Part 14 (2/2)

'Yeah, but wait until you see me all muddy and sweaty.'

'You'll probably be even more beautiful.' He kicked himself for saying that, not wanting to encourage her, yet feeling a strong physical attraction.

'Do you really mean that?'

'Yeah.'

'Stefan?'

'Yes?'

'I miss you.'

He didn't answer, fearful of giving her false hope, but his breathing deepened and became louder.

'I hear you breathing.'

'Yeah,' he rasped, thinking back to Bear's advice in the Chapel of Peace.

'And?'

'Yeah, it seems kind of strange without you. Let's talk when you get here.'

'I can't wait to see you. Think of me.'

'I'll see you then on Sat.u.r.day. Ciao.'

'Ciao.'

He hung up the receiver, stood in the booth for a while, savoring the sound of her voice, and then finally opened the door and walked out, the tobacco air of the lobby refres.h.i.+ng after the booth's mustiness.

He paid for the call, and then made another one, to Danko Niedermeier at the bookstore in Sremski Karlovci. The phone rang interminably, and Steven was ready to hang up after the twelfth ring, when Niedermeier finally picked up.

'Ah, how very nice to hear from you,' Niedermeier spoke rapidly. 'And how did you like your visit to Karlovci?'

'It was very nice, thank you. We visited the Chapel of Peace as you suggested.'

'Ah, that is good, very good.'

'I wanted to see if you discovered anything about the Djordjevic book.'

'Ah, yes, the books. Well, I spoke with the publisher and he still has copies left. I have ordered sufficient for your students.' He spoke so rapidly that Steven could barely follow him. 'The boxes will arrive next Wednesday morning.'

'But I was talking about the Djordjevic...' The line went dead.

Steven clutched the receiver, troubled. Obviously Niedermeier felt he couldn't speak freely about the book. Steven left the phone booth and walked around the corner onto Jewish Street. Lost in thought he wandered through the shade of the large overhanging branches that made this busy boulevard feel timeless and deserted, past the enormous old synagogue.

'First Gordana the librarian, now Niedermeier...everyone's afraid of that book...' He muttered under his breath, unaware that he was attracting stares as pa.s.sersby looked at the crazy young man talking out loud in a foreign tongue. 'Am I becoming paranoid?' He stopped and turned around suddenly to see if he was being followed, but it seemed that there were only other pedestrians on the street, pa.s.sing innocently.

He watched the other pa.s.sengers as he hopped a city bus to the main bus station, trying to see if anyone was following. From the bus station he caught the next bus to Sremski Karlovci, and arrived slightly before noon.

Steven walked across the main square, which even now in the middle of a weekday looked quiet and deserted, and sat on a bench in the shade of the large Chestnut trees standing sentinel before the Cathedral of St. Nikola. The lion heads on the four-sided fountain stared indifferently at him as water trickled from the rusty pipes in their mouths. Wind blew dust from the square's potholed asphalt into Steven's eyes, making him blink, as he again looked around to see if anyone had followed him. He saw only a few old women and men in black on the benches, and young men sitting idly in the cafe across the square: he recognized no one from the bus.

And then a loud screech of brakes and the sound of powerful motors revving attracted his attention to two black Mercedes four-wheel drive SUVs with tinted black windows that raced down the street from the hill in back of the Karlovci Gymnasium, sending pedestrians and other cars fleeing from their path. They tore across the sleepy square, the front seats occupied by shaven heads wearing sungla.s.ses and dark clothing. Both bore the distinctive blue police license plates.

He stood and walked rapidly up the hill whence the black SUVs had come and found the bookshop, its door standing slightly ajar. Steven suddenly felt his foreboding turn to fear as he pushed the door open all the way and entered, to be greeted by a scene of chaos. Stepping carefully over scattered books, torn posters and fallen shelves towards the back room, he found Niedermeier sitting in a corner on the bare wooden floor, holding a handkerchief to his face. Noticing Steven he removed the handkerchief and winced slightly: a trickle of blood ran from his nose and the lenses of his gla.s.ses were cracked.

Steven stooped to help him: 'Are you okay? What happened?' But he already knew.

'Could you please go in back to the bathroom and fetch me some toilet paper?' Niedermeier asked in a barely audible whisper. Steven did so and handed it to the beaten proprietor, who wiped the blood from his nose. 'Wine...I keep it up by the register...under the floor to the right of the desk.'

