The Historian

The Historian Page 56

"In these last years, I've found myself remembering over and over my first sight of Anton Stoichev's house. Perhaps it made such a deep impression on me because of the contrast between urban Sofia and his haven just outside it, or perhaps I remember it so often because of Stoichev himself - the particular and subtle nature of his presence. I think, however, that I feel a keen, almost breathless anticipation when I recall the sight of Stoichev's front gate because our meeting with him was the turning point in our search for Rossi.

"Much later, when I read aloud about the monasteries that lay outside the walls of Byzantine Constantinople, sanctuaries where their inhabitants sometimes escaped citywide edicts about one point of church ritual or another, where they were not protected by the great walls of the city but were a degree removed from the state's tyrannical reach, I thought of Stoichev - his garden, its leaning apple and cherry trees starred with white, the house settled into a deep yard, its new leaves and blue beehives, the old double wooden gate with the portal above it that kept us out, the air of quiet over the place, the air of devotion, of deliberate retreat.

"We stood before that gate while the dust settled around Ranov's car. Helen was the first to press the handle of one of the old latches; Ranov hung sullenly back as if he hated being seen there, even by us, and I felt strangely rooted to the ground. For a moment I was hypnotized by the midmorning vibration of leaves and bees, and by an unexpected, sickening feeling of dread. Stoichev, I thought, might well prove no help, a final dead end, in which case we would return home having walked a long path to nowhere. I'd imagined it a hundred times already: the silent flight back to New York from Sofia or Istanbul - I would like to see Turgut one more time, I thought - and the reorganization of my life at home without Rossi, the questions about where I had been, the problems with the department over my long absence, the resumption of my writing about those Dutch merchants - placid, prosaic people - under the guidance of some vastly inferior new adviser, and the closed door to Rossi's office. Above all, I dreaded that closed door, and the ongoing investigation, the inadequate questioning of the police - 'So - Mr. - er - Paul, is it? You took a trip two days after your adviser disappeared?' - the small and puzzled gathering at a memorial service of sorts, eventually the question of Rossi's works, his copyrights, his estate.

"Returning with my hand intertwined with Helen's would be a great consolation, of course. I intended to ask her, when this horror was somehow over, to marry me; I would have to save a little money first, if I could, and take her to Boston to meet my parents. Yes, I would return with her hand in mine, but there would be no father from whom to request it in marriage. I watched through a shimmer of grief as Helen opened the gate.

"Inside, Stoichev's house was sinking softly into an uneven ground - part yard and part orchard. The foundation of the house was built from a brownish-gray stone held together with white stucco; I later learned that this stone was a kind of granite, out of which most of Bulgaria's old buildings have sprung. Above the foundation the walls were brick, but brick of the softest, mellowest red-gold, as if they had been soaking in sunlight for generations. The roof was of fluted red ceramic tiles. Roof and walls were a little dilapidated. The whole house looked as if it had grown slowly out of the earth and was now slowly returning to it, and as if the trees had grown above it simply to shade this process. The first floor had put out a rambling wing on one side, and on the other stretched a trellis, which was covered with the tendrils of grapevines above and walled with pale roses below. Under the trellis sat a wooden table and four rough chairs, and I imagined how the shadow of the grape leaves would deepen there as summer progressed. Beyond this, and beneath the most venerable of the apple trees, hovered two ghostly beehives; near them, in full sun, lay a little garden where someone had already coaxed up translucent greens in neat rows. I could smell herbs and perhaps lavender, fresh grass and frying onions. Someone tended this old place with care, and I half expected to get a glimpse of Stoichev in monk's habit, kneeling with his trowel in the garden.

"Then a voice began to sing inside, perhaps in the vicinity of the crumbling chimney and first-floor windows. It was not the baritone chant of the hermit, but a sweet, strong feminine voice, an energetic melody that made even Ranov, sulking next to me with his cigarette, look interested. 'Izvinete!' he called. 'Dobar den!' The singing stopped abruptly and was followed by a clatter and a thump. Stoichev's front door opened and the young woman who stood there stared hard at us, as if the last thing she'd imagined in her yard was people.

