Then we passed through another gate and came out of the town into Unter Ratzenstadt. Novak was still chatting up the other servants, and no one was bothering me. I looked over Schmeddlesome’s bald head at the Sava. It was murky from the previous night’s storm. With every passing day the river had a different aspect. Didn’t that Greek, the one they call ‘the Obscure’, say you can’t step twice into the same river? There you have it, the ultima Thule of human knowledge. And the real point is that the same man cannot step twice into the same river or any other river for that matter. People are just as changeable as rivers.
Suddenly, between me and Schmidlin there appeared a figure on horseback. Dressed alla Turca. What was a Turk doing in Belgrade? I wondered. At first I couldn’t see his face. It was hidden by a great red turban. His caftan was of the finest velvet, embroidered all in pearls and mother-of-pearl, draping over most of the horse’s hindquarters. His stocking was as blue as turquoise, and his slipper curled out to a black pearl at the tip. Then he turned to face me, and I recognized him at once. It was the Grand Vizier Yusuf Ibrahim. A massive ornament of mother-of-pearl adorned his turban with a blinding gleam, although there was no sun to reflect from it.
I remembered the vizier’s seal. It was divided in two: the first section was larger and inscribed with the words Yusuf Ibrahim, Faithful Servant of God. In the smaller section were the words In Silence Is Safety. What a cunning snare I once laid for this worthy Bosnian who’d made such a name for himself in Istanbul!
With silken words I had praised him to the sultan’s agents, and the words smoothly twisted themselves into a cord around the vizier’s neck. But then I was called away on other business, from the Levant to the Orient, and I set sail from the Golden Horn and left the matter behind. Later I heard that he had managed to escape the snare, and in gratitude to Allah (as if I were 
, or Shaitan) he had a bridge built over the River Žepa in his home country. Well, I could hardly let such a thing go unpunished. I sat down and penned him a letter, imitating the handwriting of one of his fellow-countrymen. In the letter I recommended an inscription to be carved into the bridge:
When Good Rule and Noble Skill
Did clasp hands together,
There rose this magnificent bridge,
Gladness of men’s hearts and good deed of Yusuf
In this world and the world to come.
Sometime later I was passing by the town of Žepa and stopped to rest on the stone railing of the bridge. The evening around me was cold, but the bridge was warm, still holding the heat of the sun within. But nowhere on the bridge was there any inscription. Again I said to myself that such a thing must not go unpunished …
But what could this Bosnian want from me now? Revenge? And what on earth was a grand vizier doing riding along with the Austrians? It suddenly occurred to me that he might be a phantom. Like one of the phantoms I had already encountered in Unter Ratzenstadt. He must not be visible to the others.
And as I puzzled this over, he laughed out loud and said, ‘Laer si meht fo eno ylno dna eerht neve ebyam ecno ta secalp owt ni era uoy won.’ His face began to change. The long thin beard vanished, the eyes grew larger, the turban lengthened into a curly wig – and the green caftan became …
It was the count I had seen when returning to Belgrade. The slippers with the black pearls at the tip remained and did not change into riding-boots. But this was no comfort to me at all. In fact, it merely threw me into even greater confusion.
As the man in crimson was clearly an Austrian, it meant he would be travelling with us and not disappearing in the time-honoured tradition of genies released from the bottle.
And why had he spoken to me in that manner? Either he had not wanted me to understand or else he knew who I was and meant to let me know what he was about without anyone else’s understanding. Whichever the case, it wasn’t good. For if he spoke so I would not understand he was mad, and the mad are to be feared even more than the wicked; and if he knew who I was, then he could be my greatest foe. The Regent of Serbia had also recognized me immediately, but the Regent of Serbia had no power to transform himself into a grand vizier. And if this was indeed my greatest foe it could mean only one thing: the end of the world was truly upon us.
‘What’s wrong, master? You’ve got the smell of brimstone about you again,’ said Novak.
