She smiled a toothless grin and nodded as if she understood, then gestured for Andrei and leaned toward him as he translated for her.
I took a seat at the wooden table, which appeared to have been handmade from planks from an old barn, as Adriana started to prepare dinner and Andrei reached into a cupboard and pulled out a bottle.
He poured four glasses, and as he handed one to his grandmother her eyes sparkled in anticipation.
"It is pálinka," Andrei said, "a traditional Hungarian fruit brandy."
He gave a quick salute in his native tongue, welcoming me to their home, and then the four of us drank. I shot the contents of my glass and grimaced as the fiery liquid scorched my throat. The three of them laughed as I coughed uncontrollably.
"You are supposed to sip it!" Andrei said, as I shook my head, trying to regain my senses as the warmth from the powerful concoction rippled through me.
As he leaned forward to refill my glass, I said, "Do you think your friend, Adriana, might have ever heard of Matusa Ildiko?"
As soon as I said the name, his grandmother glanced up from her brandy and said, "Ce este sta?"
Andrei told her what I'd said and her face came alive with excitement. She reached across the table to squeeze my hand and started talking rapidly in Romanian. As she spoke, he translated.
"She says that Matusa Ildiko is a powerful witch, and a terrible source of retribution. She says that if a woman thinks her husband has been unfaithful, she prays to the witch and tells her to come visit him in his sleep.
"Of course, if she is wrong the witch will not come. But if the husband has truly been unfaithful, he will never wake again. Matusa Ildiko will ride him in his dreams until he is dead."
I suddenly felt dizzy and wasn't sure if it was from her story or the brandy. I wasn't sure what I'd expected to find, but it certainly wasn't anything like what she was describing.
"Does your grandmother know anything else, like where she can be found?"
Andrei shook his head. "You do not understand. Matusa Ildiko is not real. She is a legend...a fable. The story my bunica is telling you is an old wives' tale, designed to keep faithless husbands from straying too far."
Adriana, who'd been listening to the conversation as she chopped carrots and turnips on the sideboard, joined in. "Yes, a fable! Now I remember where I've heard that name."
I listened as she explained that she'd read of Matusa Ildiko when she was a young girl, in a book of fairy tales and legends written by Benedek Elek, who apparently was Transylvania's most famous storyteller. But he'd published his book more than a century earlier. The Matusa Ildiko he'd written of had to be long dead.
"But the gypsy said I'd find her here, right here in Magura. Maybe there's some other witch nearby who has taken her name?"
"There is no one else by that name," Andrei said. "I am afraid this gypsy you speak of has sent you on a fool's errand. Perhaps she read the same book that Adriana did and found the name there?"
My shoulders slumped as I twisted my wedding ring. Had I been a fool to listen to the gypsy's words? Had I raced halfway around the world only to discover I was chasing a phantom from a storybook?
Andrei's grandmother saw me playing with my ring and smiled a toothless smile, cackling with laughter as she babbled.
"She sees you are married," Adriana said. "She says she hopes you are a good husband, or Matusa Ildiko will come and visit you."
