Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

Farther away, we would see the distant ridges of apartment buildings, newer hotels than this one, a sprawl of suburbs through which we’d traveled by train the day before. Beyond that, I couldn’t guess; it was too distant to imagine. My father would wipe his face with his handkerchief. And I would know, stealing a glance at him, that when we reached the summit he would show me not only the ancient ruins there but also another glimpse of his own past.

The diner I’d chosen, my father said, was far enough from campus to make me feel out of range of that creepy librarian (who was surely required to stay on the job but probably took a lunch break somewhere) and yet close enough to be a reasonable request, not the assignation in some lonely spot that an ax murderer might make with a woman he hardly knew. I’m not sure I’d actually expected her to be late, hesitating about my motives, but Helen was there before me, so that when I pushed in through the diner door, I saw her unwinding her blue silk scarf in a far corner and taking off her white gloves-remember that this was still an era of impractical, charming accoutrements for even the most hard-boiled of female academics. Her hair was rolled back almost smoothly and pinned away from her face, so that when she turned to regard me, I had a sense of being stared at even more enormously than I had been at the library table the day before.

“Good morning,” she said in a cold voice. “I have ordered you some coffee, since you sounded so fatigued on the phone.”

This struck me as presumptuous-how would she know my fatigued voice from my well-rested one, and what if my coffee were already cold? But I introduced myself by name this time, and shook hands with her, trying to hide my uneasiness. I wanted to ask her immediately about her own last name, but I thought I’d better wait for the right opportunity. Her hand was smooth and dry, cool in mine, as if she still wore her gloves. I pulled out a chair opposite her and sat down, wishing I’d put on a clean shirt even for the occasion of hunting vampires. Her mannish white blouse, severe under a black jacket, looked immaculate.

“Why did I think I would be hearing from you again?” Her tone was close to insulting.

“I know you find this strange.” I sat up straight and tried to look her in the eye, wondering if I could ask her all the questions I wanted to before she stood up and walked off again. “I’m sorry. It’s not a practical joke and I’m not trying to bother you or disrupt your work.”

She nodded, humoring me. Watching her face, it struck me that her general outline-certainly her voice-was ugly as well as elegant, and I took heart from this, as if the revelation made her human. “I discovered something odd this morning,” I began, with fresh confidence. “That’s why I called you out of the blue. Have you still got that copy ofDracula from the library?”

She was quick, but I was quicker, since I’d been waiting for the flinch, the drop in color under her already pale face. “Yes,” she said warily. “Whose business is it what another person checks out from the library?”

I ignored this bait. “Did you tear out all the cards in the card catalog pertaining to that book?”

This time her reaction was genuine and undisguised. “Did I what?”

“This morning I went to the card catalog to look for some information on-on the subject we both seem to be studying. I found that all the cards for Dracula and Stoker had been wrenched out of the drawer.”

Her face had tightened and she was staring at me, the ugliness very close to the surface now, her eyes too bright. But at that moment, for the first time since Massimo had shouted to me that Rossi had disappeared, I felt an infinitesimal lightening of burdens, a shifting of the weight of loneliness. She hadn’t laughed at my melodrama, as she could have called it, or frowned, puzzled. Most importantly, there was no cunning in her look, nothing to indicate that I was talking with an enemy. Her face registered only one emotion, as far as she allowed it: a delicate, flickering fear.

“The cards were there yesterday morning,” she said slowly, as if laying down a weapon and preparing to talk. “I looked upDracula first, and there was an entry for it, only one copy. Then I wondered if they had other works by Stoker, and I looked him up, too. There were a few entries under his name, including one forDracula. ”

The diner’s indifferent waiter was setting coffee on the table, and Helen drew hers toward her without looking at it. I thought with sudden fierce longing of Rossi, pouring out far finer coffee than this for himself and me-his exquisite hospitality. Oh, I had other questions for this strange young woman.

“Someone obviously doesn’t want you-me-anybody-checking out that book,” I observed. I kept my voice quiet, watching her.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard,” she said sharply, putting sugar in her cup and stirring it. But she looked unconvinced by her own words, and I pressed on.

“Do you still have the book?”

“Yes.” Her spoon fell with an annoyed clatter. “It is in my book bag.” She glanced down, and I noticed beside her the briefcase I’d seen her carrying the day before.

“Miss Rossi,” I said. “I beg your pardon, and I’m afraid I’m going to sound like a maniac, but it’s my personal belief that there may be some danger to you in possessing this book, which someone else clearly doesn’t want you to have.”

“What makes you think that?” she countered, not meeting my eye now. “Who do you think would not want me to have that book?” A slight flush had spread over her cheekbones again, and she looked guiltily down into her cup; that was the only way to describe it-she looked downright guilty. I wondered with horror if she might not be in league with the vampire: Dracula’s bride, I thought, aghast, the Sunday matinees coming back to me in rapid frames. That smoky dark hair would fit, the rich, un-identifiable accent, the lips like blackberry stain on the pale skin, the elegant black-and-white garb. I put this idea firmly out of my mind; it was fantasy and it fit too well with my jittery mood.

“Do you actually know someone who wouldn’t want you to have that book?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. But that is certainly none of your business.” She glared at me and went back to her coffee. “Why were you hunting for the book, anyway? If you wanted my phone number, why did you not simply ask me for it, without going through all this rigmarole?”

This time I felt my own face redden. Talking with this woman was like sitting still for a series of slaps, delivered arhythmically so you couldn’t know when the next one was coming. “I had no intention of asking for your phone number until I realized those cards had been torn out of the catalog and thought you should know about it,” I said, stiffly. “I needed that book very badly myself. So I went to the library to see if they had a second copy I might be able to use.”

“And they didn’t,” she said fiercely, “so you had the perfect excuse to call me looking for it. If you wanted my library book, why didn’t you just put it on reserve?”

“I need it now,” I retorted. Her tone was beginning to exasperate me. We might both be in serious trouble, and she was quibbling about this meeting as if it were a bid for a date, which it wasn’t. I reminded myself that she couldn’t know what dire straits I was in. Then it occurred to me that if I told her the whole story, she might not merely think I was insane. But it might also put her in greater danger. I sighed aloud, without meaning to.

“Are you trying to intimidate me out of my library book?” Her tone was a little softened now, and I caught the amusement that made her strong mouth twitch. “I believe you are.”