Escape From Hell (15 page)

“How did he get out?”

“He jumped. It was terrible. He was burned everywhere, and I had to pull him from the flames. But he healed. He healed rapidly, so rapidly that had I not already been convinced of where I was, I certainly believed after that.”

“Did he escape?” I asked.

Adams shrugged. “He healed. Like me he had read Dante, and understood the direction he had to go. He left chanting a Gloria in Latin, and I never saw him again.” He gestured widely. We could see an enormous field of tombs, with the Great Mausoleum in the distance. Above us were the walls of Dis, and far downward the air was too filthy to see through. “Of course I might not see him again in any case.”

“He left his place,” Bruno shouted. “He has found a worse place of punishment. He endured this —” Bruno moved to the edge of the sepulcher. Flames leaped and snarled. For a moment I thought he would come through them, but he fell back. “He endured all that for nothing. He disobeyed, and he will find a worse place of punishment.”

“What could be worse than to be sealed in that sepulcher forever?” Adams demanded. “Forever! It makes no more sense than slavery did. God cannot demand that! It cannot be reason!”

“You are fools,” Bruno said. “It must be reason, for God has decreed it. And look.” He pointed to the Crusader king’s tomb. “That one is already sealed in place. How would you set him free to wander through Hell? You can’t! He is there because God has willed that he be there.”

Adams turned to me. His tone was sad. “He has said this before. And I confess I have no answer.”

“And that’s what keeps you here? That this king can’t escape?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Certainly one reason.”

I looked about me angrily. “Give me something to write with. Chalk, charcoal —” I looked to the fire. It looked like a bonfire of sticks, but except for the flames it didn’t change. I went over to haul a stick out, but I couldn’t budge it. That stick was in there good.

The Crusader king’s sword was real. Somehow I knew it would be sharp, and it was. I gritted my teeth and cut my finger to get blood flowing. It hurt as bad as I thought it would. Then I wrote hastily, in English and Arabic, on the tomb.

“What have you done?” Monsignor Bruno demanded.

“You’ll see.” I wrote on all four sides and the lid, insults against five religions and five political domains. “Mr. Adams, when one of the wandering fanatics comes through, I strongly suggest you don’t stand near that tomb.”

“I fail to understand.”

“You will. Have faith.” I looked to each of them. “And when the king is set free, you can lead him and Monsignor Bruno out of here. Show them the way. You’ve earned it.”

•    •    •

“B
rilliant,” Sylvia said. “How did you think of it?”

“I didn’t. I just knew,” I said. “Well, I did have it wrong to begin with. I was going to write something nasty about Allah, but I thought better of it. I thought prophets were another matter. Some of them had character flaws, and sometimes they’re recorded. Saying so isn’t blasphemy. Sooner or later an exploder is going to run across a slander against his favorite cause, and he’ll blow that statue to smithereens. I found insults for Irish terrorists, Basque and communist and — But suppose Allah and Jehovah are just different names for God? I’ve seen what happens to blasphemers here.”

“And you were afraid.”

“Careful.”

“Wise of you,” Sylvia said. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

“That’s bogeyman talk.”

“Is it? I wish I’d been more afraid,” Sylvia said. “I wouldn’t be here now. And you wouldn’t, either, I bet. Think about it. The whole proverb is ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.’ Does that make more sense?”

“Maybe.”

“There was another proverb. ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.’ Allen, some people have to be scared before they’ll learn.”

•    •    •

M
onsignor Bruno wasn’t happy with me at all. “You tell Adams he has earned the right to leave Hell. To go to Heaven. Earned it. He has earned that and I have not?”

“I misspoke. We’ve all earned the right to try,” I said. “Nothing stops any of us from going. Why don’t you come with me?”

“You mock justice, then,” Bruno said.

“How’s that?”

“Look at me. All my life I followed the faith. I took my vows. I observed saint’s days. I held my hands just so when saying the mass. Thumb joined to forefinger. Bowing. Rituals. The Acceptance at the Elevation. I observed them all, all my life. If any of the three of us has earned a place in Heaven it is I.”

“Seems to me you threw that out when you defied the Church,” Adams said.

