The Historian (24 page)

My guide was a pale-haired, gangly undergraduate, whom Master James introduced as Stephen Barley. I liked Stephen‘s fine, blue-veined hands and heavy fisherman‘s sweater—―jumpah,‖ he called it when I admired it aloud. It gave me a feeling of temporary acceptance into that elite community to stroll across the quad at his side. It also gave me my first faint quaver of sexual belonging, the elusive feeling that if I slipped my hand into his as we walked along, a door would fall open somewhere in the long wall of reality as I knew it, never to be closed again. I‘ve explained that I had led an extremely sheltered life—so sheltered, I see now, that even at nearly eighteen I hadn‘t realized how close its confines were. The quiver of rebellion I felt walking beside a handsome university student came to me like a strain of music from an alien culture. But I clutched my notebook and my childhood more tightly and asked him why the courtyard was mainly stone instead of grass. He smiled down at me. ―Well, I don‘t know. No one‘s asked that before.‖

He took me into the dining hall, a high-ceilinged, Tudor-beamed barn full of wooden tables, and showed me where a young Earl of Rochester had cut something rude into a bench while dining there. The hall was lined with leaded windows, each ornamented in the center with an ancient scene of good works: Thomas à Becket kneeling at a deathbed, a priest in a long gown ladling out soup for a line of the cowering poor, a medieval doctor bandaging someone‘s leg. Above the Rochester bench was a scene I couldn‘t figure out, a man with a cross around his neck and a stick in one hand bending over what looked like a bundle of black rags. ―Oh, that‘s a curiosity indeed,‖ Stephen Barley told me. ―We‘re very proud of that. You see, this man is a don from the early years of the college, driving a silver stake through the heart of a vampire.‖

I stared at him, speechless for a moment. ―Were there vampires in Oxford in those days?‖

I asked finally.

―I don‘t know about that,‖ he admitted, smiling. ―But there‘s a tradition that the early scholars of the college helped protect the countryside around here from vampires.

Actually, they collected quite a bit of lore on vampires, quaint stuff, and you can still see it in the Radcliffe Camera, across the way. The legend says that the early dons wouldn‘t even have books about the occult housed in the college, so they were put in various other places and finally ended up there.‖

I suddenly remembered Rossi and wondered if he‘d seen some of this old collection. ―Is there any way of finding out the names of students from the past—I mean—maybe—fifty years ago—in this college? Graduate students?‖

―Of course.‖ My companion looked quizzically at me across the wooden bench. ―I can ask the master for you, if you like.‖

―Oh, no.‖ I felt myself blushing, the curse of my youth. ―It‘s nothing important. But I would—could I see the vampire lore?‖

―You like scary stuff, eh?‖ He looked amused. ―It‘s not much to look at, you know—just some old folios and a lot of leather books. But all right. We‘ll go and see the college library now—you can‘t miss that—and then I‘ll take you up to the Camera.‖

The library was, of course, one of the gems of the university. Since that innocent day, I have seen most of those colleges and known some of them intimately, wandered through their libraries and chapels and dining halls, lectured in their seminar rooms and taken tea in their parlors. I can safely say there is nothing to equal that first college library I saw, except perhaps Magdalen College Chapel, with its divine ornamentation. We first went into a reading room surrounded by stained glass like a tall terrarium, in which the students, rare captive plants, sat around tables whose antiquity was almost as great as that of the college itself. Strange lamps hung from the ceiling, and enormous globes from the era of Henry VIII stood on pedestals in the corners. Stephen Barley pointed out the many volumes of the original
Oxford English Dictionary
lining the shelves of one wall; others were filled with atlases from a long sweep of centuries, others with ancient peerages and works of English history, still others with Latin and Greek textbooks from every era of the college‘s existence. In the center of the room stood a giant encyclopedia on a carved baroque stand, and near the entrance to the next room rested a glass case in which I could see a stark-looking old book that Stephen told me was a Gutenberg Bible. Above us, a round skylight like the oculus of a Byzantine church admitted long tapers of sunlight.

