The Historian

by Elisabeth Kostova

  “I had been listening intently. ‘And how did you and your mother come here?’

  “Helen sighed again. ‘My mother is twelve years younger than Éva,’ she said. ‘She was always Éva’s favorite among the little children in their family, and she was only five when Éva was taken to Budapest. Then, when my mother was nineteen and unmarried, she became pregnant. She was afraid her parents and everyone else in the village would find out-in such a traditional culture, you understand, she would have been in danger of expulsion and perhaps death from starvation. She wrote to Éva and asked for her help, and my aunt and uncle arranged her travel to Budapest. My uncle met her at the border, which was heavily guarded, and took her back to the city. I once heard my aunt say he paid an enormous bribe to the border officials. Transylvanians were hated in Hungary, especially after the Treaty. My mother told me that my uncle had won her complete devotion-not only did he rescue her from a terrible situation, but he also never let her feel the difference between their national origins. She was heartbroken when he died. He was the one who brought her safely into Hungary and gave her a new life.’

  “‘And then you were born?’ I asked quietly.

  “‘Then I was born, at a hospital in Budapest, and my aunt and uncle helped to raise and educate me. We lived with them until I was in high school. Éva took us into the countryside during the war and found food for all of us somehow. My mother was educated here, too, and learned Hungarian. She always refused to teach me any Romanian, although I sometimes heard her speaking it in her sleep.’ She gave me a bitter glance. ‘You see what your beloved Rossi reduced our lives to,’ she said, her mouth twisting. ‘If it had not been for my aunt and uncle, my mother might have died alone in some mountain forest and been eaten by the wolves. Both of us, actually.’

  “‘I’m thankful to your aunt and uncle, too,’ I said, and then, fearing her sardonic glance, busied myself pouring more coffee from the metal pot at my elbow.

  “Helen made no reply, and after a minute she pulled some papers from her purse. ‘Shall we go over the lecture once more?’”

  “The morning sunshine and cool air outside were full of menace for me; all I could think about as we walked toward the university was the moment, rapidly approaching now, when I would have to deliver my lecture. I had given only one lecture before this, a joint presentation with Rossi the previous year when he had organized a conference on Dutch colonialism. Each of us had written half of the lecture; my half had been a miserable attempt to distill into twenty minutes what I thought my dissertation was going to be about before I had written a word of it; Rossi’s had been a brilliant, wide-ranging treatise on the cultural heritage of the Netherlands, the strategic might of the Dutch navy, and the nature of colonialism. Despite my general sense of inadequacy about the whole thing, I’d been flattered by his including me. I’d also been sustained throughout the experience by his compact and confident presence beside me at the podium, his friendly thump on my shoulder as I relinquished the audience to him. Today I would be on my own. The prospect was dismal, if not terrifying, and only the thought of how Rossi would have handled it steadied me a little.

  “Elegant Pest lay all around us, and now, in broad daylight, I could see that its magnificence was under construction-reconstruction, rather-where it had been damaged in the war. Many houses were still missing walls or windows in their upper floors, or even the whole upper floor, for that matter, and if you looked closely, nearly every surface, whatever it was made of, was pockmarked with bullet holes. I wished we had time to walk farther, so that I could see more of Pest, but we had agreed between us that we would attend all the morning sessions of the conference that day to make our presence there as legitimate as possible. ‘And there is something I want to do later, too, in the afternoon,’ Helen said thoughtfully. ‘We will go to the university library before it closes.’

  “When we reached the large building where the reception had been held the night before, she paused. ‘Do me a favor.’

  “‘Certainly. What?’

  “‘Don’t talk with Géza József about our travels or the fact that we are looking for someone.’

  “‘I’m not likely to do that,’ I said indignantly.

  “‘I’m just warning you. He can be very charming.’ She raised her gloved hand in a conciliatory gesture.

  “‘All right.’ I held the great baroque door for her and we went in.

