Stoker's Manuscript

by Royce Prouty

  “I’d call it shrewd. Pretty amazing, really,” he said. “Look at America—you get one or two generations removed from the great wealth builders and all the offspring are dolts.”

  I nodded, conceding his point. “Drug addicts and social butterflies who bad-mouth the system that feathered their beds.”

  “Right.” Luc grinned, then checked his watch. “Better get ready.”

  After saying good-bye to Arthur at the front door, Luc and I caught the carriage ride to the market for the bus to . We stopped at the same café, and Luc greeted the waitress with a much-heightened familiarity. After assuring him I could make it to my destination, I left him to his pursuits and stood in line at the train ticket window. From my Internet research, I had learned the northbound train went through and Baia Mare before border transfers, then west to Vienna and finally Munich, my flight’s layover city. I placed phone calls changing my seat to two days later on a flight to Chicago before exchanging my ticket for a northbound rail pass through and my hometown of Baia Mare.

  The Rapid train rocked and rattled down the hill from and settled on another valley floor bound for another mountain pass. I displayed my crucifix prominently in the hopes of repelling any armrest neighbor, and it worked. Village after village passed by the window, the train stopping every couple towns, and the farther north, the more in need of paint and more agrarian the towns looked. Every municipality, including the smallest villages, hosted its Christian church, and even when the newer white stucco churches sprung from the ground, the older wooden relics remained.

  Not all vegetation had achieved blossom at this elevation, and the air told why: still alpine cool, downright brisk. I passed a sheep farm and saw shorn wool hanging to dry on fences, the breezes giving the appearance of thick wavy blond wigs hung after a wash. Animals still did the work that Americans delegate to John Deere, with men in black woolen pants and suspenders leaning into their plows, their sons leading the animals. Steep thatch-roofed barns housed animals and their feed, and the farther north, the more rutted the roads. Great arrays of colors were displayed on clotheslines, enhanced by multihued barnyard birds. At least as many women worked their modest farms as men.

  Roads were neither concrete nor blacktop, but rather hard-packed dirt with a series of ruts that horse-drawn carts negotiated hauling their loads. Pedestrians walked close to the tree-lined edges to avoid the muck, and where the mud had puddled the people walked on long wooden planks. It was not a place for tennis shoes.

  Every mile north brought more dramatic views of the white-capped Carpathian Mountains. Foothills rolled to the feet of steep cliffs with dense forests holding up the snow. Houses dotted hilltops and promised enviable views, with an occasional snow pile lingering in the shadowy stretches. A uniformed attendant called out, “.”

  I looked at my GPS and saw the coordinates read within a minute of where the buyer’s original phone call emanated, just a few miles southeast. It read 47.13 degrees north by 24.48 degrees east. I stood, and after consulting my phrase book, asked the attendant, “, cât timp este valabil acest bilet?” Excuse me, how long is this ticket valid for?

  He looked me over before inspecting the ticket. “Doua zile.” Two days.

  I disembarked and walked into town. is a very old city of about eighty thousand people in the Bargau Valley, one of the original seven-hundred-year-old Saxon settlements, and likely the town Stoker referred to as Bistritz, where Harker’s journey to Dracula’s Castle commences in the novel.

  Here, Saxons had come from the Germanic north and established seven settlements on seven hills, the seven citadels. With them migrated their Gothic design and orderly society, a sense of civilization and a work ethic both frugal and prosperous reflected in the cities’ designs and lives of the descendents. But its decay both disturbed and saddened me. There in the city’s center I stopped to admire the huge Lutheran church, with its melting windows, faded red-tiled roof, and high-spired clock tower. It needed stucco work. The church reached back to the fourteenth century, so old it predated decorated corbels. In my typical American musing, I questioned when the plumbing, electricity, and toilets went in. It not only looked old, but exhausted.

