The Girl Of Dracula - Prologue, Chapter1 and Chapter 2

PROLOGUE

Transylvania, 1462

The rain was light but steady. Prince Vlad Dracul the III could feel the cool drops gently sliding down his face - like a loving woman’s caress. He could hear its soothing chant. He could also hear his soldiers marching and talking, but he could not do a thing. He was unable to move a finger. His head was throbbing with agonizing pain. A single thought tortured him harder than the pain – they had been defeated. The Ottoman Turks had won the battle and had forced them to retreat from Wallachia to Transylvania.
He felt the convoy coming to a stop. They put him down on the ground. A torch came into his foggy view, lighting the face of an old man.
“He’s gone; there is nothing I can do for him. A gash like that on his forehead won’t heal. He needs a priest.”
“Stupid old man,” the prince thought angrily. “Just sew and burn the wound, you ignorant peasant. I’ll impale you, you miserable pig!” His words played in his mind only. Because, in fact, he could not speak at all. For everyone’s ears, he only moaned in pain.
“I’ll heal his Lordship,” a woman spoke from the dark.
The prince recognized her echoing voice at once. Anguish gripped his inert body.
“Oh, no! She’s dead. If I could hear her, then I’m dead too,” the prince thought terrified.
The woman moved nearer him and leaned close to his face. He could feel her hair and her warm breath on his cheek. He opened his eyes and gasped. It was SHE.
“Dear God, have mercy on my soul!” the prince prayed silently.
“Back to me, My Lord?” she chirped sarcastically. “I’ll fix your head ‘cause it belongs to me,” she said touching his cold ear with her scorching hot lips.
She quickly started to give commands to his men. ”How dare she? They are my men!”
“Take him into my tent. Then leave us alone. Go and rest. He’ll be ready for you in the morning.”
“No, lads, don’t leave me! She’s dead, you fools, don’t let me die,” the prince implored. No sound came out of his mouth. Only she seemed to hear him. She took his hand and squeezed it gently. “You’re safe with me, My Lord. No need to fret.”
He heaved a sigh. Flashes of their first encounter began to play inside his burning brain.
He pictured her again in his mind’s eye, before the gates of his castle, sexy and beautiful as hell, selling her dried flower bouquets. Not a soldier had come near her.
“Why are all my soldiers keeping away from you?” he had asked chuckling.
“‘Cause they are afraid of me,” she had answered smiling sensually.
“I am the only one they should fear. I rule by fear. Do you know who I am, woman?”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“And aren’t you afraid of me?”
“No, My Lord. Aren’t you afraid of me?”
The woman had had some guts, no doubt about it.
“You’re playing with your life, woman,” he had warned her.
“You’re playing with your soul, My Lord,” she had fired back.
He had laughed at her blind courage.
“Why are my men afraid of you?”
“‘Cause I can sell their souls to Hell.”
He had stared at her for a long time, and then he had burst out laughing again.
“You don’t believe me? Jus’ try me, My Lord!” she had challenged him.
And he had tried her, all right! That very night and many other nights that had followed. And she had been good. The best he had ever had. She had given his body pleasures like no other woman had ever done it. She had rocked his world, that beautiful gypsy witch!
And they had been happy together, just until that cursed morning.
It had looked like the Devil had gotten into her.
“Why don’t you marry me, My Lord?”
“Because you’re not of my rank.”
“I am noble.”
“You are a gypsy.”
“I am the princess of my tribe,” she had argued.
“You are the witch of your tribe,” he had replied.
“What if I tell you that I’m with your child?” she had inquired eying him intensely.
Roughly, he had taken her by her shoulders.
“Don’t deceive me, woman! I’ll give you another chance to tell me the truth: Are you with our child?”
“I am, My Lord.”
He had summoned his doctors, and they had found out that she had lied. No human being in his country should lie to him, or betray him and remain alive!
Her breath on his face brought him back to present.
“So, you gave him order to kill me. You wanted me dead, My Lord,” she hissed. “You think a mere man could resist this body?” she asked taking off her gossamer blouse. The golden coins necklace chimed on her beautiful naked breasts.