  “In a lecture room on the second floor, many of the people I’d seen the night before were already seated in rows of chairs, talking with animation or shuffling through papers. ‘My God,’ Helen muttered. ‘The anthropology department is here, too.’ A moment later she was engulfed in greetings and conversation. I saw her smiling, presumably at old friends, colleagues from years of work in her own field, and a wave of loneliness broke over me. She seemed to be indicating me, trying to introduce me from a distance, but the torrent of voices and their meaningless Hungarian made an almost palpable barrier between us.

  “Just then I felt a tap on my arm and the formidable Géza was before me. His handshake and smile were warm. ‘How do you enjoy our city?’ he asked. ‘Is everything to your liking?’

  “‘Everything,’ I said with equal warmth. I had Helen’s warning firmly in mind, but it was difficult not to like the man.

  “‘Ah, I am delighted,’ he said. ‘And you will be giving your lecture this afternoon?’

  “I coughed. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, exactly. And you? Will you be lecturing today?’

  “‘Oh, no, not I,’ he said. ‘Actually, I am researching a topic of great interest to me these days. But I am not ready to give a lecture about it.’

  “‘What is your topic?’ I couldn’t help asking, but at that moment Professor Sándor of the towering white pompadour called the session to order from a podium. The crowd settled into the seats like birds on telephone wires and grew quiet. I sat in the back next to Helen, glancing at my watch. It was only nine-thirty, so I could relax for a while. Géza József had taken a seat in the front; I could see the back of his handsome head in the first row. Looking around, I could also see several other faces familiar from last night’s introductions. It was an earnest, slightly scruffy crowd, everyone gazing at Professor Sándor.

  “‘Guten Morgen,’he boomed, and the microphone screeched until a student in a blue shirt and black tie came up to fix it. ‘Good morning, honored visitors.Guten Morgen, bonjour, welcome to the University of Budapest. We are proud to introduce you to the first European convention of historians of -’ Here the microphone began to screech again, and we lost several phrases. Professor Sándor had apparently run out of English, too, for the time being, and he continued for some minutes in a mixture of Hungarian, French, and German. I gathered from the French and German that lunch would be served at twelve o’clock, and then-to my horror-that I would be the keynote speaker, the apex of the conference, the highlight of the proceedings, that I was a distinguished American scholar, a specialist not only in the history of the Netherlands but also in the economics of the Ottoman Empire and the labor movements of the United States of America (had Aunt Éva invented that one on her own?), that my book on the Dutch merchant guilds in the era of Rembrandt would be appearing the following year, and that they were deeply fortunate to have been able to add me to their program only this week.

  “This was all worse than my wildest dreams, and I vowed that Helen would pay if she had had a hand in it. Many of the scholars in the audience were turning to look at me, smiling graciously, nodding, even pointing me out to one another. Helen sat regal and serious beside me, but something about the curve of her black-jacketed shoulder suggested-only to me, I hoped-the almost perfectly hidden desire to laugh. I tried to look dignified, too, and to remember that this, even all this, was for Rossi.

  “When Professor Sándor had finished booming, a little bald man gave a lecture that seemed to be about the Hanseatic League. He was followed by a gray-haired woman in a blue dress whose subject concerned the his
tory of Budapest, although I could follow none of it. The remaining speaker before lunch was a young scholar from the University of London-he looked about my own age-and to my great relief he spoke in English, while a Hungarian philology student read a translation of his lecture into German. (It was strange, I thought, to hear all this German here only a decade after the Germans had nearly destroyed Budapest, but I reminded myself that it had been the lingua franca of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.) Professor Sándor introduced the Englishman as Hugh James, a professor of East European history.

  “Professor James was a solid man in brown tweeds and an olive tie; in that setting he looked so indescribably, characteristically English that I fought back a laugh. His eyes twinkled at the audience, and he gave us a pleasant smile. ‘I never expected to find myself in Budapest,’ he said, gazing around at us, ‘but it is very gratifying to me to be here in this greatest city of Central Europe, a gate between East and West. Now, then, I should like to take a few minutes of your time to ruminate on the question of what legacies the Ottoman Turks left in Central Europe as they withdrew from their failed siege of Vienna in 1685.’

