The Historian (82 page)

―Baba Yanka and her sister stayed quietly where they were, as if their moment had not come. They waited until the flute player began to call for them, gesturing and smiling, and then until their audience joined the call, and then they feigned some reluctance, and finally they got up and went, hand in hand, to stand next to the musicians. Everyone fell quiet, and the
gaida
played a little introduction. The two old women began to sing, their arms twined around each other‘s waists now, and the sound they made—a stomach-churning harmony, harsh and beautiful—seemed to come from one body. The sound of the
gaida
grew up around it, and then the three voices, the voices of the two women and the goat, rose together and spread over us like the groaning of the earth itself. Helen‘s eyes were suddenly suffused with tears, which was so unlike her that I put my arm around her in front of everyone.

―After the women had sung five or six songs, with cheers in between from the crowd, everyone rose—at what signal, I couldn‘t tell, until I saw the priest approaching again.

He carried the icon of Sveti Petko, now draped in red velvet, and behind him came two boys, each dressed in a dark robe and each carrying an icon completely covered in white silk. This procession made its way around to the other side of the church, the musicians walking behind it playing a somber melody, and halted between the church and the great fire ring. The fire had burned down completely now; only a circle of coals remained, infernally red and deep. Wisps of smoke rose up from it now and then as if something underneath were alive and breathing. The priest and his helpers stood by the church wall, holding their treasures in front of them.

―At last the musicians struck up a new tune—lively but somber at the same time, I thought—and one by one the villagers who could dance, or at least walk, fell into a long snaking line that made its way slowly around the fire. As the line wound around in front of the church, Baba Yanka and another woman—not her sister, this time, but an even more weather-beaten woman whose clouded eyes looked nearly blind—came forward and bowed to the priest and to the icons. They took their shoes and socks off and set them carefully by the church steps, kissed Sveti Petko‘s forbidding face, and received the priest‘s blessing. The priest‘s young helpers gave an icon to each woman, pulling off the silk covers. The music surged higher; the
gaida
player was sweating profusely, his face scarlet, his cheeks enormous.

―Next Baba Yanka and the woman with the clouded eyes danced forward, never losing their step, and then, while I held myself very still, watching, they danced barefoot into the fire. Each woman held her icon up in front of her as she entered the ring; each held her head high, staring with dignity into another world. Helen‘s hand tightened on mine until my fingers ached. Their feet rose and fell in the coals, brushing up living sparks; once I saw Baba Yanka‘s striped skirt smolder at the hem. They danced through embers to that mysterious rhythm of drum and bagpipe, and each went a different direction inside the circle of the fire.

―I hadn‘t been able to see the icons as they‘d entered the ring, but now I noted that one, in the hands of the blind woman, showed the Virgin Mary, her child on her knee, her head tilted under a heavy crown. I couldn‘t see the icon Baba Yanka carried until she came around the circle again. Baba Yanka‘s face was startling, her eyes enormous and fixed, her lips slack, her weathered skin glowing from the terrible heat. The icon she carried in her arms must have been very old, like that of the Virgin, but through its smoke stains and the wavering heat I could make out an image quite distinctly: it showed two figures facing each other in a sort of dance of their own, two creatures equally dramatic and forbidding. One was a knight in armor and red cape, and the other was a dragon with a long, looping tail.‖

My beloved daughter:

I am in Naples now. This year, I am trying to be more systematic about my search.

Naples is warm in December, and I am grateful because I have a bad cold. I never knew what it meant to be lonely before I left you, because I had never been loved as your father loved me—and you, too, I think. Now I am a woman alone in a library, wiping my nose and making notes. I wonder if anyone has ever been so alone as I am there, and in my hotel room. In public I wear my scarf or a high-necked blouse. As I cut up my lunch, and eat it alone, someone smiles at me and I smile back. Then I look away. You are not the only person with whom I am not fit to associate.

