by Alex Bell
I wanted to trust him. I didn’t want to be completely alone here for the rest of my life, spending my evenings counting and recounting the boxes of fish food in my cupboard that I still hadn’t been able to bring myself to throw away.
With a last uncertain, apologetic grin, Stephomi stood up to go, but paused in the doorway to the kitchen and turned back. ‘Please don’t push me away, Gabriel. Leave the past alone and build a new life now.’
I laughed miserably. ‘I want to believe you . . . but faith isn’t enough for me. How do I know that everything you’ve told me isn’t lies?’
Stephomi paused, considering my question. ‘What can I say? I’m afraid faith will just have to be enough for now because that’s all you’ve got. But what reason would I have to lie anyway? “The liars and those who distort the truth must perish . . . and then there may be room for a freer, nobler kind of humanity again.” To quote Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.’
The name was familiar to me but Stephomi was almost at the front door when horror made me leap to my feet as I suddenly remembered who the man was.
‘You quote a Nazi to support your cause?’ I asked, striding to the doorway to stare at Stephomi in disbelief.
Once again, Stephomi turned about to face me, a small smile on his face. ‘Ah, Gabriel, why do you assume that following Hitler and being a good and brave man must be mutually exclusive?’
‘Listen to yourself!’ I said, appalled. ‘Are you trying to be funny or something? Evil and Nazi are synonymous. To suggest anything else is . . . it’s blasphemy!’
‘Then, forgive me, by all means,’ Stephomi replied, tilting his head as he gazed at me. ‘But I assure you there was no sin intended. You expect too much from humanity sometimes, Gabriel. We can’t all be perfect, you know. Why don’t you ask Wladyslaw Szpilman about it?’
Stephomi’s initial words had been soothing. I had begun to feel comforted by what he was telling me. But he had ruined it with that quote at the door. To even suggest that a German officer of the Second World War was anything other than a scheming, plotting, greed- and sin-driven demon made me feel utterly sick. Stephomi had described him as a ‘good and brave man’ . . . What on Earth could have moved him to speak such depraved words? Perhaps he didn’t know the full extent of what the Nazis had done? Perhaps he didn’t know about the families murdered in front of each another; the husbands and wives who had been forced to dig each other’s graves before being shot into them; the golden teeth and fillings that were ripped from Jewish mouths before their owners were shot like dogs; the families who had shuffled onto trains together, clutching the one suitcase they were allowed to take, full of their most precious possessions, hoping against hope that, somehow, everything would still be all right and Europe would not soak in its own blood - only to have their cases torn from their fingers before they were shipped off to slaughter houses like cattle . . . To suggest that anyone even remotely connected with such atrocities had nothing to feel shame for . . . to even suggest it . . . disgusts me beyond words.
The name of Wladyslaw Szpilman was vaguely familiar to me and, running a quick gaze down my bookshelves, I saw that I owned a book written by him called ŚmierćMiasta, translated as Death of a City. It was written in Polish, which posed no problem for me. Indeed I hardly even realised it wasn’t in English until I was halfway through it. Szpilman was a Polish Jew; a survivor of the Holocaust who wrote about his experiences mere months after the war had finally ended. It was later renamed The Pianist. The memoir is quite a slim volume and, after showering and picking all the tiny pieces of glass out of my skin with tweezers, I sat and read it all the way through that day.
The story disturbs me greatly. It appals me, in fact. For the truth of it is that Captain Wilm Hosenfeld was indeed a good and brave man. Can I say that? Is it blasphemy? Or was Stephomi right? Hosenfeld saved Wladyslaw Szpilman’s life at risk to his own, and was ashamed to be German at the realisation of what was happening. He was ashamed of himself for not doing anything about it. He was a schoolteacher by profession, with a love of children, and he absolutely deplored what was being done to the Jews. He deplored it. And he cursed himself for a wretched coward and he cursed his lack of power to do anything. But, really, how very illogical of Hosenfeld to feel that way, for he would have been quite unable to do anything to influence the war even if he’d wanted to.
Six million Jews died during the Second World War. Six million of them. Captain Wilm Hosenfeld’s actions saved Wladyslaw Szpilman’s life. And so what? Six million dead. Hosenfeld saved one. In the grand scheme of things, what difference did it make . . . ? All the difference in the world to Szpilman himself, one supposes.
Captain Hosenfeld, like all other citizens of Hitler’s Germany, had been bombarded with anti-Semitic propaganda for years: the Jews were the cause of all Germany’s problems; the Jews were the cause of all economic crises and political instabilities; the Jews were a subhuman race, who would pollute the purity of German blood if they were given the chance; the Jews were a disease, an infestation, a cancer that would have to be removed from the Earth’s gut. God, what utter madness that anyone should ever have accepted such nonsense. But people love to hate other people and pain comes easier when there is someone to blame.
When Wladyslaw Szpilman’s hiding place was discovered by a German officer, the Jew was convinced that the man’s appearance meant death for him, convinced that he would be shot in the head, as had so many others he had known. But instead of shooting him in the head, this German brought Szpilman food, wrapped up in current newspapers so that the Jew might see the war really was nearing its end. He ordered Szpilman to hold on just a little longer. Soon this will all be over and everyone can go back to being human beings again . . . He even brought him blankets to protect him from the bitter cold of his attic hideaway. Why did he do that? Why did he?
