The Ninth circle

12th August

It’s been four days and none of my memories have returned as I’d hoped they would. But what is worse is that I have been unable to find anyone who can tell me who I am. There is no wedding ring on my finger and not a single photograph of anyone in my apartment. There is no address book, no telephone book, no letters from anyone. When I turned on the computer, all I found was spam mail; and there were no messages on my phone’s answer machine. My mobile appears to be brand new, for there aren’t even any numbers stored on it. Where is everyone? Where are my family, my friends? Where are my acquaintances? Where have they all gone? I mean, they can’t all be on holiday, can they? I felt a thrill of panic at the thought. What if there was some big family reunion or something going on in some distant country, and I had volunteered to stay behind to water the plants and feed the fish? There could be dozens of fish slowly starving to death because of me! What would my family say when they got home and found their pets floating dead in their tanks because I hadn’t taken care of them like I’d promised?

The thought filled me with panic, and it was this that finally overcame my fear of leaving the apartment. It took several abortive attempts, but I did at last manage to make it through the door. I seem to live in a fairly central, if somewhat rundown, area of the city; and after much searching I found a pet shop where I bought as much fish food as I could carry. Now I always have a box of fish food in my pocket so that the second I remember where my families’ homes are, I can go there to feed their fish straightaway. I can’t do any more than that, can I? I am sure my family will understand when they return.

When I got back to the apartment I realised that, in my preoccupation with the fish food, I had forgotten to buy any supplies for myself. Until then I had been eating the food I’d found in the freezer and in the cupboards but it would run out soon. So I forced myself to go back out into the city once again.

I realised, travelling around Budapest, that the city is familiar to me. The faded elegance of so many old buildings, with weathered statues on their roofs or crumbling balconies or grand, dilapidated pillars reaching right down to the ground. I must have lived here some time because I can speak Hungarian fluently.

It occurred to me yesterday that if I’ve been here a while, then my neighbours must know who I am. Again, I had to gather my courage to leave my apartment. I felt safe there and vulnerable outside it. But at last I managed to step out and knock on the door opposite mine, pleased to think that I would find someone here who would remember me.

After a few moments, a pregnant teenager opened the door. She had beautiful coffee-coloured skin and a series of delicate gold hoops in one ear. Black Celtic symbol tattoos adorned one of her upper arms and a silver nose stud pierced one nostril. Her hair was black and straight with irregular streaks of pink and electric blue. I waited for her to recognise me — I think I might have been grinning in anticipation — but after a few moments when I didn’t speak, she said in accented Hungarian, ‘Yes? Can I help you?’

Can I help you? Can I help you? I stared at her, taken aback, the grin faltering uncertainly. It had simply never occurred to me that she wouldn’t recognise me.

‘Er… I live over there,’ I said stupidly, pointing at my apartment door.

‘Oh, you’re the new tenant,’ she said. ‘You moved in last week, didn’t you?’

‘Er-’

‘I’m Casey March,’ she said, holding out her hand.

‘My name is Gabriel,’ I began, taking her hand, but then I faltered. Gabriel… Gabriel what? What was my last name? What was it? I tried to picture the words in that notebook. It had been some French sounding name. ‘Gabriel, er-’

‘Are you all right?’ Casey asked, and I saw her gaze move to the still-ugly bruise on my temple.

‘Yes, yes,’ I said quickly, dropping her hand and glancing over my shoulder at the beckoning safety of my apartment door. ‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m just… I just remembered there’s something… that I need to go and do… Right now. Sorry.’

And I dropped her hand and rushed back to the safety of my apartment, aware that she was still staring at me. I had not been expecting that at all. She should have known me! She should have been a friend of mine, living right next door. How dare she just be a… a stranger? What use was that? What use was that? To have lived here only a week! Of course, that is why I must have been putting up shelves. People do that sort of thing when they have just moved in, don’t they?

17th August

I don’t seem to sleep very much. No matter how late I go to bed, I wake up on the dot of six. And however little sleep I get, I never seem to become that tired. Nor do I ever have huge amounts of excess energy. I just function. It’s the same with food. I never feel hungry. This unnerved me a little. I mean, it’s not normal, is it? So I decided not to eat until I became hungry, just to make sure. But it was okay because after four days of nothing but water, I was feeling light-headed and sick all the time, so I know that I need food like everybody else. That pleased me. I am normal. I am normal after all.

