Covenant With the Vampire (3 page)

Father lay, just as small Stefan had so many years ago, in an open burnished
cherry casket near the altar, which was draped with a black cloth and lined
with rows of glowing candles. Two large tapers burned in heavy brass candlesticks
at either end of the coffin. At the head of the casket, on either side, two
black-clad women stood singing to my father, reminding him of all he was leaving
in this life, as if they sincerely believed he might waken, persuaded to remain
on this earth. I hesitated several feet away, suddenly unwilling to confront
the object of my grief in front of witnesses.

"Leave me, Zsuzsa," I told her. "Go and rest. You have taken care of him all
these years; I will see him through the night." It is the custom of our land
for the men to sit with the dead - to keep the
privegghia,
as it is called - I
suppose out of the ignorant belief that the soul must be protected from those
who would steal it. My father would no doubt have disapproved of following a
superstitious peasant tradition, but at the moment, I wanted to honour him,
to show my respect - to help, even though I had come too late for it - and I could
think of nothing else to give him. He was a kind, tolerant man, and I know he
would have allowed me this, with gentle, fond amusement.

At the same time, with the irrationality of grief, I was annoyed by the singing
women. It was permissible for me to choose to honour my father by following
a custom he disdained; it was not acceptable for strangers to do so.

Zsuzsanna offered no resistance, but lingered for a moment, studying me with
eyes ashine with loving misery and candlelight. "One of the servants brought
a letter from Uncle earlier tonight," she said, and, drawing it from where she
had tucked it at her waist, unfolded it so that I might see. Written in fine,
spidery script, it read (as best I can recall and translate):

My dearest Zsuzsanna,

By this letter, let me extend my most heartfelt condolences. I share deeply
in your loss, for as you surely know, there was no one closer to me in all the
world than your father. Without his brilliant and astute management of the finances
and estate, I could not have survived, but to speak of the business aspects
of our relationship seems to demean it, for it was far more than that. Although
Petru was my nephew, I loved him as a brother, and you and Arkady as my own
children. Believe me, while I have breath, you shall want for nothing, need
fear nothing! You are, after all, the last bearers of the name Tsepesh and the
hope for our proud family"s future. If ever there is anything which you need
or desire, please do me the honour of asking, and you shall have.

Greetings to our dear returned Arkady and his wife, and sincerest condolences
as well. I trust their journey was a safe and comfortable one. A pity that the
joy of their homecoming must be dimmed by tragedy.

I have hired mourners to sing the
Bocete
for your father; please
do not vex yourself with arrangements. All will be cared for. With your leave,
I may come by tonight to pay my respects. It will be quite late, and so I will
not disturb you or the others, but merely request that you leave the door to
the chapel unlocked.

Your loving uncle, V.

I nodded to indicate I was finished. Zsuzsanna folded the letter and replaced
it, and we shared a look of understanding; she had wanted to warn me that my
privacy might be disturbed. And then she stood on tiptoe to kiss my cheek good-night,
first turning to face Father's casket for a reverent moment.

I stood, still and silent, listening to the singing, to her shuffling, uneven
footsteps against the cold stone, then the creak of the iron hinge on the heavy
wooden door as she closed it behind her.

I turned to the women and said, "Leave."

The younger of the pair's eyes widened with fright, but she kept singing as
the elder, her eyes downcast with the same slavish fear I had seen in the coachman,
said: "Sir, we dare not! We have been hired to sing the
Bocete,
and
if the singing ceases even for a moment, your father's soul will not be properly
laid to rest!"

"Leave," I repeated, too weary with grief to engage in an argument.

"Sir, the prince paid us a generous sum. He would be angered if we - "

"I hereby release you from your obligation!" With a sweeping gesture so abrupt
that both women recoiled, I pointed towards the door. "If the prince becomes
angry, he will have to be angry with me!"

Black skirts whispering, the singers hurried towards the door, glancing over
their shoulders at me with looks of muted terror.

