Hardly anyone in Transylvania—with the exception of the attendant at the public toilet in Sighișoara, where you can have your picture taken next to a kind of scarecrow meant to represent the Prince of Darkness for a few lei (Romanian currency) at the entrance—is particularly fond of being asked about Dracula. Nevertheless, this happens constantly whenever tourists venture into the Carpathian region beyond the dark forests.
Bram Stoker, it is said, originally wanted to set his first-rate vampire novel in Styria. Things turned out differently, and further southeast. Then came a slew of B-movies that immortalized, or rather undead, the actor Christopher Lee in the role of the aristocratic bloodsucker (including the astonishing 1972 film "Dracula vs. Mini-Girls") – and, of course, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" with its "transvestite from transsexual Transylvania." It, too, left a lasting impression, primarily in the West.
The Wallachian prince Vlad III, also known as Vlad Tepes or "The Impaler," is the historical model for Dracula. This son of Vlad II, the Dragon (Dracul) – so named because he was a member of Emperor Sigismund's Order of the Dragon – was perhaps born in 1476 or a year later. This may have occurred in Sighișoara, Transylvania.
This increase in the Vlad brood was certainly not a stroke of luck for many contemporaries, least of all for Ottoman envoys. The Wallachian ruler Vlad Tepes was known to send them back from their audiences with him to the Sublime Gate of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul with nothing more than their heads in baskets.
The Transylvanian Saxons claim that the Romanian communists later wrongly and maliciously attributed their Saxon town of Sighișoara to the bloodthirsty Vlad the Impaler. A plaque on a house in the historic upper town there purports to attest to his years of residence. The otherwise beautiful old town of Sighișoara is bursting with tourists and Dracula kitsch.
However, the Saxons themselves were never particularly truthful when it came to Vlad. The Wallachian ruler hampered their lucrative trade with his toll system. Therefore, they spread all sorts of gruesome stories about him.
Not that they were really necessary. Vlad, although a self-proclaimed defender of the Christian faith against the Ottomans, at whose sultanic court he spent formative years as a hostage, was undoubtedly a repulsive impaler.
Details of his actions are gleefully described in the relevant literature; from the art of sufficiently sharpening and greasing a stake, to the appropriate male and female orifices into which the gruesome wood was to be carefully driven, while the delinquent was still horizontal, so that it would not immediately damage vital organs before emerging from the body next to the head, towards the shoulders, and the stake could then be erected for a slow, agonizing death. To veritable forests of stakes.
Phew. Yes, that's awful. "Drac" means "devil" in modern Romanian, which contributed to the legend. Vlad is said to have renounced the Church and drunk blood from a chalice after receiving news of his beloved wife's death. She supposedly took her own life by falling from a castle window, having been led to believe by a false message that her idolized husband had fallen on the battlefield.
Vampirism, of course, only occurs far from Transylvania in a few American bat species. However, the entire Romanian nation suffered from very real bloodsuckers, especially in the second half of the 20th century.
They bore many unknown names, some of which still need to be unearthed and prosecuted, but two prominent ones are undoubtedly: Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu – autocratic Stone Age communists with an imagined eternal power, who, after a show trial at Christmas 1989 during a bloody uprising, were deservedly, if not legally, executed.
This wall wouldn't have been enough to depict the shadows of all the victims executed under their decades-long reign of terror—behind, beside, above, and below them. There are still Romanian households where the video of the gruesome couple's deserved end is viewed with pleasure.
One can criticize Vlad, the early predecessor of the Ceaușescus, for many things, but the practice of nocturnal bloodletting, despite Bram Stoker's account, is probably not one of them. Recently, however, someone arrived in Kleingroßdorf who disagreed.
„Awesome. This is truly awesome, kind of like out of this world. So I really am in Transylvania here, right?“
Timothy hated American tourists. The way they dressed, the way they spoke. For the Englishman, what Mark Twain wrote about the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States was true: "Two nations divided by a common language."
But what could he do? Business was slow. The guest from Littlefield, Pennsylvania, was currently the only one Timothy was hosting at his bed and breakfast, in that old Saxon house in the village center that he had lovingly and painstakingly restored. Love had brought him here, too. His wife was Romanian. He was a craftsman, a skilled and hardworking one.
