For Those Who Dream Monsters (22 page)

“But Mr Lucifer, that’s quite
impossible!” Both men looked round nervously as the sound of raised voices
reverberated on the landing outside the flat. “In any case, how exactly do you
think I can help you?”

“I
heard that a Polish philosopher once wrote something on the subject – well,
that, er, that the devil can be saved. And I would be most grateful if you
could find out how this could be done. Perhaps I could drop by again – in a few
days’ time?”

The
voices outside were louder now, much closer. Lucifer listened uneasily. Just
then, there came a loud pounding on the door.

“It’s
them!” cried Lucifer. “Damn! They could kill you. Listen carefully: I will lure
them away from here, and you hide. Or get some help!”

Before
John had a chance to respond, Lucifer pulled on his hat and coat with lightning
speed, opened the door and bolted out, straight into the arms of the waiting
thugs. The youths were caught off guard and Lucifer slipped through, running as
fast as he could away from John’s building.

The youths chased Lucifer through the dark streets. If trick-or-treaters had
tried their luck in this part of town, they were certainly gone now – probably
tucked up in bed, stomachs full of sweets. Rounding a corner, Lucifer stopped
suddenly, letting past a malnourished young woman carrying a small child and
pulling another, slightly larger, child along behind her.

The
youths did not slow down. They knocked over the woman and children, and leapt
on Lucifer, beating him mercilessly with their baseball bats.

The
woman pulled herself off the ground, picked up the child that had fallen from
her arms, and started to run away. The other child ran after her, crying
loudly.

Lucifer’s mangled body had stopped moving. One of the youths held a horn torn
from Lucifer’s skull to his own forehead, his victim’s blood dripping from it
and smearing the killer’s leering face. Another youth laughed loudly as his
companion cut off Lucifer’s tail and made several clumsy attempts to use it as
a skipping rope.

The
boys heard an approaching police siren and, grabbing their trophies,
disappeared giggling around the corner.

“A bit old to be trick-or-treating, wasn’t he?” Officer Fullerton commented to
his colleague as he finished his unsuccessful search for a pulse and
straightened up, staring uncomprehendingly at the mutilated remains.

Lucifer’s
unseeing eyes were fixed on the dark heavens and the distant stars as his
earthly life bled out into the dust of the gutter.

     
Black smoke curls up from the oil lamp, its meagre contents nearly spent. The
writer sits at the makeshift desk. Darkness crouches over him. The hunger pangs
subside as he dips the nib in the ink well and his mind begins to soar. Faces
form out of the mist, and smile. Benevolent eyes observe him from a past as
distant as the stars above the jagged walls.

His father bred birds in the barn; their feathers would float down softly and
the whir of their wings soothed the boy as he lay on the scented hay below.
Sunny days pour onto the page. Endless days of summer. Rachel with hair like
the ravens that roosted in the ancient linden tree by the graveyard. Rachel
with a face like the winter moon, hurrying home from the synagogue. The scent
of fresh bread mingling with meadow flowers in the sultry air. His mother baked
bread in the bakery, his father was an artist – the village eccentric, as
people were wont to say.

A drop of ink as blue-black as the night falls from the writer’s pen as a train
rattles past. From its tiny, barb-wired windows skeleton hands reach towards a
pitiless moon. Memories creep into the tiny room. Visions of a half-forgotten
childhood – as alien as a foreign land – steal in through the cracks. They stir
about the writer; half-formed figures of neighbours and loved ones, of village
elders and childhood friends. He knows that he will follow them soon – into a
place with no windows. Only his grandfather cheated the emissaries of Hate and
Fire, with their heavy boots and voices like thunder. Grandfather, who defied
their poison showers and furnaces, and picked his own time to depart – sitting
down in his favourite chair and telling his heart to stop. Grandfather, who
lived to ninety-two, and could have lived to a hundred and fifty thanks to the
water from Old Simon’s lake.

When the writer was twelve years old, his grandfather fell gravely ill. The
Doctor prophesied another two days of life – perhaps three – and bid the family
say their goodbyes. The boy’s mother tried to make him understand that
Grandfather would be leaving them, and that the boy should spend these last
moments by the old man’s bed. The boy burst into tears, wailing something about
a magic lake, then ran from the house.

“It’s
just a story!” His father called after him, but the boy was gone.

A hundred years ago, Old Simon owned a tavern on a forest road – a cheerful
place where a weary traveller could water his horse, rest his feet, and eat a
simple, honest meal. After dinner, Old Simon would play the fiddle and his
daughter Esterka would sing. Esterka had the voice of an angel and a delicate,
pale face, ringed by velvet tresses as black as night. She was like a fragile
flower, which the sun and wind took care not to visit too roughly. Even the
coldest heart melted when that gentle, unearthly young girl sang. Tales of her
beauty and her divine voice spread quickly through the countryside, and it was
rumoured that the king himself rode in disguise to hear her sing.

Then
one day the world turned to hate and fire. Enemies attacked from without;
turmoil erupted within. Brother turned against brother, neighbour against
neighbour, Gentile against Jew. It wasn’t long before a pogrom tore through the
region. Soldiers and peasants marched with burning torches against those who
dressed differently, or prayed differently, or sang a different song.

Old
Simon saw the baying mob coming across the fields; the hate burning in their
eyes, the fire burning in their clenched fists. A great fear for his beloved
Esterka seized his heart. The shouting men drew closer, their anger and lust
fuelled by local ale. Old Simon put his arms around his only child, and prayed
to the Lord to save her and to spare their home from the hate and the fire.