‘Be quiet!’
‘I don’t see anything …’
‘Be quiet!’
‘But I don’t understand.’
‘Will you be quiet!’
And in the end, merely by being so annoying, he managed to calm me down. I slowed my horse until I was lagging further behind the man in crimson. Novak wisely followed suit. When we were far enough away, I asked Novak, ‘Do you see that man in the crimson cloak?’
‘I don’t see anybody in a crimson cloak.’
‘How many of us are there?’
‘Eight, counting the two of us. What kind of question is that?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Have you asked about Wittgenstein?’
‘The name is Wittgenau.’
Who can keep all those surnames straight? I could barely keep track of all the families of Europe and their ties. Marrying away, right, left and centre. All of them with their double-barrelled surnames and everyone related to everyone else. How I look forward to the end of this aristocratic muddle, the marriages and family names and all the other contrivances of inequality. I note that the English colonies in America have made great strides in that direction. There one finds no counts, barons, princesses or other ranks of birth; what counts is one’s ability. I’m becoming quite partial towards the lads across the pond.
‘Well, let’s hear it.’
‘He was born in Germany to a good Catholic family, but he’s said to have Jewish blood. Later he went to England. From there he came to Belgrade.’
The fool.
‘Supposedly he said, The world is all that is the case,’ Novak continued.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘No one does, but that’s why they thought so highly of him.’
‘I understand.’
‘Anyhow, Wittgenau was particularly interested in the two cisterns that Doxat had ordered to be built over three years: the one in Belgrade and the other in Petrovaradin. Everyone was sure he’d come on some sort of inspection to see whether there’d been anything crooked about it and to make sure the work at Kalemegdan was on the level. But Schmettau’s man tells me, just between ourselves, that Wittgenau wasn’t sent by anyone, and certainly not by the emperor in Vienna, and that he came on his own, wanting to go down into the cistern.’
‘Why? Aren’t people allowed into the cistern?’
‘He hardly had time to. Not long after he arrived the poor man went missing.’
‘Perhaps he went down into the cistern after all? Heh, heh, heh. Only he couldn’t get back out. There’s the secret of the cistern for you. Once you get to the bottom you find what you were looking for, but there’s no way out.’
‘From what I hear, there are two spiral staircases leading to the water level. One set of stairs for going down, and the other for coming back up.’
You say my story is inconsistent, that I’ve been saying things that contradict one another? You say it’s clear I must be lying?
If I were lying, everything I say would be perfectly consistent and all the pieces would fit together. That’s because, if I were lying, I’d have thought it all through in advance, and I’d tell you a story that made perfect sense. If I were lying, I’d be sure to observe Aristotle’s rules of logic. As it stands, since I’m telling the truth, I haven’t thought it through, and so mistakes are bound to creep in. Every perfect story is a lie. Truth is full of twists and turns and doesn’t stick to a plan. When we tell the truth we don’t look to the logic of the thing, for truth stands on its own, not because of Aristotle. Only a lie lives by the rules of reasoning.
I beg your pardon, I cannot hear you.
What happened next?
We continued to sit at the table they had laid for us. The seven of us. Vuk Isakovič was not with us. Now that I think of it, I didn’t see him at all until the following morning. And he’d been assigned as our guard.
I put on my favourite cloak, a crimson-purple sort of thing, for it had grown chilly for sitting out of doors. First we were served some jasmine tea. In those days I used to take my tea with quite a lot of sugar. But no sooner had I reached for a spoonful than Schmettau, who was sitting beside me, jarred my hand, causing me to spill the sugar on the table. He did say he was sorry, but I knew at once he had done it on purpose. This became even clearer when I tried to take some more sugar. Schmettau jostled me, again I spilled the sugar, and once more he apologized. My third attempt at sweetening my tea was also thwarted by Schmettau, and then I had to ask him for an explanation.
‘One does not take sugar with jasmine tea,’ he replied.
‘Could you not have simply said so?’
