‘I shall tell you a story,’ he whispered. ‘Twenty-eight years ago a stranger came to this village.’
He pointed sideways. ‘From that direction. North. They said he was once a man of importance in Vukovar. A Landsschef. He had been an Army officer. No-one knew where his money came from and nobody asked. He purchased 200 hectares of land. He brought in a flock of more than 50 sheep and put them into a cleared field. It’s our custom to use such animals to find the healthiest spot to build a house. Sheep go to the driest part of the field to spend the night. Where the flock lay down he built a Zidana, a large house with embellished eaves and a cupola containing a brass bell. He called the house Kula which means tower in your language. He brought a priest from Kać, the region of his birth, to bless his new home with holy water.’
Holmes asked, ‘Do you recall the name of the family?’
‘Marić,’ came the response. ‘Miloš Marić. He was a man who stayed aloof. He had two daughters. In our region a man who has only daughters will tell you he is childless. Miloš Marić was double-cursed - both daughters were born with one leg shorter than the other. Around here the youngest was known as mirna ludakinja which means the quiet loony. Everyone was afraid of her. Rumours circulated around the village. A child was born - people say the mirna ludakinja was the mother. After the birth the priest came to bless the baby, the very next day. That was unusual. It’s our custom not to bless a child until 40 days after the birth.’
He leaned forward even more conspiratorially. ‘In September about two years later something terrible must have taken place. The priest was summoned back from Kać. Miloš Marić was seen creeping into the church of the Virgin Mary’s Ascension at an unusual hour. He was observed stealing out afterwards. Shortly after that he endowed the church with a new bell. It took a team of six oxen to bring it from the railway depôt to the campanile.’
All three of us had begun to straighten up. The proprietor bent forward again. Once more our heads went down with his. ‘One night the house caught fire. Everyone in the village rushed over to help put out the flames. A wagon piled up with the Marić family’s belongings was ready to depart. The servant whispered the family were convinced an evil spirit had taken up residence. The spirit warned the family never to leave but after the servant saw a bad omen - a snake falling from a plum tree -Miloš Marić made up his mind the family should abandon the house. They chose a time when the spirit might be asleep. No sooner had they loaded their possessions on the wagon to leave than the flames erupted. The family fled the minute we arrived without making any effort to save the house. Some weeks later a villager walking close-by late at night felt a drop in temperature. He heard distorted voices and the sound of a woman weeping. He saw ghostly emanations on the back porch, crowded around a dreadful object at their feet. The spirits turned to star eat the villager. Before he could run away the ghosts vanished.’
The hotel proprietor assured us he didn’t believe in spirits from the Other World. He had spent many years in England, in Manchester, as manager of the famous Ascott Hotel, did we know it? But here in Serbia, the villagers - they believe Kula is haunted by a rusalka. Not even stray dogs go near the house.
‘What does rusalka mean?’ I asked. I had heard the children whispering the word at Zorka’s Magical Marionette performance.
‘A rusalka is an unquiet dead being, mostly female,’ came the reply, ‘women and girls who die violently and before their time, such as young women who commit suicide because they have been jilted by their lovers, or unbaptised children, often those born out of wedlock. They must live out their designated time on Earth as disturbed spirits. As to your visiting the ruins - ’
He tried to dissuade us. What possible reason could we have for visiting a haunted house? Didn’t we understand what we were getting ourselves into? This is not your country, he reminded us. This is the Balkans. Today was the seventh day after the spring new moon, a time the spirits of the unredeemed attempt a return. Why choose tonight of all nights? Evil abounded. Besides he was certain no-one would take us there. He would offer but unfortunately he had commitments here at the hotel.
Faced with our obduracy he gave up. He warned us to keep our destination secret or the villagers might mistake us for necromancers. We could stir up trouble for ourselves, and for him. The locals would accuse us of summoning up spirits of the undead or raising the dead for the purpose of divination. He had one last piece of advice. If we insisted on pursuing this reckless plan we must disguise our intent. He would instruct a cabby to take us to the Church of Virgin Mary’s Ascension, a quarter-hour walk from the haunted house. The driver would retrieve us from the church after a passage of two hours. We should safeguard ourselves in the sight of Heaven and the villagers by lighting candles in front of the painting of the Black Madonna. His hand trembled as he handed us three beeswax candles, one for each of us and one for him. Before we set off, would we please leave instructions where to send our luggage (and how our bill should be paid) if the worst came to the worst?
The cab was an ugly but utilitarian glass-fronted four-wheeler owned by the proprietor’s cousin. We banged from side to side as the horses plunged at a furious pace over the cobblestones and on through the narrow street of furriers towards the isolated Church of Virgin Mary’s Ascension. Outside the village we slowed over an unmetalled track, its surface deeply rutted by the passage of bullock-carts. Pigeons overtook us at speed, intent on getting to water before dark. A boy and a girl, possibly siblings, sat begging at the church entrance. The girl was about nine years old, with the self-possession of an adult. She was brown as a berry, dressed in a dirty old scarlet frock which had shed its fastenings. In broken German she said, ‘I am ciganka. You are gorgiki. Where do you come from?’
‘England,’ Holmes told her. She had never heard of our native land.
The boy wore baggy brown breeches and a high-buttoned shirt homespun from flax and wool. Both urchins had leather peasant sandals, fashioned from rough pieces of hide. Holmes handed each of them a thaler. Two pairs of eyes opened wide in wonderment. I asked the young Gipsies to confirm the direction of the Ukleta kuća. On hearing the words ‘haunted house’ they pointed and fled. We lit the three candles at the shrine of the Black Madonna and left the church. In the fast-diminishing light we saw the outline of our destination. An overgrown path took us from the church towards the dilapidated house. The roof had caved in. Timbered, almost a perfect square, the Kula was constructed of fired bricks packed between wooden uprights and whitewashed. The lopsided shape and air of dereliction paid tribute to the harshness of the Balkan winter.
We entered the front garden through an ornate filigreed wrought-iron railing. The fact such a costly artefact was still in situ bore silent witness to the terror the ruin inspired. Withered violas and sunflowers drooped from disintegrating trellises around the porch, the seeds long-since harvested by birds over winter. Tufts of dead weeds poked up through outdoor stone steps leading to the ruined second level.
At ten feet from the door a demonic sound swept over us, a harsh and disembodied voice which might have come rushing up from the soil beneath us or sweeping towards us from some distant cavern. I understood the words to say ‘Halt there, do not come nearer’ but to this day I cannot swear in which language the words were spoken. My heart palpitated dangerously. Holmes pulled me back.