He finally heard himself talking.
“He was my most trusted soldier. How did you manage to escape?”
She sounded enigmatic.
“You won’t believe me.”
“Say it, woman!”
“I promised the Devil a soul. An untamed soul.” She laughed and let her skirt drop to the ground. “And the deal is only a lovemaking away…” she continued in a low, erotic voice, taking off his clothes and touching his feverish body with her long, black hair.
She started to sing in her native language, and her unusual timbre was an igniting torch to his senses. It called on him, and he answered transfixed in her world of lust.
“Don’t do it!” his mind cried desperately. But his body’s primitive instincts overrode his will. Under her skilful touch, he felt the pain going away miraculously. Her curvy body was pure perfection, and it slipped naked beside his. If he were dead, then Death felt good, really good. And he welcomed it.
The time flowed in passionate lovemaking. He felt alive and strong.
Then, she stopped all of a sudden. She kissed him and looked at him with sadness in her Kohl-lined, almond shaped green eyes.
“Woman, why did you make this deal with the Devil?”
“For one more night of love with you.”
“You’re crazy, woman! You just sold your soul to Hell for this?”
The gypsy woman rose and picked up a small silver framed mirror. She held it to his face. He looked bewildered at his own image in the mirror. The wound on his forehead was sealed, as after weeks of recovery, and his face looked a great deal younger.
“You misunderstood me, My Lord. It was not my soul, but yours that I sold to Hell!” she said laughing hysterically.
His blood went cold.
“No! No! No!” he yelled in terror. “Cursed be you and your tribe, woman! Forever and ever!”
At the sound of his curse, her laughter ceased abruptly. She remembered the hourglass and shot a worried look toward it. The last few drops of sand were still pouring with frightening laziness. She should have waited a bit longer. In an instant, her terror matched his. She could do nothing now to stop the curse. Prince Dracula’s curse.

CHAPTER 1

Braila city, Romania, May 2006

The old gypsy woman placed her table with cowry and oyster shells, small statues carved in wood, zodiac signs medallions, hairpins, and other small artifacts at the corner of the street, across from the girls’ orphanage and just a few hundred yards from “Ion Ghica” High School.
On that glorious day of May, the air was heavy with scents of linden flowers, and the sun was shining with unwonted generosity. With every sun-shining day, the spring seemed to give a farewell smile and abandon Mother Nature to the summer’s hot embrace.
The great summer break was near, and the young men and women, relieved from the stress of daily study, succumbed to dreams of love.
“Now is the time!” the old gypsy woman said to herself.
At that mid-day hour, the street was almost deserted. Only the old linden trees were rustling every now and then under the warm caress of the late springtime breeze, and busy yellow butterflies wandered cheerfully through fragrant lilac bushes.
The woman knew that the students would complete their courses in next to no time, and certainly, she would sell her merchandises very easily here. She would even make some petty cash on fortune telling. Girls - most of all - were crazy to have their future foretold, and they usually flocked around her.
However, this wasn’t the reason she had made that long journey, from Roma neighborhood of Craiova city to downtown Braila. The old woman had to fulfill a mission. She was the mother of the young Gypsy Baron Laur of The Werewolf’s Tribe, one of the eleven gypsy women who knew the dark secret of the tribe.
More than five hundred years ago, the tribe’s beautiful and exotic witch had been one of Vlad the Impaler’s mistresses, the one that had sold his soul to Hell.
“Only have peace when my soul will!” Vlad the Impaler Dracul had yelled at them.
Misfortune after misfortune had shaken the tribe. There had been thousands of them, and now, only two to three hundred gypsies were left in her tribe that looked more and more as a lost cause. The old woman herself had carried the stigma of infertility her entire life.
Her adopted son, Gypsy Baron Laur, had to wed this year, in the fall. And having Dracula’s curse looming over the tribe, the witch had to take cautious measures.
