Necroscope

That same day Ha

Prior to Keogh's - awakening? - his work had been scruffy, lacking in order, by no means precise. After­wards, for the last six or seven weeks...

Well, the books were gone now, roared up in a sheet of flame and lost in the chimney, lost to the night.

There was no comparing them now, and that was probably the best way. To consider that there might be any real comparison would be too gross, too grotesque. Now Ha

Chapter Four

It was the summer of 1972 and Dragosani was back in Romania.

He looked very trendy in a washed-out blue open-necked shirt, flared grey trousers cut in a Western style, shiny black shoes with sharply pointed toes (unlike the customary square-cut imported Russian footwear in the local shops) and a fawn-chequered jacket with large patch pockets. In the hot Romanian midday, especially at this farm on the outskirts of a tiny village some way off the Corabia-Calinesti highway, he stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. Leaning on his car and sca

But on the other hand his car was a Volga and black as his shoes, which suggested something else. Also, he didn't wear the wide-eyed, wary/i

'Kinkovsi?' the young man inquired, eyeing him up and down. 'Hzak Kinkovsi? They told me in lonestasi that you have rooms. I take it that place - ' (a nod towards a tottering three-storied stone-built house by the cobbled village road)' - is your guesthouse?'

Kinkovsi deliberately looked blank, feigned a lack of understanding, frowned as he stared at Dragosani. He didn't always declare his earnings from tourism - not all of them, anyway. Finally he said: 'I am Kinkovsi, yes, and I do have rooms. But - '

'Well, can I stay here or can't I?' the other seemed tired now, and impatient. Kinkovsi noted that his clothes, at first glance smart and modern, actually looked crumpled, much-travelled. 'I know I'm early by a month, but surely you can't have that many guests?'

Early by a month! Now Kinkovsi remembered.

'Ah! You must be the Herr from Moscow? The one who made inquiry in April? The one who booked lodgings - but sent no money in advance! Is it you, then, that Herr Dragosani who has the name of the town down the highway? But you are indeed early - though welcome for all that! I shall have to prepare a room for you. Or perhaps I can put you in the English room, for a night or two anyway. How long will you stay?'

Ten days at least,' Dragosani answered, 'if the sheets are clean and the food is at all bearable - and if your Romanian beer is not too bitter!' His glance seemed u

'Mein Herr,' he began with a growl, 'my rooms are so clean you could eat off the floor. My wife is an excellent cook. My beer is the best under all the Carpatii Meridi- onali! What's more, our ma

Dragosani gri

Kinkovsi briefly studied the other's face, looked him upand down, decided he liked him. The man had a sense of humour, anyway, which in itself made a welcome change. 'My grandfather's grandfather was from Hun gary,' he said, taking Dragosani's hand and giving it a firm shake, 'but my grandmother's grandmother was a Wallach. As for the accent, it's local. We've absorbed a good many Hungarians over the decades, and a good many settled here. Now? - I'm a Romanian no less than you. Only I'm not as rich as you!' He laughed, showing yellow, worn-down teeth in a face of creased leather. 'I suppose you'd say I'm a peasant. Well, I'm what I am. As for "Mein Herr" - would you prefer me to call you Comrade"?'

'Heavens, no! Not that!' Dragosani answered at once. 'Mein Herr" will do nicely, thanks.' He too laughed.

me on, show me this English room of yours...' Kinkovsi led the way from the big Volga to the tall, h igh-peaked guesthouse. 'Rooms?' he grumbled. 'Oh, we' ve plenty of rooms, all right! Four to each floor. You can have a whole suite of rooms if you like.' || 'One will be fine,' Dragosani answered, 'as long as it as its own bath and toilet.' 'Ah - en suite, is it? Well, then, that's the top floor. A room with its own loo and bath up under the roof. Very modern.'

‘I'm sure' said Dragosani, not too dryly.

He saw that the ground floor walls of the house had been rendered and pebble-dashed on top of the sand-coloured cement. Rising damp, probably. But the upper levels showed their original stone construction. The house must be three hundred years old if it was a day. Very suitable. It took him back in time - back to his roots and beyond them.

'How long have you been away?' Kinkovsi asked, letting him in and showing him to a room on the ground floor. 'You'll have to stay here for now,' he explained, 'until I can get the upstairs room ready. An hour or two, that's all.'

Dragosani kicked off his shoes, hung his jacket over a wooden chair, dropped onto a bed in a square of sunlight where it came through an oval window. 'I've been away half of my life,' he said. 'But it's always good to come back. I've been back for the last three summers now, and four more to go.'

'Oh? Got your future all pla

Dragosani lay back, put his hands behind his head, looked at the other through eyes slitted against the glancing sunlight. 'Research,' he finally said. 'Local history. At only two weeks each year, it should take me another four years.'

'History? This country is steeped in it! But it's not your job, then? I mean, you don't do it for a living?'

'No,' the man on the bed shook his head. 'In Moscow I'm ... a mortician.' That was close enough.