“‘I knew I should show the coin to my father, but I did not, because I thought he would be angry at my talking with the old witch. Instead, I hid it under my corner of the bed I shared with my sisters and I told no one about it. Sometimes I would get it out when I thought nobody was looking. I would hold it in my hand and wonder what the old woman had meant by giving it to me. On one side of the coin was a strange creature with a looped tail, and on the other a bird and a tiny cross.
“‘A couple of years passed and I continued to work my father’s land and help my mother in the house. My father was in despair about having several daughters. He said we would never get married because he was too poor to give anything for a dowry, and that we would always be a trouble to him. But my mother told us that everyone in the village said we were so beautiful that someone would marry us anyway. I tried to keep my clothes clean and my hair combed and neatly braided, so that I might be chosen someday. I did not like any of the young men who asked me to dance at the holidays, but I knew I would soon have to marry one of them so that I would not be a burden to my parents. My sister Éva had long since gone to Budapest with the Hungarian family she worked for, and sometimes she sent us a little money. She even sent me some good shoes once, a pair of leather city shoes of which I was very proud.
“‘This was my situation in life when I met Professor Rossi. It was unusual for strangers to come to our village, especially anyone from far away, but one day everyone was passing around the news that a man from Bucharest had come to the tavern, and with him a man from another country. They were asking questions about the villages along the river and about the ruined castle in the mountains upriver, a day’s walk above our village. The neighbor who stopped by to tell us about this also whispered something to my father as he sat on his bench outside our door. My father crossed himself and spat in the dust. “Rubbish and nonsense,” he said. “No one should be asking such questions. It is an invitation to the Devil.”
“‘But I was curious. I went out to get water so that I could hear more about it, and when I entered the village square, I saw the strangers sitting at one of the two tables outside our tavern, talking with an old man who was always there. One of the strangers was large and dark, like a Gypsy but in city clothes. The other wore a brown jacket in a style I had never seen before, and wide trousers tucked into walking boots, and a broad brown hat on his head. I stayed on the other side of the square, near the well, and from there I could not see the foreigner’s face. Two of my friends wanted a closer look and whispered to me to come with them. I went reluctantly, knowing my father would disapprove.
“‘As we walked past the tavern, the foreign man glanced up, and I saw to my surprise that he was young and handsome, with a golden beard and bright blue eyes like the people in the German villages of our country. He was smoking a pipe and talking quietly with his companion. A worn canvas bag with straps for the arms sat on the ground next to him, and he was writing something in a cardboard book. He had a look on his face that I liked immediately—it was absentminded, gentle, and very alert all at the same time. He touched his hat to us and looked quickly away, and the ugly man touched his hat, too, and stared at us, and then they went back to talking with old Ivan and writing things down. The large man seemed to be talking to Ivan in Romanian, and then he would turn to the younger one and say something in a language I could not understand. I walked quickly on with my friends, not wanting the handsome stranger to think I was more forward than they were.
“‘The next morning it was said in the village that the strangers had given money to a young man in the tavern to show them the way up to the ruined castle called Poenari, high above the Arges. They would be gone overnight. I heard my father tell one of his friends that they were looking for the castle of Prince Vlad—he remembered when the fool with the Gypsy’s face had been there once before, looking for it. “A fool never learns,” my father said angrily. I had not heard this name—Prince Vlad—before. People in our village usually called the castle Poenari or Arefu. My father said the man who had taken the strangers there was crazed for a little money. He swore no payment would ever make him, my father, spend the night there because the ruins were full of evil spirits. He said that probably the stranger was looking for treasure, which was foolish because all the treasure of the prince who had lived there was deeply buried and had a wicked spell on it. My father said if anyone found it, and if it were exorcised, he should have had some of it himself, some of it belonged by rights to him. Then he saw me and my sisters listening, and he closed his mouth tightly.
“‘What my father had said reminded me of the little coin the old woman had given me, and I thought guiltily that I had something I should have given to my father. But a rebellion rose up inside me, and I decided to try to give my coin to the handsome stranger, since he was looking for treasure at the castle. When I had the chance, I took the coin from its hiding place and knotted it in the corner of a kerchief, which I tied to my apron.
“‘The stranger did not appear again for two days, and then I saw him sitting by himself at the same table, looking very tired, his clothes dirty and torn. My friends said that the city Gypsy had left that day and the stranger was alone. No one knew why he wanted to stay longer. He had taken the hat off his head and I could see his rumpled light brown hair. Some other men were with him, and they were having a drink. I did not dare come close or speak to the stranger because those men were with him, so I stopped to talk with a friend for a while. While we were talking, the stranger got up and went into the tavern.
“‘I felt very sad and I thought it would be impossible for me to give my coin to him. But luck was with me that evening. Just as I was leaving my father’s field, where I had stayed to work while my brothers and sisters were doing other chores, I saw the stranger walking by himself at the edge of the woods. He was walking along the path to the river, walking with his head bent and his hands clasped behind him. He was completely alone, and now that I had the chance to speak with him, I felt frightened. To give myself courage, I grasped the knot in my kerchief where the coin was hidden. I walked toward him and then stood in the path, waiting for his approach.