The old woman knew what she had to do. The spirits who led the tribe had guided her to Braila, a seven hundred year old city from the southeastern part of Romania. Here, she would recruit Dracula’s girl… It was the second time in eighteen years that she would come to Braila with the same mission. She loved this cosmopolitan city, where she could pass unnoticed among its multiethnic population of Romanians, Turks, Greeks, Jews, Gypsies, Russian-Lippovans, Tatars, and Bulgarians.
There were times when she would wonder, what had happened to the girls she had chosen and put a spell on through the curse-bearing flower bouquet. She had no remorse; to sacrifice the soul of an insignificant woman was small-potatoes when she compared it to the benefits of saving her tribe. It was, in fact, a rare impulse of sheer curiosity… She had never tried to find out… What use would it have been to know?
Now she needed to choose a beautiful girl, who caught in the spell, she would deeply fall in love with a man she would never join in law, but she would never part from him either… A soul ceaselessly tortured by desire, a body ever wretched by lust, doomed to a life of sin.
The old gypsy woman had to care for the good of the tribe. The evil spirits had to be tamed, bought over. What better gift than a young woman’s soul?
She cast an eye over her surroundings. Nobody. I’m alone. Bending now, she rummaged through those ten layers of brightly colored skirts and removed from a hidden pocket a bouquet of dried field flowers, immortal flowers. Surrounded by the flowers - like a bizarre piece of ornament - “the devil’s grass” reigned. It was an odd weed, full of thorns, black with red spots, looking like someone had been wounded by it and the blood had dribbled on its thorns. What a struggle had been for the old witch to find it! Countless days she had wandered through the mountains of Prince Stone, near Dracula’s castle.
A hoarse laugh, like the noise of an old grinder, exited the gypsy’s throat bruised of smoked brandy and cheap tobacco. Her wrinkled mouth twitched into a repugnant grin, revealing her gums with only two or three broken, blackened teeth left.
The witch was satisfied. Now, all that remained was the most amusing part. She loved doing that.
So many girls would come around her. All she needed to do, it was to choose one of them - the most beautiful of all. The way you choose the fairest flower from a meadow.
Grinning, the old gypsy whispered the last spell over the small flower bouquet. She hid it at her chest under the linen shirt and sat like a spider waiting to ambush its prey.
Only a few minutes later, the street was full of young people. Conversing noisily, teenage girls and boys were flooding through the gates of “Ion Ghica” High School.
Like bees around their nest, the first group of girls already crowded around the old woman’s improvised eye-catching bazaar. Some of them, the bolder ones, rushed to try on medallions, hairpins… The selling was in the thick!
“So young, so beautiful!” the gypsy complimented them, somehow with sincerity.
As more and more girls made their appearance, the old woman realized that her mission was not as easy as she had thought in the first place. It was raining girls! Blonds, brunettes, redheads, tall and slim… all kinds of girls, each one more beautiful than the other, radiating youth in the May’s joyful sunlight.
A fatal brunette with brown eyes handed her a coin and asked her to read her palm. The gypsy touched her chest, almost certain that she had found what she had been looking for.
And then, it happened! A high-pitched cry followed by a noisy, general laughter that erupted and overcame the crowd of students.
The commotion was developing in a group of girls and boys who had passed her by without showing any interest. The woman turned her gaze toward the group responsible for all this agitation.
All at once, she saw her!
Linden flowers on her face, her hair, her uniform, the girl was laughing and trying to shake them off.
High up hidden in one of the blooming linden trees an older gentleman was chuckling and apologizing again and again. He had dropped over that girl his bag full of linden flowers that he had picked for soothing tea, for his wife - she had quit smoking and was suffering from insomnia. He ought to be nervous for a few good reasons. It had been more than an hour since he had climbed up into the tree. He did not like it at all where he was. Too high for his old body’s safety. He had jumped over lunch, and his stomach was showing its discontent with increasingly embarrassing tunes. Then, it was the old gypsy witch! Professor Dinescu had seen her earlier hiding something at her chest. He had kept an eye on her ever since her arrival, and her behavior was dubious in the least. A moment ago, he had seen her lifting her hand to her chest once again. The old woman’s move had made him forget about his linden flowers bag.
