I'm sorry, I'm sorry!' he said. 'I hurried as fast as I could.'
'No matter,' the other took his hand. 'Welcome to my house, please enter. We'll eat at once.'
Inside, it was just a little claustrophobic. The rooms were large but low-ceilinged, and the decor was dark and very 'old' Romanian. In the dining-room, at a huge square deal table which could have seated a dozen easily, Dragosani found himself with a side of his own, facing a window. The light was such that the face of Use, who, after she had helped her mother serve, sat opposite, was set in a vague semi-silhouette. To Dragosani's right sat Hzak Kinkovsi, with his wife when her duties were done, and to his left two sons of maybe twelve and sixteen years respectively. A small family by farming community standards.
The meal was simple, abundant, deserving of an accol ade. Dragosani said as much and Use smiled, while her mother Maura beamed delightedly across the table at him, saying: 'I thought you would be hungry. Such a long journey! All the way from Moscow. How long did it take you?'
'Oh, well I did stop to eat,' he answered, smiling. And then, remembering, he frowned. 'I ate twice, and both meals were unsatisfactory and very expensive! I even slept for an hour or two, in the car, just this side of Kiev. And of course I came via Galatz, Bucharest and Pitesti, chiefly to avoid the mountain passes.'
4 A long way, yes,' Hzak Kinkovsi nodded. 'Sixteen hundred kilometres.'
'As the crow flies,' said Dragosani. 'But I'm not a crow! More than two thousand kilometres, according to my car's instruments.'
'And all this way just to study a little local history,' the farmer shook his head.
They had finished their meal now. The old boy (not really old, more weathered than withered) sat back with a clay-pipeful of fragrant tobacco; Dragosani lit a Roth-mans, one of a pack of two hundred Borowitz had purchased for him back in Moscow at a 'special' store for the party elite; the two boys left to tend to evening chores, and the women went off to wash dishes.
Kinkovsi's remark about 'local history' had taken Dra gosani a little by surprise, until he remembered that was his assumed reason for being here. Drawing on his cigarette, he wondered how much he dare say. On the other hand, he was also supposed to be a mortician; perhaps it would not seem too strange if his inclinations ran altogether morbid.
'Local history in a way, yes — but I might just as easily have gone into Hungary, or cut short my journey in Moldavia, or gone on across the Alps to Oradea. Or Yugoslavia for that matter, or as far east as Mongolia. They all hold a common interest for me, but more so here for this is my birthplace.'
'And what is this interest, then? Is it the mountains? Or perhaps the battles, eh? My God — this country has known some fighting!' Kinkovsi was not merely polite but genuinely interested. He poured more farm-brewed wine (made from local grapes and quite excellent) into Dragos ani's glass and topped up his own.
The mountains are part of it, I suppose,' the younger man answered. 'And in this part of the world, the battles, certainly. But the legend in its entirety is far older than any history we can hope to remember. It's possibly as old as the hills themselves. A very mysterious thing — and very horrible!'
He leaned across the table, stared fixedly into Kin kovsi's watery eyes.
'Well, go on, don't keep me in suspense! What is this mysterious passion, this ancient quest of yours?'
The wine was very heady and had robbed Dragosani of most of his natural caution. Outside, the sun had gone down and dusk lay everywhere like a mantle of blue smoke. From the kitchen came the clinking of dishes and soft, muted voices. In another room, an old clock ticked throatily. It was the perfect setting. And these country folk being so superstitious and all -
Dragosani couldn't resist it. The legend of which I speak,' he said, slowly and distinctly, 'is that of the vampir!'
For a moment Kinkovsi said nothing, looked stunned. And then he rocked back in his chair, roared with laughter and slapped his thigh. 'Hah! — the vampir — I should have known it! Every year there are more of you, and all looking for Dracula!'
Dragosani sat astounded. He was not sure what reaction he'd expected, but certainly it was not this. 'More of us?' he said. 'Every year? I'm not sure I understand…'
'Why, now that the restrictions have been relaxed,' Kinkovsi explained. 'Now that your precious "iron cur tain" has been opened up a little! They come from America, from England and France, even one or two from Germany. Curious tourists, mainly — but at other times learned men and scholars. And all of them hunting this same lie of a "legend". What? Why, I've pulled a dozen legs here in this very room, by pretending to be afraid of this… this "Dracula". But what fools! Surely everyone knows — even "ignorant peasants" like myself — that the creature is only a character in a story by a clever Englishman, written at the turn of the century? Yes, and not more than a month ago there was a film of the same title at the picture house in town. Oh, you can't fool me, Dragosani. Why, it wouldn't surprise me at all to discover that you're here as a guide for my English party. They're due in on Friday. And yes, they too are searching for the big bad vampir!'
'Scholars, you say?' Dragosani fought hard to hide his confusion. 'Learned men?'
Kinkovsi stood up, switched on the dim electric light where it hung in a battered lampshade from the centre of the ceiling. He sucked at his pipe and got it going again. 'Scholars, yes — professors from Koln, Bucharest, Paris. For the last three years. All armed with their notebooks, photocopies of mouldy old maps and documents, their cameras and sketchbooks and — oh, all sorts of paraphernalia!'
Dragosani had recovered himself. 'And their cheque books, too, eh?' he feigned a knowing smile. Again Kinkovsi roared. 'Oh, yes, of course! Their money, too. Why, I've heard that up in the mountain passes there are little village shops which actually sell tiny glass bottles of earth from this Dracula's castle! My god! Can you believe it? It'll be Frankenstein next! I've seen him on film, too, and he's really frightening!' Now the younger man began to feel angry. Irrationally, he felt himself to be the butt of Kinkovsi's joke. So the snag-toothed simpleton didn't believe in vampires; they made him roar with laughter; they were like the Yeti or the Loch Ness Monster: tourist attractions born out of myths and old wives' tales…"?
… And right there and then Dragosani made himself a promise that -
'What's all this talk about monsters?' Maura Kinkovsi came in from the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron. 'You be careful, Hzak! Mind how you speak of the devil. And you, Herr Dragosani. There are still things in the lonely places that people don't understand.' 'What lonely places, woman?' her husband chuckled.
'Here's a man come down from Moscow in little more than a day — a journey which once would have taken a week and more — and you talk about lonely places? There's no room for lonely places any more!'
Oh, but there is, Dragosani thought. It's a terribly lonely place in your grave. I've felt it in them: a loneliness they don't even know is there — until they waken to my touch!
'You know what I mean!' Kinkovsi's wife snapped. 'It's rumoured that in the mountains there are still villages where they yet put stakes through the hearts of people taken too young or dead from no obvious cause — to make sure they don't come back. And no one thinks ill of it.' (this last to Dragosani) 'It's just custom, so to speak, like doffing your hat to a funeral procession.'
Now Use also appeared. 'What? And are you a vampir- hunter, too, Herr Dragosani? But what a dark, morbid lot they are! Surely you can't be one of them?'