RESTLESS APOLLO:
a novel

PART ONE: BUDAPEST

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1.

 

My mother was killed by a shooting star. And no, I’m not being poetic. She was traveling on an access road two hundred miles west of Tehran, about the same time villagers in Qazvin Province heard a massive explosion that was likened to rocket fire. Just minutes before, a British news agency captured the image of a white light streaking across fast-darkening sky. The trail of steely braided clouds left behind was still visible at sunrise. 

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By noon, any initial speculation of rebel insurgence was squashed by a flood of reports from the international scientific community. I received a call to the house later that same day from a representative of Foreign Services and Affairs. He had a whole lead-up about the absence of a physical embassy following the hostage crisis of ’79, and something-something about the extended consular function of Switzerland empowered by the State Department—I honestly had no idea what the guy was talking about. Finally he said, in a measured and almost matter-of-fact way, that my mother had been the casualty of a meteor shower. 

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Clearly stunned, I thought he was telling me an actual rock fragment had struck her vehicle, or landed in its path. Turns out, even a meteor the size of a building vaporized instantly upon hitting Earth’s atmosphere. Typically, only pebble-sized pieces were deposited on the ground, if anything at all. The real danger lay in the wind rush. There was a slight delay following the boom, before a massive column of air reached the ground with hurricane force. 

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From what we were told, the blast most likely shattered the windshield, causing her driver to swerve off the road, flipping the vehicle, which resulted in a petrol-fueled inferno. There were no identifiable remains from the crash—just the twisted metal frame of the truck. We were merely sent her belongings, collected from a hotel room, in a global priority box with no note.

 

My mother’s name was Zariya, Arabic for “scattering wind” in a dark nod to foreshadowing. She held a PhD in Near Eastern art and another in cryptology, meaning, I never got away with anything as a kid, constantly eyeballed by an Ivy-accredited solver of puzzles. When I got served underage on Third Ave, she knew about it; when I lost my virginity at fourteen, she knew about it; when I messaged my idiot friends, inviting them to a house party while she was out of town, she promptly responded, “Attending +1”. Looking back, my mother didn’t care about the parties or the girls or the ditching school—she wanted to impress upon me the accessibility of information. She taught me to encrypt all of my communications, which probably spurred my interest in hacking, landing me in a fuck-ton of trouble later.

           

 She had a passion for antiquities, but appreciated all types of art. Not that she could paint a lick, despite trying every couple of years. By the age of nine, I was trained to defend a Jackson Pollock that hung in the entryway of our building on Central Park West. Yes, I grew up with money—I wasn’t proud of that. And it irritated me when people were impressed by it. 

She stayed around more after my father died. Oh, did I not mention I was part of the double dead parents club? For a time, anyway, my mother stopped accepting assignments in the Mid East. That changed when she remarried. Despite a few years between my father’s brief stay in hospice and that sensible off-white ceremony, it still seemed pretty fucking quick to me. But for whatever reason more cryptic than any cipher she could crack, my mother married that man. The Maestro. Every time I said those two words, I foamed at the mouth a little with disdain. But that was how everyone addressed him, and I was thankful never to be coerced into calling him something more, especially anything remotely paternal.

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At one time or another, you probably walked right through a spider’s web on accident. Maybe it was strung across a doorframe on an overcast day—no light glimmering on delicate strings as fair warning. Almost immediately, you felt the invisible sticky icky, the flinch inducing brush of it against skin, maybe along your face or tangled in your hair. And even though you vigorously pulled it from your flesh, there was that irksome feeling you’d missed a strand. You still felt it. And then there was the spider, never far away but eerily hidden from view, undoubtedly furious you’d just annihilated his carefully woven death trap. That spider was the Maestro, and that repulsive, lingering tickle of silk, was me. 

 

He never wanted to be a father—that much was clear. The evening two dipshits from FBI Cyber Crimes knocked on the door only created more distance between us, after which, I started referring to him exclusively as my guardian, basically the man who organized my finances until age twenty-five, when I would apparently come into some unknown but substantial sum. Also, I was supposed to complete four years of college before that happened—terms of my mother’s will. A couple hundred grand already went to her favorite charity, a home for children in Cyprus or somewhere. She’d made a lot of connections on her various archaeological adventures over the years, which my second cousin noted was a testament to her character and kindness, in the eulogy.

