Read Online The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova - Free Book Online Page A

source of light. Then the street was utterly dark.
    For a moment I stopped breathing. Terrified and clumsy, I turned, saw the darkened windows, all but invisible above the dark street, and on impulse ran toward them. The door through which I‘d made my exit was firmly bolted. No other lights showed in the building‘s facade. At this hour, the door was probably set to lock behind anyone who walked out—surely that was normal. I was standing there, hesitating, on the verge of running around to the other doors, when the streetlights came on again, and I felt suddenly abashed. There was no sign of the two students who‘d walked out behind me; they must, I thought, have gone off in a different direction.
    But now another group of students was strolling past, laughing; the street was no longer deserted. What if Rossi came out in a minute, as he certainly would after having switched off his light and locked his office door behind him, and found me waiting here? He had said he didn‘t want to discuss further what we‘d been discussing. How could I explain my irrational fears to him, there on the doorstep, when he‘d drawn a curtain over the subject—over all morbid subjects, perhaps? Embarrassed, I turned away before he could catch up with me and hurried home. There, I left the envelope in my briefcase, unopened, and slept—although restlessly—through the night.
    The next two days were busy, and I didn‘t let myself look at Rossi‘s papers; in fact, I put all esoterica resolutely out of my mind. It took me by surprise, therefore, when a colleague from my department stopped me in the library late on the afternoon of the second day. ―Have you heard about Rossi?‖ he demanded, grabbing my arm and wheeling me around as I hurried past. ―Paolo, wait!‖ Yes, you‘re guessing correctly—it was Massimo. He was big and loud even as a graduate student, louder than he is now, maybe. I gripped his arm.
    ―Rossi? What? What about him?‖
    ―He‘s gone. He‘s disappeared. The police are searching his office.‖
    I ran all the way to the building, which now looked ordinary, hazy inside with late-afternoon sun and crowded with students leaving their classrooms. On the second floor, in front of Rossi‘s office, a city policeman was talking with the department chairman and several men I‘d never seen before. As I arrived, two men in dark jackets were leaving the professor‘s study, closing the door firmly behind them and heading toward the stairs and classrooms. I pushed my way through and spoke to the policeman. ―Where‘s Professor Rossi? What‘s happened to him?‖
    ―Do you know him?‖ asked the policeman, looking up from his notepad.
    ―I‘m his advisee. I was here two nights ago. Who says he‘s disappeared?‖

    The department chairman came forward and shook my hand. ―Do you know anything about this? His housekeeper phoned at noon to say he hadn‘t come home last night or the night before—he didn‘t ring for dinner or breakfast. She says he‘s never done that before.
    He missed a meeting at the department this afternoon without phoning first, which he‘s never done before, either. A student stopped by to say his office was locked when they‘d agreed on an appointment during office hours and that Rossi had never shown up. He missed his lecture today, and finally I had the door opened.‖
    ―Was he in there?‖ I tried not to gasp for breath.
    ―No.‖
    I pushed blindly away from them toward Rossi‘s door, but the policeman held me back by one arm. ―Not so fast,‖ he said. ―You say you were here two nights ago?‖
    ―Yes.‖
    ―When did you last see him?‖
    ―About eight-thirty.‖
    ―Did you see anyone else around here then?‖
    I thought. ―Yes, just two students in the department—Bertrand and Elias, I think, going out at the same time. They left when I did.‖
    ―Good. Check that,‖ the policeman said to one of the men. ―Did you notice anything out of the ordinary in Professor