The Historian (50 page)

―‗I found a car and drove there so fast I almost had an accident myself. You don‘t want to hear all this, I‘m sure, but—she was lying with her head bandaged and her eyes wide-open. That‘s how she looked. She lives at a sort of home now, where she‘s very well treated, but she doesn‘t speak or understand much, or feed herself. The awful thing about this is…‘ His voice began to tremble. ‗The awful thing is, I‘ve always assumed it was an accident, really an accident, and now that I‘ve heard your stories—Rossi‘s friend Hedges, and your—your cat—I don‘t know what to think.‘ He smoked hard.

―I let out a deep breath. ‗I‘m very, very sorry. I wish I knew what to say. What a terrible thing for you.‘

―‗Thank you.‘ He seemed to be trying to recover some of his usual demeanor. ‗It‘s been some years now, you know, and time helps. It‘s simply that—‘

―I didn‘t know then, as I know now, what hung at the other end of that sentence, which he did not finish—the futile words, the unspeakable litany of loss. As we sat there, the past suspended between us, a waiter came out with a candle in a glass lantern and set it on our table. The café was filling with people, and I could hear shouts of laughter from inside.

―‗I‘m stunned by what you just told me about Snagov,‘ I said after a while. ‗You know, I‘d never heard any of that about the tomb—the inscription, I mean, and the painted face and the lack of a cross. The correspondence of the inscription with the words Rossi found on the maps in the Istanbul archive is extremely important, I think—it‘s proof that Snagov was at least the original site of Dracula‘s tomb.‘ I pressed my fingers to my temples. ‗Why, then, why does the map—the dragon map in the books and in the archive—not correspond to the topography of Snagov—the lake, the island?‘

―‗I wish I knew.‘

―‗Did you continue your research about Dracula after that?‘

―‗Not for several years.‘ Hugh stubbed out his cigarette. ‗I didn‘t have the heart to. About two years ago, though, I found myself thinking about him again, and when I started working on my current book, my Hungarian book, I kept an eye out for him.‘

―It had grown quite dark now, and the Danube glowed with reflected lights from the bridge and the buildings of Pest. A waiter came to offer
eszpresszó
, and we accepted gratefully. Hugh took a sip and set his cup down. ‗Would you like to see the book?‘ he asked.

―‗The one you‘re researching?‘ I was puzzled for a moment.

―‗No—my dragon book.‘

―I started. ‗You have it here?‘

―‗I always carry it on me,‘ he said sternly. ‗Well, almost always. Actually, I left it at my hotel during the lectures today, because I thought it might be safer there while I was lecturing. When I think it might have been stolen—‘ He stopped. ‗Yours was not in your room, was it?‘

―‗No.‘ I had to smile. ‗I carry mine around, too.‘

―He pushed our coffee cups carefully aside and opened his briefcase. From it he took a polished wooden box, and from that a parcel wrapped in cloth, which he placed on the table. Inside it was a book smaller than mine but bound in the same worn vellum. The pages were browner and more brittle than those in my book, but the dragon in the center was the same, filling the pages to their very edges and glowering up at us. Silently, I opened my briefcase and took out my own book, setting its central image next to Hugh‘s dragon. They were identical, I thought, bending close to each.

―‗Look at this smudge over here—even that‘s the same. They were printed from the same block,‘ Hugh said in a low voice.

―He was right, I saw. ‗You know, this reminds me of something else, which I forgot to tell you just now. Miss Rossi and I stopped by the university library this afternoon before going back to the hotel, because she wanted to look up something she saw there a while back.‘ I described the volume of Romanian folk songs and the weird lyrics about monks entering a great city. ‗She thought this might have something to do with the story in the Istanbul manuscript I told you about. The lyrics were very general, but there was an interesting woodcut at the top of the page, a sort of thicket of woods with a tiny church and dragon among them, and a word.‘

―‗Drakulya?‘ Hugh guessed, as I had in the library.

―‗No, Ivireanu.‘ I looked it up in my notebook and showed him the spelling.

―His eyes widened. ‗But that‘s remarkable!‘ he cried.

―‗What? Tell me quickly.‘

―‗Well, it‘s just that I saw that name in the library yesterday.‘

―‗In the same library? Where? In the same book?‘ I was too impatient to wait politely for the answer.

