C16 Three Dreams Cost Two

"The Gypsy's faction is very complicated, Vadoma was not in this faction at first, but now, this group of Gypsy came from Romania. They found Vadoma in the alley behind the building where you lived many years ago, and she's hiding in the trash can. She might have been scared by something, but since then, she has been blabbering crazily, and no one can understand her."

"That's why they named her Vadoma. Now, no one knows her anymore, and some people said before that she was a Gypsy who was smuggled in after the war, while others said that she seemed to be a cleaning lady of the Joshua Tower. That was a long time ago. "

At this point, the sound of someone knocking on the bar's iron gate could be heard.

"They're here." Nina stubbed out her cigarette and took the leftovers from the oven.

I took a sip of wine and fished my wallet out of my pocket. Nina isn't easy either. Although I'm also poor, I'll help out a bit if I can. I grit my teeth and pull out two twenties and press them under the glass.

"They need charity, I don't need it." Nina found change and put the rest of it in my hand.

"I just want to help …" I saw that she misunderstood me, so I hurriedly said.

"I know, thank you." Nina smiled at me and turned up the stairs. I followed.

Outside the iron gate on the ground were a few Gypsy wearing shirts and woolen coats. The women were all wearing scarves.

Nina handed the food to them, pointed at me, and said a few more words to their leader. Then she turned to me and said, "Come with them."

Ten minutes later, in a simple shack, I met the old gypsy Vadoma.

She didn't look good. She was covered with a few torn coats that she had picked up from somewhere. I looked around but didn't see the stray cat.

The Gypsy leader pointed at Vadoma before she led me into the shack. She shook her head at me with a sad expression.

"Vadoma, it's me. We've met before." I did my best to calm my voice down. At this moment, Vadoma was powerlessly lying on the ground, preventing me from connecting her with the person who had grabbed onto Lina. She didn't look like a madman, but more like a seriously ill and helpless old man.

No matter what people said about her, she saved my life. If it hadn't been for her voice, I would have jumped from the window on the sixth floor and turned into a pile of meat paste.

Vadoma opened her eyes, which were empty. Then she motioned for me to help her sit up.

"... Anfey Bina has two faces and lies as many times as the truth … Anfey Bina has two heads, one wants to head east and the other wants to head west … "

Vadoma began to speak another half-humph, half-singing words that I and I didn't understand.

"Vadoma, why were you under my window last night? Do you know why I had a nightmare? " I asked.

Vadoma did not care about my question, she lowered her head and repeated the two lines of the poem.

What is Amphesbina?

"Vadoma, were you... You worked at the Joshua Tower? "

The word "Joshua Tower" seemed to have aroused Vadoma's reaction. Her blind eyes blinked hard, and then she quickly rummaged through the pockets of those few tattered coats. After a while, she handed me a crumpled paper bag.

On the open package was an American entry certificate from 1951, with the words Lilia. DOPA/USA Entry Certificate/Visa Issuance Location: Munich.

"You're from Munich, Germany?" I asked Vadoma, and the old Gypsy seemed to suddenly understand my words and nodded his head.

There was also a black-and-white photograph folded in four. This must be something very precious to Vadoma. The photo had already been repeatedly rubbed so that the image in the middle could not even be seen clearly.

It was like a family fortune.

In the middle of the room sat a woman wearing a silk scarf and a square collar dress that was popular in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. She felt uncomfortable all over.

Beside her was a white crib. Behind the woman stood a man.

The upper part of the man's body could no longer be seen, but the lower half of his body looked like that of a soldier.

The man put a hand on the crib. There was not a single smile on the woman's face. What replaced it was an extremely unnatural expression.

More like fear.

"Is this you?" I asked Vadoma. She returned to her initial stupor and did not answer.

I tried asking other questions, but she kept repeating the strange poem as if she couldn't hear me.

"The door you see is a wall, the wall you see is a window, the window you see leads to death, not to where it came from …"

"What is it? Where did it come from? " I asked Vadoma, "Was that a dream or an illusion? Why was it so real? If I woke up a second later, I would have died. What does that have to do with Alpha's painting? " I took out Alpha's painting from my bag and placed it in front of Vadoma. Then, I suddenly remembered that she was blind.

But just when I was feeling disheartened, Vadoma's grey eyes seemed to suddenly have their own vision as they stared fixedly at the painting.

