Alex Bell - The Ninth circle

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.