The Snow Vampire

by Michael G. Cornelius

  I was anxious all through dinner, anxious to have Hendrik all alone, to myself. I did not have to wait long. Shortly after our repast Kateryna’s father declared himself and his whole family quite exhausted, and everyone retired to bed. Finally alone with Hendrik, I thought we might talk, but he answered any query in only a short, staccato reply, one word or two at most. When I asked of his life—of his work, his schooling, of what he did and did not do—he had little to say. When I asked of his travels—of Prague and Rome, magnificent Rome—he merely shrugged. When I asked of life in the city, his only reply was to shrug again and say, in a flat, dismissive tone, “You would not like it.” Then, before I could ask more, he feigned an exaggeratedly large yawn and slipped into bed with barely a “good sleep.”

  I slipped in beside him and turned myself to face him. He turned his back to me, and soon I could detect the perfect, rhythmic breathing of a man pretending to sleep. It mattered not; if my heart was disappointed, its near-to-bursting pounding soon replaced any feelings of dejection with anxiety, happiness, and joy. I spent an hour staring at the outline Hendrik’s shoulder blades made against the thin silk of his white nightshirt. I imagined caressing the fabric, so cool and smooth and alien to me, and tracing these bony apertures of Hendrik’s, touching them ever so softly, ever so gently. It was not a desire I could have expressed out loud or given word or form to. It was nothing I knew in my head or in my thoughts at all. It was all instinct, a pure affair of the heart, and to my large and sincere embarrassment, my groin. Of course, a stiff prick was nothing new to me, but coming now, so close to the object of my fervent desire, was. Previously my turgid thoughts had turned on flashing images generated from the stories I read or photographs in a picture book or from my own imagination of life lived somewhere else. Now I found my heart’s desire mere inches from my mind and from my yearning. Turning, I faced away from Hendrik, flushed with feelings I could not comprehend and a hope that threatened to destroy me from within, if I did not act soon to let it out.

  But Hendrik would prove as impenetrable the next day and the one after that. He was a cipher, a pile of mysteries in the form of a Sylvan youth. He had brought with him copious books to read and spent most of his time on a small window seat in our home, whiling away the hours with authors I had never heard of. Some of the books were in Hungarian, but others were in German and French and even English. English! I had been taking lessons in English for some years from a man in town who had lived in London for a time in his youth. In our small provincial school we had studied German, and father thought if I was to be a modern man of business, another language might be useful, and he approved of English much more than he did French—or, rather, he approved of the English much more than he did the French, whom Poppa often called a bunch of “preening, lethargic pigs.”

  Smiling, I took this facet we had in common and tried to breach the silence between Hendrik and the rest of the world.

  “I study too,” I said in my best imitation of the language, pointing to one of his books. But Hendrik said nothing to my overture. Instead, he looked at me, smiled a pained and dismissive smile, and then withdrew even further, balling his body together as if it were armor protecting him from every assault the outside world could muster.

  Kateryna, however, was never as quiet as her brother.

  “What is there to do here?” she whined one day. Father and Uncle Sandor—as we had been told to call Hendrik’s father—were out again, off to see to business at the mine, which really meant drinking vodka and talking news at the tavern. Hendrik was reading. Alona and I had taken Kateryna to view the falls outside of the village. For most people, the sight of the water cascading down the thickly forested mountain was one of great beauty and sacrament; for Kateryna, however, it was just another reminder of the privileges she had left behind. “This town is so dull,” she moaned. “What is there to do?” I rolled my eyes at what was swiftly becoming her favorite refrain.

  Alona tried to be helpful. “Sometimes, I help Mamma and Grandmamma with the baking.”

  To Alona, this was fun, to roll out dough and talk like a woman with the members of her family. But to Kateryna, this suggestion was met with horror.

  “Kitchen work?” she gasped. “I have servants who do such chores for me.”

  “We are unaccustomed to such finery,” I said pointedly, with as much sharpness as I dared allow my voice to reflect.

