CHAPTER XIV
FROM ATTORNEY AZMI BEY
’S DIARY
1 October, before noon.—The only difficult thing about this horrible situation would have been my dear Güzin’s intervention. But my Güzin, delicate as a rose, tender as a hyacinth, turned out to be as tough as steel—no, as tough as a true Turkish girl. Turkish girls… What qualities should be described to differentiate them? The easiest is the pride and enthusiasm she shows when she sees her husband charging against dangerous challenges and obstacles!
Doctor Resuhî Bey, the man who should go down in history, said:
“My friends, we are walking toward a danger greater than you can imagine, and in this fight we need every kind of weapon. Our enemy is not a lone, simple creature. He is at least as strong as twenty or thirty men; he is brave, cunning, and experienced. We have weapons against these things. For example, take one of these small Qurans I am holding and place it close to your heart. Doctor Afif, do not laugh at what I say; do not laugh. Even if it has no effect, the extra 25 grams will not hurt.”
Then Doctor Resuhî turned to Doctor Afif Bey and asked, “Are the keys ready?” Afif produced a few newly-made keys. Then the doctor said, “Let us get to work!” He began walking and we all followed him. I will not go into too much detail. Some time later we were inside the great, old, dilapidated mansion in Balat, near Topkapi. Count Dracula bought this place through correspondence with “A Real Estate Center.” After passing through a garden which resembled a jungle, we opened the mansion door and entered, descending a staircase to a dirt basement below the ground floor. The place was dark, and we had to light two lanterns that we had prepared earlier. I held one of them. The deep darkness, which the light of my lantern seemed almost afraid to illuminate, showed a layer of dust over everything. However, the footprints of the carriers who delivered Count Dracula’s crates of earth were visible in the dust like tracks in the snow. Since I was the agent of the business office and the intermediary in the purchase of the mansion, I knew the layout well. In fact, when I was in Dracula’s accursed castle in Transylvania, I described its interiors to the vampire.
Doctor Resuhî Bey said:
“Children, what we must do now is scour this place and discover how many of the coffins the Impaler Voivode has sent here to use as shelter. This terrible, cunning monster has perhaps not put all of the coffins in the same place, as a precaution. He may have hidden them in other properties that he has bought.”
At these words we began to search the basement. Yes, many of the coffins I saw in Count Dracula’s castle were here. We counted them; there were only twenty-nine of the fifty coffins.
As we busied ourselves with this, dawn was quickening. Doctor Resuhî Bey said:
“Our first night of reconnaissance has passed without danger. We have the information we needed. It is almost morning; let us get away from here now!”
2 October.—We friends all reconvened. After a long and tiring investigation, we now have the necessary information regarding two more properties Count Dracula has purchased. We even have the interior layouts of the houses. We investigated the carriers without arousing suspicion. That means the great vampire hunt now begins.
3 October.—This Doctor Resuhî Bey is a very calm man. I think that were it not for him, we could accomplish nothing. After we visited the vampire’s sanctuary in Eyüp, the doctor told us in the morning:
“Of course you must have noticed that I had a purpose for not destroying the vampire’s shelter that night. Had we done anything there, Count Dracula would have guessed that we were onto him and would have taken many different measures to elude us. But now he has no idea what we know. There is a very good chance that the vampire does not know we have the tools to sterilize his soil. Since we learned about the other two properties, and it is possible to get into empty houses without difficulty, we must make the most of this opportunity. From now until this dawning sun sets, the vampire cannot change his shape. I have made a plan of attack.”
We were around the breakfast table in the parlor of my house. After breakfast, Resuhî Bey rose and added:
“My friends, at this moment the terrible hunt has begun; we are entering into this awful struggle. We are all armed both physically and spiritually. Our holy books and our pistols loaded with silver bullets are with us as a precaution, and I have all the necessary equipment in my large bag. Güzin Hanim, do not worry and do not lose hope. You will stay here and wait for us. I wish your heart peace.”
However, dear Güzin was excited. Although she was greatly worried about my friends and myself, she had great courage and wished to join us. I knew very well that she wanted to do battle with the enemy of her race, the vampire Impaler Voivode. But it was impossible.
So we departed my home, leaving her in that state. An hour later we were in the house in Eyüp Sultan where we had gone the other day. This time, we first searched the entire house at Resuhî Bey’s request. His goal was to find something like a notebook or any special papers that belonged to Count Dracula. But we found no such thing. Then we went into the basement. Here the twenty-nine coffins were just as we had seen them last. Doctor Resuhî Bey said:
“My children, the first thing we will do is sanctify the earth inside the coffins so that the vampire cannot stay here.”
Then he took off his jacket. He began to remove the lids of the coffins one by one with a small lever, chisel, and adz. We assisted him. Then the doctor opened his bag again, removed some large sheets of paper with verses from the Quran typewritten on them, and carefully placed these inside the coffins and on the soil. Afterward he also mixed in garlic flowers. Then he ordered us to close the lids of the coffins that had been treated. When we had finally repeated the process for all twenty-nine coffins, they were all boarded up just as they had been before. A few moments later we were out on the street, leaving the house and the garden.
Doctor Resuhî Bey said in a full and cheerful voice:
“It is done. Now there is no way for the vampire to take shelter here. If we are successful in the other two nests, we shall save Turkey and the world from a secret catastrophe. The ghoul is not here today; now, on to the house in (.…)!”
4 October.—I must complete the missing parts of my account and close the final chapter of my journal and this horrible disaster once and for all. I believe that no matter how hard I try, I will not be able to write the last chapter in such a way as to reproduce all of its thrill and terror. These lines will be only a faint memory of the final scenes of this tragedy.
As I have mentioned earlier, after making the coffins in the house in Eyüp Sultan useless to Dracula, we got into an automobile. We went straight to the second house in (.…). The key we had made let us, without raising any suspicion, into a garden full of trees; after shutting the door slowly from the inside, we moved toward the decaying mansion ahead. This was a single story building with three or four marble steps standing on a wide, marble foundation. With a great thrill we climbed the weathered stairs to the outer door. There was now a strong possibility of encountering the vampire Impaler Voivode lying in one of those coffins, for there was only one other place in which he could take shelter, and we knew where that was. After Özdemir Bey put his wide, strong shoulders to the door, both wings opened completely with a rotten cracking noise. We entered. Ah, yes… There they were; the crates with which we were very familiar lay on a marble surface. The doctor, walking in front of us, stopped. He raised his finger and quickly counted the crates. My God! The other twenty-one crates were before us!
A moment later, with a noticeable crack in his voice, Resuhî Bey said hoarsely:
“Look!” We all turned our eyes in the direction he pointed. There, one of the coffins sat with the lid barely open.
At that moment we saw Turan Bey leap in that direction like a tiger. Özdemir Bey ran after him. We also began running instinctively to protect our friend who was rushing toward this terrible danger. The moment he reached the coffin, Turan Bey lifted his foot and with a kick knocked the lid to the marble floor of the hall.
Count Dracula, the Impaler Voivode of history, this monster from hell, lay on soil that gave off a disgusting odor! His face was as pale as a wax statue but those crimson eyes which I knew too well seemed to burn with a ghastly light.
Even Doctor Resuhî Bey seemed to be caught up in a sudden rush of thrill and horror. However, at that moment something very unexpected happened. With the speed of lightning Turan Bey suddenly produced from under his coat a huge broadaxe. I saw the axe land on