And now, his work of over an hour was in vain. Not to mention that he had startled this girl with a fairy smile, showering her with all his meticulously picked linden flowers.
Professor Dinescu elected to descend and properly apologize to the young girl. A couple of students rushed to his ladder, while his lordship strived to appear more agile than his seventy-five-years of age. When he reached the bottom of his ladder, he stopped to catch his breath. Then, turning around ninety degrees to face the girl with linden flowers in her hair, he found himself looking at the old gypsy – the only person responsible for his earlier mishap. She stood in front of the young girl, and as she handed over to her a bouquet of dried field flowers with one hand, she was picking up flowers from the girl’s hair with the other. Her gnarly fingers, blackened of smoking, with cracked skin and dirty fingernails that looked more like the teeth of a saw, caught small strands of the girl’s golden-brown hair, making her wince in pain.
Momentarily, watching this scenario, professor Dinescu got the feeling that he perfectly understood what the concepts of ugly and beautiful were supposed to mean - the physical appearances of those two women were of an overwhelming divergence.
Obviously irritated by the gypsy’s comportment, professor Dinescu was just getting ready to admonish her, making use of his many years of pedagogical experience, when a blond young man with curly hair dashed to help the girl who was showing noticeable signs of discomfort.
“Please, leave her alone! She doesn’t need your help,” the young man snapped.
“Long live your Frenchwoman, lad! Let me read your future in my cowry or my Tarot cards. Jus’ two Euros, ha?” the gypsy said and extended her hand to receive the money first.
“Cut the rubbish, grandma’!” professor Dinescu called out and strolled toward them. “Watch out, your bazaar is vanishing! You better go and deal with your customers,” he added, looking more and more like a thorn in the witch’s side.
Maliciously shifting her gaze back and forth from the venerable gentleman to the blond young man with curly hair, and suddenly feeling like a cornered beast, the old woman hobbled away grumbling curses and obscenities.
Only seconds later, a smile hideously deformed her face lined with deep wrinkles. As a matter of fact, she had done her duty and was pleased with herself.
In this tumult of voices and laughter, neither she, nor anyone from the crowd of students remarked the black Mercedes with tinted windows, parked at the far end of the street. Through one of its windows, opened just enough to allow it, a dark-skinned man was relentlessly taking pictures with a very modern and sophisticated camera.
CHAPTER 2

Professor Vlad looked at his watch and muttered something inaudible - almost certainly an oath. He was five minutes late.
“Let’s hope that Mrs. Florescu’s students are quieter than mine,” he thought and continued to climb two stairs simultaneously toward the second level where classroom 12 A was located.
The antique style wooden stairs were cracking and creaking under his weight.
“What a loony idea, to change the class supervisor at the last high school coordination course! Only Principal Pop could come up with such an idea for the poor graduates,” professor Vlad said to himself and opened the classroom’s door. He was so astonished by the suffocating silence, that for a fraction of a second, it occurred to him that he might be encountering a mass truancy.
“Good afternoon,” he saluted.
All students stood up and concurrently answered the greeting in unison.
“I am Professor Alexander Vlad, and I will have the pleasure of being your class supervisor for one hour… or whatever is left of it,” he added looking embarrassed at his watch. “Your last hour of high school coordination course.”
Professor Alexander Vlad, or Alex, as his colleagues used to call him in the teachers’ lounge, was not the regular kind of high school teacher. Homesickness had brought him back to Braila. Nobody knew too much about him. He answered the questions of a personal nature with the talent of a versed politician. Any attempt to learn more about him would usually result in a total failure. The petulant person would end up rather providing information about her or him, more than anyone would ever want to reveal. There were things rotten in Denmark, they thought, and no doubt some had to do with professor Vlad.
What they all knew undoubtedly in the teachers’ lounge – de leur chagrin - it was that Alex was a very good friend of Principal Julia Pop. That fact tempered the curiosity of many of the teachers. He was a divorcé, and he was writing a historical book about Vlad the Impaler. This last passion and his exigency when evaluating his students had acquired him the nickname Dracula.
