The Historian (36 page)

―Next Turgut brought out a small book bound in ancient leather. It was difficult for me not to reach for it at once, but I waited in a fever of self-control while Turgut gently opened it and showed us first the blank leaves in front and back and then the woodcut in the center—that already familiar outline, the crowned dragon with its wickedly spread wings, its claws holding the banner with that one, threatening word. I opened my briefcase, which I had brought in with me, and took out my own book. Turgut put the two volumes side by side on the desk. Each of us compared his treasure with the other‘s evil gift, and we saw together that the two dragons were the same, his filling the pages to their edges, the image darker, mine more faded, but the same, the same. There was even a similar smudge near the tip of the dragon‘s tail, as if the woodcut had had a rough place there that had smeared the ink a little with each printing. Helen brooded over them, silently.

―‗It is remarkable,‘ Turgut breathed at last. ‗I never dreamed of such a day, when I would see a second book like this.‘

―‗And hear of a third,‘ I reminded him. ‗This is the third book like this I‘ve seen with my own eyes, remember. The woodcut in Rossi‘s was the same, too.‘

―He nodded. ‗And what, my fellows, can this mean?‘ But he was already spreading his copies of the maps next to our books and comparing with a large finger the outlines of dragons and river and mountains. ‗Amazing,‘ he murmured. ‗To think I never saw this myself. It is indeed similar. A dragon that is a map. But a map of what?‘ His eyes gleamed.

―‗That is what Rossi was trying to figure out in the archives here,‘ I said with a sigh. ‗If only he had taken more steps, later, to find out its significance.‘

―‗Perhaps he did.‘ Helen‘s voice was thoughtful, and I turned to her to ask what she meant. At that moment, the door between the weird braids of garlic swung further open and we both jumped. Instead of some horrible apparition, however, a small, smiling lady in a green dress stood in the doorway. It was Turgut‘s wife, and we all rose to meet her.

―‗Good afternoon, my dear.‘ Turgut drew her quickly in. ‗These are my friends, the professors from the United States, as I told you.‘

―He made gallant introductions all around, and Mrs. Bora shook our hands with an affable smile. She was exactly half Turgut‘s size, with long-lashed green eyes, a delicately hooked nose, and a swirl of reddish curls. ‗I am very sorry I do not meet you here before.‘ Her English was slowly and carefully pronounced. ‗Probably my husband does not give you any food, no?‘

―We protested that we had been beautifully fed, but she shook her head. ‗Mr. Bora is never giving our guests the good dinner. I will—scold him!‘ She shook a tiny fist at her husband, who looked pleased.

―‗I am dreadfully frightened of my wife,‘ he told us complacently. ‗She is as fierce as an Amazon.‘ Helen, who towered over Mrs. Bora, smiled at both of them; they were indeed irresistible.

―‗And now,‘ Mrs. Bora said, ‗he bores you with his terrible collections. I am sorry.‘

Within minutes we were settled on the rich divans again, and Mrs. Bora was pouring coffee. I saw that she was quite beautiful, in a birdlike, delicate way, a woman of quiet manners, perhaps forty years old. Her English was limited, but she deployed it with graceful good humor, as if her husband frequently dragged home English-speaking visitors. Her dress was simple and elegant and her gestures exquisite. I imagined the nursery-school children she taught clustering around her—they must surely come up to her chin, I thought. I wondered if she and Turgut had children of their own; there were no photographs of children in the room, or any other evidence of them, and I did not like to ask.

―‗Did my husband give you a good tour of our city?‘ Mrs. Bora was asking Helen.

―‗Yes, some of it,‘ Helen answered. ‗I‘m afraid we have taken a lot of his time today.‘

―‗No—it is I who have taken much of yours.‘ Turgut sipped his coffee with obvious pleasure. ‗But we still have a great deal of work to do. My dear‘—to his wife—‗we are going to look for a missing professor, so I shall be busy for a few days.‘

―‗A missing professor?‘ Mrs. Bora smiled calmly at him. ‗All right. But we must eat dinner first. I hope that you will eat dinner?‘ She turned to us.

―The thought of more food was impossible, and I was careful not to meet Helen‘s eye.

