The Ninth circle

15th September

For the last week, I’ve wandered about the city, often visiting Michael’s church in the hope that Stephomi might be there; but I haven’t seen him, and I now doubt that I ever will.

I’ve toyed with the idea of trying to arrange another ‘chance’ meeting with some other person. I could look out for someone I liked the look of, follow them around for a while to learn their habits and daily routine, and then arrange for some mild disaster to befall them and I would then, of course, be on hand to assist them in their hour of need. There were certainly aspects of the plan that appealed to me. After all, some people are born lucky, and such things may happen to them without any prearrangement.

If I met and assisted someone in a moment of crisis, that would create some kind of bond, wouldn’t it? I considered smashing in someone’s car window so that I could help them when they discovered the vandalism; or, better yet, pay someone to rob a person in the street so that I might come to their aid and ward off their attacker as I had done for the mystery woman.

These ideas had merit, but they were unlikely to lead to any kind of real friendship. After all, what had been so incredible about my meeting with Stephomi was that we had things in common. I had warmed to him at once, and he had obviously taken a liking to me or he wouldn’t have given me his mobile number. We had both been alone here, and so we might have relied on each other for companionship far more than any normal Hungarian residents would. And to top it all, we had both been foreigners, and both shared an interest in religious cosmology, oh God, even now I could cry with the loss of such a thing.

I find whenever I’m upset I crave beauty. Anything that might make life seem a little less pointless and sordid and ugly. One day I locked myself in my apartment and spent all day listening to the works of Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and other musical geniuses. The great composers must be turning in their graves at the way music has changed — garage and rap have replaced the great symphonies and sonatas… It depresses me and makes me wish I lived in their time instead of this one. But at the same time it comforts me that my tastes have remained the same despite my amnesia. I know I liked classical music before because there is so much of it here in my apartment. The fact that I continue to like it means I am not losing all of myself. I remain a part of the man I was before.

I like Mozart’s scores the best. I like the idea that God was speaking through his music. It fits. It works. It makes sense to me. For I am sure that is how God would talk to us — the only way that we would be able to understand — music so perfect that it must have come from God Himself.

But Mozart was hounded by debt and died at the age of thirty-five. That’s just two years older than I am. To make it even worse, he was given a pauper’s burial in an unmarked grave. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! Where were the kings he’d composed for when he died? Where were the great emperors and the queens and the noblemen who’d enjoyed his music then? What a disgrace! I find it hugely upsetting that his final resting place was an unmarked grave in a plot reserved for the insignificant and the inconsequential. The bitter injustice of such a thing. It disgusts me — makes the anger start throbbing again in my head, if I think about it for too long; and then I have to distract myself with something else.

After going through the great composers, I moved on to the verses of golden-tongued poets such as Wordsworth, Byron, Blake, Coleridge and Shelley… But Keats is my favourite, with his gift for making sadness itself beautiful. How did he do that? The idea that beauty, joy and sadness are not so very different; not so very far apart from one another… This soothes me somehow, and takes the edge from my loneliness.

Keats died young too — only twenty-five. It’s not fair. There is little enough beauty in the world as it is. If Keats and Mozart had both lived to ninety, what more could they have done? I want to read the poems that were never written; I want to hear the music that was never composed! I feel like I’ve been cheated! But aside from the tragedy of the men themselves, their creations comfort me as no others can. The eternal nature of beauty that has survived for over two hundred years… I don’t think I need anyone else after all. If I could just be allowed to stay here in my apartment, reading these poems, listening to Mozart, I am sure that would be enough for me.. What more could I ever possibly want?