“Grade A belongs to God. He alone is capable of perfection. Though, when I look at some of you, I am amazed by how many mistakes are in His work too! Grade B belongs to the teacher. Bottom line - C is the best you can get from me.”
Using this famous speech, he introduced himself to the 9-th grade classes each of those three years since he had started to function as a history teacher in Braila city, at “Ion Ghica” High School. Next, there were the pop quizzes, the draw based students’ examinations, unexpected questions from previous lessons… and countless other things that professor Vlad did with a malicious smile at the corner of his mouth. He enjoyed mentally torturing students - especially girls. He amused himself with this sadistic pleasure. He liked seeing them trembling with emotion, pushing them on the verge of tears. And he would radiate sheer happiness when announcing delightedly:
“You got an F today, miss.”
The story was that, in his high school years, he had fallen in love with a colleague one year his senior. She had crossed his path in his very first high school day, and he had lost his head over her on the spot.
Tormented by passion and despair for three long years, he had written her many love poems, until she had finished high school. Then, he had been in love with her relentlessly, years and years, her angelic beauty still haunting his memories. But the girl had rejected his love, humiliated him, poisoned his soul with hatred and plagued his heart with unrequited love. Her contemptuous laughter still echoed in his ears, and he could still see her in his memories, in the middle of a huge group of senior colleagues, reading his love poems dedicated to her exclusively. She had not simply let him know that he had been barking up the wrong tree, she had done it in the worst way. She actually had enjoyed embarrassing him in front of everybody.
The reason he had come back here, to this city, was she, undoubtedly, but Alex would not admit it, not even to himself. He would have loved to see her again, old, wrinkled, and fat, with a drunkard and bully husband, and two or three children pulling at her skirt. Oh, how delighted he would have been seeing her in this hypostasis, and not the stunning beauty that she had used to be in high school!
Later in life, in his last university year, his present… ex wife had become pregnant, and the circumstances had forced him to marry her. Alex couldn’t complain. His ex wife, Michelle, was beautiful, intelligent, and a wonderful mother for their daughter, Lia. But deep in his heart, he knew that he had not loved Michelle. And that had made him hate himself, particularly when they had been making love, once a week or every other week maybe, and he had been fantasizing about being with his high school dream girl.
After sixteen years, he could perfectly recall her angelic features, and watching her picture stolen from a school honor-board, he often asked himself, What demon was truly dwelling under that superb masque? Or maybe it had been only the fact that she had never loved him… at all… What he could not comprehend it was why she had despised him so much! Because he had been in love with her and had dared to tell her about it? Of course, he had made a fool of himself writing her all those poems and love letters. Surely, he had been a sorry sight.
Now he was standing in front of these students whom he did not know, it hadn’t been he who had taught them history four years, and he was neither their class supervisor.
“What a whimsy!” he thought again and produced a miniature file with double sheets inside it. He put it carefully on his desk and addressed the students.
“The idea is that… in this file I have exactly thirty double sheets, one for each of you. You will receive them in the next five minutes. On the first one, you will write your full name. On the second one, you will write what you want to do with your life today. What is your biggest wish this very moment in your existence? You have fifteen minutes to think about it, meditate intensely. Because in ten, twenty, or as many years as you all wish, at the reunion that you’ll have, we will reveal this file, and you will read your notes, some of you aloud, if you muster the courage… Until then, the file is locked, secret.” He paused and leaned on his desk, supporting his weight on his hands. After a few seconds, he demanded.
“Who is the head student of the class? Please, do come and distribute the sheets!”
The next instant the earth burst open under his feet. A flash of lightning pierced his heart… he suddenly felt unable to breathe.
It was SHE.
She was coming toward him from the center of the classroom, the same golden brown hair combed in a pony tail, same mysterious blue eyes, same full, sensual lips… and her round breasts under the uniform… “Oh, no!” he thought petrified. He had not expected to see her again that way.