“‘It seemed to take a long time, while I stood there waiting. He must not have noticed me until we were almost face-to-face. Then he suddenly glanced up from the path, looking very surprised. He took off his hat and stepped aside, as if to let me pass him, but I stayed very still, gathering my courage, and said hello to him. He bowed a little and smiled, and we stood staring at each other for a moment. There was nothing in his face or manner to make me feel afraid, but I was almost overcome by shyness.
“‘Before I could lose all my courage, I untied the kerchief from my belt and unwrapped the coin. I handed it to him, silently, and he took it from my hand and turned it over, looking at it with care. Suddenly a light flashed over his face, and he glanced at me again, very sharply, as if he could look through my heart. He had the brightest, bluest eyes you can imagine. I felt a trembling all over. “De unde?—from where?” He gestured to show me his question. I was surprised that he seemed to know a few words of our language. He tapped the ground, and I understood. Had I gotten it out of the earth? I shook my head. “De unde?”
“‘I tried to show him an old woman, kerchief on her head, bending over her stick—I showed her handing me the coin. He nodded, frowned. He made the signs of the old woman, then pointed along the path toward our village. “From there?” No—I shook my head again and pointed upriver and into the sky, to where I thought the castle was, and the old woman’s village. I pointed to him and showed feet walking—up there! The light came into his face again, and he closed his hand on the coin. Then he handed it back to me, but I refused it, pointing to him and feeling myself turn red. He smiled, for the first time, and bowed to me, and I felt as if heaven had opened up to my eyes for a moment. “Multumesc,” he said. “Thank you.”
“‘Then I wanted to hurry away, before my father missed me at the supper table, but the s
tranger stopped me with a quick motion. He pointed to himself. “Ma numesc Bartolomeo Rossi,” he said. He repeated it, then wrote it for me in the earth at our feet. It made me laugh to try to pronounce it after him. Then he pointed at me. “Voi?” he said. “What is your name?” I told him and he repeated it, smiling again. “Familia?” He seemed to be groping for words.
“‘“My family name is Getzi,” I told him.
“‘Surprise seemed to fill his face. He pointed in the direction of the river, then at me, and said something again and again, followed by the word Drakulya, which I understood to mean of the dragon. I could not gather his meaning. Finally, shaking his head and sighing, he said, “Tomorrow.” He pointed at me, at himself, at the spot where we stood, and at the sun in the sky. I understood that he was asking me to meet him there at the same time the next evening. I knew my father would be very angry if he found out about this. I pointed to the ground under our feet, then put my finger to my lips. I didn’t know another way to tell him not to talk about this to anyone in the village. He looked startled, but then he put his finger to his lips, too, and smiled at me. I had still felt somewhat afraid of him until that minute, but his smile was kind and his blue eyes sparkled. He tried again to return the coin to me, and when I again refused to take it, he bowed, put on his hat, and went back into the woods in the direction he had come from. I understood that he was letting me return to the village alone, and I set out quickly, without letting myself look back at him.
“‘All that evening, at my father’s table, and washing and drying the dishes with my mother, I thought about the stranger. I thought about his foreign clothes, his polite bow, his expression that was absentminded and alert at the same time, his beautifully bright eyes. I thought about him all the next day as I spun and wove with my sisters, made our dinner, drew water, and worked in the fields. Several times my mother scolded me for not paying attention to what I was doing. At evening, I stayed behind to finish my weeding alone, and I felt relieved when my brothers and father disappeared toward the village.
“‘As soon as they were gone, I hurried to the edge of the wood. The stranger was sitting there against a tree, and when he saw me he jumped up and offered me a seat on a log near the path. But I was afraid someone from the village might pass by, and I led him deeper into the woods, my heart beating hard. There we sat on two rocks. The woods were full of the evening sounds of the birds—it was early summer and very green and warm.
“‘The stranger took the coin I had given him out of his pocket and set it carefully on the ground. Then he pulled a couple of books from his knapsack and began to turn through them. I understood later that these were dictionaries in Romanian and some language he could understand. Very slowly, looking often at his books, he asked me if I had seen any other coins like the one I had given him. I said I had not. He said the creature on the coin was a dragon, and he asked me if I had ever seen this dragon anywhere else, on a building or a book. I said I had one on my shoulder.
“‘At first, he could not understand what I was saying at all. I was proud of the fact that I could write our alphabet and read a little—we had a village school for a while when I was a child, and a priest had come to teach us there. The stranger’s dictionary was very confusing to me, but together we found the word shoulder. He looked puzzled and asked again, “Drakul?” He held up the coin. I touched the shoulder of my blouse and nodded. He looked at the ground, his face reddening, and suddenly I felt that I was the brave one. I opened my wool vest and took it off, then untied the neck of my blouse. My heart was pounding, but something had come over me and I could not stop myself. He looked away, but I pulled my blouse off my shoulder and pointed.