‘Had I told you, you might have listened, but also quickly forgotten. Now you are sure to remember that I was most appallingly rude and also that one does not take sugar with jasmine tea.’
‘Suppose, however, that now, just because of your bad manners, I shall always do the opposite of your unspoken admonition?’
‘You are clever enough for a woman not to spite your face by cutting off your own nose.’
‘To what do I owe this change in your attentions? Only a short while ago you were very nearly accusing me of having murdered your friend Count Wittgenau.’
‘Was I? I was merely speaking heart-to-heart. Who else is there to talk to? Cast your eye, won’t you, over the select company of idiots that surrounds us. A count from Vienna whom no one has ever seen before, who allegedly earned his title in the overseas colonies, as if there were anything there that needed doing. And who, by the way, also nicked my copy of Marshal Vauban.’
‘I was under the impression you’d given up reading.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘Word travels fast, you know, especially when it’s something bad.’ I smiled ever so pleasantly.
The soup course was served.
‘This is a Chinese noodle soup,’ said Schmettau. Silently we had our soup. I don’t know why everyone had stopped talking.
Next came the spicy mung beans but still no talking.
Only when the main course was brought did Schmettau speak up.
‘This is five-spice duck with moo shu pancakes. It is made by adding the duck meat to a chicken broth, bringing it to the boil and then adding soya sauce, sugar, salt, ginger and star anise. Reduce the heat, cover and allow to simmer for as long as Much Ado About Nothing takes to perform in the better sort of theatre.’
‘But if you’ve given up reading, what does it matter whether von Hausburg has stolen your book?’
‘I’ve stopped reading prose and poetry but continue to buy and study specialist literature. Remove the duck from the heat, drain, then rub the meat both inside and out with the five-spice mix, salted black beans and wine. Bread the duck with a mixture of corn and wheat flour. Allow to stand for the length of one act of a serious drama, under no circumstances substituting a comedy. Fry the duck in hot oil until it turns golden brown and then drain well. Take the moo shu pancakes, also known as Mandarin pancakes, wrap them in a damp cloth and steam them for the length of Hamlet’s monologue in Act Two. To finish –’
‘Why have you given up prose and poetry?’
‘To finish, carve the duck in thin slices. Now, how to serve. Because I’ve looked, my dear princess. I seek but never find. Not one book has ever been good enough for me. They start out the way they should. They tickle my fancy, I get swept up, carried away – but in the end it’s never worth it, it’s always a disappointment, a big nothing. At first I thought some authors must not know what they’re doing, that they could think their way into a plot but not out. But as time went by it turned out that none of them could ever pull it off the way I like. Now, Chinese cuisine attaches considerable importance to the art of serving. Sprinkle the pancakes with hoisin sauce, add several pieces of duck, top with spring onions, roll up and eat. And then I understood what was wrong. I had been expecting books, those little books, to end with an explanation of life itself and its meaning. And that’s not what they were doing. They’d merely see the protagonists safely married off, or killed off, or crowned, or back at home after their long journeys. What was the point of that? I’ve forgotten, Princess, I am sorry, the proportions of the ingredients, so sorry, but we shall ask the cook if you care to know.’
‘Dear Count, would you ever have your portrait done in sand?’
‘Certainly not,’ he exclaimed.
‘Well then, would the dear Lord ever choose something as threadbare as language to explain the essence of the world?’
‘I couldn’t agree more, Princess – Madam Regent,’ von Hausburg put in. ‘Just think about language and what happens to it in the ears, let alone on the tongue. It was only the other day, you might say, that people were calling it the changing of the guard; now they’re calling it guard-changing operations. Before you know it they’ll be calling it modifications to be implemented in guard-duty-provider positions. Once they start, the Devil himself couldn’t come up with more sheer nonsense. Isn’t that a sure sign of linguistic impoverishment and decline? How is your man upstairs supposed to use that sort of language to express his greatest secrets, eh? How?’
