Pam is a young notary trying to keep her Cartesian reputation pristine. Siska is a recovering addict whose new lease on life stems from her paranormal, investigative work. They sit on opposite sides of a spectrum it seems... until Pam shares a secr...
'No idea how that was, but the most plausible explanation was that mosquitos had populated the old well and turned it into a nursery. After that, my boss suggested this could be a water hardness issue.'
'Not buying it was hardness one little bit,' said Siska, trying not to snigger.
'Yeah...but I had to admit this might be the problem, though. Even if I was far from satisfied.'
I continued. 'On the bright side, this conversation loosened my boss's tongue, and, over the next few weeks, he and his wife began to fill me in on what they'd pieced together regarding the village.
Since they'd moved into the area, it was their mission to explore the village as much as possible and preserve anything of value, culturally or otherwise. Ideally, they could return these belongings to their rightful owners, one day. If not, it would serve as a reminder of the nation's history and diversity.'
'Very nice folk,' said Siska, to whom I nodded before resuming.
'Soon after starting the excavation and collection work, my boss realised that the village had been the area's Jewish hub, for hundreds of years before the war. I told him that I wasn't surprised, since I'd already noticed some old signs, in what I suspected was Yiddish. In the station's washroom for instance.'
I smiled as my mind wandered from the village to the people I met along the way. 'Gosh...my boss and his wife were good souls, beyond words, you know. They still live there, can you believe it? Working the estate, with their grown-up twins working nearby.'
'What about the village?'
'Still empty, last I heard.'
I loosened my half-bun, letting my pleated hair fall over my shoulder.
'It's on one of his day trips to the empty village that my boss discovered the extraordinary story he told me. I mean...it's bonkers. Even more than I feel, right now, for telling you this.'
'Go on—'
'From what I recall, he had found this mouldy book among the village belongings containing a strange account. A folktale—if you wish. I later learned from the wife that it mentioned a place of significance, somewhere in the forest.
With their limited resources, she and her husband had figured out that this place was located near where their hotel had been operating. As time passed, they became convinced that the place from the book and their hotel were one and the same. I wanted to help and I started to get engrossed in finding evidence of this. The best clue we had to start with was the book itself.'
'So...what did the book say, exactly?'
'That was the first hurdle because, to discover the rest of the story, someone qualified had to help us. This individual would not only have to understand the Yiddish patois of the area but the culture and the context surrounding the folktale. All this was becoming a serious project,' I said, while Siska and I shared a nod. 'I wanted to get to the bottom of things before my time in Bosnia Herzegovina was up. So, I contacted a Jewish friend in Utrecht, who referred me to his course supervisor, at the university. This supervisor was a refugee of the Bosnian war and she had recently published her book of Yiddish poems and led highly praised research on the topic of Jewish folklore.
I wrote her an email explaining the situation and I sent her a scan of the story from the recovered book.'
'You mean, the book your boss found in the abandoned village?'
I nodded. 'After a month of waiting, I called her, long-distance, to try and find her—her husband was nice enough to get back to me. However, he told me that their third child had just been born. His wife wanted to provide us with all the expertise she could offer but she wouldn't be able to for a while.
I shared the news with my boss and his wife, who looked thrilled. Everything we needed to check the intel from the booklet was assembled, so that we could get right down to business, as soon as as we heard back from the specialist in Utrecht—we just had to be patient.'
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