Good heavens, am I dreaming or getting ready to seriously candidate for a position at the “funny farm”? He quickly took a seat and made a brief effort to evaluate the situation.
“It is only a resemblance,” he told himself. “This couldn’t possibly be she!”
He forced air into his lungs.
The timid girl came closer and took the file in her hands without looking at him.
“Oh, no! It is not Magda,” professor Vlad reasoned with certainty, as he recovered from the shock. Magda knew she was beautiful, and she exploited the gift. Magda was anything but timid. Magda would normally look you in the eye, penetrate you deep, and when she would reach there, at the core of your being, she would graze your soul only for a moment of amusement.
The girl before him was pale and trembling. And she had something special – like a force that induced magnetism, a warm and inviting aura around her. He did not feel like writing poems to her, idolizing her, as he had felt for Magda. This girl is a real turn-on! He just wanted to take her in his arms and make love to her. It was an unexpected, alien feeling that he had never had before, and the novelty paralyzed him.
He managed to regroup and watched her more observantly, how she floated elegantly between the rows of desks dispersing the white sheets. Yes, she was as white as the sheets. He contemplated asking her something, if she were sick, something… anything. He quickly changed his mind, not knowing if he would barely be able to find his voice and ask the class to begin writing.
Sometime later, he heard himself saying:
“Very well. Everybody in possession of a white sheet? Then, go ahead! Start working! You have fifteen minutes.”
After that, he got up and plunged into the dark and empty corridor. Behind him, he only heard the squeaking of writing pens on paper.
He strolled to the open window at the end of the hallway and looked outside at the old chestnut tree in the school courtyard. It had green, fresh leaves.
Across the street, in front of suite B, the Principal was explaining to a group of 8-th graders who had come to visit about the architecture and history of “Ion Ghica” High School.
The old school building was an assembly of three suites, all of them situated in downtown, nearby the famous Public Garden. Suite A had used to be the building of The Italian Consulate. Suite B had been, in fact, the house of Costache Sugliotti, a renowned Greek trader. Suite C, or “The House with Lions”, impressed with its elaborated nineteenth century paintings inside - the ceilings being gilt in gold. It had a sumptuous entrance, guarded by two life size, stone sculpture lions sitting on both sides of the opulent doors. Presently, it served as dormitory for students from out of town.
Professor Vlad was in suite A, and the school architecture, as impressive as it was, constituted the last subject of interest in his thoughts at the moment.
He paused for a while and analyzed the situation. What a strange encounter! What a striking resemblance! He wondered if she were a relative of his high school old flame by any chance.
Finally, he decided to push aside his emotions. He gathered his thoughts, pulled himself together, and returned to the classroom. After ten minutes, he spoke to the students.
“Now, put all the sheets on the right side of your desks, and starting from the end of each row, pass them in front of you.”
He got up and collected all three piles of white sheets. He looked at his wristwatch and realized that they still had fifteen minutes until break. A mischievous thought germinated rapidly in his mind.
“Now,” he said aloud, “what it would be like if we check, at random, what some of you have written?”
An unhappy murmur reverberated from the classroom. A young man sprang into action and said intransigently:
“Mr. Vlad, it is not fair! You said that they would remain secret, ten years from now. We expect you to play by the rules.”
“Hmm…I am the rules, young man!” the professor specified firmly. “What is your name?”
“Daniel Coman,” the student answered annoyed.
“Row number three… yes… I found it! Let’s see! What wrote you, Mr. Coman?”
“Mr. Vlad, please, I implore you, do not open it!”
Professor Vlad read for himself, one single phrase written in capital letters:
I WANT TO MARRY ADELINA MARIN.
Sporting his wicked smile, he looked the young man in the eye, and unexpectedly, he closed up the file. He invited Daniel to take a seat, somehow satisfied, picturing himself years ago, as a young student in love… ”Misery loves company,” Alex cogitated with remorse.
After a few minutes of silence, feeling that the image of the head-student girl was burning his mind and wanting to drive it away with something - a banal conversation, anything - he inquired:
“Who is Adelina Marin?”
