But ultimately Faust did succumb to the wiles of Mephistopheles and, as the demon had predicted, the scholar ended his life with blood on his hands.
There appears to be a broad consensus that Faust never wanted or imagined the horrors that came to befall him and those he cared about; that he did not instigate these disasters, and that they would never have occurred at all without the sly manipulation so cleverly exercised by Mephistopheles as the demon posed as the man’s friend.
After reading of Mephistopheles and his corruption and seduction of Faust, I was so repulsed that I was going to put the book aside and get out of the apartment, which suddenly seemed heavy with claustrophobia. But then a name caught my eye. It was my own, the name of the archangel Gabriel; and just seeing it on the page, surrounded by the names of devils, demons and Princes of Hell, made me feel nervous and uncomfortable.
As I read I remembered that there was a subclass of fallen angels known as the Watchers, who were sent to Earth to supervise the development of the human race but tried to give mankind secrets for which they were not yet ready. And then, worst of all, the Watchers fell in love with the daughters of men and procreated with them. A race of giants was produced that drained the Earth of its resources and cast a blight of famine and misery over the land. So God decided to destroy his creation by sending a great flood and starting anew..
But there is something wrong with this, isn’t there? I mean, the people were praying to God because they were hungry, because they were starving… and he answered their prayers by drowning them all. I am sure that this cannot have been the help everyone had in mind when they kneeled down to pray… I’m sure our ancestors must have got this story very wrong indeed…
Angels were sent to round up the Watchers and imprison them in the Third Circle of Hell, where they were told of God’s plan to obliterate all that they had helped create on Earth — but not until they had been forced to watch their children destroy each other. Gabriel was instructed to incite war between the giants so that they might all die vicious deaths at one another’s hands, before the great flood swept through the land destroying all else. The Watchers appealed to God for mercy on behalf of their children and themselves, but their pleas were coldly rejected, and Gabriel did as he’d been told and stirred up such venomous savagery in the giants that they tore each other apart in a brief and bloody war. And now the Watchers hate Gabriel for what he did. But, of course, I don’t believe a word of this — angels do not have sex with humans. And even if it did happen, there must have been a damn good reason for God’s furious response. He’s not evil — He wouldn’t kill people over love affairs. But the book frightens me, even if it is a pack of lies, so I have hidden it away under the floorboards with the money. I am going to pretend that it is not there. That I never even saw it.
To reassure myself, I opened one of my other old books about archangels — one that portrayed them in a much more accurate light — describing their goodness and compassion and mercy to all of mankind, and their desire to save as many souls as they could. It was then that I made two discoveries. Like all my other books, this one was heavily annotated with highlighting, underlining, and the occasional note pencilled in the margin in my own slanting handwriting. Two angels in particular were covered in pencil marks. One, naturally, was Gabriel. Written in the margin in tiny script were the words: ‘Heroes’ Square, Budapest — Gabriel’s Millennium Monument.’ I’ve never been to Heroes’ Square but I intend to go there tomorrow to see the monument for myself.
The second discovery I made was in the form of the second most heavily annotated archangel — Zadkiel, angel of memory, mercy and benevolence, and one of the two standard bearers who closely follows Michael into battle. I felt a horrible ache as I realised that here was a fourth thing I shared with Zadkiel Stephomi — we both shared names with angels. And we were both somehow linked to Michael, greatest of the archangels and God’s most trusted servant. It had been his church beside which we had met that day. I think I must have some kind of special connection with angels. My name is Gabriel. Everyone knows that that is an angelic name. I saved a woman who stupidly ran off into a back street alley at night… Oh, yes, and I’ve also saved children’s pets that would otherwise have killed each other. In some ways, I am like an angel. I save people. I rescue them. I am here
… to help people.
16th September
God is with me. Truly He must favour me, for once again angels have led me to the most extraordinary good fortune. It’s very late but I’m not tired at all. I was reacquainted with Zadkiel Stephomi today. What are the chances? Really, what are the odds of chance meetings happening twice like that?
I wrote before of my intention to visit Heroes’ Square and the Millennium Monument, with which Gabriel had been linked in my own notes in the margin of one of my books. When I got up this morning, the weather was so miserable outside that I was tempted not to go out at all. The sky was choked with heavy, forbidding storm clouds, and rain was rocketing into the windows, shaking them in their frames as a vicious chill crept in through the floorboards and the cracks in the doors. I thought about turning the heating up and crawling back under the covers of my bed, since I had no responsibilities to co-workers, employers, friends or relatives to draw me from my dry apartment into the thundering gale outside.
But the silence of this shabby, grotty little hovel depresses me. So I took the metro to Heroes’ Square, huddled in the small carriages with other wet, disgruntled passengers who pushed and shoved at each other. Despite the rain, I longed to get out of the station with its damp, fetid smell of old rainwater and rotting leaves that had been blown in by the wind. But at the foot of the steps leading outside, I hesitated, realising for the first time that I hadn’t brought an umbrella with me.
I briefly considered turning back to my apartment. But the book of demons from the night before was still unsettling me. Especially what it said Gabriel had done… Not that I believed it for a moment, of course. But I still couldn’t throw off the vaguely worrying feeling that had descended on me since the night before. If I could only see Gabriel in association with something good, I felt that these fears would be allayed. The Millennium Celebrations of 1896 opened in Heroes’ Square and marked a high point in the development of Budapest. I wanted to see Gabriel associated with such a time of progress and hope, in order to dispel the bitter taste in my mouth that had been there since reading the book.
So I trudged up the stairs and out into the rain, not sure how far I’d have to go before I came across the Square. But as soon as I got to the top of the steps, I stopped and stared. Hosok Tere Metro Station is only just across the road from Heroes’ Square, and I could see even from there what an incredible sight the Millennium Monument was. I crossed the road, dodging cars to reach it. The place was deserted — not surprising as the rain had reached torrential levels, and water was inches deep in some places on the stone pavestones, reaching up to my ankles and soaking straight through my shoes and socks. Thunder rumbled dully in the distance as I walked closer to the monument. And as I stood there staring up at it, with icy rain running down my neck and dripping from my hair and the ends of my fingers, I was immensely grateful that I had, after all, ventured from my apartment on this foul-weathered day.
The monument consisted of a towering central column, with two colonnades curving round behind it. I hardly noticed War and Peace in their huge stone chariots, or the Hungarian heroes, leaders, statesmen and monarchs stood within the colonnades beneath, for the crowning glory of it all was the grand 120-feet-high Corinthian column at the centre, upon which Gabriel stood holding St Istvan’s crown in one hand and the apostolic cross in the other, great feathered wings spread behind him. I could feel all my unease and bad feeling from the night before melting away, to be replaced with this calm, deeply spiritual peace, even as rain cascaded down to the ground around me and storm clouds gathered in the sky overhead. It was almost as if the angel was talking to me. He knew that I was there, somehow; I was sure of it. He recognised me even if no one else did.
Water ran down my neck, soaking my shirt beneath my coat as I gazed up at the stone angel, surrounded by statues of Hungarian heroes instead of devils; presiding over an era of progress and advancement rather than bloody, violent war. It was so big; somehow I hadn’t been expecting the monument to tower over me like that. Gabriel himself must have been visible for miles around. Rain dripped from the great hooves and rolling eyes of the huge stone horses at the base of the column and the heroes all gazed down at me with expressions of grim nobility and an almost pained pride…
‘Happy looking bunch, aren’t they?’ a familiar voice remarked behind me, somehow clearly audible over the roar of the approaching storm. ‘It’s a serious business, heroism.’
I turned round sharply, wrenching my neck painfully, to face the man standing mere paces behind me; and
