I drove through long cement tunnels as sinister as the labyrinth built for Count Vlad by his vile lackey, the engineer Alcayaga, husband of the no less vile and deceitful María de Lourdes, mother of the sweet but impatient little girl Chepina, whom I began to imagine as yet another monster, an oozing snot-faced young succubus. .
I braked hard in front of the house of my boss, Don Eloy Zurinaga. A manservant with nondescript features opened the door and tried to block my way without anticipating my resolve, my increased strength in the face of uncertainty, born from the lies and the horror with which I confronted the elderly Zurinaga, seated as usual in front of the fireplace, his knees covered with a blanket, and his long white fingers caressing the worn leather of the armchair.
When he saw me, he opened his cloudy eyes, but the rest of his face was still. I paused, surprised by how much and how quickly the old man had aged. He was already old, but now he looked older still, as old as old age itself, because, as I suddenly perceived, this boss was no longer in charge, this man was defeated, his will had been obliterated by a force superior to his own. Eloy Zurinaga still breathed, but his corpse had already been hollowed by terror.
I was frightened to see what had become of a man who was my boss, to whom I owed a certain loyalty if not affection that he himself had never demanded of me, a man who had been above any attack on his indomitable personality. Whether he was honest or not, as I’ve already said, I did not know. But he was skillful, superior, and untouchable. This man had been the greatest expert in the cultivation of indifference that I’d ever met.
Not anymore. Now I stared at him sitting there with the shadows of the fire dancing on his pale face, the remains of a person bereft of beauty or virtue, a wretched old man. However, to my surprise, he still retained a few tricks, and even a bit of daring.
He raised his almost transparent hand. “I know. You figured out that the man with the polo coat and old Stetson whowent to the office was in fact me and not some double. .”
I gave him a questioning look.
“Yes, that was me. The voice that called on the telephone to make you believe that it wasn’t me, that I remained at home, was just a recording.”
He smiled with difficulty.
“That’s why I was so hurried on the phone. I couldn’t allow any interruptions. I had to hang up quickly.”
His old cunning shone again for an instant in his eyes.
“Why did I need to return twice to the office, Navarro, even though that entailed breaking the rule of my absence?”
He left a dramatic pause as though he expected me to answer this rhetorical question.
“Because, on both occasions, I had to consult old, forgotten papers that only I could find.”
He spread his hands like someone who has solved a mystery and thus put an end to an investigation.
“I alone knew where they were. Pardon the mystery.”
But he was no idiot. My eyes, my entire being, told him that this was not why I was visiting him today, and that I couldn’t care less about his stupid tricks. But he was still a relentless lawyer who wouldn’t admit to knowing anything until I told him myself.
“You have played with my life, Don Eloy, and with the lives of my loved ones. Believe me when I say that if you don’t speak frankly with me, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
He looked at me with the weakness of a wounded father, or a whipped dog. Suddenly he begged for mercy.
“If only you understood me, Yves.”
I said nothing, but standing before him, defiant and angry, I didn’t need to say anything. Zurinaga was defeated, not by me, by himself.
“He promised me eternal youth, immortality.”
Zurinaga raised his vanquished eyes.
“We were the same, you see? When we met, we were the same, both of us young students, and in those days we aged at the same rate.”
“And now, Counselor?”
“He came to see me the night before last. I thought it was to thank me for everything I had done for him, for arranging his move. I had answered his plea: ‘I need fresh blood.’ Oh!”
“So what happened?”
“He was no longer like me. He was young again. He laughed at me. He told me not to expect anything from him. I would never be young again. I had served him, like a menial, nothing more than a worn-out shoe. I would get older and die soon. He would be young forever, thanks to my naïve collaboration. He laughed at me. I was just one of his many servants. He said, ‘I have the power to choose my age. I can look old, young, or even an age in keeping with the natural progress of time.’ ”
The lawyer clucked like a hen. He stared at me with the dying embers of his eyes, and he took my burning hand in his frozen one.
“Go back to Vlad’s house, Navarro. This very night. Soon it will be too late.”
I wanted to let go of his hand, but Eloy Zurinaga had concentrated in his fist all the strength of his deception, his disillusionment, his final breaths.
“Do you understand my predicament?”
“Yes, boss,” I said almost sweetly, sensing his need for consolation, while feeling myself vulnerable because of my affection, memories, and even gratitude.
“You have to hurry. It’s urgent. Have a look at these papers.”
He let go of my hand. I took the papers he proffered and then walked toward the door. He said, as though from a great distance:
“From Vlad, you can expect nothing but evil.”
And in a lower voice:
“Do you think I don’t have scruples or even a conscience? Do you think I don’t have a fever burning in my soul?”
I turned my back on him. I knew that I would never see him again.
Chapter 11
In the year of Our Lord 1448, Vlad Tepes ascended to the throne of Wallachia (having been invested earlier by Sigismund of the House of Luxembourg, Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation), and he established his capital at Targoviste, not far from the Danube at the border of the Ottoman Empire, tasked with the Christian mission of fighting the Turk, into whose hands Vlad fell, quickly learning the lessons of Sultan Murad II: strength alone sustains power, and power requires the strength of cruelty. Having escaped the Turks, Vlad recovered the throne of Wallachia with a double ruse: the Turks as well as the Christians believed him to be their ally. But Vlad was only allied with Vlad and with the power of cruelty itself. He burned down castles and villages throughout Transylvania. He gathered all the students who had come to study the local language in one room, and then he burned them alive. He buried a man up to his navel and then had him beheaded. Others he roasted like pigs or slit their throats like lambs. He captured the seven fortresses of Transylvania and ordered their inhabitants shredded like lettuce. When the Gypsies were unwilling to submit one of their own to hanging, because the practice was opposed by Tigani custom, Vlad forced them to boil the Gyspy alive and then to feast on his flesh. One of Vlad’s lovers claimed, so he wouldn’t lose interest in her, that she was pregnant: just to make sure, he used his knife to slice open her womb. In 1462 he occupied the city of Nicopolis and ordered the prisoners nailed down by their hair until they died of starvation. He beheaded the lords of Fogaras, cooked their heads, and served them to the commoners. In the village of Amlas, he cut off the breasts of the women and forced their husbands to eat them. In the capital, he gathered all the poor, the sick, and the elderly of the region to his palace; he wined and dined them and asked them if they wished for anything else.