'Yes, of course.'
'And how did everyone react to you?'
'They were all excited to see me. They wanted to know what it was like in Bucharest, and at the school.'
'And what did you tell them?'
'That the city is full of people who dress in all the colors of the world and walk the narrow streets at every hour, and that lamp posts shine warm light at night like stars. I told them that the school gave me knowledge, and I learned about things I had not known existed.'
'For example?'
'Mythologies. Legends. The stories of cultures.'
The man checked a file report, obviously filled with information about her. 'Ah, yes, you were studying cultural anthropology, is that correct?'
'Yes.'
He closed the file folder, folded his arms on top of it and stared at her. She did not meet his gaze. 'Were there legends, stories and myths in your village?'
'Yes.' Suddenly she felt ashamed. Forlorn. How could she not have known what would happen?
'And one was about the
vechi brbat, was it not?'
'Yes,' she said, struggling to release the dark memory and keep living in the present.
'Tell me the story of the
vechi brbat.'
She sighed heavily, surprised at this new, even heavier weight she felt in her chest, as if her lungs had turned to pumice and the clear, pure air had trouble getting inside her.
Dr. Sauers tapped her fingernails on the table. She did not subscribe to 'talk' therapy, as she called it. She believed in drugs. Sedate patients. Give them anti- psychotics. Gradually reduce their medication and see if they improved. If so, they were released. If not, up the meds. Since Nita would never be released, she had no hope in either direction.
'My grandmother told me the story of the
vechi brbat. He came to our village centuries ago. He had met a girl from the village, you see, by the river, and they fell in love. They married. Then the woman died of a fever that spread through the mountains killing humans and animals alike. It reduced the numbers in our small village to twenty only, plus the vechi brbat, and the people did not know how to survive. The vechi brbat was not the oldest in the village but he held the most power and was the one with a quick brain and he should have told the people what to do, but he was caught by grief and unable to lead. Another man who had survived became the leader and managed to save the remaining livestock, and the crops, so the people did not starve and could bear more children, and their numbers increased.'
'And the
vechi brbat? You say he was grieving. For his lost wife?'
'Yes. He loved her very much. So much that he would do anything to be with her again. And did.'
'What did he do?'
'He roamed the forest at night, calling on the bad spirits of the old gods, the ones from his life before the village when he lived with the Gypsies, before the Christian god became the one god. He begged the darkest elementals, the angriest spirits of nature to aid him. He promised them that he would do anything if they would allow him to again be with his wife.'
Nita felt her heart race. She knew her eyes darted around the room, looking for what? Escape? Yes, she wanted to escape. This room, these people. The story that had gone so very wrong.
'Then what happened?'
'The storms came. The village is nestled in a valley, and the land flooded. Blinding lightning shot from the sky and struck the
vechi brbat. His skin blackened, and the pale brown color of his eyes turned white, as did his hair and beard. When he returned to the village he had become… different.'
'Different how?'
She tried to avoid his questions. 'The villagers, they were so busy trying to save themselves, the crops, the animals, to recapture their way of life. The flood forced mud down the side of the mountain that buried much of what had been rescued. Red-streaked mud, as if the mountain were bleeding. Their numbers dwindled further. They saw it as a sign, that there were demons in the village. The
vechi brbat had brought havoc to their lives when they were struggling to recover. Naturally they blamed him.'
There was silence for a moment. The man said softly, 'What did they do to the
vechi brbat?'
Nita swallowed hard. 'They could not kill him. He had been with them many years and was now one of their own. But they had to protect themselves.'
'From what?'
'From the curse.'
'What curse is that?'
Nita felt her legs begin to tremble uncontrollably, rattling the chains under the table. The room seemed too hot, the color of scorching yellow. 'I'd like some water now, if you please,' she said, trying yet again to redirect the grey man.
He got up and went to a side table and poured a glass of clear water. He set it in front of her but she did not touch it.
Once he was seated again he said, 'Tell me about the curse.'
Maybe, she thought, maybe if I tell it now, here, maybe someone will understand. The others before, the police, the medical men, Dr. Sauers, they had all been impatient, believing what they wanted to believe, not the truth, and she knew the truth. This man with hair and eyes the color of a vole who said he was listening, maybe he was listening. Maybe he would believe her.
She heard Dr. Sauers' nails again, tapping on the table, talons painted violent purple eager to rend flesh.
'Dr. Sauers, would you mind terribly if I spoke with Nita alone for a few minutes?'
'Why?' Sauers snarled. 'This is irregular.'
'Yes, it is. But I wonder if I might try a technique I've found that has had great success. If you wouldn't mind…'
Reluctantly Sauers got up from the table and obviously she did not appreciate this shift in the plan.
Sauers checked the camera for film.
'Thank you,' the grey-headed man said cheerfully.
The doctor went out the door, closing it loudly behind her, not acknowledging him.
When she was gone, the man turned his head and smiled at Nita. 'There. Now you can take your time telling me what happened.'
For some reason Nita found this both reassuring and intimidating. She picked up the water with shaking hands and took a small sip, then set the glass back down, spilling a little that she wiped up with her sleeve. She held onto the glass, as if letting go might leave her floating in a colorless universe.
'What did the villagers do to the
vechi brbat?'
'They put him in a cage and kept him there. He lived in the cage day and night. They fed him only a little blood, from time to time, to keep him alive, but this is how he existed.'
'And when the original villagers died?'
'For the first season all the villagers cared for him, but soon, as winter approached, one woman offered to take the
vechi brbat into her home, and it was then that he lived in the cage all the time. She…looked after him, and then her daughter, and so on. It soon became the unspoken rule that only one took responsibility for him. One woman of each generation, the task handed down to the next in line, the eldest. Eventually my grandmother was responsible.'
'And with your mother gone, you were next in line?'
Nita's hands trembled and felt white cold. 'Yes.'
The man paused. 'And this responsibility, to take care of, to live with the
vechi brbat, is this something you wanted for yourself?'
'I…I don't know,' she said. No one had asked her this.
Bunic had not. It was assumed that Nita would go to school, then return home to the village and bear children, raising only one girl child, and that she would look after the ancient one who would live with her, in the cage, as it had been with all the women before her.
'Tell me, you said the
vechi brbat walked in the village, and he tried to touch you in the forest. So he was no longer in a cage.'
'Somewhere back in time it was determined by a woman who cared for him that if he were not permitted to eat he would be weak and he could then be allowed to roam free at dusk, provided a chain was attached to his ankle with a long rope. This seemed to work out, and the villagers agreed. Anyway, he could not tolerate the sun and always returned to the cage during the day.'
'Like a vampire,' the grey-haired man said.
'Exactly like a vampire.'
'And he was fed blood.'
'Yes.'
'What kind of blood?'
'The blood of the village.'
The man looked a little shocked by this revelation. 'Not animals?'
'No. His body could not tolerate their blood. Only human.'