‘Count von Hausburg, do not forget that the Lord spoke the world into existence. By his word was the world made, and the word is greater than the world, and by the word can the world be understood, but that writers fail and know not how,’ Schmettau said.
‘Oh, they know it all right. They know it only too well. If he did speak the world into existence, and if the word really was in the beginning, then what does that make mispronunciations, and metaphors, and switching one thing for another, and alterations, and figures of speech? The destruction of the world, that’s what. Let alone irony! The deadliest weapon of all. Imagine he’d said “Let there be light” in an ironic tone of voice and ended up creating darkness. Twist the language, and you change the shape of the world. That’s the Devil’s work, believe you me,’ said von Hausburg all in one breath.
‘But what about books with wise and beautiful sentences and a certain way of putting things, the ones that make you sit up straight, or move about in your chair, or even get to your feet because you simply must stop reading? You stretch and go for a walk. You think. The most pleasurable book to read is the one that makes you put it down and stand up for a moment. In a way, reading is like the passions of the flesh, which are just as much movements as interruptions. Interruptions when you know what just took place and look forward to what’s coming next. When that happens, do you really need to have the world explained to you? Novels and poems aren’t meant to explain the world or to twist it all out of shape. We’re meant to journey into them, to stay for a while, bathing in an airy stream of words, verses, chapters,’ I said.
We all sat quietly, and then von Hausburg spoke. ‘And how do you distinguish the rules of this life from the rules of literature?’
Let me stop and catch my breath. I’ve been talking all this time. It’s not easy remembering everything the way it was said and the looks and gestures that went with it. Well now.
It’s been many years since then, and so much has changed. For instance, that revolution in France. Who could have seen that coming? And here you are, asking about things that happened long ago and therefore don’t matter, about a country that’s already been given back to the Turks …
What? You say there’s been a book about it? What sort of book? Yes, I do understand I’m not the one asking the questions here. I do. But a book? Someone’s written a book about all the things I’ve been telling you? Hm.
Now I see why you’re questioning me. It doesn’t matter what really happened, all that matters is what the book says. It’s the book that’s upset you, not the events themselves.
And I know just who might have written that book. I do indeed.
I know all sorts of things now. Why, I even know the proportions of the ingredients for the five-spice duck with pancakes:
four cups broth
two and a half teaspoons dark soya sauce
half a cup salt
two spoonfuls star anise
two spoonfuls ginger
one and a half spoonfuls brown sugar
one and a half spoonfuls five-spice mixture
one and a half spoonfuls black beans
two spoonfuls wine
one spoonful cornmeal
one and a half spoonfuls wheat flour
six cups oil
sixteen to eighteen Mandarin pancakes
hoisin sauce
spring onions
This is for half a duck or one whole chicken, if you’d rather not have duck meat. I believe the proportions were doubled for our meal.
I don’t know what’s in the five-spice mixture, as they call it, and I’m afraid I can’t tell you where to find the hoisin. I get mine from China, don’t you know, when our couriers travel to Tiananmen and back. My family and the Qing dynasty are on good terms.
You never really know everything that goes into a particular dish. There’s always a dash of something secret. Just so you understand, the smaller and more insignificant that mystery ingredient is, the more delicious your dinner.
What was my answer to von Hausburg? I’ll tell you in a bit. No need to go in strict order, is there? Besides, you already know what happened. And how. And in what order. Not only that, something important was just about to take place. Something more important to the story than my answer to von Hausburg.
One of the servants was careless with the Chinese soup and spilled some on Baron Schmidlin. He had to excuse himself from the table to change. You don’t see why this should matter? During the meal, neither did I. It was only later that I understood, and then very much so. As I say, Baron Schmidlin stepped into the hut to change his clothes. But changing seemed to take him a very long time – all throughout lunch, in fact. I must confess we had quite forgotten about him.
