Sitting in Old Town Square will always remain one of the highlights of my trip to Prague. My husband and I would sit on a park bench under the shade of trees, or in one of the outdoor cafes and watch people pass by. Some times we’d venture over to the clock and watch the spellbinding life-sized figures moving above our heads while the gonging of the hour echoed throughout the Square.
There was always something to see, to hear, to smell. Horses clomped onto the cobblestones making a delightfully ancient sound as they pulled carriages filled with sightseers in and out of the Square. If you closed your eyes and let your sense have their way with you, the smell of sausages cooking in the outdoor vender stations, people laughing and talking in many foreign tongues, tunes of street musicians, horse’s hooves clipity-clapping across the Square, you could forget who you were or where you came from.
One day, while we lazed like sunning cats in the warmth of the noon sunshine a large crowd of gypsies began to gather in one section of the park. The men with guitars slung over their shoulders shook each others hands with great excitement as though meeting after a long absence. The women dressed in voluminous, brightly colored skirts and blouses laughed and chattered while young girls dressed similar to the women ran and pranced around the gathered adults.
The gypsies slowly made their way to a park bench not far from where we sat. One of the men leaned against a tree and began to play his guitar with fast rhythmic strumming. The women grabbed up the edges of their skirts and began to dance in a flurry of bright colors. An older woman, toothless and very thin, lit a cigarette and clapped her hands in beat with the music. She removed the cigarette from her mouth and in a voice, craggy and high pitched she sang out a mournful tune. One of the men whistled shrill and long and the gypsies were thrown into a frenzy of excited jubilance. The little girls quickly took up the ends of their skirts, too and following the women, they twirled and stamped their feet in rhythm to the music.
We were surrounded by laughter, singing, guitar music, the clacking of a tambourine beating out a rhythm in time with the musicians and the beautiful dancing children. Then the clock in the Old Town Square began to chime the coming hour and the old gypsy woman sang louder and the children twirled faster, their skirts lifting farther and farther off of the cobble stone street. All eyes were on the dancing girls as they turned around and around in the bright sunshine. Then with one deep throated yelp from the singer the music abruptly ended. The girls stopped dancing and stood perfectly still while their skirts continued to sway ever so slightly. Then the lovely little dancers curtsied, and the crowed went wild with applause.
I expected one of the children to walk through the crowd asking for money. Instead the little girls returned to where the toothless old woman sat with the guitar players. She talked excitedly to the smallest dancer, and then she motioned for one of the older girls to come to her. The old woman stood up, lifted the edges of her own skirt, swished it back and forth, and then nodded to the little girl and sat back down again. The little girl lifted her skirt and imitated the movement of the old woman. I realized then that we had been watching a dance class in progress. The old woman was the instructor and the girls were her students.
The guitars began to play again, the old woman sang out in her soulful voice, the dancers moved into place, and with one last bit of instruction form an older girl, the smallest dancer stepped in line with her companions. This time the dancers were not accompanied by the chiming of the clock, and we could hear the whooshing sound of their skirts as the girls twirled and I could hear the clacking of their shoes against the pavement keeping time with the rhythm of the old woman’s song.
When the old woman finished singing she stood up, smiled and nodded to the guitar players then walked across the Old Town Square, her dance class following close behind. Several of the little dancers continued to twirl while other girls skipped and swished their skirts back and forth. Two of the older girls lagged behind and posed for pictures. They bowed, smiled at the photographers and even lifted their skirts in a mock dance position. And then they ran to catch up with their teacher and the rest of the class. The teacher, a tall, proud looking woman moved her dancing girls through the crowd of tourists as though all movement was a performance.
Later that afternoon we ran into the gypsy guitar players on one of the street corners. They played as wonderfully as they had earlier in the day but I missed seeing the little girls dancing. One of the musicians had placed a hat on the ground in front of them and I scooped deep into the bottom of my pocketbook for a collection of coins and gladly paid for my entertainment.
We had several more days left of our vacation and we frequently sat in the Old Town Square but the little dancing gypsy girls never returned. I was one of the lucky photographers who had snapped a picture of the older girls before they ran off to catch up with their teacher. They were so patient, smiling, holding their skirts out while I focused my camera. But I didn’t need to take their picture because when I think about sitting in the Old Town Square I can still see those pretty little girls swirling around and around on that warm sunny day.
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