Your loving mother,

Helen

February 1964

My beloved daughter:

Athens is dirty and noisy, and it is difficult for me to get access to the documents I need at the Institute for Medieval Greece, which seems to be as medieval as its contents. But this morning, as I sit on the Acropolis, I can almost imagine that one day our separation will be over, and we will sit—you a grown woman, perhaps—on these fallen stones and look out over the city. Let‘s see: you will be tall, like me, like your father, with cloudy dark hair—very short or in a thick braid?—and wear sunglasses and walking shoes, perhaps a scarf over your head if the wind is as rough as it is today. And I will be aging, wrinkled, proud only of you. The waiters at the cafés will stare at you, not at me, and I will laugh proudly, and your father will glare at them over his newspaper.

Your loving mother,

Helen

March 1964

My beloved daughter:

My fantasy about the Acropolis was so strong yesterday that I went there again this morning, just to write to you. But once I was sitting up there, gazing out over the city, the wound on my neck began to throb, and I thought that a presence close by was catching up with me, so that I could only look around and around trying to see among the crowds of tourists anyone suspicious. I cannot understand why this fiend has not come down the centuries to find me yet. I am his for the taking already, polluted already, longing slightly for him. Why does he not make his move and put me out of this misery? But as soon as I think this, I realize that I must continue to resist him, to surround and guard myself with every charm against him, and to find his many haunts in the hope of catching him in one of them, catching him so completely unaware that I can perhaps make history by destroying him. You, my lost angel, are the fire behind this desperate ambition.

Your loving mother,

Helen

―When we saw the icon that Baba Yanka carried, I don‘t know who gasped first, me or Helen, but each of us suppressed the reaction at once. Ranov was leaning against a tree not ten feet away, and to my relief I perceived that he was looking out over the valley, bored and contemptuous, busy with his cigarette, and had apparently not noticed the icon.

A few seconds later Baba Yanka had turned away from us, and then she and the other old woman danced with the same lively, dignified step out of the fire and toward the priest.

They returned the icons to the two boys, who covered them again at once. I kept my eye on Ranov. The priest was blessing the old women now, and they were led away by Brother Ivan, who gave them a drink of water. Baba Yanka cast us a proud glance as she went by, flushed, smiling and almost winking, and Helen and I bowed to her, out of a single awe. I looked carefully at her feet as she passed; her worn, bare feet appeared completely undamaged, as did the other woman‘s. Only their faces showed the heat of the fire, like a sunburn.

―‗The dragon,‘ Helen murmured to me as we watched them.

―‗Yes,‘ I said. ‗We have to find out where they keep this icon and how old it is. Come on.

The priest promised us a tour of the church.‘

―‗What about Ranov?‘ Helen didn‘t look around.

―‗We‘ll just have to pray he doesn‘t decide to follow us,‘ I said. ‗I don‘t think he saw the icon.‘

―The priest was returning to the church, and the people had started to drift away. We followed him slowly, and found him setting the icon of Sveti Petko back on its podium.

The other two icons were nowhere to be seen. I bowed my thanks and told him in English how beautiful the ceremony had been, waving my hands and pointing outside. He seemed pleased. Then I gestured around the church and raised my eyebrows. ‗May we take a tour?‘

―‗Tour?‘ He frowned for a second, and then smiled again. Wait—he needed only to disrobe. When he returned in his everyday black garb, he took us carefully into every niche, pointing out‗ikoni‘ and‗Hristos‘ and some other things we more or less understood. He seemed to know a great deal about the place and its history, if only we‘d been able to understand him. At last I asked him where the other icons were, and he pointed to the yawning hole I‘d noticed earlier in one of the side chapels. They had apparently already been returned to the crypt, where they were kept. He fetched his lantern, obligingly, and led us down.

―The stone steps were steep, and the breath of cold that reached us from below made the church itself seem warm. I gripped Helen‘s hand tightly as we picked our way down after the priest‘s lantern, which illuminated the old stones around us. The small room below was not completely dark, however; two stands of candles blazed next to an altar, and after a moment we could see, if dimly, that it was not an altar but an elaborate brass reliquary, partly covered with richly embroidered red damask. On it stood the two icons in silver frames, the Virgin and—I took a step forward—the dragon and the knight. ‗Sveti Petko,‘

the priest said cheerfully, touching the casket.