As
the frenzied horde gathered before the inn, a terrible creaking sound arose and
echoed around the forest. The ground shuddered, the tavern walls started to
tremble, the earth opened up and water gushed forth around the old building.
Then, before the hate-filled eyes of the crowd, Old Simon’s tavern sank in its
entirety into the earth and water, taking Simon and Esterka with it, and
leaving behind a dark, restless lake.

The
rabble looked on in fear. Some turned and fled; others fell to their knees and
made the sign of the cross. But no more Jewish homes were burned that night, or
for many nights to come. It was as though those brooding waters had
extinguished the hate and the fire that had kindled in fallible, hollow hearts.

For
years to come, the peasants avoided the lake and the path that led to it,
finding other ways to traverse the forest. Soon the dirt track all but
vanished, as trees and bushes reclaimed the land, and reeds grew around the
dark body of water. But rumours sprang up: of a magical lake hidden deep in the
forest – a drop of water from it could heal a wound, and a mouthful could cure
an ailing man from the most perfidious disease.

So it was that the boy set off to bring back some of the life-saving water for
his grandfather. He knew the woods around his parents’ village, but beyond his
usual haunts the forest was dark, even in daylight. The vegetation grew thick
and high, and strange rustling noises all around him made the tiny hairs on the
back of the boy’s neck stand on end – like fur on a startled cat. More than
once he got the feeling that he was being followed, but he could see no one.
With no familiar landmarks to guide him, he plunged ever deeper into the
unknown. After a long and tiring march, it dawned on him that he was completely
lost. It was a dry summer, and there was no sign of a lake or any other water.
Fear and despair overcame the boy. He sat down on the fallen trunk of an
ancient oak, looked down at the wooden bowl he’d taken from his mother’s
kitchen, and began to cry.

In
between sobs, the boy became aware of a strange sound drifting through the
forest. It was high pitched and distant, and at first he thought it was the
wind blowing through the branches of the trees above him, but then he realised
that it was a human voice – a girl’s voice, singing. He stood up, wiping his
eyes with the back of his hand, and called out.

“Hello?”
Silence. “Is there anybody there?” Nothing. And then the singing came again,
stronger this time, haunting and beautiful. The boy tried to determine its
source. It seemed to be coming from somewhere directly ahead, and he walked
towards it – slowly. The boy’s mother had sung to him when he was little – her
voice was soft and sweet. But the voice that came to him now from the depths of
the forest was like nothing he’d ever heard before. It was as if an angel were
guiding him through the verdant darkness, drowning out the frightening sounds
of forest creatures scampering around the lost child.

It
wasn’t long before the boy saw a dim light ahead. There was a clearing in the
forest, and the sunlight had managed to filter through. The boy could see reeds
in front of him: cattails and long, feathery grasses shimmering in the mottled
light. As he reached them, and pushed a few aside so that he could see past,
the singing stopped. Peering intently through the reeds, he beheld an
incredible sight. Before him spread a body of murky water. Here and there the
sunlight cast diamonds on its surface, but mostly the lake had an inky hue.
Despite the stillness of the air, the waters of the lake were fitful with
constant motion.

The
boy became aware of the urgent rustling of the reeds all around him. Creeping
forward, he bent down cautiously to scoop up some of the precious liquid. As he
did so, a shaft of sunlight caught on the water pouring into the bowl, and it
sparkled like a handful of diamonds. The awestricken boy realised that he’d
been holding his breath, and exhaled deeply. He took one last look at the
magical, dark, luminescent, foreboding, uplifting place; then turned away. He
held the bowl in one hand, covering its priceless contents with the other. Careful
not to trip and spill his prize, he headed for home. Somehow this time his feet
knew which way to go.

“Where have you been!?” The boy’s mother greeted him with tears in her eyes;
angry, happy and relieved in equal measure.

“I
have to see Grandpa,” the boy stated firmly, the determination in his voice
stifling his mother’s imminent outburst, and causing both parents to stand
aside and let him pass.

When
the boy confided in his father a few days later and led him to the clearing in
the forest, there was no sign of a lake to be seen. Only a couple of dried out
reeds whispering something that human ears could not hear.

A shot outside, a scream, the walls shift like a street of crocodiles. The
writer trembles as his mother’s cool hand touches his gaunt cheek, her smile
like a forbidden song. The oil-lamp flickers, the night darkens, vultures
gather around the broken souls that mill around the midnight room. The writer
struggles to keep his mother’s face in mind, but the darkness swallows it, as
the echo of running footsteps reverberates outside.

The
writer pauses, listening; ink drops fall from his pen like tears. They are
liquidating the ghetto. Soon he will be led away along cobblestones that will
leap out of the ground in pity.
Even the stones were moved by their plight
– an old Gentile peasant will tell a documentary film crew sixty years later –
but
not the rock-hearted men who led them away
… Soon a lively foxtrot blasted
from tinny speakers will silence the gunshots as Death and the Devil observe their
handiwork over the shoulders of a dozen boy-faced butchers… Soon his
forefathers will cradle him in their bony arms and pass him lovingly from
embrace to embrace; their eyes full of sorrow. They weep for him and bemoan the
rapacious beast-fate that lies in wait: the destiny that looms because he is of
their flesh and blood. The journey into the night and fog for he is born of
them. Soon the writer will ascend to an indifferent heaven, like the black
smoke from his oil lamp.