  But if Kateryna noticed the tone in my voice, she clearly did not care. “That is obvious,” she sniffed, before stalking back toward the direction of our home.

  Alona looked momentarily hurt, then trotted off after her, still resolute in her desire to please her older cousin. I sighed and began to follow when I noticed another figure at the falls. Hendrik. My heart skipped a beat, and my sullen manner instantly disappeared. I had not seen him outside the house before; perhaps his days of self-imposed incarceration were finally at an end. Happily but cautiously, as one approaches a wild deer, I went over to him.

  “They are beautiful, no?” I said as casually as my quavering voice would allow.

  “Yes,” he said with a sigh. He turned his back on the falls and on me and walked a few paces toward a large tree. He settled himself against the mossy bark, tugging his black wool coat closer to his lean body. Even now in summer, it can be cool up here in the mountains. But I felt flushed, warm; my own coat had been left behind.

  “Have I done something wrong?” I suddenly blurted out. It was perhaps a rude question, but my addled mind could think of no other reason for Hendrik’s continued reticence in my presence except that I had somehow offended him. “For if I have,” I continued, “please tell me, so that I may repair any injury.”

  Hendrik was surprised by my question. “No, of course not, Ferenc,” he said, the first time he ever used my name. “Why do you ask me this?”

  I ignored his question. “But you are unhappy here, yes?” I asked instead. I did not know why I posed this question, as it was surely none of my concern. And yet I felt I had no more pressing concern in the wide world than Hendrik’s happiness.

  Hendrik made a small frown before finally turning and looking at me. “As unhappy here as anywhere, and as happy as possible.”

  It was an enigmatic reply, but I felt so relieved that he had finally looked on me that I did not much mind. “You speak in such riddles, as my grandmother sometimes does,” I said.

  Hendrik gave me a small smile, perhaps the first honest emotion I had seen him express since his arrival. “Riddles? I am not sure of that. Questions, perhaps. Life is a series of unanswered questions. Questions that, by their nature, cannot be answered by man or by God.”

  I laughed, delighted that we were speaking in this way, but when I saw him flinch, I was chastened I had done so. “I mean not to deride you,” I hastened to add. “Only you speak as a philosopher would.”

  He was a year older than me. His dark hair fell over his face in small waves, tendrils of tenderness that begged for me to gently, with a touch so deft and soft, clear them from his visage. I wanted to do this badly, to see clearly his eyes, to gaze into them for myself and make them my own. I was taller than him, but here, standing before him, I felt suddenly small, helpless, and happy to be so. Finally he turned to look at me, a glance more than a stare, but a glance I eagerly returned. He spoke.

  “Perhaps. Sometimes it is better to speak philosophically when one cannot speak plainly.”

  “You can speak either way with me,” I said, mustering as much banter and boldness as I could. “I am only happy you are finally speaking to me at all.”

  His face softened. How I longed to touch it! “I am sorry for that, Ferenc,” he said. “It is—it is just that I have had much on my mind since arriving here and… before.” His eyes looked into mine again. “I meant no offense,” he added.

  “And there was none taken,” I replied, happy to give him this small gift. I smiled at him, and we stood there, his back on the tree, my eyes locked on his, not speaking, just
enjoying the quiet presence of one another. I could see now there was a hole in Hendrik; that somehow, in some way, he had been broken. I resolved then to do what I could to fix him, to render him complete once more.

  “Well,” he finally said, breaking the silence of the moment by speaking. “I have not seen much of the town yet. Perhaps you could show me the sights?”

  “That should take all of five minutes,” I laughed.

  He laughed too, the first time I heard his laugh. He laughed like his father, in short, gasping bursts, only higher in tone and sweetness, like the plinking of the short strings of a harp. “Perhaps you can find some way to make it last a bit longer,” he said, and I laughed one more time, a happy sound that echoed through the hills as we walked back toward town.

