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Laura Shepard Townsend
Category:
Historical Fiction
Publisher: Create Space
ISBN-10: 1463776861
Type: Fiction
Pages: 239
Copyright: Mar 7, 2012
ISBN-13: 9781463776862
Price: $5.00 (eBook)
Destiny's Consent is a vibrant epic set within the helter-skelter of the 20th Century related by Angelica Grastende, a woman of Rom, a gypsy. Now a Crone, Angelica is examining her life with its grand adventures in hopes of
Angelica's mother has stolen her husband's least favorite lions. Now Angelica, her lion-tamer mother and Gypsy sorceress grandmother are 'on the lam' with the two stolen lions.
A portentous Tarot card reading takes them to California where Angelica's hear wholly embraces the magical alchemy that was 1920's Venice. No longer defined by her Rom klan, Angeical begins the search for her destiny.
She is befiriended by millionaire-wizard, Abbot Kinney, who dreams have built Venice - a Renaissance City on the Paciific. Inspired, Angelica is catapulted into the exotic worlds of the 1920's: Prohibition, the fight for women's suffrage; the full-throttle recklessness of early aviation; as well as the mystique of newly born Hollywood.
Excerpt
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It has been almost seventy years since our train ride across the American prairies to Los Angeles, and not one day has passed that I do not marvel at one happenstance of that journey, or the other, depending on the rotation of life’s prism.
Then the year was 1918, and I was but a girl of thirteen. I had been slumbering within the refuge of my mother’s lap, retracing past memories in the wildernesses of my dream psyche, its reveries tossing me from tragedy to triumph, and then back again. My paranormal trance ushered forth people I had known, appearing and disappearing into mists to be replaced by another, and then another.
Abruptly, the hazy curtains once again parted, to reveal two roaring lions, which came almost upon me. Fortunately, I retained my wits and was crafty in my fleeing, but try as I would; I was not able to elude them. To end this frustration, I woke my self up, but even awake, the lions’ roaring did not stop. That the lions had the strength to develop into reality from my dreams puzzled and impressed me. However, as I wakened even more, I recalled, it was, in fact, the other way around. The lions from our reality had had the strength to penetrate my dreams by the magnificence of their roaring. I yawned myself even more awake and rubbed my eyes.
“Perhaps it is time to go visit our lions to ease their loneliness,” I said smart-alecky, audacious with my mother’s proximity. Grandmother Lena harrumphed at me disparagingly before replying in Romani, our language.
“Angelina, well, well. It is time you woke after such an expanse of time. Your poor mother’s arm has gone dead as a chunk of wood we cut for our fires.”
“Mother, please,” my mother chided her, “you know Angelica will always be as a bird against my body. And I, too, have needed the solace of my daughter’s touch at such a time,” she said, smiling the greatness of her love to me. My heart reassured, I enclosed her within a beam of my happiness, before being interrupted once again by deep-throated rumblings of wild cats. Now, seemingly, the very windows of the train were rattling. Helplessly, we sat in a breathless silence, listening: my mother, the new owner of those two stolen lions; Grandmother Lena, a renowned gypsy sorceress; and me.
Not so for the other passengers; their confused babble escalated into bedlam. One woman collapsed in a faint. Her traveling companion rushed to revive her, fanning her face with a newspaper.
“Elizabeth, Elizabeth, my dear.” There was no response.
“Sweet Jesus!” He looked around with exasperation. “Where is that damned conductor?” A man stood, clutching a long barreled pistol.
“I’ll go fetch him. And mark my words, Mister, if I see any wild beasts, I’ll shoot ‘em dead between the eyes.”
I looked to Grandmother Lena and Mother to see if they were going to stop him, but they just continued to stare straight ahead, as though none of this was of any concern to them. This is, and always has been the way of the Rom when among the gadje, the non-gypsies. For myself, I had never been successful in adopting this attitude -- mainly because I did not respect it. I will always choose to fight, which is not the way of the Rom. Rather than confront, the Rom choose to leave, quietly and often within nightfall’s darkness.
