The Historian (76 page)

―‗Yes.‘ Helen brooded over the image, as if she thought it might speak to us if she stood there long enough.

―The endless waiting was starting to tell on my nerves. ‗Helen,‘ I said, ‗let‘s go for a walk. We can climb up the mountain there and get a view.‘ If I didn‘t exert myself a little, the thought of Rossi was going to drive me crazy.

―‗All right,‘ Helen agreed, and she gave me a hard look, as if reading my impatience. ‗If it is not too far. Ranov will never let us go far.‘

―The path up the mountain wound through dense forest that shielded us from the afternoon heat almost as well as the church had. It was so good to be free of Ranov that for a few minutes I simply swung Helen‘s hand back and forth as we walked. ‗Do you think it was hard for him to choose between us and Stoichev?‘

―‗Oh, no,‘ Helen said flatly. ‗He certainly has someone else following us. We will encounter whoever it is after a while, especially if we are gone more than half an hour.

He can‘t possibly keep up with us alone, and he has to tend to Stoichev carefully, to find out what our research will lead to.‘

―‗You sound so matter-of-fact,‘ I told her, glancing at her profile as she strode along the dirt track. She had pushed her hat back on her head, and her face was a little flushed. ‗I can‘t imagine having grown up knowing all these cynical things, being under surveillance.‘

―Helen shrugged. ‗It did not seem so terrible because I did not know anything different.‘

―‗And yet you wanted to leave your country and go to the West.‘

―‗Yes,‘ she said, looking sideways at me. ‗I wanted to leave my country.‘

―We stopped to rest for a few minutes on a fallen tree near the road. ‗I‘ve been thinking about why they let us come into Bulgaria,‘ I told Helen. Even here, out in the woods, I was lowering my voice.

―‗And why they are letting us wander around by ourselves at all.‘ She nodded. ‗Have you thought about that?‘

―‗It seems to me,‘ I told her slowly, ‗that if they aren‘t stopping us from finding whatever we‘re looking for—which they could do so easily—it‘s because they
want
us to find it.‘

―‗Good, Sherlock.‘ Helen fanned my face with her hand. ‗You are learning a great deal.‘

―‗So, let‘s say they actually know or suspect what we‘re looking for. Why would they think it was valuable or even possible that Vlad Dracula is undead?‘ It cost me an effort to say this aloud, although I‘d dropped my voice to a whisper. ‗You‘ve told me many times yourself that communist governments hold peasant superstition in contempt. Why would they encourage us like this, by not preventing us? Do they think they‘re going to get some kind of supernatural power over the Bulgarian people if we find his tomb here?‘

―Helen shook her head. ‗That would not be it. Their interest is certainly based in power, but it is always scientific in approach. Besides, if there is to be a discovery of anything interesting, they do not want an American to have the credit for it.‘ She mused a little.

‗Think—what would be more powerful to science than the discovery that the dead can be brought to life, or to undeath, in any case? Especially for the East Bloc, with its great leaders embalmed in their own tombs?‖

―A vision of Georgi Dimitrov‘s yellow face, in the mausoleum in Sofia, flashed on me.

‗Then we have all the more reason to destroy Dracula,‘ I said, but I could feel the perspiration break out on my forehead.

―‗And I wonder,‘ Helen added somberly, ‗if destroying him would make that much difference in the future. Think of what Stalin did to his people, and Hitler. They did not need to live five hundred years to accomplish these horrors.‘

―‗I know,‘ I said. ‗I‘ve thought about that, too.‘

―Helen nodded. ‗The strange thing, you know, is that Stalin openly admired Ivan the Terrible. Two leaders who were willing to crush and kill their own people—to do anything necessary—in order to consolidate their power. And whom do you think Ivan the Terrible admired?‘

―I felt the blood draining from my heart. ‗You told me there were many Russian tales about Dracula.‘

―‗Yes. Exactly.‘

―I stared at her.

