410: Led by Alaric I, Visigoth armies enter Rome through the Salarian Gate and sack the former capital of the Empire, plundering its riches, slaughtering its inhabitants, …

1440: Gilles de Rais, Marshal of France and former cohort of Joan of Arc, is executed for crimes that include the rape, torture, and murder of hundreds of young boys, sacrificed, it is claimed, to a mysterious demon called “Barron” in an attempt to recoup his squandered fortune. It is said that de Rais would decapitate the boys and place their heads on stakes lined up in rows, and that, upon determining which one was fairest, would masturbate in their faces, amongst other things…

1983: Peter Murphy is breakfasting alone al fresco on an exceedingly pleasant spring morning on the Prinsenstraat in Amsterdam. He is enjoying a repast of smoked fish, sour cream, potatoes, and strong, black coffee. The whirring and clacking of so many passing bicycles, combined with the smell of incense and animal droppings and that singular, peculiar northern light transport Peter to another place and time entirely. A tableau vivant of tulips, black cloaks, and moneylenders, of Rembrandt, Spinoza, and anatomy lessons passes before his mind’s eye. He reflects for a moment on that tragic, Portuguese Jew, the author of The Ethics. Such a work would be inconceivable to write in Sheffield, Glasgow, London—only in Amsterdam, he thinks, in the 17th century or today.

He spots a shaggy dog in the corner, flat on its back, rhythmically licking its bollocks, nibbling its bits, and he thinks to himself God is in everything and in everything, God. That dog, those bollocks, myself, this fork, David J, the sun and the moon and the statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square, all are comprised of, and comprise, one uniform, unbroken whole. I am Spinoza, he thinks, and he was, is, and forever will be me. In God, eternally yours, Peter Murphy…

He leaves a tip and takes a stroll, puffing on a Galoises to assist in the digestion process. He passes by a familiar hash bar, familiar in that it was where, four years earlier, he’d spent an infuriating afternoon with Ian Curtis, the late Joy Division singer, both the first and the last time the two would ever meet.

From the outset, it had seemed that Ian was entirely unclear on the concept. That one could not only purchase cannabis, but smoke and enjoy it in plain view, unabashedly and without fear of retribution from the authorities, was completely foreign to him. He insisted on whispering once they entered the establishment, even going so far as to hold a folded, dog-eared copy of that days Temps du monde against his cheek when he spoke, as though some vengeful god might be reading his lips that very moment.

Ian kept asking Peter when ‘he’ would show up and Peter insisted he didn’t know who this ‘he’ was. Ian asked if there was to be some signal, some password or secret knock, and if there was could Peter perform it, because Ian wasn’t feeling so hot at the moment and feared he’d botch the whole transaction.

Peter had procured them a couple of joints and found Ian crouched on the ground, whispering something about meeting in the restroom in exactly one minute. Ian grabbed the joints and scurried towards the back, low to the ground like an ape. Peter, amused by all of this, played along, gamely pretending to keep watch, peeking around corners, looking under tables, even flipping over couch cushions. It was great fun.

Finally, Peter walked over to the bathroom, called out Ian’s name, and as he walked in, heard the sound of a toilet flushing. By the time Peter found him, Ian had flushed all of the drugs down the toilet. Contrite, he sobbed. “The secret knock,” he mumbled, “that wasn’t the secret knock.”
Peter Murphy rents a bicycle on Ferdinand Bolstraat and rides half an hour into the center of town. He rolls a joint and sits down on the edge of one of the canals, smoking and thinking of his dead friend. He senses an odd symmetry—not “fearful”, like Blake’s, but comforting—in the events of this day and all the others in his life. He reflects on the character of God—the God which is in everything and everything in it, of harmony and eternal return, that ubiquitous sphere whose circumference is infinite and whose center is everywhere: in the sun, in our bones, in Ian Curtis, and in the delicate tendrils of smoke circling in the air above one particular canal in old Amsterdam…