The guards who had come to know and like Baka were all gathered on the other side of the glass to see his reaction. It was apparent that they were hoping for enthusiasm which made him feel suddenly very self-consciousness about wanting to give them something in return. He did his best to manage a smile and an affirmative nod of the head.
"Thank you. This is quite unexpected and very... humane of you."
Baka wasn't just putting on a show. He was, in fact, overwhelmed with the generosity they had shown him. He was all too aware of the fact that they could have put him in a windowless, dirt cell and thrown away the key. And that would have been better than he thought he deserved. His second thought was that he had found himself in a gilded cage.
In spite of being impressed by the compassion and humanity that had been shown him by The Order and being grateful for the terms and circumstances of his captivity, he never forgot for an instant that what he really wanted - all he really wanted - was the ultimate escape. Death.
So he set about studying. He learned geometry from Euclid and chemistry from Lavoisier. He studied philosophy under Plato, Descartes, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger. He studied metaphysics with Aristotle and Kant, physics with Newton, psychology with Freud, Jung, and William James, and natural science under Galileo, Darwin, Pascal, and Einstein. He delved into theology with Augustine, Aquinas, Nietzsche, and Hume then looked at politics through the writings of Machiavelli, Tocqueville, Hamilton, and Marx.
Though the value of all the various disciplines expanded his mind, the biggest impression was made by the literature of Homer, Chaucer, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, and Faulkner.
He was always eager to converse with others on a wide range of subjects, especially questions of philosophy and theology. He also loved discussing the complexities of the great literary works and the entanglements of the human emotional condition that inspired them. Order personnel stationed at the Romanian unit who were familiar with a particular discipline would make the time to sit on the other side of the two-way cubby and visit with the prisoner.
Occasionally the Unit would host a visitor who was particularly conversant on a topic either because it was an area of professional specialty or because it was a hobby. Baka didn't care if their motivation was to say they had experienced a dialogue with the equivalent of a circus exhibit. He found the exchanges a nice break in routine and, more important, a potent distraction from the memories that were always pressing against the walls of his consciousness for his full attention.
As time passed, Istvan Baka's appearance didn't change, but the man inside the body was vastly changed by education and the experience he gained by reading the perspectives of thoughtful people. The knights who guarded him came and went. When they left he never saw them or heard from them again.
In the 1950's he began writing poetry. He sent query letters to various publishers, but always got a variation on the same rejection letter: too dark and nobody's interested in poetry.
At the same time he asked for a radio. They said okay, sedated him, and wired the room for electricity. It seemed that no one who understood why he shouldn't have access to electricity was still around. They were not just comfortable with his docile behavior. They were complacent about it as well.
Truthfully, the whole issue of electricity had never been well thought out because Baka could have set fire to his room and burned to death had that been his choice.
So he got a radio and with it the long awaited opportunity to end his life, but, though he still desired death, the passion required to follow through with suicide had waned enough to allow the natural instinct of self-preservation to override the impulse.
The radio opened up a metaphorical window into how culture was changing on the other side of his circular stone wall. The changes were delectable, but nothing matched the change in music. Rock. And. Roll. Upbeat, optimistic, and sexy as hell. The first time he felt his hips involuntarily rocking back and forth with the music he made the connection and laughed out loud.
The laughter was startling. It was a jolt his body hadn't felt since he had asked Sir Ruddy Hallows to end his wretched life which was what Black Swan knights were supposed to do. Instead the double crossing bastard had taken him into custody and left him to rot or flourish or whatever you would call what he did with his seemingly infinite allotment of time.
The picture formed by the narrative on the radio told him the post World War II years were full of prosperity and an overhaul of culture driven by baby boom youth.
At the same time, one of The Order's singularly talented scientists had proposed the theory that the conversion of a human to vampire was the result of viral infection. A few personnel assigned to work on proving or disproving that theory temporarily moved into the Romanian installation so that they could work with fresh samples of blood. Drawn from Baka, of course.
Naturally, he cooperated, never voicing either objection or complaint. He didn't have any personal investment in whether the cause was virus or act of god. What happened to him had happened and couldn't be undone. However, if the theory should become a discovery, that fact might lead to someone else being saved from his fate.
In the 1960's he asked for a Fender Stratocaster and a Silvertone Tube Amp. He had written to some musicians and told them he couldn't shop as he was incarcerated, then asked for advice about what sort of equipment to get. The guards weren't necessarily thrilled with the sounds he made while experimenting, but they learned that gun-range-grade ear protection worn over cotton and wool ear muffs helped a lot.
The next decade he added a bass guitar to his line-up and updated the Stratocaster to one identical to the model Jimi Hendrix played. He was good, but knew he'd never play for anyone besides his guards who were already too old to appreciate the style and would prefer that he didn't play at all.
In the eighties he tried his hand at writing mystery thrillers. He carefully prepared query letters and manuscripts according to the industry standard specifications presented in 'how to ' manuals and sent them to agents and editors. He rarely got the chance to mail off a manuscript. If he sent twenty letters, he would get ten rejections and simply never hear back from the others.
After more than a decade characterized by one round of rejections after another, he finally sent off twenty letters to publishing houses asking what they were looking for. Five sent replies and they all said the same thing. Romance with something paranormal thrown in.
Baka knocked on his cubby door. When the guard opened the latch, he asked, "What's paranormal?"
"Paranormal? You know, supernatural." Then the guard started to laugh. "Like vampire and werewolves for instance."
"Werewolves?" Baka looked confused. "What's romantic about werewolves?"
The guard grew serious. "Yeah. You could also ask anybody in Unit Drac what's romantic about vampire?"
"Unit Drac?"
"Yeah. That's what they call this place. Didn't you know?"
Baka's brows were drawn together. "No. I did not know that."
"Oh, hey, no offense meant. It's kind of a joke."