The Witch of Portobello

"That isn't quite what you said. But if that's so, perhaps you could help me with finding locations for the film and..."

My unconscious mind was telling me to explore the territory a little more, because although the idea that she might be a prostitute was still buzzing around in my head, I very, very much wanted her to come with me. She politely refused my offer. The other woman joined in the conversation at this point, as if to protect the younger woman, and I felt then that I was in the way and decided to leave.

My interpreter arrived shortly afterward, out of breath, saying that he'd made all the necessary arrangements, but that (as expected) it was going to cost a lot of money. I went up to my room, grabbed my suitcase, which I'd packed earlier, got into the Russian wreck of a car, drove down the long, almost deserted avenues, and realized that I had with me my small camera, my belongings, my anxieties, a couple of bottles of mineral water, some sandwiches, and the image of someone that stubbornly refused to leave my head.

In the days that followed, as I was trying to piece together a script on the historical figure of Dracula, and interviewing both locals and intellectuals on the subject of the vampire myth (with, as foreseen, little success), I gradually became aware that I was no longer merely trying to make a documentary for British television. I wanted to meet that arrogant, unfriendly, self-sufficient young woman whom I'd seen in a cafe in a hotel in Bucharest, and who would, at that moment, be somewhere nearby. I knew absolutely nothing about her apart from her name, but like the vampire of the myth, she seemed to be sucking up all my energy.

In my world, and in the world of those I lived with, this was absurd, nonsensical, unacceptable.

DEIDRE O'NEILL, KNOWN AS EDDA

"I don't know what you came here to do, but whatever it was, you must see it through to the end."

She looked at me, startled.

"Who are you?"

I started talking about the magazine I was reading, and after a while, the man sitting with her decided to get up and leave. Now I could tell her who I was.

"If you mean what do I do for a living, I qualified as a doctor some years ago, but I don't think that's the answer you want to hear."

I paused.

"Your next step, though, will be to try to find out, through clever questioning, exactly what I'm doing here, in a country that's only just emerging from years of terrible oppression."

"I'll be straightforward then. What did you come here to do?"

I could have said: I came for the funeral of my teacher, because I felt he deserved that homage. But it would be imprudent to touch on the subject. She may have shown no interest in vampires, but the word teacher would be sure to attract her attention. Since my oath will not allow me to lie, I replied with a half-truth.

"I wanted to see where a writer called Mircea Eliade lived. You've probably never heard of him, but Eliade, who spent a great part of his life in France and the USA, was a world authority on myths."

The young woman looked at her watch, feigning indifference. I went on:

"And I'm not talking about vampires, I'm talking about people who, let's say, are following the same path you're following."

She was about to take a sip of her coffee, but she stopped: "Are you from the government? Or are you someone my parents engaged to follow me?"

It was my turn then to feel uncertain as to whether to continue the conversation. Her response had been unnecessarily aggressive. But I could see her aura, her anxiety. She was very like me when I was her age: full of internal and external wounds that drove me to want to heal people on the physical plane and to help them find their path on the spiritual plane. I wanted to say, "Your wounds will help you, my dear," then pick up my magazine and leave.

If I had done that, Athena's path might have been completely different, and she would still be alive and living with the man she loved. She would have brought up her son and watched him grow, get married, and have lots of children. She would be rich, possibly the owner of a company selling real estate. She had all the necessary qualities to find success and happiness. She'd suffered enough to be able to use her scars to her advantage, and it was just a matter of time before she'd manage to control her anxiety and move on.

So what kept me sitting there, trying to keep the conversation going? The answer is very simple: curiosity. I couldn't understand what that brilliant light was doing there in the cold hotel foyer.

I continued: "Mircea Eliade wrote books with strange titles: Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural Fashions, for example. Or The Sacred and the Profane. My teacher"--I inadvertently let the word slip, but she either wasn't listening or else pretended not to have noticed--"loved his work. And something tells me it's a subject you're interested in too."

She glanced at her watch again.

"I'm going to Sibiu," she said. "My bus leaves in an hour. I'm looking for my mother, if that's what you want to know. I work as a real estate agent in the Middle East, I have a son of nearly four, I'm divorced, and my parents live in London. My adoptive parents, of course, because I was abandoned as a baby."

She was clearly at a very advanced stage of perception and had identified with me, even though she wasn't aware of this yet.

"Yes, that's what I wanted to know."

"Did you have to come all this way just to do research into a writer? Aren't there any libraries where you live?"

"The fact is that Eliade only lived in Romania until he graduated from university. So if I really wanted to know more about his work, I should go to Paris, London, or to Chicago, where he died. However, what I'm doing isn't research in the normal sense of the word: I wanted to see the ground where he placed his feet. I wanted to feel what inspired him to write about things that affect my life and the lives of people I respect."

"Di