"I would have stepped forward, but Ranov cut me off, removing his hat, nodding, bowing, greeting her in a flow of Bulgarian. The young woman had put her hand to her cheek, regarding Ranov with a curiosity that seemed to me mingled with wariness. At second glance, she was not quite as young as I'd thought, but there was an energy and vigor about her that made me think she might be the author of the resplendent little garden and the good smells from the kitchen. Her hair was brushed back from a round face; she had a dark mole on her forehead. Her eyes, mouth, and chin looked like a pretty child's. She had an apron over her white blouse and blue skirt. She surveyed us with a sharp glance that had nothing to do with the innocence of her eyes, and I saw that under her quick interrogations Ranov even opened his wallet and showed her a card. Whether she was Stoichev's daughter or his housekeeper - did retired professors have housekeepers, in a communist country? - she was no fool. Ranov seemed to be making an uncharacteristic effort at charm; he turned, smiling, to introduce us to her. 'This is Irina Hristova,' he explained as we shook hands. 'She is the ness of Professor Stoichev.'

"'The nest?' I said, thinking for a second that this was some elaborate metaphor. "'The daughter of his sister,' Ranov said. He lit another cigarette and offered one to Irina Hristova, who refused with a decided nod. When he explained that we were from America, her eyes widened and she looked us over very carefully. Then she laughed, although I never knew what that meant. Ranov scowled again - I don't think he was capable of looking pleasant for more than a few minutes at a time - and she turned and led us in.

"Again the house took me by surprise; it might be a sweet old farm outside, but inside, in a dusk that contrasted strongly with the sunlight of the front walk, it was a museum. The door opened directly onto a large room with a fireplace, where sunlight fell across the stones in place of fire. The furniture -  dark, intricately carved bureaus set with mirrors, princely chairs and benches -  would have been arresting in itself, but what drew my eye and Helen's murmur of admiration was the rare mix of folk textiles and primitive paintings  - icons, mainly, of a quality that in many cases seemed to me to surpass what we'd seen in the churches in Sofia. There were luminous-eyed Madonnas and thin-lipped, sad saints, large and small, highlighted with gilt paint or encased in beaten silver, apostles standing in boats, and martyrs patiently undergoing their martyrdoms. The rich, smoke-tinted, ancient colors were echoed on all sides by rugs and aprons woven in geometrical patterns, and even an embroidered vest and a couple of scarves trimmed with tiny coins. Helen pointed to the vest, which had strips of horizontal pockets sewn down each side. 'For bullets,' she said, simply.

"Next to the vest hung a pair of daggers. I wanted to ask who'd worn it, who'd caught those bullets, who'd carried those daggers. Someone had filled a ceramic jug on a table below them with roses and fronds of green, which looked supernaturally alive among all those fading treasures. The floor was highly polished. I could see another, similar room beyond.

"Ranov was looking around, too, and now he snorted. 'In my opinion, Professor Stoichev is permitted to keep too many national possessions. These should be sold for the benefit of the people.'

"Either Irina understood no English or she didn't deign to respond to this; she turned away and led us out of the room and up a narrow flight of stairs. I don't know what I expected to see at the top. Perhaps we would find a littered den, a cave where the old professor hibernated, or perhaps, I thought - with that now-familiar twinge of misery - we might find a neat, orderly office of the sort that had masked Professor Rossi's tumultuous and splendid mind. I had all but put this vision behind me when the door at the top of the stairs opened, and a white-haired man, small but erect, came out on the landing. Irina hurried to him, grasping his arm with both hands and addressing him in quick Bulgarian mixed with some excited laughter.

"The old man turned to us, calm, quiet, his face deeply withdrawn, so that I had for a minute the sense that he was gazing down at the floor, although he looked directly at us. I stepped forward then and offered my hand. He shook it gravely and turned to Helen and shook hers as well. He was polite, he was formal, he had the kind of deference that is not really deference but dignity, and his large, dark eyes went from one of us to the other, and then took in Ranov, who hung back watching the scene. At this Ranov came up and shook hands with him, too - patronizingly, I thought, disliking our guide more every minute. I wished with all my heart that he would leave, so that we could speak alone with Professor Stoichev. I wondered how on earth we were going to accomplish any kind of honest discussion, learn anything from Stoichev at all, with Ranov hovering behind us like a fly.