―‗Can you imagine a world in which Stalin could live for five hundred years?‘ She was scraping a soft place on the log with her fingernail. ‗Or perhaps forever?‘

―I found myself clenching my fists. ‗Do you think we can find a medieval grave without leading anyone else to it?‘

―‗It will be very difficult, perhaps impossible. I am certain they have people watching us everywhere.‘

―At this moment a man came around the bend in the path. I was so startled by his sudden appearance that I almost swore aloud. But he was a simple-looking person, roughly dressed and with a bundle of branches on his shoulder, and he waved a hand to us in greeting and passed on. I looked at Helen.

―‗You see?‘ she said quietly.‖

―Partway up the mountain we found a steep outcropping of rock. ‗Look,‘ Helen said.

‗Let‘s sit here for a few minutes.‘

―The steep, wooded valley lay directly below us, almost filled by the walls and red roofs of the monastery. I could see clearly now the enormous size of the complex. It formed an angular shell around the church, whose domes glowed in the afternoon light, and Hrelyo‘s Tower rose in its midst. ‗You can tell from up here how well-fortified the place was. Imagine how often enemies must have looked down on it like this.‘

―‗Or pilgrims,‘ Helen reminded me. ‗For them it would have been a spiritual destination, not a military challenge.‘ She leaned back against a tree trunk, smoothing her skirt. She had dropped her handbag, taken off her hat, and rolled up the sleeves of her pale blouse for relief from the heat. Fine perspiration stood out on her forehead and cheeks. Her face wore the expression I loved best—she was lost in thought, gazing inward and outward at the same time, her eyes wide and intent, her jaw firm; for some reason I valued this look even more than the ones she turned directly on me. She wore her scarf around her neck, although the librarian‘s mark had faded to a bruise, and the little crucifix glinted below it.

Her harsh beauty sent a pang through me, not of mere physical longing but of something akin to awe at her completeness. She was untouchable, mine but lost to me.

―‗Helen,‘ I said, without taking her hand. I hadn‘t meant to speak, but I couldn‘t stop myself. ‗I‘d like to ask you something.‘

―She nodded, her eyes and thoughts still on the tremendous sanctuary below us.

―‗Helen, will you marry me?‘

―She turned slowly in my direction, and I wondered if I was seeing astonishment, amusement, or pleasure on her face. ‗Paul,‘ she said sternly. ‗How long have we known each other?‘

―‗Twenty-three days,‘ I admitted. I realized now that I hadn‘t thought carefully about what I would do if she said no, but it was too late to retract the question, to save it for another moment. And if she said no I couldn‘t throw myself off a mountain in the middle of my search for Rossi, although I might be tempted to.

―‗Do you think you know me?‘

―‗Not at all,‘ I countered staunchly.

―‗Do you think I know you?‘

―‗I‘m not sure.‘

―‗We have so little experience of each other. We come from completely different worlds.‘ She smiled this time, as if to take some of the sting out of her words. ‗Besides, I have always thought I would not get married. I am not the sort who marries. And what about this?‘ She touched the scarf on her neck. ‗Would you marry a woman who has been marked by hell?‘

―‗I would protect you from any hell that could ever come near you.‘

―‗Would that not be a burden? And how could we have children‘—her look was hard and direct—‗knowing they might be affected somehow by this contamination?‘

―It was hard for me to speak through the burning in my throat. ‗Then is your answer no, or shall I just ask you again another time?‘

―Her hand—I couldn‘t imagine doing without that hand, with its square-tipped fingernails and soft skin over hard bone—closed over mine, and I thought fleetingly that I didn‘t have a ring to put on it.

―Helen glanced gravely at me. ‗The answer is that of course I will marry you.‘

―After weeks of futile search for the other person I loved best, I was too stunned by the ease of this discovery to speak or even to kiss her. We sat close together in silence, looking down at the red and gold and gray of the vast monastery.‖

Barley stood beside me in my father‘s hotel room, contemplating the mess, but he was quicker to see what I had missed—the papers and books on the bed. We found a tattered copy of Bram Stoker‘s
Dracula
, a new history of medieval heresies in southern France, and a very old-looking volume on European vampire lore.