“But if I had not! Yes, yes, I was guilty of heresy at the last. But you have been heretics all your lives! If I must be punished for heresy, you must be doubly so! Yet you are not confined and I am! It is unjust!”

I could see this wasn’t getting anywhere. They were still arguing.

Bruno shouted, “What so many popes condemned as Anathema, the Vatican Two popes embraced! They are the apostates that the holy saints warned against! The Church is no longer One, Holy, Apostolic! How can I accept this?”

Adams was gently answering when I left them.

Chapter 13

Sixth Circle

More Heretics

Their cemetery have upon this side
With Epicurus all his followers
Who with the body mortal make the soul.

“I
wasn’t sure I should leave, but there didn’t seem any point in staying. Adams was as determined to get Monsignor Bruno out as I was. I wasn’t sure where to go, either. I could see the Great Mausoleum off in the distance, but that sure didn’t attract me. I’d been there before, with Corbett and Benito, and it was depressing.”

“Who’s in the mausoleum, Allen?” Sylvia asked. “I don’t remember any such place in Dante.”

“It’s not in Dante. It has to be recent. They’re still building this place. I’m sure they got the idea from Forest Lawn.”

“Forest Lawn? Oh! You mean Whispering Glades? From Evelyn Waugh’s book?”

“Yeah. Hey, I didn’t think of it at the time, but it’s a lot like
The Loved One.
Uh — didn’t the girl in that book —”

“Put her head in the oven. Aimee Thanatos. Killed herself over a weird love affair. That’s the book,” Sylvia said. “I read it in college. Everyone did. But who’s in Whispering Glades?”

“Pride, mostly.”

“The Sixth Circle is for heretics,” Sylvia said. “Pride? Yes, I guess that fits. Why was it depressing?”

“When I was in there I was overcome with a sense of the futility of it all. Nothing we do matters one way or another. God doesn’t need us, and He punishes us if we think He does.”

“Oh. Well, does God need us?”

“I don’t know. If so He has a funny way of showing it.”

“But how would He show it?” Sylvia demanded. “Allen, all this — it’s not an accident, and I don’t think it’s for His amusement. Allen, this has to be a way for Him to show us that He cares! Just as the whole big wonderful universe shows it!”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“Then do!”

“I’ll try, but dammit, I’m still depressed.”

“Allen, that’s my line, and look where it got me!”

“Don’t you want to just — go away?”

“Not anymore. Besides, we can’t.”

“What if you could?”

“No. I thought that was what I wanted. Even after I was here. Especially after I was here. But then I started listening to you, even before I had a Sign. Allen, I want to explore, to see. All this magnificent place. It has to have a purpose. It has to!”

“Allen, Machiavelli said it. ‘God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.’ ”

“Doesn’t all the glory belong to God?”

“If He chooses to give some to us, it’s His to do it,” Sylvia said.

I thought about that. “Okay, but I sure wasn’t going near that mausoleum again.”

•    •    •

S
o I continued down. The river of boiling blood waited. Somehow I’d have to get across that.

Dante and Virgil crossed by riding on centaurs. That was jarring. Why would there be centaurs in Hell? And why Minos? And why were centaurs and Minos more difficult to believe in than Hell itself?

But then, black swans were improbable. Impossible, even. Until they were found in Australia. Churchill kept black swans on his country estate to remind him that the impossible could happen. Just because something never happened before doesn’t mean it never can.

I thought about going back. Adams and the monsignor had been pretty good company, and I was in no mood to be alone. But when I looked back I realized I had no idea of which way I’d come. I could see tombs and sepulchers and fires everywhere, and a long way up there were the red–glowing walls of Dis, but nothing looked familiar.

And there were so many tombs and sepulchers! Thousands, hundreds of thousands. Millions, all filled with people who were condemned for believing the wrong things. Men like Adams who’d been a good man, but had the wrong brand of religion. And the poor old monsignor who’d obeyed all his life, but finally at the end lost it all. Why were they there? What did God want us to learn? What did He want from us? What did He want from me?

That was the mood I was in when I got past the last of the tombs and looked down at the next circle.

I could see down to the river of blood, but there was no way to get there. The slope down was a jumble of rocks and boulders with no path at all. When Benito had led us down to the river, it had been from the mausoleum, and the way from there was smooth and level. I could see the mausoleum way ahead of me. I headed that way.