For a while, I thought about getting a dog. With a pet in the apartment, it might have more of a lived-in feel. There would be someone to greet me when I came home. Even a cat would be something. The thought of it curling up on my lap in the evenings, purring, sleeping on my bed at night, relying on me for all its food and wants

… They couldn’t possibly compete with human companionship, of course, but at least there would be someone who had feelings for me, loved me, relied on me, needed me…

But this isn’t an option either, for animals don’t like me. They’re afraid of me. I first noticed it a few days ago when there was an incident in the park. Two children were walking their dogs; there was a girl with an Alsatian that she simply wasn’t strong enough to control, and a boy with a Spaniel. As the two passed one another, the Alsatian snapped at the Spaniel, who retaliated, and soon the leashes had been ripped from the children’s hands and there was the most hideous racket as the two dogs went for each other. The children watched in horror as their beloved pets did their utmost to tear each other’s throats out. The yelping and howling was enough to attract the attention of several passers-by, but no one seemed to want to get between the two scrapping dogs. And I couldn’t blame them — the two were an indistinguishable mass of teeth, spit, blood and jaws, and it looked very much as if the Alsatian was going to kill the smaller dog.

I got up from my seat on a bench, thinking I could escort the boy home with his dead dog and that I might then be able to meet his parents. They might invite me in for coffee, or something. But as I made to move, the thought occurred to me that if I turned up with their son and a rescued dog, I would be more likely to be welcomed into the family than if I had a dead pet in tow. Indeed, the more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed that I’d be invited in for drinks if there was a dead dog and a crying kid taking up everyone’s attention. His parents were hardly going to hand him a shovel and tell him to get on with it himself, were they?

So I strode towards the fighting creatures, somehow grabbed each by the scruff of their necks, and pulled them apart. At once, the Alsatian rounded on me, snarling; but in another second it had recoiled and was cowering close to the ground, whimpering softly. The Spaniel was doing the same. Unsettled, I handed the dogs back to their respective owners. Although hurt, the Spaniel was not dead; and in another moment the boy’s mother had rushed over, exclaiming over the dog and rushing the two of them back to their car to take it to the vets. She didn’t even look at me, much less invite me back to her house for coffee to thank me for saving her child’s pet. It’s a thankless task, rescuing. The mystery woman never troubled to thank me either when I saved her from those muggers in the alley. Why are people all so selfish? Perhaps I am better off on my own.

Last night I came across a cat outside my building on my way home. I tried to stroke it, but when it saw me all its fur stood up on end and it hissed and spat, growling in the back of its throat. This thing with the animals upsets me, particularly the dogs. I had rather warmed to the idea of having a pet in the apartment. But I am also unnerved by this strange behaviour. What is it they see when they look at me that causes such fear? Perhaps they can sense my amnesia? I read somewhere that some dogs can sense epilepsy in humans. This must be a similar thing. I will get a pet one day. I just have to wait until I get my memory back, that’s all.

A parcel arrived for me today for the first time. I was stunned to learn that someone had sent me something and for a moment thought there must be some mistake and the box was meant for another tenant living in the building. But it was my name — Mr Gabriel Antaeus — written clearly and carefully on the label on the front of the box. My heart was pounding with excitement, but for some minutes I simply sat in the living room, staring at the carefully wrapped parcel on the table. At last, what I had been waiting for — contact from someone. Someone who had known me before my amnesia. If they had enclosed a return address, I would be able to contact them; but even if there was only a name, I was bound to be able to find them eventually.

The stickers on the front told me that the parcel had been sent from Italy. Someone had my name, my address… Here, on the coffee table, was a link to my life before all this. At last I leaned forward, picked up the box and, with exaggerated care, prised the cardboard flaps open.

I was intensely disappointed to discover that I myself was the sender of the parcel. I had placed the order some months before at an antique bookshop in Italy. The carefully wrapped book inside was indeed old, almost crumbling at the edges, and I could only imagine what such a thing must have cost. The cover was made of faded red leather, and emblazoned on the front in fine letters of gold was the title: Demonic Realms. It was a book about demons, I realised in disgust, complete with graphic paintings of writhing devils and endless tortures in the Hellish realms. Why had I been so interested in this horrible subject before? I would have simply tossed the book out — I already had more than enough books about devils and Hell on my bookshelves — but it was far too valuable to just throw away.