Among the books lay papers, including notes in his own hand, and among these a scattering of postcards in a hand completely unfamiliar to me, a fine dark ink, neat and minute. Barley and I began of one accord—again, how glad I was not to be alone—to search through everything, and my first instinct was to gather up the postcards. They were ornamented with stamps from a rainbow of countries: Portugal, France, Italy, Monaco, Finland, Austria. The stamps were pristine, without postmarks. Sometimes the message on a card ran over onto four or five more, neatly numbered. Most astonishingly, each was signed ―Helen Rossi.‖ And each was addressed to me.

Barley, looking over my shoulder, took in my astonishment, and we sat down together on the edge of the bed. The first was from Rome—a black-and-white photograph of the skeletal remains of the Forum.

May 1962

My beloved daughter:

In what language should I write to you, the child of my heart and my body, whom I have not seen in more than five years? We should have been speaking together all this time, a no-language of small sounds and kisses, glances, murmuring. It is so difficult for me to think about, to remember what I have missed, that I have to stop writing today, when I have only started trying.

Your loving mother,

Helen Rossi

The second was a color postcard, already fading, of flowers and urns—―Jardins de Boboli—The Gardens of Boboli—Boboli.‖

May 1962

My beloved daughter:

I will tell you a secret: I hate this English. English is an exercise in grammar, or a class in literature. In my heart, I feel I could speak best with you in my own language, Hungarian, or even in the language that flows inside my Hungarian—Romanian. Romanian is the language of the fiend I am seeking, but even that has not spoiled it for me. If you were sitting on my lap this morning, looking out at these gardens, I would teach you a first lesson: ―
Ma numesc…
‖And then we would whisper your name over and over in the soft tongue that is your mother tongue, too. I would explain to you that Romanian is the language of brave, kind, sad people, shepherds and farmers, and of your grandmother, whose life he ruined from a distance. I would tell you the beautiful things she told me, the stars at night above her village, the lanterns on the river. ―
Ma numesc…
‖Telling you about that would be unbearable happiness for one day.

Your loving mother,

Helen Rossi

Barley and I looked at each other, and he put his arm softly around my neck.

―We found Stoichev in a state of excitement at the library table. Ranov sat across from him, drumming his fingers and occasionally glancing at a document as the old scholar set it aside. He looked as irritated as I‘d seen him yet, which suggested that Stoichev hadn‘t been answering his questions. When we came in, Stoichev looked up eagerly. ‗I think I‘ve got it,‘ he said in a whisper. Helen sat down next to him and I leaned over the manuscripts he was examining. They were similar to Brother Kiril‘s letters in design and execution, written in a beautifully close, neat hand on leaves that were faded and crumbling at the edges. I recognized the Slavonic script from the letters. Next to them he had laid out our maps. I found myself hardly breathing, hoping against hope that he would tell us something of real import. Perhaps the tomb was even here at Rila, I thought suddenly—perhaps that‘s why Stoichev insisted on coming here, because he suspected as much. I was surprised and uneasy, though, that he wanted to make any announcement in front of Ranov.

―Stoichev looked around, glanced at Ranov, rubbed his wrinkled forehead with his hand, and said in a low voice, ‗I believe the tomb is not in Bulgaria.‘

―I felt the blood drain out of my head. ‗What?‘ Helen was looking fixedly at Stoichev, and Ranov turned away from us, drumming his fingers on the table as if only half listening.

―‗I am sorry to disappoint you, my friends, but it is clear to me from this manuscript, which I had not examined in many years, that a group of pilgrims traveled back to Wallachia from Sveti Georgi about 1478. This manuscript is a customs document—it gave them permission to take some kind of Christian relics of Wallachian origin back to Wallachia. I am sorry. Perhaps you will be able to travel there one day to examine further this issue. If you would like to continue your research on the routes of pilgrims in Bulgaria, however, I will be happy to assist you.‘

―I stared at him, speechless. We could not possibly get into Romania after all this, I thought. It had been a miracle that we had gotten this far.

―‗I recommend that you acquire permission to see some other monasteries and the routes on which they are located, particularly the Bachkovo Monastery. It is a beautiful example of our Bulgarian Byzantinism and the buildings are much older than those of Rila. Also, they have some very rare manuscripts that monks on pilgrimage brought to the monastery as gifts. It will be interesting for you, and you can gather in that way some material for your articles.‘