The Historian (89 page)

―‗Stay with them,‘ Ranov said to Géza. Ranov moved carefully forward among the tables, glancing around at everything; it was clear to me that he‘d never been here before.

The dark-suited bureaucrat followed him without a word. When they reached the sarcophagus, Ranov held up his lantern and his gun and looked cautiously inside. ‗It is empty,‘ he threw back to Géza. He turned to the other two, smaller sarcophagi. ‗What is this? Come here, help me.‘ The bureaucrat and the monk stepped obediently forward.

Stoichev followed more slowly and I thought I saw a light in his face as he looked around him at the empty tables, the cabinets. I could only guess what he made of this place.

―Ranov was already peering into the sarcophagi. ‗Empty,‘ he said heavily. ‗He is not here. Search the room.‘ Géza was already striding among the tables, holding his light up to every wall, opening cabinets. ‗Did you see him or hear him?‘

―‗No,‘ I said, more or less truthfully. I told myself that if only they didn‘t injure Helen, if they let her go, I would consider this expedition a success. I would never ask life for anything else. I also thought, with fleeting gratitude, of Rossi‘s delivery from this whole situation.

―Géza said something that must have been a curse in Hungarian, because Helen nearly smiled, despite the gun aimed at her heart. ‗It is useless,‘ he said, after a moment. ‗The tomb in the crypt is empty, and this one is also. And he will never return to this place, since we have found it.‘ It took me a moment to digest this. The tomb in the crypt was empty? Then where was Rossi‘s body, which we‘d just left there?

Ranov turned to Stoichev. ‗Tell us about what is here.‘ They had lowered their guns at last and I drew Helen to me, which made Géza give me one sour look, although he said nothing.

―Stoichev held his lantern up as if he had been waiting for this moment. He went to the nearest table and tapped it. ‗These are oak, I think,‘ he said slowly, ‗and they could be medieval in their design.‘ He looked under the table at a leg joint, tapped a cabinet. ‗But I do not know much about furniture.‘ We waited, silently.

―Géza kicked the leg of one of the ancient tables. ‗What am I going to say to the Minister of Culture? That Wallachian belonged to us. He was a Hungarian prisoner and his country was our territory.‘

―‗Why don‘t we quarrel about that when we find him?‘ Ranov growled. I realized suddenly that their only common language was English, and that they loathed each other.

At that moment I knew whom Ranov reminded me of. With his heavyset face and thick dark mustache, he looked like the photographs I‘d seen of the young Stalin. People like Ranov and Géza did minimal damage only because they had minimal power.

―‗Tell your aunt to be more careful with her phone calls.‘ Géza gave Helen a baleful look and I felt her stiffen against me. ‗Now leave this damned monk to guard the place,‘ he added to Ranov, and Ranov issued a command that made poor Brother Ivan tremble. At that moment, the light from Ranov‘s lantern suddenly fell in a new direction. He had been raising it here and there, examining the tables. Now his light slanted across the face of the dark-suited, severely hatted little bureaucrat, who was standing silently by Dracula‘s empty sarcophagus. Perhaps I wouldn‘t have noticed his face at all if it hadn‘t been for the strange expression it wore—a look of private grief suddenly illuminated by the lantern. I could see plainly the bone-thin face under the awkward mustache, and the familiar glitter of the eyes. ‗Helen!‘ I shouted. ‗Look!‘ She stared, too.

―‗What?‘ Géza turned on her in an instant.

―‗This man—‘ Helen was aghast. ‗That man there—he is—‘

―‗He‘s a vampire,‘ I said flatly. ‗He followed us from our university in the United States.‘

I had barely begun to speak before the creature was in flight. He had to come straight toward us to get out, barreling into Géza, who tried to seize him, and pushing past Ranov.

Ranov was quicker on his feet; he grabbed the librarian, they collided hard, and then Ranov leaped back from him with a cry and the librarian was in flight again. Ranov turned and shot the hurtling figure before it was many feet away. It didn‘t falter for a second—Ranov might have been shooting into air. Then the evil librarian was gone, so suddenly that I wasn‘t sure whether he‘d actually reached the passage or vanished before our eyes. Ranov ran after him, through the doorway, but returned almost immediately.

We all stood staring at him; his face was white, and where he grasped the torn cloth of his jacket, a little blood was already trickling between his fingers. After a long minute Ranov spoke. ‗What the hell is this about?‘ His voice trembled.

―Géza shook his head. ‗My God,‘ he said. ‗He bit you.‘ He took a step back from Ranov.

