“My feelings were not for Rossi alone. Sitting there at the table, I took Helen’s hand in one of mine, and her mother’s work-worn hand in the other, and held them tightly. At that moment, the world in which I had grown up, its reserve and silences, its mores and manners, the world in which I had studied and achieved and occasionally attempted to love, seemed as far off as the Milky Way. I couldn’t have spoken if I’d wanted to, but if my throat had cleared I might have found some way to tell these two women, with their so different but equally intense attachments to Rossi, that I felt his presence among us.
“After a moment Helen quietly withdrew her hand from my grasp, but her mother held on to me as she had before, asking something in her gentle voice. ‘She wants to know how she can help you find Rossi.’
“‘Tell her she has helped me already, and that I will read these letters as soon as we leave to see if they can guide us further. Tell her we will let her know when we find him.’
“Helen’s mother inclined her head humbly at this, and rose to check the stew in the oven. A wonderful smell drifted from it and even Helen smiled, as if this return to a home not her own had its compensations. The peace of the moment emboldened me. ‘Please ask her if she knows anything about vampires that might help us in our search.’
“When Helen translated this, I saw I had shattered our fragile calm. Her mother looked away and crossed herself, but after a moment she seemed to muster her forces to speak. Helen listened intently and nodded. ‘She says you must remember that the vampire can change his shape. He can come to you in many forms.’
“I wanted to know what this meant exactly, but Helen’s mother had already begun to dish up our meal with a hand that trembled. The warmth of the oven and the smell of meat and bread filled the small house, and we all ate heartily, if in silence. Now and then Helen’s mother gave me more bread, patting my arm, or poured out fresh tea for me. The food was simple but delicious and abundant, and sunlight came in the front windows to ornament our meal.
“When it was done Helen went outside with a cigarette, and her mother beckoned to me to follow her around the side of the house. In the back there was a shed with a few chickens scratching around it, and a hutch with two long-eared rabbits. Helen’s mother took one of the rabbits out, and we stood together in a companionable dumb show, scratching its soft head while it blinked and struggled a little. I could hear Helen through one of the windows now, washing up the dishes inside. The sun was warm on my head, and beyond the house the green fields hummed and wavered with an inexhaustible optimism.
“Then it was time for us to leave, to walk back to the bus, and I put Rossi’s letters into my briefcase. As we went out again, Helen’s mother stopped in the doorway; she seemed to have no thought of walking through the village to see us onto the bus. She took both my hands in hers and shook them warmly, looking into my face. ‘She says she wishes only safe journeys for you, and that you will find what you are longing for,’ Helen explained. I looked into the darkness in the older woman’s eyes and thanked her with all my heart. She embraced Helen, holding her face sadly between her hands for a moment, and then let us go.
“At the edge of the road, I turned back to see her again. She was standing in the doorway, one hand against the frame, as if our visit had weakened her. I put my briefcase down in the dust and went back to her so quickly that I didn’t know for a moment I had moved at all. Then, remembering Rossi, I took her in my arms and kissed her soft, lined cheek. She clung to me, a head shorter than I, and buried her face in my shoulder. Suddenly she pulled away and vanished into the house. I thought she wanted to be alone with her emotions and I turned away, too, but in a second she was back. To my astonishment, she grasped my hand and closed it over something small and hard.
“When I opened my fingers I saw a silver ring with a tiny coat of arms on it. I understood at once that it was Rossi’s, which she was returning to him through me. Her face shone above it; her eyes glowed lustrously dark. I bent and kissed her again, but this time on the mouth. Her lips were warm and sweet. As I released her, turning swiftly back to my briefcase and to Helen, I saw on the older woman’s face the gleam of a single tear. I’ve read there is no such thing as a single tear, that old poetic trope. And perhaps there isn’t, since hers was simply companion to my own.
“As soon as we were settled in the bus, I got out Rossi’s letters and carefully opened the first one. In recording it here, I will honor Rossi’s desire to protect his friend’s privacy with a nom de plume-a nom de guerre, he’d called it. It was very strange to see Rossi’s handwriting again-that same younger, less cramped version of it-on the yellowing pages.
“‘You’re going to read them here?’ Helen, leaning almost against my shoulder, looked startled.
“‘What, can you wait?’
“‘No,’ she said.”
Chapter 45
June 20, 1930
My dear friend,
I haven’t a soul in the world to talk to at this moment, and I find myself with pen in hand wishing for your company, in particular-you would be full of your usual mild amazement at the scene I’m enjoying just now. I’ve been in a state of disbelief myself today-as you would be if you could see where I am-on a train, although that’s hardly a clue in itself. But the train is puffing towards Bucarest. Good God, man, I hear you say through its whistle. But it is true. I hadn’t planned to come here, but something quite remarkable has brought me. I was in Istanbul until just a few days ago, on a bit of research I’ve been keeping under my hat, and I found something there that made me want to come here. Not want to, actually; it would be more accurate to say I’m terrified to, and yet feel compelled. You are such an old rationalist-you aren’t going to care for all this a bit, but I wish like the devil I had your brains along on my jaunt; I’m going to need every scrap of mine and more to find what I’m looking for.
We’re slowing for a town, with a chance to buy breakfast-I’ll desist for the moment and come back to this later.
Afternoon-Bucarest
I’m down for what would be a siesta if my mind weren’t in such a state of unrest and excitement. It’s accursedly hot here-I thought this would be a land of cool mountains, but if it is I haven’t reached any yet. Nice hotel, Bucarest is a sort of tiny Paris of the East, grand and small and a little faded, all at the same time. It must have been dashing in the Eighties and Nineties. It took me forever to find a cab, and then a hotel, but my rooms are fairly comfortable and I can rest and wash and think about what to do. I’m half inclined not to set down here what I’m about, but you’ll be so very perplexed by my ravings if I don’t that I think I must. To make it short and shocking, I’m on a quest of sorts, an historian’s hunt for Dracula-not Count Dracula of the romantic stage, but a real Dracula-Drakulya-Vlad III, a fifteenth-century tyrant who lived in Transylvania and Wallachia and dedicated himself to keeping the Ottoman Empire out of his lands as long as possible. I stopped in Istanbul the better part of a week to see an archive there that contains some documents about him collected by the Turks, and while there I found a most remarkable set of maps that I believe to be clues to the whereabouts of his tomb. I’ll explain to you at greater length when I’m home what sent me on this chase, and I simply have to beg your indulgence in the meantime. You can chalk it up to youth, you old sage, my setting out on this chase at all.
In any case, my stay in Istanbul turned dark at the end and has rather frightened me, although that will surely sound foolish at a distance. But I’m not easily put off a quest once I’ve begun, as you know, and I couldn’t help coming on here with copies I’ve made of those maps, to look for more information about Drakulya’s tomb. I should explain to you, at the very least, that he is supposed to have been buried in an island monastery in Lake Snagov, in western Roumania- Wallachia, the region is called. The maps I found in Istanbul, with his tomb clearly marked on them, show no island, no lake, and nothing that looks like western Roumania, as far as I can tell. It always seems to me a good idea to check the obvious first, since the obvious is sometimes the right answer. I’ve resolved, therefore-but here I’m sure you’re shaking your head over what you will call foolish stubbornness-to make my way to Lake Snagov with the maps and ascertain for myself that the tomb is not there. How I will go about that, I don’t yet know, but I can’t begin to be satisfied hunting elsewhere until I have ruled out this possibility. And, perhaps, after all, my maps are some kind of ancient hoax and I will find ample proof that the tyrant sleeps there and always has.