Stoker's Manuscript by Royce Prouty Page A

reached for my bags. He lifted a small horseshoe out of his pocket and passed it over a metal box at the top of a fence post and the gate slowly swung open. Several children—I counted five, ranging from small to teenage—ran to greet him. I wondered about the rest. They had the dark features and long chins of Gypsy lineage. There really is no such race as Gypsy, for it is a catchall category for the amalgam of Latin lineage around the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. The term is meant more to caste the people, and not out of respect.
    Again I thanked him.
“foarte.”
    “Cu.” You’re welcome.
    I asked about accommodations, and he pointed to a large isolated house across the river and up a steep hill with a vantage overlooking the entire village. Considering the climb, I hoped vacancy was no issue, especially with weather approaching. One of his young sons began carrying my bags that direction, and I figured porter’s wages were the least I could do.
    It was a two-story house with porches both upstairs and down on a plat of land terraced into the rocky hillside. One of the windows upstairs advertised a room for rent with a sign in both Romanian and German:and
Zimmer frei
. Surrounded by black wrought iron fencing in a fleur-de-lis pattern, the gate had no lock, and the boy led me to the door and knocked, then stepped behind me. I paid him while an older woman answered. She quickly picked up on the situation,
“Cîte?” How many nights?
    “O zi.” One day.
    She showed me upstairs to the end of a hall, a simple room decorated in the traditional colorful geometric patterns with a single bed, washbasin, and a screen door to the porch. I nodded my approval. It was more than I had hoped for. Then she showed me the communal bathroom. Echoes down the hall suggested I might have it to myself.
    “I bring food.” She was a middle-aged round lady of Germanic features and thick hands, more manners than smiles, and rolled her
r
’s in the Eastern Euro fashion.
    I washed and sat on a rocking chair on the porch and smelled the imminent rain. A lightning storm approached from the northwest, and while the wind suddenly blew the storm’s introduction, my hostess’s husband busied himself below with the farm animals in the side yard, gathering them to the barn for shelter. She returned to my room with a generous sandwich and a hot coffee, which I gratefully consumed while watching the coming storm.
    Across the valley dark clouds quickly smothered the town as rain began to pelt the house. Close by lightning cracked and instant thunder boomed. I must admit that I flinched at the storm’s intensity. Only after the half-hour tempest passed did I realize the price to pay for free irrigation was mud, washing a treacherous path down the hill and over the wooden plank bridge. It also left the air chilled.
    From the porch I could see the village layout. In the Middle Ages, armies followed the worn paths and marched down main streets. So, unlike the States with our large front lawns and porches, residences in the corridor of war have no setbacks from the clay or cobblestone roads. Instead, long rows of houses connect with zero lot lines, homes with shuttered windows and no porches, as uninviting as any back-alley stroll. Yard entrance is gained via large double-arched wooden gates that open to a family’s courtyard. Gardens are planted in the back behind wooden fences. What distinguishes houses along the row are the faded colors from one to the next, or perhaps the levels of disrepair, such as plaster, which peels from the ground up. Every roof appears to need some form of tile work.
    My host joined me on the porch, his animals secured in the barn, bringing a coffee refill. He had a long nose and bushy eyebrows, a hint of hospitality in his hazel eyes.
    “So you are American,” he said in a heavy German accent.
    “Yes, I live in Chicago.”
    He looked down the hall to check for his wife. “Oprah,” he said, pointing a thumb in her