“The letters were in envelopes, without stamps, yellowing with age and bound together by a frayed red cord. As she gave them to me, Helen’s mother closed my fingers over the cord with both her hands, as if urging me to cherish them. It took me only a second’s glance at the handwriting on the first envelope to see that it was Rossi’s, and to read the name to which they were addressed. That name I already knew, in the recesses of my memory, and the address was Trinity College, Oxford University, England.”
Chapter 44
“Iwas deeply moved when I held Rossi’s letters in my hands, but before I could think about them, I had an obligation to fulfill. ‘Helen,’ I said, turning to her, ‘I know you have sometimes felt I didn’t believe the story of your birth. I did doubt it, at moments. Please forgive me.’
“‘I am as surprised as you are,’ Helen responded in a low voice. ‘My mother never told me she had any of Rossi’s letters. But they were not written to her, were they? At least, not this one on top.’
“‘No,’ I said. ‘But I recognize this name. He was a great English literary historian-he wrote about the eighteenth century. I read one of his books in college, and Rossi described him in the letters he gave me.’
“Helen looked puzzled. ‘What does this have to do with Rossi and my mother?’
“‘Everything, maybe. Don’t you see? He must have been Rossi’s friend Hedges-that was the name Rossi used for him, remember? Rossi must have written to him from Romania, although that doesn’t explain why these letters are in your mother’s possession.’
“Helen’s mother sat with folded hands, looking from one of us to the other with an expression of great patience, but I thought I detected a flush of excitement in her face. Then she spoke, and Helen translated for me. ‘She says she will tell you her whole story.’ Helen’s voice was choked, and I caught my breath.
“It was a halting business, the older woman speaking slowly and Helen acting as her interpreter and occasionally pausing to express to me her own surprise. Apparently, Helen herself had heard only the outlines of this tale before, and it shocked her. When I got back to the hotel that night, I wrote it down from memory, to the very best of my ability; it took me much of the night, I remember. By then many other strange things had happened, and I should have been tired, but I can still recall that I recorded it with a kind of elated meticulousness.
“‘When I was a girl, I lived in the tiny village of P – in Transylvania, very close to the Arges River. I had many brothers and sisters, most of whom still live in that region. My father always said that we were descended from old and noble families, but my ancestors had fallen on hard times, and I grew up without shoes or warm blankets. It was a poor region, and the only people there who lived well were a few Hungarian families, in their big villas downriver. My father was terribly strict and we all feared his whip. My mother was often sick. I worked in our field outside the village from the time I was small. Sometimes the priest brought us food or supplies, but usually we had to manage as well as we could alone.
“‘When I was about eighteen, an old woman came to our village from a village higher up in the mountains, above the river. She was avraca, a healer, and one with special powers to look into the future. She told my father she had a present for him and his children, that she had heard about our family and wanted to give him something magical that was rightfully his. My father was an impatient man, with no time for superstitious old women, although he himself always rubbed all the openings of our cottage with garlic-the chimney and door frame, the keyhole and the windows-to keep out vampires. He sent the old woman rudely away, saying he had no money to give her for whatever she was peddling. Later, when I went to the village well for water, I saw her standing there and I gave her a drink and some bread. She blessed me and told me I was kinder than my father and that she would reward my generosity. Then she took from a bag at her waist a tiny coin, and she put it in my hand, telling me to hide it and keep it safe because it belonged to our family. She said also that it came from a castle above the Arges.
“‘I knew I should show the coin to my father, but I did not, because I thought he would be angry at my talking with the old witch. Instead, I hid it under my corner of the bed I shared with my sisters and I told no one about it. Sometimes I would get it out when I thought nobody was looking. I would hold it in my hand and wonder what the old woman had meant by giving it to me. On one side of the coin was a strange creature with a looped tail, and on the other a bird and a tiny cross.
“‘A couple of years passed and I continued to work my father’s land and help my mother in the house. My father was in despair about having several daughters. He said we would never get married because he was too poor to give anything for a dowry, and that we would always be a trouble to him. But my mother told us that everyone in the village said we were so beautiful that someone would marry us anyway. I tried to keep my clothes clean and my hair combed and neatly braided, so that I might be chosen someday. I did not like any of the young men who asked me to dance at the holidays, but I knew I would soon have to marry one of them so that I would not be a burden to my parents. My sister Éva had long since gone to Budapest with the Hungarian family she worked for, and sometimes she sent us a little money. She even sent me some good shoes once, a pair of leather city shoes of which I was very proud.
“‘This was my situation in life when I met Professor Rossi. It was unusual for strangers to come to our village, especially anyone from far away, but one day everyone was passing around the news that a man from Bucharest had come to the tavern, and with him a man from another country. They were asking questions about the villages along the river and about the ruined castle in the mountains upriver, a day’s walk above our village. The neighbor who stopped by to tell us about this also whispered something to my father as he sat on his bench outside our door. My father crossed himself and spat in the dust. ”Rubbish and nonsense,“ he said. ”No one should be asking such questions. It is an invitation to the Devil.“
“‘But I was curious. I went out to get water so that I could hear more about it, and when I entered the village square, I saw the strangers sitting at one of the two tables outside our tavern, talking with an old man who was always there. One of the strangers was large and dark, like a Gypsy but in city clothes. The other wore a brown jacket in a style I had never seen before, and wide trousers tucked into walking boots, and a broad brown hat on his head. I stayed on the other side of the square, near the well, and from there I could not see the foreigner’s face. Two of my friends wanted a closer look and whispered to me to come with them. I went reluctantly, knowing my father would disapprove.
“‘As we walked past the tavern, the foreign man glanced up, and I saw to my surprise that he was young and handsome, with a golden beard and bright blue eyes like the people in the German villages of our country. He was smoking a pipe and talking quietly with his companion. A worn canvas bag with straps for the arms sat on the ground next to him, and he was writing something in a cardboard book. He had a look on his face that I liked immediately-it was absentminded, gentle, and very alert all at the same time. He touched his hat to us and looked quickly away, and the ugly man touched his hat, too, and stared at us, and then they went back to talking with old Ivan and writing things down. The large man seemed to be talking to Ivan in Romanian, and then he would turn to the younger one and say something in a language I could not understand. I walked quickly on with my friends, not wanting the handsome stranger to think I was more forward than they were.