―‗Yes, in the university library, but not in the same book. I‘ve been poking around there all week for material for my project, and since I always have our friend in the back of my mind, I keep finding the odd reference to his world. You know, Dracula and Hunyadi were bitter enemies, and Dracula and Matthias Corvinus after that, so you run into Dracula now and then. I mentioned to you at lunch that I‘d found a manuscript commissioned by Corvinus, the document that mentions the ghost in the amphora.‘

―‗Oh, yes,‘ I said eagerly. ‗Is that also where you saw the word
Ivireanu
? ‘

―‗Actually, no. The Corvinus manuscript is very interesting, but for different reasons. The manuscript says—well, I have copied a little here. The original is in Latin.‘

―He got out his notebook and read me a few lines. ‗‖In the year of Our Lord 1463, the king‘s humble servant offers him these words from great writings, all to give His Majesty information on the curse of the vampire, may he perish in hell. This information is for His Majesty‘s royal collection. May it assist him in curing this evil in our city, in ending the presence of vampires, and in keeping the plague from our dwellings.― And so on. Then the good scribe, whoever he was, goes on to list the references he‘s found in various classical works, including tales of the ghost in the amphora. As you can tell, the date of the manuscript is the year after Dracula‘s arrest and his first imprisonment near Buda.

You know, your description of that same concern on the part of the Turkish sultan, which you detected in those documents in Istanbul, prompts me to think Dracula made trouble wherever he went. Both mention the plague, and both are concerned with the presence of vampirism. It‘s quite similar, isn‘t it?‘

―He paused thoughtfully. ‗Actually, that connection with plague is not so far-fetched, in a way—I read in an Italian document at the British Museum Library that Dracula used germ warfare against the Turks. He must have been one of the first Europeans to use it, in fact. He liked to send any of his own people who‘d contracted infectious diseases into the Turkish camps, dressed like Ottomans.‘ In the lantern light, Hugh‘s eyes were narrow now, his face shining with an intense concentration. It rushed over me that in Hugh James we had found an ally of the keenest intelligence.

―‗This is all fascinating,‘ I said. ‗But what about the mention of the word
Ivireanu
? ‘

―‗Oh, I‘m so sorry.‘ Hugh smiled. ‗I‘m a bit off track. Yes, I did see that word in the library here. I came across it three or four days ago, I think, in a seventeenth-century New Testament in Romanian. I was looking through it because I thought the cover showed an unusual influence of Ottoman design. The title page had the word
Ivireanu
across the bottom—I‘m sure it was the same word. I didn‘t think much about it at the time—to be frank, I‘m always running across Romanian words that mystify me, because I know so little of the language. It caught my attention because of the typeface, actually, which was sort of elegant. I assumed it was a place-name or something of the sort.‘

―I groaned. ‗And that was all? You‘ve never seen it anywhere else?‘

―‗I‘m afraid not.‘ Hugh was attending to his deserted cup of coffee. ‗If I run across it again, I‘ll be sure to let you know.‘

―‗Well, it may have little to do with Dracula, after all,‘ I said, to comfort myself. ‗I just wish we had more time to examine this library. We have to fly back to Istanbul on Monday, unfortunately—I don‘t have permission to stay beyond the duration of the conference. If you do find anything of interest—‘

―‗Of course,‘ Hugh said. ‗I‘ll be around for another six days. If I find something, shall I write to you at your department?‘

―This gave me a turn; it had been days since I‘d thought seriously about home, and I had no idea when I would next be checking my mail in my departmental box there. ‗No, no,‘ I said hastily. ‗At least, not yet. If you find something you really think might help us, please call Professor Bora. Just explain to him that we talked. If I speak with him myself, I‘ll let him know you might get in touch with him.‘ I took out Turgut‘s card and wrote the number down for Hugh.

―‗Very good.‘ He tucked it into his breast pocket. ‗And here‘s my card for you. I do hope we‘ll be running into each other again.‘ We sat there in silence for a few seconds, his gaze lowered to the table with its empty cups and plates and flickering candle flame.

‗Look here,‘ he said finally. ‗If all you‘ve said is true—or all Rossi said, anyway—and there is a Count Dracula, or a Vlad the Impaler—extant—in some awful sense, then I‘d like to help you—‘

―‗Eradicate him?‘ I finished quietly. ‗I‘ll remember that.‘

―There seemed to be nothing left for us to say just now, although I hoped we would talk again someday. We found a taxi to take us back to Pest, and he insisted on walking me into the hotel. We were saying a cordial good-bye at the front desk when the clerk I‘d talked with earlier suddenly came out of his cubicle and grasped my arm. ‗Herr Paul!‘ he said urgently.

