Sunday morning

Fall cool. While eating brunch with Del, we hear a bagpipe coming up the road.  Delal runs upstairs to get some lira.  I go out on the balcony and peek down through the laundry to see two chubby people my age marching down the middle of the road--a couple.  The man wears a white shirt and a red sash.  The woman a colorful kerchief and gypsy skirt.  She plays a tambourine.  Del fills a plastic bag full of coins and shouts down to them.  They lift their instruments and laugh.  We toss the money down (It nearly hits a car) and the shout up "Tesekkurler!" in accented Turkish.  "Gyspies?" I ask.  "Balkans'" Del says.  "Probably Macedonian refugees."  They continue down the street turning slow circles as they go, looking up at all the buildings with their laundry lines billowing with sheets and T-shirts and skirts, hoping for another coin fall from a window.  A white cat looks disdainfully down at them from the building across from us  (her picture is down a few blogs).  They start to sing, the man the main melody, the woman the harmony.