19th August

I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that it will not do simply to wait for my family to return. After all, who knows how long that might take? I must find out about myself now. I hate to think that there might be something sinister in all of this, but… there was this distasteful episode that occurred yesterday. I was in a park, not far from where I live. The day was bright and sunny, and there were families having picnics and going for walks and playing games out there.

A fat boy scampered over towards the bench where I was sitting. He must have been about six or seven. The sticky remnants of old sweets and ice-creams covered his grubby t-shirt, and there was a horrible eager glee in his little eyes. At first I didn’t realise what he was doing as he pounced on something in the grass. But when he sat back triumphantly, I saw that he was gripping a large, beautiful butterfly in his plump hands. As I watched, the boy tore off the creatures’ wings and several of its legs.

The strangled yell of pure horror that escaped my lips startled me as much as it did the kid, who dropped the dying butterfly to thrash and curl on the grass in dreadful spasms of silent agony. I don’t know why the sight was so nauseating to me. After all, it was only a butterfly. But in one movement I stamped down on it as hard as I could, rounded on the brat and before I knew what I was doing, I had struck him hard across the face with the back of my hand, once, twice.

‘Look what you made me do!’ I hissed furiously, gesturing at the broken dead thing in the grass.

And as I stared at him, a savage desire rose up and rushed through me. The desire to hit him, to hurt him, to cause him to feel pain such as he had himself been happily inflicting only moments ago. He ought to know what it felt like. He was dribbling blood already from where his teeth had cut into his mouth, but it wasn’t enough for me. I should have felt ashamed of that, shouldn’t I? I should have been horrified. As it was, within moments the kid was screaming loudly enough to alert everyone in the park. Instinct took over and I ran from that place as fast as I could.

I couldn’t get back to the darkened haven of my apartment quickly enough. Slamming the door behind me, I then locked all the locks, pulled across all the bolts and drew all the curtains over the windows with shaking hands. Then I folded myself into the small, dark gap between my bed and the wall, covering my head with my trembling arms. How could you, accusatory voices whispered to me; how could you? What’s wrong with you?

When the whispers stopped and I at last looked up, the room was pitch black and my back and shoulders ached horribly. How long had I sat there, muttering to myself? Am I really dangerous? Do I belong in some kind of mental institute? Some kind of prison? Do I? After all, I didn’t really hurt that boy. A couple of stitches and he would be fine. Everyone loses their temper sometimes, don’t they? I mean, everyone does it. There will always be ugliness. It’s not only me.

24th August

I still know next to nothing about who I am. It panics me sometimes; makes me feel like a shadow. But I’m not — shadows don’t have names. I have a name: Gabriel Antaeus. Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel Antaeus. After all, I sleep, I eat, I bleed. That must mean something? I knew I could bleed from the way I had found myself here at the beginning of August but I cut myself with a knife the other day just to make absolutely sure. There was blood, so that cheered me. The sight of it horrifies me, though. It goes beyond mere squeamishness; it is a true horror. I must just be one of those faint-hearted people, I suppose. Probably because I have spent my whole life around books. I have written books. One book, anyway. I found the manuscript when I was going through my desk. It was entitled Dante’s Hell: A Theological Study. Skimming through it, I saw that it was an in-depth study of the structure of Hell, complete with references to demons and the nine circles of sin.

As I read through it, I remembered the subject matter. The manuscript dealt with the depiction of Hell put forward by Dante Alighieri in his poem Divina Commedia. But the manuscript I found in my desk argued that it was no mere poem; that Dante had really travelled down to the bowels of the Earth, through the nine concentric circles of Hell right to the frozen core where the Devil himself was held immobilised. The claim, of course, is quite preposterous, and with such wild and unsubstantiated theories it is no wonder that the script remains unpublished, assuming publication was ever sought. It unsettled me to find my name in the top right-hand corner of every page of the manuscript — I hate to think that I might actually have written this fanatical work. But at the same time, it pleases me that I am a writer. What danger is there in that? What violence could there possibly be in that?

