The Tourmaline (A Princess of Roumania)

by Paul Park

  But Mary Magdalene, doubtless, had been muscular and tall. It was hard work for Miranda to move the body a few yards. And she wouldn’t have managed it if she had not felt the body change under her hand, diminish and dry out. The wrist clenched in her fingers grew thin as bone—she didn’t look back. She climbed from the west side of the hill and found the path. There were the cedar posts, the baskets and bedrolls. Below her the fire struggled and spread, and the air was full of smoke. She threw the body down the slope into the dell, then staggered after it and dragged it to the entrance of the mine among the wooden crosses. The sky was murky red.

  She pulled the vampire by his wrist into the salt chamber. There was the lighted lantern. There was Ludu Rat-tooth on the salt throne, conscious now, her eyes shining with fear. The chains, undisturbed, were around her arms. She struggled to pull them from the wall. Miranda slid the locks out of their rings. The girl was free.

  “Miss, what is that?” she asked.

  “Codreanu.”

  Openmouthed, terrified, the girl was no help. But Miranda pulled the dry black body onto the seat and locked him fast. Ludu Rat-tooth was making little squeaks and cries; tears burst out of her. Miranda worked grimly, her teeth clenched and set. She wrapped the chains around the shriveled corpse which was not dead, not altogether dead. She could feel a tremor underneath her fingers. “Go,” she said, and the girl left her, staggering to the tunnel and then out the door.

  “Go,” said another voice. Miranda turned and recognized her aunt, whom she had seen in dreams and photographs and once in tara mortilor. Now Aegypta Schenck was coming toward her over the rough floor, out of a corner in the chamber where she’d hidden in darkness. She was dressed in rich, old-fashioned clothes, with a lamb’s-wool hat and a stole made of fox fur. Miranda could see one of the wicked heads hanging down.

  “Oh, my child,” said the old woman, “oh my dear child,” and proffered her gray cheek to kiss. From the depths of memory Miranda summoned up the scent of the perfumed powder her aunt wore, and she was hugging her around the neck. “There, my child—there, there. That’s enough. You must leave now. Leave him to me.”

  Miranda hugged her and rubbed her face on the fox fur. Then she turned away out of the tunnel, out to where Ludu Rat-tooth was waiting in the smoky air. They even managed to rescue their food and their blankets, dragging them after them as they climbed down the west side of the hill away from the fire. Then they carried their bundles south along the low ridge of the island, past the deserted beach and to a circle of bare ground where they sat watching the flames lick the crest of the hill.

  And as they watched, Miranda found herself gradually overcome with nausea and disgust. She was clutching a beaded purse—where had it come from? Had her aunt thrust it into her hands? It had more money in it, she could tell, and she unbuttoned the flap and let the coins spill on the ground. There was a letter: many fragile pages, which she unfolded. She held them up close to her face. Just barely in the uncertain light, she could see the tiny words. “My dear girl. You will go to Mogosoaia, where I have left my key.… If you are as I think a princess of Roumania…”

  She couldn’t stand it. What was this, a steeplechase? A scavenger hunt? Once on her birthday Stanley had sent her and her friends racing all around Williamstown searching for little paper clues.

  She almost ripped the letter into pieces without reading it. She almost left the gold coins where they lay, except she didn’t. Instead she snatched them up angrily and thrust them into her pockets, along with her aunt’s folded pages.

  “Look, miss!”

  Now Miranda was aware of a new noise, and she realized she had heard it intermittently. It was thunder, and on the black horizon she could see the lightning stabbing down. There was a wind that blew the smoke away from them, and then a few drops of rain.

  13

  The Wrestling Match

  PETER WOKE UP with the words of the poem in his ears, as clear as if he’d heard them spoken:

  So the sun went down and the stars came out all over the summer sea.

  But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.

