A Princess of Roumania

by Paul Park

  How she wished Andromeda was there to talk to! It’d be just too weird to talk about it with a dog.

  Part of her felt, if not happy, at least a little bit excited. Not that there weren’t problems, and certainly she didn’t know what to do; she knew he was interested. She’d give anything to discuss it with Andromeda—it was so stupid and confusing. Before—and it must have been because she was a shallow person—she just couldn’t imagine him touching her with the stump of his arm. Now that problem was taken care of, but not in a way that comforted her. De Graz’s hand was almost worse.

  Before, Peter had seemed too old. Now he seemed too young, except for moments like that moment on the riverbank, when his roaring mouth had terrified her. Most of the time, of course, he was his sweet old self. And there had been something between them in the tent.

  So she was all mixed up, needless to say. She lay listening to the sounds of the camp coming to life. At the entrance to the tent, the yellow dog lay curled up asleep.

  Oh, she would have loved to talk to Andromeda just for five minutes! Not to a dog, and not to Sasha Prochenko—it was the name from Miranda’s dream. Shivering among her blankets, she remembered the ghost’s face, the man sitting on the log smelling of tobacco and cologne.

  After a cold night, a cold morning. It was hard to get up and stagger out of bed. Splaa brought her a pot of steaming water. He had a knife at his belt.

  “Did you ever meet my aunt?” she asked him as she washed her face.

  He stood at the entrance to the tent. “Your mother and father had a house north of Constanta on the sea,” he said. “I was just a boy when your aunt came to visit. Once she spoke to me as I was brushing down her horse. A black gelding. She came with some professors and philosophers, a great lady with an estate in Mogosoaia. Later she lost that.”

  As usual, it seemed as if Gregor Splaa was telling her everything except what she wanted to know. The more of his information she had, the less it helped her. “What was she like?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “You’ll see. Very kind.”

  He was peering out the doorway as if anxious to be gone.

  “May I come with you?”

  “These are dangerous creatures, miss.”

  “But I’d like to see them.”

  “Miss, they’re as big as houses. Snap a tree like nothing.”

  “But I’d like to.” It was more than that. She thought she’d experiment with telling people what to do. So far, relying on other people hadn’t worked so well.

  Splaa’s hair was tied back, his beard was tucked into his shirt. He stood scratching his nose while Miranda washed her face and hands.

  He went away and came back to report. The hunters would not let her, because she’d seen the wendigo. They were afraid of the bad luck. Miranda persisted, and he went away and came back again. This time he’d been able to effect a compromise.

  One of the men in the camp was injured. He had hurt his arm, and Splaa was to take his place. So the hurt man stayed back with them after Splaa and the others had left, a tall man with a name that sounded like Kempf—that was as close as Miranda could make out. He had a big chest and no neck, and wore no coat over his leather shirt. Peter and Miranda ate a breakfast of meat porridge in the empty camp, while Kempf fussed one-handed with his shotgun, a heavy weapon about five feet long. His other arm was in a sling.

  Miranda sat on a crate in a trampled circle of mud and ice. She drank hot coffee, her mittened hands clasped around a tin cup. It was a cold morning, but not bitter, and there was an odd stillness to the air. The clink of the spoon in the iron pot, the occasional snorting of the mules in their pen, made an odd, flat reverberation. The sun was a white disk among the fast, white clouds.

  “Bad weather coming,” Peter said. “Woolly mammoths! Wait till I tell my dad.”

  Across the fire, he smiled at her. He’d slept well, he’d said. No dreams. He smiled and showed his teeth.

  His forehead was hidden by his brown curls, pushed down low by a wool cap. He had stripped off his gloves, was holding his palms toward the fire. When he held them side by side, the difference between his hands was especially strange. Now he stretched out his right hand, flexing the hairy fingers. “Look at this.”

  His own tin cup was empty. He picked it up by the rim, and with his forefinger and thumb he bent it closed, until its mouth was a sealed line. Then he reversed it in his hand, and with his finger on one point, his thumb on the other, he bent it back into shape.

