Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

In fact, there was so much to do, to take care of, that we didn’t remove any more clothing, and a great deal of time seemed to pass before Barley curled himself around me with a strangled sigh, murmuring, “You’re just a kid,” and put one arm possessively over my shoulders and neck.

When he said this, I suddenly knew that he, too, was just a kid-an honorable kid. I think I loved him more in that moment than at any other.

“The borrowed apartment where Turgut had left Mr. Erozan was perhaps a ten-minute walk from his own-or a ten-minute run, because we all but ran, even Helen in her heeled pumps hurrying along with us. Turgut muttered (and swore, I guessed) under his breath. He had brought with him a little black bag, which I thought might contain medical supplies in case the doctor did not come, or didn’t come in time. At last we found ourselves climbing the wooden stairway in an old house. We tore up the stairs after Turgut and he threw open a door at the top.

“The house had apparently been divided into dingy little apartments; in this one a bed, chairs, and a table furnished the main room, and a single lamp lit it. Turgut’s friend lay on the floor with a blanket over him, and from beside him a stammering man of about thirty rose to greet us. The man was almost hysterical with fright and contrition; he kept wringing his hands and telling Turgut something over and over. Turgut pushed him aside and he and Selim knelt by Mr. Erozan. The poor victim’s face was ashen, his eyes were closed, and his breath came in rattling gasps. There was an ugly tear in his neck, larger than when we’d last seen it, but the more horrible because it was strangely clean, if ragged, with only a fringe of blood at the edges. It occurred to me that such a deep wound ought to bleed copiously, and the realization sent a thrill of nausea to my stomach. I put my arm around Helen and we stood staring, unable to look away.

“Turgut was examining the wound without touching it and now he glanced up at us. ‘A few minutes ago, this damnable man went for a strange doctor without consulting me, but the doctor was out. That, at least, is fortunate, because we do not want a doctor here now. But he left Erozan alone just at sunset.’ He spoke with Aksoy, who got up suddenly and-with a force I would not have predicted-struck the hapless watchman and sent him from the room. The man backed away and then we heard his terrified descent down the stairwell. Selim locked the door behind him and looked out the window to the street, as if to satisfy himself that the fellow wouldn’t be returning. Then he knelt by Turgut and they conferred in low voices.

“After a moment, Turgut reached into the bag he had brought with him. I saw him draw from it an object already familiar to me: it was a vampire-hunting kit similar to the one he had given me in his study more than a week earlier, except that this one was in a finer box, ornamented with Arabic writing and what looked like mother-of-pearl inlay. He opened it and took stock of the instruments inside. Then he looked up at us again. ‘Professors,’ he said quietly, ‘my friend has been bitten by the vampire at least three times, and he is dying. If he dies naturally in this condition, he will soon become undead.’ He wiped his forehead with a big hand. ‘This is a terrible moment now, and I must ask you to leave the room. Madam, you must not see this.’

“‘Please, let us do whatever will help you,’ I began hesitantly, but Helen stepped forward.

“‘Let me stay,’ she told Turgut in a low voice. ‘I want to know how it is done.’ For a moment, I wondered why she craved this knowledge and found myself remembering-surreal thought-that she was, after all, an anthropologist. He glared at her, then seemed to acquiesce without words, and bent again to his friend. I hoped, still, that what I had already guessed was wrong, but Turgut was murmuring something in his friend’s ear. He took Mr. Erozan’s hand and stroked it.

“Then-and this was perhaps the worst of all the awful things that followed-Turgut pressed his friend’s hand to his own heart and broke out in a keening wail, words that seemed to come to us from the depths of a history not only too ancient but too alien for me to distinguish their syllables, a howl of grief akin to the muezzin’s call to prayer, which we had heard from the minarets in the city-except that Turgut’s wail sounded more like a summons to hell-a string of horror-stricken notes that seemed to arise from the memory of a thousand Ottoman camps, a million Turkish soldiers. I saw the fluttering banners, the splashes of blood on the legs of their horses, the spear and the crescent, the glitter of sunlight on scimitars and chain mail, the beautiful and mutilated young heads, faces, bodies; heard the screams of men crossing into the hand of Allah and the cries of their faraway mothers and fathers; smelled the reek of burning houses and fresh gore, the sulfur of cannon fire, the conflagrations of tent and bridge and horseflesh.

“Most strangely, I heard in the midst of this roar a cry I could understand at will: ‘Kaziklu Bey!The Impaler!’ In the heart of the chaos I seemed to see a figure different from the rest, a dark-clad, cloaked man on horseback wheeling among the bright colors, his face drawn up in a snarl of concentration and his sword harvesting Ottoman heads, which rolled heavily in their pointed helmets.

“Turgut’s voice fell back and I found I was standing near him now, looking down at the dying man. Helen was blessedly real next to me-I opened my mouth to ask her a question and saw that she had heard the same horror in Turgut’s chant. I remembered without wanting to that the blood of the Impaler ran in her veins. She turned to me for a second, her face shocked but steady; it came to me just in time that Rossi’s heritage-mild, patrician, Tuscan, and Anglo-also ran through her, and I saw Rossi’s incomparable kindness in her eyes. In that moment, I think-not later, not at home in my parents’ stodgy brown church, not in front of any minister-I married her, I wed her in my heart, I cleaved to her for life.

“Turgut, silent now, had placed the string of prayer beads on his friend’s throat, which made the body quiver a little, and selected from the stained satin in the box a tool longer than my hand and made of bright silver. ‘I have never had to do this before, God save me, in my life,’ he said quietly. He opened Mr. Erozan’s shirt and I saw the aging skin, the curling chest hair gray as ashes, rising and falling unevenly. Selim searched the room with silent efficiency and brought Turgut a brick that had apparently been used as a door prop, and this homely object Turgut took in his hand, weighing it for a second. He put the sharp end of the stake on the left side of the man’s chest and began a low chant, in which I caught words I remembered from somewhere-book, movie, conversation?-‘Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar:Allah is great.’ I couldn’t, I knew, force Helen to leave the room any more than I could leave it myself, but I pulled her back a step as the brick descended. Turgut’s hand was large and steady. Selim held the stake upright for him and with a splintering, sucking thud it went into the body. Sluggish blood welled around the point and smeared the pale skin. Mr. Erozan’s face convulsed horribly for a second and his lips drew back from his yellowing teeth like a dog’s. Helen stared and I did not dare look away; I didn’t want her to watch anything I couldn’t see with her. The librarian’s body quivered, the stake suddenly went down to its hilt, and Turgut sat back, as if waiting. His lips trembled and sweat had sprung out all over his face.

“After a moment the body relaxed and then the face; the lips drooped peacefully over Mr. Erozan’s mouth, a sigh came up out of his chest; his feet in their pathetically worn socks twitched and were still. I kept a firm hold on Helen, and felt her shiver next to me, but she stood quiet. Turgut raised his friend’s limp hand and kissed it. I saw tears running down his ruddy face, dripping into his mustache, and he covered his eyes with one hand. Selim touched the dead librarian’s brow, then rose and pressed Turgut’s shoulder.