  It took two hours to reach the east end of town, the direction my GPS indicated toward the original phone call. There the road ran out of pavement, and although a couple miles of flat terrain pointed toward the foothills, eventually the road continued as a path winding its way up and over a rise. Looking that direction showed no indication of either town or traffic. Could my telephone readout have been inaccurate? It listed the town of Dumitra, but I could not find it on a map.

  Then as I punched in the coordinates on my GPS and increased the magnification on the screen’s map, it read DUMITRA-DREPTU. The name Dreptu rang a bell. It had led off the description in Stoker’s original epilogue defining the path Dracula’s body took to its final rest. It also appeared in the assistant’s notes, Stoker’s collaborator having been most emphatic about its exclusion from the novel’s final text.

  I walked back a couple blocks to a coffee shop and called out, “ cineva aici ?” Does anyone here speak English?

  The din of palaver lowered as several patrons looked at me. An elderly man raised his hand and gestured me to his small round table, where he sat smoking a cigarette. As I approached, he pointed to the second chair. “I speak a little.” Zpeak.

  “Thank you, sir. I am looking for a place called Dumitra-Dreptu.” When I said the name, several people stopped talking.

  “Drago.”

  I shook my head. “No . . . Dumitra-Dreptu.”

  “ numesc Drago. Drago Svetkovich.”

  “How rude of me. numesc Joseph Barkeley, from Chicago.”

  He looked me over. “What business is yours in Dumitra?”

  It took a moment to decide if I wished to lie. “I just wish to see it.”

  “No one just visits Dumitra.”

  “Thank you for your time.” I left the table and walked outside. It was no one’s business but mine what my business was. But as I crossed the street to return to the center of town, I heard the man calling my way.

  “Joseph!” Yosef. “American.” I turned toward the voice. It was Drago. “I ask you this for your own protection.”

  I walked back to him. “Is there such a place?”

  “Yes, young man, thirteen kilometers, three hours’ walk over that hill.” He pointed northeast. “There is coming weather, and no places to stay in Dumitra.”

  “What about Dreptu?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “This is not a place.”

  I unzipped my jacket to pull out my GPS. “It’s only—”

  “Where did you get that?” he said, pointing.

  “Amazon.com,” I said, shrugging and turning the device back and forth in my hand.

  “No.” He pointed to my chest and the crucifix. “That.”

  “Oh, a gift.”

  “You will need it.” He made the sign of the cross. “There is a man who travels over the hill every afternoon about this time, a Gypsy. You will know him by his copper wares. He speaks no English; mention my name.”

  “Thank you, Drago.”

  “But you must find a place to stay; the forests are not safe. Look for signs, and be careful to watch the moon.”

  Superstitions run deep in Transylvania, cautions and ceremony I once would have waved away like a fly on a lunch plate, but I registered his words and said, “A .” A room.

  He nodded and waved. “La revedere.” Good-bye.

  Within an hour the man with the copper pots drove by in a horse-drawn cart. I waved for him to stop and called out, “Dumitra?” When he failed to respond, I said, “Drago.”

  He halted his cart and without smiling pointed to the back, where I climbed in and made company with his wares.

  “.” Thank you.

  He said, “Va
fi o .”

  “ . . . . . . I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I said.

  He made a sound like thunder and motioned with fluttering hands that it was going to rain. He pointed to the north sky—thunderstorm approaching. I apologized for my lack of fluent Romanian, and his grunt conveyed that was just as well. I settled in for the ride on a folded woolen blanket and slipped a leg through my backpack straps.

  The two horses needed no reins, as they knew their path home. As the cart climbed the first foothill, I looked back over and its organized row of red-tile roofs, and again was taken by how their cities end at a certain street, then turn to tree-lined fields. Such a sight might disarm an American developer, but it made sense there, for if a town is not growing, why force it at the seams?

  Soon as we reached the top of the first foothill, the magnificent white Carpathian peaks came into full view to the north and east, and with it the chilled wind of refrigerated air. Farther northwest, dark clouds obscured the horizon. The horses led the cart off the two-lane road north and onto a smaller path, leaving the numbered road toward the mountain pass that the original Saxons had migrated over. Beyond was the Ukraine.

