by Alex Bell
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.
Once he’d walked into my apartment, I slowly closed the door, softly drew the bolts across while he prattled on about something behind me. Then I slowly turned around . . . and hit him really hard across the back of the head. I don’t agree with violence but it was incredibly gratifying to force him to the floor, place my knee in the small of his back and twist his arm behind him in a grip that would break the bone if he tried to resist - all before he’d even had time to utter more than a startled yelp. I had him. It didn’t matter which of us was the stronger now that I had him like this: he only needed to move a little to snap one of the bones in his arm. The bottle he’d been holding had fallen to the floor in the scuffle, and broken glass was floating in the spreading pool of red wine, staining his expensive white shirt as I held him to the floor.
‘Why did you do it?’ I hissed. ‘Answer me, answer me, answer me!’
His other hand was pinned beneath him and, although I felt him shift slightly, he was quite unable to free himself - not without breaking his arm, anyway. I heard him make this strange little sound, somewhere between a laugh and a groan. ‘Perhaps . . .’ he gasped, his voice muffled from where his face was pressed into the floor, ‘if I knew the question, Gabriel . . .’
I broke his arm then, in my mind. Revelled in the sound of the crack, as the bone snapped, and the scream of pain that came with it. Oh, I wanted to do it in real life, I wanted to. But I stopped myself. You see, I am the one who is in control here, not him. Not him!
‘You knew me before I lost my memory!’ I growled. ‘If you dare deny it, I’ll break your arm right now, I swear it. You get one warning, that’s it.’
‘Well, yes, I did know you before, you’re right.’
I gaped at the back of his head in amazement.
‘Aren’t you going to deny it?’
‘You just told me not to.’
‘Do you think this is a game?’ I shouted, forgetting myself and twisting his arm a little further, noting the harsh intake of breath with a grim satisfaction. ‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth from the beginning?’
‘Because . . . because you asked me not to,’ Stephomi gasped. ‘For God’s sake, Gabriel, let go of my arm before you really do fucking break it! You’re making a mistake! I’ve never been anything but a friend to you!’
I hesitated. He’d spoken so earnestly that the first doubtful butterflies began to flutter uncertainly inside me.
‘I’ll happily explain it to you if you’ll just let me go,’ Stephomi offered stiffly. Reluctantly, I released my hold on his arm and slowly got to my feet. With a sigh, Stephomi did the same and turned to face me.
‘Well, I never liked this shirt anyway,’ he said, a smile twisting his mouth as he glanced down at the dusky red wine staining his shirt, dripping like blood from his sleeve cuff and the tips of his fingers. The hand that had been pinned beneath him was bleeding and I could see small pieces of the broken bottle embedded in his palm. The same feeling of revulsion rose up in me as on the day of the rare steak incident - I could feel the bile rising in my throat and averted my gaze hurriedly. There were even a few flecks of wine down one side of his face and in his hair. He was gazing at the remains of the bottle sadly and, when he glanced up at me, there was a reproachful look in his eye. ‘Really, Gabriel, was all that necessary? If you wanted to know something, you only had to ask. I, er . . . admit I haven’t been completely truthful,’ he said frankly. ‘The fact is that I have known you for years. I followed you that day to Margaret’s Island and the second time to Heroes’ Square. I just wanted to make sure you were all right, that’s all.’
‘How very altruistic of you! Now can you please explain to me why you’ve been acting like a compulsive liar?’
‘Well, let’s not get carried away,’ Stephomi replied, looking mildly amused. He moved his hand to brush his wine-dampened hair from his eyes, and winced. Holding up his palm, he examined the shards of glass embedded in the skin. With a sigh, he let his hand drop back down to his side and glanced up to meet my uncertain gaze.
‘Look, the truth is you didn’t want me to tell you about your past. You made me promise that I wouldn’t. I’m not even supposed to be here.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ I snapped. ‘I don’t believe a word of it! Just tell me the fucking truth! Is Gabriel Antaeus even my real name?’
Stephomi hesitated a moment and then nodded. ‘Yes, it is.’
‘And how did we know each other before?’
