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.
29th August
Five days have passed since I last wrote here. It’s almost one o’clock in the morning. I’m dripping wet, my clothes are stained with splatters of blood, and there is a bleeding gash at the back of my head that is swelling up into a painful lump already. For four days I kept to my decision to stay inside the apartment. But this morning, I decided that I might have overreacted to the incident with the boy and the butterfly. And I was tired of takeout food. So I went to a nearby restaurant: the Pest Buda Vendeglo. I don’t like eating alone — it depresses me. I ordered a Hungarian traditional speciality, Libamaj Zsirjaban — goose liver fried in its own fat — along with a glass of dry Pinot Noir. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth so I would usually skip dessert, but the Vendeglo does the most delicious Gundel Palacsinta and I was reluctant to return to my apartment too soon, so I ordered the dessert to extend the evening.
I had been feeling almost content until the couple at the table next to me started to argue. Quietly at first, and then the man started to raise his voice and the woman was crying and other diners were looking embarrassed and pretending they hadn’t noticed.
The man stormed out in the end, leaving the woman alone at the table, looking miserable and embarrassed. I should have felt sorry for her like everyone else. But all I could feel was envy. At least she had someone to argue with, the lucky bitch. They must surely care about each other a lot to argue so fiercely. I could have hated them for it.
I lost my appetite, and pushed away the remainder of the sweet pancakes-And then I saw her. She was staring in at me through the window from the dark street outside, her nose pressed up against the glass. She was a little distorted from the ripples of the window, but she was clearly shocked by the sight of me. And she recognised me. I know she did. Pure instinct made me jump to my feet in excitement. She was middle-aged. In her forties, I would say, with the most beautiful chestnut hair. She saw that I’d spotted her and turned away from the window at once.
I called out to her as she walked quickly off into the night, and made to follow — but then remembered the meal and hastily threw down a roll of notes, probably leaving far too much on the table before striding from the restaurant.
Once on the darkened street outside, I strained my eyes, hoping I was not too far behind her. My only thought was to catch her up and make her tell me what she knew. For she did know something about me, I was quite sure in my mind about that. I’d seen it when our eyes met. For a moment I thought I’d missed her. There were few people out and about at this time of night in this area, and there didn’t seem to be anyone else within view as I stood there in the shelter of the restaurant archway. But then, by chance, I saw a head of chestnut hair disappearing down a side street and, with a strangled yell of excitement, I set off after her at a run. Thrills of anticipation rushed through me as I chased her. The mist hanging in the air clung to me and wet my hair and clothes even as rain began to fall in a gentle, hushed whispering that dampened out all other sound.
Within moments my clothes were soaked through. Feet sliding on the wet cobbles, I rounded the corner and set off down the dark alleyway behind the running woman. Anger flared suddenly and I was aware of a snarl curling my lips. Damn her, why did she run from me? I wasn’t going to hurt her. I just wanted her knowledge. Information, memories, answers — that was all I wanted. She was fast, though, and seemed to know where she was going as she sped deeper into the maze of back streets that we were both now quite lost in. I’m very fit and a fast runner myself, but I always seemed to be just a few yards behind the chestnut-haired woman. It was infuriating. Several times I almost lost her in the rain and mist, the only light coming from the shadowed moon above and the soft, reflected light from elsewhere in the city.
She had been running with surprising speed, as if she was scared out of her mind. So I was not prepared for her to suddenly come to a dead stop in the middle of a darkened street. I, too, slid to a halt, panting and trying to get my breath back as she turned towards me, her face half hidden in shadow. She did not seem at all breathless, and for long moments we simply gazed at one another in silence, the rain falling around us, drenching the cobbles beneath our feet. I had been about to ask her who she was, her name, how she knew me… but her expression stopped me. Deep, harsh lines were etched into her face, and there was raw fear in her eyes as she gazed at me in silence. And then she spoke, in a quiet, desperate voice, which somehow I managed to hear above the rain.
‘ Eltevedtem.’
I’m lost.
I stared at her. Rainwater ran down the back of my neck and down my face, dripping from my chin and the ends of my eyelashes. After a moment I took a step towards her. I would help her. I’d find a way to assist her somehow. But then I noticed a movement in the darkness and realised that we were not alone in the alleyway.
‘ Tessek vigyazni!’ Look out! I yelled as a man stepped out of the shadows at her back.
I made to run towards them, but pain exploded suddenly behind my eyes as someone struck the back of my head, hard. In my preoccupation with the mystery woman, I had failed to realise there were other men behind me. A broken cobble bit deep into my cheek and my teeth seemed to go halfway through my lip when I hit the ground, warm blood filling my mouth and running down my face. Someone grabbed my shoulders and twisted me onto my back, running practised fingers through my pockets. Rain fell into my eyes and the moon above me seemed to spin nauseatingly in the night sky. I was aware of the thief ’s crow of glee as he drew out my well-filled wallet.
Perhaps hoping to find more riches, the thief was still leaning over me when I spat a mouthful of blood into his face. He jerked back instinctively, and at the same time my hand whipped out and gripped his ankle. One swift jerking movement and he’d slipped over on the wet cobbles, sprawling on his back beside me. Others started running towards us.
Afterwards I counted five of them on the ground around me. They had hardly touched me, for all that they had attacked together. There had been no conscious thought involved at all. Some of them had knives and other makeshift weapons, but it had been an easy enough thing for me to twist their hands back round on themselves so that they couldn’t help but drop their knives of their own accord, turning their strength against them, bones snapping like twigs so that I hardly even broke a sweat. The stronger they were, the easier it was. With the right movements, they would break their own bones for me. How painfully easy it was. Like shooting fish in a pond with a bazooka. There’s no need for endless, energy-sapping punches and kicks when pressure applied to a certain place on a man’s neck will render him unconscious before he’s even realised what you’re doing. You just have to know where to press.