An Uncertain Place

XXXII

HIS BEDROOM HAD A HIGH CEILING, LAYERS OF ANCIENT multicoloured carpets on the floor and a bed with a blue quilt. Adamsberg let himself relax on to it, and put his hands behind his neck. Fatigue from the journey had made his limbs feel heavy, but he smiled, his eyes closed, happy at having unearthed the roots of the Plog clan, but incapable of understanding their story. He didn’t have the strength to ring up Danglard and talk about it. He sent him two short text messages instead. Danglard pedantically insisted on using Latin for the plural of text messages, texti, since the usual word in French is texto. The first message read: ‘Ancestor is Peter Plogojowitz’, and the second: ‘†1725’.

Danica, who on closer inspection was buxom and pretty and probably no more than forty-two, knocked on his door, waking him up a little after eight, according to both his watches.

‘Večera je na stolu,’ she said with a broad smile, indicating with gestures that she meant ‘come’ and ‘eat’.

Sign language easily dealt with most basic functions.

People seemed to smile a lot here in Kisilova and perhaps that was the explanation of the ‘sunny disposition’ shared by Uncle Sladko and his grandson Vladislav. Family ties made Adamsberg remember his own son. He sent a few thoughts towards little Tom, on holiday somewhere in Normandy, and lay back on the eiderdown. He had immediately taken to it: pale blue with cord piping and worn at the corners, it was nicer than the bright red one his sister had given him. This one smelt of hay, dandelions and possibly even donkey. As he went down the narrow wooden stairs, his phone vibrated in his back pocket like a nervous cricket tickling him. He looked at Danglard’s reply: one word – ‘Irrelevant’.

Vladislav was waiting for him at the table, his knife and fork poised for action. ‘Dunajski zrezek, Wiener schnitzel,’ he said, pointing to the dish impatiently. He had put on a white T-shirt and his dark body hair looked even more striking. It stopped at his wrists like a wave that has run out of strength, leaving his hands smooth and pale.

‘Been looking at the scenery?’ he asked.

‘I went down by the Danube and then to the edge of the forest. A woman came along and tried to stop me going there. Towards the woods.’

He tried to see the expression on Vlad’s face, but he was busily eating, looking down at the food.

‘But I went there all the same,’ Adamsberg continued.

‘Wow.’

‘What’s this mean?’ asked Adamsberg, putting on the table the paper on which he had copied the inscription from the grave.

Vlad picked up his napkin and slowly wiped his lips. ‘A load of old codswallop,’ he said.

‘If you like, but what does it mean?’

Vlad snorted his disapproval.

‘You’d have seen it sooner or later. Impossible not to really, once you’re here.’

‘And?’

‘Like I said. They don’t like talking about it, that’s all. It’s already not so good that that woman saw you out there. If tomorrow they ask you to leave, don’t be surprised. And if you want to carry on with the Vaudel inquiry, don’t provoke them with this stuff. Or with the war.’

‘I didn’t mention the war.’

‘See the guy behind us? See what he’s doing?’

‘Yes, I noticed. He’s drawing on the back of his hand with a felt pen.’

‘All day long. He draws circles and squares, orange, green and brown. He was in the war,’ Vlad added, lowering his voice. ‘And now he does nothing but colour in shapes on his hand without speaking a word.’

‘What about the other men?’

‘Kiseljevo was relatively spared. Because here, women and children aren’t left alone in the village. Some people hid, others stayed. Don’t talk about your trip to the woods, commissaire.’

‘But, Vlad, it has to do with this murder investigation.’

‘Plog,’ said Vlad, sticking his middle finger in the air, which gave a new meaning to the onomatopoeia. ‘Nothing to do with it.’

Danica, her blonde hair now neatly combed, brought them their desserts and put two small glasses in front of them.

‘Look out,’ Vlad advised. ‘This is rakija.’

‘What’s it mean?’

‘It’s strong spirits, made from fruit.’

‘No, I’m talking about the inscription on the gravestone.’

Vlad pushed away the sheet of paper with a smile. He knew the inscription by heart, as did anyone who knew anything about Kiseljevo.

‘Only an ignorant Frenchman wouldn’t jump with fear at the terrible name of Peter Plogojowitz. The story’s so famous in Europe that people don’t tell it any more. Ask Danglard, he’s bound to know.’

‘I did tell him about it. He seemed to know.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. And what did he say?’

‘Irrelevant.’

‘Adrianus never lets me down.’

‘Vlad, just tell me what’s written on the stone.’