Neatly arranged in a file in one of the desk drawers, I found all my banking and tax records. Having studied these I can see that I am, in fact, a very wealthy man indeed. It’s no wonder my rooms are filled with such fine things, although the state of the apartment itself puzzles me for I could easily have afforded something much nicer with my savings, not to mention the cash I’d found in the kitchen. It was nice to discover that I don’t need to be concerned about my financial situation, anyway. I also found my passport tucked away in the bottom drawer, which confirmed that I am a citizen of the United Kingdom. For the first time, it occurred to me that perhaps my family were all still living in the UK? My hand automatically went to the box of fish food permanently in my pocket. Perhaps there were no fish? No one about to return from holiday?

But, God, what am I saying? No fish? No fish? There must be a holiday; there must be fish… otherwise why the hell am I carrying fish food around in my pocket like this? No, the fish are real — I know they are.

I found contact details for my landlady in my desk. When I phoned her, she seemed completely uninterested in speaking to me, and really wasn’t of any use at all. My tenancy agreement is a standard one and began at the start of August. It was clear she knew next to nothing about me — she even called me by the wrong name more than once during the conversation. But then, why should she know me? I would hardly have poured out my life story to her when I arranged to rent the apartment.

I’d hit a dead end. There were no people around… at least, not until my family returned. In the meantime, I examined one of the few clues I had: my name. Gabriel Antaeus. I typed it into Google one day, stupidly thinking that a website may come up telling me all about myself. But there was nothing — not even other Gabriel Antaeus’s that I could search through. It’s an unusual name, I suppose.

Having found the internet no use, I turned to the books on my shelves. Of course, the name Gabriel has very strong religious and biblical, in particular angelic, connotations. The Hebrew meaning translates as ‘man of God’ and everyone knows of the archangel Gabriel of the New and Old Testaments. My books are all stacked alphabetically, and I have several that refer to angels and their realm. Clearly this issue of my name is one that has bothered me before, for my books are heavily annotated with all references to Gabriel underlined or highlighted.

You’d think that being named after an angel would not have any negative, any frightening, connotations whatsoever. But you’d be wrong. For angels are scary. I have had nightmares about them. I found the internet to be of little use, for the websites all spoke of the ‘new age’ angels so beloved by hippies and self-proclaimed healers and psychics. These angels were forgiving and loving, and covered people in golden light and love, inspiring feelings of well-being and peace. I wish that I could find some angels like that here.

But the original angels — the biblical ones — are so very different from these modern creations. Gabriel spans several religions, being the highest-ranking angel of the Christian, Hebrew and Moslem faiths. According to Mohammed, Gabriel was the author of the Qu’ran. Mohammed was meditating in a cave when he was visited by Gabriel in a vision that so terrified him in its violence and hostility that it left him feeling suicidal. I find this story very disturbing. It’s gone round and round my head. Angels should not be violent.

I’ve had trouble placing the origin of my surname, Antaeus. French, perhaps? But I know I’m British because of my passport. And my accent… not that I ever really speak aloud, for I have no one to speak to and I don’t talk to myself in the privacy of my own home the way some people do. My apartment is always silent, whether I’m in it or not. Perhaps I should start talking aloud as I write in this journal. I hate that my voice still seems unfamiliar to me, still startles me if I speak without thinking. Yes, I think I will start to do that. It is not enough to write; I want someone to talk to as well.

But I’ve reached a dead end anyway. So what now? I’m too afraid to go to the hospital. All this fear… am I just the most terrible coward? I can’t go to a hospital or the police because they’ll ask questions, and I have a large and unexplainable stack of cash in my possession, now hidden away under the floorboards. What did I do to earn that money? I can’t let them find it. I can’t go to prison. Not now when I have so many fish to feed.

I hope I merely stole the money. I could live with being a thief. There are worse sins than thieving, although that crime in itself is disgusting to me… I think I might just be suffering from stress. I mean, I’ve waited patiently, haven’t I? It’s been over two weeks now and I haven’t remembered anything, and it’s not fair at all! I hate being stuck with a stranger like this. But it can’t be much longer before someone I know makes contact with me… an old friend who wants to catch up, or borrow something, or ask my advice, or whatever. I can’t go to them because I can’t remember them. But, soon, one of them will find me and this whole ridiculous situation will be all smoothed out, and there will be a rational explanation about the money, and I will remember everything. In the meantime, I will keep to myself in case I hurt someone again. It is not right to hit children. It’s not right. I shouldn’t have done it. I will order food to the door and I won’t leave my apartment until I know it’s safe. Just for now, this journal will have to do until I can find some people from somewhere.