Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

“‘All that evening, at my father’s table, and washing and drying the dishes with my mother, I thought about the stranger. I thought about his foreign clothes, his polite bow, his expression that was absentminded and alert at the same time, his beautifully bright eyes. I thought about him all the next day as I spun and wove with my sisters, made our dinner, drew water, and worked in the fields. Several times my mother scolded me for not paying attention to what I was doing. At evening, I stayed behind to finish my weeding alone, and I felt relieved when my brothers and father disappeared toward the village.

“‘As soon as they were gone, I hurried to the edge of the wood. The stranger was sitting there against a tree, and when he saw me he jumped up and offered me a seat on a log near the path. But I was afraid someone from the village might pass by, and I led him deeper into the woods, my heart beating hard. There we sat on two rocks. The woods were full of the evening sounds of the birds-it was early summer and very green and warm.

“‘The stranger took the coin I had given him out of his pocket and set it carefully on the ground. Then he pulled a couple of books from his knapsack and began to turn through them. I understood later that these were dictionaries in Romanian and some language he could understand. Very slowly, looking often at his books, he asked me if I had seen any other coins like the one I had given him. I said I had not. He said the creature on the coin was a dragon, and he asked me if I had ever seen this dragon anywhere else, on a building or a book. I said I had one on my shoulder.

“‘At first, he could not understand what I was saying at all. I was proud of the fact that I could write our alphabet and read a little-we had a village school for a while when I was a child, and a priest had come to teach us there. The stranger’s dictionary was very confusing to me, but together we found the wordshoulder. He looked puzzled and asked again,”Drakul?“ He held up the coin. I touched the shoulder of my blouse and nodded. He looked at the ground, his face reddening, and suddenly I felt that I was the brave one. I opened my wool vest and took it off, then untied the neck of my blouse. My heart was pounding, but something had come over me and I could not stop myself. He looked away, but I pulled my blouse off my shoulder and pointed.

“‘I could not remember a time when I had not had a small dark green dragon imprinted on my skin there. My mother said it was put on one child in every generation of my father’s family and that he had chosen me because he thought I might grow up to be the ugliest. He said that his grandfather had told him this was necessary to keep evil spirits away from our family. I heard about it only once or twice, because usually my father did not like to talk about it, and I did not even know which relative of his generation had the mark, whether it was on his own body somewhere or on one of his brothers or sisters. My dragon looked very different from the little dragon on the coin, so that until the stranger had asked me if I owned anything else with a dragon on it, I had never connected the two.

“‘The stranger looked carefully at the dragon on my skin, holding the coin up next to it, but without touching me or even leaning closer. The red flush stayed in his face and he seemed relieved when I tied my blouse again and put on my vest. He looked through his dictionaries and asked me who had put the dragon there. When I said my father had done it, with the help of an old woman in the village, a healer, he asked if he could talk with my father about this. I shook my head so hard that he blushed deeply again. Then he told me, with great difficulty, that my family came from the line of an evil prince who had built the castle above the river. This prince had been called ”the son of the dragon,“ and he had killed many people. He said the prince had become apricolic, a vampire. I crossed myself and asked Mary for her protection. He asked me if I knew this story and I said I did not. He asked me how old I was and if I had brothers and sisters, and if there were other people in the village with our name.

“‘At last I pointed to the sun, which had nearly set, to show him that I had to go home, and he stood up quickly, looking serious. Then he gave me his hand and helped me to my feet. When I grasped his hand, my heart leaped into my fingers. I was confused and I turned away quickly. But suddenly I thought to myself that he was too much interested in evil spirits and might put himself in danger. Perhaps I could give him something that would protect him. I pointed to the ground and the sun. ”Come tomorrow,“ I said. He hesitated for a moment, and finally he smiled. He put his hat on and touched the brim. Then he disappeared into the woods.

“‘The next morning when I went to the well, he was sitting at the tavern with the old men, again writing something. I thought I saw his gaze on me, but he showed no sign of recognizing me. I was very happy inside, because I understood that he had kept our secret. In the afternoon, when my father and mother and brothers and sisters were out of the house, I did a wicked thing. I opened my parents’ wooden chest and I took from it a little silver dagger I had seen there several times before. My mother had once said it was for killing vampires if they came to trouble the people or the herds. I also took a handful of garlic flowers from my mother’s garden. I hid these items in my kerchief when I went to the fields.

“‘This time, my brothers worked a long time beside me and I could not shake them off, but finally they said they would go back to the village, and they told me to come with them. I said I would gather some herbs from the wood and come in a few minutes. I was very nervous by the time I reached the stranger, whom I found deep in the woods on our ledge of rocks. He was smoking his pipe, but when I came toward him he put it down and jumped to his feet. I sat down with him and showed him what I had brought. He looked startled when he saw the knife, and very interested when I explained to him that he could use it to killpricolici. He wanted to refuse it, but I begged him so earnestly to take it that he stopped smiling and put it thoughtfully into his knapsack, wrapping it first in my kerchief. Then I gave him the garlic flowers and showed him that he should keep some in his jacket pocket.

“‘I asked him how long he would be staying in our village, and he showed me five fingers-five more days. He made me understand that he would travel to several villages nearby, walking to each from our village, to talk with people about the castle. I asked him where he would go when he left our village at the end of five days. He said that he was going to a country called Greece, which I had heard of before, and then back to his own village in his own country. Drawing in the forest earth, he showed me that his country, called England, was an island far away from our country. He showed me where his university was-I did not know what he meant-and wrote the name of it in the dirt. I still remember those letters: OXFORD. Afterward I wrote them down sometimes, to look at them again. It was the strangest word I had ever seen.

“‘Suddenly, I understood that he would leave soon and that I would never see him again, or anyone like him, and my eyes filled with tears. I had not meant to cry-I never cried over the annoying young men in the village-but my tears would not obey me and they ran down my cheeks. He looked very distressed and pulled a white handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and gave it to me. What was the problem? I shook my head. He rose slowly and gave me his hand to help me up, as he had the night before. While I was getting up, I stumbled and fell against him without meaning to, and when he caught me we kissed each other. Then I turned and ran through the woods. At the path, I looked back. He was standing there, as still as a tree, looking after me. I ran all the way to the village and lay awake during the night with his handkerchief hidden in my hand.