Flash Fiction Story #4-The Wall in Ostrovany

For the Roma Gypsies in Ostrovany, Slovakia
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/world/europe/03roma.html

Nicolai listened to his neighbors bickering about the Gypsies stealing their vegetables and their fruits. ‘A wall! We must build a wall! My tomatoes are not for the Gypsies to steal and eat!’ screamed the old man. ‘Yes a wall!’ screamed the strong woman while she tightened the red scarf around her round head ‘My oranges, my beautiful oranges are all gone now, and what shall I offer to my visitors when they enter my house?’. ‘Yes, a wall! A wall!’ were the words that were coming out of their maws, and Nicolai stood up and walked out of the small brick church knowing that their wicked hands would soon build this wall.
He stood now in his garden looking at all the trees he had planted for the Gypsy girl and could not understand the fury of his neighbors. He had never spoken to the girl, and had never shown his face to her, but sometimes he would wake up before the sun would rise in order to see her slip quietly into his garden so she can steal the apples and oranges from his trees.
The girl had caught Nicolai looking at her many times through his window but she had never spoken to him. She only knew how to sing so she would sometimes sit under his trees and would sing softly for that was her only way to thank him.
Nicolai understood that soon he would no longer be able to see his friend and was sad because of this. For days he could not eat and he stopped waiting for the girl, for tears would fall from his eyes to easily now. One day the strong woman with the red scarf around her round head knocked and knocked on Nicolai’s door for she had some of her oranges to give him, but as she looked around she understood that the house was empty and abandoned now. None of Nicolai’s neighbors knew what had become of him.
Many years had passed and during a beautiful spring, behind the wall where all the Gypsies lived, hundreds of trees had grown full bloom bearing all kinds of fruits. Neither side of the wall never understood how that had happened. It is said though that the Gypsy girl would sometimes see a man slip into her garden and steal the fruit from her trees. Although she would never speak to him or show her face to him, she would sometimes sit by her window and listen to the man sing while he would sit under her trees.