“Put your face into its composure,” Grandmother Lena hissed her warning to me. “You make us look guilty.”
I knew her meaning well since the gadje always attributed any crime committed to gypsies. So I too stared straight ahead even though in this situation I doubted it would do us any good. After all, at the start of our fleeing to the west, I had already deduced that we were on the ‘lam’, stealing father’s two lions, and so were probably responsible for them and their consequences. My heart pounded beats of dread at the prospect of being forced off the train in the middle of nowhere with two wild cats. I snuck a look at the swooned woman, hoping she might have revived, but her white face was frozen as if made of wax. And unfortunately, our lions, Chieftain and Princess, had not ceased any in their violent uproars.
At the Negro conductor’s arrival, a woman in a bonnet clawed at his arm, her voice desperate.
“The truth, sir, are there wild animals loose?”
“Certainly not, Ma’am,” the conductor responded before announcing in a louder, more official voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to assure you all that we are quite safe. Now where is the woman who has fainted?”
“She’s over here,” said the man still trying to revive her.
“Sir, did you see any beasts,” the bonneted woman asked the armed man sent to fetch the conductor. A crowd of people pressed forward to hear the response.
“I wish I had. They’d be dead by now,” the man said, taking aim with his pistol at the prairies.
The conductor was now at the fainted woman’s side. “If you will prop her up, here is a small amount of brandy. It might help to revive her.” The conductor stood aside while the two men gently moved the woman up, putting the brandy against her lips. The woman coughed.
“Elizabeth! Oh, thank you, God! Then you are all right?”
“I shall never be all right, Robert. I am frightened to death by that roaring. Please have whatever it is removed.”
“Boy, you heard the lady! I want those wild beasts taken off this train at once!” The conductor shook his head, before replying.
“I don’t believe that can be done, sir, seeing that the lions are cargo.”
“So you admit there are lions on this train,” Robert spat out.
“Robert, perhaps if I try,” Elizabeth commanded, putting her hand on his arm to quiet him. She turned to the conductor, altering her voice to a softened pleading.
“Sir, surely it is within your power to alleviate my suffering. And I believe…I have to believe you have the capability to understand suffering, though you are a…” The woman hesitated a beat, before stuttering out the next words, entangled within her contempt, “a negra.”
I watched the conductor’s smooth face as it swayed, struck askew by her hatred. He took a moment in his reply. “What is it that you would propose that I do, Ma’am?”
“Well, remove them at once, of course. Surely, any decent person would.”
“Ma’am, unfortunately that is not within my power. The lions have paid their passage the same as you,” the conductor said with some resolution. “And again, I assure you, they are safely locked up in the baggage car.”
Here was something rarely encountered: a stranger actually attempting to assist us, and I interrupted my pretense of non-concern to regard him more thoroughly through the sides of my eyes. A mob was rapidly forming as passengers from other cars jammed into our car. For such a confrontation, the conductor was quite nondescript and not very large.
“I wanna know who owns those lions,” said a man, his voice laced with threat, as he glared in our direction.
“Sir, to my knowledge, the lion owners are not on board this train,” said the conductor uneasily.
His eyes never shifted toward us, but I could see the passengers already suspected who was guilty of ownership. Their accusing eyes found us, and measured us - three dark-skinned gypsy women, clad in beads and coins and layers of colorful fabric. We were unlike them, which was enough; their hatred circled us like smoke. I could feel the passengers' breaths on the hairs of my neck: hot, short pants of self-righteousness as Chieftain and Princess continued their long roars of protest. I had felt the force of such emotion another time in my life; it was when our whole gypsy klan had been slaughtered. I gripped Mother’s hand tightly.
“Boy, seemingly you do not understand our dilemma here,” Robert snarled. The taunting menace in his voice sent chills inside me. “We are on a speeding train with rampaging lions, thirsty for human blood.”
“What shall we do,” another male voice prompted.
“Take over the damn train if we have to,” replied Robert.
“Yeah, there are more of us than there are of him,” said a new male voice. As they began detecting the power inherent to a mob, I could see the conductor’s bravado shrink. I continued to stare ahead, my heart withering.
