An Uncertain Place

‘And there was a noise?’

‘Yes, a horrible scream that could be heard all over the village, and a stream of blood filled the grave. His hideous body was taken out and burnt until nothing remained. And the nine victims, well, the villagers shut their bodies up in a sealed vault, and after that they abandoned that graveyard for good.’

‘The old one to the west of the village?’

‘That’s right. They were afraid of contagion spreading underground. And the deaths stopped. Or so the story says.’

Adamsberg took a tiny sip of rakija.

‘On the edge of the wood, under the mound, that’s where his ashes are?’

‘There are two versions. Either his ashes were scattered into the Danube or they were collected and put in that grave, a long way out of the village. There’s a general belief that some bit of Plogojowitz survives, because they can hear him munching under the ground. But it means that he’s lost his toxicity, since he’s sunk to the lower status of shroud-eater.’

‘He’s become a sub-vampire?’

‘A passive vampire who doesn’t leave his tomb, but expresses his greed by eating everything around him, his shroud, his coffin, the earth. There are thousands of reports of the shroud-eaters. You can hear their teeth gnashing together under the earth. But you’d still do best not to go too near and to make sure they’re blocked inside their tombs.’

‘That’s what the logs are there for?’

‘To stop him getting out, yes.’

‘Who puts them there?’

‘Arandjel,’ said Vlad, dropping his voice, as Danica approached to refill their glasses.

‘And why are the trees all cut down around the grave?’

‘Because their roots reach down into the earth round the tomb. The wood’s contaminated, so it mustn’t be allowed to spread. And you shouldn’t pick any flowers, because Plogojowitz is in their stems. Arandjel cuts all the vegetation down once a year.’

‘He believes Plogojowitz can get out of there?’

‘Arandjel is the only person in the village who doesn’t believe it. Here about a quarter of the people believe it one hundred per cent. Another quarter shake their heads and won’t say yes or no, for fear of attracting the vampire’s anger by mocking it. The other half of the villagers pretend not to believe it, and say it’s just old wives’ tales fit to worry people in days gone by. But they’re never quite sure, which is why the men didn’t leave the village during the war. And only Arandjel truly doesn’t believe it. That’s why he’s not afraid to be an expert on all vampires, every kind: varkolac, opyr, vurdalak, nosferatu, vestica, stafia, morije.’

‘That’s a lot of vampires.’

‘Here, Adamsberg, in a radius of about five hundred kilometres, there were thousands of different vampires. And we’re at the epicentre. Where Plogojowitz reigned, the undisputed master of the throng.’

‘If Arandjel doesn’t believe in it, why does he look after the tomb?’

‘To reassure the people here. He changes the logs every year because the wood rots from underneath. And some people say that’s because Plogojowitz has eaten all the earth and is starting on the logs. So Arandjel replaces them, and cuts off any shoots. Of course he’s the only person who dares. Nobody else goes near, but on the whole people are reasonable enough. They think Plogojowitz isn’t so powerful now, because he’s transferred his powers to his descendants.’

‘And where are they? Here?’

‘You must be joking! Even before they dug Plogojowitz up, the rest of his family fled the village to avoid being massacred. His descendants are dispersed all over the place now, who knows where. Little vampirelets left and right. But some people still think that if Plogojowitz manages to get out of his grave, they will all get together in a great terrible entity. Other people say that part of Plogojowitz may be here, but he’s reconstituted himself whole somewhere else.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know. All this is what my dedo used to tell me. If you want to know any more, you’ll have to ask Arandjel. He’s kind of the Adrianus of Serbia.’

‘Vlad, do you know if any particular family was destroyed by Plogojowitz?’

‘I just told you, his own. There were nine deaths among his relations. Which means there was some sort of epidemic. Old Plogojowitz must have been ill, and passed the infection on to his own family, then it spread to their contacts. It’s that simple! But people got scared and looked for a scapegoat, found out who was the first mortal case, stuck a stake in his heart and that was that.’

‘And what if the epidemic carried on?’

‘Must have happened often. Well, they’d reopen the grave, thinking that the remains of the cursed person were still active, and they’d start again.’

‘What if they’d thrown the ashes into the river?’

‘Well, then they’d open up some other grave, a man or woman suspected of having saved a bit of the monster from the fire and eaten it, so that they became a vampir in turn. And it went on until the epidemic died out. So finally they’d be able to say: “The deaths came to an end.”’

‘But, Vladislav, the deaths haven’t come to an end. A man called Plogener in Pressbaum, and another called Plog in Garches have been killed. Two Plogojowitz descendants, one in Austria, one in France. Can we get something else besides rakija to drink? This stuff’s eating me up like your shroud-eaters. A beer? Could we have a beer?’

‘Some Jelen?’

‘Yes, fine, some Jelen.’

‘Perhaps something else happened to inspire the vengeance? Suppose that Plogojowitz wasn’t a vampire in 1725? What would you say then?’

Adamsberg smiled at the landlady as she brought him his beer and tried to remember how to say ‘thank you’.

He consulted the back of his hand.

‘Hvala,’ he said, with a gesture signifying smoking, and Danica produced from the folds of her skirt a packet he didn’t recognise, Morava.

‘A present,’ said Vlad. ‘She asked me why you have two wristwatches, when neither of them tells the right time.’

‘Tell her I don’t know.’

‘On ne zna,’ Vlad translated. And went on, ‘She fancies you.’

Danica returned to the office where she did the accounts and Adamsberg watched her go, her ample hips swaying under the red-and-grey skirt.

‘So,’ Vlad insisted, ‘what if there never was a vampire?’

‘Then I’d look for some family saga that led to reprisals and death sentences. A secret murder, a betrayed husband, an illegitimate child, a fortune diverted into the wrong hands. Vaudel-Plog was very rich, and he didn’t leave his money to his son.’

‘Well, there you are. That’s where you ought to look. Where the money is.’

‘But there are the bodies, Vlad. They’ve been taken apart so that they couldn’t possibly be reconstituted. Is that what they did to vampires, or did they just stick to the stake and the fire?’

‘Only Arandjel can tell you that.’

‘So where is he? When can I see him?’

There was a brief exchange with Danica, then Vlad came back, looking somewhat surprised.

‘Apparently Arandjel is expecting you to have lunch with him tomorrow and he’s going to prepare some stuffed cabbage. He knows you cleaned the tombstone and looked at it – everybody knows about that by now. He says you shouldn’t start meddling with that sort of thing. It could be fatal for you.’

‘I thought you said Arandjel didn’t believe in all that.’

‘Fatal for you,’ repeated Vlad, emptying his glass of rakija, and bursting out laughing.