The Ninth Circle Page 3

  In that moment I didn’t care that I was still without answers. And I have to say, I still can’t find it in myself to care. They were no match for me! Those five large men, no doubt professional thieves, muggers and pickpockets - bulging with brute muscle and brimming with cowardly weapons. The euphoria of it, like rediscovering some old hobby that you had once taken such pleasure in, and finding your skill not at all diminished by time. Even now, back in the haven of my apartment, my senses are all tingling with a thrilling, heightened awareness. This has been, I am sure, one of the best evenings of my life. I wish I could do it over again every night!

  1st September

  What I wrote in this journal three days ago . . . upsets me. It really scares me. I wish I was someone else. I wish I could be some other person. When I woke up the next morning, sprawled on my bed, my head was throbbing dully, the pillow was spotted with dark blood, but I still felt exhilarated as I showered and dressed. Exhilaration for some minutes before the fear. Fear that got more intense until I cringed just to see myself in the mirror. What kind of a thing are you anyway? It wasn’t the fight itself that scared me; it was the fact that I hadn’t really held back. It had gone beyond mere self-defence, somehow. And . . . I couldn’t remember all of it ... too clearly. I didn’t use any weapons, though, did I? Only my hands, and how much damage can be done with them? I didn’t kill anyone.

  I hid in my apartment for the next two days, waiting, waiting for any news. I checked the Hungarian news on the internet and had local papers brought up to me from the shop below, opening the door a mere crack to snatch the papers from the boy and thrust the money at him. There has been no mention of any back street murders, which surely there would have been had any of the muggers not survived. So perhaps I am overreacting. No one died, so what’s to be so upset about? Night-time crime will be rife in any capital city. All I really did was take five of those criminals out of action for a while. And they attacked me first anyway. Apart from feeding the fish, once I remember where they are, my life has no purpose at the moment. Perhaps the sensible thing to do would be to go out every night and seek out such criminals.

  I know it sounds a bit alarming, but isn’t that what the superheroes do? The superheroes that children so love to read about - Superman and Spiderman and the rest of them. They have the means to take the law into their own hands to protect people, to save them. I like that. I could do that. I don’t need sleep and food in the same way that other people do. I could be a superhero.

  I can imagine the headlines now: ‘Night-Time Crime in Budapest Mysteriously Drops by 80%!’ I would very much like to do it. But I’m not naïve. I know what would happen. The police would view me as a criminal too - after all, I would be attacking people. I can’t risk the police finding me. They wouldn’t understand that I was only doing it to keep people safe. All they would see was this crazy man who went out late at night looking for people to beat up. I can’t have that. Sadly, the community will just have to do without me.

  What happened three days ago was bad enough, for I wasn’t discreet at all. Once I was sure I wouldn’t get any more fun out of my attackers, I ran through the streets to the metro station, jumping and whooping and yelling in my euphoria. God, what craziness - the police might have seen me. They might have arrested me. If there was anyone else in my carriage on the metro, they must have been appalled at the sight of me - this wild-eyed, dripping wet madman with blood running down my face and crusted in my hair; and I had probably still been sucking it from my teeth and gums. Bloody, bloody stupid thing to do.

  But at least I saved the mystery woman. I gave her the diversion she needed to escape. But how to find her again? Budapest is a large city, and she could be anywhere. She might not even live here at all; she could be anywhere in Hungary. It was the most extraordinary bad luck that those thugs should have attacked at that moment. She knew me. I know she did. But with no name, no address, no personal details of any kind, I have no way of contacting her. All I can do is hope that I might stumble into her again; but really, in a city of this size, it was unlikely enough to happen once let alone a second time. It puzzles me, though - I mean, who was she? She couldn’t have been a relative. A relative would have greeted me no matter how annoyed they might have been about my not feeding their fish. They would have greeted me even if only to berate me. I don’t know; I don’t know. Maybe she was, after all, just a crazy woman. God knows, there are plenty of those about.

  2nd September

  There is no denying it any more. I have been here like this, waiting for family or friends or colleagues or someone to turn up, for almost a month now. But no one has come, and I admit I am beginning to feel the pinch of loneliness. Though I hate to admit it, I do think there is a very real possibility that . . . no one is coming back. I have only just moved here myself. Perhaps I was going to send a forwarding address to my friends and relatives once I got settled in, but lost my memory before I could do so? Perhaps I really don’t know anyone here in the city. How long can I let this go on for?

  I spent several hours today wandering round Budapest asking people if they had the time. I just wanted them to see me. I just wanted to actually talk to someone. But the exchanges could never go on for too long, of course, because someone would be bound to ask me something about myself that I could not answer, and I know I would panic and probably just start running back here. People wouldn’t like that. It’s not normal. I wish I could get a child from somewhere. Children don’t ask awkward personal questions like that. They’re not interested in where you’ve come from or what you did before this moment.