  She looked at the birthmark in the joint of his thumb. “Do you know anything about wrestling?” she asked him.

  He smiled again, confused, and she was happy to see him smile. Suddenly she didn’t want him to be anything except the boy she first had met, chewing grass, lying above the ice house weir. He seemed happier over the last day, since they had talked, since they had had their moment. His cheeks had some color in them. “Let’s go catch a heffalump,” he said as she stood up. She slipped her pack over her shoulders.

  This time in the hunters’ camp had been a welcome break. And even if it had been hard to fall asleep at night, she had lain snug in her sleeping bag, the yellow dog—Andromeda—curled on a felt mat.

  She imagined they were dependent now upon the hunters’ schedule, and they’d be staying where they were for a few days. It didn’t help to worry about the future. First things first, and the first thing was to get to Albany, which was only about forty-five minutes’ drive. It didn’t help to think about Raevsky, and wonder whether she’d poisoned him with the black pills—whatever she’d done could not be changed. What helped was to sit on a wooden crate, drinking hot coffee from a cup that warmed her mittened hands. What helped was to let herself feel part of this landscape where the tiny snowflakes seemed to glitter as they fell.

  Later they walked through the woods and past the beaver pond. Andromeda ran on ahead, following the trail of men and dogs. But then Kempf took them away from the trail, around to the left, up through the rocks. They climbed to a bald place above the trees, and they could see the meadow below them, the broken saplings and uprooted bushes.

  Here they could watch the hunt from a safe distance. Under the lowering clouds they could hear men shouting and dogs barking. “They want a big one. Ivory,” Kempf said. “Not calf or cow. They want to…,” and he made a gesture with his gloved hand.

  “Separate,” Miranda guessed.

  “Yes, separate. You see.”

  He wouldn’t look at her as he was talking. When she turned to him, he stared resolutely away. His big, bearded face looked doubtful and unsure. But he was interested in the bracelet, and Miranda could see him take some furtive glances when she moved her arm.

  She and Peter sat listening to the barking and shouting and, in time, the gunshots. Colder and colder, they sat on the rocks. Then suddenly Andromeda was barking, too, and they saw an animal in the tall trees below them, closer than they had expected. Trees swayed and cracked around him as he stepped into the near side of the meadow. And it was true—he was as big as a small house, like an elephant only much larger, and covered with hair, and without the floppy ears, and with a long, sloped skull that rose almost to a point. He shook his head from side to side, showing his enormous, curved tusks, and now suddenly they could hear him bellowing as he raised his trunk.

  “Why don’t they just shoot it?” said Miranda, holding her ears. “It’s stupid to torture it.”

  “Many guns not kill.” Kempf had gotten to his feet, and now they could see the men and dogs coming into the meadow. One shot off his long gun, then stepped back to reload. One was carrying a torch, and Miranda saw it was Gregor Splaa, running in front of the animal as if to force it back into the open. Because now it was turning into the trees below them, a stand of young evergreens, and it was smashing the trees down with great sweeps of its trunk and with its body as it turned.

  They were all on their feet now, and Kempf was leading them behind some rocks where they wouldn’t get hit by any stray
bullets. It didn’t seem likely, and soon they climbed up where they could see better. The dogs were leaping through the trees, jumping and biting at the animal’s enormous legs, which were nevertheless hidden in a kind of skirt of hair. Now it was closer, just below them at the bottom of the rise, where it turned to face its enemies.

  Miranda could smell the smoke. She stopped, but Peter kept going, climbing down a little way below her where she couldn’t see. Andromeda stood on the topmost spire of rock, showing no inclination to run down and join the other dogs. After a few short barks she was quiet now, poised on three legs, sniffing the air. Miranda was watching her, but looked down soon enough to see the cornered beast charge. Bellowing, wagging its head from side to side, it knocked the first man down with its great tusks, then trundled forward and seized the second in its trunk. It lifted him above the trees. He was Gregor Splaa.

