“Helen almost shrugged. ‘Is it any stranger than hoping for bodily resurrection?’ she asked, but she smiled at Stoichev, and he too was charmed.

“‘Madam,’ he said, ‘we have very different interpretations of our heritage, but I salute your quickness of mind. And now, my friends, I would like some time to study your maps-it has occurred to me that there are materials in this library that may be of assistance in reading them. Give me an hour-what I do now will be dull for you, and slow for me to explain.’

“Ranov had just come in again, restlessly, and stood looking around the library. I hoped he hadn’t caught the mention of our maps.

“Stoichev cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps you will like to go into the church and see its beauty.’ He glanced very slightly toward Ranov. Helen immediately got up and went to Ranov to engage him in some slight complication, while I fished discreetly in my briefcase and pulled out my file of copies of the maps. When I saw the eagerness with which Stoichev took them, my heart leaped with hope.

“Unfortunately, Ranov seemed more interested in hovering over Stoichev’s work and conferring with the librarian than in following us, although I devoutly wished we could draw him off. ‘Would you help us find some dinner?’ I asked him. The librarian stood silent, studying me closely.

“Ranov smiled. ‘Are you hungry? It is not yet time for the meal here, which is supper at six o’clock. We will wait for that. We will have to eat with the monks, unfortunately.’ He turned his back on us and began to study a shelf of leather-bound volumes, and that was that.

“Helen followed me to the door and squeezed my hand. ‘Shall we go for a walk?’ she said, once we were outside.

“‘I don’t know whether I know how to do anything without Ranov, at this point,’ I said grimly. ‘What will we talk about without him?’

“She laughed, but I could see she was worried, too. ‘Should I go back and try again to distract him?’

“‘No,’ I said. ‘Better not. The more we do that the more he’ll wonder what Stoichev is looking at. We can’t get rid of him any more than we could a fly.’

“‘He would make a good fly.’ Helen took my arm. The sun was still brilliant in the courtyard, and hot when we left the shadow of the immense monastery walls and galleries. Looking up, I could see the forested slopes around the monastery, and the vertical rock peaks above them. Far overhead, an eagle banked and wheeled. Monks in their heavy, belted black gowns, tall black hats, and long black beards came and went between the church and the first floor of the monastery, or swept the wooden gallery floors, or sat in a triangle of shade near the porch of the church. I wondered how they endured the summer heat in those garments. The interior of the church gave me some insight; it was as cool as a springhouse, lit only by twinkling candles and the glimmer of gold, brass, jewels. The inner walls were ornately gilded and painted with images of saints and prophets-‘Nineteenth-century work,’ Helen said confidently-and I paused before an especially sober image, a saint with a long white beard and neatly parted white hair gazing straight out at us. Helen sounded out the letters near his halo. ‘Ivan Rilski.’

“‘The one whose bones were brought here eight years before our Wallachian friend entered Bulgaria? The ”Chronicle“ mentioned him.’

“‘Yes.’ Helen brooded over the image, as if she thought it might speak to us if she stood there long enough.

“The endless waiting was starting to tell on my nerves. ‘Helen,’ I said, ‘let’s go for a walk. We can climb up the mountain there and get a view.’ If I didn’t exert myself a little, the thought of Rossi was going to drive me crazy.

“‘All right,’ Helen agreed, and she gave me a hard look, as if reading my impatience. ‘If it is not too far. Ranov will never let us go far.’

“The path up the mountain wound through dense forest that shielded us from the afternoon heat almost as well as the church had. It was so good to be free of Ranov that for a few minutes I simply swung Helen’s hand back and forth as we walked. ‘Do you think it was hard for him to choose between us and Stoichev?’

“‘Oh, no,’ Helen said flatly. ‘He certainly has someone else following us. We will encounter whoever it is after a while, especially if we are gone more than half an hour. He can’t possibly keep up with us alone, and he has to tend to Stoichev carefully, to find out what our research will lead to.’

“‘You sound so matter-of-fact,’ I told her, glancing at her profile as she strode along the dirt track. She had pushed her hat back on her head, and her face was a little flushed. ‘I can’t imagine having grown up knowing all these cynical things, being under surveillance.’

“Helen shrugged. ‘It did not seem so terrible because I did not know anything different.’

“‘And yet you wanted to leave your country and go to the West.’

“‘Yes,’ she said, looking sideways at me. ‘I wanted to leave my country.’

“We stopped to rest for a few minutes on a fallen tree near the road. ‘I’ve been thinking about why they let us come into Bulgaria,’ I told Helen. Even here, out in the woods, I was lowering my voice.

“‘And why they are letting us wander around by ourselves at all.’ She nodded. ‘Have you thought about that?’

“‘It seems to me,’ I told her slowly, ‘that if they aren’t stopping us from finding whatever we’re looking for-which they could do so easily-it’s because theywant us to find it.’

“‘Good, Sherlock.’ Helen fanned my face with her hand. ‘You are learning a great deal.’

“‘So, let’s say they actually know or suspect what we’re looking for. Why would they think it was valuable or even possible that Vlad Dracula is undead?’ It cost me an effort to say this aloud, although I’d dropped my voice to a whisper. ‘You’ve told me many times yourself that communist governments hold peasant superstition in contempt. Why would they encourage us like this, by not preventing us? Do they think they’re going to get some kind of supernatural power over the Bulgarian people if we find his tomb here?’

“Helen shook her head. ‘That would not be it. Their interest is certainly based in power, but it is always scientific in approach. Besides, if there is to be a discovery of anything interesting, they do not want an American to have the credit for it.’ She mused a little. ‘Think-what would be more powerful to science than the discovery that the dead can be brought to life, or to undeath, in any case? Especially for the East Bloc, with its great leaders embalmed in their own tombs?”

“A vision of Georgi Dimitrov’s yellow face, in the mausoleum in Sofia, flashed on me. ‘Then we have all the more reason to destroy Dracula,’ I said, but I could feel the perspiration break out on my forehead.

“‘And I wonder,’ Helen added somberly, ‘if destroying him would make that much difference in the future. Think of what Stalin did to his people, and Hitler. They did not need to live five hundred years to accomplish these horrors.’

“‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve thought about that, too.’

“Helen nodded. ‘The strange thing, you know, is that Stalin openly admired Ivan the Terrible. Two leaders who were willing to crush and kill their own people-to do anything necessary-in order to consolidate their power. And whom do you think Ivan the Terrible admired?’

“I felt the blood draining from my heart. ‘You told me there were many Russian tales about Dracula.’

“‘Yes. Exactly.’

“I stared at her.

“‘Can you imagine a world in which Stalin could live for five hundred years?’ She was scraping a soft place on the log with her fingernail. ‘Or perhaps forever?’

“I found myself clenching my fists. ‘Do you think we can find a medieval grave without leading anyone else to it?’

“‘It will be very difficult, perhaps impossible. I am certain they have people watching us everywhere.’