  That afternoon, I showed him my world. The widow’s house where I attended school, the mine I would someday own, the back porches where I and the other village boys would steal jugs of hard apfelsaft every fall. And Hendrik absorbed every sight I showed him, took it all in, as rapt as if he were touring the grand vistas of Rome. Looking back, I cannot think of a time in my life I had ever felt more significant, as if to him, for those brief moments, I was the most important thing in all the wide world.

  And as we walked, we talked. He finally spoke to me of his work with his father’s businesses, which he secretly loathed, and his studies, which he loved. He spoke of Budapest, of the wide boulevards and the opera house and ballet and the men and women all dressed up in their finest clothes. He spoke of the poverty, too, and of the government, and patiently answered my endless string of questions, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes laughingly, but always with great and sincere earnestness. And I—I was his captivated audience, eager for every word that came off his tongue. The world, the mountains, Pilsden itself melted away, and in my mind we were suddenly in Budapest, he and I, two heady youths in black tie and tails, taking a motorcoach to a night of theater over paved roads and streets illuminated by artificial, electric lights.

  Yet as quickly as I left Pilsden I returned, taking Hendrik back through the town square and toward the edge of the village. Our tour ended where it began, somewhere near the base of the mountain, two youths aimlessly milling around the woods of a small Hungarian mountain town.

  “What’s that, up there?” Hendrik suddenly asked. He was shading his eyes from the sun and pointing up, high up, seemingly halfway up the mountain itself. “I can see something, but… I’m not sure what it is.”

  I knew without looking. “Those are the old ruins,” I said. “Hundreds of years ago, there used to be a monastery up there. It was here before the town itself. The monks tended to travelers going through the pass. It was never anything more than a small, cloistered community.”

  “Can we go see?” Hendrik eagerly asked. I loved hearing that tone of fervor in his voice; he sounded almost happy, and the sound made my own heart beat faster.

  “There isn’t much to see, I’m afraid,” I said, the smile never leaving my face. “There was never much there to begin with. Just the frames of one or two old stone outbuildings, the chapel, and the main compound exist anymore. The rest was taken by avalanche, or snowstorm, or fire, many decades ago, perhaps longer.”

  Something in the sound of my voice suggested I was leaving some important details of the story out. “What happened up there?” Hendrik asked, clearly interested.

  I shrugged and gave him half a smile. I was delighted that he was so keen on knowing, that I had been able to give him yet another small gift. But while there was a story to be told about the ruins of the old monastery, I was not the one to tell it.

  “You should ask Grandmamma,” I told him. “Tonight after supper. She knows the history of the ruins better than anyone in town. She can tell you.” I gave Hendrik another playful smile and gently clapped him on the shoulder. As I did so, I became aware that this was the first time I had actually touched him, and a small thrill ran through me; despite the heat of the sun beating down on me, I shivered just a little. “Come,” I said, determined to hold on to his shoulder as long as decorum would allow. “It is nearly suppertime now. Soon you will know all you need to know of the ruins. And then some.” As we turned and walked toward home, I watched as Hendrik turned back, his eyes desperate to catch further glimpses of the broken rock parapets that he now knew were hidden somewhere above us.

  “SO,” Grandmamma intoned, “you wish to know of the snagov vrolok.”

  “The snagov—what?” Hendrik said, half-laughing his reply. “I thought I was asking about the old monastery in the hills.”

  “And indeed you were,” Grandmamma said, her face as grave as mine was giddy. “And I happen to know that the vrolok is the only reason young boys ever ask an old woman like me about those ruins,” she added, casting an unfavorable eye toward her only grandson.

  We were sitting at the small butcher block table in the kitchen that the women in my family had been preparing meals on and swapping stories over for generations. Dinner had been concluded, and Grandmamma was sitting down to a hot kettle and some tea. She shook the kettle at each of us, offering a cup, but we both declined. Hendrik, I could tell, was too intrigued.

  “A snagov vrolok?” he repeated. The old Czech term did not roll easily off his tongue. “The first word is snow, that I know. But I am afraid I don’t know the second….” He trailed off, looking at Grandmamma expectantly.

  She did not disappoint. With all the severity an old woman could muster, she leaned across the table and whispered the other word into his ear. “Vampire,” she said.