  Again Miranda looked away, up at the dog perched above her. She found herself holding her ears again. Kempf was standing forward with his gun tucked in the sling of his wounded arm, but all the firing had stopped and all the barking, too. The animal had curled its trunk around Splaa’s body and was waving him like a flag. Miranda could see the other man scramble back.

  Then there was someone else, someone who had grabbed Splaa’s torch out of the snow. He was holding the torch in his right hand, pushing it between the beast’s raised tusks. She could see the great mouth sag open, see the tiny, staring eyes, see Splaa’s body twist as he was shaken back and forth: every detail, she thought. But for several moments as she watched the man prodding his torch in the beast’s face, watched him force it back against the rocks—she didn’t recognize him. She saw the mass of brown curls. She saw his lips pulled back. But it wasn’t until she glanced around her that she realized who it was. It was Peter, who had climbed down through the rocks.

  She was too shocked to feel anything at first, or anything but fear. He leapt from the scything tusks and then forward again, forcing the torch against the beast’s mouth. Miranda could smell something else now, an odor of singed hair. The animal was turning. It was swatting at Peter with the body of Gregor Splaa as it turned below her through the trees. Miranda could see its head come up, its tiny, enraged eyes, but there was nothing in its trunk now. Then it crashed away into some bigger trees, then around the corner of the rise and it was gone, then even the noise of it was gone.

  Two men stood in a space of broken trees. One was Peter, and the other was a hunter with a gun. Miranda came down through the rocks with the yellow dog at her heels. Kempf came with her. Gregor Splaa lay twisted on his back. No one had moved him.

  Peter stood with the extinguished stick in his hand. “You stupid jerk,” Miranda said. “What are you doing?” She knelt over Splaa’s head.

  But the yellow dog went up to Peter and licked his hand. He squatted over her and for several seconds she allowed him to rub the yellow fur where it was thick behind her ears. Now everything was quiet. The other dogs sat with their tongues hanging out, and then the man with the gun called out to them, and took off limping in the mammoth’s track. When Miranda called out to them, Kempf turned around. His expression was so angry and so fierce, it took away her words. He strode off in the direction the animal had come until he also disappeared among the trees.

  But they must have been going to get help. Peter squatted in the snow, and Miranda sat down next to the head of Gregor Splaa. After a moment, he opened his eyes.

  He lay on his back, his pelvis twisted. She examined his hooked nose, soft beard, and scabbed lips.

  “Let me tell you what you want to know,” he said.

  Miranda’s throat seized up with tears. “Can I bring you something?” she said. “Can I bring some water?”

  “It doesn’t hurt,” he said. “But I am thirsty.” And he actually smiled.

  She fumbled at her belt for the water bottle she had brought from camp. “You see your aunt would have been better served by a great warrior, not an old cow like Rodica or a stableboy like me. Please forgive me.”

  He spoke with a softness and fluidity that was very different from when she’d first seen him in the house by the pond. He must have been frightened then. But not now, maybe—she held the bottle to his lips. “Thanks for your tears, miss,” he said. “And you’ll remember us, won’t you, old Rodica and me, when you come through Vulcan’s Gate with the crowd cheering? You’ll say a word in the temple for two stupid fools? Listen, it doesn’t matter. These are honest men—they’ll take you to New York. My bag is in my pocket. Give them a grain of silver every day. Go to the fish market where they salt the sturgeon fish. Look for Ion Dreyfoos. He will help you. He’s a servant of your aunt’s. I hope there’ll be money for the steamship, only take care. Dreyfoos will make you documents for the trip through Germany. He’ll do the work for free.”

  Miranda reached out for Splaa’s hand and took it in her own. It was warm. And the air around them was warm also. Miranda could no longer see her breath. And it had started to snow, just a light, quiet dusting, a scattering of small flakes, and then more.

