“Then the old man began to play, and after a moment his friends joined him, one on a long wooden flute, whose voice swirled around us in a fluid ribbon, and the other beating a soft skin drum with a padded stick. Some of the women jumped up and formed a line, and a man with a white handkerchief, as we’d seen at Stoichev’s, led them around the meadow. The people too old and infirm to dance sat smiling with their terrible teeth and empty gums, or patted the ground beside them, or tapped their canes.
“Baba Yanka and her sister stayed quietly where they were, as if their moment had not come. They waited until the flute player began to call for them, gesturing and smiling, and then until their audience joined the call, and then they feigned some reluctance, and finally they got up and went, hand in hand, to stand next to the musicians. Everyone fell quiet, and thegaida played a little introduction. The two old women began to sing, their arms twined around each other’s waists now, and the sound they made-a stomach-churning harmony, harsh and beautiful-seemed to come from one body. The sound of thegaida grew up around it, and then the three voices, the voices of the two women and the goat, rose together and spread over us like the groaning of the earth itself. Helen’s eyes were suddenly suffused with tears, which was so unlike her that I put my arm around her in front of everyone.
“After the women had sung five or six songs, with cheers in between from the crowd, everyone rose-at what signal, I couldn’t tell, until I saw the priest approaching again. He carried the icon of Sveti Petko, now draped in red velvet, and behind him came two boys, each dressed in a dark robe and each carrying an icon completely covered in white silk. This procession made its way around to the other side of the church, the musicians walking behind it playing a somber melody, and halted between the church and the great fire ring. The fire had burned down completely now; only a circle of coals remained, infernally red and deep. Wisps of smoke rose up from it now and then as if something underneath were alive and breathing. The priest and his helpers stood by the church wall, holding their treasures in front of them.
“At last the musicians struck up a new tune-lively but somber at the same time, I thought-and one by one the villagers who could dance, or at least walk, fell into a long snaking line that made its way slowly around the fire. As the line wound around in front of the church, Baba Yanka and another woman-not her sister, this time, but an even more weather-beaten woman whose clouded eyes looked nearly blind-came forward and bowed to the priest and to the icons. They took their shoes and socks off and set them carefully by the church steps, kissed Sveti Petko’s forbidding face, and received the priest’s blessing. The priest’s young helpers gave an icon to each woman, pulling off the silk covers. The music surged higher; thegaida player was sweating profusely, his face scarlet, his cheeks enormous.
“Next Baba Yanka and the woman with the clouded eyes danced forward, never losing their step, and then, while I held myself very still, watching, they danced barefoot into the fire. Each woman held her icon up in front of her as she entered the ring; each held her head high, staring with dignity into another world. Helen’s hand tightened on mine until my fingers ached. Their feet rose and fell in the coals, brushing up living sparks; once I saw Baba Yanka’s striped skirt smolder at the hem. They danced through embers to that mysterious rhythm of drum and bagpipe, and each went a different direction inside the circle of the fire.
“I hadn’t been able to see the icons as they’d entered the ring, but now I noted that one, in the hands of the blind woman, showed the Virgin Mary, her child on her knee, her head tilted under a heavy crown. I couldn’t see the icon Baba Yanka carried until she came around the circle again. Baba Yanka’s face was startling, her eyes enormous and fixed, her lips slack, her weathered skin glowing from the terrible heat. The icon she carried in her arms must have been very old, like that of the Virgin, but through its smoke stains and the wavering heat I could make out an image quite distinctly: it showed two figures facing each other in a sort of dance of their own, two creatures equally dramatic and forbidding. One was a knight in armor and red cape, and the other was a dragon with a long, looping tail.”
Chapter 70
December 1963
My beloved daughter:
I am in Naples now. This year, I am trying to be more systematic about my search. Naples is warm in December, and I am grateful because I have a bad cold. I never knew what it meant to be lonely before I left you, because I had never been loved as your father loved me-and you, too, I think. Now I am a woman alone in a library, wiping my nose and making notes. I wonder if anyone has ever been so alone as I am there, and in my hotel room. In public I wear my scarf or a high-necked blouse. As I cut up my lunch, and eat it alone, someone smiles at me and I smile back. Then I look away. You are not the only person with whom I am not fit to associate.
Your loving mother,
Helen
February 1964
My beloved daughter:
Athens is dirty and noisy, and it is difficult for me to get access to the documents I need at the Institute for Medieval Greece, which seems to be as medieval as its contents. But this morning, as I sit on the Acropolis, I can almost imagine that one day our separation will be over, and we will sit-you a grown woman, perhaps-on these fallen stones and look out over the city. Let’s see: you will be tall, like me, like your father, with cloudy dark hair-very short or in a thick braid?-and wear sunglasses and walking shoes, perhaps a scarf over your head if the wind is as rough as it is today. And I will be aging, wrinkled, proud only of you. The waiters at the cafés will stare at you, not at me, and I will laugh proudly, and your father will glare at them over his newspaper.
Your loving mother,
Helen
March 1964
My beloved daughter:
My fantasy about the Acropolis was so strong yesterday that I went there again this morning, just to write to you. But once I was sitting up there, gazing out over the city, the wound on my neck began to throb, and I thought that a presence close by was catching up with me, so that I could only look around and around trying to see among the crowds of tourists anyone suspicious. I cannot understand why this fiend has not come down the centuries to find me yet. I am his for the taking already, polluted already, longing slightly for him. Why does he not make his move and put me out of this misery? But as soon as I think this, I realize that I must continue to resist him, to surround and guard myself with every charm against him, and to find his many haunts in the hope of catching him in one of them, catching him so completely unaware that I can perhaps make history by destroying him. You, my lost angel, are the fire behind this desperate ambition.
Your loving mother,
Helen
Chapter 71
“When we saw the icon that Baba Yanka carried, I don’t know who gasped first, me or Helen, but each of us suppressed the reaction at once. Ranov was leaning against a tree not ten feet away, and to my relief I perceived that he was looking out over the valley, bored and contemptuous, busy with his cigarette, and had apparently not noticed the icon. A few seconds later Baba Yanka had turned away from us, and then she and the other old woman danced with the same lively, dignified step out of the fire and toward the priest. They returned the icons to the two boys, who covered them again at once. I kept my eye on Ranov. The priest was blessing the old women now, and they were led away by Brother Ivan, who gave them a drink of water. Baba Yanka cast us a proud glance as she went by, flushed, smiling and almost winking, and Helen and I bowed to her, out of a single awe. I looked carefully at her feet as she passed; her worn, bare feet appeared completely undamaged, as did the other woman’s. Only their faces showed the heat of the fire, like a sunburn.