The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

the note was so fine that I almost missed it. Looking more closely, I realized it was a commentary on the word impaled . Vlad Tepes, it claimed, had learned this form of torture from the Ottomans. Impalement of the sort he practiced involved the penetration of the body with a sharpened wooden stake, usually through the anus or genitals upward, so that the stake sometimes emerged through the mouth and sometimes through the head.
    I tried for a minute not to see these words; then I tried for several minutes to forget them, with the book shut.
    The thing that most haunted me that day, however, as I closed my notebook and put my coat on to go home, was not my ghostly image of Dracula, or the description of impalement, but the fact that these things had—apparently—actually occurred. If I listened too closely, I thought, I would hear the screams of the boys, of the ―large family‖
    dying together. For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history‘s terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you‘ve seen that truth—really seen it—you can‘t look away.
    When I reached home that night, I felt a kind of devilish strength, and I confronted my father. He was reading in his library while Mrs. Clay rattled the dinner dishes in the kitchen. I went into the library, closed the door behind me, and stood in front of his chair.
    He was holding one of his beloved volumes of Henry James, a sure sign of stress. I stood without speaking until he looked up. ―Hello, there,‖ he said, finding his bookmark with a smile. ―Algebra homework?‖ His eyes were anxious already.

    ―I want you to finish the story,‖ I said.
    He was silent, tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair.
    ―Why won‘t you tell me more?‖ It was the first time I had ever felt myself a menace to him. He looked at the book he had just closed. I knew that I was being cruel to him in a way I could not understand, but I had begun my bloody work, so I would have to finish.
    ―You don‘t want me to know things.‖
    He looked up at me, finally. His face was inscrutably sad, deeply furrowed in the light from his lamp. ―No, I don‘t.‖
    ―I know more than you think,‖ I said, although I felt that was a childish stab; I wouldn‘t have wanted to tell him what I knew, if he‘d asked me.
    He folded his hands under his chin. ―I know you do,‖ he said. ―And because you know anything at all I will have to tell you everything.‖
    I stared at him, surprised. ―Then just tell me,‖ I said fiercely.
    He looked down again. ―I will tell you, and I‘ll tell you as soon as I can. But not all at once.‖ Suddenly he burst out, ―I can‘t bear it all at once! Be patient with me.‖
    But the look he gave me was pleading, not accusing. I went to him and put my arm around his bowed head.
    March would be chill and blustery in Tuscany, but my father thought a short trip in the countryside there was in order after four days of talks—I always knew his occupation as
    ―talks‖—in Milan. This time, I didn‘t have to ask him to take me along. ―Florence is wonderful, especially off-season,‖ he said one morning as we drove south from Milan.
    ―I‘d like you to see it one of these days. You‘ll have to learn a little more about its history and paintings first, to really get a kick out of it. But the Tuscan countryside‘s the real thing. It rests your eyes and excites them at the same time—you‘ll see.‖
    I nodded, settling into the passenger seat of the rented Fiat. My father‘s love of freedom was contagious, and I liked the way he loosened his shirt collar and tie when we headed off for a new place. He was setting the Fiat to a hum on the smooth northern highway.
    ―Anyway, I‘ve been promising Massimo and Giulia for years that we‘d come. They‘d never forgive my passing this close