The Ninth circle

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 Bela 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 bicycles 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.

There will be no need to kidnap anyone if this works… Not that I would ever have seriously considered doing so, for I am quite clear on the difference between right and wrong. Besides, I’m okay on my own. I’m certainly not one of those people who are for ever needing others to boost their own sense of self-worth. Forever needing to be surrounded by friends and loved ones to tell them how wonderful they are all the time. That would be pathetic. No — mine is nothing more than a perfectly healthy desire to see another person every once in a while.

5th September

There are devils in my head. I’ve feared it for a while now. But I didn’t want to record those fears here because it would have made them too real. Now I can’t deny that they’re there. And they hate me! They’ve prised everything from me with their bare, clawed hands, with the curled, bent fingers and leathery skin. They possessed me while I destroyed my apartment inch by inch, shattering and tearing and shredding in a sinful glut of destruction. They made me feel that all the violence and bloodshed in the world would not lessen the horrible rage that was thumping in my head or get rid of the bitterness that was rising like bile in my throat.

But now they have gone at last, the horned devils all scampering back to their hellish realm, and I am left with nothing… Nothing but this great, aching emptiness within that will never be filled, no matter how much I give to it, no matter how long I wait, no matter how many boxes of fish food I buy. It almost makes me wish I were dead. Why is this happening to me? What did I do to make God hate me so badly?

8th September

I need to record what happened. I don’t want to, I have avoided it

… but I’ll have to write it down at some point.

The day I visited Margaret’s Island, I went to bed quite late. But when I eventually slept, my dreams were full of fearful, disturbing images and whispering voices that tried to speak to me; but there were too many all trying to speak at once and too loudly and I could not make out any individual words. And there were people trying to show me things but not giving me time to look, and the shapes and pictures were blurred and shifting so that there was only the odd image that I was able to recognise — Michael’s church; the lost and wandering mystery woman who had run from me in the alley, her eyes widened in fear; a carved stone angel crying tears of blood; a laughing Stephomi; naked demons that thrashed in flames, biting and fighting one another And then, quite suddenly, a sharp, crystal-clear image. A tall man with fire radiating from him and wet flames dripping from his clothes, walking through the streets of Budapest until he came to my apartment. He passed straight through the doors as if they presented no earthly barrier to him, striding into my rooms as I stood and silently watched him, his flames flickering over the walls and ceiling, throwing alternate patterns of dancing light and murky shadows throughout the room. And then he stood still, turning his head as though searching, his flames dancing and leaping about him. His eye fell on the card Stephomi had given me, lying on the table by the phone. He reached out a burning hand, picking it up and setting it alight with the tips of his golden, fire-edged fingers. My scream of desperate horror woke me and I leaped from the sweat-soaked bed and ran into the living room, flicking on the light and staggering over to the table where Zadkiel Stephomi’s card had been mere hours earlier. It was gone, as I had known it would be. A wretched, dry sob escaped me and I swept through the whole apartment looking; looking even though I knew I would not find the card. And then, when I could no longer deny what I knew to be true, I destroyed my apartment inch by inch. If I hadn’t found some way of venting my anger, I’m sure I would have suffered some kind of heart attack or brain haemorrhage.

I don’t think I ever would have stopped if it weren’t for the blue lights I suddenly noticed flashing down in the street outside. The noise I’d made had obviously caused one of the other tenants in the building to phone the police. I stared madly round in horror. What was I going to do? How was I going to explain this? I couldn’t simply tell the officers that sometimes I became so consumed with rage, that I did things without meaning to. They’d lock me up for sure!

My first instinct was to run, but I had nowhere to go. And if the police searched my apartment, they might find the bag of money I had been so careful to hide. So when they started knocking at my door, I ran into my bedroom, which was as I had left it a mere half hour ago, and got into the cupboard. As soon as I could hear the police in my kitchen, I knocked my foot against the wooden door, hoping it would sound accidental. A moment later, when the cupboard door was flung open, I shrank back with a cry of false fear. After that it was an easy enough thing to convince the police that burglars had trashed my apartment while I had hidden in this cupboard, too scared to move. After all, why should they question my story? What kind of nutcase would do this to his own home?

But it wasn’t a home, not really. The apartment was simply a set of rented rooms, that was all. As far as I know, I do not have anywhere that could be said even remotely to resemble a home. And, God, it makes me feel so bitter! It just isn’t fair and I don’t know what to do about it. I can’t stand to be on my own like this any more. I desperately want to know where the bloody hell everyone else has gone.

I’ve since had people in to replace the broken windows. I have also replaced my computer. Some of my books I was able to salvage by patiently pasting the pages back between the covers and returning them to their alphabetical order on my shelves. The kitchen had been swimming in red pools of wine and broken glass from where I had hurled the expensive bottles around the room. I have replaced my stock, and once again arranged the bottles on the wine rack according to vintage and grape. Most of the fine artwork that had lined my walls had been in shreds throughout the rooms. Almost all of the furniture had been overturned but was still useable once I had put everything back into order.

I take back what I wrote before. I do need people. Right now I would even settle for enemies, never mind friends and family. It surely can’t be right to be completely isolated like this. It almost makes me think that I should go to the police immediately, tell them everything, show them the money hidden away under my floorboards. When the story hits the papers, people who know me might come forward and I will discover who I was. There must be some people out there who know me. My passport clearly states that I am thirty-three. I must, therefore, have existed in some form before last month, even if I can’t remember it.

But I must not overreact; I must remain calm. It is not the end of the world to have lost Stephomi’s card. I have managed for several weeks on my own, and I will simply continue to do so. I must not be resentful. Bitter feelings will not lead me anywhere good. I know I left the card on the table, but perhaps the windows had been open before I smashed them from their frames; perhaps the card had been caught up in a freak breeze and swept out of the window. That was the only sensible explanation. And it was surely no more than a strange coincidence that the table, when I put it back together, seemed to have scorch marks on its surface. Those marks were surely old ones, made long ago if only I could remember the occasion.