Timothy had recognized the dormant potential of Kleingroßdorf, set to work, preserved and spruced up the remaining structure of the long-decaying house he had acquired for a pittance, and added guest rooms in the old style. The washbasins were bottomless tin buckets encased in porcelain. Their drains led to a sewer system that relied more on faith than on Western standards.
The double beds were equipped with brand-new, continuous spring core mattresses. The bed frames, however, were old, very old, dating back to Saxon times of glory, when people would settle down for the night early, right after sunset, on both sides of the mattress gap, one perhaps with a mustache band and Christian procreative intent, the other with a nightcap and anxious, but resigned, fears.
One had to do one's duty, didn't one; everyone had to fulfill their duty where they were needed, even if there were already quite a few hungry mouths to feed. One could only go once a week to the church's bacon tower, where the emergency supplies were kept in case of enemy attacks, and have one's ration cut from the side of bacon carefully marked for each house number in the village. That was one's means of making do.
Timothy's business considerations were based on the beauty of the region, the fact that internet travel sites were increasingly touting Transylvania as an insider tip. Yes, the usual Romanians came, especially in winter, wanting to go up to the Hohe Rinne and ski. But he had certainly hoped for international guests as well. Just not this one, sitting before him in shorts and sandals.
“So tell me,” said Timothy’s only current summer guest, “what is it with them, vampires? Are they still around?”
Timothy schloss kurz die Augen. „Well, you kow – they only come out at night.“
„Lots of them?“
Timothy ritt der Teufel, vielleicht der Drac. „Lots and lots. With full moon they just swarm around, we seek shelter in our basement then, covered under heaps of garlic.“
„Wow. I think we’re in for full moon, aren’t we?“
“Tomorrow,” said Timothy.
"Wow. Awesome," the American once again mustered his limited vocabulary. "You think I could get a glimpse of a bloodsucker? Maybe take a picture or two?"
„That depends.“
„On what?“
“The extra price you’re willing to pay.” In a somber voice, Timothy added: “That ultimate price may be your life, of course. Endless darkness. For the time being, however, I would just charge you an extra 2,000 Lei (around 400 euros).” Endless darkness in Kleingroßdorf, of course, only occurred when the streetlights failed again, as regularly as the entire electricity supply.
“Deal,” confirmed the visitor to Transylvania from Littlefield, Pennsylvania. “So tomorrow we’ll do what?”
“We’ll take a walk to the place of rest,” said Timothy in a sepulchral voice, using the few words of German he had picked up from the Transylvanian Saxons. “Up to the old German cemetery on the hill.”
The old German cemetery still bore a few gravestones of Saxons who, during the eastward expansion of German power in World War II, had been forced into the SS, though some had joined enthusiastically and fallen near their homeland. Few other remains from that era had made it back to their native soil. After the collapse of the "Thousand-Year Reich," they remained in the Donets Basin or Siberia.
It is likely that no one ever bothered to properly lay the bodies of the deported Saxons – men and women of working age – to rest, or even to count them, after they succumbed to the deprivations of forced labor under Soviet rule. Their gravestones were never erected at their final resting place.
But this place also preserved the memory of those who had persevered in Transylvania after the Nazi regime, losing their property and ultimately their lives. The Securitate secret police of the Romanian communist dictatorship played a significant role in this. Then, when this terror too was over, the Saxons simply died of old age.
Few of their families grew up locally and still personally tended the graves. Those who could leave had emigrated in large numbers, primarily to West Germany, leaving behind the remains of their ancestors. From their new homes, they sent money to the remaining German parish for grave maintenance. However, only a few Saxons still worked in the cemetery administration's registry. The predominantly Romanian staff sometimes struggled to match the donations to the correct resting places with all the foreign-sounding names from another century—all the Philippis, Roths, and Schusters—while sorting through the yellowed grave cards.
That was none of Timothy's business. He was English and a pragmatist, and he had many friends in the village, all of them, like himself, what in Romanians are called "Schmecher," sly foxes. Some of them were Romanians, others hardy Saxons who had spent the winter there. Both groups had always enjoyed playing tricks on dim-witted foreigners. And now it was happening.
