Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

“‘That means it dates at least from the first half of the fifteenth century,’ I breathed. ‘Before the conquest.’

“‘Oh, I think it is much older than that,’ Helen whispered, gently touching the seal. ‘My father-my father said it was very old. And you see the insignia here indicates Constantine Porphyrogenitus. He reigned in’-she searched an inner file-‘the first half of the tenth century. He was in power beforeBachkovski manastir was founded. The eagle must have been added later.’

“I scarcely breathed the words. ‘You mean that this is more than a thousand years old?’ Holding the book carefully in both hands, I sat down on the edge of the bed next to Helen. Neither of us made a sound; we were speaking more or less with our eyes. ‘It’s in nearly perfect condition. And you intend to smuggle such a treasure out of Bulgaria? Helen,’ I told her with a glance, ‘you are out of your mind. And what about the fact that it belongs to the Bulgarian people?’

“She kissed me, took the book out of my hands, and opened it to the front. ‘It was a gift from my father,’ she whispered. The inside front cover had a deep flap of leather over it, and she reached carefully inside this. ‘I have waited to look at this until we could open it together.’ She drew out a packet of thin paper covered with dense typing. Then we read together, in silence, Rossi’s agonized journal. When we were done, neither of us spoke, although we were both weeping. At last Helen wrapped the book in the handkerchief again and put it carefully back in its hiding place against her skin.

“Turgut smiled as I finished a diluted version of this story. ‘But there is more I have to tell you, and it is very important,’ I said. I described Rossi’s terrible imprisonment in the library. They listened with still, grave faces, and when I came to the fact that Dracula knew of the continued existence of a guard formed by the sultan to pursue him, Turgut drew a sharp breath. ‘I am sorry,’ I said.

“He translated quickly for Selim, who bowed his head and then said something in a soft voice. Turgut nodded. ‘He says the thing I most feel. This terrible news only means we must be the more diligent in pursuing the Impaler, and in keeping his influence from our city. His Gloriousness the Refuge of the World would command us in just this way, if he were alive. This is true. And what will you do with this book when you go home?’

“‘I know someone who has a connection with an auction house,’ I said. ‘We will be very careful, of course, and we’ll wait a while before we do anything. I expect some museum will get it, sooner or later.’

“‘And the money?’ Turgut shook his head. ‘What will you do with so much?’

“‘We’re thinking it over,’ I said. ‘Something in the service of good. We don’t yet know what.’

“Our plane to New York left at five, and Turgut began looking at his watch as soon as we’d finished our last enormous lunch on the divans. He had an evening class to teach, alas, alack, but Mr. Aksoy would ride with us to the airport in a taxicab. When we stood to go, Mrs. Bora brought out a scarf of the finest cream-colored silk, embroidered with silver, and put it around Helen’s neck. It hid the shabbiness of her black jacket and soiled collar and we all gasped-at least I did, and I can’t have been alone. Her face above the scarf was the countenance of an empress. ‘For your marriage day,’ Mrs. Bora said, standing on tiptoe to kiss her.

“Turgut kissed Helen’s hand. ‘It belonged to my mother,’ he said simply, and Helen could not speak. I spoke for both of us, shaking their hands. We would write, we would think of them. Life being long, we would see one another again.”

“The last part of my story is perhaps the hardest for me to tell, since it begins with so much happiness, in spite of everything. We returned quietly to the university and took up our work again. I was questioned by the police once more, but they seemed satisfied that my trip abroad had been connected with research, and not with Rossi’s vanishing. The newspapers had seized upon his disappearance by then and made a local mystery of it, which the university did its best to ignore. My chairman questioned me, too, of course, and of course I told him nothing, except to say that I grieved as much as anyone for Rossi. Helen and I were married in my parents’ church in Boston that autumn-even in the midst of the ceremony I couldn’t help noticing how bare and plain it was, how devoid of incense.

“My parents were a little stunned by all this, of course, but they could not help liking Helen, ultimately. None of her native harshness showed around them, and when we visited them in Boston I often found Helen laughing in the kitchen with my mother, teaching her to cook Hungarian specialties, or discussing anthropology with my father in his cramped study. For myself, although I felt the pain of Rossi’s death and the frequent melancholy it seemed to cause in Helen, I found that first year full of a brimming joy. I finished my dissertation under a second adviser, whose face remained a blur to me throughout the process. It was not that I cared about Dutch merchants anymore; I only wanted to complete my education so that I could settle us comfortably somewhere. Helen published a long article on Wallachian village superstitions, which was well-received, and began a dissertation on the remnants of Transylvanian customs in Hungary.

“We wrote something else, too, as soon as we returned to the States: a note to Helen’s mother, care of Aunt Éva. Helen didn’t dare to put much information into it, but she told her mother in a few brief lines that Rossi had died remembering and loving her. Helen sealed the letter with a look of despair on her face. ‘I will tell her everything someday,’ she said, ‘when I can whisper it into her ear.’ We never knew for certain whether this letter reached its destination because neither Aunt Éva nor Helen’s mother wrote back, and within a year Soviet troops had invaded Hungary.

“I fully intended to live happily ever after, and I mentioned to Helen soon after we married that I hoped we would have children. At first she shook her head, touching the scar on her neck with gentle fingers. I knew what she meant. But her exposure had been minimal, I pointed out; she was well and strong and healthy. As time went by she seemed lulled by her own complete recovery, and I saw her looking with wistful eyes into the baby carriages we passed on the street.

“Helen received her doctorate in anthropology the spring after we were married. The speed with which she wrote her dissertation shamed me; I would often wake during that year to find that it was five in the morning and she had already left our bed for her desk. She looked pale and tired, and the day after she defended her dissertation I woke to blood on the sheets, and Helen lying next to me faint and wracked with pain: a miscarriage. She had been waiting to surprise me with good news. She was ill for several weeks afterward, and very quiet. Her dissertation received the highest honors, but she never spoke of that.

“When I got my first teaching job, in New York City, she urged me to take it, and we moved. We settled in Brooklyn Heights, in a pleasantly run-down brownstone. We took walks along the promenade to watch the tugboats navigating the port and the great passenger liners-the last of their race-pulling out for Europe. Helen taught at a university as good as mine and her students adored her; there was a magnificent balance to our lives, and we were making a living doing what we liked best.

“Now and then we took out theLife of Saint George and looked slowly through it, and the day came when we went to a discreet auction house with it, and the Englishman who opened it nearly fainted. It was sold privately, and eventually made its way to the Cloisters, in upper Manhattan, and a great deal of money made its way into a bank account we had set up for the purpose. Helen disliked elaborate living as much as I did, and apart from the attempt to send small amounts to her relatives in Hungary, we left the money alone, for the time being.