"Professor Stoichev turned slowly and ushered us into the room. This room, as it turned out, was one of several on the top floor of the house. It was never clear to me, during our two visits there, where its inhabitants slept. As far as I could see, the upper story of the house contained only the long, narrow sitting room that we were entering, and several smaller rooms opening off it. The doors to the other rooms stood ajar, and sunlight filtered into them through the green trees in the windows opposite and caressed the bindings of innumerable books, books that lined the walls and sat in wooden crates on the floor, or lay heaped on tables. Among them were shelved loose documents of all shapes and sizes, many of them clearly of great antiquity. No, this was not Rossi's neat study but rather a sort of cluttered laboratory, the upper story of a collector's mind. Everywhere I saw sunlight touching old vellum, old leather, tooled bindings, hints of gilt, crumbling page corners, knobby bindings - red and brown and bone-colored wonderful books - books and scrolls and manuscripts in a working disarray. Nothing was dusty, nothing heavy was heaped on anything fragile, and yet these books, these manuscripts were absolutely everywhere in Stoichev's rooms, and I had a sense of being surrounded by them in a way one is not even in a museum, where such precious objects would have been more sparsely, methodically displayed.

"On one wall of the sitting room hung a primitive map, painted, to my amazement, on leather. I couldn't help stepping toward it, and Stoichev smiled. 'Do you like that?' he asked. 'It is the Byzantine Empire in about 1150.' It was the first time he had spoken, and he used a quiet, correct English.

"'While Bulgaria was still among its territories,' Helen mused.

"Stoichev glanced at her, clearly pleased. 'Yes, exactly. I think this map was made in Venice or Genoa and brought to Constantinople, perhaps as a gift to the emperor or someone in his court. This is a copy which a friend has made for me.'

"Helen smiled, touching her chin in thought. Then she almost winked at him.

'The emperor Manuel I Comnenus, perhaps?' "I was stunned and Stoichev looked astonished, too. Helen laughed. 'Byzantium used to be quite a hobby with me,' she said. The old historian smiled, then, and bowed to her, suddenly courtly. He gestured to the chairs around a table in the middle of the sitting room, and we all sat down. From where I sat I could see the yard behind the house, sloping gradually to the edge of a wood, and the fruit trees, some of them already forming small green fruits. The windows were open, and that same hum of bees and rustle of leaves came to us. I thought how pleasant it must be for Stoichev, even in exile, to sit up here among his manuscripts and read or write and listen to that sound, which no heavy-handed state could muffle, or which no bureaucrat had yet chosen to send him away from. It was a fortunate imprisonment, as such things went, and perhaps more voluntary than we had any way of ascertaining. "Stoichev said nothing else for a while, although he looked intently at us, and I wondered what he thought of our appearing there, and whether he planned to find out who we were. After a few minutes, thinking he might never address us, I spoke to him. 'Professor Stoichev,' I said, 'please forgive this invasion of your solitude. We are very grateful to you and to your niece for letting us visit you.'

"He looked at his hands on the table - they were fine and freckled with age spots - and then at me. His eyes, as I've said, were hugely dark, and they were the eyes of a young man, although his clean-shaven olive face was old. His ears were unusually large and stuck out from the sides of his head in the midst of neatly clipped white hair; they actually caught some of the light from the windows, so that they looked translucent, pinkish around the edges like a rabbit's. Those eyes, with their combined mildness and wariness, had something of the animal in them, too. His teeth were yellow and crooked, and one of them, in the front, was covered in gold. But they were all there, and his face was startling when he smiled, as if a wild animal had suddenly formed a human expression. It was a wonderful face, a face that in its youth must have had an unusual radiance, a great visible enthusiasm - it must have been an irresistible face.

"Stoichev smiled now, with such force that it made Helen and me smile, too. Irina dimpled at us. She had settled herself in a chair under an icon of someone - I assumed it was Saint George - putting his spear with vigor through an undernourished dragon. 'I am very glad that you have come to see me,' Stoichev said. 'We don't get so many visitors, and visitors who speak English are even more rare. I am very glad to be able to practice my English with you, although it is not as good as it was, I am afraid.'

"'Your English is excellent,' I said. 'Where did you learn it, if you don't mind my asking?'

