Crisan nodded. “We cannot risk the lives of innocents.”
“What are you planning to do?” I asked Van Helsing. I had been watching the man, hoping to find a way to ask him the myriad questions filling my head.
“The council will be meeting to consider our next step,” he replied.
“I think you knew my grandfather, Jonathan Harker, from Essex,” I ventured, finally opening the door that had been closed to me for so long a time.
“My word!” he exclaimed and dropped his fork. He then proceeded to examine my features like a lost man peruses a map. “Of course! You have the eyes, the nose, and chin. How is your grandfather, you say? The years . . . How is the lad, uh, fellow? He was a solicitor, if I remember correctly.”
“Well, he left the law to become a vicar after your . . . adventures. Church of England, of course. He is very well. Spry for his age, last I saw him.”
“And your grandmother? Wilhelmina, right?”
“Yes, though nobody ever called her that—she went by Mina. We lost her in ’36. Influenza.” I remembered my grandmother’s kind face, how every time she brushed aside the bangs that hung to her eyebrows I would catch a glimpse of the scar on her forehead, the mark of the Host, and her macabre history, with my grandfather and this man.
“I am sorry. Ah, that wonderful Mina, pearl among women. A vivacious and beautiful girl. So intelligent. And very brave during what you call our ‘adventure.’”
“I am proud to have her maiden name as my middle, Jonathan Murray Harker, sir.”
And I offered my hand. He took it in his own, the skin as dry as autumn leaves, the fingers long and delicate. His grip was firm for a man of his years. How old was he? His whole aspect was of vitality and a rapacious intelligence.
“To think, after all of these years, the chance of our meeting, here . . .” He shook his head in wonderment.
“Not much chance to it, sir. I requested this posting, fought for it, actually. When I was but a boy, I would sit at my grandfather’s knee and he would recount the events that befell you and him, along with Mina and that fellow Morris, Dr. Seward, poor Lucy . . .”
I suddenly realised how his daughter, Lucille, had come to her appellation. No one called me on the slip of my tongue. I glanced at Lucy. “Lucille” was too formal an appellation for such an Amazon. I was a bit abashed, but she only smiled at me. I think I detected some new respect or interest in my personage, and I could not help but feel more confident under her gaze.
“Lucy Westenra . . .” the Professor mused. “Poor, poor Lucy.” He slipped into the embrace of Mnemosyne for a moment.
“I was named after her,” Lucy said, most likely to cover for her father’s momentary lapse.
“Named after the one I lost through my own failures as much as the depredations of an evil force,” Van Helsing said with a slump of his shoulders and a sadness which demonstrated that the passing of the years had not assuaged his feelings toward the matter.
“I haven’t found out if it is a blessing or a curse,” Lucy said. “Yet.”
“You have fashioned your own path, my dear.” Her father laid his hand on hers, and she glanced at him tenderly. “A crooked path at times, one that has wandered the ends of the earth and strewn broken hearts at your feet for paving stones, but you are your own woman, of this there is no doubt.”
I turned to her and summoned what courage I could muster, perhaps from the beneficence of the wine.
“So you have travelled a bit?” I asked her.
“My father, to his credit, encouraged me to become a cosmopolitan being and, thusly, I travelled. I schooled in Switzerland, Spain, even England.”
“No school could tolerate her behaviour for more than a semester.” Her father shook his head.
“My behaviour”—her eyes fixed on mine as she spoke, and I could not help but be transfixed by those verdant eyes—“was the consequence of a medieval scholastic philosophy and an equally antiquated view of what a female should or could accomplish. Narrow-minded academic twits. Especially in England.”
“After school, you came back here?” I offered, attempting to calm her ire.