At last I was alone. I drew a breath and stepped alongside the casket to gaze
upon my dead, beloved father. He was a tall, handsome man, but like Zsuzsanna,
he had aged decades in the few years since I had departed; his blue-black hair,
generously streaked with iron grey when I left for England, had gone entirely
silver, and his forehead was heavily furrowed with care. His life had been marred
by tragedy: insanity and deformity have plagued recent generations of Tsepesh,
due to intermarriage among
boier
families. His grandfather, mother,
and sister were lost to madness, another sister and two brothers to defects
and consumption. Of his generation, only Petru and his younger brother, Radu,
escaped the family curse and lived to adulthood. And then came Zsuzsanna's crippled
spine and leg and subsequent spinsterhood, the death of his wife, the death
of Stefan. I felt an overwhelming sting of guilt and sadness at knowing that
my departure for England had no doubt added to his sense of loss. He had died
without ever seeing a grandchild.

(Dear Unborn Child, how I wish you could have known firsthand your grandfather's
gentleness, his kindness, the depth and constancy of his love. How he would
have doted on you, his only grandchild, how he would have delighted in carving
you wooden toys, as he did for me and Zsuzsanna and Stefan. To know his face,
you need only look at your own father’s; my sharp, hawkish features are his,
as is my raven hair, though my eyes are hazel, a mixture of my father's green
eyes, and the brown eyes of my mother. I wish I could tell you I had known your
grandmother, but the only memories of her I possess are the stories relayed
me by Father; she died shortly after I was born.)

I gazed down at his pale, waxen face with its sharp, pinched features. His
eyes were closed, and I let go a solitary piercing sob at the realisation that
I would never again gaze into those beautiful, intelligent green eyes again.
I wept bitterly as I laid my cheek against his cold, unmoving chest and implored
him like a child to open those eyes again, only once more, only once more.

I know not how long my anguish continued, only that after some time, I came
to myself enough to know that something cold and metal scratched my cheek. I
lifted my head and spied beneath it a large gold crucifix attached to a rosary
which had been hung round Father's neck. Obviously, one of the superstitious
servants or the
Bocete
singers had put it there, knowing full well
that it would have offended Father deeply. In a fit of fury, I snatched it.
The cord snapped at once, and the beads fell into the coffin and scattered on
the floor. I flung what was left of it across the room; the crucifix struck
the stone wall with a small clink.

I stood fuming for a moment, and then I calmed myself: whoever had done this
had only done it from good intentions. Slowly, I retrieved the cross and beads,
and slipped them into my waistcoat pocket, and then I sat on the wooden pew
nearest the coffin and retrieved Father's letter, written in Zsuzsanna's bold,
artistic hand. It read:

My dearest Arkady,

When you read this I shall be dead. [Here there was a waterspot on the
parchment, where the ink ran.] With my whole heart, I wish you, your wife and
child could return to England to lead the life you have always wished to lead.
But without you, your uncle is helpless, with no one to run the estate. You
must take my place, and do whatever the prince bids, for the good of the family.
It is unavoidable; nothing else can be done.

No matter what evil may befall you, one thing you must always remember:
that I love you with all my soul, and that your uncle loves you in his own way,
as well. May this knowledge sustain you in times of future sorrow.

Farewell! My love to you, and to the daughter-in-law and grandchild I shall
never see.

Father

I sat mourning for some time. I cannot honestly say that my father's request
that I take his place came as a surprise; Mary and I had been discussing it
ever since the telegram from Zsuzsanna had arrived. When I first left for England,
I fully intended to return home at the end of my studies to assist Father in
running the estate; but at the time, I had assumed that he would outlive Uncle
and inherit the property, just as I expect someday to inherit it. In the intervening
years, I grew accustomed to my new country, fell in love with an English girl,
married, and entirely forgot my familial obligation.