  I like going to the park to watch them play. There is nothing inappropriate in it - nothing perverted or depraved. I just like watching. They’re so . . . new and unspoiled. They’re so trusting and naïve and beautiful. The world hasn’t had a chance to ruin them yet. But it doesn’t look right for me to stand there, alone, staring at them for hours. It makes the mothers nervous, despite my expensive clothes and immaculate appearance. I suppose they don’t think it natural for a man to be stood there, just staring, for so long; so if I go again, I think I must buy a cheap pushchair or something to stand there with, and then everyone will assume I am simply keeping an eye on my own child. I admit that I would very much like to take one of those kids.But I would never act on this. I can’t abide criminals, and it’s not right to take other people’s children. I would never do something like that. I just hope that my own family, my own friends, will turn up soon. If there’s really no one here, then I need to find someone else to talk to.

  3rd September

  I had an unsettling dream last night - of a nine-year-old girl who was promised to the church by her father. The monastery was her home from the age of nine until her death twenty years later. I dreamed that as a child, ordered to leave her family, she entered the cold stillness of the monastery - fearful and alone but for the other silent-footed nuns and the stone sculptures of the angels - the only world she would know for the rest of her brief, ascetic life.

  I wouldn’t have minded the dream so much if it hadn’t been true. The girl’s name was Princess Margit. Her father, King Béla IV, made an oath that if he was successful in repelling the Mongol invasion, he would offer his daughter to God. Unfortunately for the child, the Mongols were driven back and the King built a church and convent on an island in the middle of the Danube in 1251, and sent his daughter there. Today the island is named after her - Margitsziget, or Margaret’s Island. I suppose it must have been the dream, and my own empathy for the princess, that made me visit the island today.

  I caught the metro to Margaret Bridge and felt myself physically relax as soon as I stepped on to the island. It has had the honour of being a retreat for religious contemplation since the eleventh century, and is a strange, quiet little haven, nestled in one of Europe’s busy, bustling capital cities - a halfway point between the once separate towns of Buda and Pest. Cars aren’t allowed past a certain point, so most of the island is given over to b
icycles or horse-drawn carriages. I like that. It’s almost like going back in time.

  It had rained the night before, and the air was sweet with the damp, leafy-green smell of well-nourished plants and grass. But as the day went on, the sun came out, glowing warmly on the peaceful island despite the unseasonable chill that still clung to the air. The crunch of my feet on the gravelled tracks was soothing, and the smell of fresh rain was invigorating, and I was glad that my dream of Princess Margaret had prompted me to come here today.

  As I walked through the woodland, I became aware of stone faces watching me from behind low-hanging branches and realised that the area was scattered with stone busts of Hungarian artists and musicians - raised on plinths and weathered by age. They kept making me jump as my eyes found another and another, half hidden where the forest was almost growing over them.

  I suddenly came out of the woods to find myself right outside a tall, thin church, so completely surrounded by trees you could easily walk right past it and never even realise it was here. The dappled sunlight of the forest became a strong beam of light that shone off the old stone walls. This was Michael’s church, I realised as I gazed above the wooden doors at the familiar carved relief that depicted the archangel with his scales, preparing to weigh souls on Judgement Day.

  Although Gabriel is probably the most well-known angel because of his prominence within the nativity story, Michael is the one said to have replaced Satan as God’s closest and most trusted angel after Lucifer’s fall from grace. And, theologically and hierarchically speaking, Michael is above Gabriel in the heavenly order. Somehow in that moment I felt sure that if only I stayed close to this church, I would be protected. That no harm would come to me here in this safe, secluded little green haven.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

  I jumped, startled, as a voice spoke behind me. I turned to see a young, slender, dark-haired man leaning against a tree, watching me. He had rather pale skin, intelligent eyes and a handsome, shrewd face. He was not very tall, some inches shorter than me, but he held himself well and his clothes, like mine, were clearly expensive.

  ‘What makes you think I speak English?’ I asked the stranger suspiciously, eyes narrowed, for that was the language he had addressed me in.

  He laughed and gave a slight shrug. ‘Your Bible gave you away.’

  Following his gaze, I glanced down at the English Bible I was holding. I had hardly realised that I had even taken it out of my pocket. Frowning slightly, I replaced the book in my jacket.

  ‘Where are you from?’ the stranger asked casually, still lounging idly against the tree.

  ‘England,’ I answered.

  ‘So what brings you to Hungary?’

  ‘I live here,’ I replied. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Italy originally,’ the stranger replied. ‘But I’m a traveller really. Always moving, you know.’

  ‘Isn’t English your first language?’ I asked in surprise.

  The stranger smiled. ‘I grew up speaking Italian and English,’ he admitted. ‘I have a gift for languages.’

  Something we had in common, then, for I knew from the collection of books I had at home that I was fluent in several languages. In fact, we had two things in common, for we were both foreigners here in Hungary. That pleased me. I didn’t seem to have much in common with the average people I saw in the streets. In fact, this was probably the longest conversation I’d had with anyone since I started this journal. It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing in here, I do; and indeed sometimes I seem to have spent most of the day doing so . . . It’s just that it simply isn’t enough. Writing in a journal like this is just one step removed from talking to myself. A book can’t talk back. I don’t think I had realised myself how lonely I was until I started talking to this stranger.