Szpilman wrote in his memoirs that, had it not been for this man’s assistance, had it not been for the newspapers he brought that talked of imminent German defeat, had it not been for those things, then he might have taken his own life before the war was out. He might have killed himself, unable to go on with the constant fear, the constant misery of what his life had become . . . when only a few years earlier he had been a respected and admired Polish pianist who played on the radio for a living.
When Hosenfeld went to visit Szpilman for the last time before he left Warsaw with his detachment, the Jew tried to persuade the German to take his watch - the one remaining treasured thing he owned - to show his gratitude for what the officer had done; but Hosenfeld refused point blank to take it. A Jew’s watch, a Basilica’s bell . . . how do these things become so important at a time when they should be so utterly insignificant? Why do they matter?
So what of the German captain? Was he born heroic? Nazi Germany surely wasn’t the ideal environment in which to foster heroism, so was the man simply born that way? A simple enough matter of a genetic predisposition towards bravery and decency? This story frightens me. I like black and white. I am comfortable there. Nazis should not be heroes. Just as angels should not be devils. It’s not right. When I look at some of the photos of renowned Nazi war criminals, they do not all look evil. They do not all look depraved. They do not all look soulless. Some of them look like human beings. This is not right - monsters should look like monsters; they should not be allowed to wander round among other people in such a flawless disguise.
It must have been about 9 p.m. when the note was shoved under my door. I’d just finished reading Szpilman’s memoirs and had gone into the kitchen for a glass of water when I heard the faint sound of a folded piece of paper being slipped under the door. I turned and, even as I did so, I could hear footsteps treading rapidly along the corridor. I crossed the kitchen in moments, flinging open the door and gazing out at the now empty corridor. Slamming my door behind me, I ran down to the end, just in time to see the elevator doors closing although I couldn’t see who was inside. My apartment is several floors above street level a
nd there is only one lift so I had no choice but to run down the flights of stairs, sliding and occasionally tripping in my haste, reaching out to steady myself on the twisting steel rail.
Who the hell knew where I lived? The only person who knew my address was Stephomi, but I couldn’t believe he had shoved the note under my door and then run off down the corridor to the elevators like a child playing a prank. If nothing else, he was a clever man, and if he really wanted to torment me I am sure he would have found subtler and smarter ways to do it.
By the time I got down to street level, I was too late. There was no one. I had not been fast enough to beat the lift for it was now standing empty. The foyer was deserted but for a small, dark-skinned boy who was hovering by the front doors. I had been about to ask him if he had seen anything when a girl I recognised came into view.
I did not see much of my neighbours; probably because of the unsociable hours I kept, leaving the apartment early in the morning and not returning until late at night. But this was the pregnant girl I had tried to talk to a couple of months ago. What had she said her name was ..? Casey March? I had since seen her going back into her apartment at hours similarly late to mine. I had been too afraid to talk to her after the spectacle I had made of myself before, and I hid when I could if I saw her coming.
It made me wince just to look at her as she scolded the boy for keeping her waiting, took his arm and walked out into the city. I hated seeing her coming in late at night. I got the impression that she had a late job in the city somewhere, although I didn’t know what she did with the boy while she was there. She couldn’t be his mother as he must have been at least eight. My guess was that she was his sister. I had never seen anything of any parents. It seemed it was just the two of them. I had wanted to introduce myself properly but after the grand job I’d made of it last time, she probably thought I was some kind of nutcase . . . this man who couldn’t even remember his last name.
I watched the two of them leave the building and then, as there seemed to be no sign of my mystery postman, I turned and took the elevator back up to the top part of the building. I trudged back down the corridor and let myself into my apartment, bending to retrieve the piece of paper from the kitchen floor and moving to the table with it. It was a plain, white sheet of A4 paper, folded once. I sat down and unfolded it. Then I sat and stared for some time. As with the photos, the words had been written in neat capitals so that it was impossible to make out any handwriting style. The message was in Latin but, being another language in which I seem to be fluent, I could understand it perfectly. How very much I wished that I had caught up with whoever had delivered this note. The words read:
Facilis Descensus Averno:
Noctes Atque Dies Patet Atri Ianua Ditsis.
I recognised the phrase from Virgil’s Aeneid. Translated into English, it reads:
The gates of Hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way.
Beneath the quote was another phrase, also in Latin, the translation of which reads:
The Ninth Circle can’t hide you for ever.
I dropped the note on the table, put my head in my hands and slumped forward in my seat, my whole body shaking with dread. This wasn’t fair!
So there it is ... I was beginning seriously to consider the possibility that I was going mad. There was fear again, always fear. My sleep that night was restless - filled with Nazi soldiers, murdered Jews and red, shining circles of blood in which angels were bound. These nightmares woke me in the middle of the night and I went into the bathroom to splash cold water onto my sweating face and shoulders. I was leaning over the sink when I heard the noise behind me - the unmistakably powerful sound of roaring flames. When I slowly straightened up, cool water still running down my skin, I could see two people in the mirrored reflection of the bathroom behind me. One was the burning man I had dreamed about before. The other was the mystery woman from the alley. And they were both on fire. Neither one of them moved. They simply stood there. Staring at me. While great orange and white flames danced about their bodies.
