by Brian Lumley
These were some of the thoughts which passed through his mind as he drove up through the old country from Bucharest towards Pitesti; and as his Volga passed a signpost which stated that the town was sixteen kilometres ahead, he remembered how three years ago he had been on his way to Pitesti when Borowitz had recalled him to Moscow. Strangely, he had not given thought to the library in Pitesti from that day to this, but now he felt himself drawn again to visit the place. He still knew so very little about vampirism and the undead, and what knowledge he did have was dubious in that it had come from the vampire himself. But if ever a library was the seat of local lore and legend, then surely the reference library in Pitesti was that one.
Dragosani remembered the place from his years at the college in Bucharest. The college had often used to borrow old documents and records concerning Wallachian and ancient Romanian matters from Pitesti, for a great amount of historical material had been taken there for safety from Ploiesti and Bucharest during World War II. In the case of Ploiesti this had been a wise move, for the city had suffered some of the worst bombing of the war. In any case, much of the material had not found its way back to the original museums and libraries but remained in Pitesti even now. Certainly it had been there as recently as eighteen or nineteen years ago.
So… the old Thing in the ground could wait a little longer on Dragosani’s return. He would go first to the library in Pitesti, have lunch later in the town, and only then carry on into the heart of his homeland…
By 11:00 a.m. Dragosani was there, had introduced himself to the librarian on duty, asked to be allowed to see any documents pertaining to boyar families, lands, battles, monuments, ruins and burial grounds, or any records at all for the regions comprising Wallachia and Moldavia — and especially local areas — circa the mid-fifteenth-century. The librarian seemed agreeable enough and only too pleased to assist (despite the fact that he appeared to find Dragosani’s request a little amusing, or sufficiently so to cause him to smile) but after he had taken his visitor to the room which housed those old records… then Dragosani had been able to appreciate the funny side of it for himself.
In a room of barnlike dimensions he found shelves containing sufficient of books and documents and records to fill several large army trucks, all of it relating to his inquiry! ‘But… isn’t it catalogued?’ he asked. ‘Of course, sir,’ the young ^librarian told him, smiling again; and he produced an armful of catalogues whose heading alone — if Dragosani had been willing to contemplate such a task — would have taken several days in itself; and that without taking down one of the listed items from its shelf.
‘But it would take a year or more to sift through this lot!’ he finally complained.
‘It has already taken twenty,’ the other told him, ‘and that was simply for the purpose of cataloguing — or mainly for that purpose. But that is not the only difficulty. For even if you could afford so much time, still you would not be allowed it. At last the authorities are splitting it up; much is returning to Bucharest, a large amount is scheduled for Budapest, even Moscow has made application. It will be moved, most of it, some time in the next three months.’
‘Well you’re right,’ said Dragosani. ‘I haven’t years or months but just a few days. So… I wonder if there’s some way I might narrow my search down?’
‘Ah!’ said the other. ‘But then there’s the question of language. Do you wish to see Turkish language records?… Hungarian?… German? Is your interest purely Slavicist? Is it Christian or Ottoman? Do you have any specific points of reference — landmarks, as it were? All of the material here is at least three hundred years old, but some of it dates back seven centuries and more! As I’m sure you’re aware, the central span — which seems to be the seat of your interest — covers many decades of constant flux. Here are the records of foreign conquerors, yes, but we also have the records of those who thrust them out. Are you capable of understanding the texts of these works? They are, after all, half a millennium old. If you can understand them, then you’re a scholar indeed! I certainly can’t, not with any degree of accuracy — and I’ve been trained to read them…’
And then, seeing Dragosani’s look of helplessness, he had added: ‘Sir, perhaps if you could be more specific…?’
Dragosani saw no reason for subterfuge. ‘I’m interested in the vampire myth, which seems to have had its roots right here — in Transylvania, Moldavia, Wallachia — and dates back, so far as is known, to the fifteenth century.’