  This is how the storm started. The snow sifted through the trees, and they barely noticed. Gregor Splaa was talking, and she held his hand. He was telling her the history of Roumania, softly and unhurriedly—“Miranda Brancoveanu fought against the Turks, and her son was Constantin Brancoveanu, the golden king. He was the one who first established all our rights under the common law. He freed the serfs and took away Constanta from the Turks. You understand this is your family, and his daughter was Queen Sophia…”—on and on, but Miranda wasn’t listening. Instead she squeezed his hand and watched the snow filtering down in larger flakes now. Where were Kempf and the others?

  Gregor Splaa talked. Miranda held his hand, and from time to time she would force herself to concentrate, because he was trying to tell her things that might prove useful or essential. So she would try to listen to his recitation of old names and deeds, until she was distracted again by anxiety. Where were the three hunters? Had they stolen Splaa’s money and abandoned them? It was snowing harder now, and there was a wind. The sky was a white shield. It looked scarcely out of reach above the trees.

  After twenty minutes the tracks of their boots were filling up with snow. The hunters had not come back.

  “Where are they?” Miranda said. Then she understood. It was because of the wendigo. She had seen the wendigo, and this accident was the bad luck she had brought.

  So if no one was going to help her, she had to decide what to do. “We can’t keep him here,” she said, standing up. The snow was accumulating on Splaa’s legs. She stooped to brush it away with her bare hands as Peter came to her. Out of the shreds of broken pine trees that surrounded them, he had found several long, pliant boughs. Now he was stripping away the needles and weaving the poles together into a crude litter. It didn’t take long. The dog was running up and down the trail to the camp, which was disappearing.

  “My father would say we shouldn’t move him,” said Peter. “Any kind of spinal injury, you risk doing permanent damage.” At the same time he was weaving together his litter of boughs, as if his brain and hands thought different things. “It’s probably three miles to the camp. We can’t expect them yet. It will be too hard to move him, just ourselves.”

  He spoke as if it might be possible to get him to a hospital. “This is what we’re going to do,” Miranda said. “I’m not impressed by this. The longer we wait, the harder it will be. We’ll just retrace our steps. They’ll find us on the trail if they come back. We can’t let him freeze to death.” As she bent over Splaa’s body, she could still hear him murmuring his lists of ministers and kings, although his eyes were closed.

  She took the bag from his pocket. She fingered for a moment the heavy silver grains, which she could feel through the canvas cloth. Then she put the purse inside her shirt. The wind was cold now, and it blew the snow in their faces. “Help me,” Miranda said, and then Peter and she were lifting Splaa onto the web of branches. It
was easy, because he was so stiff. And she was right. He didn’t feel anything. The low murmur of his voice went on. He didn’t open his eyes. “Does it hurt?” she asked. She took off Rodica’s coat so that she could arrange it around Splaa’s legs. This was getting easier, she decided. And maybe that’s what a princess was, someone who didn’t care whether people lived or died.

  Splaa was reaching for her hand, but she didn’t give it to him. Instead she put on her mittens and went to stand at the top of the litter, while Peter stood at the bottom. “This isn’t going to work,” she said. And it didn’t, really; she could tell how flimsy the litter was as soon as she squatted to pick it up. The boughs were woven into a lattice, which slipped and gave way at every step. The wood was springy and sagged down. Her mittens were clumsy. Still, she put her back to Gregor Splaa and picked him up and headed up the trail, following the yellow dog. And they could only go a little way before she had to rest and adjust her grip—the track had almost disappeared in the driving snow. For a while they were in the shelter of the rocks and the big pines, but by the time they came across the main trail from the camp to the pond, the storm had begun to punish them, and it was hard to find their way. The sky had gone from white to yellow, and the wind was picking up. The snow stung their faces.

  Gregor Splaa was oddly light, as if some part of him was gone already. When she stopped to catch her breath or to adjust the slipping lattice of boughs, Miranda put her ear to his lips. She could still hear the soft, relentless flow of information that was no doubt vital, that no doubt could help her make sense out of all this.

  They turned uphill toward the ridge. The camp was on the other side, she thought. Though it wasn’t yet noon, Miranda guessed, you could scarcely see five yards ahead. In some places the snow was around her shins.