Of course, I only gazed into the mirror for a moment before spinning round with a yell of horror. But there was nothing there when I turned. Just the sound of my own frightened breathing as the cool drops of water burned on my hot skin, splashing down onto the cold tiles. Perhaps I had a slight fever. Perhaps I was simply still half asleep. But I was beginning to genuinely fear for my sanity. My whole existence began to seem surreal to me. Why on earth hadn’t I gone to the police when I first woke up here? Why didn’t I go now? What was it, hidden at the back of my mind, that kept me from doing so? I couldn’t go to the police. I couldn’t do that. But although I knew this for the undeniable fact that it was . . . I couldn’t remember the reason why. And it is that ignorance that scares me more than anything else.
9th October
If only I could have known that night that I was to find the answers to those questions a mere three days later . . . I thank God that I now know the whole truth about my past, for at least now I don’t have to live with the doubts. Just the sadness. My past was always going to be a sad one, wasn’t it? How could it possibly ever have been anything else? But at least now I know. I know it all.
I decided to count the money - that was how it began. I decided to count the money I had hidden away so that I might know exactly how much was there. It was unsafe to keep such a large amount in the apartment and I was considering opening other bank accounts to distribute the cash. So I retrieved the sack from under the floorboards and, making sure that the door was locked and the blinds were drawn, I emptied the money out onto the floor and started to count it. And then I found something in among the bundles of notes that shouldn’t have been there. It was a key. A safety deposit box key. The writing engraved on its face showed that it was from a Hungarian bank here in Budapest, deposit box number 328.
I sat back on the floor and gazed at the key in my hand for a while. I couldn’t help but feel apprehensive at the sight of it. After all, if I was content to have a hundred thousand pounds sitting on my kitchen table in my apartment, then what on earth had I deemed so important that it must be hidden away in a vault?
I went straight into Budapest on the metro with the intention of stopping at the bank, but by the time I got there it had closed for the day. So I went first thing this morning, after a restless night of anticipation and unease. It was one of the larger banks in a busy part of the city. When I got to the entrance and saw that the doors were open, I hesitated. There could be any one of a number of terrible revelations waiting for me inside that building. Perhaps it would be better not to know? The anonymous note was going round and round my mind. What was the Ninth Circle? The dying child had passed on the mystery woman’s statement that the Ninth Circle had ‘taken everything from me’. The anonymous letter deliverer had written that the Ninth Circle would not hide me much longer. And Antaeus, the murderous giant of ancient Greek mythology, was the gatekeeper to the Ninth Circle of Hell itself . . . But then perhaps, after all, there was no bad news waiting for me in the bank. Perhaps the deposit box would just give me answers, maybe even tell me where my family were . . .
With an effort, I emptied my mind. I detached myself from the scene so that it was some other man, some stranger, who went and asked to visit his vault. I was shown to box 328 and left alone there. My hands did not tremble as I turned the key in the lock and drew out the slim, harmless looking drawer. I sat down at the table, removed the lid and ran my gaze over everything in the box. Pain twisted inside me as I realised the truth - the truth that had been eluding me for so long and was now all here in this little box, unable to hide from me any longer.
There was no money. No weapons, no ominous, suspicious objects as I had been half afraid that there might be. Instead, there were documents and papers and a letter. It hurt me, what was inside. First I saw the marriage certificate. Then the birth certificate. And my heart lifted. But then I saw the death certificates.
There was one for a Nicola Antaeus, aged thirty. And a second for Luke Antaeus, aged four. Their names were unfamiliar to me. And yet I was listed on both as the next of kin. Husband of Nicola Antaeus ... father of Luke Antaeus . . .
‘No,’ I said, staring at the two innocent pieces of paper.
This wasn’t fair! This wasn’t fair at all!
‘No!’ I said again, thumping my fist on the table.
Cause of death . . . car crash . . . London . . .
I rummaged around for something else in the box. Something that might take the sting out of the two death certificates lying on the table before me - as if anything could. But there was nothing to take comfort in here. I uncovered a letter I’d written to an aunt that had never been mailed. I realised why when I found a solicitor’s letter informing me of my aunt’s death and the fact that she had left all her wealth to me. That explained the money hidden under my floorboards, anyway . . .
I stared at the letter until black spots winked across the page. I shook my head, pinched the bridge of my nose, tried again. My heart sank as I read the opening line: ‘As the only relation I have left, I’m just writing to let you know that I’m leaving London . . . ’ My only relation? Only one? Surely not. Surely there must be someone else left? ‘I can’t stop thinking about Nicky and Luke . . . I can’t stop seeing them . . . I’m moving to Budapest to concentrate on my writing ...I don’t want to see anyone, I don’t want to talk to anyone . . . I don’t know when I’ll be back . . . ’