The head-of-the-class girl stood up pale, her trembling fingers playing nervously with a red pen.
Professor Vlad felt his blood boiling at his temples. Now was the moment to avenge the humiliation he had experienced sixteen or seventeen years ago. Perhaps she was a relative of Magda… perhaps… Without thinking clearly and having a little taste of pure jealousy, he opened the file again and looked for the white sheet with Adelina’s name on it.
In the periphery of his vision, he caught a glimpse of the girl’s face, turning crimson little by little.
He opened the sheet with her name, anticipating that he would find something about her and Daniel. ”They are lovers, no doubt about it,” the professor thought angrily.
The next instant his blood dropped to his feet.
In a perfect calligraphy, the girl had written:
I want to be your lover, professor Vlad.
He slammed the file closed, turned around and left the classroom at once, without as much as a greeting.

* * *

With confident strides, professor Vlad proceeded to Principal Julia Pop’s office. He stormed inside as a thunder, without knocking, very determined to straighten things out with her. He locked the door behind him.
Caught by surprise, Principal Julia Pop barely had time to take down her little foot from where she had had it resting, on the edge of her desk. She was struggling to say good-bye to the person she was talking to on the phone, when professor Vlad furiously snatched the receiver from her hand and slammed it into its cradle. The woman froze, her eyes enlarged with revolt, indignation, and especially fear. She had never seen Alex like that before. Something else happened usually when he came into her office and locked the door. Now he was stepping way over the line!
Principal Julia Pop was forty-three years old, but she still looked superb. She was a sexy mignon lady with perfect body proportions and such beautiful brown eyes that you felt caressed with her each and every look.
There were malevolent rumors about how she had acquired her position unorthodoxly making use of these qualities. The truth laid somewhere in the middle. Certain fact was that Julia Pop held a master in literature and another one in management and marketing. She had been a straight A’s student and had graduated both Universities with “magna cum laude”. When you graduate last in your class, or you lack to attract men because your nose is too big or your neck too thick among other countless defects, it is easy to understand that that kind of gossip excuses your failures, and you are eager to spread it with generosity. That was exactly what some of Julia’s “girlfriends” were carrying out.
On the other side of Julia’s desk, professor Vlad threw the file of class 12A down noisily and violently. With his hands propped on the desk, he leaned ahead and looked at Principal Julia Pop as if he intended to crush her.
“Julia, to whom did you spill the beans on me? My personal file was supposed to be locked up and secret. What in the world should I do to make you keep it that way? For God’s sake, Julia, you promised! You gave me your word, woman! You were recommended as the most reliable person. Is this all you can do? Three years of silence, and then even the last student knows about it?”
Professor Vlad did not want to be right, he was almost sure he wasn’t right. But he needed to be absolutely, totally sure.
Julia’s reaction cooled him down. The woman could have been anything but an actress. He knew her for the last three years - they had intimate relations every now and then. Julia’s cheeks turned red, and tears filled her good-fairy eyes.
“Alex, how dare you to think of me this way? I’ve never felt so humiliated. Nobody, ever, accused me of indiscretion. Look at me! I’m a walking package of secrets. I would die before I’d divulge any of them.”
Alex calmed slowly, as Julia’s face was becoming increasingly flushed and indignant.
With unhurried motions, the man took the file in his hands, held it close to his chest, and then soothed Julia Pop with a delicate touch on her cheek.
“Forgive me, Julia! I am a short-fused guy, I warned you. Forgive me for questioning your discretion even for a moment. Please, I implore you, forgive me. Could you?”
The woman nodded hesitantly staring at him still in shock.
Professor Vlad exited the Principal’s office and entered the teachers’ lounge. The room was empty. There were five more minutes until break. He opened the file and looked for the student Adelina Marin’s sheet. He extracted it from the file and hid it into his pocket. After that, he took the file to the secretary room to be put away.
A few moments later, in the privacy of his own car, he took that piece of paper out and read it at least a dozen times.