Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

“No, I’m not. But I would like to know who you think might not want you checking out this book.” I set down my cup and looked across at her.

She moved her shoulders restlessly under the lightweight wool of her jacket. I could see one longish hair clinging to the lapel, her own dark hair, but glinting with copper lights against the black fabric. She appeared to be making up her mind to say something. “Who are you?” she asked suddenly.

I took the question at academic face value. “I’m a graduate student here, in history.”

“History?” It was a quick, almost angry interjection.

“I’m writing my dissertation on Dutch trade in the seventeenth century.”

“Oh.” She was silent for a moment. “I am an anthropologist,” she said finally. “But I am also very much interested in history. I study the customs and traditions of the Balkans and Central Europe, especially of my native”-her voice dropped a little, but sadly, not secretively-“my native Romania.”

It was my turn to flinch. Really, this was all more and more peculiar. “Is that why you wanted to readDracula? ” I asked.

Her smile surprised me-white, even, her teeth a little small for such a strong face, the eyes shining. Then she tightened her lips again. “I suppose you could say that.”

“You’re not answering my questions,” I pointed out.

“Why should I?” She shrugged. “You are a total stranger and you want to take my library book.”

“You may be in danger, Miss Rossi. I’m not trying to threaten you, but I’m perfectly serious.”

Her eyes narrowed on mine. “You are hiding something, too,” she said. “I will tell you if you tell me.”

I had never seen, met, or spoken with a woman like this. She was combative without being in the least flirtatious. I had the sensation that her words were a pool of cold water, into which I now plunged without stopping to count the consequences.

“All right. You answer my question first,” I said, borrowing her tone. “Who do you think might not want you to have that book in your possession?”

“Professor Bartholomew Rossi,” she said, her voice sarcastic, grating. “You’re in history. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”

I sat there dumbfounded. “Professor Rossi? What-what do you mean?”

“I have answered your question,” she said, straightening up and adjusting her jacket and piling her gloves one on the other again, as if finished with a task. I wondered fleetingly if she were enjoying the effect her words had on me, seeing me stammer over them. “Now tell me what you mean by all this drama about danger from a book.”

“Miss Rossi,” I said. “Please. I will tell you. Whatever I can. But please explain to me your relation to Professor Bartholomew Rossi.”

She bent down, opened her book bag, and took out a leather case. “Do you mind if I smoke?” For the second time, I saw in her that masculine ease, which seemed to come over her when she put aside her defensively ladylike gestures. “Would you like one?”

I shook my head; I hated cigarettes, although I would almost have accepted one from that spare, smooth hand. She inhaled without any flourish, smoking dexterously. “I do not know why I am telling a stranger this,” she said reflectively. “I guess the loneliness of this place is affecting me. I have hardly spoken with anyone in two months, except about work. And you do not strike me as a gossiping type, although God knows my department is full of them.” I could hear her accent welling up fully under the words, which she spoke with a soft rancor. “But if you’ll keep your promise…” The hard look came over her again; she straightened, cigarette jutting defiantly from one hand. “My relationship to the famous Professor Rossi is very simple. Or it should be. He is my father. He met my mother while he was in Romania looking for Dracula.”

My coffee splashed across the table, over my lap, down the front of my shirt-which hadn’t been perfectly clean, anyway-and spattered her cheek. She wiped it off with one hand, staring at me.

“Good God, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I tried to clean up, using both our napkins.

“So this really shocks you,” she said, without moving. “You must know him, then.”

“I do,” I said. “He’s my adviser. But he never told me about Romania, and he-he never told me he had a family.”

“He doesn’t.” The coldness in her voice cut through me. “I have never met him, you see, although I guess it is only a matter of time now.” She leaned back in the little chair and hunched her shoulders, crudely, as if defying me to come closer. “I have seen him once, from a distance, at a lecture-imagine, seeing your father for the first time at a distance like that.”

I had made a soggy heap of napkins and now I pushed everything aside, heap, coffee cup, spoon. “Why?”

“It’s a very odd story,” she said. She looked at me, but not as if she were lost in thought. She seemed instead to be gauging my reactions. “All right. It’s a love ‘em and leave ’em story.” This sounded strange in her accent, although I wasn’t moved to smile. “Maybe that’s not so odd. He met my mother in her village, enjoyed her company for a while, and left her after a few weeks with an address in England. After he had gone, my mother discovered she was pregnant, and then her sister, who lived in Hungary, helped her flee to Budapest before I was born.”

“He never told me he’d been to Romania.” I was croaking, not speaking.

“Not surprising.” She smoked bitterly. “My mother wrote him from Hungary, to the address he’d left her, and told him about their baby. He wrote her back saying he had no idea who she was or how she’d found his name, and that he’d never been to Romania. Can you imagine anything so cruel?” Her eyes bored into me, huge and starkly black now.

“What year were you born?” It didn’t occur to me to apologize before asking the lady this question; she was so unlike anyone I’d ever encountered that the usual rules didn’t seem to apply.

“In 1931,” she said flatly. “My mother took me to Romania for a few days once, before I even knew about Dracula, but even then she would not go back to Transylvania.”

“My God.” I whispered it to the Formica tabletop. “My God. I thought he’d told me everything, but he didn’t tell me that.”

“He told you-what?” she asked sharply.

“Why haven’t you met him? Doesn’t he know you’re here?”

She looked at me strangely but answered without demurring. “It’s a game, I guess you could say. Just a fancy of mine.” She paused. “I was not doing so badly in the university in Budapest. In fact, they considered me a genius.” She announced this almost modestly. Her English was phenomenally good, I realized for the first time-supernaturally good. Maybe shewas a genius.

“My mother did not finish grade school, if you can believe it, although she got some more education later in life, but I was attending the university by the time I was sixteen. Of course, my mother told me my paternal heritage, and we do know Professor Rossi’s outstanding books even in the murky depths of the East Bloc-Minoan civilization, Mediterranean religious cults, the age of Rembrandt. Because he wrote sympathetically on British socialism, our government allows the distribution of his works. I studied English throughout high school-would you like to know why? So I could read the amazing Dr. Rossi’s work in the original. It wasn’t exactly hard to find out where he was, either, you know; I used to stare at the university name on the jackets of his books and vow to go there one day. I thought things through. I made all the right connections, politically-I started by pretending I wanted to study the glorious labor revolution in England. And when the time came, I had my pick of scholarships. We have been enjoying some freedom in Hungary these days, although everyone wonders how long the Soviets will tolerate that. Speaking of impalers. In any case, I went to London first, for six months, and then got my fellowship to come here, four months ago.”