her heavy skirts and black vest, her bare head dark as polished wood, her braid hanging over her shoulder. Her eyes were dark, too, and frightened, but the radiant intelligence of her face leapt out at me.
I opened my mouth to speak to her, and at that moment she flew across the gap that separated us and threw herself into my arms. To my astonishment, she seemed to have given herself completely to me, and our feelings soon brought us to a full intimacy as tender and pure as it was unplanned. I found we could speak to each other freely-in which of our languages I am no longer sure-and I could read the world and perhaps all my own future in the darkness of her eyes, with their thick lashes and the delicate Asiatic fold at the inner corner.
When she had gone, and I was left alone with my trembling emotion, I tried to consider what I had done, what we had done, but my sense of completion and happiness interfered at every mental turn. Today I will go to wait for her again, because I cannot help it, because my whole being seems now to be bound up in the being of one so different from myself and yet so exquisitely familiar that I can scarcely understand what has happened.
My dear friend (if it is still you to whom I write),
I have lived four days in paradise now, and my love for the angel who presides over it seems to be exactly that-love. Never before have I felt for any woman what I feel now, in this alien place. With only a few more days to think, I have, of course, been considering this from every angle. The idea of leaving her and never seeing her again seems to me as impossible as that I should never see my home again. On the other hand, I have struggled with what bringing her with me would mean-how, in the first place, I could cruelly detach her from her own home and family, and what the consequences would be were she to come with me to Oxford. This last thought is complicated in the extreme, but the starkness of the situation is clear to me: if I departed without her it would break both our hearts, and it would also be an act of cowardice and villainy, after what I have taken from her.
I have now resolved to make her my wife as soon as possible. Our lives will no doubt be a strange path, but I am certain her natural grace and acuity of mind will carry her through whatever we encounter together. I cannot leave her here and wonder all my life what might have been, nor can I desert her in such a situation. I have all but decided that I will ask her tonight to marry me a month from now. I think I shall return first to Greece, where I can borrow from my colleagues-or have wired-enough money to present her father with compensation for taking her away; I have little left here, and I don’t dare undertake this otherwise. In addition, I feel I must attend the dig to which I’ve been invited there-a nobleman’s grave near Knossos. My future work may rest with these colleagues, and with it I shall support her and myself in the life we build together.
After this I will come back for her-and how long four weeks of separation will be! It is my wish to see if the priests at Snagov might marry us there, so that Georgescu could be our witness. Of course, if her parents insist that we marry before leaving the village, I am willing to do that instead. She shall travel with me as my wife, in any case. I shall send a telegram to my parents from Greece, I think, and then take her to them for a stay when we reach England. And you, dear friend, if you are reading this already, could you look a little into the matter of rooms outside the college-very discreetly-cost, of course, being of importance? I would also like for her to study English as soon as possible; I am certain she will excel in it. Perhaps autumn will find you at our fireside, my friend, and then you, too, will see the reason in my madness. Until then, you are the only one to whom I feel free to turn in this matter, as soon as I can send this to you, and I pray you will judge kindly of me, out of the largeness of your heart.
Yours in joy and anxiety,
Rossi
Chapter 48
“That was the last of Rossi’s letters, probably the last he had written his friend. Sitting beside Helen on the bus back to Budapest, I refolded the pages with care and took her hand for just a second. ‘Helen,’ I said hesitantly, because I felt one of us, at least, must say it aloud. ‘You are descended from Vlad Dracula.’ She looked at me, and then out the bus window, and I thought I saw on her face that she herself did not know how to feel about this, but that it made all the blood in her veins suddenly writhe and coil.”
“When Helen and I stepped off the bus in Budapest, it was nearly evening already, but I realized with a feeling of shock that we had left this bus station the same day, that very morning. I felt I had lived a couple of years since that moment. Rossi’s letters rested safely in my briefcase and their contents filled my head with poignant images; I could see a reflection of them in Helen’s eyes, too. She kept one hand tucked around my arm, as if the revelations of the day had shaken her confidence. I wanted to put my whole arm around her, to embrace and kiss her in the street, to tell her I would never leave her and that Rossi never should have-never should have left her mother, that is. I contented myself with pressing her hand firmly to my side, and letting her guide us back to the hotel.
“At the moment we reached the lobby, I had again the feeling that we’d been away a long time-how strange it was that these unfamiliar places were starting to seem familiar to me within a couple of days, I thought. There was a note for Helen from her aunt, which she read eagerly. ‘I thought so. She wants us to have dinner with her this evening, here in the hotel. She will tell us her good-byes then, I suppose.’
“‘Will you tell her?’
“‘About the letters? Probably. I always tell Eva everything, sooner or later.’ I wondered if she had told her anything about me that I did not know, and suppressed the idea.
“We had scant time to wash and dress in our rooms before supper-I changed into the cleaner of two dirty shirts and shaved over the elaborate basin-and when I came downstairs again Eva was already there, although Helen was not. Eva stood at the front window, her back to me, her face toward the street and the fading evening light. Seen this way she had less of the formidable alertness and intensity of her public demeanor; her back in its dark green jacket was relaxed, even a little stooped. Turning suddenly, she saved me the trouble of deciding whether or not to call out to her, and I saw worry in her face before her wonderful smile dawned in my direction. She hurried forward to shake my hand, I to kiss hers. We did not exchange a word, but for all that we could have been old friends meeting after a separation of months or years.
“A moment later Helen appeared, to my relief, and she translated us into the dining room, with its glossy white cloths and ugly china. Aunt Eva ordered for all of us, as before, and I sat back, tired, while they spoke together for a few minutes. They seemed at first to be exchanging affectionate jokes, but soon Eva’s face clouded and I saw her pick up her fork and twirl it somberly between thumb and forefinger. Then she whispered something to Helen that made Helen’s brow knit, too.
“‘What’s wrong?’ I asked uneasily. I had already had my fill of secrets and mysteries.
“‘My aunt has made a discovery.’ Helen lowered her voice, although few of the diners around us could have known English. ‘Something that may be unpleasant for us.’
“‘What?’
“Eva nodded and spoke again, again very quietly, and Helen’s brow furrowed deep. ‘This is bad,’ she said in a whisper. ‘My aunt has been questioned about you-about us. She told me she received a visit this afternoon from a police detective whom she has known for a long time. He apologized and said it was only their routine, but he interrogated her about your presence in Hungary, your interests, and our-our relationship. My aunt is very clever in these matters, and when she questioned him in return, he managed to reveal that he had been-how do you say?-put on the case by Geza Jozsef.’ Her voice dropped to an almost inaudible murmur.
“‘Geza!’ I stared at her.
“‘I told you he is a nuisance. He tried to question me at the conference,
