‘Or perhaps you could call them, if you wouldn’t mind,’ I said to reassure her.
‘How good is your Hungarian?’ she asked.
‘I’m fluent.’
‘Then you’d better do it. I only really know enough to get by.’ She closed the door and I heard the chain being pulled back, then she swung the door open and held it back for me.
‘The phone’s just over there,’ she said as I walked in.
Her apartment was similar to my own in terms of layout and design, but smaller. There did not seem to be a lounge, but rather the kitchen was a little bigger with an old couch in the corner, letting the room serve as a living room as well. While my apartment was furnished with good quality and expensive furniture, in addition to the couch, hers only had a couple of cheap chairs round a table, and a threadbare rug lay on the damp floorboards. The phone stood on the kitchen worktop and as I crossed over to it, one of the doors leading off from the room opened and a boy stuck his head out. His eyes widened when he saw me and he turned to his sister uncertainly.
‘Casey-?’ he began.
His sister turned sharply to him. ‘Go back to bed, Toby! Everything’s fine. Mr Antaeus is just using the phone and then he’s leaving.’
‘I’m sorry about this,’ I said with an apologetic smile.
She smiled back at me uncertainly and took a cigarette from a packet on the worktop, watching me carefully as she lit it, before checking herself and putting the cigarette out with a regretful sigh. I dialled the number for the police and then reported the so-called mugging in the street. I altered the details, though — slurring my words, I told the police I thought I’d seen a man being mugged in the street outside by invisible goblins. The officer I was speaking to brusquely told me to lay off the bottle and go to bed and then he hung up.
As I spoke, I glanced surreptitiously at Casey. She was wearing a large, oversize nightshirt and was leaning against the kitchen worktop, fiddling with the cigarette box, still watching me closely. She seemed quite unharmed. Seeing her in such a way relaxed me and helped chase away the clinging shreds of my nightmare. I wanted to ask her if she had anyone to help her or whether she was alone here. I wanted to ask if she had made arrangements for when the baby came and what was going to happen to her brother while she was in hospital. I wanted to tell her not to go out into the city late at night. I wanted to ask her if there was anything I could do. I wanted to plead with her… beg her to let me help her. But I had to be careful. In a world such as this, she would be a fool not to suspect ulterior motives from such a stranger. And the last thing I wanted to do was frighten her. The world doesn’t make it easy to be kind.
‘Thanks,’ I said, turning from the phone once I’d replaced the receiver in its cradle.
She nodded again and I could tell that she felt vulnerable now, that she was probably regretting ever letting me in and that perhaps she now feared that she wouldn’t be able to get me out. So I abandoned any half-formed plans of staying and talking to her for a while, deciding that the best thing would be to leave at once, having been allowed to use her phone as I had asked.
‘Again, I’m sorry to have disturbed you so late. Thanks for your help.’
She smiled then, in relief I suppose, as she saw that I really was leaving. ‘Goodnight, Mr Antaeus,’ she said, accompanying me to the door.
‘It’s Gabriel,’ I said, stepping out into the corridor. ‘Good night, Casey.’
I want to get closer to God. I feel safe inside churches and other holy buildings. I couldn’t sleep after checking on Casey. I was too scared that the nightmare might return. So I took my coat and stepped out into the cool night air. It was about three o’clock in the morning and dew sparkled on cobbles and mist hung about the streets in ribbons, as if the city had been decorated by phantom hands during the night in preparation for some ghostly wake. As the metro and tram lines would not be open for almost two hours yet, I had to call an all-night taxi service and order a taxi to pick me up outside the apartment block.
The driver had most likely been expecting to take me to the airport, and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by asking otherwise. So I explained that I was going on holiday with some friends and was meeting them at their house where we would then be driving to the airport together in my friends’ car. I directed the driver to a street near Margaret’s Island, paid him and then watched him drive out of sight before turning and striding off in the direction of Margaret Bridge.