‘“You who stand before this stone,”’ Vlad recited, ‘“go your way without listening and cut no plant hereby. Here lies the damned soul Petar Blagojević, who died in 1725 aged 62. May his accursed spirit now make way for peace.”’

‘Why does he have two names?’

‘They’re the same name. Plogojowitz is the Austrian version of Blagojević. When he lived here, the whole region was under the Habsburgs.’

‘Why was he damned?’

‘Because, in 1725, the peasant Petar Blagojević died here, in his native village.’

‘Don’t start with his death, tell me what he did when he was alive.’

‘But it was only after his death that his life was cursed. Three days after his burial, Plogojowitz came to visit his wife at night and asked her for a pair of shoes so that he could travel the world.’

‘Shoes?’

‘Yes. He had left them behind. Do you want to know any more or is it irrelevant?’

‘Tell me the rest, Vlad. I vaguely remember hearing something about a dead man coming back for his shoes.’

‘In the ten weeks after that, there were nine sudden deaths in the village, all close relatives or associates of Plogojowitz. They lost their blood, and died of exhaustion. During their death throes, they claimed to have seen Plogojowitz leaning over them, even lying on top of them. The villagers panicked and thought Plogojowitz had become a vampire who was going to suck the life out of everyone. And then suddenly, all Europe was talking about him. It’s because of Plogojowitz and Kisilova, where you are sitting drinking rakija this evening, that the word vampyr first appeared outside this region.’

‘Really? As famous as that?’

‘Plog. After two months, the villagers had resolved to open his grave and annihilate him, but the Church formally forbade that. Tempers ran high, the Empire sent out some religious and civic officials to try and calm things down. The authorities had to stand by powerless when the exhumation took place. But they observed it and wrote a report. Peter’s body showed no sign of decomposition. It was intact, the skin looked like new.’

‘Like that woman in London, Elizabeth something, whose husband opened her grave after seven years to get his poems out. She looked like new as well.’

‘And she was a vampire?’

‘So I was told.’

‘Normal then. Plogojowitz’s old skin and fingernails were in the bottom of the grave. And there was blood coming out of his mouth, nostrils and eyes. The Austrian officials wrote it all down scrupulously. He had eaten his shroud and he had an erection, though later versions usually leave that bit out. The peasants were terrified, and they took a stake and plunged it into his heart.’

‘And there was a noise?’

‘Yes, a horrible scream that could be heard all over the village, and a stream of blood filled the grave. His hideous body was taken out and burnt until nothing remained. And the nine victims, well, the villagers shut their bodies up in a sealed vault, and after that they abandoned that graveyard for good.’

‘The old one to the west of the village?’

‘That’s right. They were afraid of contagion spreading underground. And the deaths stopped. Or so the story says.’

Adamsberg took a tiny sip of rakija.

‘On the edge of the wood, under the mound, that’s where his ashes are?’

‘There are two versions. Either his ashes were scattered into the Danube or they were collected and put in that grave, a long way out of the village. There’s a general belief that some bit of Plogojowitz survives, because they can hear him munching under the ground. But it means that he’s lost his toxicity, since he’s sunk to the lower status of shroud-eater.’

‘He’s become a sub-vampire?’

‘A passive vampire who doesn’t leave his tomb, but expresses his greed by eating everything around him, his shroud, his coffin, the earth. There are thousands of reports of the shroud-eaters. You can hear their teeth gnashing together under the earth. But you’d still do best not to go too near and to make sure they’re blocked inside their tombs.’

‘That’s what the logs are there for?’

‘To stop him getting out, yes.’

‘Who puts them there?’

‘Arandjel,’ said Vlad, dropping his voice, as Danica approached to refill their glasses.

‘And why are the trees all cut down around the grave?’

‘Because their roots reach down into the earth round the tomb. The wood’s contaminated, so it mustn’t be allowed to spread. And you shouldn’t pick any flowers, because Plogojowitz is in their stems. Arandjel cuts all the vegetation down once a year.’

‘He believes Plogojowitz can get out of there?’

‘Arandjel is the only person in the village who doesn’t believe it. Here about a quarter of the people believe it one hundred per cent. Another quarter shake their heads and won’t say yes or no, for fear of attracting the vampire’s anger by mocking it. The other half of the villagers pretend not to believe it, and say it’s just old wives’ tales fit to worry people in days gone by. But they’re never quite sure, which is why the men didn’t leave the village during the war. And only Arandjel truly doesn’t believe it. That’s why he’s not afraid to be an expert on all vampires, every kind: vârkolac, opyr, vurdalak, nosferatu, veštica, stafia, morije.’

