Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

“‘And he forgot my mother,’ Helen finished, almost inaudibly.

“‘Your mother,’ I echoed, with a sudden image of Helen’s mother standing in her doorway, watching us leave. ‘He never meant not to go back. He suddenly forgot everything. And that’s-that’s why he told me he couldn’t always remember his research clearly.’

“Helen’s face was white now, her jaw clenched, her eyes harsh and filling with tears. ‘I hate him,’ she said in a low voice, and I knew she did not mean her father.”

“We arrived at Stoichev’s gate the next morning promptly at one-thirty. Helen squeezed my hand, ignoring Ranov’s presence, and even Ranov seemed in a festive mood; he frowned less than usual and had put on a heavy brown suit. From behind the gate, we could hear the sounds of conversation and laughter and smell wood smoke and some delicious meat cooking. If I put all thought of Rossi firmly out of my mind, I could feel festive, too. I felt that today, of all days, something would happen to help me find him, and I resolved to celebrate the feast of Kiril and Methodius as wholeheartedly as possible.

“Inside the yard, we could see groups of men and a few women gathered under the trellis. Irina flitted here and there behind the table, refilling people’s plates and pouring glasses full of that powerful amber liquid. When she saw us, she hurried forward, arms outstretched as if we were already old friends. She shook hands with me and Ranov and kissed Helen on the cheeks. ‘I am very happy that you came. Thank you,’ she said. ‘My uncle has not been able to sleep at all, or to eat anything, since you were here yesterday. I hope you will tell him that he must eat.’ Her pretty face was puckered.

“‘Please don’t worry,’ said Helen. ‘We will do our best to persuade him.’

“We found Stoichev holding court under the apple trees. Someone had set a ring of wooden chairs there, and he sat in the largest with several younger men around him. ‘Oh, hello!’ he exclaimed, struggling to his feet. The other men rose quickly to give him a hand, and waited to greet us. ‘Welcome, my friends. Please to meet my other friends.’ With a frail wave, he indicated the faces around him. ‘These are some of my students from before the war, and they are so kind to come back and see me.’ Many of these men, with their white shirts and shabby dark suits, were youthful only in comparison with Ranov; most of them were in their fifties, at least. They smiled and shook our hands warmly, one of them bending to kiss Helen’s with formal courtesy. I liked their alert, dark eyes, their quiet smiles glinting with gold teeth.

“Irina came up behind us; she seemed to be urging everyone to eat once again, for after a minute we found ourselves carried along by a wave of guests to the tables under the trellis. There we found a groaning board indeed, and also the source of the wonderful smell, which turned out to be a whole sheep roasting over an open pit in the yard near the house. The table was laden with earthenware dishes of sliced potatoes, tomato and cucumber salad, crumbling white cheese, loaves of golden bread, pans of the same flaky cheese pastry we had eaten in Istanbul. There were meat stews, chilled bowls of yogurt, grilled eggplants and onions. Irina left us no peace until our plates were almost too heavy to carry, and she followed us back into the little orchard bearing glasses ofrakiya.

“In the meantime, Stoichev’s students had clearly been vying with one another to see who could bring him the most food, and now they filled his glass to the brim, and he slowly rose to his feet. All over the yard people shouted for quiet, and then he toasted them with a short speech, in which I caught the names of Kiril and Methodius, as well as mine and Helen’s. When he was done, a cheer went up from the whole company.‘Stoichev! Za zdraveto na Profesor Stoichev! Nazdrave!’ Cheers rang all around us. Everyone’s face was lit up for Stoichev; everyone turned to him with a smile and a raised glass, and some had tears in their eyes. I remembered Rossi, how he’d listened so modestly to the cheers and speeches with which we had marked his twentieth anniversary at the university. I turned away with a lump in my throat. Ranov, I noted, was drifting around under the trellis, a glass in his hand.

“When the company settled again to eating and talking, Helen and I found ourselves in places of honor next to Stoichev. He smiled and nodded to us. ‘How pleasant for me that you could come to join us today. You know, this is my favorite holiday. We have many saints’ days in the church calendar, but this one is dear to all those who teach and learn, because it is when we honor the Slavonic heritage of alphabet and literature, and the teaching and learning of many centuries that have grown from Kiril and Methodii and their great invention. Besides, on this day all my favorite students and colleagues come back to interrupt their ancient professor at his work. And I am very grateful to them for the interruption.’ He looked around with that affectionate smile and clapped the nearest of his colleagues on the shoulder. I saw with a twinge of sorrow how fragile his hand was, thin and almost translucent.

“After a while Stoichev’s students began to drift away, either to the table, where the spitted sheep had just been carved, or to wander in the garden in twos and threes. As soon as they were gone, Stoichev turned to us with an urgent face. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let us talk while we are able to. My niece has promised to keep Mr. Ranov busy as long as she can. I have a few things to tell you, and I understand you have much to tell me, as well.’

“‘Certainly.’ I pulled my chair closer to his, and Helen did the same.

“‘First of all, my friends,’ Stoichev said, ‘I read again carefully the letter you left with me yesterday. Here is your copy of it.’ He took it from his breast pocket. ‘I will give it to you now, to keep it safe. I read it many times, and I believe that it was written by the same hand that wrote the letter I possess-Brother Kiril, whoever he was, wrote both of them. I do not have your original to look at, of course, but if this is an accurate copy, the style of composition is the same, and the names and dates certainly agree. I think we can have little doubt that these letters were part of the same correspondence, and that they were either delivered separately or separated from each other by circumstances we will never know. Now, I have some other thoughts for you, but first you must tell me more about your research. I have the impression that you did not come to Bulgaria to learn only about our monasteries. How did you find this letter?’

“I told him that we’d begun our research for reasons that would be difficult for me to describe, because they did not sound very rational. ‘You said you had read the work of Professor Bartholomew Rossi, Helen’s father. He recently disappeared under very strange circumstances.’

“As quickly and clearly as I could, I sketched for Stoichev my discovery of the dragon book, Rossi’s disappearance, the contents of the letters and the copies of the strange maps we carried with us, and our research in Istanbul and Budapest, including the folk song and the woodcut with the wordIvireanu in it, which we’d seen in the university library in Budapest. I left out only the secret of the Crescent Guard. I didn’t dare pull any documents from my briefcase with so many other people in sight, but I described for him the three maps and the similarity of the third to the dragon in the books. He listened with the utmost patience and interest, his brow furrowed under his fine white hair and his dark eyes wide. Only once did he interrupt, to ask urgently for a more exact description of each of the dragon books-mine, Rossi’s, Hugh James’s, Turgut’s. I saw that because of his knowledge of manuscripts and early publishing, the books must hold peculiar interest for him. ‘I have mine here,’ I added, touching the briefcase in my lap.