By 11:00 a.m. Dragosani was there, had introduced himself to the librarian on duty, asked to be allowed to see any documents pertaining to boyar families, lands, battles, monuments, ruins and burial grounds, or any records at all for the regions comprising Wallachia and Moldavia – and especially local areas – circa the mid-fifteenth-century. The librarian seemed agreeable enough and only too pleased to assist (despite the fact that he appeared to find Dragosani’s request a little amusing, or sufficiently so to cause him to smile) but after he had taken his visitor to the room which housed those old records . . . then Dragosani had been able to appreciate the funny side of it for himself.
In a room of barnlike dimensions he found shelves containing sufficient of books and documents and records to fill several large army trucks, all of it relating to his inquiry! ‘But . . . isn’t it catalogued?’ he asked. ‘Of course, sir,’ the young ^librarian told him, smiling again; and he produced an armful of catalogues whose heading alone – if Dragosani had been willing to contemplate such a task – would have taken several days in itself; and that without taking down one of the listed items from its shelf.
‘But it would take a year or more to sift through this lot!’ he finally complained.
‘It has already taken twenty,’ the other told him, ‘and that was simply for the purpose of cataloguing – or mainly for that purpose. But that is not the only difficulty. For even if you could afford so much time, still you would not be allowed it. At last the authorities are splitting it up; much is returning to Bucharest, a large amount is scheduled for Budapest, even Moscow has made application. It will be moved, most of it, some time in the next three months.’
‘Well you’re right,’ said Dragosani. ‘I haven’t years or months but just a few days. So … I wonder if there’s some way I might narrow my search down?’
‘Ah!’ said the other. ‘But then there’s the question of language. Do you wish to see Turkish language records? . . . Hungarian? . . . German? Is your interest purely Slavicist? Is it Christian or Ottoman? Do you have any specific points of reference – landmarks, as it were? All of the material here is at least three hundred years old, but some of it dates back seven centuries and more! As I’m sure you’re aware, the central span – which seems to be the seat of your interest – covers many decades of constant flux. Here are the records of foreign conquerors, yes, but we also have the records of those who thrust them out. Are you capable of understanding the texts of these works? They are, after all, half a millennium old. If you can understand them, then you’re a scholar indeed! I certainly can’t, not with any degree of accuracy – and I’ve been trained to read them . . .’
And then, seeing Dragosani’s look of helplessness, he had added: ‘Sir, perhaps if you could be more specific . . .?’
Dragosani saw no reason for subterfuge. ‘I’m interested in the vampire myth, which seems to have had its roots right here – in Transylvania, Moldavia, Wallachia – and dates back, so far as is known, to the fifteenth century.’
The librarian took a pace back from him, lost his smile. Suddenly he seemed wary. ‘But you are surely not a tourist?’
‘No, basically I’m Romanian, now living and working in Moscow. But what’s that got to do with it?’
The librarian, perhaps three or four years younger than
Dragosani and obviously a little awed by his almost cosmopolitan appearance, seemed to be giving the matter a deal of consideration. He chewed his lip, frowned and was silent for long moments. But at last he said, ‘If you’ll take a look at them, you’ll note that those catalogues I gave you are mainly hand-written and penned in one uniform hand throughout. And I’ve already told you that there’s at least twenty years of work in them. Well, the man who did that work is still alive and lives not far away, in Titu. That’s towards Bucharest, about twenty-five miles.’