  I realised that I was grinning at him stupidly. He laughed good-naturedly and held out his hand. ‘I’m Zadkiel Stephomi.’

  ‘Gabriel Antaeus,’ I replied, shaking his hand and feeling pleased that - just like a normal person - I did not struggle to remember my last name at all this time.

  ‘Antaeus?’ Stephomi repeated.

  ‘Do you know it?’ I asked sharply, my grip on his hand tightening unconsciously.

  ‘Er . . . no, no I’m afraid I don’t,’ Stephomi replied, extricating his slender hand from mine and rubbing it absently. ‘Should I?’

  ‘No. No, it was just . . . the way you said it . . .’

  ‘Unusual name, though, isn’t it?’ Stephomi said, looking at me with clear blue eyes. ‘What’s its origin?’

  ‘Origin?’

  ‘Yes, where does it come from?’

  ‘Oh, er . . .’ I cast around desperately for a country. ‘It’s a French name, I think.’

  ‘French?’ Stephomi repeated. ‘You don’t think, perhaps, Greek?’

  ‘I think it was French,’ I said again desperately. ‘But I really don’t know much about my family history.’

  I was enjoying talking to him, but these questions were making me feel awkward. Perhaps I should just have said that I didn’t know; that I couldn’t remember. But would he have believed me? I mean, it’s not normal, is it, by anyone’s standards? I thought fleetingly, and bitterly, of how easy such conversations must be for other people; not to have to struggle to make up plausible lies second by second. I felt a familiar panic starting to rise, just as it had done when I had tried to talk to my teenage neighbour. Was I even capable of having a normal, two-way conversation? What could I possibly talk about? My name is Gabriel. I know that, at least. It can’t be all that bad as long as I know my name.

  ‘What are you doing in Budapest?’ I asked, trying to deflect attention away from myself.

  ‘Sightseeing, really. And researching. I’m visiting the churches and cathedrals. I have a doctorate in religious philosophy,’ he said. ‘I used to lecture on the subject.’

  ‘But not any more?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Were your lectures too controversial?’ I asked, knowing what a sensitive subject religion could be.

  ‘Ha! Controversy wasn’t the problem so much as the fact that I could prove a lot of my theories - or come close to proving them, anyway. People don’t like that. Anyway, now that my lecturing career seems to have come to a premature end, I’m just pursuing a private interest in the subject.’

  ‘Budapest is the right place for that,’ I said. ‘There are so many beautiful churches and cathedrals here.’

  ‘There are indeed. And I’d better get on if I want to visit them all,’ the young scholar said.

  Don’t go, I wanted to say. Please . . . don’t leave me here like this! I have no one. I fingered the edges of the fish food box in by pocket. I was sick of waiting for everyone to come home. Although I had only had a very brief conversation with him, I instinctively liked this man. I wanted to be friends with this person right here. No one else would do. For a wild moment I even considered knocking him down where he stood and taking him back to my apartment, tying him up and keeping him so that I might have someone to talk to and live with. Someone who could maybe replace this diary for me. But people would notice me carrying him through the streets, and there would be a fuss when a bright young man went missing, and then police investigations, and I would risk unwanted official attention. And anyway, it is not right to kidnap people. So I would never resort to something like that.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I said, realising that, preoccupied as I was with my thoughts, I’d missed what Stephomi had just said.

  ‘I was just saying that we should meet up for a drink some time,’ he repeated with a smile. ‘I don’t know anyone in this city, my Hungarian is not quite up to the standard of my English, and I admit I could use the conversation.’

  ‘Really?’ I blurted out, hardly daring to believe what I was hearing.

  ‘If you’re interested,’ the scholar said with a shrug. ‘I realise you must have your own friends here if you’re living in the city but,’ he paused
and smiled slightly, ‘I’m hoping you’ll take pity on me as a friendless traveller.’

  ‘I’d be more than happy,’ I replied, pleased to note that I didn’t sound at all desperate.

  Stephomi pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to me. ‘Well, my mobile number’s on there. Give me a call some time.’

  We shook hands and he strode away, back into the trees, leaving me alone outside Michael’s church. As I gazed up at the carved sculpture of Michael, I couldn’t help but feel deeply thankful towards the church. It was, after all, our shared interest in God that had led Stephomi and I to meet in the first place. It will be nice to have an actual person to talk to.

  I took the card out when I got home, and carefully placed it on the table by the phone. Then I stared at it for a while. I wanted to phone Stephomi right then and there. He had said to give him a call ‘some time’, but what exactly had he meant by that? How long did I have to wait? What would be a socially acceptable period? I wrestled with the dilemma for a few hours and, in the end, I decided that by ‘some time’ Stephomi had probably meant in a few days or a week or so. So I have decided that I will wait three days before contacting him. I don’t think I could physically wait any longer than that.