  Within a quarter mile a small valley took shape with the heavy tree lining that accompanies a river, much as willows mark the path of water in a rural setting. We traveled a single-lane path now with no signs of life ahead. Within the hour we reached the valley floor, crossed a creaky wooden plank bridge, and assumed a parallel trek with the river. Overhead hundreds of birds followed the river as it slowly churned at little more than paddling speed. I had never experienced life at this pace, and was tempted to offer to exchange jobs with my driver.

  Two hours of quietude passed, and we approached a small village, outskirted by the usual small family farm plots and weathered fencing and a cemetery in a clearing. Ahead smoke rose from several chimneys in the chilly air, and I smelled the wood burning.

  “Dumitra?” I asked.

  The driver nodded. Before reaching the village, he halted the cart to turn into his residence, a small fenced farm with a smithing shop out back. I dismounted and reached for my bags. He lifted a small horseshoe out of his pocket and passed it over a metal box at the top of a fence post and the gate slowly swung open. Several children—I counted five, ranging from small to teenage—ran to greet him. I wondered about the rest. They had the dark features and long chins of Gypsy lineage. There really is no such race as Gypsy, for it is a catchall category for the amalgam of Latin lineage around the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. The term is meant more to caste the people, and not out of respect.

  Again I thanked him. “ foarte .”

  “Cu .” You’re welcome.

  I asked about accommodations, and he pointed to a large isolated house across the river and up a steep hill with a vantage overlooking the entire village. Considering the climb, I hoped vacancy was no issue, especially with weather approaching. One of his young sons began carrying my bags that direction, and I figured porter’s wages were the least I could do.

  It was a two-story house with porches both upstairs and down on a plat of land terraced into the rocky hillside. One of the windows upstairs advertised a room for rent with a sign in both Romanian and German: and Zimmer frei. Surrounded by black wrought iron fencing in a fleur-de-lis pattern, the gate had no lock, and the boy led me to the door and knocked, then stepped behind me. I paid him while an older woman answered. She quickly picked up on the situation, “Cîte ?” How many nights?

  “O zi.” One day.

  She showed me upstairs to the end of a hall, a simple room decorated in the traditional colorful geometric patterns with a single bed, washbasin, and a screen door to the porch. I nodded my approval. It was more than I had hoped for. Then she showed me the communal bathroom. Echoes down the hall suggested I might have it to myself.

  “I bring food.” She was a middle-aged round lady of Germanic features and thick hands, more manners than smiles, and rolled her r’s in the Eastern Euro fashion.

  I washed and sat on a rocking chair on the porch and smelled the imminent rain. A lightning storm approached from the northwest, and while the wind suddenly blew the storm’s introduction, my hostess’s husband busied himself below with the farm animals in the side yard, gathering them to the barn for shelter. She returned to my room with a generous sandwich and a hot coffee, which I gratefully consumed while watching the coming storm.

  Across the valley dark clouds quickly smothered the town as rain began to pelt the house. Close by lightning cracked and instant thunder boomed. I must admit that I flinched at the storm’s intensity. Only after the half-hour tempest passed did I realize the price to pay for free irrigation was mud, washing a treacherous path down the hill and over the wooden plank bridge. It also left the air chilled.

  From the porch I could see the village layout. In the Middle Ages, armies followed the worn paths and marched down main streets. So, unlike the States with our large front lawns and porches, residences in the corridor of war have no setbacks from the clay or cobblestone roads. Instead, long rows of houses connect with zero lot lines, homes with shuttered windows and no porches, as uninviting as any back-alley stroll. Yard entrance is gained via large double-arched wooden gates that open to a family’s courtyard. Gardens are planted in the back behind wooden fences. What distinguishes houses along the row are the faded colors from one to the next, or perhaps the levels of disrepair, such as plaster, which peels from the ground up. Every roof appears to need some form of tile work.