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To be clear, I was a staunch white hat hacker; I never did anything for personal gain. Sure, I changed a few grades that last year at Regis, but never my own. Mine were always passable though I could have done a lot better if I’d given a shit. Then one day I came across people buying and selling meteorites on eBay. I found that pretty distasteful, as anyone might have guessed, given my circumstances. Anyway, the Maestro did some negotiating with the feds on my behalf, invoking pity—a mother suddenly taken, et cetera—and in return, I did my best to remove all the sellers from the child predator lists I had put them on. 

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Then, there was the Olympics. The meteor shower that struck northern Iran was most likely from the asteroid group that hit Chelyabinsk, Russia, the same year. Similar deal—shattered windows, lots of damage. Hundreds of people were injured. What in the fuck were the Russians thinking, incorporating bits of meteorite into gold medals? Would New York have melted down steel from the Towers if we had won the Olympic bid? Bad form, very bad form. Anyway, I took down the official website of the Sochi Games for thirty-six hours. The fuckers. No one was ever able to prove anything.

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I honestly didn’t know if I would like Budapest. I had no idea what Prague was like ten years ago, but that’s what everyone kept comparing it to. Hungary wasn’t even on the Euro. I didn’t realize that when my taxi landed here from the airport; my eyes bugged out of my head when I glanced up at the meter. I thought, I should’ve just taken a fucking helicopter downtown. But the driver was honest, and after doing a rough mental conversion, he returned my wad of Euro, taking only a few notes. I liked him even before that. He chain smoked like a motherfucker and tried to make conversation though his English was about as good as my Hungarian. And the language was goddamn difficult, to say the least. Nothing rolled off the tongue and for the life of me, I could still hardly say thank youand where’s the toilet.

Somehow, I was more aware of breathing here, too, especially in this drafty white-walled flat. It was so damn cold inside, my breath was always visible leaving my mouth—a mouth, which a speech therapist once diagnosed as having undergone “a trauma during birth”, causing the left corner to rise slightly before the right when I smiled—a momentary smirk before any expression of approval, which made me seem a lot more sarcastic and a lot less fucking vulnerable than I really was.

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Despite the frigid interior, my apartment was bigger than any in Manhattan for triple the rent. The Maestro arranged everything, of course, sure to put me on the opposite side of town. He needed space to concentrate, conducting Marriage of Figarofor only the fiftieth fucking time. No doubt, he was shacking up with some twenty-nothing, barely older than me. He had a weakness for females, which he generally stifled in my presence, knowing it wasn’t exactly the most flattering tribute to my mother. Why these girls fell for an old guy with heinous cultural pretensions, I’d never understand. Why women did anything was a fucking enigma to me.

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The apartment came barely furnished, Eastern Bloc-sterile in a city that was otherwise surprisingly stylish and modern. The crown moldings needed to be repainted. Wooden side tables with skinny giraffe-like legs were less than sturdy. I was sliding around the room in double socks across peaks and valleys in warped parquet floors. The Maestro must’ve scored a good deal on the rent; the landlady also ran the violin shop downstairs, and he’d commissioned her to repair something or other I was obliged to deliver to the opera house. But that wasn’t the reason I came here—to run errands for that ass-clown. I was supposed to be applying to art history programs on the continent, where conditions were slightly better for slightly-brown people, and the Maestro had some pull. He could secure a spot for me at nearly any university—at least, that’s what he’d slur after a few Scotches—despite my dropping out of NYU third semester, pretty much drinking myself stupid at Josie Woods Pub most nights and haxing till sunrise, hardly ever showing for an 8:55 AM writing workshop.

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Locals kept calling me Adley or Ailey or some fucking thing, anything but my real name, which was Arley. Like the motorcycle brand without the “H”. I’d been introducing myself that way since overhearing my dad say it when I was a kid. I don’t think people here got the reference. But in my world, that was actually a positive—having a name nobody remembered.  

