Bury Me Standing
by Isabel Fonseca
Alfred A. Knopf $25, hard Bury Me Standing, Isabel Fonseca’s new book, takes its title from the old Romany proverb, “Bury me standing. I’ve been on my
knees all my life.” For a book about Gypsies and their journey, this is a
perfect name for a culture that remains misunderstood and mistreated.
Isabel Fonseca lived with the Gypsies for a few years in the late Eighties
and early Nineties. She quickly picked up some prime elements of the Gypsy
code: “Never ask questions and don’t wear short skirts.” The stricture against
questions forced her to become a sensitive observer and interpreter of Gypsy
life. Rather than questioning and running the risk of being lied to, or being
satisfied with facile answers, Fonseca had to learn how to hear the truths that
were hidden behind Gypsy behavior. Their set of beliefs is “the key to the
unusual ability of Gypsies everywhere to endure persecution and drastic change
of many kinds and remain in Romany. Relations between gadji
(non-Gypsies) and Gypsies are highly regulated and restricted, as are
relations between Gypsy men and women — and the burden for keeping such
customs fall mainly on the women,” which explains part two of Gypsyhood —
“…don’t wear short skirts.”
The woman’s role in the Gypsies’ community is ultimately, perhaps, the role of
Gypsies in relation to everyone else. A Gypsy woman is viewed as ideal if she
is quiet, modest, submissive, and, above all else, hard working. Fonseca
uncovered a proverb from Slovakia that when translated into English reads —
“Such a daughter-in-law is good who eats unsalted food and says it is salted.”
The Gypsy men want everything taken care of without being burdened by seeing it
done, and that goes beyond the household chores. Over tea, a Gypsy named Jeta
confided in Fonseca that “she had had twenty-eight abortions… performed them
by herself with a boiled and double length of washline cable, followed most
times by a `mop-up’ at the state maternity.” But what Gypsy men do not control,
it seems, is everything else, especially the hatred brought upon their
people.
In Bury Me Standing, the view of Gypsies is often compared to that of
the Jews during the Holocaust. Fonseca points out that following the death of
Joseph II in 1790, “…life for the Gypsies reverted to a normal one: one of
endless persecution and general slander (including cannibalism).” Under the
Nazis, there were over 500,000 Gypsies killed in World War II, and along with
the Jewish people, Gypsies were the only other group “who were slated for
extermination on the grounds of their race.” Czech President Vaclav Havel, has
said, “The Gypsies are a litmus test not of democracy but of a civil society.”
Perhaps the most poignant and telling story of the misunderstood and
mysterious Gypsy culture is the life and lonely death of Papusza. Papusza was a
poet and singer who achieved her acclaim outside the Gypsy community and seemed
in position to best represent the Gypsy way of life to outsiders. Increased
fame and acceptance by the gadji, however, caused her to become
mistrusted by her own group, until eventually she was cast out. “…Papusza was
condemned to a living death. The harsh law of the Gypsies — so cruelly at
variance with the romantic stereotype of the Romany free spirit — prohibits
emancipation of individuals in favor of preserving the group. And as so often a
disastrous element of mimicry was at work: Papusza was called a nark, just as
Gypsies have been dubbed agents and spies throughout their history in the
West.”
Fonseca makes no claim to give the whole story. She does not lay bare Gypsy
culture, but what she does is to lift a number of veils so that what is exposed
becomes both understandable and oddly repellent.
— Jeremy Reed
This article appears in July 19 • 1996 and July 19 • 1996 (Cover).