by Jenn Bennett
Wish she could spend more time with Jean-Bernard.
Wish I weren’t such a coward.
9
PLUM BRANDY DID NOT TASTE good coming back up. Not the first time and definitely not the second. A few hours after we’d woken to the sounds of the traders’ camp being torn down and packed up, this was all I could think about. I was well on my way to some kind of vomiting world record. And while the midmorning sun blinded the sandpaper surface of my dried-out eyes, Huck was kind enough to ensure I didn’t tip headfirst out of the canoe that was currently our transportation, holding me by the scruff of my coat while the rest of the passengers looked on in amusement.
I knew one thing: boats and hangovers did not mix.
We were crossing the Danube into Romania, packed like sardines with Valentin and Ana and a dozen other traders. Three other canoes paddled in front of us while the wagon, horses, and carts sailed on what Valentin called a ferry—and what I would call little more than a giant raft.
It was all completely unsafe and undeniably illegal, as we were crossing from one country to the next without going through a customs checkpoint. Valentin estimated that we were three or four miles from the Orient Express’s steamboat landing, and though the sky was overcast and the river was the color of dingy pewter, when I squinted I could make out the Romanian port town of Giurgiu along the distant shore.
“Here,” Huck said when I was fully back in the boat, handing me his handkerchief. “Maybe you should concentrate on looking at the horizon? Isn’t that supposed to help with motion sickness?”
Probably not when you’re hungover. “I’m never drinking again,” I whispered. I’d already apologized to Valentin for my drunken speech at the campfire last night. I don’t think I’d ever regretted anything so much. “Why are you not sick?” I asked Huck, miserable.
“Know my limits, don’t I?”
“Bully for you,” I said sourly.
He found this amusing. I didn’t understand how he could remain so obnoxiously cheerful in a swaying boat. I’d never felt so awful in my life.
Thankfully, though, the Danube crossing was not a lengthy one. When our boats glided through rushes near the shore, I was feeling marginally less sick and eager to debark. We were in Romania! Finally! Shame that it looked much the same as Bulgaria here. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but trees were trees were trees, and there wasn’t much else to see. Still, we were so close to civilization, I could almost weep with joy.
There was little time to appreciate it, because even though we’d successfully made our illegal border crossing, now we had to load ourselves back into horse-pulled carts and journey on back roads for several more hours. To top it all off, it looked as though it might rain.
I tried not to think about it. I just huddled between Huck and sacks of horse feed and tried to keep my eyes closed, drowsing occasionally. And before I knew it, Huck was shaking me. “We’re getting off here.”
“Here” wasn’t Bucharest, but instead a crossroads near a village commune called Călugăreni. The traders were gathering in a small field off the road in a well-worn area next to a river, with remnants of previous camps. Valentin informed us that the caravan would rest here and wait for two other traders to join them; in the meantime, he needed to conduct some additional business for his father, which would require him to travel to a local village, away from the city.
“Bucharest is six or seven hours by cart, but less than an hour by bus,” he informed us. “You will be better off parting ways with us here and journeying the remainder of the way on your own.”
He then helped us gather up our luggage and walked us across the road to a rural bus stop—a wooden sign basically. No bench. No nothing. Just the dust of the road and fields for days. Huck asked how much the fare would cost, and I was relieved to find out that not only was it cheap, but Valentin’s wife was more than happy to help exchange a few of Huck’s Turkish bills for Romanian lei, as several of the traders were used to doing business with different groups of people.
When Huck thanked Ana, she told Valentin something which he translated for us: “She says it is nothing. Now, you may have to wait here awhile, but the bus will come. It takes you straight into Bucharest. Get off in Old Town at the first stop over the bridge. Walk a few blocks north to the Grand Café on the corner of a busy cross street. Big awnings. It is the meeting place for Europeans. You will find people who speak English there. Someone there will tell you how to take a taxicab to your family.”