  Hendrik laughed, loud and hearty. Grandmamma disapproved of his less-than-serious response, rolling her eyes and sipping her tea. As for me, I was delighting in this moment, reveling in Hendrik’s curiosity and joy. I was still quite happy that I had given him this, and that there was more to come.

  “A snow vampire?” he asked, hitting the last word hard for emphasis. “I have never heard of such a thing.”

  Grandmamma wagged a finger at each of us, a signal that, for the moment, quieted our chuckles. “Laugh all you want,” she said. “But I tell you, that place is cursed. Always has been.”

  “We’re sorry, Grandmamma. We mean no disrespect,” I said, suppressing an urge to continue giggling. I could not help it; Hendrik’s delight, the first time I had ever seen such emotion in him, was positively contagious. Still, I coughed and swallowed, taking a deep breath to still the last giggles that threatened to continue disrupting the solemn tenor of Grandmamma’s voice.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hendrik added. “I would very much like to hear the tale, if you would tell me.”

  “Mm,” Grandmamma said, a noncommittal noise indicating that she would, for the moment, reserve judgment. “Very well. It all started centuries ago. Before there was even this town here, there was the monastery. Hundreds of years old, it is. At first it was like any other holy order. The brothers there cared for travelers, rescuing them from storms and snow when they could. In time a large vein of tin was discovered in the mountain, and so the miners came, and the little village grew up around them. Because of the village, travelers now had a place to bed down at night and eat a hot meal. More came through the pass on the way north, and because of this and the mine, both the town and monastery prospered.

  “For many years the town and the monastery co-existed peacefully; the brothers tended to the spiritual needs of the community while the villagers would send up extra stores of food and supplies when the winter was especially harsh and the brothers’ meager rations ran low. There was peace and harmony in the pass for many years. But something happened to change all that. A wandering priest came into town, a friar who was said to be as wild as any beast in the wood. The good brothers took him in, of course, as they would any wayward traveler. But this man had an evil influence on them. He convinced the brothers to turn their backs on God and their sacred duties. Instead of helping lost travelers, they robbed them. And worse—they performed black rites late at night, outside in
the courtyard of their monastery, even deep into the wintertime.”

  “It must be difficult to do evil when you’re up to your arse in snow,” I whispered under my breath to Hendrik, who stifled a laughing reply.

  If Grandmamma noticed our insubordination, however, she kindly ignored it and proceeded with her story. “It was in that courtyard where the greatest evil occurred. It was said that the monks had built a great black altar where they would sacrifice unwary travelers who wandered near their doors. Soon the place began to have the foulest of reputations, and no traveler would dare take the dreaded road through the Mesnek pass. Since no one came through Pilsden anymore, the town suffered. Then, late at night, the brothers began to sneak into town, stealing livestock for their tables and their black sacrifices.”

  At this, Hendrik kicked me hard in the shins under the table. I could tell he was bursting fit to laugh again at the image of monks tucking chickens or goats under their arms and trudging back up the mountain with them, but silently I willed him to hold his peace, and he did.

  “Then one night, they took a small child for their evil purposes. It was the eve of St. Stephen’s Day. The wind breathed loud, and snow pelted the mountains, but the townspeople all heard the child’s final, agonizing screams, even above the howl of the wind itself. At last, they decided, enough was enough. Grabbing torches and knives they stormed the monastery. They slaughtered every last monk they saw and set fire to the whole place. Finally, they cornered the mad friar who had led these men down their evil path. It was said that he had eyes as red as blood and cloven hooves for feet. He snarled at the men who trapped them, biting and kicking them, but they were many and he was one, and soon they overpowered him. The villagers took the mad monk to the monastery courtyard to try him for his wicked crimes. It was just approaching dawn, and as the sun rose, the villagers were horrified to see that the snow of the courtyard was stained red everywhere, red with the blood of hundreds of murdered innocents. They quickly added more red to the snow as they disemboweled the mad monk and sent him on to his evil master.”