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2.

 

The latchkey for the door weighed heavy in my pocket and felt cold against my leg right where a hole was. It looked like security hadn’t been updated since Franz Liszt was a resident. I was in the habit of locking up behind myself, five laptops constantly sprawled out on the unmade bed and lumpy sofa. I’d never been a chair and desk kind of guy, and my posture was shitty for it.

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The hallway was stark and echo-y. A few of the floor tiles were chipped like the ruins of a Roman bathhouse. Slender vases stood opposite one another on tall stands, nothing inside them. It had definitely been years since anyone cared about such trifles.

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I pressed the button to call the clunky ancient lift. Almost immediately, I heard the motor engaging a few floors below. There was a wide staircase right beside me but I was too lazy to take the stairs, citing jetlag. Besides, they were warped, anyhow. Each marble step dipped toward the center, I assumed, worn down by former residents fleeing some Soviet era interrogation. Zoning out to the hum of the lift, a scamper from behind caused me to flinch. Back in New York, that kind of random pit-pat across the floor usually indicated rodent infestation. And every neighborhood had the nasty critters, even the nice ones—believe me. In my old building, one stern call to the Super and he’d promptly send over a migration specialist. ‘Cause they couldn’t rid the whole building of mice, not really. So, some poor schmuck would come over and steel wool the fuck out of the crevasses between the wall and the floorboards, hoping to at least keep the vermin out of your unit. What a joke. Anyway, I was relieved to find only a dog, a puppy even. He was a rusty brown color with big white spots, awkwardly placed. He was also in need of a haircut, but cuter for not having had one. Was it a he? A quick glance from behind at dangling bits confirmed it. This dog wasn’t exactly the kind you’d find on a pet food bag, and that made me like him all the more.

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I bent down, still holding my falafel sandwich. I’d been getting one every day from the same kebab shop on Váci utca.Utca meant street, which I only just figured out. I wasn’t overly adventurous in finding food, though the Maestro recommended at least three times that I try some traditional goulash and a dish called chicken paprikash. Of course, he was at least thirty pounds overweight, unlike this little guy, who was awfully frail. The dog’s ribs were showing through a matted shaggy undercarriage. He also had a big scar between his shoulder blades—big for such a small pup. I wondered if he had been abused. No collar, either. 

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“You want some of this?” I said, talking out loud to a Hungarian dog in English like a total twat-bat.

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I broke off a small piece without much tahini and held it out, causing him to shrink-away. I didn’t blame him for being suspicious of me. Even I was suspicious of me. I finally put it down in front of him and stepped back a few paces. He hesitated but eventually came over to sniff it, then lopped it up. You’re really hungry, I thought, right as the lift arrived. I just left the whole damn thing, pita and all, on the floor. I pulled open the sharp metal gate, which cut into my hand, leaving a mark. He was chowing down as I slowly sank away.

 

I exited the lobby and stepped out onto the sidewalk, which immediately had that Euro feel: too many digits on the license plates of itty-bitty cars, unknown accents on signage, Old World sirens, and a different quality to the air I could never explain—just a non-tangible. I inadvertently held the door open for a bald head attached to a man wrapped tightly in a black trench. He kind of looked like a broken condom. I couldn’t think of the word for helloquickly enough, so nothing was said at all. 

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The violin shop on the ground floor had a separate entrance from the street. The gate was pulled down halfway, but I knew I could get in. I’d seen people coming and going pretty late, far beyond the hours posted, written by hand in a swirly script. As I ducked under the gate, I pushed open the door, which hit a little bell on the doorframe, announcing my entrance. Begrudgingly, the Maestro was an observant fuck. At a Met fundraiser, I once heard him say, “Eastern Europe must have been scored by Wagner, because musical motifs follow you everywhere.” That shrill disconcerting ring, apparently, was mine.

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There were all manner of string instruments in the window, in various stages of construction. In a strange way, the place reminded me of a typewriter shop on Hudson Street that closed down a couple years ago. The owner told me Woody Allen still wrote all his scripts on a typewriter, and was a good customer. 

