Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

“‘Maybe you think this is too much,’ Turgut said a little apologetically, as if he had caught sight of my expression. He was still pointing at the garlic. ‘It is just that I do not like to sit here surrounded by these evil thoughts of the past without protections, you know? And now, let me show you what I have brought you in here to see.’

“He invited us to sit down on some rickety chairs upholstered in damask. The back of mine seemed to be inlaid with a piece of-was it bone? I didn’t lean against it. Turgut pulled a heavy file from one of the bookcases. Out of it he took hand-drawn copies of the documents we had been examining in the archives-sketches similar to Rossi’s except that these had been made with greater care-and then drew out a letter, which he handed to me. It was typed on university letterhead and signed by Rossi-there could be no doubt of the signature, I thought; its coiling B and R were perfectly familiar to me. And Rossi had certainly been teaching in the United States by the time it had been penned. The few lines of the letter ran as Turgut had described; he, Rossi, knew nothing about Sultan Mehmed’s archive. He was sorry to disappoint and hoped Professor Bora’s work would prosper. It was truly a puzzling letter.

“Next Turgut brought out a small book bound in ancient leather. It was difficult for me not to reach for it at once, but I waited in a fever of self-control while Turgut gently opened it and showed us first the blank leaves in front and back and then the woodcut in the center-that already familiar outline, the crowned dragon with its wickedly spread wings, its claws holding the banner with that one, threatening word. I opened my briefcase, which I had brought in with me, and took out my own book. Turgut put the two volumes side by side on the desk. Each of us compared his treasure with the other’s evil gift, and we saw together that the two dragons were the same, his filling the pages to their edges, the image darker, mine more faded, but the same, the same. There was even a similar smudge near the tip of the dragon’s tail, as if the woodcut had had a rough place there that had smeared the ink a little with each printing. Helen brooded over them, silently.

“‘It is remarkable,’ Turgut breathed at last. ‘I never dreamed of such a day, when I would see a second book like this.’

“‘And hear of a third,’ I reminded him. ‘This is the third book like this I’ve seen with my own eyes, remember. The woodcut in Rossi’s was the same, too.’

“He nodded. ‘And what, my fellows, can this mean?’ But he was already spreading his copies of the maps next to our books and comparing with a large finger the outlines of dragons and river and mountains. ‘Amazing,’ he murmured. ‘To think I never saw this myself. It is indeed similar. A dragon that is a map. But a map of what?’ His eyes gleamed.

“‘That is what Rossi was trying to figure out in the archives here,’ I said with a sigh. ‘If only he had taken more steps, later, to find out its significance.’

“‘Perhaps he did.’ Helen’s voice was thoughtful, and I turned to her to ask what she meant. At that moment, the door between the weird braids of garlic swung further open and we both jumped. Instead of some horrible apparition, however, a small, smiling lady in a green dress stood in the doorway. It was Turgut’s wife, and we all rose to meet her.

“‘Good afternoon, my dear.’ Turgut drew her quickly in. ‘These are my friends, the professors from the United States, as I told you.’

“He made gallant introductions all around, and Mrs. Bora shook our hands with an affable smile. She was exactly half Turgut’s size, with long-lashed green eyes, a delicately hooked nose, and a swirl of reddish curls. ‘I am very sorry I do not meet you here before.’ Her English was slowly and carefully pronounced. ‘Probably my husband does not give you any food, no?’

“We protested that we had been beautifully fed, but she shook her head. ‘Mr. Bora is never giving our guests the good dinner. I will-scold him!’ She shook a tiny fist at her husband, who looked pleased.

“‘I am dreadfully frightened of my wife,’ he told us complacently. ‘She is as fierce as an Amazon.’ Helen, who towered over Mrs. Bora, smiled at both of them; they were indeed irresistible.

“‘And now,’ Mrs. Bora said, ‘he bores you with his terrible collections. I am sorry.’ Within minutes we were settled on the rich divans again, and Mrs. Bora was pouring coffee. I saw that she was quite beautiful, in a birdlike, delicate way, a woman of quiet manners, perhaps forty years old. Her English was limited, but she deployed it with graceful good humor, as if her husband frequently dragged home English-speaking visitors. Her dress was simple and elegant and her gestures exquisite. I imagined the nursery-school children she taught clustering around her-they must surely come up to her chin, I thought. I wondered if she and Turgut had children of their own; there were no photographs of children in the room, or any other evidence of them, and I did not like to ask.

“‘Did my husband give you a good tour of our city?’ Mrs. Bora was asking Helen.

“‘Yes, some of it,’ Helen answered. ‘I’m afraid we have taken a lot of his time today.’

“‘No-it is I who have taken much of yours.’ Turgut sipped his coffee with obvious pleasure. ‘But we still have a great deal of work to do. My dear’-to his wife-‘we are going to look for a missing professor, so I shall be busy for a few days.’

“‘A missing professor?’ Mrs. Bora smiled calmly at him. ‘All right. But we must eat dinner first. I hope that you will eat dinner?’ She turned to us.

“The thought of more food was impossible, and I was careful not to meet Helen’s eye. Helen, however, seemed to find all this normal. ‘Thank you, Mrs. Bora. You are very kind, but we should return to our hotel, I think, because we have an appointment there at five o’clock.’

“We did? This was perplexing, but I played along. ‘That’s right. Some other Americans are coming for a drink. But we hope to see you both again right away.’

“Turgut nodded. ‘I shall immediately look through everything in my library here that might be of help to us. We must think about the possibility that Dracula’s tomb is in Istanbul -whether these maps perhaps refer to an area of the city. I have a few old books about the city here, and friends who have fine collections about Istanbul. I will search everything for you tonight.’

“‘Dracula.’ Mrs. Bora shook her head. ‘I like Shakespeare better than Dracula. A more healthier interest. Also’-she gave us a mischievous glance-‘Shakespeare pays our bills.’

“They saw us out with great ceremony, and Turgut made us promise to meet him at our pension the next morning at nine o’clock. He would bring new information, if he could, and we would visit the archive again to see if there were any developments there. In the meantime, he warned, we should exercise the greatest caution, watching everywhere for signs of pursuit or other danger. Turgut wanted to accompany us all the way back to our lodgings, but we assured him that we could take the ferry back by ourselves-it left in twenty minutes, he said. The Boras showed us out the front door of the building and stood together on the steps, hand in hand, calling out good-byes. I glanced back once or twice as we made our way along the street’s tunnel of figs and lindens. ‘That’s a happy marriage, I think,’ I commented to Helen, and was immediately sorry, because she gave her characteristic snort.

“‘Come on, Yankee,’ she said. ‘We have some new business to attend to.’

“Normally I would have smiled at her epithet for me, but this time something made me turn and look at her with a deep shudder. There was another thought that belonged to this strange afternoon visit, one I had suppressed until the last possible moment. Looking at Helen as she turned to me with her level gaze, I was unavoidably struck by the similarity between her strong yet fine features and that luminous, appalling image behind Turgut’s curtain.”