―I pointed to the Virgin, and he told us something that had to do with
Bachkovski
manastir
, although we couldn‘t understand more than that. Then I pointed to the other icon, and the priest beamed. ‗Sveti Georgi,‘ he said, indicating the knight. He pointed to the dragon. ‗
Drakula
.‘

―‗That probably just means dragon,‘ Helen warned me.

―I nodded. ‗How can we ask him how old he thinks it is?‘

―‗
Star? Staro
?‘ Helen guessed.

―The priest shook his head in agreement. ‗
Mnogo star
,‘ he said solemnly. We stared at him. I held up my hand and counted fingers. Three? Four? Five? He smiled. Five. Five fingers—about five hundred years.

―‗He thinks it‘s fifteenth century,‘ Helen said. ‗God, how are we going to ask him where it‘s from?‘ I pointed to the icon, gestured around at the crypt, pointed up to the church above us. But when he understood he gave the universal gesture of ignorance; his shoulders and eyebrows rose and fell together. He didn‘t know. He seemed to try to tell us that the icon had been here at Sveti Petko for hundreds of years—beyond that, he didn‘t know.

―At last he turned, smiling, and we prepared to follow him and his lantern back up the steep steps. And we would have left that place forever, and in complete hopelessness, if Helen had not suddenly caught the narrow heel of her pump between two of the stones underfoot. She gasped with annoyance—I knew she did not have another pair of shoes with her—and I bent quickly to free her. The priest was nearly out of sight, but the candles blazing next to the reliquary afforded me enough light to see what was engraved on the vertical of the bottom step, right next to Helen‘s foot. It was a small dragon, crude but unmistakable, and unmistakably the same design as the one in my book. I dropped to my knees on the stones and traced it with one hand. It was so familiar to me that I could have carved it there myself. Helen crouched next to me, her shoe forgotten. ‗My God,‘

she said. ‗What is this place?‘

―‗Sveti Georgi,‘ I said slowly. ‗This must be Sveti Georgi.‘

―She peered at me in the dim light, her hair falling into her eyes. ‗But the church is eighteenth century,‘ she objected. Then her face cleared. ‗You think that—‘

―‗Lots of churches have much older foundations, right? And we know this one was rebuilt after the Turks burned the original. Couldn‘t it have been a monastery church, for a monastery everyone forgot long ago?‘ I was whispering in my excitement. ‗It could have been rebuilt decades or centuries later, and renamed for the martyr they did remember.‘

―‗Helen turned in horror and stared at the brass reliquary behind us. ‘Do you also think—

‗

―‗I don‘t know,‘ I said slowly. ‗It seems unlikely to me they could have confused one set of relics with another, but how recently do you think that box has been opened?‘

―‗It does not look big enough,‘ she said. She seemed unable to say more.

―‗It doesn‘t,‘ I agreed, ‗but we have got to try it. At least, I‘ve got to. I want you to stay out of this, Helen.‘

―She gave me a quizzical look, as if puzzled by the idea that I would even try to send her away. ‗It is very serious to break into a church and desecrate the grave of a saint.‘

―‗I know,‘ I said. ‗But what if this isn‘t the grave of a saint?‘

―There were two names neither of us could have managed to utter in that dark, cold place with its flickering lights and smell of beeswax and earth. One of those names was Rossi.

―‗Right now? Ranov will be looking for us,‘ Helen said.

―When we emerged from the church, the shadows of the trees around it were lengthening, and Ranov was looking for us, his face impatient. Brother Ivan stood by, although I noticed they hardly spoke to each other. ‗Did you have a good nap?‘ Helen asked politely.

―‗It is time for us to go back to Bachkovo.‘ Ranov‘s voice was curt again; I wondered if he was disappointed that we had apparently found nothing here. ‗We will leave for Sofia in the morning. I have business to take care of there. I hope you are satisfied with your research.‘