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The temperature was no warmer in here than it was upstairs. I saw Gizi in the back as soon as I walked inside, sitting at one of two workstations under a harsh yellow light. She was wearing jeweler’s glasses with the big magnifier over one eye. It looked like she was leveling a wood frame with a hand plane. 

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Our interaction was minimal the day I arrived. I found her in the shop, exactly as her terse e-mail had instructed. She gave me the keys without asking for any identification, and didn’t bother to take me up to the apartment. I forgave her, thinking she may not be entirely mobile. She was a large woman and that was putting it politely. She wore several dowdy layers of clothing, lots of flowy plums and pinks, gypsy-like, which might have been politically incorrect to say in Hungary, since some nationals identified that way.

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She finally glanced up, squinting with the obstructed eye, which further distorted her overly round face. “You’re here for the Strainer?”

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“The violin,” I replied, hoping that was what she was referring to. “I’m Arley, from upstairs.”

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“Austrian, 17thCentury with replacement parts.”

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“Yes,” I said back, like I knew any of the details. “I was asked to check on it.”

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“For the Maestro?” she sputtered, both of us knowing exactly for whom. I said nothing more, just stared back without blinking, waiting to hear the status of the order.

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“Two days. No, maybe late tomorrow. Check back then.”

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“Okay,” I said, followed by an audible huff like the last pocket of air escaping a busted tire. 

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Gizi’s English was imperfect but polished, unlike what I’d encountered so far around Pest. Two days earlier, I trolled the net for a place to get my hair cut, which was a lot easier to find in the cyber world than in the real one. I had to stop and ask for directions twice. The second time, to a guy in an alley facing away, tying a garbage bag or something. He turned his head just as I realized he was jacking off. Times like that really affirmed my GPS preference over human interaction. I finally stumbled upon the salon with a different name in a sort of courtyard. The receptionist had to translate everything I said to the tatted woman cutting my hair like it was some goddamn United Nations maneuver, which made me feel like a tool.

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I couldn’t get that violin to the Maestro fast enough. If for no other reason, to stop the battery of calls where I was inevitably made to feel like a total slack-off. Just when I thought I’d escaped the inquisition, he’d ask about my applications. The fucking applications. I had started two online, twice, but hadn’t been especially motivated to finish either one. 

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I sidestepped back down the narrow aisle of the shop on my way to the door, past a brass apothecary scale and a really old viola. I knew a little bit about a lot of things, but not a lot about anything in particular. Except, maybe, coding. Even still, in the hacking world, I was just a bratty little script kiddie. I didn’t want to be in the same league as some of those messianic geeks, anyway. Those guys were outta their fucking trees. I wasn’t all that political—I just liked free Wi-Fi and to score a fucking aisle seat on British Airways without Executive Club status. I opened the door of the shop but didn’t notice the bell on my way out. I was preoccupied by snowflakes—large and feathery and likely to stick. Winter in Budapest.  

 

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3.

 

I felt a blast of icy pinpricks on the brisk dash out one door and into the next. Shedding the dull surface chill, I called for the lift—it wasn’t on the ground floor where I’d left it. I could hear voices above, bouncing around the stairwell, eventually making their way down like acoustic ping-pong. 

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It took me a minute to realize the elevator had arrived, my thoughts scattered all over the lobby. I pulled my shirtsleeve over my palm with numb fingers, and slid open the metal gate. Up I went, feet firmly planted, but still rattling inside the jankety old cage. Soon, the muffled voices became more distinct and I could tell they were angry. City living was the same everywhere. You heard too much and saw too much, and were occasionally forced to deal with it. You knew which neighbors fucked a lot, which ones never did, who smoked pot, who burnt half their meals, and if you had pervs in the building based on twisted Wi-Fi network names.

 

The outer doors opened on the fourth floor revealing a scene made more surreal framed through the bars. Inside the apartment next to mine, its door flung open, I saw a woman on the floor, her face obscured by long black curls. A man hustled past me and flew down the stairs. She yelled after him, “I don’t have it, but I can get it back,” or something like that. I found it odd they were speaking English. Her accent was Middle Eastern—vowels all up front in the mouth. He was a local, not so large but larger than her. In an instant, it was over, and that fog of what-the-fuck still hadn’t lifted as her eyes inevitably drifted toward mine. She was apparently my neighbor, who I’d never seen before. Her clothes were scant and rumpled. Didn’t seem like she was expecting company. 