I laid the old book on the table, picked up my jacket and walked towards the door. I had been intending to go out, get some breakfast at a kavehaz, and then go and visit the Inner City Parish Church, one of the few churches in Budapest I hadn’t been to yet. I like churches and religious places. They make me feel safe. And there is always the vague hope that, while visiting one of them, I might run into Zadkiel Stephomi. I had also half formulated a plan to go to a bar or something in the evening. People talk to each other in bars, don’t they?

But as I placed my hand on the front door handle, I paused. The awareness of the book in the next room was burning in my mind, tugging insistently at me until I felt I really couldn’t just go out and leave it there. At last I turned back from the front door, dropped my jacket onto a chair in the kitchen and walked back into the lounge to gaze down at the book, wondering why I had gone to such trouble to have it sent from Italy when I already had so many books about Hell. Stupid bloody thing, lying there, mocking me like that.

In the end, I sat back down on the couch, picked up the book once again and carefully turned over the front cover. I suppose it must have been about 9 a.m. when I first opened the book. It was well past midnight before I glanced up to check the time. I haven’t eaten all day but even now I’m not hungry. I didn’t read the book because I enjoyed it but because the knowledge inside it fanned some forgotten flame within me, possessing me with the desire to read on and on well into the night as dust was blown from buried memories, stamping them once again in the forefront of my mind.

So I’ve spent the entire day reacquainting myself with devils and the places they come from. It has been disturbing reading. The book refers to devils as ‘fallen angels’. I don’t like this. I really don’t like it at all. Demons and angels should be opposites. I hate to think that demons were once angels… that they ever had anything to do with Heaven. It seems blasphemous to me. But how can the idea be blasphemous when it is supported by the Bible itself?

The book refers to Lucifer, before he was known as Satan, when he was still God’s most favoured and trusted angel… until the day he refused to bow down before Adam and, as a result, was hurled from Heaven down to the Hellish realms deep within the Earth’s core. Lucifer’s wounded pride and bitterness consumed and ate away at him until there was nothing good or angelic left.

After Lucifer’s fall from grace, other angels rebelled against God and fled to Satan’s side. Even now, the battle between God’s angels and Satan’s devils continues, although most of it takes place at Hell’s border. According to the book, angels are still being seduced to Satan’s ranks and it’s the angels patrolling the borders of Hell who are most likely to fall prey to him, due to their regular close contact with demons.

But it seems that this works both ways and the angels are sometimes able to win devils from the border over to their side as well. I find this idea utterly disgusting. Such intermingling should be absolutely forbidden. One being should not be able to flit between angel and demon in such a manner, forever crossing lines, becoming one then the other and back again. The very notion is deeply repugnant.

Worse still is the idea that some devils, like Satan in the book of Job, have special ‘passes’ to occasionally visit Heaven for duels of wits with the angels. Duels of wits! The sacrilegious, blasphemous frivolity of it!

There is one story in the book, concerning the demon Mephistopheles, that I find especially disturbing. Mephistopheles, or Mephisto, said to be the next angel after Lucifer to fall from grace, was made Satan’s second in command and became one of the seven Princes of Hell. The etymology of his name is unclear, but the most common meaning appears to be ‘he who destroys by lies’. While Lucifer’s rejection of God was born from pride and jealousy, it would seem that it was Mephistopheles’ passion for sardonic wit and sneering cynicism that caused him to turn from God to find more entertaining pastimes in the form of relentlessly pursuing human souls on Earth. What it came down to was that being an angel bored him. He was said to be the most adept at causing humans to stray from the divine path of righteousness into sin and damnation, for he was the cleverest and slyest of the devils and could tempt people in subtle and cunning ways.