The librarian took a pace back from him, lost his smile. Suddenly he seemed wary. ‘But you are surely not a tourist?’
‘No, basically I’m Romanian, now living and working in Moscow. But what’s that got to do with it?’
The librarian, perhaps three or four years younger than
Dragosani and obviously a little awed by his almost cosmopolitan appearance, seemed to be giving the matter a deal of consideration. He chewed his lip, frowned and was silent for long moments. But at last he said, ‘If you’ll take a look at them, you’ll note that those catalogues I gave you are mainly hand-written and penned in one uniform hand throughout. And I’ve already told you that there’s at least twenty years of work in them. Well, the man who did that work is still alive and lives not far away, in Titu. That’s towards Bucharest, about twenty-five miles.’
‘I know the place,’ said Dragosani. ‘I drove through here not half an hour ago. Do you think he could help me?’
‘Oh, yes — if he wanted to.’ That sounded cryptic. ‘Well, go on — ?’
The librarian seemed unsure, looked away for a moment. ‘Oh, I made a mistake two or three years ago, sent a couple of American “researchers” to see him. He wanted no truck with them, threw them out! A bit eccentric, you see? Since that time I’m more careful. We’ve had a good many requests of this nature, you understand. This “Dracula” thing is something of an industry, apparently, in the West. And it’s this commercial aspect that Mr Giresci is anxious to avoid. That’s his name, by the way: Ladislau Giresci.’ ‘Are you telling me that this man is an expert on vampirism?’ Dragosani felt his interest quickening. ‘Do you mean to say that he’s been studying the legends, tracing their history through these documents, for twenty-odd years?’
‘Well, among other things, yes, that’s what I’m saying. It’s been what you might call a hobby — or perhaps an obsession — with him. But a very useful obsession where the library has been concerned.’
Then I have to go and see him! It might save me a great deal of time and wasted energy.’
The librarian shrugged. ‘Well, I can give you directions, and his address, but… it will be entirely up to him whether or not he’ll see you. It might help if you took him a bottle of whisky. He’s a great whisky man, when he can afford it — but the Scottish sort and not that filth they brew in Bulgaria!’
‘You just give me his address,’ said Dragosani. ‘He’ll see me, all right. Of that I can assure you.’
Dragosani found the place just as the librarian had described it, on the Bucharest road about a mile outside of Titu. On a small estate of wooden, two-storey houses set back from the road in a few acres of woodland, Ladislau Giresci’s place was conspicuous by its comparative isolation. All of the houses had gardens or plots of ground surrounding them and separating them from their neighbours, but Giresci’s house stood well away from all others on the rim of the estate, lost in a stand of pines, hedgerows run wild amid untended shrubbery and undergrowth.
The cobbled drive leading to the house itself had been narrowed by burgeoning hedges, where leafy creepers were throwing their tendrils across the cobbles; the gar dens were overgrown and slowly returning to the wilderness; the house was visibly affected by dry rot in a fairly advanced state, and wore an atypical air of almost total neglect. By comparison, the other houses on the estate were in good order and their gardens well maintained. Some small effort had been made at maintenance and repair, however, for here and there at the front of the house an old board had been
removed and a new one nailed in place, but even the most recent of these must be all of five years old. The path from the garden gate to the front door was likewise overgrown, but Dragosani persisted and knocked upon panels from which the last flakes of paint were fast falling.
In one hand he carried a string bag containing a bottle of whisky bought from the liquor store in Pitesti, a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, some fruit. The food was for himself (his lunch, if nothing else was available) and the bottle, as advised, for Giresci. If he was at home. As Dragosani waited, that began to seem unlikely; but after knocking again, louder this time, finally he heard movement from within.