“We’re ever so grateful for everything you’ve done for us,” I told him and Ana. “I wish we could pay you.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “We do not know any strangers, only friends. Travel well. And if Ana and I ever find ourselves in New York, we will come stay with you.”
She shook both my hands, and I thanked both her and Valentin in Romanian. And with that he doffed his hat, and the young couple bade us goodbye.
Well, then. We were on our own now. Huck glanced around at the lonely road and rolling hills. “Think you can wait for a bus? Are you still hungover? You need water.”
“I’m fine,” I assured him. Truth was, I had a splitting headache, but at least there was nothing left inside my stomach to heave up.
As luck would have it, we waited only a half hour for the bus, which was small, old, and carried three elderly women and one child. The driver looked at us suspiciously and counted out Huck’s coins from his palm, taking enough for both our fares, and after we sat down near the front, the bus was on its way.
We were in my mother’s country, headed to meet up with my father.
Life was strange.
Huck and I were quiet with each other on the bus. Now that we were alone again, the divide between us grew wider. Everything felt unsettled and confusing. We weren’t friends. We weren’t lovers. We weren’t family. And thinking about yesterday’s argument and last night’s drunken humiliation only worsened my headache. So I didn’t think much. And we didn’t speak . . . much. We just sat together and stared out the window.
Better than fighting, I supposed.
Thankfully, the ride took a little under an hour and the bus made only two quick stops. I watched the landscape with growing interest as the city appeared in the distance and houses, then buildings began springing up on either side of the road. Slowly, cars and trucks filled the street, and we passed all the signs of civilization—petrol stations, streetlights, and parking lots. Beautiful old buildings. Outside an Orthodox church, I even spied a statue of the Capitoline Wolf, from Roman mythology, suckling Romulus and Remus, and it reminded me of Valentin’s Dacian wolf stories. But before long we were slowing on a busy boulevard near a park, and when the door creaked open, we gathered our things and filed outside with the other passengers.
“Look, Huck,” I said, craning my neck to take it all in.
“It’s a proper city,” he agreed.
“Pavement. Isn’t it the most glorious thing you’ve ever seen?”
He laughed. “Bit better than rocky fields, yeah?” He held up a hand to shield his eyes and looked around. “Didn’t know Bucharest was so big.”
“My mother said it was once called Little Paris of the East.” And it was easy to see why as we walked along the busy, tree-lined stradă. The city was pleasantly charming in an old-world European way, an interesting jumble of old and new. Horse-drawn taxis cantered alongside fast cars, and fedoraed businessmen tipped their hats at dark-haired peasants, carrying baskets of Moldova grapes on the ends of long poles that sat across their necks like oxen yokes.
Despite my lingering headache, the traveler in me wished to linger and sightsee. I got out my camera and snapped a couple of photographs until I noticed passersby giving me a once-over. I glanced down at myself and saw why they stared: stockings covered in runs and snags. Muddy shoes. Rumpled clothes. I looked like a hobo.
“Sleeping outside under the stars has its price,” Huck said, eyes following mine. “It’s rough, dangerous, and untidy. And
you’ll never cease to amaze at just how awful the human body can smell. No one writes that part down in travel books.”
Yes, well, I never got the chance to sleep under the stars, as I was always shoved into hotels. I discreetly sniffed my clothes. They still smelled strongly of smoke from the traders’ bonfire and possibly of brandy. God only knew what foulness was lurking in my armpits. “Let’s get to the hotel before we begin to attract rats and insects.” I said, tightly pulling down my beret to cover my scraggly hair. “Sound good?”
“Deal,” Huck said.
We found a public water fountain, from which I drank copious amounts of water under Huck’s direction that it would ease my headache—and it did, a little. Then, after strolling up a couple or ten blocks, we found the Grand Café . . . approximately where Valentin had said it would be, on a busy boulevard filled with bars, shops, and cinemas. Beneath a massive, striped awning, dozens of people lingered at tables, watching pedestrians while casually dining. But Huck didn’t seem to care. He was too busy looking across the street, where a grand, domed Belle Époque Hotel stood on the corner, one that would not look out of place in Paris. Even the sign above the entrance was an art nouveau style similar to the Paris Métro signs.
