Chapter III

We assembled in that something that resembles a waiting room that all airlines have just outside the faux door that pretends to lead somewhere promising. There was Mitch and his significant other, Paula; Garry, a bear of a man with a great sense of humor and an even greater laugh; Carter, a Michael J. Fox looking character, who never quite knew if he was gay or a Catholic priest waiting to happen; Tammy, whom, I thought, had a nasty habit of treating all historical information in a decidedly anachronistic manner, and her husband, Joseph, who was one of the smartest people that I had ever met, and proved to be one of the few who often made me question the quality of my own intelligence; Selena, one of the most negative people I ever knew; me, who never quite believed that thousands of pounds of metal could somehow be propelled to weightlessness (after all, I may be an historian, but I also know some basic physics, which suggests to me that a plane is merely falling faster sideways than it falling down, a knowledge of which never filled me with any level of comfort); and, of course, Tara.

We boarded and found our seats. One of the few good pieces of fortune that I had on that trip was that the flight crews’ seats were directly across from Tara and mine, so that whenever they had the opportunity of sitting, they sat with us. The most valuable piece of information I learned on that trip was to always get to know your flight crew. If they like you they can make things happen. While our fellow travelers were begging for peanuts, we were bumped up to first-class, where peanuts are for peasants. My friends were forced to spread rock-hard slabs of butter upon stale rolls with plastic knives, after eating a barely digestible, some-kind-of-lunchmeat-sandwich (except for Joseph, who was forced to eat the Kosher meal due to a miscalculation). Tara and I ate chicken cordon bleu, with real silverware, and we sipped wine in real glasses.

After a bottle or two, I began to feel honest, which I always felt was a huge liability, second only to trust. This newfound appreciation for wine-induced honesty triggered a dangerous thought. I would tell Tara that she was more than a mere undergrad who had caught my attention, but someone with whom I was most likely in love. It was one of those times when you feel as if your whole life has been reduced to that one moment, but when I looked at her, I merely commented on the luxury of first-class, rather than voicing my feelings. The truth was that I was far more afraid of my feelings for her than I was of sitting in a metal bird that I knew was incapable of flight.

We landed in Bucharest a mere seven hours or so after we left Boston and caught a train. The train pierced the European night, quickly taking us to our destination. We finished up in what could honestly, and without hyperbole, be termed “the middle of nowhere.” 

“This is charming,” I finally uttered, speaking what was on everyone else’s mind. I had suddenly felt like something meant to catch flies, or a piece of meat designed to catch predators " a sort of Judas goat if you will. We appeared to be the only living things in a portion of Europe that had been abandoned, if ever inhabited at all. Each of us, one by one, began to stroll from our common point of origin, looking for something (anything!) informative, or at the very least, of interest.

“Are you sure that you got the directions right?” asked Selina to Mitch.

“To the letter,” he calmly replied, “We are to wait here. Someone is supposed to be here to pick us up and take us to the village of ...” he rattled off a name I would never have been able to pronounce even if I were paying attention. I was genuinely afraid. I had spent the last few weeks researching the various vampire myths of Europe, hoping to stumble upon anything that would provide any information on the Slairva family. I was thinking of how all of us had unwittingly found ourselves in a place that appeared to be right out of those legends. It was desolate, lifeless, dark. 

“Who would have thought,” my inattention to the moment was finally lassoed by the voice of Joseph, “that there were still places like this in a tiny continent like Europe.”

It was about then, an hour or so after we had arrived, that we heard a low rumbling. Paula was the first to hear it and when she mentioned it, we all accused her of having an overactive imagination. Then Gary heard it. Carter and Mitch both confirmed it. 

“Do they have any dangerous animals in Europe?” Tammy asked the group.

“The only dangerous critters around these parts is us,” I answered dryly.

“You know what I mean,” she countered with no hint of amusement. The rumbling was definitely becoming increasingly louder. It was a rumble-mixed-with-a-crackling sort of noise.  Suddenly, after a few minutes more, the source of the rumbling appeared over the horizon, which balanced itself somewhere in the distance. It was two teams of horses pulling a pair of coaches.

“Are they ...?” I began.

“Yep,” Mitch answered.

“Coaches?” I asked.

“When in Rome ...” Mitch simply stated.

“Where the hell are we where they still use horse-drawn carriages?”

“You know as well as I do, about three hours or so by train Southwest of Bucharest, not far from the Bulgarian border.”

The carriages had arrived at where we were standing, and the driver of the first coach said something to us in the native language. We all looked at each other innocently, hoping that one of us would understand something that the man was saying. After a moment, Mitch had the sense to ask the man if he spoke English. The man merely replied, “Hurry, hurry!”

Tammy said something not exactly derogatory, but not exactly gracious. The man replied with something that sounded exactly like “ Blah, blah, blah ... Slairva! Blah, blah, blah!”

“Did you say Slairva?” I asked, but the man never responded to my question. He merely insisted that we, “Hurry, hurry!”

The group of us boarded the two coaches. I don’t know exactly how long we were entombed within, but it was certainly a bumpy ride. It seemed as if hours passed as we were jerked along within the wooden frame of our conveyance. When I thought that I could bear it no longer the coach came to a stop. I peaked through the opening and was greeted by the driver who merely insisted that we all “Hurry, Hurry!”

We dragged our bags into the building, which I can only assume was an inn of some sort. A rather old woman came to greet us, uttering some incomprehensible language, occasionally slipping into a “Willkommen!” and a “Now, now! You come inside!” I remember that I commented to Mitch that she seemed to know a little of every language, but not a complete one.

Mitch attempted to explain to the woman that he had made reservations weeks ago. The woman merely nodded politely. We assembled in what I guess could be called a dining room. The old woman appeared proudly with a platter and we all ate a meal of dried sardines, some cheese and bread of some sort. The dryness of the meal was satisfied by an obviously local version of what, for lack of a better expression, could be termed as wine. 

I had the distinct feeling that the woman was auditioning for the part of a director by the way she moved us about. There was something obviously bothering her. When we had finished eating to her satisfaction, she shuffled us to our various rooms. We started as a group, but were whittled down in number as we each found our room. When she brought me to my room, I decided to find out what was bothering the woman. 

“What are you afraid of?” I asked slowly in  Russian. The woman was simultaneously impressed and surprised, responding in Russian that it had been a long time since anyone spoke to her in that language. I assured her that my Russian was rusty, but I insisted that she tell me of what she was frightened. 

The woman merely smiled, smacking my face lovingly, saying something in Russian which sounded like, “The morning comes quickly. You are safe now.” Then she spoke to me in a broken English, “You sleep now. The tomorrow comes swiftly.” She exited the room and I found myself staring at nothing in particular. After what seemed like the passing of many moments, I removed my clothing and negotiated my way onto a lumpy bed beneath scratchy sheets. 

I did not sleep that night. I just lay awake, not exactly staring at the ceiling, but not exactly not staring at it, wondering what the woman meant by “You are safe now.” I asked myself repeatedly, “What could I possibly be in danger of except malnutrition and banal conversation on the part of the locals?”