The owner of the local "Cabana Sasilor," the "Saxon Hut," was an old Saxon. He led a motorcycle club of die-hard enduro riders who loved to tear up the slopes around the village with maximum noise. He was also a DJ. Not only did he possess a considerable collection of old German hits, Transylvanian brass band music, and Romanian popular music—a collection unbearable to sensitive ears—but he was also the proud owner of a battery-powered fog machine.
This device was set up during the day, well hidden, at the burial site. Of course, an undead person would still have to rise from their grave. The Saxon gravedigger happened to have just dug a fresh grave, but the burial itself wasn't until the day after tomorrow. For a small fee, he agreed to crouch down in the already dug hole shortly before midnight, stand up at the appointed time, and wear an old, moth-eaten Saxon church fur coat that Timothy had once bought cheaply at a flea market as decoration for the coat rack in the entrance hall of his bed and breakfast.
Everything was ready, the preparations perfect. The full moon rose. The fog machine released fog. A few bats even fluttered over the cemetery grounds; they weren't in league with Timothy, but actually do that there every night.
In the dark heart of Transylvania, Timothy placed his hand on the latch of the wrought-iron gate to the place of rest, which hung crookedly on its hinges, and signaled silence to his companion from Littlefield, Pennsylvania, by conspiratorially placing his index finger to his lips. The gate creaked with age; the tourist with delight. "Wow. Awesome," he remarked predictably.
“Hold on tight and enjoy your ride,” Timothy said, taking the American’s hand. “And, for Mighty God’s sake, do wear this.” He crowned the tourist with a garlic necklace and threw one around his own neck. “Are you a Christian, my dear sir?” he asked.
“Reborn Evangelist,” the tourist said breathlessly, yet firmly. “Shouldn’t we have brought a cross, too?”
At that moment, the gravedigger rose from his pit and spread his arms wide. He cried: “My beloved wife, where are you? I will honor your memory, avenge its defilement, and pour out my eternal retribution upon the world!”
„What’s he saying?“, fragte der Tourist. „Doom“, erwiderte Timothy. „Eternal doom to all who disgrace my beloved wife’s honour. I’ll revenge her.“
„Awesome. He said that in Romanian?“
„No. In German.“
„Well, Dracula must be a Nazi, I gather. Makes sense with the whole blood an honor thing and all that. You think it’s safe to take a picture of me by his side?“
„I don’t know. For a generous tip – maybe. He mostly lives on blood stamps these days and cold use the extra money. The garlic should protect you, I assume, if only for a short while. But you may find out the picture won’t show much of him – his kind does reflect in mirrors.“
“No problem,” said the American, “I don’t carry a reflex camera, just my smartphone. Would you mind?” He handed Timothy his iPhone and an additional 500 lei.
Timothy struggled to maintain his composure. So did the gravedigger, but he hadn't missed the 500 lei, and for that, he made an extra effort. He waved encouragingly to the tourist.
“My God, he smells. He must be half rotten,” the American said under his breath to Timothy, then stood next to the gravedigger, who had never been one for showering. “The scent of ages,” Timothy said with the last vestiges of self-control he possessed, and pressed the shutter.
After that unforgettable night, the tourist from Littlefield, Pennsylvania, had to get up early – because his transcontinental flight home was imminent. When he opened the window of his guest room before sunrise, he thought he saw something take flight in the twilight, perhaps a swarm of bats. But it was just sparrows. "The real Transylvania," he thought nonetheless.
The tourist checked in. He took off. But shortly after takeoff at dawn from Sibiu International Airport, something went wrong. During the climb, a flock of some kind of winged creature became entangled in the aircraft's turbines. Statistically, such accidents are extremely rare. So are the passengers' chances of survival.
The last photo taken by the intrepid traveler from Littlefield, Pennsylvania, which he posted to his WhatsApp group before his ill-fated flight home from Romania, shows him in sharp focus next to a blurred figure whose outline is barely discernible. It appears as if a black wing had partially obscured the lens.