‘That’s a lot of vampires.’

‘Here, Adamsberg, in a radius of about five hundred kilometres, there were thousands of different vampires. And we’re at the epicentre. Where Plogojowitz reigned, the undisputed master of the throng.’

‘If Arandjel doesn’t believe in it, why does he look after the tomb?’

‘To reassure the people here. He changes the logs every year because the wood rots from underneath. And some people say that’s because Plogojowitz has eaten all the earth and is starting on the logs. So Arandjel replaces them, and cuts off any shoots. Of course he’s the only person who dares. Nobody else goes near, but on the whole people are reasonable enough. They think Plogojowitz isn’t so powerful now, because he’s transferred his powers to his descendants.’

‘And where are they? Here?’

‘You must be joking! Even before they dug Plogojowitz up, the rest of his family fled the village to avoid being massacred. His descendants are dispersed all over the place now, who knows where. Little vampirelets left and right. But some people still think that if Plogojowitz manages to get out of his grave, they will all get together in a great terrible entity. Other people say that part of Plogojowitz may be here, but he’s reconstituted himself whole somewhere else.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know. All this is what my dedo used to tell me. If you want to know any more, you’ll have to ask Arandjel. He’s kind of the Adrianus of Serbia.’

‘Vlad, do you know if any particular family was destroyed by Plogojowitz?’

‘I just told you, his own. There were nine deaths among his relations. Which means there was some sort of epidemic. Old Plogojowitz must have been ill, and passed the infection on to his own family, then it spread to their contacts. It’s that simple! But people got scared and looked for a scapegoat, found out who was the first mortal case, stuck a stake in his heart and that was that.’

‘And what if the epidemic carried on?’

‘Must have happened often. Well, they’d reopen the grave, thinking that the remains of the cursed person were still active, and they’d start again.’

‘What if they’d thrown the ashes into the river?’

‘Well, then they’d open up some other grave, a man or woman suspected of having saved a bit of the monster from the fire and eaten it, so that they became a vampir in turn. And it went on until the epidemic died out. So finally they’d be able to say: “The deaths came to an end.”’

‘But, Vladislav, the deaths haven’t come to an end. A man called Plögener in Pressbaum, and another called Plog in Garches have been killed. Two Plogojowitz descendants, one in Austria, one in France. Can we get something else besides rakija to drink? This stuff’s eating me up like your shroud-eaters. A beer? Could we have a beer?’

‘Some Jelen?’

‘Yes, fine, some Jelen.’

‘Perhaps something else happened to inspire the vengeance? Suppose that Plogojowitz wasn’t a vampire in 1725? What would you say then?’

Adamsberg smiled at the landlady as she brought him his beer and tried to remember how to say ‘thank you’.

He consulted the back of his hand.

‘Hvala,’ he said, with a gesture signifying smoking, and Danica produced from the folds of her skirt a packet he didn’t recognise, Morava.

‘A present,’ said Vlad. ‘She asked me why you have two wristwatches, when neither of them tells the right time.’

‘Tell her I don’t know.’

‘On ne zna,’ Vlad translated. And went on, ‘She fancies you.’

Danica returned to the office where she did the accounts and Adamsberg watched her go, her ample hips swaying under the red-and-grey skirt.

‘So,’ Vlad insisted, ‘what if there never was a vampire?’

‘Then I’d look for some family saga that led to reprisals and death sentences. A secret murder, a betrayed husband, an illegitimate child, a fortune diverted into the wrong hands. Vaudel-Plog was very rich, and he didn’t leave his money to his son.’

‘Well, there you are. That’s where you ought to look. Where the money is.’

‘But there are the bodies, Vlad. They’ve been taken apart so that they couldn’t possibly be reconstituted. Is that what they did to vampires, or did they just stick to the stake and the fire?’

‘Only Arandjel can tell you that.’

‘So where is he? When can I see him?’

There was a brief exchange with Danica, then Vlad came back, looking somewhat surprised.

‘Apparently Arandjel is expecting you to have lunch with him tomorrow and he’s going to prepare some stuffed cabbage. He knows you cleaned the tombstone and looked at it – everybody knows about that by now. He says you shouldn’t start meddling with that sort of thing. It could be fatal for you.’

‘I thought you said Arandjel didn’t believe in all that.’

‘Fatal for you,’ repeated Vlad, emptying his glass of rakija, and bursting out laughing.