“That’s right! We’ll just take his keys and throw the beasts off the train ourselves,” said another.
“Hold his arms,” ordered Robert. The men closest to the conductor grabbed him roughly.
“Don’t move if you value your life,” the man with the pistol warned the conductor, taking aim.
“Gentlemen, Gentlemen, please,” interrupted a genteel voice from a man in a derby hat. The car quieted some. “I am an attorney of law,” he continued, “and I cannot and I will not support lawless behavior. Especially in my presence.”
“There is no law out here in the Prairie,” Robert insisted.
“The law is everywhere and in fact, gentlemen, in this case, I would have to offer the absent lion owners not only my testimony, but my expertise. And I assure you I am quite proficient at my work.”
The passengers glared at us, the foreigners, trying to understand how people such as us had the power to alter their lives. I willed Chieftain and Princess to just be quiet, but I knew it was not to be. It is certainly a futility to try to shush a lion. I wondered if they were excited about going to California, or perhaps they were protesting the leaving of my father and the other lions at the Circus of Cairo. In any case, the train continued to lurch with their wildness; the woman, Elizabeth, gave a soft sound before fainting once again.
“That does it! Boy, perhaps you would be so kind as to tell us when the next train to California is scheduled?” Robert’s voice hissed with such malevolence, a tremble rose in the conductor’s hand as he consulted his timetable and his pocket watch.
“The next train will arrive in about an hour and a half.”
“So in a little over an hour, we can all ride on a civilized train,” the lawyer reasoned. “Certainly this compromise is worth the wait.”
“What say you, ladies and gentlemen? Will you join us,” Robert rallied.
It was clear no one was going to stay on a train with wild lions, and at the next stop, the passengers fled the train in hasty droves. But they did so noisily, expressing their rage as they pounded and stomped down the aisles, gathering their possessions. Their protest clunked down the metal steps to the platform, their bodies and faces twisted with a most violent indignation at their circumstances.
My spinning fears rapidly churned into paranoia. The evacuated passengers would eagerly report, to anyone who would listen, the story of hungry lions owned by strange, dark foreigners on their train bound for California. The story might even be reported in the newspapers, and then Father would be able to find out where we had gone with his lions. Until this time, to my knowledge, Mother had never before in her life stood up to my father. In retaliation for his humiliation, Father might call the police and have all of us dragged away to jail -- or back to the Circus of Cairo. I didn't know which would be worse. I did know, just like the other passengers, I hated the lions’ existence. As the train shuffled out of the station, it now seemed to be completely empty. In our car, everyone was gone except for us.
I saw Grandmother Lena reach for her Tarot Cards, but I was too immersed in the jumble of my own thoughts to mutter my usual insults regarding her superstitions. Reverently, she opened the special pouch carefully stitched into all of her clothes to ensure that her Tarot cards would always remain quite close to her heart. On this occasion, she spoke aloud both to declare her duties of stewardship toward the Tarot, as well as to remind the Tarot of its obligation to her as its guardian. She also took the opportunity to remind me of what she considered to be my destiny.
“Angelica, I inherited this Tarot from my mother, your Great-grandmother Portia. She told me the Tarot would always divulge the wisdom of the universe to me, if never neglected. It will become your duty, when I pass the cards to you, that they stay always either in your hands or close to your heart. Only then will they speak their knowledge -- of what was true, what is true and what is truly going to be.”
I rolled my eyes at Mother, but unfortunately, she had reverted to her usual place of acquiescence; her eyes beseeched me to be quiet. I angrily sucked my cheeks in, biting down harshly with my teeth to try to keep my silence. Otherwise, I knew, of their own accord, bitter words of contention would come tumbling out of my mouth to be known.
Grandmother Lena’s patience waited for both of us to join her; she studied Mother, then me to her satisfaction before gazing out at the sky. As if on cue, a crescent of moon rose above the horizon. I willed my thoughts not to align with theirs, but I had spent too many years as my grandmother's granddaughter and my mother's daughter to be successful. Though we regarded the slightest sliver of that silver light with silence, I knew we shared the same knowing: a new moon always announced cosmic beginnings.