“Not for a while. I travelled. Spent some time in Berlin, Paris. Ah, Paris . . . Paris was . . . disappointing. Then I went to North America. New York was fun. I spent a short time as a chorus girl in an abysmal musical, even though I have the terpsichorean abilities of a plow horse. Then I crossed the continent by rail—hoboing, they call it—reading Edgar Lee Masters, Odets, Steinbeck, and Frost. For a bit I worked on a fishing boat in Sausalito, California. I’ll never eat another sardine. Drove through the Central and South Americas with a Portuguese opera singer and her gigolo in a touring car with bad springs and a radiator with more holes than a colander. Took a tramp steamer to Indochina, flew across China with an aviatrix under the influence of opium and Sappho—she, not I. Trekked Greece, Italy, and found myself back in Berlin, living in a rat-infested garret with six penniless artistes until the fascists made life unbearable.”
“My God, woman, you have lived ten lives!” I exclaimed.
“She never lights on one flower for long, much like the hummingbird.” The Professor looked me in the eye. A warning perhaps.
“My wings are a blur, but my beak is sharp.” Lucy laughed, a silvery, musical sound, like the tingling sweetness of water glasses when played by a clever hand. The sound stopped my heart. I felt a wicked, burning desire for her to kiss me with those tumid lips.
Van Helsing regarded me with some sympathy. No doubt he had witnessed a plethora of young men falling under the enchanting spell of his daughter.
“She came home only to warn me about the gathering storm in Germany. About which she was entirely prescient,” her father added. “‘In the nightmare of the dark / All the dogs of Europe bark.’”
“Yeats.” I recognised the quote. “The ‘beast that prowls at every door and barks at every headline.’ MacNeice.”
“Oh, you’re one of those,” Lucy said. “You parry quotation with quotation. Poetry is not for dueling, sir.”
Once more I was abashed and could not meet her eyes. After supper was done the three rebels departed, Horea being teased about the aforementioned Floarea and the other two creating rather juvenile, vulgar rhymes about their relationship.
When I found myself alone with the Van Helsings, I could not allow myself to tarry in Lucy’s presence, afraid of any faux pas I would most certainly make in my current state of infatuation. I sought refuge upon my narrow cot in the badger burrow of the Van Helsing basement.
Renfield was already asleep, and I had no one to share the recent cracking revelation with, even though he was probably in no state to appreciate it since he had more than a few pages glued together. The Sergeant slept a lot; whether this was his customary habit before his accident I did not know, but I assumed the rest would be good for his recovery. The bare bulb cast the corners of the room in deep shadow, but I dared not turn it off. When I had done so previously, Renfield put up such a fuss that I had to turn it back on. It seemed he was deathly afraid of the dark. Again, whether this phobia was from before his accident or after I did not know.
I lay on the taut canvas of the cot, staring at the ancient wooden beams over my head, spinning scenarios of Lucy and me conniving against the enemy. I am afraid that too many of these fantasies resembled Hollywood tales, with me in trench coat and snapped brim hat a la Bogart or Brian Aherne, kissing Lucy on some foggy, foreign street, danger around every dark corner.
This sweet reverie was interrupted by the creaking of the door at the top of the stairs. I could see only bare feet, but I knew them to be Lucy’s. She descended the steps and revealed herself like a curtain slowly rising. First I saw the hem of a green silk kimono, then more, the material embroidered with white storks, wings extended in full flight. The hints of her body, the curve of her hip and the rise of her bosom, were highlighted with shiny reflections. Her face was in shadow but the glow of the lightbulb set her russet ta
ngle into frozen flames. Blast, I was barmy about the girl.
“English?” she whispered. “Are you awake?” She did not wait for an answer, but took my rising as confirmation.
“Come,” she intoned softly.
I hastily re-belted my trousers, which I had loosened for comfort as I prepared for sleep, and followed her up the stairs.
Without another word she preceded me through the kitchen, the living room, to the stairs leading to the rooms above. She waited for me at the third step, and when she saw that I was indeed behind her, she continued the climb. I was in her thrall, mesmerised by the sway of her hips under that silk, hearing the soft rustle of the cloth, whispered inducements as I imagined every caress of the material against her skin.
She paused again at the door to what I assumed was her bedroom. Or was it her father’s? I panicked, thinking I had presumed too much, that this was an invitation to an innocent meeting.
