All Roads Lead to Transylvania
They got off the train at Cormaia. It was a place trapped in time, a ghost town of the Old World, only the ghosts were people. The long journey of glitter and speed terminated so anticlimactically at this settlement of dust, anchored in wordless drudgery. Part of him had wondered if the rush and soothing clack of wheels against rails would last forever. But that sort of thing never lasted.
They walked away from the old, hunched station. The speckled, pale street was littered with rocks. He kicked them away with his toes and glanced up at the ancient sky.
—Looks like rain.
—It won't rain, she answered with certainty weighted in her words.
He shrugged as an answer that communicated neither assent nor argument, but Lucy did not see it. Her steel eyes fixed forward, searching the small buildings of the town that looked like it was peeling, peeling off the face of the earth like a scab.
—How do you feel? he asked.
She didn't reply immediately, instead letting her hand come to rest against a worn sign displaying the name of the town, the dismal population.
—I have an exuberant fatigue in my bones, she murmured. If I reach a little higher, walk a little further, I will find what I have been seeking for so long.
—And that is?
—Who knows. Her laugh was scornful.
He wanted to stop then and watch her tall, straight back continue down the tired road. She reminded him of a ribbon tied round and round, unraveling as a rushing, bleak wind pulled at her ends. Threatening to tear apart everything in her.
They continued a little ways down the road before fat droplets smacked the ground around their feet. It never picked up as more than a slow, lethargic drizzle, but it followed them through the town that had been emptied out like a fish bowl. The sun knelt at the horizon.
—Do you want dinner? he asked.
—No. Let's just walk.
—We can go to the inn now and return in the morning.
—Let's just walk. Her voice was a frown and she directed a cool gaze at him over her shoulder. It won't take long.
They had the time of the world on their rain-spattered shoulders, but he remained silent and followed her through the fading town. He didn't see any eyes in the windows, but he felt them like little hands pulling at his travel-worn clothes. They turned a corner and there was the cemetery, looming and turning to moist clay in front of them. She hesitated.
—Are you sure you don't want to get dinner? he asked.
—I don't want dinner.
Stubbornness pushing her forward for a few rushed steps. Then she shrank back, then she drew closer to the rusting metal fence, balancing. A fragile, fragile balance that he feared to break even though it tempted him, even though breaking would be a mercy.
He wished that he had stopped when he had the chance, to cement the image of her proud back in his mind.
Finally, her fingers reached out and brushed the gate, caressing it like a lover. It gave way with a reluctant creak but she could not walk in. He decided, and set his teeth, and strode past her into the field that belonged to the dead. Turning, he tilted his head at her.
—Coming?
She stared at him, as if she could not stand looking anywhere else. Her eyes had not lost their defiance—that was woven into the fibers of her—but she had already lost the battle. Smiling, he shook his head and walked back out.
—Let's get dinner.
—Fine, she sighed, as if making a great sacrifice on her part by following him to safety. Her back regained its rigidity, but as they went along, her hand quietly discovered his.
They found an inn, ate, and then went up to their room to make love.
She sat on the side of the bed smoking a cigarette while he watched the candle flicker against her. Her hair made snakes on her skin.
—After we visit him, are we going back to London? he wondered.
—I'll never go back there.
—You only stayed for his memory, then.
—Think what you want.
She stubbed out her smoke and shut her eyes, and all things light and meaningful went silent. He couldn't hold himself in, but sat up and pressed his forehead to her shoulder like a soldier returning home.
—I love you.
He wondered how many men had murmured these same words to her, these warm and organic and stuttering words to her cool, indifferent eyes. Did she see them as any more than a blurred deck of cards fluttering between her hands? In the end, the living couldn't compete with the perfected dead.
The rain had continued through the aching night but cleared away by morning. She had found her old bravery and wore it like a veil. They took the same path and it welcomed them this time, sucking at their feet with each step as if it could not bear to see them go. Grey mud clung to their shoes.
This time, she walked past the cemetery gate without pause, and wandered among the rows until she found the grave. He would have waited at the gate, but she gestured at him until he left his post and crossed over the grounds to her side.
—Look. She chuckled, and pointed at the headstone. All it says, died 1893. No name. Even the Romani had their fears.
Her laugh became a shudder and he dared to bring a hand to her shoulders, draw her in. For a moment she was all softness, and then it ended.
—I'm done here, she said, and her contempt was ice. By God, if I could tear him out of the ground with my bare hands, I would. But even if they put his ashes in a box, it would have long rotted away by now.
She shook off his grasp and strode away from the spot where her murderer's dust had seeped into the bones of the earth. He followed after a moment, but not before sending a brief prayer of thanks to the unhallowed tomb.
He had met Lucy, thanks to him.
—Tell me about Arthur, he asked.
She exhaled fumes and glanced out of the yellow comfort of the train towards the deep blue of the passing countryside. He, sitting across from her, looked too and saw his own brooding, pale face staring back at him.
—What's left to say?
—What you love about him.
Her laugh was slow, deep, and full of bitterness.
—Tell you about his cruelty? How he would have me lingering and wasting away in empty doorways? How he would have me waiting at windows with impatience on my fingers, sighs burdening my lips, a yearning to throw myself at the ground, at Heaven's mercy, and knowing that there, even there on my bloodied knees that Death will not consent to meet me? I cannot tell you of love. I do not understand it.
—Can anyone understand it?
She stubbed her cigarette on the table.
—I thought I did, she murmured, suddenly and uncharacteristically wistful.