"'Oh, I do not mind,' said Professor Stoichev. 'I had the good fortune to study abroad when I was young, and some of my studies were conducted in London. Is there anything with which I can help you, or did you only wish to visit my library?' He said this so simply that it took me by surprise.

"'Both,' I said. 'We wished to visit it, and we wished to ask you some questions for our research.' I paused to hunt for words. 'Miss Rossi and I are very much interested in the history of your country in the Middle Ages, although I know far less about it than I ought to, and we have been writing some - ah - ' I began to falter, because it swept over me that despite Helen's brief lecture on the plane I actually knew nothing about Bulgarian history, or so little that it could only sound absurd to this erudite man who was the guardian of his country's past; and also because what we had to discuss was highly personal, terribly improbable, and not at all something that I wanted to broach with Ranov sneering down at the table.

"'So you are interested in the medieval Bulgaria?' said Stoichev, and it seemed to me that he, too, glanced in Ranov's direction.

"'Yes,' said Helen, coming quickly to my rescue. 'We are interested in the monastic life of medieval Bulgaria, and we have been researching it as well as we can for some articles we would like to produce. Specifically, we would like to know about life in the monasteries of Bulgaria in the late medieval period, and about some of the routes that brought pilgrims to Bulgaria, and also routes by which pilgrims from Bulgaria traveled to other lands.'

"Stoichev lit up, shaking his head with apparent pleasure so that his large delicate ears caught the light. 'That is a very good topic,' he said. He looked beyond us, and I thought he must be gazing into a past so deep that it was really the well of time, and seeing more clearly than perhaps anyone else in the world the period to which we had alluded. 'Is there something in particular you will write about? I have many manuscripts here that might be useful to you, and I would be happy to permit you to look at them, if you would like.'

"Ranov shifted in his chair, and I thought again how much I disliked his watching us. Fortunately, most of his attention seemed to be focused on Irina's pretty profile, across the room. 'Well,' I said. 'We'd like to learn more about the fifteenth century - the late fifteenth century, and Miss Rossi here has done quite a bit of work on that period in her family's native country - that is - '

"'Romania,' Helen put in. 'But I was raised and educated in Hungary.'

"'Ah, yes - you are our neighbor.' Professor Stoichev turned to Helen and gave her the gentlest of smiles. 'And you are from the University of Budapest?'

"'Yes,' said Helen."'Perhaps you know my friend there - his name is Professor S¨¢ndor.'

"'Oh, yes. He is the head of our history department. He is quite a friend of mine.'

"'That is very nice - very nice,' Professor Stoichev said. 'Please give him my

warmest greetings if you have the chance.'

"'I will.' Helen smiled at him.

"'And who else? I do not think I know anyone else who is there now. But your name, Professor, is very interesting. I know this name. There is in the United States' - he turned to me again, and back to Helen; to my discomfort I saw Ranov's gaze narrowing on us - 'a famous historian named Rossi. He is perhaps a relative?'

"Helen, to my surprise, flushed pink. I thought maybe she didn't yet relish admitting this in public, or felt some lingering doubt about doing so, or that perhaps she had noticed Ranov's sudden attention to the conversation. 'Yes,' she said shortly. 'He is my father, Bartholomew Rossi.'

"I thought Stoichev might very naturally wonder why an English historian's daughter claimed she was Romanian and had been raised in Hungary, but if he had any such questions he kept them to himself. 'Yes, that is the name. He has written very fine books - and on such a range of topics!' He slapped his forehead. 'When I read some of his early articles, I thought he would make a fine Balkan historian, but I see that he has abandoned that area and gone into many others.'

"I was relieved to hear that Stoichev knew Rossi's work and thought well of it; this might give us some credentials, in his eyes, and might also make it easier to enlist his sympathies. 'Yes, indeed,' I said. 'In fact, Professor Rossi is not only Helen's father but also my adviser - I'm working with him on my dissertation.'

"'How fortunate.' Stoichev folded one veined hand over the other. 'And what is your dissertation about?'

"'Well,' I began, and this time it was my turn to flush. I hoped Ranov wasn't watching these changes of color too closely. 'It's about Dutch merchants in the seventeenth century.'