  My host joined me on the porch, his animals secured in the barn, bringing a coffee refill. He had a long nose and bushy eyebrows, a hint of hospitality in his hazel eyes.

  “So you are American,” he said in a heavy German accent.

  “Yes, I live in Chicago.”

  He looked down the hall to check for his wife. “Oprah,” he said, pointing a thumb in her direction.

  “Her studio is down the street from my place.”

  “Here’s to her last show.” He smiled and lifted his coffee in a toast. “So, where you go from here?”

  Lifting my GPS, I said, “I’m looking for Dreptu.”

  The hospitality left his eyes. A moment passed before he asked, “The river?”

  “The town. My device says it’s Dumitra-Dreptu.”

  “That is the Dreptu River.” He pointed toward the water I had crossed to his property. “But there is no . . . place. Not anymore.”

  “Was there ever such a place?”

  “Mister . . . ?”

  “Barkeley, Joseph Barkeley.”

  “Herr Barkeley.” He turned to see if anyone else was on the porch. “Who sent you to this place?”

  “No one. I just . . . chose it on a map.” I hoped he didn’t know I was lying.

  He spoke slowly, carefully forming his words. “This Dreptu River, it flows down from the , and then to the Danube, this way.” Zees way. He pointed south and west. “There is . . .”

  Pausing, he rubbed his chin.

  “What?”

  “There is . . . was a place called Dreptu upriver.” He pointed toward the mountains to the east. “But is now only ruins.” Eez now only rueenz.

  “What was it?”

  “An old monastery. Hundreds of years nicht arbeit.” Not in service.

  The storm had cleared and a late afternoon fog descended to the valley, crawling down the hillside from the north.

  “How far?”

  “A few kilometers.”

  “Can I get there by walking the river?”

  “This is not a place to go, Herr Barkeley. It is upriver, yes, but much danger. There are wolves, boars, and great bears in this forest.” Zis forest.

  I was perhaps the only human in the last century to have seen Stoker’s references to Dreptu buried in his notes. Even Internet search engines failed to unearth any such place, not even a legen
d, just a note on a GPS reading. Yet that was where the original phone call came from. I wondered, If Luc’s right and the old man heads the oldest, wealthiest family in Europe, then why place a call from a nonexistent Dreptu? An elaborate precaution in the name of anonymity? No, I was convinced otherwise.

  I was certain there was something to the place, and recalling the words of Doug Carli, “You don’t leave things like this to chance. You wanna do big deals, you don’t leave the small stuff on the table. That’s why it’s called due diligence.”

  Besides, to fall two miles short after having journeyed six thousand seemed cowardly to me. What would I think when I was back in Chicago, regretting that I was too timid to follow the central clue to understanding the missing chapter? This was going to be my only chance, perhaps in a lifetime, to see the place. I had several hours before nightfall. I went to pack for the walk.

  “Herr Barkeley.” My host shook a finger at me. “Beware the dark.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “Die Todten reiten schnell . . . faster than you.” The dead travel fast.

  As I walked through the village, fog rolled along the ground as if being swept, and I did my best to avoid shoe-hungry mud puddles by walking atop long wooden planks that served as sidewalks in springtime. Droplets fell from spring’s early leaves as I passed under branches. The rain had cooled an already chilly day.

  Dolls, the only life signs in some places, were displayed in windows to show potential suitors that an eligible girl lived there. Everywhere the smell of burning wood and cooking reminded me of my early childhood. And just as in my childhood, dogs barked and snarled and cats recoiled. Parents called their children and pets and hustled to close their gates at the sight of me. Another group of children bowed their heads and made signs of the cross as I passed. An elderly woman saw me and dropped the buckets she carried and began praying. I recall somewhere in the litany of my childhood superstitions that it was unlucky to be photographed holding empty buckets, and rural villagers associated strangers with cameras. I showed her my empty hands, but she still looked away.