Flights of pigeons wheeled overhead. The dusty sunshine touched the faces of students reading and turning pages at the tables, brushed their heavy jumpers and serious faces. It was a paradise of learning, and I prayed for eventual admission.

The next room was a vast hall hung with balconies, winding staircases, a high clerestory of old glass. Every available wall was lined with books, top to bottom, stone floor to vaulted ceiling. I saw acres of finely tooled leather bindings, swaths of portfolios, masses of little dark red nineteenth-century volumes. What, I wondered, could be in all those books? Would I understand anything in them? My fingers itched to take a few off the shelves, but I didn‘t dare touch even a binding. I wasn‘t sure if this was a library or a museum. I must have been gazing around with naked emotion on my face, because I suddenly caught my guide smiling at me, amused. ―Not bad, eh? You must be a bookworm yourself. Come on, then—you‘ve seen the best of it, and we‘ll go up to the Camera.‖

The bright day and the noisy, speeding cars were more jarring than ever after the hush of the library. I had them to thank, however, for a sudden gift: as we hurried across the traffic, Stephen took my hand, pulling me along to safety. He might have been someone‘s peremptory big brother, I thought, but the touch of that dry, warm palm sent a tingling signal into mine, which glowed there after he‘d dropped my hand. I felt sure, stealing glances at his cheerful, unchanged profile, that the message had registered in only one direction. But it was enough, for me, to have received it.

The Radcliffe Camera, as every Anglophile knows, is one of the great charms of English architecture, beautiful and odd, a huge barrel of books. One edge of it stands almost in the street, but with a large lawn around the rest of the building. We made our way in very quietly, although a talkative tour group filled the center of the glorious round interior.

Stephen pointed out various aspects of the building‘s design, studied in every course on English architecture, written up in every guidebook. It was a lovely and moving place, and I kept looking around thinking what a strange repository this was for evil lore. At last he led me toward a staircase, and we climbed up to the balcony. ―Over here.‖ He motioned toward a doorway in the wall, cut, as it were, into a sheer cliff face of books.

―There‘s a little reading room in there. I‘ve been up here just once, but I think that‘s where they keep the vampire collection.‖

The dim room was indeed tiny, and hushed, too, set far back from the voices of tourists below. August volumes crowded the shelves, their bindings caramel colored and brittle as old bone. Among them, a human skull in a little gilded glass case attested to the collection‘s morbid nature. The chamber was so small, in fact, that there was just space in the center for one reading desk, which we almost stumbled against as we stepped in. That meant that we were suddenly face-to-face with the scholar who sat there turning over the leaves of a folio and making rapid notes on a pad of paper. He was a pale, rather gaunt man. His eyes were dark hollows, startled and urgent but also full of absorption as he glanced up from his work. It was my father.

In the confusion of ambulances, police cars, and spectators that accompanied the dead librarian‘s removal from the street in front of the university library, I stood frozen for a minute. It was horrible, unthinkable, that even the most unpleasant man‘s life should have ended so suddenly there, but my next concern was for Helen. A crowd was gathering fast, and I pushed here and there looking for her. I was infinitely relieved when she found me first, tapping me on the shoulder from behind with her gloved hand. She looked pale but composed. She had wrapped her scarf tightly around her throat, and the sight of it on her smooth neck made me shiver. ―I waited a few minutes and then followed you down the stairs,‖ she said under the noise of the crowd. ―I want to thank you for coming to my assistance. This man was a brute. You were truly brave.‖

I was surprised to find how kind her face could look, after all. ―Actually, you were the brave one. And he hurt you,‖ I said in a low voice. I tried not to gesture publicly at her neck. ―Did he—?‖

―Yes,‖ she said quietly. Instinctively, we‘d drawn close together, so that no one else could hear our conversation. ―When he flew at me up there, he bit me on the throat.‖ For a minute her lips seemed to tremble, as if she might cry. ―He did not draw much blood—

there was no time. And it hurts very little.‖

―But you—‖ I was stammering, unbelieving.