We finished the duck off quickly, or rather the pancakes with bits of duck in them, and in my distracted state I didn’t even notice when the three men from the commission began their discussion, whispering and explaining something very important to one another. I saw von Hausburg straining to listen as they whispered, but I don’t think he was able to hear. I, however, have unusually keen hearing. Or, rather, I did have at the time. And so I was able to hear and understand some of what they were saying.
The one doing most of the talking, or whispering, was the commissioner with the red wig, while the other two listened and occasionally nodded. In fact, the whole time they behaved as though the one in red were in charge and not that doctor, as they’d given us to understand.
Yes, what I learned from the three men’s conversation is what actually happened later. They agreed that Klaus Radetzky would be the one to sleep at the mill. It wasn’t clear to me at first why the three of them didn’t just spend the night there together. Later Count Schmettau explained it. The Serbs would not stop believing in the vampires if all three men stayed at the mill. Vampires were believed to strike, for the most part, when no one else was around, so nothing would be proved if all three men stayed the night.
In the meantime, Baron Schmidlin had returned, just in time to break open his Chinese fortune cookies. The fortunes are written on slips of paper and then baked into sweet biscuits. There’s usually a line from Confucius or Lao-tzu, someone like that. Supposedly, it’s not by chance that one gets a certain message. It’s destiny, fate, speaking through the layers of sweetness.
Mine said: Joy is along the way not at the end of the road.
China?
Yes, the fortunes were in Chinese. Count Schmettau translated them for us. For all of us, of course. None of us knew Chinese. Although …
Although I do remember, as if it were yesterday, seeing Count von Hausburg give a start when he unrolled his fortune. It occurred to me at the time that he could read what was written there, and that the words had shaken him. But still he handed his paper to Schmettau to be translated. And Count Schmettau’s translation was: Your world is the totality of facts not of things. Von Hausburg looked at him in surprise, as if Schmettau hadn’t read what was really there, as if it said something entirely different. But von Hausburg said nothing, only took back his paper and crumpled it up.
What did Schmettau’s fortune say?
I don’t remember. I think it was something good. Something quite clear and auspicious, unlike mine and von Hausburg’s, which were neither good nor bad but merely unclear. At least they were still unclear at the time.
No, I wasn’t surprised that Count Schmettau knew Chinese. He liked the Chinese, anything from China. Everyone knew. He would often say, ‘How close we are here to the East’, then stare off into one of the Chinese paintings that hung at the palace. Bamboo ink on silk, enig matic paintings of Chinese landscapes. I think looking at such pictures calmed him. It wasn’t often that I met him, but when I did he was almost always lost in thought in front of one of those paintings.
The steps … Yes, the steps.
‘Have I ever told you about the time on the steps, when I was following Fishmouth on the way to Golgotha, and I caught up with Mary Magdalene? Now there was a soul, the kind of soul you rarely meet. I’ve seen my share of multitudes, and even I couldn’t resist such a suffering soul. Love …’
‘Master, why are you telling me this? Do you really think you can tell a story? And a love story at that? Why, you’re the last one to be telling love stories. And why? First of all, because you have no idea how to love. You may know how to put a story together, but if you don’t know how to love, all that skill and cleverness don’t mean a thing.’
‘You’re talking nonsense,’ I answered sharply. ‘If that were true then only murderers could speak about killing, only traitors about betrayal, only yours truly about evil and only an angel about good.’
‘It’s half true, master.’
‘How so?’
‘Because only the Devil doesn’t improve with the telling.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s very simple, master. A storyteller must learn from the tale he’s telling: the character who loves must learn to love better, the murderer to repent, the traitor to fall on his face before the king. That kind of story is the only real kind.’
‘Everything else is merely the truth,’ I laughed.
Novak lit his pipe. It was filled with the good Virginia tobacco from my own supplies that I’d let him have. He looked back at me as if he were smoking hashish.
‘Why shouldn’t I be able to tell a love story? I’ve been in love, too, you know.’
