfort, but at the same time, I became acutely aware of sweat breaking out along my hairline and on my forehead. I was nervous, breathing fast.
“Misses, misses—stay inside your compartment. Everything will be all right. Don’t worry.” I recognized the Hungarian attendant’s voice barking orders midway down the train car in the direction of the front of the train and toward his quarters.
Movement outside the train suddenly caught my attention. A man in street clothes ran past my window. Another large man in uniform followed directly behind him, and then another uniformed man running with a black baton swinging in his right hand. They were shouting in a language I didn’t know, not German or English but words completely unfamiliar to me. But I knew they were shouting, “Stop!” or “Halt!”
The racers were gone in a flash from beneath my window, so I bounced back to the small door and pressed my face hard against it, my wide eye covering the peephole. I could see police in the aisles now; they were in front of the compartment to my left, where the man and woman were—my neighbors with too much luggage. I dared not open my door, but I craved information to put my fears to rest. My only connection to the outside world was the big window and my small peephole, which I took full advantage of as I tried to comprehend what in the world was happening on the train.
The attendant was there. He had keys in his hand, and he was struggling with the neighbors’ lock. Two Slovakian police officers with high black polished boots and in dark navy uniforms like those worn by SWAT teams were standing impatiently behind the attendant as he called to the occupants in English, “Hallo, hallo. Are you okay? Do you hear me? Hallo, hallo.” Then he switched to Slovakian or Hungarian. At last the knob turned, and all three men, the attendant and the two tough-looking officers, pushed their way into the tiny cramped compartment barely big enough for two. Now there were five stuffed in my neighbors’ compartment. The cold sweat on my forehead had now spread to the back of my neck as I craned to see through the peephole what was happening.
Outside the train, I heard more commotion, so I shifted back to the window and looked up the tracks once again. I could make out more police on the concrete platform. They were on the ground, on their knees, huddling over something and pressing down hard. There were three of them, and all I could see were their broad backs, strong legs, and dark uniforms, the pant legs tucked into black boots. I realized that they were on top of someone.
• • •
The Neighbors
With a swarm of armed police outside on the platform and two in the very next compartment, I decided that it had to be safe enough to now unlock my door. Just as poked my head out and before I could set a foot in the hallway, the two police officers began to back out of the neighboring compartment. They were dragging the man and woman, who apparently couldn’t move under their own power, holding them under the arms. I prayed that my neighbors were only unconscious. The young train attendant trailed anxiously behind the officers and the two limp bodies now being pulled up the corridor and toward the front of the train in the direction of the attendant’s quarters, where I expected there might be some medical supplies. Or perhaps the officers were just taking the best way out of the train.
The attendant saw me standing in the hall, but he didn’t order me back into my compartment. He read my eyes, which were asking, What happened? What’s going on? What’s wrong with those people?
“Gypsies, Gypsies,” he said. “Gypsies on the train.” He shook his head in disgust and exhaustion.
• • •
Like Ghosts
I took a step closer to the empty compartment that my neighbors had just been taken from, but I could see no sign of what had caused the trouble or their apparent unconscious state. There was, however, a strange and acrid odor wafting from the small space, a sweet chemical smell. All luggage was gone, but oddly, I had not seen it removed by the police or the attendant. Bewildered, I went back to my own sleeper, leaving the door open, and saw that the mayhem outside on the platform was clearing, as the three officers had indeed tackled a man. The man they had caught had a slight build and wore jeans and a loose pullover shirt dyed in earth tones, his clothing soiled and stretched now from the violent scuffle on the concrete. His skin tone was noticeably darker than that of the officers who had captured him. They now had him up on his feet, and his legs appeared wobbly from the struggle with the three much heftier men. His hair was dark and long, practically to his shoulders, and like his clothes was disheveled from thrashing about during the arrest. A few yards away from where the wrestling had occurred lay pieces of luggage in disarray.
I heard a voice from further down the aisle: “There were two of them, but one got away.” It was the attendant speaking loudly to another passenger who was also out of his room now. A few other sleep-deprived travelers now began poking their heads out from their doors, but they were not stepping into the aisle. I walked down the aisle, curious, and joined the passenger and the attendant, who were talking and gesturing about the sudden turn of events on the train.
“What happened? What’s going on?” I asked.
“Gypsies—damned Gypsies. They sneak on the train. You never see them; you don’t hear them. They are like ghosts,’’ replied the attendant looking toward me, pausing, and then speaking again. “Yes, the train stopped here—the first stop—in Slovakia, to let off some passengers traveling in third class. This is the only stop in Slovakia and is right before the passport check. I closed my eyes for two minutes, and they came on just like that. Quiet like cats. They check for unlocked doors, and then they spray knockout gas under the door. The passengers who get gassed stay asleep while the Gypsies take everything from them. They steal from their pockets—wallets, tickets, money, watches—and rings from their fingers, and then all the luggage, too, they throw outside to the platform to other Gypsies. In only a few minutes on the train, they rob the passengers and then disappear into the night—puff, like smoke—gone. There are too many bad Gypsies in Slovakia.” He shook his head.
“What will happen to the people—the man and the woman?” I asked the attendant.
“They’ll be okay,” he quickly replied. “The police will take them to a doctor. They’ll wake up with a big headache from the gas and not remember anything. Tomorrow they’ll come back on the train and then go back home. The rail will replace the tickets stolen by the Gypsies and give them some money to get them home.”
The attendant left no opening to continue the discussion, as the police officers had reentered the train and were motioning for him to join them for some further questioning or maybe to identify the lone Gypsy I had seen in handcuffs on the platform. The caught man looked dejected, the officers towering over him. I presumed the other thieves got away, and I wondered how many more there were to pull off a job like this—at least two, maybe more. Two on the train and one on the platform, I guessed, but what did I really know about train robbery?
The two officers stayed on the train as it began to slowly pull away from the small station.
There were still a good four hours left to be traveled through the night before the train would pull into Budapest’s Keleti main station. I surmised that we would be late arriving because of the Gypsies. I also hoped that the Hungarian attendant might be spending some time off there so that he could rest and see his family, but I forgot to ask him in the morning when he came around to give me my passport back. I did ask him if he managed to get any sleep during the last few hours of the trip, after the robbery, and he just said, “No, no. Sleep,” and walked away to give back the few remaining passports in his hand.
On returning to my compartment, I locked the door and gave it a firm shake as the attendant had taught me. It wasn’t long before we crossed the Slovakian border into Hungarian territory. I could tell from the signs we were passing at village stations where we were not stopping. Once again, I looked out the window. I saw the bright stars above the train and felt happy knowing that it would be a beautiful morning in Budapest. I pulled the curtain closed and somehow, despite all that had occurred, managed to fall asleep one more time before the loud rap on my door awoke me. “Passport, passport.”