  He lay on his back in a dark room on a white slab of a table, and his hands and feet were bound. But he could move his head, which still ached where the guard had clubbed him from behind. Aristophanes Turkkan had bit his hand. Afterward they had taken him to a different prison, to a private cell.

  And they must have drugged his food or something, because he couldn’t remember coming here. How many days had gone by? Had the man really hit him so hard? Above him was a stone, vaulted ceiling. There were barred windows high up on the walls. Sunlight came from them. The air was stuffy and hot. But he was not in prison, Peter decided, because of the statues carved in niches in the left-hand wall. Four stern old men with flowing beards. One was obviously Moses. One was Ezekiel with his wheel. One was Elisha with a raven on his wrist, Peter guessed. His mother had loved myths and Bible stories. One statue was of Daniel, his hand touching the mane of a sleeping lion.

  With difficulty Peter turned his head to the other side. He was surprised to see the room stretch out into the darkness, and four living men against the far wall. In contrast to the prophets close at hand, they had their backs to him. They were grouped around an ornate piece of furniture, a sideboard or a desk on which a gas lamp burned. And now Peter could hear they were conversing in low tones that competed with the roaring in his ears. He strained to understand, but could not because they were too far away, and because of the pain in his head, and because they spoke in Turkish.

  Occasionally they glanced back toward him. If he had set himself to guess what they were saying, by their looks and glances he would have discovered something of the truth: “Biliyorsun bu küzey—you know in these northern places there is a great deal that modern science does not claim to understand. The magic of today is the science of tomorrow. We men of reason think we have the answer to all things, answers that have banished superstition from the borders of our own country. I must claim that I have seen in my examination a young man not yet twenty-five. But these matters are subjective and are not accessible to proof. You say he is Roumanian? I must confess to you all things are possible, because this is a barbarous race without an understanding of the one sole author of all natural law. And in places where there is no God—surely we have all heard stories of demons who live forever, vampires who live on human flesh. I myself had the good fortune to see the Chevalier de Graz on the wrestling ground when I was a young man. I do not think you would have been able to subdue him in your chambers and bring him here.…”

  Of the four men, the one who spoke most closely resembled the prophet Elisha. He was small, stooped, slight. His narrow hips, narrow face and high-ridged nose were like the statue’s.

  “O bir kahroman degil—he is not an over-man,” interrupted another. If he’d been wearing robes that touched the floor, if he’d been carrying the tablets of the law, or if the sculpture of Moses had been dressed in a janissary’s uniform with gold epaulets, there might have been a strong resemblance. “Halil smacked him with his rifle butt. I never saw this man but I assure you…”

  Elisha raised his hand. “Don’t tell me anything, please. I don’t desire to know what you have done. You ask for my advice and I have given it. These things are subject to a kind of proof—evidence of demonic possession or a fugue state. You understand that we are talking about Roumania where all things are possible. Twenty years with no memory except of these things he has told us, magic worlds in North America and so on. I must confess to curiosity, because as you say the likeness is extraordinary. And there is no mistake about the birthmark. To suggest a tattoo is foolish.…”

  It was clear to Peter that Elisha and Moses did not like each other. He saw their faces in profile, one glowering, one subtle. But now the biggest of the four looked toward him, and he recognized Turkkan. “It’s no tattoo, I’ll tell you that. You forget I wrestled with the man—I myself! One fall, just as
a favor before the main event—I saw that mark under my nose as he tried to twist my head off. I bit him then and I bit him now. When I see that mark, I bite—I am not proud of that. But can a man fight against a devil? Look, you see.”

  Peter was too far away to see what the cadi was holding, an old photograph of Frederick Schenck von Schenck bowing to the sultan after the Peace of Havsa. Staff officers surrounded them, including one young captain of dragoons.

  “It is extraordinary,” repeated Elisha.

  To the four men who examined it, this photograph depicted the most humiliating event in Turkish history. All four now turned to look at Peter where he lay. “You see he is awake,” said Aristophanes Turkkan. “Come, you see. Bring your medicine.”