Hotel Regina.
Regina. Queen. Take her to that royal hotel . . .
“Is that—”
Huck nodded. “That’s where Fox stayed when he was in Bucharest this summer, trying to authenticate the bone ring for Mr. Rothwild.”
“What’s so special about this hotel?” I asked. “He must have known you’d remember, the way he said it in the letter, all coded and covert—‘royal.’ ”
Huck gritted his teeth. “Uh, yeah. Fox told me a lurid story about something that happened at this hotel. I shouldn’t repeat it.” His eyes flicked to mine. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s not a secret. You just . . . don’t want to know. There was no woman involved, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
That’s exactly what I was thinking. My father hadn’t dated anyone since my mother died. Not anyone he cared to introduce to me anyway. I felt quite sure he wasn’t a monk, but he kept all that private.
“Let’s just get over there and find out if he’s checked in yet. Then he can tell me his dirty secret himself.” Or not. My father played his cards close to his vest. But I cared less about that than actually seeing my father. Now that my head was clearing, yesterday’s worries about Father’s safety shifted back to the forefront of my thoughts. Father. Vlad Dracula’s war ring. The journal. The cipher I couldn’t crack. The Dragon. Mr. Sarkany and his white wolf dog . . .
What if Mr. Sarkany had somehow trailed us here? I glanced around the busy street as if I’d find him leaning against a streetlamp.
We crossed the street and pushed through gilded doors under a row of flags that jutted from the building, currently being used as a perch by dozens of black birds. Inside, the lobby was grand and spacious beneath a dome of glass and iron. The clientele seemed to be a mix of European aristocrats and traveling businessmen, who were mostly heading in and out of a vaulted corridor that branched from the lobby; a sign pointing in that direction said there was a brewhouse and a cinema on the ground floor.
But no Father.
My nerves jangled anxiously as we headed toward the registration desk to the right. Two starched uniforms stood behind it, both dark-headed men in their twenties, and the taller of the two—ANDREI was engraved on his gold name tag—greeted us in English.
“Welcome to Hotel Regina. How may we serve you?”
“Good afternoon, Andrei,” I said. “My name is Miss Theodora Fox, and this is my—”
“Brother,” Huck said.
I shot him an ugly look that said I’m going to murder you in your sleep. He shot me one back that said Just go with it.
“Brother,” I repeated. Whatever. “Anyway, we are supposed to meet my father here, and I was wondering if you could tell me if he’s already checked in? He’s an American by the name of Richard Fox. Very tall. Dark hair. Beard. Built like a grizzly bear?”
The man did a double take. “You are the Fox’s daughter?”
“Yes? Is he here?”
Andrei snapped at his associate. “Look! It is the Fox’s children.”
“The Fox?” the other man murmured.
They both stared at us as if we were circus oddities. Then Andrei said, “My apologies. We have heard stories about you. The Fox is a great man. What a character! A favored and generous guest. Because of him I was able to buy a new refrigerator for my wife.”
“Uh . . .” I glanced at Huck, questioning.
Sheepish, he gritted his teeth and avoided my eyes.
“We will never forget the Fox,” the desk attendant said. “He is always welcome, and so are you. How is he? And Jean-Bernard? Are they here in the city now?”
“That’s what I’m asking you,” I said. “We’re looking for my father.”
His brow wrinkled. “He is not with you?”
“We were to meet him here,” I said impatiently, feeling as if I were in a Marx Brothers film.
“Ah,” he said, realizing—finally. He shook his head. “No. We have not seen him since he left in July. I am sorry.”
My heart plummeted into my stomach. Not here yet. Well, he did say to wait until Friday. It was only Thursday. Maybe he’d show up later today or even tomorrow. But that would mean we needed to get a room—if for no other reason than to wash the bonfire out of my hair and change clothes. I could see Huck thinking along the same lines as he reached into his long gray coat and pulled out a few green bills. “Would you be able to exchange American dollars for Romanian lei?”