“So this night, then, is to be our beginning,” Grandmother Lena whispered in a dramatic tremor. Because of the significance of this omen, Grandmother Lena shuffled and then reshuffled the Tarot deck many times before spreading the cards of our fate on the seat across from us.
Slowly, slowly, she painstakingly put down the seven auspicious cards from right to left. But she did not stop there, and I groaned inwardly as she put down seven more and then yet another seven. Apparently Grandmother Lena had decided she would not be content to examine just our future; additionally, she was going to study our past, as well as our present. This was going to be an eternity of useless information, I petulantly declared to myself, gritting my teeth again to stay silent. But I knew my eyes said plenty.
Grandmother Lena ignored my ill humor, and with great gravity she nodded once before closing her eyes. This was something she always did before beginning her reading of the Tarot. It was not only an acknowledgment of the rightness in and of all occurrences in existence, but her knowledge of this rightness, as well as her surrender to it. The nod was her assent to comply with whatever destiny the Tarot would reveal to her that night. But her nod plunged me into a chasm of anguish. I tried to ward off the memories spilling out of my heart, but there was no escaping them.
It had been four years ago, beside a stream where our Rom klan camped, when Grandmother Lena had also searched for direction in her Tarot cards. It had been an evening when our family was happy together, a rarity. I remembered how jauntily Mother had danced with her shawl to flirt with my father. That time, the Tarot reading had all been for naught. My eyes narrowed with their pain of remembrance, still so fresh after so many years.
If the Tarot was so perfect in its relating of the future, why had it not told her that our gypsy klan was in mortal danger? Why had the Tarot not directed us all to flee before the gadje massacre had begun, which would end the lives of so many I had loved?
I steeled my self to not trust any story my grandmother was about to tell us. But it did not matter that my mind was dusted with distrust; Grandmother Lena had begun to speak in Romani from that world she alone as a shuvani witch could inhabit, and began the story she knew would become our lives. I decided to avoid her eyes by looking down at the Tarot spread. And as I did so, I could feel the radiance of the Tarot resonate within my being. Gently, carefully, the richly tinted cards from ageless antiquities smoothed the jaggedness of my distrust toward a reluctant attentiveness.
“Ava, this is mostly about you and so it must be about us, also. Look.” Grandmother Lena pointed to the first card in the row of cards closest to us, the row designating our past. “’Four cups’,” she indicated its importance with her whisper.
“My secret number,” said my mother with wonder.
“This is how I know this Tarot is about you, daughter. Yes it is your number, but when it is in the suit of ‘Cups’ the Tarot speaks of disappointment in love.” Grandmother Lena paused. “Well, we know enough about all of that and so it is not necessary to tarry with the tale.
“Ava, here is your second sign of lovelessness, the ‘Lovers Card’, standing on its head, upside down. And then to ensure that you know, here is your third sign - where three swords stab without mercy the heart. Yes, the Tarot has decreed that your marriage is completely over. But we also know that already, do we not? You yourself stole your husband’s lions and then stole away not only yourself from the Circus of Cairo, but ourselves as well.” I began to wonder if my grandmother was utilizing tricks to conjure up such perfect cards to describe my mother’s flight from my father. Grandmother Lena never made a secret of any of her emotions, much less her dislike of my father, her daughter’s husband. But I knew also that if Grandmother Lena had wanted to direct my mother away from my father, the time for this Tarot reading would have been before she left him, not after. So perhaps Grandmother Lena was innocent, after all. The attachment of the word, ‘innocent’, to such a force as my grandmother made me smirk.
Grandmother Lena’s hand was lovingly caressing the next card, the Tarot’s eleventh card, ‘Justice’ before she continued. “Daughter, ‘Justice’ is the card reigning over your past and your decision. Did I not tell you this was a very good reading? It upholds all of the actions you have chosen.” Grandmother Lena could not keep her lips from smacking together with their delight. “And so it is foretold there will be justice for you, Ava.” My mother nodded quietly so as to not disturb the tears that rested in her eyes.