The figure which finally opened the door to him was male, perhaps sixty years of age, and fragile as a pressed flower. His hair was white — not grey but white, like a crest of snow upon the hill of his brow — and his skin was even paler than Dragosani’s own, with a shine to it as if it were polished. His right leg was wooden, an old peg as opposed to any sort of modern prosthetic device, but he seemed to handle his disability with more than sufficient agility. His back was a little bent and he held one shoulder gingerly and winced when he moved it; but his eyes were keen, brown and sure, and as he enquired as to Dragosani’s business his breath was clean and healthy.
‘You don’t know me, Mr Giresci,’ said Dragosani, ‘but I’ve learned something of you, and what I’ve learned has fascinated me. I suppose you could say I’m something of a historian, whose special interest lies way back in old Wallachia. And I’ve been told that no one knows the history of these parts better than you.’
‘Hmm!’ said Giresci, looking his visitor up and down. ‘Well, there are professors at the university in Bucharest who’d dispute that — but I wouldn’t!’ He stood blocking the way inside, seemingly uncertain, but Dragosani noted that his brown eyes went again to the string bag and the bottle.
‘Whisky,’ said Dragosani. ‘I’m partial to a drop and it’s hard stuff to come by in Moscow. Maybe you’ll join me in a glass — while we talk?’
‘Oh?’ Giresci barked. ‘And who said we were going to talk?’ But again his eyes went to the bottle, and in a softer tone: ‘Scotch, did you say?’
‘Of course. There’s only one real whisky, and that’s — ‘
‘What’s your name, young man?’ Giresci cut him off. He still blocked the way into his house, but his eyes held a look of interest now.
‘Dragosani. Boris Dragosani. I was born in these parts.’
‘And is that why you’re interested in their history? Somehow I don’t think so.’ From frank and open scrutiny, now his eyes took on a look of wary suspicion. ‘You wouldn’t be representing any foreigners, would you? Americans, for example?’
Dragosani smiled. ‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘No, for I know you’ve had trouble with strangers before. But I’ll not lie to you, Ladislau Giresci, my interest is probably the same as theirs was. I was given your address by the librarian in Pitesti.’
‘Ah?’ said Giresci. ‘Is that so? Well, he knows well enough who I’ll see and who I won’t see, so it seems your credentials must be all right. But let’s hear it from you now — from your own lips — and no holding back: just what is your interest?’
‘Very well’ (Dragosani could see no way round it, and little point in hedging the matter anyway), ‘I want to know about vampires.’
The other stared hard at him, seemed not at all surprised. ‘Dracula, you mean?’
Dragosani shook his head. ‘No. I mean real vampires. The vampir of Transylvanian legend — the cult of the Wamphyri!’
At that Giresci gave a start, winced again as his bad shoulder jumped, leaned forward a little and grasped Dragosani’s arm. He breathed heavily for a moment and said: ‘Oh? The Wamphyri, eh? Well — perhaps I will talk to you. Yes, and certainly I’d appreciate a glass of whisky. But first you tell me something. You said you wanted to know about the real vampire, the legend. Are you sure you don’t mean the myth? Tell me, Dragosani: do you believe in vampires?’
Dragosani looked at him. Giresci was watching him keenly, waiting, almost holding his breath. And something told Dragosani that he had him. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said softly, after a moment. ‘Indeed I do!’ ‘Hmm!’ the other nodded — and stood aside. ‘Then you’d better come in, Mr Dragosani. Come in, come in — and we’ll talk.’