‘There you have it, master. How do you mean, in love? Have you ever been ready to give yourself up to the woman you love, without a second thought, without a single qualm? Have you ever been able to believe in love without hiding behind sneering words that don’t mean what they say?’
‘No, of course not. Women are all mortal creatures.’
‘I understand, master. Everyone thinks that way: I’ll never die, and all the rest of you are just passing through and falling to ruin, and it’s always someone else’s fault that we hold back. Don’t laugh, master. It’s a woeful thing.’
‘So?’ I asked.
‘So it’s a poor storyteller that doesn’t know how to end his tale. Even if he’s able to put it all together, he doesn’t know how to take it apart again. A bad story never ends, and that’s the mark of a bad storyteller.’
‘We’ve got ourselves a little Aristotle here!’
‘Even better maybe. I do know a bit more about some things than he does. I know the twists and turns of the story are like a question, and the way it plays out is like an answer. Anyone can ask the question, but not everyone can give the answer. That takes a bit more work and skill. As far as I can see, it’s all the same to you. You’ll never learn a thing, ever. That’s what makes you the Devil.’
‘Well, now I know,’ I said.
But he said no more, only puffed away at the Virginia tobacco and regarded the ground at his feet. I lit my own pipe, and we sat and smoked together.
Count Schmettau brought the meal to a close. He did so rather oddly, almost imperceptibly, in a way that for Schmettau was quite out of character. It was then that I understood for the first time the greatness of not calling attention to oneself. Schmettau suffered from greatness, as you yourself may have perceived. He was afflicted with an indescribable sense of his own importance. It was not enough for him that Count Marulli, who was obviously one of his protectors, would be coming to replace my husband. Rather, in some way I could not fathom, it had to do with his own position, which at the moment was different from ours, above ours. But Schmettau couldn’t have known this yet.
In any case, the meal was finished, and Radetzky stood up, bowed slightly and announced the decision that he was to stay the night at the mill.
That bow, I saw later, marked the beginning of Act Two. It was then that an unknown artist, ill-disposed towards us for reasons we could not fathom, took our fates in hand and set to work. That afternoon everything still seemed the same, no worse than any unrehearsed scene from a minor drama. Tired from the day, we made ready for a short rest; but the day was short, and it was, in fact, time for bed. I was sure that the day to come would be no different from all the days before. I expected nothing from the morning but that which daybreak always brings: tasks to attend to rather than thoughts, certainty rather than doubt. At least that’s what I was thinking. Perhaps the others had something else in mind. I mean to say, perhaps some among us were ready to encounter the vampires.
Throughout our lives we learn how to uncover false words, to turn them over and find the truth beneath them. When at last we come face to face with truth itself, we are helpless. Because falsehoods make sense, and truth does not. I was not expecting vampires.
‘I don’t know why you’re being so harsh about this. First of all, you can trust my stories. I always tell you just what everyone said, even Fishmouth. I tell you everything that happened and how it happened. True, I sometimes get ahead of my own tale, and sometimes I fall behind, but I do that to make things more interesting for you to hear so you’ll enjoy the story more.’
‘Hmph, you don’t say. Your stories are all meant to show how clever you are, and that’s that. I can’t remember a single story of yours where Christ gets the last word.’
‘Naturally. That would be pointless. How could anyone believe in all those dire omens and threats, the sudden turnabouts, the heartfelt lessons and inspirations? And that’s just what Fishmouth is always going on and on about. I tell you, the most the hero can hope for is a minor victory, a foolish bit of insight, a pathetic little treasure. Believe you me, even that’s asking a lot.’
‘But –’
‘A good storyteller takes his time as he comes to the most important events then springs them on the reader whose eyelids are starting to droop from all the philosophical toing and froing. After the boredom, surprise. Then one surprise after another. What an ironic twist that makes! I’m telling you, irony is not of this world. There, you see? That’s the kind of storyteller I am.’