I can forget it no longer. Our bloodline has faced a number of difficulties
because of intermarriage; there have been deformed, sickly children, such as
Zsuzsanna, and madness in our family, so that it dwindled over the centuries
until only my father and his brother were left to carry on the name. Fortunately,
Father married an outsider, a strong Russian-Hungarian woman, and both he and
Uncle were kind enough to give their blessings when I announced my engagement
to Mary. But when Uncle dies, I shall be the last male Tsepesh - or Dracul, to
use the accursed name given us by the peasants. It is only fitting that I raise
my children here and teach them to love this land as I love it, and as my father
and his father, and all my ancestors loved it before me. We have held this land
for almost four hundred years. I cannot abandon it; to sell it to strangers
would be unthinkable.

Yet as proud as I am of my heritage, I feel an overwhelming sense of guilt
at asking Mary to give up England and remain in this backward, isolated country.
She insists that she has always known this would be the outcome, and that she
is fully prepared. It does little to ease my concern. I cannot be happy here
if she is not.

Still, in the gloomy, candlelit silence of the chapel, I swore a solemn oath - a
deathbed promise to Father, if several hours too late: I would remain, as he
bade, and take care of Uncle. Mary and I would raise his grandchild here, on
the property he so loved, and I would not forget to teach that child of his
grandfather and all those Tsepesh who went before him.

Thus I remained on the hard wooden pew, mourning my father where generations
of Tsepesh had sat before me, holding vigil for lost loved ones. After some
hours, I drowsed, and lapsed again into the anxious dream of my child-self,
running through the forest after Stefan.

I was jolted awake by the sound of eldritch howling, uncomfortably close by.
At that same instant, the heavy wooden door swung open with a groan, and I beheld,
for the first time in years, my great-uncle Vlad.

(Dear Child, your great-great-uncle Vlad, who will have passed from this earth
by the time you are old enough to read this, was a notably eccentric recluse.
I suspect this was due to a mild case of the family madness. Vlad was an agoraphobe
who rarely left the castle, and feared regular contact with anyone other than
my father. For that reason, my father handled all business dealings of the estate,
and most dealings with the servants. Yet V. was lavishly generous with us. He
visited us upon holidays and birthdays and played the kind and interested uncle,
showering us with gifts upon those occasions. He paid not only for my father's
education, but for mine, as well, and saved Zsuzsanna's life by bringing in
the very best physicians from Vienna when she was ill.

Unfortunately, my great-uncle's eccentricities led to many rumours among the
servants, and among the superstitious peasants in town. These have caused a
good deal of suspiciousness towards our family on behalf of the countryfolk;
I’m sure you will hear of that, too.)

It was evident we both were startled by the other's presence. He lingered in
the doorway a moment, a tall, hawk-featured, leonine-proud figure dressed in
mourning. I must admit that, over the years, I had forgotten the oddness and
severity of his appearance, and was at first intimidated by him, as I had so
often been as a child; for he was ghostly pale (as befits a recluse), so pale
it was impossible to tell where his skin ended and the thick silver mane on
his scalp began. His long, drooping moustache and wild, massive eyebrows were
the same hue. This exceptional pallor was emphasised by his black cloak and
dark green eyes - arresting, ancient eyes, the colour of the forest, full of swift
intelligence.

For a moment, I felt both drawn and repelled by the sight of them. But then
they softened suddenly in recognition, and filled with an extraordinary kindness;
and he was transformed from a fear-provoking spectre into the loving uncle I
remembered.

I drew in a breath as I realised my childish prayer had been answered. I had
forgotten the striking familial resemblance, but now I looked into my father's
eyes once more. He spoke, and I heard my father's voice.

"Arkady," he said, "whose name means Heaven. How good it is to see you again,
and how deeply I regret the conditions under which we meet."

"Vlad," said I, rising. "Dear Uncle." We stepped towards each other and clasped
hands, then exchanged the traditional kiss on each cheek, a custom I had become
unused to after years in London. He must be quite old, for as far back as I
could recall, his hair had always been silvery white, and he moved with the
deliberation of age - but his grip, though cold, was strong, belying his frail
appearance. Through some miracle or the deception of my memory, he had not aged.
We held hands and gazed into each other's eyes some time; I felt I peered into
the souls of all my ancestors, now merged into one flesh.