"You spied the hunter of the forest because you were his prey! The direction in which the hunters came from was the only way out of the forest! Wiping your eyes, child, you've lost two of the three dreams and the next one will never wake up! "

Vadoma suddenly grabbed my arm, and seemingly said it while using all of her strength to stay close to my ear.

Three dreams?

I tried to remember the dreams I'd had since I'd moved into the apartment.

The first time, I had the same dream as Lina. I was woken up by the sun outside the window.

The second time, I was awakened by Vadoma's voice.

Both times I didn't wake up of my own accord, which meant that the next time I would never wake up unless someone woke me up or I woke up myself. But I don't know when I'm going to fall asleep!

My scalp was pounding.

A long time passed.

"Why?" I asked, "Why do you want me dead?"

Vadoma weakened himself and ignored me.

"Just who are you?"

"…"

Vadoma never spoke again.

It was already afternoon by the time they walked out of the tent. A few Gypsy s were seated in a semicircle, with a golden-haired girl wearing a long skirt dancing in the middle. Unlike the rough Caucasian figures, the girl had a Frenchman's oval face. But I was in no mood to linger and hurried back to the apartment.

His thoughts were still in a mess. The only link he could find now was that Maria and the Gypsy Elder Vadoma (maybe her real name was Lillian?) were all immigrants from Germany after the war. Maria had been living in the Joshua Tower since the fifties, and it had been more than thirty years since. The building was their only intersection.

Then, without knowing what happened, Vadoma went crazy. Even after receiving the shelter of the other Gypsy, he still lived in the cave of the commoners near the tower.

Who exactly was Maria? As Anna had said, how could an elderly woman who could barely move and lived in the darkest downtown area of Los Angeles with an eight or nine year old child still be alive and well?

If Alpha was her grandson, then why hadn't I seen Alpha's parents visit him before? The fact that the child hardly ever went out of the house every day and didn't even have to go to school didn't make any sense at all.

I walked out into the street as I thought about it. The afternoon sun shone through the steel forest, warming my face and making me feel sleepy.

"Beep!" There was a deafening honk and a jeep brushed past my nose.

I woke up and realized I hadn't seen the red light on the zebra crossing. I broke out in a cold sweat.

"Gofxxkyourass!" A tattooed white man held out his middle finger to me from the driver's window.

I don't want to apologize, I said, patting my face. I can't sleep.

It was almost three by the time he got back to the building. The security guard in the control room had gotten a 12-inch transistor television set that was broadcasting "Hunter the Divine".

"… …." You have the right to remain silent, but everything you say will become evidence... " Hunter's classic lines echoed through the empty lobby on the first floor.

I stopped by the control room.

"Hey." I peeked through the small window in the middle of the security fence.

The security room was very narrow. On the TV, there were rows of documents racks with keys hung by the door plate. Most of the boxes were already empty. Under the glass of the table were printed cards of all religions — Jesus Christ, Sakyamuni, the Virgin Mary, and the Joy Buddha.

On the table, in addition to the visiting register, were two Bibles and a string of buddhist beads.

Since he was so afraid of dying, he might as well change jobs.

"No letter from you." The security guard glanced at me from his chair, his feet up in front of the TV.

"Excuse me, how long have you been working here?" I asked.

"You don't need to know." This time, the security guard didn't even look at me, he was completely focused on reading "The Divine Detective Hunter".

Hunter was finished a year ago, and now it's a rerun. I watched a few episodes in Philadelphia.

"That husband isn't the culprit. He was only afraid that someone would find out about his extramarital affair, so he secretly cleaned the bloodstains. The culprit was …" I said suddenly.

As expected, the security guard immediately covered his ears.

"Don't say it, don't say it, for God's sake, stop! "Well, I'm afraid of you. What do you want to know?"

The security guard helplessly turned his head to the side of the window.

"No matter what you want to ask, before the end of the advertisement." He said to me impatiently, "I've been working here for almost two years."

"Do you know Vadoma? An old Gypsy, wearing a headscarf, about eighty or ninety years old, was blind. Did she work here before? "

"I don't know if she used to work here, but I know this crazy woman. When I first came to work here, she was looking forward to going upstairs and saying her children were in there. At that time some of the apartments in the building were still quite new, and now and then junkies and hippies sneaked in with girls — you know — and I thought her children were playing high in there, too. I also called the police for her. The police came, but they didn't have her child in them. The police said she was crazy and she didn't even know her child's name. "