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.’