"'Remarkable,' said Stoichev. 'That is quite an interesting topic. Then what brings you to Bulgaria?' "'It's a long story,' I said. 'Miss Rossi and I became interested in doing some research on connections between Bulgaria and the Orthodox community in Istanbul after the Ottoman conquest of the city. Even though this is a departure from the topic of my dissertation, we have been writing some articles about it. In fact, I've also just given a lecture at the University of Budapest on the history of - parts of Romania under the Turks.' I immediately saw this was a mistake; perhaps Ranov hadn't known we'd been in Budapest as well as Istanbul. Helen was composed, however, and I took my cue from her. 'We would like very much to finish our research here in Bulgaria, and we thought you might well be able to help us.' "'Of course,' Stoichev said patiently. 'Perhaps you could tell me exactly what interests you most about the history of our medieval monasteries and the routes of pilgrimages, and about the fifteenth century in particular. It is a fascinating century in Bulgarian history. You know that after 1393 most of our country was under the Ottoman yoke, although some parts of Bulgaria were not conquered until well into the fifteenth century. Our native intellectual culture was preserved from that time on very much by the monasteries. I am glad you are interested in the monasteries because they are one of the richest sources of our heritage in Bulgaria.' He paused and refolded his hands, as if waiting to see how familiar this information was to us.

"'Yes,' I said. There was no help for it. We would have to talk about some aspect of our search with Ranov sitting right there. After all, if I asked him to leave, he would immediately become suspicious about our purpose here. Our only hope was to make our questions sound as scholarly and impersonal as possible. 'We believe there are some interesting connections between the Orthodox community in fifteenth-century Istanbul and the monasteries of Bulgaria.'

"'Yes, of course that is true,' said Stoichev, 'especially since the Bulgarian church was placed by Mehmed the Conqueror under the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople. Before that, of course, our church was independent, with its own patriarch in Veliko Trnovo.'

"I felt a wave of gratitude toward this man with his erudition and wonderful ears. My comments had been close to inane, and yet he was answering them with circumspect - not to mention informative - politeness.

"'Exactly,' I said. 'And we're especially interested - we found a letter - that is, we were recently in Istanbul ourselves' - I was careful not to glance at Ranov - 'and we found a letter that has to do with Bulgaria - with a group of monks who traveled from Constantinople to a monastery in Bulgaria. We're interested for the purposes of one of our articles in tracing their route through Bulgaria. Perhaps they were on pilgrimage - we're not quite sure.'

"'I see,' said Stoichev. His eyes were warier and more luminous than ever. 'Is there any date on this letter? Can you tell me a little about its contents or who wrote it, if you know that, and where you found it? To whom it was addressed, and so on, if you know these things?'

"'Certainly,' I said. 'In fact, we have a copy of it here. The original letter is in Slavonic, and a monk in Istanbul wrote it out for us. The original resides in the state archive of Mehmed II. Perhaps you would like to read the letter for yourself.' I opened my briefcase and got the copy out, handing it to him, hoping Ranov would not ask for it next.

"Stoichev took the letter and I saw his eyes flash over the opening lines. 'Interesting,' he said, and to my disappointment he set it down on the table. Perhaps he was not going to help us after all, or even read the letter. 'My dear,' he said, turning to his niece, 'I don't think we can look at old letters without offering these guests something to eat and drink. Would you bring usrakiya and a little lunch?' He nodded with particular politeness toward Ranov.

"Irina rose promptly, smiling. 'Certainly, Uncle,' she said, in beautiful English. There was no end, I thought, to the surprises in this household. 'But I would like some help to bring it up the stairs.' She gave Ranov the slightest glance from her clear eyes and he got up, smoothing his hair.

"'I will be glad to help the young lady,' he said, and they went downstairs together, Ranov thumping noisily on the steps and Irina chattering to him in Bulgarian.

"As soon as the door closed behind them, Stoichev leaned forward and read the letter with greedy concentration. When he was done, he looked up at us. His face had lost ten years, but it was tense, too. 'This is remarkable,' he said in a low voice. We rose out of the same instinct and came to sit close to him at his end of the long table. 'I am astonished to see this letter.'

"'Yes - what?' I said eagerly. 'Do you have any sense of what it might mean?'

"'A little.' Stoichev's eyes were enormous and he looked intently at me. 'You see,' he added, 'I, too, have one of Brother Kiril's letters.'"