Helen, however, seemed to find all this normal. ‗Thank you, Mrs. Bora. You are very kind, but we should return to our hotel, I think, because we have an appointment there at five o‘clock.‘

―We did? This was perplexing, but I played along. ‗That‘s right. Some other Americans are coming for a drink. But we hope to see you both again right away.‘

―Turgut nodded. ‗I shall immediately look through everything in my library here that might be of help to us. We must think about the possibility that Dracula‘s tomb is in Istanbul—whether these maps perhaps refer to an area of the city. I have a few old books about the city here, and friends who have fine collections about Istanbul. I will search everything for you tonight.‘

―‗Dracula.‘ Mrs. Bora shook her head. ‗I like Shakespeare better than Dracula. A more healthier interest. Also‘—she gave us a mischievous glance—‗Shakespeare pays our bills.‘

―They saw us out with great ceremony, and Turgut made us promise to meet him at our pension the next morning at nine o‘clock. He would bring new information, if he could, and we would visit the archive again to see if there were any developments there. In the meantime, he warned, we should exercise the greatest caution, watching everywhere for signs of pursuit or other danger. Turgut wanted to accompany us all the way back to our lodgings, but we assured him that we could take the ferry back by ourselves—it left in twenty minutes, he said. The Boras showed us out the front door of the building and stood together on the steps, hand in hand, calling out good-byes. I glanced back once or twice as we made our way along the street‘s tunnel of figs and lindens. ‗That‘s a happy marriage, I think,‘ I commented to Helen, and was immediately sorry, because she gave her characteristic snort.

―‗Come on, Yankee,‘ she said. ‗We have some new business to attend to.‘

―Normally I would have smiled at her epithet for me, but this time something made me turn and look at her with a deep shudder. There was another thought that belonged to this strange afternoon visit, one I had suppressed until the last possible moment. Looking at Helen as she turned to me with her level gaze, I was unavoidably struck by the similarity between her strong yet fine features and that luminous, appalling image behind Turgut‘s curtain.‖

When the Perpignan express had disappeared completely beyond the silvery trees and village roofs, Barley shook himself. ―Well, he‘s on that train, and we‘re not.‖

―Yes,‖ I said, ―and he knows exactly where we are.‖

―Not for very long.‖ Barley marched over to the ticket window—where one old man seemed to be falling asleep on his feet—but soon came back looking chastened. ―The next train to Perpignan isn‘t until tomorrow morning,‖ he reported. ―And there‘s no bus service to a major town until tomorrow afternoon. There‘s only one boarding room at a farm about half a kilometer outside the village. We can sleep there and walk back for the morning train.‖

Either I could get angry or I was going to cry. ―Barley, I can‘t wait till tomorrow morning to take a train to Perpignan! We‘ll lose too much time.‖

―Well, there‘s nothing else,‖ Barley told me irritably. ―I asked about cabs, cars, farm trucks, donkey carts, hitchhiking—what else do you want me to do?‖

We walked through the village in silence. It was late afternoon, a sleepy, warm day, and everyone we saw in doorways or gardens seemed half stupefied, as if he or she had fallen under a spell. The farmhouse, when we reached it, had a hand-painted sign outside and a sale table with eggs, cheese, and wine. The woman who came out—wiping her hands on her proverbial apron—looked unsurprised to see us. When Barley introduced me as his sister, she smiled pleasantly and didn‘t ask questions, even though we had no luggage with us. Barley asked if she had room for two and she said, ―
Oui, oui
,‖ on the in-breath, as if she were talking to herself. The farmyard was hard-packed dirt, with a few flowers, scratching hens, and a row of plastic buckets under the eaves, and the stone barns and house huddled around it in a friendly, haphazard way. We could have our dinner in the garden behind the house, the farmwife explained, and our room would be next to the garden, in the oldest part of the building.

We followed our hostess silently through the low-beamed farm kitchen and into a little wing where the cooking help might once have slept. The bedroom was fitted up with two little beds on opposite walls, I was relieved to see, and a great wooden clothes chest. The washroom next door had a painted toilet and sink. Everything was immaculately clean, the curtains starchy, the ancient needlework on one wall bleached with sunlight. I went into the bathroom and splashed my face with cold water while Barley paid the woman.