“‘I could not remember a time when I had not had a small dark green dragon imprinted on my skin there. My mother said it was put on one child in every generation of my father’s family and that he had chosen me because he thought I might grow up to be the ugliest. He said that his grandfather had told him this was necessary to keep evil spirits away from our family. I heard about it only once or twice, because usually my father did not like to talk about it, and I did not even know which relative of his generation had the mark, whether it was on his own body somewhere or on one of his brothers or sisters. My dragon looked very different from the little dragon on the coin, so that until the stranger had asked me if I owned anything else with a dragon on it, I had never connected the two.
“‘The stranger looked carefully at the dragon on my skin, holding the coin up next to it, but without touching me or even leaning closer. The red flush stayed in his face and he seemed relieved when I tied my blouse again and put on my vest. He looked through his dictionaries and asked me who had put the dragon there. When I said my father had done it, with the help of an old woman in the village, a healer, he asked if he could talk with my father about this. I shook my head so hard that he blushed deeply again. Then he told me, with great difficulty, that my family came from the line of an evil prince who had built the castle above the river. This prince had been called “the son of the dragon,” and he had killed many people. He said the prince had become a pricolic, a vampire. I crossed myself and asked Mary for her protection. He asked me if I knew this story and I said I did not. He asked me how old I was and if I had brothers and sisters, and if there were other people in the village with our name.
“‘At last I pointed to the sun, which had nearly set, to show him that I had to go home, and he stood up quickly, looking serious. Then he gave me his hand and helped me to my feet. When I grasped his hand, my heart leaped into my fingers. I was confused and I turned away quickly. But suddenly I thought to myself that he was too much interested in evil spirits and might put himself in danger. Perhaps I could give him something that would protect him. I pointed to the ground and the sun. “Come tomorrow,” I said. He hesitated for a moment, and finally he smiled. He put his hat on and touched the brim. Then he disappeared into the woods.
“‘The next morning when I went to the well, he was sitting at the tavern with the old men, again writing something. I thought I saw his gaze on me, but he showed no sign of recognizing me. I was very happy inside, because I understood that he had kept our secret. In the afternoon, when my father and mother and brothers and sisters were out of the house, I did a wicked thing. I opened my parents’ wooden chest and I took from it a little silver dagger I had seen there several times before. My mother had once said it was for killing vampires if they came to trouble the people or the herds. I also took a handful of garlic flowers from my mother’s garden. I hid these items in my kerchief when I went to the fields.
“‘This time, my brothers worked a long time beside me and I could not shake them off, but finally they said they would go back to the village, and they told me to come with them. I said I would gather some herbs from the wood and come in a few minutes. I was very nervous by the time I reached the stranger, whom I found deep in the woods on our ledge of rocks. He was smoking his pipe, but when I came toward him he put it down and jumped to his feet. I sat down with him and showed him what I had brought. He looked startled when he saw the knife, and very interested when I explained to him that he could use it to kill pricolici. He wanted to refuse it, but I begged him so earnestly to take it that he stopped smiling and put it thoughtfully into his knapsack, wrapping it first in my kerchief. Then I gave him the garlic flowers and showed him that he should keep some in his jacket pocket.
“‘I asked him how long he would be staying in our village, and he showed me five fingers—five more days. He made me understand that he would travel to several villages nearby, walking to each from our village, to talk with people about the castle. I asked him where he would go when he left our village at the end of five days. He said that he was going to a country called Greece, which I had heard of before, and then back to his own village in his own country. Drawing in the forest earth, he showed me that his country, called England, was an island far away from our country. He showed me where his university was—I did n
ot know what he meant—and wrote the name of it in the dirt. I still remember those letters: OXFORD. Afterward I wrote them down sometimes, to look at them again. It was the strangest word I had ever seen.
“‘Suddenly, I understood that he would leave soon and that I would never see him again, or anyone like him, and my eyes filled with tears. I had not meant to cry—I never cried over the annoying young men in the village—but my tears would not obey me and they ran down my cheeks. He looked very distressed and pulled a white handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and gave it to me. What was the problem? I shook my head. He rose slowly and gave me his hand to help me up, as he had the night before. While I was getting up, I stumbled and fell against him without meaning to, and when he caught me we kissed each other. Then I turned and ran through the woods. At the path, I looked back. He was standing there, as still as a tree, looking after me. I ran all the way to the village and lay awake during the night with his handkerchief hidden in my hand.
“‘The next evening he was there in the same place, as if he had never moved from the spot where I had left him. I ran to him and he opened his arms to me and caught me. When we could not kiss each other anymore, he spread his jacket on the ground and we lay down together. In that hour, I learned about love, one moment at a time. Up close, his eyes were as blue as the sky. He put flowers in my braids and kissed my fingers. I was surprised by many things he did, and things I did, and I knew it was wrong, a sin, but I felt the joy of heaven opening around us.