and took my find to my own room, listening hard for Mrs. Clay’s foot on the stairs.
The packet was full of letters, each neatly folded into an envelope and addressed to me at our home, as if he had thought he might have to mail them to me one at a time from some other location. I kept them in order-oh, I had learned things without knowing it-and carefully opened the first. It was dated six months earlier and it seemed to begin not with mere words but with a cry from the heart. “My dear daughter”-his handwriting trembled under my eyes-“If you are reading this, forgive me. I have gone to look for your mother.”
Part Two
What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked?… I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of overwork. But my flesh answered the pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of the morning.
– Bram Stoker,Dracula, 1897
Chapter 25
The train station in Amsterdam was a familiar sight to me-I’d passed through it dozens of times. But I had never been there alone before. I had never traveled anywhere alone, and as I sat on a bench waiting for the morning express to Paris, I felt a quickening of my pulses that was not entirely trepidation for my father-a rising of sap that was simply the first moment of complete freedom I had ever known. Mrs. Clay, doing the breakfast dishes at home, thought I was on my way to school. Barley, safely packed off to the ferry wharf, also thought I was on my way to school. I regretted deceiving kind, boring Mrs. Clay and I regretted even more parting from Barley, who had kissed my hand with sudden gallantry on the front step and given me one of his chocolate bars, although I’d reminded him that I could buy Dutch treats anytime I wanted. I thought I might write him a letter when all this trouble had ended-but that far ahead, I could not see.
For now, the Amsterdam morning sparkled, gleamed, shifted around me. Even this morning I found something comforting in the walk along canals from our house to the station, the scent of bread baking and the humid smell of the canals, the not-quite-elegant, busy cleanliness of everything. On a bench at the station, I reviewed my packing: change of clothes, my father’s letters, bread, cheese, foil packages of juice from the kitchen. I had raided the plentiful kitchen cash, too-if I was going to do one bad thing, I was going to do twenty-to supplement what was in my purse. That would tip Mrs. Clay off all too quickly, but there was no help for it-I couldn’t linger until the banks opened to get money out of my childishly small savings account. I had a warm sweater and a rain jacket, my passport, a book for the long train rides, and my French pocket dictionary.
I had stolen something else. From our parlor I had taken a silver knife that sat in the curio cabinet among souvenirs of my father’s far-flung first diplomatic missions, the journeys that had constituted his early attempts to establish his foundation. I had been too young to accompany him, and he’d left me in the United States with various relatives. The knife was of a sinister sharpness and had an ornately embossed handle. It rested in a sheath, also highly decorated. It was the only weapon I’d ever seen in our household-my father disliked guns, and his collector’s taste did not run to swords or battle-axes. I had no idea how to protect myself with the little blade, but I felt more secure knowing it was in my purse.
The station was crowded by the time the express pulled up. I felt then, as I do now, that there is no joy like the arrival of a train, no matter how disturbing your situation-particularly a European train, and particularly a European train that will carry you south. During that period of my life, in the final quarter of the twentieth century, I heard the whistle of some of the last steam locomotives to cross the Alps on a regular run. I boarded now, clutching my schoolbag, almost smiling. I had hours ahead of me, and I was going to need them, not to read my book but to peruse again those precious letters from my father. I believed I’d picked my destination correctly, but I needed to ruminate on why it was correct.
I found a quiet compartment and drew the curtains shut along the aisle next to my seat, hoping no one would follow me in there. After a moment a middle-aged woman in a blue coat and hat came in anyway, but she smiled at me and settled down with a pile of Dutch magazines. In my comfortable corner, watching the old city and then the little green suburbs trundle past, I unfolded again the first of my father’s letters. I knew its opening lines by heart already, the shocking shapes of the words, the startling place and date, the urgent, firm handwriting.
“My dear daughter:
“If you are reading this, forgive me. I have gone to look for your mother. For many years I have believed she was dead, and now I am not certain about that. This uncertainty is almost worse than grief, as you may someday understand; it tortures my heart night and day. I have never told you much about her, and that has been a weakness in me, I know, but our story was too painful for me to relate to you easily. I’d always intended to tell you more as you grew older and could understand it better without being terribly frightened-although, as far as that goes, it has frightened me so much, so unendingly, that this has been the poorest of my excuses to myself about the matter.
“During the last few months, I have tried to compensate for my weakness by telling you little by little what I could about my own past, and I intended to bring your mother gradually into the story, although she entered my life rather suddenly. Now I fear I may not manage to tell you all you should know of your heritage before I am either silenced-literally unable to inform you myself-or fall prey again to my own silences.
“I have described to you some of my life as a graduate student before your birth and have told you a little about the odd circumstance of my adviser’s disappearance after his revelations to me. I have told you also how I met a young woman named Helen who had as great an interest as mine in finding Professor Rossi, perhaps a greater one. At every quiet opportunity I have tried to advance this story for you, but now I feel I should begin to write down the rest of it, commit it securely to paper. If you must read it now instead of listening to me unfold it for you on some rocky hilltop or quiet piazza, in some sheltered harbor or at some comfortable cafe table, then the fault is mine for not telling it quickly enough or sooner.
“As I write this I am looking out over the lights of an old harbor-and you sleep undisturbed and innocent in the next room. I am tired after the day’s work, and tired at the thought of beginning this long narrative-a sad duty, an unfortunate precaution. I feel I have some weeks, possibly months, in which I will certainly be able to continue my tale in person, so I will not retrace all the ground I have already covered for you during our strolls in so many countries. Past that stretch of time-weeks or months-I am less certain. These letters are my insurance against your solitude. In the worst case, you will inherit my house, my money, my furniture and books, but I can easily believe that you will treasure these documents in my hand more than any of the other items, because they will contain your own story, your history.
“Why have I not told you all the facts of this history at a blow, to get it over with, to inform you fully? The answer lies, again, in my own weakness, but also in the fact that an abbreviated version would be exactly that-a blow. I can’t possibly wish you such pain, even if it would be a mere