  He spoke in English now. Red-faced and bald, he resembled neither Daniel nor the sleeping lion. Peter was not reassured by his apparent friendliness as he walked forward with his arms outstretched, his glasses twinkling. “Domnul Gross, how are you feeling? You see we have brought you to hospital after your injury. This is Adnan Mejid Pasha, and this is Dr. Baz—you see he was educated in Somalia! You are in good hands!”

  Elisha was holding a small leather case and a white piece of cloth. The fourth man, whom Turkkan had not introduced, hung back. He was light-haired and subservient—the chauffeur, Peter decided. Ezekiel the chauffeur, with his wheel. Groggy and confused from the blow to his head, Peter looked back and forth between the four faces as Dr. Baz took his pulse, then peered into his eyes with a white light.

  “Put a pillow under his head. That’s a good chap,” said the doctor.

  Peter lay on a cold, hard, white, enamel surface. His wrists and ankles were bound with leather straps. “Where am I?” he asked.

  Turkkan ignored the question. “You have made a claim that is extraordinary. You’ve been convicted—you remember this? You’ve been convicted of a ghastly crime. But even so, we’d be—what is the word? We would be remiss, I tell you. So we have asked my friend to give you an injection.” He bent over the table. Peter was aware of his powerful shoulders and arms, his fat, short neck, and the smell of anise-flavored liquor that clung to him.

  Dr. Baz now spoke. “You will be pleased to tell me your parents’ full names. Tell me their birthdays and the years during which they were born.”

  “No,” said Peter. “Take that light out of my eyes.”

  “Tell me the dates of your schooling and at what academy. Were you good friends with your father, do you think?”

  “Please turn out the light.”

  Someone was chafing Peter’s right wrist. On the other side he heard a hiss of contempt from Moses. “This is a waste of effort. A waste of money also. Why does he deserve this treatment?” Then more words in Turkish, and then a whole conversation that Peter didn’t understand. He closed his eyes.

  Occasionally he distinguished Aristophanes Turkkan, who had kept to English. “It would have been simple for him to invent these answers to your questions—no. You see it is because he cannot remember that I must believe him…”

  Later, Turkkan again: “My friend—doctor, I am tired of these objections. You must use your specialty. You see I am here as an officer of the courts. It is not for nothing that we brought him to your gates!”

  Then more grumbling from Moses, and Dr. Baz burst into English once again. “No, it is too much. How dare you call me these names? This is not animal magnetism or hypnotism or any quackery. These are modern scientific techniques, invented at University Hospital in Addis Ababa, and useful in your own department—no, you insult me, I insist…”

  Peter felt the doctor’s hand on his elbow and a wet, cold cloth on his inner arm. He knew what was going to happen next. “You will not be alarmed,” said Dr. Baz close to his ear. “This will be finished in a few minutes and will have no terrible effects. It is a solution of sodium thiopental. You will experience some burning.” Then to the others: “Ask whatever you want. In ten minutes you will see.”

  The needle hurt more than he expected. Peter opened his eyes to see the faces of the prophets hovering over him. The doctor wore a pair of cotton gloves. In his right hand was a glass-and-silver syringe. With his left hand he pressed a wad of gauze into Peter’s forearm.

  “Look for the dilation of the eyes,” he said. “Ask what you want. Go on.”

  But they said nothing. They just stared at him, and in time he was conscious of a new sensation in his body. His hands and feet had been chafing uselessly in their leather bonds. Now they lay quiet. The pain in his head was gone, the roaring in his ears. A hot feeling of relaxation came over him.

  “Ask him what you want!” repeated Dr. Baz. “The first minutes are best, before the self can reassert its own identity.”

  There was another pause, and then Turkkan: “What is your name?”

