"You're not much for conversation, are you?" I said with a smirk. "I thought the French were supposed to be these great conversationalists, yet you're worse than a Parisian waiter to tourists."
Francois looked at me in surprise while the other brother glared at me for a moment before grumbling under his breath and digging into his breakfast, finishing it off in five large spoonfuls.
“I’ll wash the dishes," he said quietly before getting up and going outside. I watched him go, shutting the door behind him. I looked over at Francois, who shrugged.
"The water pump is outside. If it were me, I'd have gotten a bucket of water and brought it inside, but Felix is Felix. Oh dear, I've told you his name now. Please don't tell him. He’s angry enough with me as it is."
I grinned and nodded. "Your brother’s a very serious man."
"He has a lot of weight on his shoulders," Francois said to me. “He doesn’t like complications.”
“So you plan to disappear amongst the Roma," I said. "A group that does not trust the government as it is. I assume you plan on going overseas again?"
"Smart woman," Francois replied. "Yes, at least for the beginning, we’ll go back to Europe. Felix has responsibilities there — grave ones. After that, though, our lifestyle is not like most people's. We’re nomadic, more than even most of the Romani. Our father ensured that."
"How so?"
"It has to do with our lives, and why Felix is the leader while I’m just the younger brother. You must understand the Romani have what we call Romanipen to be able to understand it all. You’re far too typical American to understand. You grew up, where, Santa Barbara?"
"Rock Hill, Missouri actually," I said. "It's a suburb of St. Louis. I came out here six years ago, to try and make it as a musician. I didn't realize just how hard the music scene is in Los Angeles."
"Which is why you’re working as a janitor," Francois completed. "There is no shame in that, too many people don’t recognize the value of hard work."
"It’s strange to hear that coming from a thief," I replied. "Are you saying that your work is hard work?"
Francois laughed and shook his head. As he did, I was struck again by the dark handsomeness of his features, even if they were less brooding than those of his brother. "No, not at all. But if you give me half a chance, I might convince you that I’m not the immoral criminal that you think I am. Felix was right, there are some things that fiction gets wrong about our people. Yet there are many things it does get right. Maybe some day you’ll know and appreciate the difference."
Chapter 6
Felix
The cold air outside helped me gather myself. That woman, Jordan, she didn’t know how she affected me. She was beautiful, with a heart-shaped face and eyes that seemed to burn with an inner flame. Her taunts added to the already tremendous pressure on my mind until I either lost my temper or walked away. I'm a sucker for intelligence, even more than appearance, and a sense of humor and the willingness to retort sarcastically is a quick way I've been able to measure intelligence in people, even if she did make me want to lose my temper. As losing my temper would show my weakness in front of Francois, I chose instead to leave, making the excuse that I had to wash the dishes.
I could hear them talking as I washed, the pump was right next to the house and the windows weren’t that thick. At first I was angry when Francois told Jordan my name, but I soon settled down again. My brother had always pushed the boundaries of what I’d allow, especially if he thought he could get away with it. It had been the case when our father was alive, and continued as we became adults. Still, we made a good pair. Francois pushed my boundaries while I was always there to rein him in when his self-confidence got out of hand.
I was surprised when Jordan said she was a musician, as music had an important place in Romani culture, and in French culture too for that matter. I’d inherited a deep love of music from my mother, who insisted that if I were to be trained to follow in the footsteps of my father, that I would at least appreciate some of the art and artifacts I would be stealing. Father, of course, had his own hand in what exactly that meant, specifically in my choice of instrument, but thankfully I enjoyed it, and once I showed some affinity, he let me drift away from the staid, dry classical pieces toward whatever caught my ear.
As I listened and washed, I was drawn to the pitch of Jordan's voice. So many women nowadays try to sound girlishly high-pitched and end up sounding like a squealing hamster. Jordan, on the other hand, had a confident, slightly throaty voice for a woman. I wondered if her musical abilities were as enchanting as her speech. She certainly had a musical quality to her words.