  “He paused and smiled at the philology student, who earnestly read this first sentence back to us in German. They proceeded like this, alternating languages, but Professor James must have strayed off the page more than he stayed on it, because as his talk unfolded, the student frequently shot him a look of bewilderment. ‘We have all, of course, heard the story of the invention of the croissant, the tribute of a Parisian pastry chef to Vienna ’s victory over the Ottomans. The croissant, of course, represented the crescent moon of the Ottoman flags, a symbol the West devours with coffee to this very day.’ He looked around, beaming, and then seemed to realize, as I just had, that most of these eager Hungarian scholars had never been to Paris or Vienna. ‘Yes-well, the legacy of the Ottomans can be summarized in one word, I think: aesthetics.’

  “He went on to describe the architecture of half a dozen Central and East European cities, games and fashions, spices and interior design. I listened with a fascination that was only partly the relief of being able to fully understand his words; much of what we had just seen in Istanbul came rushing back to me as James discussed the Turkish baths of Budapest and the Proto-Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian buildings of Sarajevo. When he described Topkapi Palace, I found myself nodding vigorously, until I realized I should probably be more discreet.

  “Tumultuous applause followed the lecture, and then Professor Sándor invited us to convene in the dining hall for lunch. In the crush of scholars and food, I managed to find Professor James just as he was sitting down at a table. ‘May I join you?’

  “He jumped up with a smile. ‘Certainly, certainly. Hugh James. How do you do?’ I introduced myself in return and we shook hands. When I’d seated myself opposite him, we looked at each other with friendly curiosity. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘so you’re the keynote speaker? I’m very much looking forward to your talk.’ Up close, he appeared older than I by ten years, and had extraordinary light brown eyes, watery and a little bulging, like a basset hound’s. I had already recognized his speech as being from the north of England.

  “‘Thank you,’ I said, trying not to cringe visibly. ‘And I enjoyed every minute of yours. It really covered a remarkable spectrum. I wonder if you know my-er-mentor, Bartholomew Rossi. He’s English, too.’

  “‘Well, of course!’ Hugh James unfurled his napkin with an enthusiastic flourish. ‘Professor Rossi is one of my favorite writers-I’ve read most of his books. You work with him? How very fortunate.’

  “I had lost track of Helen, but at that moment I caught sight of her at the luncheon buffet with Géza József at her side. He was speaking earnestly almost in her ear, and after a minute she permitted him to follow her to a small table on the other side of the hall. I could see her well enough to make out the sour expression on her face, but it didn’t make the scene much more palatable to me. He was leaning toward her, gazing into her face while she looked down at her food, and I felt almost crazed by my desire to know what he was saying to her.

  “‘In any case’-Hugh James was still talking about Rossi’s work-‘I think his studies of Greek theater are marvelous. The man can do anything.’

  “‘Yes,’ I said absently. ‘He’s been working on an article called ”The Ghost in the Amphora,“ about the stage props used in the Greek tragedies.’ I stopped, suddenly realizing I might be giving away Rossi’s trade secrets. If I hadn’t halted myself, however, Professor James’s face would have brought me up short.

  “‘The what?’ he said, clearly astonished. He set down his fork and knife, abandoning his lunch. ‘Did you say ”The Ghost in the Amphora“?’

  “‘Yes.’ I’d forgotten even about Helen and Géza now. ‘Why do you ask?’

  “‘But this is astounding! I think I must write to Professor Rossi at once. You see, I’ve recently been studying a most interesting document from fifteenth-century Hungary. That’s what brought me to Budapest in the first place-I’ve been looking into that period of Hungary ’s history, you know, and then I tagged along at the conference with Professor Sándor’s kind permission. In any case, this document was written by one of King Matthias Corvinus’s scholars, and it mentions the ghost in the amphora.’

  “I remembered that Helen had referred to King Matthias Corvinus the night before; hadn’t he been the founder of the great library in the Buda castle? Aunt Éva had told me about him, too. ‘Please,’ I said urgently, ‘explain.’