“Come to me, Jonathan. Come, and we can rest together,” she said. There was something diabolically sweet in her tone.
But then I could see a struggle on her face. She resolved her quandary and opened the door. Taking my hand, she led me inside and closed the door behind us. The click of the lock as she turned the key was like an electric shock down my spine.
My eyes followed her hands as she released the belt at her waist and a mere shrug of her shoulders caused the robe to fall from her body like a green waterfall. She stood before me in naked glory.
I heard a moan and surmised that this noise had been emitted by my own throat. Her hands then went about relieving me of my clothing. I stood there immobile, unable to assist her in any manner, paralyzed by my own concupiscence. I felt a stupefying vertigo, as if all the blood had left my brain and gone elsewhere. When she had stripped me of my trousers and underthings, I was confronted, as was she, with evidence to support this circulatory hypothesis.
When her bare hands made contact with my turgid plight I almost fainted and was saved only by her pushing me onto her bed.
I am too much of a gentleman to detail what followed, but I can confess this much: What transpired put any youthful erotic imaginings to shame. Repeatedly. Again and again. Until we both fell into a deep, exhausted slumber.
Another entry. I am back in my own bed, for propriety’s sake, and I have to admit still in some sort of swoon. She is one of God’s women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter and that its portal can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble . . . on second thought, more bittersweet.
APRIL 28
This entire day I have been in a complete fog. Last night’s beatitude seems like a delirium. Breakfast and a midday meal were announced, but only the Professor was present. Whether the fair Lucy was avoiding me or, as was explained by her father, truly arranging a meeting of the partisan cell leadership I did not know. I ate little, positively moonstruck, dwelling on sweet, dare I say, tumescent memories of the night before. Renfield’s appetite was formidable, in no way diminished by his incapacitation, and he could spend hours sitting by himself with only his thoughts to occupy him. What these thoughts might have been, I had no clue.
My own thoughts drifted to fantasies of Lucy and me. I envisioned dramas of my perilous efforts, commanding brave partisan raids and returning to her welcoming arms, she bandaging my various minor wounds and rewarding my exploits with tender lovemaking.
These daydreams are obviously drawn from the font of my juvenile interests in Kipling and Tennyson. As a boy, the stories of the British Raj in India fascinated me. The Lives of a Bengal Lancer was read, re-read, and acted out with my mates in backyards; we killed each other with our stick swords and pantomime guns over and over and over. I sat through The Iron Mask multiple times at the local cinema and recited the plot to my school chums, re-creating every bit of Douglas Fairbanks derring-do.
My father, who had served in the trenches during the Great War, showed concern and disapproval about my enthusiasm for the romance of war. But romantic, knightly notions of affaire d’honneur are not discouraged so easily.
And one important part of these stories is the rewards of glory—the love of a beautiful woman. That my prize has come so early, before I have proven my worth on the field of battle, I have no regret. In fact, my desire to prove myself has increased manifold.
It was almost poetic, my current state. I have a formidable enemy, his evil aptly demonstrated in the Brasov massacre and at the crossroads, and I have a beautiful female paramour to recognise any heroics I might demonstrate.
Now all I need is a mission to prove myself.
Wandering downstairs I found the Professor reading, deep into some obscure text, bent over a book on his desk, unaware of anything but the page inches from his nose.
I scavenged some cheese and bread from the pantry, a bit of sausage, and a local cider. After feeding Renfield and myself, I couldn’t wait any longer and interrupted the Professor, asking the whereabouts of dear Lucy. He assured me that she was soon due, but I could see the worry in his face. I shared his anxiety, coupled with an almost overwhelming desire for her embrace, if not more.
As if by my bidding she suddenly came through the door, out of breath, discarding her binoculars and undoing the garters that bound her pants for bicycling.
“The meeting has been called, in less than an hour,” she said. “I notified everyone personally. There are checkpoints all about town. That is why I am delayed.”
