thousand pounds’ worth of Hungarian forints wrapped up in a plastic bag inside the box. I sat staring at the money for a while, my fingers drumming on the tabletop. It was a lot of cash to be just left there… on the kitchen table like that.
This apartment looked like it was my home — but I couldn’t remember it. I couldn’t remember me. I got up and walked to the spot where I had been lying. There was a shelf on the ground nearby, one corner of which was stained with blood. And there was a chair positioned by the wall next to a row of already installed shelves. I had been trying to put up shelves. That must have been it. Somehow, I had lost my grip on this top shelf, it had swung forwards and hit me on the head, and I had fallen from the chair and knocked myself out. Yes! Yes, yes, yes! And now I was suffering from some kind of temporary amnesia. It was that simple. It was as gloriously simple as that. Just a stupid, stupid accident.
‘Gabriel Antaeus,’ I said again. It was definitely an English accent.
I suppose I should have phoned someone. The police, or the British embassy, or a hospital… I wanted to. I wanted to find someone who could help me. But there was a hundred thousand pounds’ worth of Hungarian forints on my kitchen table. Would they believe that I couldn’t remember stealing it? For that seemed the most plausible explanation, even to me. And I did not want to go to prison.
I found this journal in a drawer beside my bed. It was empty but for my name, which I’d written on the inside cover. I don’t know why I started writing everything down like this. I suppose I’m just scared of forgetting it all again. And I don’t know who else to tell.
12th August
It’s been four days and none of my memories have returned as I’d hoped they would. But what is worse is that I have been unable to find anyone who can tell me who I am. There is no wedding ring on my finger and not a single photograph of anyone in my apartment. There is no address book, no telephone book, no letters from anyone. When I turned on the computer, all I found was spam mail; and there were no messages on my phone’s answer machine. My mobile appears to be brand new, for there aren’t even any numbers stored on it. Where is everyone? Where are my family, my friends? Where are my acquaintances? Where have they all gone? I mean, they can’t all be on holiday, can they? I felt a thrill of panic at the thought. What if there was some big family reunion or something going on in some distant country, and I had volunteered to stay behind to water the plants and feed the fish? There could be dozens of fish slowly starving to death because of me! What would my family say when they got home and found their pets floating dead in their tanks because I hadn’t taken care of them like I’d promised?
The thought filled me with panic, and it was this that finally overcame my fear of leaving the apartment. It took several abortive attempts, but I did at last manage to make it through the door. I seem to live in a fairly central, if somewhat rundown, area of the city; and after much searching I found a pet shop where I bought as much fish food as I could carry. Now I always have a box of fish food in my pocket so that the second I remember where my families’ homes are, I can go there to feed their fish straightaway. I can’t do any more than that, can I? I am sure my family will understand when they return.
When I got back to the apartment I realised that, in my preoccupation with the fish food, I had forgotten to buy any supplies for myself. Until then I had been eating the food I’d found in the freezer and in the cupboards but it would run out soon. So I forced myself to go back out into the city once again.
I realised, travelling around Budapest, that the city is familiar to me. The faded elegance of so many old buildings, with weathered statues on their roofs or crumbling balconies or grand, dilapidated pillars reaching right down to the ground. I must have lived here some time because I can speak Hungarian fluently.
It occurred to me yesterday that if I’ve been here a while, then my neighbours must know who I am. Again, I had to gather my courage to leave my apartment. I felt safe there and vulnerable outside it. But at last I managed to step out and knock on the door opposite mine, pleased to think that I would find someone here who would remember me.
After a few moments, a pregnant teenager opened the door. She had beautiful coffee-coloured skin and a series of delicate gold hoops in one ear. Black Celtic symbol tattoos adorned one of her upper arms and a silver nose stud pierced one nostril. Her hair was black and straight with irregular streaks of pink and electric blue. I waited for her to recognise me — I think I might have been grinning in anticipation — but after a few moments when I didn’t speak, she said in accented Hungarian, ‘Yes? Can I help you?’
Can I help you? Can I help you? I stared at her, taken aback, the grin faltering uncertainly. It had simply never occurred to me that she wouldn’t recognise me.
‘Er… I live over there,’ I said stupidly, pointing at my apartment door.
‘Oh, you’re the new tenant,’ she said. ‘You moved in last week, didn’t you?’
‘Er-’
‘I’m Casey March,’ she said, holding out her hand.
‘My name is Gabriel,’ I began, taking her hand, but then I faltered. Gabriel… Gabriel what? What was my last name? What was it? I tried to picture the words in that notebook. It had been some French sounding name. ‘Gabriel, er-’
‘Are you all right?’ Casey asked, and I saw her gaze move to the still-ugly bruise on my temple.
‘Yes, yes,’ I said quickly, dropping her hand and glancing over my shoulder at the beckoning safety of my apartment door. ‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m just… I just remembered there’s something… that I need to go and do… Right now. Sorry.’
And I dropped her hand and rushed back to the safety of my apartment, aware that she was still staring at me. I had not been expecting that at all. She should have known me! She should have been a friend of mine, living right next door. How dare she just be a… a stranger? What use was that? What use was that? To have lived here only a week! Of course, that is why I must have been putting up shelves. People do that sort of thing when they have just moved in, don’t they?
17th August
I don’t seem to sleep very much. No matter how late I go to bed, I wake up on the dot of six. And however little sleep I get, I never seem to become that tired. Nor do I ever have huge amounts of excess energy. I just function. It’s the same with food. I never feel hungry. This unnerved me a little. I mean, it’s not normal, is it? So I decided not to eat until I became hungry, just to make sure. But it was okay because after four days of nothing but water, I was feeling light-headed and sick all the time, so I know that I need food like everybody else. That pleased me. I am normal. I am normal after all.
19th August
I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that it will not do simply to wait for my family to return. After all, who knows how long that might take? I must find out about myself now. I hate to think that there might be something sinister in all of this, but… there was this distasteful episode that occurred yesterday. I was in a park, not far from where I live. The day was bright and sunny, and there were families having picnics and going for walks and playing games out there.
A fat boy scampered over towards the bench where I was sitting. He must have been about six or seven. The sticky remnants of old sweets and ice-creams covered his grubby t-shirt, and there was a horrible eager glee in his little eyes. At first I didn’t realise what he was doing as he pounced on something in the grass. But when he sat back triumphantly, I saw that he was gripping a large, beautiful butterfly in his plump hands. As I watched, the boy tore off the creatures’ wings and several of its legs.
The strangled yell of pure horror that escaped my lips startled me as much as it did the kid, who dropped the dying butterfly to thrash and curl on the grass in dreadful spasms of silent agony. I don’t know why the sight was so nauseating to me. After all, it was only a butterfly. But in one movement I stamped down on it as hard as I could, rounded on the brat and before I knew what I was doing, I had struck him hard across the face with the back of my hand, once, twice.
‘Look what you made me do!’ I hissed furiously, gesturing at the broken dead thing in the grass.
And as I stared at him, a savage desire rose up and rushed through me. The desire to hit him, to hurt him, to cause him to feel pain such as he had himself been happily inflicting only moments ago. He ought to know what it felt like. He was dribbling blood already from where his teeth had cut into his mouth, but it wasn’t enough for me. I