‗And I was alone with that little man several times. He said he could tell me where we could find the Americans, but he never told me he was—‘

―‗Of course he never told you,‘ Helen said contemptuously, although I tried to keep her quiet. ‗He wanted to find his master, to follow us to him, not to kill you. You were more useful to him this way. Did he give you our notes?‘

―‗Shut up.‘ Géza looked inclined to strike her, but I heard the fear and awe in his voice, and I quietly drew her away.

―‗Come.‘ Ranov was herding us with his gun again, one hand on his wounded shoulder.

‗You have been of very little assistance. I want you back in Sofia and on a plane as soon as possible. You are lucky we don‘t have permission to make you disappear—it would be too inconvenient.‘ I thought he was going to kick us as Géza had done to the table leg, but he turned instead and ushered us brusquely out of the library. He made Stoichev walk ahead; I guessed with a pang what the old man must have been through, in the course of this coercive chase. Clearly, Stoichev hadn‘t intended for us to be followed; I‘d believed that from my first glimpse of the misery in his face. Had he made it back to Sofia before they forced him to turn around and follow us? I hoped Stoichev‘s international reputation would protect him from further abuse, as it had in the past. But Ranov—that was the worst of it. Ranov would probably return, infected, to his duties with the secret police. I wondered if Géza would try to do anything about this, but the Hungarian‘s face looked so forbidding that I didn‘t dare to address him.

―I looked back once, from the doorway, at the princely sarcophagus that had lain here for nearly five hundred years. Its occupant might be anywhere now, or on his way to anywhere. At the top of the steps we crawled one by one through the opening—I prayed none of those guns would go off—and there I saw something very strange. The reliquary of Saint Petko sat open on its pedestal. They must have had some tools, to open it where we had failed. The marble slab underneath was back in place and covered with its embroidered cloth, undisturbed. Helen shot me a blank look. Glancing into the reliquary as we passed it, I saw a few pieces of bone, a polished skull—all that remained of the local martyr.

―Outside the church, in the heavy night, there was a confusion of cars and people—Géza had apparently arrived with an entourage, two of whom were guarding the church doors.

Dracula certainly hadn‘t escaped that way, I thought. The mountains loomed around us, darker than the dark sky. Some of the villagers had gotten wind of the arrivals and come up with lighted torches; they fell back at Ranov‘s approach, staring at his torn and bloody jacket, their faces strained in the uneven light. Stoichev caught my arm; his face bobbed near my ear. ‗We closed it,‘ he whispered.

―‗What?‘ I bent to listen to him.

―‗The monk and I went down first, into the crypt, while those—those thugs searched the church and the woods for you. We saw the man in the grave—not Dracula—and I knew you had been there. So we closed it up and when they came down they opened the reliquary only. They were so angry then that I thought they would throw out the poor saint‘s bones.‘ Brother Ivan looked sturdy enough, I thought, but Professor Stoichev‘s frailty must conceal a rare strength. Stoichev looked sharply at me. ‗But who was that in the grave underneath, if it was not—?‘

―‗It was Professor Rossi,‘ I whispered. Ranov was opening car doors, ordering us in.

―Stoichev gave me a quick, eloquent look. ‗I am so sorry.‘‖

―That is how we left my dearest friend resting in Bulgaria, may he sleep there in peace until the end of the world.‖

―After our adventure in a crypt, the Boras‘ front parlor looked like heaven on earth. It was an exquisite relief to be there again, with cups of hot tea in our hands—the weather had taken a rare cool turn that week, although it was June already—and Turgut smiling at us from the cushions of the divan. Helen had slipped off her shoes at the door to the apartment and put on some tasseled red slippers Mrs. Bora brought her. Selim Aksoy was there, too, sitting quietly in the corner, and Turgut made sure that he and Mrs. Bora got a fair translation of everything.

―‗Are you certain that the tomb was empty?‘ Turgut had asked it once already, but seemed unable to refrain from asking again.

―‗Quite sure.‘ I glanced at Helen. ‗What we don‘t know is whether the noise we heard was the sound of Dracula escaping somehow as we came in. It was probably dark outside by then, and easy for him to move around.‘

―‗And he could have changed shape, of course, if the legend is correct.‘ Turgut sighed.

‗Damn his eyes! You were very close to catching him, my friends, closer than the Crescent Guard has come in five centuries. I am passing glad you were not killed, but terribly sorry also that you were not able to destroy him.‘

―‗Where do you think he went?‘ Helen leaned forward, her eyes intensely dark.