  “‘Well, I-it’s rather a silly sounding thing, but I’ve been very interested for several years in the folk legends of Central Europe. It started as a bit of a lark, I suppose, long ago, but I’ve become absolutely mesmerized by the legend of the vampire.’

  “I stared at him. He looked as ordinary as before, with his ruddy, jolly face and tweed jacket, but I felt I must be dreaming.

  “‘Oh, I know it sounds juvenile-Count Dracula and all that-but you know it really is a remarkable subject when you dig into it a bit. You see, Dracula was a real person, although of course not a vampire, and I’m interested in whether his history is in any way connected with folk legends of the vampire. A few years ago I started looking for written material on the topic, to see if there even was any, since of course the vampire existed mainly in oral legend in Central and East European villages.’

  “He leaned back, drumming his fingers on the edge of the table. ‘Well, lo and behold, working in the university library here, I turned up this document that Corvinus apparently commissioned-he wanted someone to collect all knowledge of vampires from earliest times. Whoever the scholar was who got the job, he was certainly a classicist, and instead of tramping around villages as any good anthropologist would have done, he began poking through Latin and Greek texts-Corvinus had a lot of these here, you know-to find references to vampires, and he turned up this ancient Greek idea, which I haven’t seen anywhere else-at least not until you mentioned it just now-of the ghost in the amphora. In ancient Greece, and in Greek tragedies, the amphora sometimes contained human ashes, you see, and the ignorant folk of Greece believed that if things didn’t go quite right with the burial of the amphora, it could produce a vampire-I’m not quite sure how, yet. Perhaps Professor Rossi knows something about this, if he’s writing about ghosts in amphorae. A remarkable coincidence, isn’t it? Actually, there are still vampires in modern Greece, according to folklore.’

  “‘I know,’ I said. ‘Thevrykolakas. ’

  “This time it was Hugh James’s turn to stare. His protuberant hazel eyes grew enormous. ‘How do you know that?’ he breathed. ‘I mean-I beg your pardon-I’m just surprised to meet someone else who -’

  “‘Is interested in vampires?’ I said dryly. ‘Yes, that used to surprise me, too, but I’m getting used to it, these days. How did you become interested in vampires, Professor James?’

  “‘Hugh,’ he said, slowly. ‘Please call me Hugh. Well, I -’ He looked hard at me for a second, and for the first tim
e I saw that under his cheerful, bumbling exterior there glowed an intensity like a flame. ‘It’s dreadfully strange and I don’t usually tell people about this, but -’

  “I really couldn’t bear the delay. ‘Did you, by any chance, find an old book with a dragon in the center?’ I said.

  “He eyed me almost wildly, and the color drained from his healthy face. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I found a book.’ His hands gripped the edge of the table. ‘Who are you?’

  “‘I found one, too.’

  “We sat looking at each other for a few long seconds, and we might have sat speechless even longer, delaying all we had to discuss, if we hadn’t been interrupted. Géza József’s voice was at my ear before I noticed his presence; he had come up behind me and was bending over our table with a genial smile. Helen came hurrying up, too, and her face was strange-almost guilty, I thought. ‘Good afternoon, comrades,’ he said cordially. ‘What’s this about finding books?’”

  Chapter 41

  “When Professor József bent over our table with his friendly question, I wasn’t sure for a moment what to say. I had to talk with Hugh James again as soon as possible, but in private, not in this crush of people, and certainly not with the very person Helen had warned me about-why?-breathing down my neck. At last I mustered a few words. ‘We were sharing our love of antique books,’ I said. ‘Every scholar should be able to admit to that, don’t you think?’

  “By this time Helen had caught up with us and was eyeing me with what I took to be mingled alarm and approval. I rose to pull out a chair for her. In the midst of my need to dissemble before Géza József, I must have communicated some excitement to her, for she stared from me to Hugh. Géza looked genially at all of us, but I fancied I saw a slight narrowing of his handsome epicanthic eyes; so, I thought, the Huns must have squinted into the Western sun through the slits of their leather headgear. I tried not to look at him again.