Steven lifted a loose floorboard near where the desk had stood and exposed a cache of wine bottles and gla.s.ses tucked away among books and papers. He took an already-opened bottle with a cork in its neck and a gla.s.s and returned to find Niedermeier still sitting, holding his head in his hands, the veins showing blue through the skin. He poured Niedermeier a gla.s.s of Bermet and handed it to him. Niedermeier ignored the gla.s.s and took the bottle.

'You're causing a lot of trouble, young gentleman,' Niedermeier whispered from behind the handkerchief. 'You and that accursed Djordjevic book. Let us drink to Tihomir Djordjevic and his elusive book,' he smiled a pained yet determined smile, raised the bottle and clinked it against Steven's gla.s.s, then drank deeply.

Steven stood, feeling guilty, wanting to help, but uncertain what to do. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to get hurt,' he stammered rapidly. 'I didn't know you'd have trouble because of it.'

'Uh. Yes. Well, trouble I have...they carry police badges but they are nothing more than thugs and criminals. We law-abiding citizens need police to protect us from the police,' the wine bottle trembled in his hand. 'Go lock the front door, please,' he gestured and Steven did so.

'And my pipe: can you find my pipe?' Steven walked through the litter of the shop and finally found the pipe, tobacco pouch and a.s.sorted tools for it scattered on the floor. He brought them to Niedermeier who, with shaking hands, slowly filled the bowl with tobacco and tamped it down, then lit it and took several deep puffs, which calmed him.

As he sipped his wine, Niedermeier began to speak. 'I have been on the trail of the book since you were here. Really it is not that difficult a matter for me: there has never been a book I could not find.' He was becoming slightly boastful again. 'But as I activated old contacts funny things began to happen. Many refused to talk to me, especially the ones in Belgrade. They had been warned about giving the book to anybody.'

'I did, however, locate a copy in Pirot,' he said, referring to the city in eastern Serbia. 'It is far from Belgrade and sometimes news and official instructions arrive there much slower.' He now had a slight grin on his face. 'My friend snuck it out of the archive and photocopied it. He will send it by bus this evening and it should arrive sometime tomorrow. You can come for it on Friday morning. I will have to charge you substantially more, of course, to cover the transportation costs, long distance telephone costs and damage to the shop.'

'That's no problem. The Balkan Ethnographic Trust will pay for the damages,' Steven spoke confidently to comfort Niedermeier, even though he was unsure whether BET would actually pay.

'When you called our friends from State Security were here asking why I was looking for the book and who I was getting it for...evidently someone told them I was looking for it. Do not worry, they didn't ask about you. I told them nothing, of course, but they were not satisfied and will probably return. It is no longer safe to call me on this telephone.'

'Young gentleman, I have no idea what is in this book of yours,' Niedermeier stared directly in Steven's eyes, 'but if it is important enough to cause the DB to rough up an old bookseller in the middle of a war, then it must contain extremely valuable information. What is this legend of twelve mighty vampires? I have never heard of it before.'

'I have absolutely no idea,' Steven responded returning Niedermeier's gaze with openness, hoping to allay any suspicion he might harbor, 'but it makes me wonder what's going on. In Djordjevic's other article Vampires and other beings in our folk beliefs and traditions he stated that vampires like to socialize, but are only able to do so in groups of twelve or less. The more research I conduct into vampires the more I'm convinced that they may have once actually existed in some form or another. I know that sounds silly, but I can't think of any other explanation for the recurring nature and commonalities of the phenomenon.'

'Oh nonsense, don't be silly!' Niedermeier exhaled a cloud of rich maple-scented smoke. 'There are no such things as vampires. There must be some other reason the DB is interested. I dislike it when the strong use force against the weak. It makes me want to fight back all the more. We will get the book and fight back against them. Come by on Friday morning and I will give you the book. By then I will have read it and uncovered its terrifying secrets.'

Back in Novi Sad, Steven returned to the post office and called Dusan, who wasn't home, but the grandmother answered the telephone and told him Katarina had called the previous evening and asked that he call back as soon as possible. Looking at his watch he saw it was almost five o'clock, which with the nine hour time difference would make it morning in California. It took several attempts for the operator to get a line, but finally he succeeded and Katarina picked up on the first ring.

'Stefan, how good to hear from you,' she spoke in English. Her Serbian accent was less p.r.o.nounced. 'I can't talk long or I'll be late for cla.s.s. Marko is in Europe conducting research and he asked me to tell you he'll be in Budapest next week. He'll be staying at the Gellert Hotel. He said it's important you meet him to review your research.'

'Okay. Your mother said to say h.e.l.lo. I saw her last night.'

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