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Her back was propped up against the wall, as if she had just slid down it—or, was knocked down. She was grabbing the left side of her head, just above the ear. I figured she got hit there. The woman was in her early thirties, no make-up. I could hear her breathing, which had gone shallow and irregular. As her head rocked to the side, exasperated, I saw her features more clearly, sweaty knotted strands falling away from her face. She looked Syrian or Lebanese, with oversized eyes and a small but strong nose.

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It dawned on me later that the guy who ran down the steps was the same guy I had let in just ten minutes before, the one with the bald head—and a mustache, I noticed this time around. Probably a pimp. Prostitution was legal in Budapest, supposedly in designated parts of the city, but you didn’t have to sniff around too hard. Yes, I looked it up.

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“Are you okay?” I said to her, unable to ignore the disturbing scene, laid out like a Walter Sickert painting.

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“…Yes.” She raised her right arm just enough to push the door shut, barely able to muster the energy to do that. I didn’t see any wounds on her body outright, but those kinds of things tended to manifest later. The “I don’t think I got hit” that turned into a mother of a shiner and a fat lip in three hours. I thought about knocking. I thought about it for a good five minutes. I even went up to the door and listened a little. Did she need a doctor or the authorities or an ACE bandage? Eventually, I just went back into my apartment and shut the door hard, so she’d know I was in there.

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About ten minutes went by without a peep. Then, a familiar EDM track played from the other side of the wall. I didn’t know too many people over the age of twenty-five who listened to electronic music. It wasn’t too loud at first but at one point, she cranked it way up. It gave me energy so I opened up a couple tabs on my least favorite laptop, the one with the applications on it. Kunsthochschule’s was fully in German; I wasn’t procrastinating so much as waiting for a German hacker friend to clarify some of the questions. Google translator only got me so far. The other one was for Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, because why not? I spent some ambiguous amount of time staring at blank fields and forming opening essay sentences in my head. I didn’t type out a single one.

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The light outside was fading beyond the peaks of grim fairytale rooftops. And out of laziness or heightened intuition or both, I didn’t bother to turn on the overhead. Blue hues spewing from my laptop transformed the room into a chilly tungsten world. I hadn’t noticed it—maybe the unit next door was vacant when I first arrived—but there was a door that must have originally connected this apartment to hers, now permanently sealed and poorly plastered over. I could see the outline of the old doorframe, which on superficial inspection, could easily be mistaken for the architecture of the room. A strip of light leaked through the space between the floor and the wall, where the door once opened. She was still up.

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My mind wandered down dimly lit cerebral corridors, hardly focusing on any application. With the music stopped, I could hear some shuffling around in there—the leg of a chair catching on the floor, emitting a baritone squeak. I heard muffled laughing, which turned out to be crying. Seemed as though she was directly opposite the wall. I closed my laptop and silently glided across the floorboards. I raised my hand out knowing she couldn’t see it, digits spread and limp, eventually resting my fingertips on the uneven paint job. I hated to hear anyone cry. The sound of my mother crying was the worst of all. Luckily, she was tough as bedrock and it rarely happened. Maybe that’s why I found it so disturbing; the times she did, tears were warranted.

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The woman on the other side of the wall continued murmuring softly—it never evolved to any kind of sobbing or anything. I got a cramp in my right leg and shifted, what happens when you live on a diet of falafel and Soproni beer for five days. The floor beneath me creaked. She must have known I was listening. Finally, I managed the courage to ask again, with enough volume that I’d never have to second guess whether she heard me or not, “Are you okay?”

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The crying came to a halt and after a long moment, I finally heard, plainly, “Thank you.” She didn’t make another sound after that, or at least, I didn’t hear anything. The jetlag was real, because I passed out sitting there, on the opposite side of the wall from a complete stranger.