‘I told you, we were friends.’
‘What about this, then?’ I asked, throwing the photograph onto the kitchen table.
Stephomi picked it up and I saw his mouth tighten with displeasure as he took in the quote on the back. A glint of irritation came into his eyes and he tossed the photo back onto the table.
‘We don’t look very friendly to me, Stephomi.’
‘I was telling you
something you didn’t particularly want to hear at the time, I’m afraid. I’d like to answer your questions, Gabriel, but I made a promise to you and I have no intention of breaking it.’
‘Who is this?’ I asked, drawing the photo of the mystery woman from my pocket and holding it up.
‘Where did you get that?’ Stephomi asked sharply.
‘What does it matter? Do you know her?’
‘Don’t worry about her,’ Stephomi said quietly. ‘Throw the photo away, Gabriel.’
‘You know who she is, then? You do, don’t you? You know everything about this . . . this Godforsaken mess! Do you know how I lost my memory? Do you know where my family is?’ I asked, desperately. And then, when he remained silent, ‘Do you know who took the pictures? Do you know who sent them?’
‘I have a fairly good idea.’
‘But you’re not going to tell me, are you? You’re not going to tell me anything I want to know at all!’
‘No, Gabriel,’ Stephomi said with a wry smile. ‘Because you don’t really want to know it.’
I glared at him furiously, maddened by his attitude. How badly I wanted to hurt him in that moment. I could have beaten the truth from him, of course. After that back street incident with the Hungarian muggers, I was sure I would have been physically up to the task; but the thought of it chilled me, not least because it sprang so readily to my mind. That was not how civilised people behaved. That was not something a civilised person would think about doing.
‘You’re thinking about beating it out of me, aren’t you?’ Stephomi asked, with a smile. ‘It won’t work, you know.’
‘Don’t push me!’ I screamed at him. ‘For your own sake, don’t give me a reason!’ He couldn’t know how perilously close I was ... but I was determined not to lose control this time . . . I wouldn’t let him force me into doing anything wrong. ‘Get out,’ I whispered.
He hesitated for a moment and then, with a shrug, he moved past me to the door and I heard it click softly shut behind him. I stood there for a minute after he’d gone, staring at the table and feeling more helpless, more completely alone than when I had first woken up, weeks ago, on the floor of this very kitchen.
The thought of not being in control is disgusting to me. Almost as if the aversion has been ingrained into my soul through years of disciplined habit. So after Stephomi had gone, I sat down at the kitchen table and calmly poured myself a glass of wine in an effort to stifle the urge to destroy my apartment again as I had done the night I’d lost Stephomi’s card. I was even briefly tempted to go out and find some muggers to attack. After all, they were only muggers. The desire to do violence to something strengthened until it was more a craving than a desire. I regretted letting Stephomi walk away like that - perhaps I should go after him? I knew where he lived . . . But it was no good, not in the mood I was in. It’s a terrible thing to say . . . but I was frightened that if I let myself give in to these feelings I might go too far.
So I did the responsible thing and took control of the situation and poured myself another glass of wine. And then another and another. Soon I was opening a second bottle . . . The truth is that I drank myself senseless, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. It was intentional . . . I was the one in control. It was a logical solution to a problem, that was all. It’s not like I intend to do it again - it’s not healthy, for one thing. But alcohol is sometimes useful. If you’re patient . . . if you drink enough of it . . . then there is a sort of heaviness, a paralysis that creeps into your limbs so that your fingers go numb and you drop the wine glass with a splintering of broken glass . . . your head falls back, the chair tips over . . . and you end up lying there senseless on the floor for the rest of the night where you won’t be able to do any damage to anything . . . or anyone.
I was woken up at about 10 a.m., rather suddenly, by a lot of very cold water being thrown into my face. I jerked awake, blinking water from my eyes and coughing it out of my mouth. At once, pain started throbbing dully through me - through my head, my neck, my shoulders - my whole body - from the combination of having slept on the hard floor all night and the alcohol that was still coursing through my system. ‘Oh good,’ Stephomi said, some of the concern fading from his face as he looked down at me, ‘you’re not dead after all. Careful, you’ve been lying in broken glass all night.’