“You couldn’t use the phone?” I asked, somewhat peevishly, resenting my exclusion from her escapades.
“We cannot chance that the Nazis are eavesdropping on the lines,” she told me.
I cursed myself for not thinking of that devious stratagem. Who was the spy here?
The Professor grabbed his coat. “Have you eaten?” he asked his daughter. She nodded.
“I assume that you can drive.” He directed this to me. I said I could. I had noticed that the kind doctor spoke none of the fractured English as was characterised in The Book. Might he have learned better in the ensuing years? Or had the Irishman gilded the lily in that respect?
The automobile was a magnificent 1930 Bentley Speed Six Sportsman Coupe fastback in immaculate condition. It started on the first try, and the engine purred as smoothly as an old maid’s tabby. The Professor explained that he had used his standing as a medical man to receive an allotment of fuel outside the normal Rumanian war-time rationing, much like the police, fire, and, of course, military vehicles.
Lucy sat beside me and gave me directions as I focused on staying on the correct side of the road. She gave no hint at what we had shared on our night of bliss—a pose for her father, I assumed. We were stopped twice at SS roadblocks, once on the outskirts of the town and once more in Brasov proper. Each time papers were demanded, my SOE-forged documents passing muster easily, and we were lectured about the curfew. The Professor cut these reprimands short with a letter of dispensation from the Rumanian military declaring that he was a medical doctor. He sported the universal black bag to reinforce his legitimacy and introduced Lucy as his nurse.
“On an emergency call,” he would explain. “Sick child.”
As I gripped the steering wheel I realised that my hands no longer pained me, a mere stiffness from the healing scabs and scar tissue. The old crone must have been, as I suspected, a witch. Still, I wore gloves as a bit of protection and to hide the still-healing wounds. The gash on my knee was mending nicely and pained me not at all.
Somewhere in the midst of the Brasov warrens I was told to park. I had no idea where we were, having little knowledge of the town outside of a dated Lydecker I had purchased in a London bookstore. I had kept it in my coat pocket, but that cursed river crossing had plucked it from my person as easily as the Artful Dodger. I tried to keep track of our movements, but the walk through the maze of narrow streets only confused me more with no landmarks but the high walls closing upon me.
“My grandfather did not
tell me that you were a medical doctor,” I said, as we walked the dark narrow streets. “I received the impression that your degree was in philosophy.”
“That and sociology, psychology, history, and botany. At that time I only had a modicum of medical training. I wished for more,” he said without a tinge of arrogance. “When I settled here, there was a paucity of medical men, and so I furthered my medical education a bit more to fill the void. And lately some astronomy, a little physics.”
“The hummingbird doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Lucy chimed in and they shared a laugh.
“Halt!” Out of the shadows stepped two German soldiers. We stopped. One, a Corporal, aimed his Schmeisser at us. The other, his Sergeant, eyed us with suspicion.
“What are you doing out after curfew?” the Sergeant demanded.
“I am a doctor.” Van Helsing straightened his posture and took on an imperious air. “I have an emergency. A child with appendicitis.” He handed the Nazi Sergeant his dispensation papers and hefted his black bag to waist level as if it were proof of his profession.
The Sergeant inspected the paper while his Corporal did the same for Lucy. I swallowed my anger at the blatant sexual overtones of his examination. He even stroked his mustache like a silent movie villain, the rotter.
“And the girl?” the Corporal asked.
“I was a girl when you were counting the hairs on your balls,” Lucy sneered at the man. I saw her hand slip into her coat where she carried that ridiculous Luger with a barrel as long as a carbine.
Van Helsing glared at his daughter.
“My nurse,” Van Helsing explained. “And my impertinent daughter.”
“A nurse.” The Jerry grinned. “Maybe she could look at something for me. Sometimes it swells to alarming proportions.”
I held myself in check. Lucy had not the self-control.
“I’m quite familiar with those symptoms,” she said. “I recommend you handle it the way you usually do. If you need, I can write you a prescription for a lamb.”
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