wondering what you could possibly have been thinking. Of course it’s a torture chamber. Every church I ever was in teaches that Hell is a torture chamber. You see bad people having a wonderful time in life, but the pastor tells you they’ll be tortured after they’re dead. You feel better.”
“Wouldn’t that make me —”
“You’ll still be a sadistic son of a bitch. But maybe you won’t do bad things, because you’re afraid to. Allen, what do you want Hell to be?”
I’d worked on that a long time. “I want Purgatory to be an asylum for the theologically insane. Hell is the violent ward. I want to see some evidence of progress for the patients.”
“I wasn’t violent.”
“You don’t call leaving two kids to grow up very publicly without their mother any kind of violence?”
She was quiet for a long time. A foul–smelling wind rustled the black leaves of the forest. I reached to break off a twig, but she spoke first. “Did you see Benito leave?”
“Yes.” Though he was four thousand miles overhead, a dot when he disappeared, too far away to see where he’d got to.
“So we know that people can leave Hell. Churches don’t teach that. But Jack Lewis did. He said that it was your choice, choose to go with God or choose to stay in Hell without God.”
“All right. I want to see that everyone can get out.”
“Everyone? You can’t think of anyone who just plain belongs in here?”
“Maybe there would be conditions,” I said. “But everyone who wants to leave.”
“No one deserves to be here forever?”
“No! Not forever! Why should there be eternal torture? No other religion does that!”
“So everyone deserves another chance. Even if they have to come back as a hookworm or a pubic louse?”
I nodded. “Something like that.”
“Hitler? Stalin? Do you want them to get out? Would you help them?”
Hitler? Stalin? “I don’t know.”
“I don’t, either,” she said. “But how would you get me out? Assuming you think I deserve to get out,” she asked.
I laughed. “I haven’t the faintest idea. You’re rooted! Maybe there’s a way. But, do you know what’s at the bottom?”
“It’s a plain of ice. God’s own Siberia. Every poet reads the
Inferno,
Allen. Children are surprised to find ice in Hell.”
“There are damned souls buried in the ice. How would I get
them
out?”
“All right, Allen, how?”
“Don’t know.”
“Maybe they —
we
can’t all be saved. What if the whole setup is here just to get your friend Benito into Heaven?”
“Huh.” I couldn’t help smiling, remembering a story in which the protagonist turned out to be, not the most important man in the world, but the schmuck who was holding his parking spot for him. That’s me, Benito Mussolini’s guide dog, my mission in life — death — already accomplished.
“Dante says the suicides can’t be saved. Not even at the Last Trump. We’ll come back to hang on these trees like dead leaves.” Her voice trailed off into silence. There was a faint howl in the distance.
I dared to touch my face. Healed.
Was I ready to move on? Try again? No.
I touched a slender branch. It was too much like tearing off fingers, so I let it go. “I gave up,” I said. “I just sat down here and gave up, and I’ve been here ever since. I lost them all. I wasn’t persuasive enough. But I’ve been outside Hell, and I came back.” I ripped the twig off.
“You’re an idiot,” she said.
I got up.
“Wait. I’m sorry! Tell me more. For the love of God, Allen! Tell me all of it. Maybe you made some mistake, something I can see that you can’t. I’m a bright girl, Allen, and there’s a lot of poetry in the makeup of this place.”
“I’ve found a lot of the galloping dumbs in this place. Maybe stupidity is how you get here. Don’t take it personally. I mean everyone.”
“Examples? You spoke of Rosemary. Who was she? Tell it, Allfb.” Her words cut off as the wound closed.
“Hah. Where do