There weren’t many tombs or sepulchers on the way. One thing I did notice. It was getting cooler.

There was a man sitting on a rock. He stood when he saw me. His look was friendly but puzzled. He was tall, his face long and thin and distinguished looking, and although he wore a robe much like mine, it was easy to imagine him in tweeds with leather patches on the elbows, sitting in a café with students.

He bowed slightly. “Perhaps you can help me.”

“How?”

“Do you know where we are?”

I frowned. “Where do you think we are?”

“We appear to be in the Inferno as described by Dante,” he said. “In Hell.”

“Lucky guess. What makes you believe we aren’t?”

He shrugged. “Because that is absurd. There is no such place. There can be no such place.”

I rapped on the rock. “Yet here we are. So why are you here?” I asked. “I mean, of course you’re dead, and in Hell, but why at this spot? Is this where Minos put you?”

“Minos. Another absurdity,” he said. “Yes, I suppose I was sent here. Eventually. First I was flung into the Winds and whirled about. I could understand that as just punishment if I could ever accept the notion of reward and punishment and purpose in this absurdity, but I was not to stay there. After what seemed to be years I was plucked from the Winds and hurled into a swamp, where I struggled with madmen until I escaped. There were enormous gates in front of me, gates in ruins, and when I fled the swamp I ran through them, downhill through tombs, and came here.”

“How long have you been here?”

“I have no way to know. My last memories of … what I have no choice but to call my previous life were of the end of the year 1959 and the opening of 1960. Then I woke on a path with many others, and was thrust into a ferryboat. An absurdity! And then I appeared before the impossible Minos and faced the farce of judgment. I believe I was years in the Winds, and years more escaping the swamp. I have not been in this particular place for long at all.”

He laughed. “Of course this is the Sixth Circle where Dante put heretics, and if Dante and his religion are true, this is exactly where I belong.”

I held out my hand. “Allen Carpenter. I was a science fiction writer.”

He smiled thinly as we shook hands. “I believe I read some of your stories. Albert Camus. I was a writer myself.”

“You won a Nobel Prize!”

He laughed. “Yes. I was quite proud of it. I never expected any such thing.”

“I read the speech you gave in Stockholm,” I said. “Inspiring.”

“Ah. Thank you. You must have read it in English, you were American. I remember that from your story. ‘Cold Fever.’ Quite worth reading, even in the very bad translation published in France.” He frowned. “But your French is excellent! Why did you not translate it yourself?”

“I didn’t speak French then. Sir, I — thank you. I’m glad you liked my story well enough to remember it.” I couldn’t help thinking how ridiculous — absurd! — this was. One of the great writers of the century, a Nobel Prize winner, in Hell as a heretic. He had certainly been an atheist. But Hell?

“Did you read many of my works?” he asked.

“Yes,” I told him. “There was a time when you influenced me a lot. Especially
The Plague.
”

“And that has brought you here, I suppose.”

“No, you were wrong, of course. I mean you were right about what we have to do, but you were wrong about why. There is some meaning in life. It’s not all absurd. There’s more than just doing our job, doing it well, being absurd heroes!”

“What makes you think that?”

“A lot of absurdity is just not having figured out the answers.” I gestured to indicate the tombs, the path uphill, the mausoleum. “Look around you. We’re here! We’re dead and we’re here. I think it must be a puzzle.”

“Why must it mean anything? The world we came from is beautiful and terrible, it has joys and sorrows and pain and love and it has no meaning. Why must this?”

“Too much energy expended! Tell me, sir, if you had known,
known,
that this place is as real as Earth or the stars, would you have believed that life is absurd?”

“I am not sure. I thought about the matter. I toyed with religion, or at least with the idea of adopting a religion.”

“
La Chute,
” I said.

“No. Not directly. That was a parody. I had set out to explore some possibilities, but I was led elsewhere.” He shrugged. “But everyone wishes for a true religion. What one must do is accept that there is none. There is only truth for each of us, and those will never be the same truths, and thank you for allowing me to say these things. I had not realized how much I have missed this kind of conversation.”