  It took a lot of effort for Peter to respond. In time he opened his mouth and cleared his throat. Then after a few false starts he began to speak, and his own voice was flat and unfamiliar, as if he listened to a tape-recording of himself. In his mind he was reciting:

  Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,

  Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle thunder and flame,

  Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.…

  But the words that actually came out of him were different words, spoken in a different language. The poem seemed to float upon their current—Spanish galleons on the sea. At moments a wave surged up, threatening Peter as he stood upon the deck of the Revenge.

  And the pikes were all broken and bent, and the powder was all of it spent,

  And the masts and the rigging were over the side …

  And in time he heard a long expulsion of breath and then: “It is that man. It must be.”

  There was silence until he spoke again. He heard his voice go on and on, finishing the poem, flubbing the ending, then starting it over. He heard the contrast between his words and the English words. Then Dr. Baz spoke again. “I have no explanation. Ask him something else.”

  Peter was conscious of the heat in his body, and he couldn’t move. But these men had no power over him. He spoke loudly, taking a new, perverse pleasure in the ugliness of his own voice. Then he heard an interruption. “This is all I want. It is enough to hang him. Ask him about the night of Nova Zagora in the rain.”

  It was Moses who had spoken, Mejid Pasha. Peter stared up without blinking and without fear. The man seemed to look down from a long distance. His uniform—black and red, with gold epaulets and gold buttons and colored ribbons across his chest—seemed small for him. Peter could see it was a little bit too small, especially around the neck where the stiff collar pressed into his skin. His beard was short and almost black, his forehead high and bald. His face was full of indignation and disgust, and his teeth were bad. As he spoke, and even from that faraway distance, Peter could smell his breath.

  “Ask him about Nova Zagora. He won’t tell you. I say he is a coward. All your drugs won’t turn a liar to an honest man—I know this. I was corporal in an artillery regiment.”

  His face as he looked down seemed pale and cold as stone. Peter stared at him, then looked past him at the statue of Moses in the wall, holding the ten commandments above his head. “That day we drove them through the black trees in the rain. We stopped at darkness—this was two kilometers from the front. At day we pull the guns out of the mud along the road. One of the caissons is stuck to the axles and we could not pull it out. It was turned onto its side. We cut the horses loose, and the captain told me to go up to a small village on the hillside to find a team of oxen. So I come into the village, and this is the story I hear about the Chevalier de Graz. A Bulgar woman tells it before she died. All the men are gone to fighting, so de Graz comes with ten men over the wall in the black night. Some Jews come out with hunting bows, slings and stones, harquebus and blunder, what they have. They are boys. But this man gives the order and the Roumanians put the barns on
fire. They shoot into the houses. It was raining—I remember this night. In the day I come into this place and find the woman lying in the mud. She tells me the barns are full of hay. Her own mother was shot in her kitchen, and she comes into the yard to beg for life. The rain was like buckets, she says, but the barns were burning because of the hay. She saw this Chevalier de Graz. His face was black with soot like a devil, she says. There were boys and women lying in the mud. But de Graz goes down and takes a calf across his back. He says he cannot tolerate to see animals suffer. They were in black uniforms without marks, and more than two kilometers from their places past the stream.”

  Peter didn’t want to hear this story. And so now the poem in his mind took on a new purpose:

  For some were sunk and many were shattered, and so they could fight no more.

  God of battles, was there ever a battle like this in the world before?

  And he said, “Fight on, fight on,” though his vessel was all but a wreck …

  While he recited, he waited for someone to defend him. He waited for Aristophanes Turkkan to defend him, because Turkkan was a wrestler. Peter imagined he might understand these things, and he was happy when he saw the broad thick face above him, the glinting eyeglasses and waxed moustache. He smelled a new smell that was not the breath of Mejid Pasha, but the honest stink of sweat and booze. “It is true I heard that story about Pieter de Graz. Who has not heard this story? But I did not believe it—have you tried to lift a calf? What kind of imbecile would do this? Two kilometers, you say? It is true—you would have to be a super-man. But with an empty skull!”