Where did he get American money? Had to have been from Father.
“Of course,” Andrei said, and they talked exchange rates and room rates, and it seemed as if Huck had enough cash for two, maybe three nights, if we didn’t eat. So Father had damn well better show up soon. Huck registered for one room despite my mumbled protests. “This is all the cash I have,” he whispered. “You lost the traveler’s checks—”
“They were stolen from me!” I whispered back.
“My job is to keep you safe. My money. One room. End of story,” he said in a low voice. “If you want to punch me later, feel free.”
I grumbled under my breath, but he just ignored me. As he was signing our names in the registration book, Andrei said, “I’m very happy Fox is returning. We last heard from him when he sent a letter and money.”
“Money?” I asked.
“It was generous but unnecessary. I told him it would be fine. The mayor’s wife doesn’t even remember fainting. It is all forgotten. Just an amusing story now of the wild American treasure hunter.”
Mayor’s wife?
The other desk attendant said something under his breath in Romanian that I couldn’t quite catch, and they both chuckled.
“My father . . . is always the subject of great stories,” I said, squinting at the attendants. Huck’s back was turned to me now, so I asked Andrei, “How exactly did it happen? The incident with the mayor’s wife?” and ignored Huck’s groan.
The desk attendant was more than happy to tell me. “It was a Saturday night, and the hotel was busy. The film in the cinema was letting out, and the mayor and his wife were leaving a dinner in the ballroom, just there,” he said, pointing to a stanchioned-off set of doors at the back of the lobby. “And as they were passing the staircase, the Fox stumbled around the turn in the stairs—you see it there? And that is when we all saw him. Not a stitch of clothes.”
“He was wearing black socks,” the other attendant reminded him in a heavy Romanian accent.
“Ah, yes,” Andrei said, grinning. “Fox in socks. And drunk as a skunk.”
“Oh God,” I whispered.
“He was shouting like a maniac. No one could understand him, and he is such a large man, and so—how do you say?”
“Hairy,” the other attendant provided.
I squeezed my ey
es shut.
“Like a great big bear,” Andrei said.
“Like a bear,” I repeated. “Indeed.”
“People were screaming and running from him,” Andrei said, smiling as if he was remembering it fondly. “And then . . . the mayor and his wife were in his path, and he tripped over the last stair and knocked over the mayor’s wife. She fell on the floor. That is when he got sick.”
For the love of Pete . . .
The other attendant said, “The mayor’s wife fainted but was otherwise unhurt. The mayor threatened legal action against the Fox—and the hotel.”
“But it was all fine,” Andrei said, waving his hands. “Because that is when we found out it was not just the whiskey, but also the sirop de tuse—cough suppressant? The medicine. He had mixed the two. It was potent. He was not himself.”
“And the reason he was coming to the front desk was because he’d accidently locked Jean-Bernard in the en suite inside his room,” the other attendant added. “We called a doctor and a locksmith.”
“He had much regret when he sobered up the next day,” Andrei said. “And because we smoothed everything over with the mayor—”
“And the police.”
“And hotel management,” Andrei said. “Well, that is why my wife has a new refrigerator.”
“And why the city has a new copper statue of a goddess in Cișmigiu Gardens that is modeled on the mayor’s wife.”
I tried to make my smile match the desk attendants’, smiles that conveyed we were all broad-minded enough to laugh at my father’s foibles, ha ha, ho ho, isn’t this a riot?
After a few more chuckles, other guests came to the desk, and the embarrassing story finally got buried. We left instructions with Andrei to let us know immediately when my father arrived—and I left further instructions requesting as many Romanian newspapers as they could find. Then we exited the lobby and took the elevator to the fifth floor.
“Sorry about all that. But I did warn you that you didn’t want to know,” Huck murmured, looking down at the floor of the elevator, arms crossed.