―Turgut stroked his big chin. ‗Well, my dear, I cannot guess. He can travel far and fast, but I do not know how far he would go. To another ancient site, I am sure, some hiding place that has been undisturbed for centuries. It must have been a blow for him to leave Sveti Georgi, but he would understand that this site will be guarded now for a long time to come. I would give my right hand to know whether he has remained somewhere in Bulgaria or left the country altogether. Borders and politics do not mean very much to him, I am certain.‘ Turgut‘s frown was harsh on his kind face.

―‗You do not think he would follow us?‘ Helen asked simply, but something in the angle of her shoulders made me think that the very simplicity with which she asked this question cost her an effort.

―Turgut shook his head. ‗I hope not, Madam Professor. I should think he would be a little afraid of you two by now, since you found him when no one else could.‘

―Helen was silent, and I didn‘t like the doubt in her face. Selim Aksoy and Mrs. Bora watched her with a particular tenderness, too, I thought; maybe they were wondering how I could have allowed her to go into such a dangerous situation in the first place, even if we‘d managed to return whole.

―Turgut turned to me. ‗And I am deeply sorry about your friend Rossi. I would have liked to meet him.‘

―‗And I know you would have enjoyed each other‘s company,‘ I said sincerely, taking Helen‘s hand. Her eyes filled whenever Rossi‘s name came up, and now she looked away, as if for privacy.

―‗I wish I could have met Professor Stoichev, also.‘ Turgut sighed again and set his cup down on the brass table before us.

―‗That would have been magnificent,‘ I said, smiling at the picture of the two scholars comparing notes. ‗You and Stoichev could have explained the Ottoman Empire and the medieval Balkans to each other. Maybe you will meet someday.‘

―Turgut shook his head. ‗I do not think so,‘ he said. ‗The barriers between us are as high and—prickly—as they were between any
tsar
and
pasha
. But if you ever speak with him again, or write to him, by all means give him my regards.‘

―It was an easy promise to make.

―Selim Aksoy wanted Turgut to put a question to us, and Turgut listened to him gravely.

‗We are wondering,‘ he told us, ‗if in the midst of all that danger and chaos you saw the book that Professor Rossi described—a life of Saint George, was it not? Did the Bulgarians take it to the university in Sofia?‘

―Helen‘s laugh could be surprisingly girlish when she was really delighted, and I refrained from kissing her soundly in front of all of them. She had barely smiled since we‘d left Rossi‘s grave. ‗It is in my briefcase,‘ I said. ‗For the moment.‘

―Turgut stared, astounded, and it took him a long minute to recollect his duties as interpreter. ‗And how did it find a home there?‘

―Helen was mute, smiling, so I explained. ‗I didn‘t think of it again myself until we were back in Sofia, at the hotel.‘ No, I couldn‘t tell them the whole truth, so I gave them a polite version.

―The whole truth was that when we had finally been alone together for ten minutes in Helen‘s hotel room, I took her into my arms and kissed her smoky dark hair, pulled her against my shoulder, fitting her to me through our soiled travel clothes like the other part of myself—Plato‘s missing half, I thought—and then I felt not only the relief of our having survived together to embrace there, and the beauty of her long bones, her breath against my neck, but also something inexplicably wrong about her body, something lumpy and hard. I drew back and looked at her, fearful, and saw her wry smile. She laid her finger to her lips. It was merely a reminder; we both knew the room was probably bugged.

―After a second she put my hands on the buttons of her blouse, which was now shabby and dirty from our adventures. I unbuttoned it without letting myself dare to think, and drew it off. I‘ve said that women‘s undergarments were more complicated in those days, with secret wires and hooks and strange compartments—an inner armor. Wrapped in a handkerchief and warmed against Helen‘s skin was a book—not the great folio I‘d imagined when Rossi had told us about its existence, but a volume small enough to fit in my hand. Its casing was elaborately patterned gold over painted wood and leather. The gold was set with emeralds, rubies, sapphires, lapis, fine pearls—a little firmament of jewels, all to honor the face of the saint at the center. His delicate Byzantine features looked as if they‘d been painted a few days earlier, rather than centuries, and his wide, sad, dragon-forgiving eyes seemed to follow mine. His eyebrows rose in fine arches above them, the nose was long and straight, his mouth sadly severe. The portrait had a roundness, a fullness, a realism I hadn‘t seen in Byzantine art before, a look of Roman ancestry. If I had not been in love already, I would have said this was the most beautiful face I‘d ever seen, human but also celestial, or celestial but also human. Across the neck of his robe I saw finely inked words. ‗Greek,‘ Helen said. Her voice was less than a whisper, hovering at my ear. ‗Saint George.‘