―‗What is it?‘ Hugh and I both turned to stare at the man. He was a tall, drooping man in a blue worker‘s jacket, with mustaches that would have suited a Hun warrior. He pulled me close to speak in a low voice, and I managed to signal to Hugh not to leave us. There was no one else in sight, and I didn‘t especially want to be alone with any new crisis.

―‗Herr Paul, I know who was in your
zimmer
this afternoon.‘

―‗What? Who?‘ I said.

―‗Hmm, hmm.‘ The clerk began almost to hum to himself and to glance around, searching his jacket pocket in what would have been a meaningful way if only I‘d understood his meaning. I wondered if the man was some sort of idiot.

―‗He wants a bribe,‘ Hugh translated in an undertone.

―‗Oh, for heaven‘s sake,‘ I said in exasperation, but the man‘s eyes seemed to glaze over, brightening only when I fished out two large Hungarian bills. He took them secretively and hid them in his pocket, but said nothing to acknowledge my capitulation.

―‗Herr American,‘ he whispered. ‗I know it was not only
ein man
from this afternoon. It is two men. One comes in first, very important man. Then the other. I see him when I go up with a suitcase to another
zimmer
. Then I see them. They talk. They walk out together.‘

―‗Didn‘t anyone stop them?‘ I snapped. ‗Who were they? Were they Hungarian?‘ The man was glancing all around him again, and I suppressed the urge to throttle him. This atmosphere of censorship was taking a toll on my nerves. I must have looked angry, because Hugh put a restraining hand on my arm.

―‗Important man Hungarian. Other man not Hungarian.‘

―‗How do you know?‘

―He lowered his voice. ‗One man Hungarian, but they speaks
Anglisch
together.‘ That was all he would say, despite my increasingly threatening questions. Since he had apparently decided he‘d given me enough information for the number of forints I‘d handed over, I might never have heard another word from him had it not been for something that seemed suddenly to catch his attention. He was looking past me, and after a second I turned, too, to follow his gaze through the great window by the hotel door.

Through it, for a split second, I saw a hungry, hollow-eyed countenance I‘d come to know much too well, a face that belonged in a grave, not on the street. The clerk was spluttering, clinging to my arm. ‗There he is, with his devil face—the
Anglischer
man!‘

―With what must have been a howl, I shook off the clerk and ran for the door; Hugh, with great presence of mind (I later realized), plucked an umbrella from the stand by the desk and bolted after me. Even in my alarm, I kept a tight grip on my briefcase, and that slowed me down as I ran. We turned this way and that, dashed up the street and back, but it was no use. I hadn‘t even heard the man‘s footsteps, so I couldn‘t tell which way he‘d fled.

―Finally, I stopped to lean against the side of a building, trying to catch my breath. Hugh was panting hard. ‗What was it?‘ he gasped.

―‗The librarian,‘ I said when I could manage a few words. ‗The one who followed us to Istanbul. I‘m sure it was him.‘

―‗Good Lord.‘ Hugh wiped his forehead with his sleeve. ‗What‘s he doing here?‘

―‗Trying to get the rest of my notes,‘ I wheezed. ‗He‘s a vampire, if you can believe that, and now we‘ve led him to this beautiful city.‘ Actually, I said more than that, and Hugh must have recognized from our common language all the American variants of infuriation. The thought of the curse I was trailing almost brought tears to my eyes.

―‗Come, now,‘ Hugh said soothingly. ‗They‘ve had vampires here before, as we know.‘

But his face was white and he stared around him, gripping the umbrella.

―‗Blast it!‘ I beat the side of the building with my fist.

―‗You‘ve got to keep a close eye out,‘ Hugh said soberly. ‗Is Miss Rossi back?‘

―‗Helen!‘ I hadn‘t thought of her at once, and Hugh seemed on the verge of a smile at my exclamation. ‗I‘ll go back now and check. I‘m going to call Professor Bora, too. Look, Hugh—you keep a close eye out, too. Be careful, all right? He saw you with me, and that doesn‘t seem to be good luck for anyone these days.‘