When the family had disappeared from view, I found it easier to rid my thoughts of them and turn my mind back to the mystery woman. How strange that she should have mentioned the Ninth Circle. She surely couldn’t have been referring to Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell. She said the Ninth Circle took it all from you… The Ninth Circle.. My mind raced with the possibilities. Could the Ninth Circle be some kind of organisation? Or was it a place? Had something dreadful happened there, causing me to lose my memory?
Could the Ninth Circle be a person or a code name or a book or a thing? A valuable possession, perhaps, that I had stolen and sold, hence the large amount of money hidden under the floorboards of my apartment? Had the child simply been making it all up? Was he a compulsive liar with an attention-seeking problem? But then he would hardly need to be a liar to get attention, would he? That’s the grand thing about dying: you can have all the attention you want. No, I’m sure he really did see her. And, in the light of what I have since found out, that in itself is extraordinary.
I waited until the Basilica opened and then climbed the steps to the top of the dome again. I was the only one up there and had the whole place to myself. For at least an hour, I just stood and gazed at the city, feeling safe and protected in a way I never felt when on the ground. Everything seemed so beautiful from that height. It was only at closer range that you could see the filth and the muck, but from the dome, everything was golden and dripping with clear sunlight. The cathedral was solid and safe at my back and beneath my feet, and I felt that, if only I could live here in this tower, everything would be okay. Everything would be fine and my existence would be bearable if I could just stay up here. Usually I enjoy human companionship.. but sometimes, peoples’ eyes seem to burn into me and their very presence is painful, like acid on my skin. And all I want is to be alone.
I returned to my apartment in the afternoon, earlier than usual. I’d hoped that the visit to St Stephen’s Basilica would lift my spirits but, if anything, the outing had only intensified my feelings of foreboding. The encounter with the dying child, and the news of the mystery woman in particular, had served to unsettle me even further.
But I wasn’t prepared for what I found at home. I was not prepared for the sickening wrench of betrayal that wracked me upon the discovery. The bitterness of it cramped my whole body with pain and for long moments I simply stared at the photo, shaking with shock.
Like the photo of the mystery woman, this one had also been concealed within a package. This time the order was for a case of French wine and when I phoned the supplier I found once again that I had placed the order myself some months ago. There was nothing in the case to give any clue as to where I had been living at the time — the only address was my current Hungarian one on the label. So I unpacked it and proceeded to stack the wine according to vintage on the wine rack in my cupboard. As I took out the last bottle, a photo that had been concealed at the bottom beneath the bottles was pulled out, fluttering to the floor.
The photo was of Stephomi and I talking in a hotel room. We stood facing each other before large bay windows, a city visible through the glass behind us. And there, rising above the other buildings, was the clear outline of the Eiffel Tower, tall and majestic, piercing the sky with its tip.
I couldn’t remember ever being in a hotel room with Stephomi. I couldn’t remember ever being in Paris. I’d always assumed that our first meeting had occurred a few weeks ago, beside Michael’s church on Margaret’s Island in the middle of the Danube. But the awful truth in all its hideous and grotesque reality was that Stephomi and I already knew each other, before we ever met again in Budapest. Stephomi knew who I was, yet had given no indication of having seen me before in his life. On coming across me on Margaret’s Island, he must have guessed or somehow already known about my amnesia. Perhaps our meeting had not been an accident at all.
How could he not have told me? How could he have so brazenly and coldly lied to me like that? How could he? It didn’t make any fucking sense! At our last meeting I had even admitted to him that I had amnesia and didn’t know what to do. He could have helped me then if he’d wanted to. He was using me. Somehow, in those moments, I was sure of it. Just as sure as I was that he was bloody well going to answer to me for what he’d done. I wasn’t going to take one more lie from him.
I phoned Stephomi and asked him to meet me that evening. A painful anger had replaced the initial hurt and now all I could think of was getting the truth from the treacherous bastard. My hand shook on the telephone receiver and I was astounded by how normal, relaxed and friendly my voice sounded when Stephomi answered his phone and I invited him over to share a bottle of wine with me that evening.
In the hours before he arrived, I examined the photo very carefully, trying to get as much information from it as possible. I couldn’t tell which hotel it was since the room was of a standard type and seemed to have no distinguishing features. I could see no personal possessions or baggage and couldn’t even tell if the room was mine or Stephomi’s. He looked much the same as I had always seen him: calm, at ease — one hand in his trousers pocket, the other being waved before him as he spoke. But yet there was something different. Something I had not seen in him before. Was it my imagination or was he speaking with a hint of… a hint of… gravity? Vehemence? An uncharacteristic seriousness, perhaps? Although there was that omnipresent smile lingering about his mouth still.
But it was my own face and posture that alarmed me more. I was staring at Stephomi coldly and I looked… wary. Stiff. This was no relaxed and amiable friendly chat. My heart sank as I came to these conclusions. Why hadn’t he told me the truth? What did he want? I was not cheered when I turned the photo over and discovered that this one, too, had writing on the back:
‘ Always forgive your enemies — but never forget their names.’
Robert Kennedy.
And for the first time, it occurred to me that whoever was getting these notes and photos to me might be an unseen friend rather than a taunting enemy. That they might be trying to warn me of some unseen danger. But the two photos had come from different countries altogether. Could someone really have travelled from Italy to France to post the clues, to ensure I could not trace them? And why not send everything together? And why did everything have to be so fucking cryptic, damn it? Why not come to me themselves with what they knew? Because they physically couldn’t? Because they feared to?
I stifled the urge to start smashing things up in frustration. What a total bloody mess this was! Well, I’d get some answers from Stephomi, that was for sure. As for the letter sender — for now I could only assume that I had a nameless friend out there somewhere. A friend who, from the quote, also seemed to know that I was suffering from amnesia.
I decided before Stephomi arrived that I wasn’t going to hurt him. I wouldn’t act in a savage, uncivilised manner. I would just confront him with the photo and see what he had to say for himself. After all, it wasn’t as if he could deny it. He’d have no choice but to tell me the truth. But when I opened the door to him that evening and he walked in to my home, greeting me easily, carrying an expensive bottle of wine… it was like having salt rubbed into a raw wound. I’d trusted him and he’d done nothing but lie to my face since we met. I felt like some jilted lover who couldn’t help but fly into a passion, words being totally inadequate to express just how furious they were. He had made a fool of me, and I had let him.