When I came out, Barley suggested a walk; it would be an hour before she could have our dinner ready. I didn‘t like to leave the sheltering arms of the farmyard at first, but outside the lane was cool under spreading trees, and we walked by the ruins of what must have been a very fine house. Barley pulled himself over the fence and I followed. The stones had tumbled down, making a map of the original walls, and one remaining dilapidated tower gave the place a look of past grandeur. There was some hay in the half-open barn, as if that building was still used for storage. A great beam had fallen in among the stalls.

Barley sat down in the ruins and looked at me. ―Well, I see you‘re furious,‖ he said provokingly. ―You don‘t mind my saving you from immediate danger, but not if it‘s going to inconvenience you afterward.‖

His nastiness took my breath away for a moment. ―How dare you,‖ I said finally, and walked away among the stones. I heard Barley get up and follow me.

―Would you have wanted to stay on that train?‖ he asked in a slightly more civil voice.

―Of course not.‖ I kept my face turned from him. ―But you know as well as I do that my father may already be at Saint-Matthieu.‖

―But Dracula, or whoever he is, isn‘t there yet.‖

―He‘s a day ahead of us now,‖ I retorted, looking across the fields. The village church showed above a distant row of poplars; it was all as serene as a painting, missing only the goats or cows.

―In the first place,‖ Barley said (and I hated him for his didactic tone), ―we don‘t know who that was on the train. Maybe it wasn‘t the villain himself. He has his minions, according to your father‘s letters, right?‖

―Even worse,‖ I said. ―If that was one of his minions, then maybe he‘s at Saint-Matthieu already himself.‖

―Or,‖ said Barley, but he stopped. I knew he had been about to say, ―Or perhaps he‘s here, with us.‖

―We did indicate exactly where we were getting off,‖ I said, to save him the trouble.

―Who‘s being nasty now?‖ Barley came up behind me and put one rather awkward arm around my shoulders, and I realized that he had at least been speaking as if he believed my father‘s story. The tears that had been struggling to stay under my lids spilled over and rolled down my face. ―Come, now,‖ said Barley. When I put my head on his shoulder, his shirt was warm from sun and perspiration. After a moment I pulled away, and we went back to our silent dinner in the farmhouse garden.

―Helen wouldn‘t say more during our journey back to the pension, so I contented myself with watching the passersby for any signs of hostility, looking around and behind us from time to time to see if we were being followed by anyone. By the time we reached our rooms again, my mind had reverted to our frustrating lack of information about how to search for Rossi. How was a list of books, some of them apparently not even extant, going to help us?

―‗Come to my room,‘ Helen said unceremoniously as soon as we‘d reached the pension.

‗We need to talk in private.‘ Her lack of maidenly scruple would have amused me at another moment, but just now her face was so grimly determined that I could only wonder what she had in mind. Nothing could have been less seductive, anyway, than her expression at that moment. In her room, the bed was neatly made and her few belongings apparently stowed out of sight. She sat down on the window seat and gestured to a chair.

‗Look,‘ she said, pulling off her gloves and taking off her hat, ‗I‘ve been thinking about something. It seems to me we have reached a real barrier to finding Rossi.‘

―I nodded glumly. ‗That‘s just what I‘ve been puzzling over for the last half hour. But maybe Turgut will turn up some information for us among his friends.‘

―She shook her head. ‗It is a wild duck chase.‘

―‗Goose,‘ I said, but without enthusiasm.

―‗Goose chase,‘ she amended. ‗I have been thinking that we are neglecting a very important source of information.‘

―I stared at her. ‗What‘s that?‘

―‗My mother,‘ she said flatly. ‗You were right when you asked me about her, while we were still in the United States. I have been thinking about her all day. She knew Professor Rossi long before you did, and I never truly asked her about him after she first told me he was my father. I don‘t know why not, except that it was clearly a painful subject for her.

Also‘—she sighed—‗my mother is a simple person. I did not think she could add to my knowledge of Rossi‘s work. Even when she told me last year that Rossi believed in Dracula‘s existence, I did not press her much—I know how superstitious she is. But now I wonder if she knows anything that might help us find him.‘