I paused when I reached it, looking down at the angelic sculptures that adorned its columns, painted silver by the moonlight. They were old, these angels — created by the great artist Adolphe Thabart during the nineteenth century. I wished I could get close enough to touch them — close enough to trace one of those great, feathered wings with my fingers. I was suddenly painfully aware of this powerful yearning to be near angels, near Heaven, near God.
I trudged slowly across the quiet, moonlit island, feeling miserable and alone, missing my family even though I’d never known them. I thought of Margaret herself, condemned to this place for her short, cheerless life. Then I thought of Wladyslaw Szpilman hiding in his attic on the outskirts of Warsaw, desperately lonely while at the same time knowing that if any people did come his way his very life would depend on hiding from them. In his memoirs, he compared his existence to that of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and pointed out that Crusoe at least had the cherished, precious hope of coming into contact with another human being. A hope that kept him going day after day. Whereas Szpilman, hiding in his tiny attic and longing for human contact, knew he would have to stay hidden from any passers-by if he were to live. There was not even that miniscule drop of hope in the sea of utter loneliness in which he found himself drowning.
The island was beautifully quiet at night. I could even hear the faint sloshing of the Danube as it lapped against the banks. The smell of lush, living greenery filled the air with its healthy scent as I walked on in the semi- darkness. I was halfway across the island before I noticed the flames. They rose far above the treetops, a huge cloud of smoke billowing out over everything. I couldn’t understand how I could have been unaware of it for so long as the flames seemed to light up the whole island and the smell of ash was strong even from here.
I started to run, crashing through the trees — the cold, empty eyes of stone busts telling me exactly where I was, and which building was on fire. By the time I stumbled out into the clearing, Michael’s church was engulfed in spitting fire, smoke pouring out from gaps in the pointed roof. The heat was sending up fierce convection currents that rocked the bell in its tower, making it ring out in agonised peals.
I skidded to a halt before the church, staring at the old building in horror as flames leaped and roared against the still darkened sky. With the noise the old bell was making, it would surely not be long before other people arrived on the scene — after all, the island’s hotel was only a few minutes away.
Then I realised that I’d better leave — and quickly. I didn’t want to be found alone here with a blazing church. I would be jailed for arson within seconds. Even as I thought how lucky it was that this should have happened at night when there were no people inside, the wooden front doors burst open in a shower of sparks and two men tumbled out, falling in the dust on the ground. My mouth dropped open in pure horror as I realised that one of the unfortunate men was on fire! I hunted round manically, looking for something with which to put him out. I couldn’t see anything so I stripped off my jacket, hoping it would be enough, and started to run towards the two men. And then stopped short in astonishment. One of the men was still hunched over stiffly on his knees, but the other had risen to his feet. The man on fire was simply standing there, silently, gazing at his opponent. There were no screams of agony; he was not writhing on the ground as surely he should have been with those flames caressing his skin.
And then I realised that I recognised him, although up until now I had only seen him in dreams. I had seen him in a dream less than two hours ago, looking on while I killed the newborn devil in the bell tower of the Basilica. He looked just the same now — enveloped in flames yet seemingly unaware of it, his blue eyes burning with a fierce light of their own.
He was holding a long, bejewelled sword in one hand and as I watched he approached the other man, still huddled on his knees on the ground, head bent. And then the burning man started to raise the sword over his head and I ran forward unthinkingly with a yell of horror. He looked up in alarm as he heard me and I saw his eyes narrow angrily. I reached out, grasped the kneeling man by the shoulder and yanked him back, ignoring his cry of pain. And then darkness fell like a cloak and I blinked in surprise as orange flashes winked before my eyes. The fire was gone, as if snuffed out like a candle, and the suddenness of the darkness left flaming imprints on my eyeballs. Amazed, I reached out a hand and brushed the wall of the church. It was cold to my touch. There was not even the slightest hint of warmth. It was as if the building had never been alight at all.
As my eyes adjusted to the watery light, I turned my attention to the man beside me and sucked in my
