Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

“I didn’t know then, as I know now, what hung at the other end of that sentence, which he did not finish-the futile words, the unspeakable litany of loss. As we sat there, the past suspended between us, a waiter came out with a candle in a glass lantern and set it on our table. The café was filling with people, and I could hear shouts of laughter from inside.

“‘I’m stunned by what you just told me about Snagov,’ I said after a while. ‘You know, I’d never heard any of that about the tomb-the inscription, I mean, and the painted face and the lack of a cross. The correspondence of the inscription with the words Rossi found on the maps in the Istanbul archive is extremely important, I think-it’s proof that Snagov was at least the original site of Dracula’s tomb.’ I pressed my fingers to my temples. ‘Why, then, why does the map-the dragon map in the books and in the archive-not correspond to the topography of Snagov-the lake, the island?’

“‘I wish I knew.’

“‘Did you continue your research about Dracula after that?’

“‘Not for several years.’ Hugh stubbed out his cigarette. ‘I didn’t have the heart to. About two years ago, though, I found myself thinking about him again, and when I started working on my current book, my Hungarian book, I kept an eye out for him.’

“It had grown quite dark now, and the Danube glowed with reflected lights from the bridge and the buildings of Pest. A waiter came to offereszpresszó, and we accepted gratefully. Hugh took a sip and set his cup down. ‘Would you like to see the book?’ he asked.

“‘The one you’re researching?’ I was puzzled for a moment.

“‘No-my dragon book.’

“I started. ‘You have it here?’

“‘I always carry it on me,’ he said sternly. ‘Well, almost always. Actually, I left it at my hotel during the lectures today, because I thought it might be safer there while I was lecturing. When I think it might have been stolen -’ He stopped. ‘Yours was not in your room, was it?’

“‘No.’ I had to smile. ‘I carry mine around, too.’

“He pushed our coffee cups carefully aside and opened his briefcase. From it he took a polished wooden box, and from that a parcel wrapped in cloth, which he placed on the table. Inside it was a book smaller than mine but bound in the same worn vellum. The pages were browner and more brittle than those in my book, but the dragon in the center was the same, filling the pages to their very edges and glowering up at us. Silently, I opened my briefcase and took out my own book, setting its central image next to Hugh’s dragon. They were identical, I thought, bending close to each.

“‘Look at this smudge over here-even that’s the same. They were printed from the same block,’ Hugh said in a low voice.

“He was right, I saw. ‘You know, this reminds me of something else, which I forgot to tell you just now. Miss Rossi and I stopped by the university library this afternoon before going back to the hotel, because she wanted to look up something she saw there a while back.’ I described the volume of Romanian folk songs and the weird lyrics about monks entering a great city. ‘She thought this might have something to do with the story in the Istanbul manuscript I told you about. The lyrics were very general, but there was an interesting woodcut at the top of the page, a sort of thicket of woods with a tiny church and dragon among them, and a word.’

“‘Drakulya?’ Hugh guessed, as I had in the library.

“‘No, Ivireanu.’ I looked it up in my notebook and showed him the spelling.

“His eyes widened. ‘But that’s remarkable!’ he cried.

“‘What? Tell me quickly.’

“‘Well, it’s just that I saw that name in the library yesterday.’

“‘In the same library? Where? In the same book?’ I was too impatient to wait politely for the answer.

“‘Yes, in the university library, but not in the same book. I’ve been poking around there all week for material for my project, and since I always have our friend in the back of my mind, I keep finding the odd reference to his world. You know, Dracula and Hunyadi were bitter enemies, and Dracula and Matthias Corvinus after that, so you run into Dracula now and then. I mentioned to you at lunch that I’d found a manuscript commissioned by Corvinus, the document that mentions the ghost in the amphora.’

“‘Oh, yes,’ I said eagerly. ‘Is that also where you saw the wordIvireanu? ’

“‘Actually, no. The Corvinus manuscript is very interesting, but for different reasons. The manuscript says-well, I have copied a little here. The original is in Latin.’

“He got out his notebook and read me a few lines. ‘”In the year of Our Lord 1463, the king’s humble servant offers him these words from great writings, all to give His Majesty information on the curse of the vampire, may he perish in hell. This information is for His Majesty’s royal collection. May it assist him in curing this evil in our city, in ending the presence of vampires, and in keeping the plague from our dwellings.“ And so on. Then the good scribe, whoever he was, goes on to list the references he’s found in various classical works, including tales of the ghost in the amphora. As you can tell, the date of the manuscript is the year after Dracula’s arrest and his first imprisonment near Buda. You know, your description of that same concern on the part of the Turkish sultan, which you detected in those documents in Istanbul, prompts me to think Dracula made trouble wherever he went. Both mention the plague, and both are concerned with the presence of vampirism. It’s quite similar, isn’t it?’

“He paused thoughtfully. ‘Actually, that connection with plague is not so far-fetched, in a way-I read in an Italian document at the British Museum Library that Dracula used germ warfare against the Turks. He must have been one of the first Europeans to use it, in fact. He liked to send any of his own people who’d contracted infectious diseases into the Turkish camps, dressed like Ottomans.’ In the lantern light, Hugh’s eyes were narrow now, his face shining with an intense concentration. It rushed over me that in Hugh James we had found an ally of the keenest intelligence.

“‘This is all fascinating,’ I said. ‘But what about the mention of the wordIvireanu? ’

“‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ Hugh smiled. ‘I’m a bit off track. Yes, I did see that word in the library here. I came across it three or four days ago, I think, in a seventeenth-century New Testament in Romanian. I was looking through it because I thought the cover showed an unusual influence of Ottoman design. The title page had the wordIvireanu across the bottom-I’m sure it was the same word. I didn’t think much about it at the time-to be frank, I’m always running across Romanian words that mystify me, because I know so little of the language. It caught my attention because of the typeface, actually, which was sort of elegant. I assumed it was a place-name or something of the sort.’

“I groaned. ‘And that was all? You’ve never seen it anywhere else?’

“‘I’m afraid not.’ Hugh was attending to his deserted cup of coffee. ‘If I run across it again, I’ll be sure to let you know.’

“‘Well, it may have little to do with Dracula, after all,’ I said, to comfort myself. ‘I just wish we had more time to examine this library. We have to fly back to Istanbul on Monday, unfortunately-I don’t have permission to stay beyond the duration of the conference. If you do find anything of interest -’

“‘Of course,’ Hugh said. ‘I’ll be around for another six days. If I find something, shall I write to you at your department?’

“This gave me a turn; it had been days since I’d thought seriously about home, and I had no idea when I would next be checking my mail in my departmental box there. ‘No, no,’ I said hastily. ‘At least, not yet. If you find something you really think might help us, please call Professor Bora. Just explain to him that we talked. If I speak with him myself, I’ll let him know you might get in touch with him.’ I took out Turgut’s card and wrote the number down for Hugh.