They stopped in front of the Villa Escala. Stefan helped them unload and then promised to pick them up the next morning for their first trip to Baciu to see if they could locate Costita.
In the morning he showed up just after breakfast, exactly two minutes before the time Professor Kulich agreed to.
“You have to give him that. The man is punctual,” Sam said. He meant nothing by it, but Nina’s guilt once more insinuated that it was aimed at her for almost getting him killed at the hospital by being tardy. She looked at Sam and he returned her leer with a smile.
How can he smile? Is that some sick way to torment me?, she thought with a frown.
“What is wrong, Dr Gould?” Igor asked her. “Do you want me to knock his teeth out?”
Nina stared at Igor with a disgusted expression.
“I am joking,” he laughed. “You are going to have to relax, my dear. This place where we are going, Hoia Baciu, is not a place for a clouded mind, least of all one of fear.” Those last few words were said with a deliberate interposition to remind her of her recent confession on the plane. “You cannot be angry or afraid here, Nina.”
His warning made her flesh crawl. His words were in conjunction with Sam’s theory of the origins and use of the Black Tarot and now, being in the heart of the dark territory where the deck was allegedly hidden, she felt an awful apprehension grip her.
They all prepared for a tiring day of searching, having no idea what would happen once they found Petr Costita, if they found him, fearing the consequent problems which may arise should he refuse to entrust the deck to the representative of the rightful owner’s.
On the E81 they drove for approximately 13 kilometers from Cluj to the commune of Baciu. Nina felt awfully silly when she saw the town and realized that not all places draped in superstition and old ways were caught in the Middle Ages. From the road where they entered Baciu the houses and stacked apartment buildings crowded along the grids of streets that ran from the edge of the low hills through the basin of the landscape. It reminded Nina of small mining towns in the United States and England, with modest houses built in simple squares. The houses were all of a similar color and the apartment buildings protruded from flat grass terrain in high slabs painted in pastels.
The streets were filled with cars and bicycles, and shops welcomed their patrons caught in the ordinary activities of the day. There was no sign as to the age of the settlement, no visible monuments or noticeable buildings, but the place was a far cry from her imagined forest village circled by Gypsy carts with stray dogs barking at witches in gilded coin head cloths. No fires with old men around them, no swarthy maidens in long skirts dancing with flowing black hair. As if Stefan knew what she was thinking, he peeked in the rear view mirror at Nina and said, “No Gypsy curses yet, hey, Dr Gould?”
The occupants of the minibus laughed while Nina just shook her head with a goofy smile and looked out the window.
A short time later they stopped at a house on the edge of town, a dilapidated little home with a yard full of rubble, begging for a rat infestation. There was an old rusted chassis and several broken appliances lying around, some stacked on a rusted iron table. Above it hanged what looked like wind chimes, suspended from a thin tree branch. Instead of reeds or mirrors the ornament sported torn pictures and chicken bones at the end of the fishing lines that held it. Nina felt uneasy at the strange combination of things held together to swing in the breeze.
“This is the home of Mihail the Eye,” Stefan announced. “If anyone in Baciu knows the whereabouts of the person you are looking for, it is Mihail.”
“…the Eye…” Sam frowned in repetition. The guide nodded nonchalantly and smiled, as if the name was not sending a tingle up the ass of any Scot who hears it for the first time.
“Yah, he sees.” With that Stefan got out of the vehicle and the rest reluctantly followed suit.
“I swear to Christ, if an old man with pearly eyes opens this door, I’m walking to the nearest bar,” Sam said under his breath, drawing a nervous giggle from his companions. Nina rested her hand on his back, “Don’t worry, Sam, I’ll protect you…darling.”
He gave her a narrow eyed look and sighed, “I will never live that down, will I? You just love that one, right?”
“Aye, blossom,” Nina teased as they rounded the back of the house into the back yard.
Again their expectations were crushed as Stefan called out to Mihail, a mechanic no older than Igor, who stood bent over the engine of an old Chrysler Valiant. The two embraced and chatted in quick raps of Romanian before Stefan put his hand around Mihail’s shoulder and turned him to face his foreign visitors.
“These are the fine people I told you about, brother. Petra, Nina, Igor and Sam. They came all the way here to find someone who has something of theirs,” Stefan said.
“Of mine,” Petra interrupted firmly, but politely.
“Ah!” Mihail exclaimed. “Did you come to claim it in person?”
“Yes, I did. It is the only way to get things done, I think — personally,” she replied. Petra was by no means as docile as she had led on. Her tall, lean frame looked quite imposing to the Romani men, but they liked her courage.
“Let me just wash the grease off my hands and we can sit down a bit,” Mihail said. He called his wife to pour his guests some Pálinka and before they could greet the exhausted young woman she had once more disappeared into the house.
“Excuse my wife. We just had a new baby and she is tired. Also,” he said as he poured the brandy, “She hates people.”
He laughed out loud, a loud, vulgar laugh that insisted they all join in. Stefan winked reassuringly at Kulich and her associates. When the drinks were poured, they all followed Mihail’s example.
“Noroc!” he yelled as he held his glass up high, at the full extension of his arm.
“Noroc!” they all cried in unison, Sam and Igor doing so with enthusiasm while the women still tried to memorize the word for future reference.
Chapter 22 — Who was Petr Costita?
By the advent of the afternoon in Baciu the Kulich party was having a great time, having accepted Mihail’s invitation to stay for lunch before continuing on.
“I have to know, Mihail,” Sam dared somewhere between the fifth and sixth round, “what is with the name? The Eye.”
They all grew quiet, hoping the question was not inappropriate. But Mihail seemed unfazed by it. He shifted on the sawn off tree trunk he sat on. It was too low for him, giving him a peculiar spider-like look with his elevated knees.
“I see things.”
“Are you psychic?” Nina asked.
“I don’t think I am. I cannot see the future, I cannot see ghosts, I cannot see inside people’s heads. But I can see what happened before, in times before I was born. If I go to a place, sometimes I can see what happened there in a vision or a dream, but never right in front of me like those weird people who help the police. What I see is always very old, from long ago. I don’t know why,” he shrugged, and chugged back another stiff brandy.
“Can you do it by choice? Or does it just happen?” Petra asked.
“No, I never see unless I want to. When I want to see I just touch the ground or the trees, whatever is there. Then I see what those things saw,” Mihail explained.