The story in question concerns Mephistopheles venturing into Heaven and making a bet with God regarding the scholar, Faust. The demon claimed that he would be able to tempt the scholar onto the path of sin if only he was allowed the chance; and God accepted the challenge, granting Mephistopheles permission to interfere in Faust’s life and insisting that, even in his darkest moments, Faust would not stray from the path of righteousness. But ultimately Faust did succumb to the wiles of Mephistopheles and, as the demon had predicted, the scholar ended his life with blood on his hands.

There appears to be a broad consensus that Faust never wanted or imagined the horrors that came to befall him and those he cared about; that he did not instigate these disasters, and that they would never have occurred at all without the sly manipulation so cleverly exercised by Mephistopheles as the demon posed as the man’s friend.

After reading of Mephistopheles and his corruption and seduction of Faust, I was so repulsed that I was going to put the book aside and get out of the apartment, which suddenly seemed heavy with claustrophobia. But then a name caught my eye. It was my own, the name of the archangel Gabriel; and just seeing it on the page, surrounded by the names of devils, demons and Princes of Hell, made me feel nervous and uncomfortable.

As I read I remembered that there was a subclass of fallen angels known as the Watchers, who were sent to Earth to supervise the development of the human race but tried to give mankind secrets for which they were not yet ready. And then, worst of all, the Watchers fell in love with the daughters of men and procreated with them. A race of giants was produced that drained the Earth of its resources and cast a blight of famine and misery over the land. So God decided to destroy his creation by sending a great flood and starting anew..

But there is something wrong with this, isn’t there? I mean, the people were praying to God because they were hungry, because they were starving… and he answered their prayers by drowning them all. I am sure that this cannot have been the help everyone had in mind when they kneeled down to pray… I’m sure our ancestors must have got this story very wrong indeed…

Angels were sent to round up the Watchers and imprison them in the Third Circle of Hell, where they were told of God’s plan to obliterate all that they had helped create on Earth — but not until they had been forced to watch their children destroy each other. Gabriel was instructed to incite war between the giants so that they might all die vicious deaths at one another’s hands, before the great flood swept through the land destroying all else. The Watchers appealed to God for mercy on behalf of their children and themselves, but their pleas were coldly rejected, and Gabriel did as he’d been told and stirred up such venomous savagery in the giants that they tore each other apart in a brief and bloody war. And now the Watchers hate Gabriel for what he did. But, of course, I don’t believe a word of this — angels do not have sex with humans. And even if it did happen, there must have been a damn good reason for God’s furious response. He’s not evil — He wouldn’t kill people over love affairs. But the book frightens me, even if it is a pack of lies, so I have hidden it away under the floorboards with the money. I am going to pretend that it is not there. That I never even saw it.

To reassure myself, I opened one of my other old books about archangels — one that portrayed them in a much more accurate light — describing their goodness and compassion and mercy to all of mankind, and their desire to save as many souls as they could. It was then that I made two discoveries. Like all my other books, this one was heavily annotated with highlighting, underlining, and the occasional note pencilled in the margin in my own slanting handwriting. Two angels in particular were covered in pencil marks. One, naturally, was Gabriel. Written in the margin in tiny script were the words: ‘Heroes’ Square, Budapest — Gabriel’s Millennium Monument.’ I’ve never been to Heroes’ Square but I intend to go there tomorrow to see the monument for myself.

The second discovery I made was in the form of the second most heavily annotated archangel — Zadkiel, angel of memory, mercy and benevolence, and one of the two standard bearers who closely follows Michael into battle. I felt a horrible ache as I realised that here was a fourth thing I shared with Zadkiel Stephomi — we both shared names with angels. And we were both somehow linked to Michael, greatest of the archangels and God’s most trusted servant. It had been his church beside which we had met that day. I think I must have some kind of special connection with angels. My name is Gabriel. Everyone knows that that is an angelic name. I saved a woman who stupidly ran off into a back street alley at night… Oh, yes, and I’ve also saved children’s pets that would otherwise have killed each other. In some ways, I am like an angel. I save people. I rescue them. I am here

… to help people.