“However, you shall not be allowed to see it.” Grandmother Lena pointed to the ‘Two Swords’ card. “This one is a scolding card. It says that you have not been facing your problems, Ava. Of course we know that also because we are now somewhere else in the world, on this train, running away.” Grandmother Lena paused, to regard her daughter’s face, to see if she had gone too far. Apparently not, because she continued. “Ava, the Tarot says we are just where we should be.” At that, I sighed loudly and unhappily. “Next to ‘Justice’ is ‘The Hanged Man’. Ava, your daughter looks so sour. Angelica, this is not our doom. Nor even the doom of your father.”
“I know that,” I snuffed.
“Then what does ‘The Hanged Man’ card signify, if you know everything.” I knew Grandmother Lena was asking this question to allow me to speak only about what it was that she wished me to speak about, and thus keep my voice off of her business of the Tarot interpretation. I sighed again. I hated to admit I knew what I did. But it was true I did know much about the cards. Who could help it with fortunetellers all around me since I was a baby? Certainly one would have to have leaves stuck in one’s ears at all times not to hear and know.
“’The Hanged Man’ means we must reverse our opinions of the world, for one.”
“This is right. And what is this tree here on the card?”
“It is the ‘Tree of Life’,” I answered. “It symbolizes our possibility.” Grandmother Lena nodded with her pleasure.
“How are we to attain our possibilities?”
“By listening carefully to the dreams from our higher self, and then surrendering to that path’s direction.” I had to admit, I was happy to see the surprise on Grandmother Lena’s face.
“Listen to her, Ava.”
“I certainly am, Mother,” said my mother. “You have taught her well.”
“Seemingly so.” Grandmother Lena’s voice was swelled with pride. “Angelica, in spite of yourself, you may someday become a great shuvani for the Rom, your people. I have always proclaimed this to be true. Do not forget, you bear the sign, the mark of the crescent upon you. Perhaps…well, we shall leave that until another time.” Grandmother pointed to direct our attention back to the last card in the row of our past life.
“Look! Look at us here. The ‘Three Cups’.” On the card, three women danced with joy, their cups raised toward the sky. “Is this not us,” Grandmother Lena asked. “Are we not three women then?” Her pause allowed my prolonged regard of the card, and hope calmed my heart. Mother gave me a brief hug.
“Let us never forget we have stolen away together, we three, and together we shall drink of all that granted to us by the world’s creator. We are being told we can never doubt its vigor, or its love for us. Not for one hour. Now for the examination of our present.”
I could not help myself. “But, Grandmother Lena, where are the lions,” I asked with sweetness in my voice to mask my malice toward the Tarot.
“Look. They are everywhere. Open your eyes, Angelica and you will be able to see them very truly.” She pointed to the various cards not yet read. “Here they are, and here. Look again here.”
“Surely they are,” agreed Mother happily. “And remember always, it was I who stole my husband’s lions.” Mother’s mischief erupted into trills of delight; she was still greatly amused by her own audacity.
“Yes, you did indeed. Now, as I said before I was interrupted by Angelica’s idle question, it is time to examine the Tarot’s interpretation of our present.” Grandmother Lena said nothing as she took her time to regard the middle row of cards. Finally she spoke.
“Our present is being ruled by the ‘Death’ card. Worry not; this does not mean we will die, but we shall be transformed. Again, a great sign for you, daughter; it celebrates your strength.” Grandmother Lena nodded triumphantly to my mother. “Here is the sea once again; it is here as many times as the lions.” Grandmother Lena’s perplexity said more to me than her words -- it seemed the ocean was going to be a big part of our future.