I glanced down and saw that he was right. There were jagged pieces of glass all over the floor from the bottle of wine that Stephomi had dropped and the wine glass that I had broken later. The spilt wine from the bottle had soaked into my clothes, staining my shirt and making me smell like an alcoholic tramp.
‘Luckily you don’t seem to have cut yourself too badly,’ Stephomi said, eyeing me critically. ‘Let me give you a hand up.’
I didn’t want to take his hand but standing up would have been difficult and - let’s face it - undignified otherwise, since there was nowhere on the floor I could put my hands without cutting into them. So I took his hand in silence and let him pull me to my feet.
‘What do you want now?’ I asked thickly, carefully brushing crushed glass from my clothes.
My throat felt like sandpaper, my tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of my mouth, and the light beyond the windows hurt my eyes, forcing me to shield them with my hand. There is, after all, a downside to too much alcohol.
‘Oh, a great many things,’ Stephomi answered cheerfully. ‘But for today I’ll settle for not seeing you drink yourself to death. It’s lucky you weren’t sick or you might have choked on your own vomit, you know. You would’ve done better to drink with me last night.’
‘Oh, shut up! I know what you’re thinking but I was in control the whole time. I told you to get out. Why have you come back? What do you want?’
Stephomi sighed. ‘I phoned you a while ago and there was no answer,’ he said quietly. ‘I was afraid that something might have happened.’ I gazed at him for a moment, water dripping from the ends of my hair to the floor where he had drenched me. I had meant it last night when I’d told the scholar to get out of my apartment. I’d really wanted to hurt him. And I was still angry with him. Angry for the deception, angry for his spiteful refusal to help me, and angry for his stubborn silence. But yet ... I was pleased to see him. Who knows what true loneliness is?
‘I thought about it last night, Gabriel,’ Stephomi said, still watching me warily, ‘and I think there are some things I might be able to tell you without breaking my promise. If you want to go and dry your hair and change your clothes, I’ll wait for you.’
‘No,’ I said at once. ‘Tell me now.’
‘All right,’ Stephomi replied, following me as I stalked through to the living room.
I sat down on the couch, trying to avoid getting any red wine stains on it, wishing my head were a little clearer. Stephomi dropped down onto the other chair.
‘For starters,’ he began, ‘the money that was in your apartment ... is it still here?’
I narrowed my eyes at him and forced myself not to glance at the cupboard in which I had hidden it.
‘All right, don’t tell me,’ Stephomi said hastily, seeing the look on my face. ‘All I was going to say is that it’s yours. You didn’t steal it or anything. I’m assuming that’s what you suspected? But rest assured the money belongs to you fair and square.’
‘And what did I do to get such an amount?’ I asked.
Stephomi grimaced apologetically. ‘All I can tell you is that the money is yours. You were a writer by profession.’
‘A writer?’ I thought back to the typed manuscript I had found in my desk. ‘A less than popular one?’ I asked, realising that if I had ever succeeded in publishing anything, my works would surely grace my own bookshelves.
Stephomi shrugged slightly. ‘Mozart himself was before his time, my friend. Look, I can’t really tell you very much. You can go on hating me if you want and scream at me to get out again, but I just want to emphasise first that . . . you didn’t do anything to deserve this.’
; ‘You said that I asked you not to tell me about my past,’ I said, staring at him. ‘Are you saying that I knew I was going to lose my memory? That I somehow did this to myself ?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why? How?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said simply.
‘Where is everyone?’ I asked desperately. ‘Where are my family? Where do they think I’ve gone?’
Stephomi was looking uncomfortable now. ‘I really can’t say any more, Gabriel. Faith is part of friendship,’ he said softly, looking at me closely. ‘You asked me to trust you when I promised not to give you these answers, and I did even though I didn’t like it. I believe you must have had a good reason. Now I’m afraid you’re going to have to trust me when I say I can’t tell you any more. I know it doesn’t make sense, that you have nothing solid to put your trust in here, but that is the meaning of faith.’