Rose's Indiscretion

Last week, a voice from the past. The call was from a Machvano whose wife's ofisa was once just two blocks from my San Francisco apartment. While reading Church of Cheese, he had been reminded of his aunt Rose's hard life. "So sad,' he said. "And that's all true; I know those stories." Then he added, "You're a writer and you have to write true stories."
A compliment, surely. A half century ago when I first met Machvaia, they were still smarting from the Marlene Dietrich movie "Golden Earrings" and told me that Outsiders knew "nothing true" about Gypsies. But how can Machvaia be portrayed accurately or fairly in consideration of their secretiveness and the stringency of a social structure that defines any cross-culture contact, other than the economic, as criminal?
Then I remembered that Rose had been married to an Outsider, a Gadzo, and publishing her story in a book was no different than broadcasting it at a slava or a wedding, sacred times when the ideal of seeing one another in the goodly way is the appropriate format. Stories, like Rose's, are shames when they become public knowledge. The Machvano caller was Rose's kinsman, which meant he shared her bloodline shame. Through the usual gossip hotline, many had undoubtedly heard about Rose's indiscretion. And more had suspected. But as an eyewitness author, I had given her error the full credit of black and white, irreversible, print.
Charley was kind enough to admit Rose's story was true. But his statement, "You have to write true stories," suggests that he wanted to believe I was required, by the necessities of my craft, to betray him.