Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

“‘It is an old song, very old-I think at least three or four hundred years. It tells the story of a beautiful Bulgarian maiden who is chased by the Turkish invaders. They want her for the harem of the local pasha, and she refuses. She runs up a high mountain near her village and they gallop after her on their horses. At the top of the mountain is a cliff. There she cries out that she would rather die than become the mistress of an infidel, and she throws herself off the cliff. Later a spring rises up at the foot of the mountain, and it is the purest, sweetest water in that valley.’

“Helen nodded. ‘We have songs with a similar theme in Romania.’

“‘They exist wherever the Ottoman yoke fell over the Balkan peoples, I think,’ Stoichev said gravely. ‘We have in Bulgarian folklore thousands of such songs, with various themes-all are a cry of protest against the enslavement of our people.’

“The accordionist seemed to feel he had wrung our hearts sufficiently, for at the end of the song he gave a wicked smile and burst into dance music once more. This time most of the guests rose to join the line, which snaked around the terrace. One of the men urged us to come along, and after a second Helen followed, although I stayed firm in my chair next to Stoichev. I enjoyed watching her, though. She caught the dance step after a short demonstration. Some kind of dance must have been in her blood; she held herself with natural dignity, her feet moving surely to the jagged beat. Following her lithe form in the pale blouse and black skirt, her glowing face with the dark curls escaping around it, I found myself almost praying that nothing would ever harm her, and wondering, too, if she would let me keep her safe.”

“If my first glimpse of Stoichev’s house had filled me with sudden hopelessness, my first glimpse of Rila Monastery filled me with awe. The monastery sat in a dramatically deep valley-almost filling it, at that point-and above its walls and domes rose the Rila Mountains, which are very steep and forested with tall spruces. Ranov had parked his car in the shade outside the main gate, and we made our way in with several clumps of other tourists. It was a hot, dry day; the Balkan summer seemed to be closing in, and dust from the bare ground swirled around our ankles. The great wooden doors of the gate were open, and we went through them into a sight I can never forget. Around us loomed the striped walls of the monastery fortress, with their alternating patterns of black and red on white plaster, hung with long wooden galleries. Filling a third of the enormous courtyard was a church of exquisite proportions, its porch heavily frescoed, its pale green domes alight in the midday sun. Beside it stood a muscular, square tower of gray stone, visibly older than everything else in sight. Stoichev told us that this was Hrelyo’s Tower, built by a medieval nobleman as a haven from his political enemies. It was the only remaining part of the earliest monastery on the site, which had been burned by the Turks and rebuilt centuries later in this striped splendor. As we stood there, the church bells began to toll, frightening a flock of birds into the sky. They soared upward, startled, and, following them with my gaze, I saw again the unimaginably high peaks above us-a day’s climb, at least. I caught my breath; was Rossi here somewhere, in this ancient place?

“Helen, standing next to me with a thin scarf tied over her hair, put her arm through mine, and I remembered the moment in Hagia Sophia, that evening in Istanbul that seemed history already but had actually been only days before, when she had grasped my hand so hard. The Ottomans had conquered this land long before they had taken Constantinople; by rights, we should have begun our trip here, not in Hagia Sophia. On the other hand, even before that, the doctrines of the Byzantines, their elegant arts and architecture, had reached out from Constantinople to flavor Bulgarian culture. Now Saint Sophia was a museum among mosques, while this dramatically secluded valley brimmed with Byzantine culture.

“Stoichev, beside us, was clearly enjoying our astonishment. Irina, in a broad-brimmed hat, held his arm tightly. Only Ranov stood alone, scowling at the beautiful scene, turning his head suspiciously when a group of black-cowled monks passed us on their way into the church. It had been a struggle for us to persuade him to pick up Stoichev and Irina in his car and bring them along; he wanted Stoichev to have the honor of showing us Rila, he said, but there was no reason Stoichev couldn’t take the bus like the rest of the Bulgarian people. I’d restrained myself from pointing out that he, Ranov, didn’t seem to take the bus much himself. We had finally prevailed, although this didn’t prevent Ranov from grumbling about the old professor most of the way from Sofia to Stoichev’s house. Stoichev had used his fame to promote superstition and antipatriotic ideas; everyone knew that he had refused to drop his very unscientific allegiance to the Orthodox church; he had a son studying in East Germany who was almost as bad as he was. But we had won the battle, Stoichev could ride with us, and Irina whispered gratefully during our stop for lunch at a mountain tavern that she would have tried to prevent her uncle from going at all if they’d had to take the bus; he couldn’t stand such a hard trip in this heat.

“‘This is the wing where the monks still live,’ Stoichev said. ‘And over there, along that side, is the hostel where we will sleep. You will see how peaceful it is here at night, in spite of all the visitors in the day. This is one of our greatest national treasures, and many people come to see it, especially in the summer. But at night it becomes very quiet again. Come,’ he added, ‘we will go in to see the abbot. I called him yesterday and he is expecting us.’ He led the way with surprising vigor, looking eagerly around, as if the place gave him new life.

“The abbot’s audience chambers, when we reached them, were on the first floor of the monastic wing. A black-gowned monk with a long brown beard held the door for us and we went in, Stoichev removing his hat and entering first. The abbot rose from a bench near the wall and came forward to meet us. He and Stoichev greeted each other very cordially, Stoichev kissing his hand and the abbot blessing the old man. The abbot was a lean, upright man of perhaps sixty, his beard streaked with gray and his blue eyes-I was rather surprised to realize there were blue-eyed Bulgarians-tranquil. He shook hands with us in a very modern way, and with Ranov, who greeted him with obvious disdain. Then he gestured for us all to sit down, and a monk brought in a tray of glasses-not full ofrakiya, in this place, but of cool water, accompanied by small dishes of that rose-flavored paste we had encountered in Istanbul. I noticed that Ranov did not drink his, as if he suspected poison.

“The abbot was clearly delighted to see Stoichev there, and I imagined the visit must be a particular pleasure to both of them. He asked us through Stoichev where we were from in America, whether we had visited other monasteries in Bulgaria, what he could do to help us, how long we would be able to stay. Stoichev spoke with him at length, translating obligingly so that we could answer the abbot’s questions. We could use the library as much as we liked, the abbot said; we could sleep in the hostel; we should attend the services in the church; we were welcome anywhere except the monks’ quarters-this with a gentle nod at Helen and Irina-and they would not hear of Professor Stoichev’s friends paying for their lodging. We thanked him gratefully and Stoichev got to his feet. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘since we have these kind permissions, we will go to the library.’ He was already making his way cautiously to the door, kissing the abbot’s hand, bowing.