by Alex Bell
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.
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 leath
er, 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 kàvéhàz, 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.
