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 and 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
