Stoker's Manuscript (8 page)

He looked me over before inspecting the ticket.
“Doua zile.”
Two days.

I disembarked and walked into town.
is a very old city of about eighty thousand people in the Bargau Valley, one of the original seven-hundred-year-old Saxon settlements, and likely the town Stoker referred to as Bistritz, where Harker’s journey to Dracula’s Castle commences in the novel.

Here, Saxons had come from the Germanic north and established seven settlements on seven hills, the seven citadels. With them migrated their Gothic design and orderly society, a sense of civilization and a work ethic both frugal and prosperous reflected in the cities’ designs and lives of the descendents. But its decay both disturbed and saddened me. There in the city’s center I stopped to admire the huge Lutheran church, with its melting windows, faded red-tiled roof, and high-spired clock tower. It needed stucco work. The church reached back to the fourteenth century, so old it predated decorated corbels. In my typical American musing, I questioned when the plumbing, electricity, and toilets went in. It not only looked old, but exhausted.

It took two hours to reach the east end of town, the direction my GPS indicated toward the original phone call. There the road ran out of pavement, and although a couple miles of flat terrain pointed toward the foothills, eventually the road continued as a path winding its way up and over a rise. Looking that direction showed no indication of either town or traffic. Could my telephone readout have been inaccurate? It listed the town of Dumitra, but I could not find it on a map.

Then as I punched in the coordinates on my GPS and increased the magnification on the screen’s map, it read
DUMITRA-DREPTU
. The name Dreptu rang a bell. It had led off the description in Stoker’s original epilogue defining the path Dracula’s body took to its final rest. It also appeared in the assistant’s notes, Stoker’s collaborator having been most emphatic about its exclusion from the novel’s final text.

I walked back a couple blocks to a coffee shop and called out,
“
cineva aici
?” Does anyone here speak English?

The din of palaver lowered as several patrons looked at me. An elderly man raised his hand and gestured me to his small round table, where he sat smoking a cigarette. As I approached, he pointed to the second chair. “I speak a little.”
Zpeak.

“Thank you, sir. I am looking for a place called Dumitra-Dreptu.” When I said the name, several people stopped talking.

“Drago.”

I shook my head. “No . . . Dumitra-Dreptu.”

“
numesc
Drago. Drago Svetkovich.”

“How rude of me.
numesc
Joseph Barkeley, from Chicago.”

He looked me over. “What business is yours in Dumitra?”

It took a moment to decide if I wished to lie. “I just wish to see it.”

“No one
just
visits Dumitra.”

“Thank you for your time.” I left the table and walked outside. It was no one’s business but mine what my business was. But as I crossed the street to return to the center of town, I heard the man calling my way.

“Joseph!”
Yosef.
“American.” I turned toward the voice. It was Drago. “I ask you this for your own protection.”

I walked back to him. “Is there such a place?”

“Yes, young man, thirteen kilometers, three hours’ walk over that hill.” He pointed northeast. “There is coming weather, and no places to stay in Dumitra.”

“What about Dreptu?”

“No.” He shook his head. “This is not a place.”

I unzipped my jacket to pull out my GPS. “It’s only—”

“Where did you get that?” he said, pointing.

“Amazon.com,” I said, shrugging and turning the device back and forth in my hand.

“No.” He pointed to my chest and the crucifix. “That.”

“Oh, a gift.”

“You will need it.” He made the sign of the cross. “There is a man who travels over the hill every afternoon about this time, a Gypsy. You will know him by his copper wares. He speaks no English; mention my name.”

“Thank you, Drago.”

“But you must find a place to stay; the forests are not safe. Look for signs, and be careful to watch the moon.”

Superstitions run deep in Transylvania, cautions and ceremony I once would have waved away like a fly on a lunch plate, but I registered his words and said, “A
.” A
room
.

He nodded and waved.
“La revedere.” Good-bye.

Within an hour the man with the copper pots drove by in a horse-drawn cart. I waved for him to stop and called out, “Dumitra?” When he failed to respond, I said, “Drago.”

He halted his cart and without smiling pointed to the back, where I climbed in and made company with his wares.

“
.”
Thank you.

He said,
“Va fi o
.”

“
 . . .
 . . . I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I said.