However dilapidated Giresci’s place might look from outside, inside it was as clean and neat as any cripple living on his own could possibly keep it. Dragosani was pleasantly surprised at the sense of order he felt as he followed his host through rooms panelled in locally crafted oak, where carpets patterned in the old Slavic tradition kept one’s feet from sliding on warmly glowing, age-polished pine boards. However rustic, the place was warm and welcoming — on the one hand. But on the other -
Giresci’s penchant — his all-consuming ‘hobby’ or obsession — was alive and manifest in every room. It saturated the atmosphere of the house in exactly the same way as mummy-cases in a museum inspire a sense of endless ergs of sand and antique mystery — except that here the picture was of bitter mountain passes and fierce pride, of cold wastes and aching loneliness, of a procession of endless wars and blood and incredible cruelties. The rooms were old Romania. This was Wallachia. The walls of one room were hung with old weapons, swords, pieces of armour. Here was an early sixteenth-century arquebusier, and here a vicious barbed pike. A black, pitted cannonball from a small Turkish cannon held open a door (Giresci had found it on an ancient battlefield near the ruins of a fortress close to Tirgoviste) and a pair of ornate Turkish scimitars decorated the wall over the fireplace. There were terrible axes, maces and flails, and a badly battered and rusty cuirass, with the breastplate hacked almost in half from the top. The wall of the corridor which divided the main living-room from the kitchen and bedrooms was hung with framed prints or likenesses of the infamous Vlad princes, and with boyar family genealogies. There were family crests and motifs, too, complicated battle maps, sketches (from Giresci’s own hand) of crumbling fortifications, tumuli, earthworks, ruined castles and keeps.
And books! Shelf upon shelf of them, most of them crumbling — and many quite obviously valuable — but all rescued by Giresci wherever he had found them over the years: in sales, old bookshops and antique shops, or from estates fallen into poverty or ruin along with the once-powerful aristocracy. All in all, the house was a small museum in itself, and Giresci the sole keeper and curator.
‘This arquebusier,’ Dragosani remarked at one point, ‘must be worth a small fortune!’
To a museum or a collector, possibly,’ said his host. ‘I’ve never looked into the question of value. But how’s this for a weapon?’ And he handed Dragosani a crossbow.
Dragosani took it, weighed it in his hand, frowned. The weapon was fairly modern, heavy, probably as accurate as a rifle, and very deadly. The interesting thing was that its ‘bolt’ was of wood, possibly lignum vitae, with a tip of polished steel. Also, it was loaded. ‘It certainly doesn’t fit in with the rest of your stuff,’ he said.
Giresci grinned, showing strong square teeth. ‘Oh but
it does! My “other stuff’, as you put it, tells what was, what might still be. This crossbow is my answer to it. A deterrent. A weapon against it.’
Dragosani nodded. ‘A wooden stake through the heart, eh? And would you really hunt a vampire with this?’
Giresci grinned again, shook his head. ‘Nothing so foolish,’ he said. ‘Anyone who seeks to hunt down a vampire has to be a madman! I am merely eccentric. Hunt one? Never! But what if a vampire decided to hunt me? Call it self-protection, if you will. Anyway, I feel happier with it in the house.’
‘But why would you fear such a thing? I mean — all right, I’m in agreement with you that such creatures have existed and still do, possibly — but why would one of them bother itself with you?’
‘If you were a secret agent,’ said Giresci, (at which Dragosani smiled inside) ‘would you be happy — would you ever feel safe — knowing
that some outsider knew your business, your secrets? Of course you wouldn’t. And what of the Wamphyri? Now… I think that perhaps the risk is a very small one — but twenty years ago when I bought this weapon I wasn’t so sure. I had seen something which would stay with me for the rest of my life. Such creatures really were, yes, and I knew about them. And the more I looked into their legend, their history, the more monstrous they became. In those days I could not sleep for my nightmares. Buying the crossbow was like whistling in the dark, I suppose: it might not keep away the dark forces, but at least it would let them know that I wasn’t afraid of them!’
‘Even if you were?’ said Dragosani.
Giresci’s keen eyes looked deep into his own. ‘Of course I was,’ he finally answered. ‘What? Here in Romania? Here under these mountains? In this house, where I’ve amassed and studied the evidence? I was frightened, yes. But now
‘Now?’
The other pulled a half-disappointed face. ‘Well I’m still here, alive after all these years. Nothing has “happened” to me, has it? And so now… now I think that maybe they are, after all, extinct. Oh, they existed — if anyone knows that, I do — but perhaps the last of them has gone forever. I hope so, anyway. But what about you? What do you say, Dragosani?’