―I do not think there will be any infection,‖ she said. ―It bled very little and I have closed it up as well as I can.‖

―Should we go to the hospital?‖ I regretted it as soon as I‘d said it, only partly because of the withering look she gave me. ―Or can we treat it somehow?‖ I think I was half imagining we could remove the venom, as with a snakebite. The pain in her face suddenly made my heart twist within me. Then I remembered her betrayal of the secret of the map. ―But why did you—‖

―I know what you are wondering,‖ she interrupted hurriedly, her accent thickening. ―But I could not think of any other bait for the creature, and I wanted to see his reaction. I would not have given him the map or any more information. I promise you that.‖

I studied her suspiciously. Her face was serious, her mouth drawn down into a grim curve. ―No?‖

―I give you my word,‖ she said simply. ―Besides‖—her sarcastic smile reversed the grimace—―I‘m not necessarily in the habit of sharing what I can use for myself, are you?‖

I had to let that pass, but something in her face did calm my fears. ―His reaction was extremely interesting, wasn‘t it?‖

She nodded. ―He said he should have been allowed to go to the tomb, and that Rossi was taken there by someone. It is very strange, but he did seem to know something about the whereabouts of my—your adviser. I cannot believe in this Drakulya business, exactly, but perhaps some weird occult group has kidnapped Professor Rossi, something of that sort.‖

It was my turn to nod, although I was obviously closer to believing than she was.

―What will you do now?‖ she asked, with curious detachment.

I hadn‘t quite planned my answer before it came out. ―Go to Istanbul. I‘m convinced there‘s at least one document there that Rossi never had the chance to examine, and that it might contain information about a tomb, perhaps Dracula‘s tomb at Lake Snagov.‖

She laughed. ―Why not take a little vacation to my lovely native Romania? You could go to Dracula‘s castle with a silver stake in your hand, or visit him yourself at Snagov. I‘ve heard it is a pretty place for a picnic.‖

―Look,‖ I said irritably. ―I know this is all very peculiar, but I absolutely must follow any trace I can of Rossi‘s disappearance. And you know perfectly well an American citizen can‘t just penetrate the Iron Curtain to look for someone.‖ My loyalty must have shamed her a little, because she did not answer. ―I do want to ask you something. You said as we were leaving the church that your mother might have some information about Rossi‘s hunt for Dracula. What did you mean by that?‖

―I simply meant that when they met, he told her he was in Romania to study the legend of Dracula, and that she herself believes in the legend. Maybe she knows more about his research there than I have ever heard from her—I‘m not sure. She does not talk easily about this, and I have been pursuing this little interest of the dear old paterfamilias through scholarly channels, not in the bosom of the family. I should have asked her more about her own experience.‖

―An odd oversight for an anthropologist,‖ I retorted crankily. Now that I believed again that she was on my side, I felt all the annoyance of relief. Her face lit up with amusement.

―Touché, Sherlock. I‘ll ask her all about it next time I see her.‖

―When will that be?‖

―In a couple of years, I suppose. My precious visa doesn‘t allow me to bounce easily back and forth between East and West.‖

―Don‘t you ever call or write her?‖

She stared. ―Oh, the West is such an innocent place,‖ she said finally. ―Do you think she has a telephone? Do you think my letters are not opened and read every time?‖

I was silent, chastened.

―What is this document you are so eager to look for, Sherlock?‖ she asked. ―Is it that bibliography, something about the Order of the Dragon? I saw that on the last list in his papers. It was the only thing he did not describe fully. Is that what you want to find?‖

She‘d guessed right, naturally. I was getting an uncanny sense of her intellectual powers, and I thought a little wistfully of the conversations we might have had under better circumstances. On the other hand, I didn‘t completely like her guessing so much. ―Why do you want to know?‖ I countered. ―For your research?‖

―Of course,‖ she said sternly. ―Will you get in touch with me again when you come back?‖

I felt suddenly very weary. ―Come back? I have no idea what I‘m getting into, let alone when I‘ll be back. Maybe I‘ll be struck down by the vampire myself when I get wherever it is I‘m going.‖