“The first card is ‘Nine Swords’ to say that this time is for wisdom and the seeking of happiness.” Grandmother Lena took Mother’s face in both of her hands, and held it there while she spoke into her eyes. “The Tarot proclaims it is your time, my child. The Tarot states that you have suffered enough.” I averted my eyes -- I did not need to watch them to feel the love radiating from Grandmother Lena’s heart for her daughter. She continued, “and at last, here is ‘The Chariot’ card to bear us away. And look, here are two lions for you, Angelica. Again the sea is here, but why not? Are we not going to California and is California not against the sea?” Grandmother Lena closed her eyes as she contemplated the cards’ meaning. “We are being advised to meet the sea.” Her eyes opened wide with her knowledge. “With lions!”
“My stolen lions seem to have become important to our life,” Mother said.
“Yes, daughter.”
“How,” I asked petulantly.
“Be patient, Angelica. We are not to the cards of the future as yet. Please kindly tell us about this next card, ‘The Sun’. I could not believe Grandmother Lena was allowing me to participate in such an important reading. So I did my best.
“’The Sun’ signifies our new beginnings.”
“And what of the child on the card?”
“It tells us of the qualities necessary for success: innocence united with courage.”
“Exactly so, you have told it well, Angelica,” complimented Grandmother Lena. “And so we are to begin our journey with our innocence and with all the courage we possess. Here is ‘The Wheel of Fortune’ card with again the number four, Ava. See how the wheel in the center, the wheel of destiny turns for you, daughter? The time is ripe for us. Which brings us to the ‘Ace of Swords’ – again, new beginnings. The ‘Nine Swords’ here. Look at the prevalence of water! It surrounds us.” Grandmother Lena’s aged hand patted the cards to let them know of her happiness.
“And now, for our future, it is reigned over by ‘The Empress’. The Empress promises abundance. And is she not correct? Have we not abundant room to stretch our legs now that the cowardly gadje have left us the train?” Grandmother Lena cackled her glee, and Mother giggled along with her. “Daughter, you are to create your happiness in the realm of the females. It is imperative to use your intuition, and to exercise it to make it very, very strong. Next to ‘The Empress’ is ‘Strength’.”
“And there I am with Chieftain,” Mother laughed way too happily.
“There you are indeed.” Grandmother Lena closed her eyes and said nothing. I rolled my eyes at Mother, but she was too involved in marveling at the cards of power which marked our destiny: ‘The Sun’; ‘The Magician’; ‘The Hierophant’; ‘The World’.
From her shuvani trance, Grandmother Lena spoke in a voice lowered by awe. “I am being told,” she hesitated to allow the meaning to come to her, “that we shall only find the door to our next life by walking backwards. In this way we can erase our past and begin anew.” She opened her eyes. “I do not know what this prophecy means, but I am being told we will somehow be endowed with the ability of knowing.” She paused and then said. “Also, I hear an ocean roaring.” The word 'roaring' provoked my ridicule, and my snort came out too quickly for me to prevent.
"I need no Tarot deck to hear roaring. It isn’t an ocean you hear roaring; it is only the lions, Princess and Chieftain.” I paused to catch my breath. “And I tell you I am not going to spend the rest of my life walking backwards. The marks at the Circus of Cairo might know no better than to listen to the ‘Great Gypsy Fortuneteller’, but I am not going to be conned by your Tarot stories."
I heard my father's voice in mine when I said that, and I grew immediately sorry and silent. But it did not matter. My words had done nothing to jar Grandmother Lena from her trance; she continued to translate her visions into our language, the tongue of the Rom.
"The ocean speaks much louder than the lions, but I can hear clearly lions' roars next to an ocean. This place close to the sea will soon be home for us and for our lions. You, Ava, will be known as a famous tamer of lions there." Grandmother Lena traced out the banner only she could see. "La Domadora," Grandmother Lena pronounced syllable by syllable. "That will be your new name, ‘Lion Tamer’."
My Mother clapped her hands happily. I briefly wondered what kind of name 'La Domadora' was and then threw away the reading’s ridiculous prophecy from my mind. After all, my mother was no ‘Lion Tamer’; she had simply mothered the two lions when they were babies. I knew the real truth - we were in search of a real lion tamer to whom she would be able to sell Princess and Chieftain to make some money so as to go on with our journey toward the Rom, our own kind.
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