We followed after Radetzky. He went striding ahead of us courageously. His chest out. Soon we reached the mill. It would be a dark place at any time of day, at any time of year. The water-wheel was black, enormous, rotting.
The mill itself was a hovel of wattle and daub.
Now Klaus Radetzky removed his wig and his short coat and was left wearing only his white shirt. He rolled up his sleeves as if settling to work. Until tomorrow, he said.
He went inside, and the door closed behind him. We stood there, watching. Nothing happened, but I felt uneasy. Some time went by before any of us spoke. It was then that I noticed the peasants who had also been watching as Radetzky went inside. After all, the whole thing was for their benefit. That’s what I believed.
Still, even as we spoke, none of us took our eyes off the mill. For a long time we stood there, and the conversation slowly died down. At one moment it ceased entirely. Silence reigned, but not for long. Soon we heard snoring. From inside the mill. It was Radetzky, no doubt tired from the ball, now fast asleep.
When we arrived at Dedejsko Selo night was already falling. Baron Schmeddlesome gave the order for our meal to be laid out of doors. Nasty Chinese food with nasty fortunes baked inside nasty little biscuits. Nothing will convince me that Count Schmettau didn’t make up the fortunes himself (he knew Chinese, that one), then arrange for everyone to get the prediction he thought most fitting, or closest to what he hoped our fate would be. I could hardly wait for the signal to be given that the meal was over. There was a signal all right, but hardly the usual one: Count Schmettau spilled some wine on his trousers and had to leave the table. Quick as could be, Radetzky stood up and said he had to make ready for his night at the mill. Everyone seemed to feel a bit odd, no doubt from the Chinese confections. One by one they left the table. Only the princess and Baron Schmidlin stayed put, prattling and giggling away – her like a minx and him like an old hen.
Radetzky came back shortly afterwards, all bristling with youthful courage. Schmidlin jumped to his feet, bowed low to the princess and with a courteous gesture invited the young man to take the lead. Radetzky stood there in confusion, not knowing where to go. That is, he knew he was supposed to go the mill, but he didn’t know the way. Since Radetzky had also been brought up in the Vienna school of manners he made his own courteous gesture for Schmidlin to go first. Baron Schmidlin, being a Viennese article himself, made another little show of letting Radetzky take the lead. That’s when Radetzky abandoned his good breeding, a sure sign he wasn’t as cool-headed as he was trying to seem, and raised his voice, ‘I don’t know the way!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ murmured Schmidlin, bowing slightly to Radetzky, before setting off rather uncertainly in one direction.
The mill wasn’t far. Maybe two hundred paces from the table at which we’d just eaten. Radetzky took off his riding-coat, stripping down to his white shirt. He rolled up his sleeves and, without another look at us, went right inside. I noticed that the peasants around us were watching closely. We stood and talked for quite some time. I didn’t talk. I was casting my eye about for a suitable place to hide so I could come back later and keep watch on the mill. I just didn’t trust the Serbs or the young man from Požarevac – not to mention being far from convinced that there were no vampires.
Some fifty paces from the mill stood a great oak tree, mostly dead wood. Its short main trunk forked into two thick branches that had long since stopped growing, but each was still topped by a leafy crown. I’d already made up my mind that I’d come back and climb up high enough to keep an eye on whatever might happen that night at the mill. But first I’d have to go back with everyone else to the hut in which we were to spend the night and then steal away later. And I’d have to do it before the witching-hour, of course. As Novak had explained, midnight and the wee hours were believed by the peasantry to be the best time for vampires.
As I stood there thinking the conversation around me stopped. It had suddenly fallen quiet, the sort of quiet one sometimes finds in Hell.
And then we heard the snoring. It was Radetzky, inside the mill, his fear conquered by exhaustion. Or else it was a display of snoring, I thought, a show for the peasants, or perhaps for the rest of us, to prove there was no danger.
Someone spoke. ‘Radetzky’s asleep!’