The Fourth Circle (24 page)

He praised my pie courteously, having eaten a medium-sized piece, but something in his expression told me that he could just as well have done without it.

If he didn't eat much, Buddha drank like a maniac—strictly water. He always carried a large thermos flask that seemed to fill itself magically again and again, from nowhere. (All right, all right, skip the superfluous questions....) He used every pause in the murmuring debates he carried on all day with Sri to drink another glass, and often woke in the night to quench the thirst that obviously tormented him. And they say one can't live on water alone! No wonder he looks so chubby—like a barrel—when he pours so much into himself but pays dispro-portionately rare visits to the lavatory.

I know it's water and not anything else because I analyzed a few drops that fell near one of my sensors. What didn't match up at all was the taste: indescrib-ably insipid, but no wonder—it was ordinary
aqua destilata.
Men really have some perverse leanings....

That the second guest was going to cause a lot more problems became clear when he gave his first order. He was not satisfied with the introductory page of my menu, on which I kept the meals that could be most easily produced under existing conditions, but browsed idly through my recipe book, clicking his tongue or licking his lips from time to time, which I found disgusting—but that was the least of it.

When he finally made his choice, I nearly fainted: filets of golden perch
bonne
femme
and a torte of Sicilian cheese with strawberries! Just imagine! I never even knew that I had it on the menu. Strawberries could be dealt with somehow, but how was I to make a perch for him, and a golden one at that, let alone the Sicilian cheese? I embarked upon some real alchemy and finally managed to fool him with the fruit and fish, producing something that distantly resembled the flavor.

In any case, he made no objections, though he didn't look too delighted either, and the poor surrogate for Sicilian cheese I offered in desperation sent him over the edge. Imagine, he gave me an extensive lecture on the way it is made, spiced
with many odd, rather disgusting details, among which the most prominent was that the cheese absolutely had to ferment for several days under a layer of stale cow-droppings, but only from pregnant cows, because, supposedly, only this gave it its "unique aroma!" Phew! I'm glad I didn't have to taste it myself.

The one useful consequence of this culinary orgy was my discovery that this guest was definitely from Sicily. Only a born Sicilian could have such detailed knowledge of the secrets of manufacturing such a weird delicacy. The thought chilled me: I never would have thought that Sri was involved with the Mafia....

The shock lasted for only a short while and was dispelled by a circumstance that only then entered the focus of my mind. The new guest had indisputably been born in Sicily, yes, but when? If the old geezer isn't just as eccentric in his dress as he is in his gourmand's habits, then the robes he wears undeniably prove that he is from another time. Because who in his right mind wears a toga in this day and age?

When I first saw him in the clearing in front of the temple, in the mental picture created for me by the baby, it seemed to me that he had only a large cloth wrapped around him, a rather ragged and dirty one at that. Only when I reached deep into the historical files of my memory did I realize what it was. The worst thing was a large dark red blotch on the chest of the toga, a blotch that radiated from a hole obviously made by some sharp instrument. I didn't need to make a chemical analysis to know that it was clotted blood.

But the old geezer didn't seem to mind, which meant that either he had taken the toga off some previous owner who, for obvious reasons, didn't need it any more (the thought horrified me even more than the recipe with stale cow droppings) or that his wound had healed already and the poor fellow didn't have a change of clothes. In any case, I couldn't stand to see him in that rag, so I picked out a cotton T-shirt and the trousers of a tracksuit from among Sri's things and offered them to him as a temporary replacement for the tattered toga. He turned them over in his hands for some time, obviously not sure how to put them on, which confirmed my belief that he was not from our time. (But how...? No, no hows and whys, we agreed; things are simply to be taken as they are. Probably one day all will be explained....)

Despite all his weirdness and his spoiled ways with food, I could have learned to like the old guy—he is actually a nice man, much livelier than Sri and Buddha—if he hadn't turned the house, the cleanliness of which I used to be so proud of (until the turtles arrived), into a pigsty. All right, I can understand that he came here to hold boring male conversations from morning till night with Sri and Buddha; if they have nothing better to do, let them talk, however neglected I may
feel; but was it really necessary to cover the entire floor of the temple with dust and sand, dirtying it beyond hope of ever cleaning it again, just so that they could feverishly draw circles in it? Couldn't it have been done much more effectively on one of my monitors? That might at least have created an opportunity for me too to finally find out what is, in fact, going on.

THE THREE OF US stepped into the kingdom of the underworld.

First my Master, who had sold his vainglorious, self-loving soul to the devil a long time ago in exchange for that marvelous talent that made divine faces and figures flow from his long fingers, images by which he enmeshed many gullible eyes in terrible deceit; for is there a worse, more cunning sin than to paint saints on monastic walls with a skill inspired by the extreme malice of Sotona?

And then came I, God's miserable servant, who knew this—but did not want to know. My silence sheltered behind many justifications, valid in another, earlier age, but none could now bring me salvation, for I have already walked into hell to receive my rightful punishment. But at least I did so without a sinner's complaint, demonstrating my full repentance, bottomless humility, and the sincere wish to earn heavenly redemption by long, hard suffering.

After me came the woman I had shamefully held to be Marya, despite the many signs that categorically informed me that she could not be the one whom she, with that beautiful face, impersonated. Would the real Marya, the Queen of Heaven, have returned the dead Master to life, knowing that he was but the worthless servant of the Lord of Hades? Would she have committed with him the most terrible sin, which cannot appear even in the most secret thoughts without smearing forever her whole soul with filth? Would she walk with me into the nether kingdom, where her twice-sacred foot could never tread?

Yet here she is, following my fearful self down the worm-eaten, rotting ladder leading from the entrance in the cellar to the first circle of the devil's lair, as if she had trod this path without return countless times before. Finally we reached the bottom of the fateful ladder, which sinners can descend only. The source of the glow of fires and the poisonous stench were soon descried, striking my convulsed soul with a deep chill: a cold that became no less when the woman, whom I had sinfully taken for Marya, again put her frail hand on my bony shoulder granting me once more the benefit of the current that flowed from it.

The scene that stretched before my tear-filled, failing eyes, dismal wherever their gaze could reach, instantly shook my brave determination to take my punishment with penitent gratitude. Had I seen even Sotona himself, the most merciless executioner of the world below, it would be a sight merely terrible, but not other-worldly, for what is the chief of all the evil spirits of Hades if not just one among the fallen angels, who kept his first countenance, though changed terribly?
But those amidst which I now found my worthless self had no human marks at all, neither vigorous limbs, nor a slender body, nor even the blessed face that is the expression and window of our eternal soul. Innumerable spheres, each as tall as a man's knees, thickly covered the infernal ground of the first circle, glowing with a soft rosy luster. Despite the perfection of their form, these miraculous things were from some other Creation, and not the Lord's, for the Almighty could never have made these in His own image, as He did with all other creatures that grace the pied globe.

Yet these balls of many colors, though not sprung from God's spirit, were not unliving things: as I gazed on them in perplexity, three of them, not far from us, began to swell and in an instant grew in stature from knee-high to the height of a man's hip, at which their distended bodies burst thunderously, like an overblown blacksmith's bellows. When a thick greenish fog had gushed from their torn bodies and dissipated, three new spheres stood in their place, the same height as the others.

And when tendrils of the fog from their entrails reached the gray hairs of my old nostrils, nausea assailed me, so powerfully that for a moment I swayed on my feet and put my trembling hands to my face. This then was the terrible stench from which I had recoiled at the cellar entrance into the gullet of hell! A stench that I, in my ignorance, had thought merely the rank foulness of the devil I saw now came from the gross swelling of these unearthly creatures. I thought that if I were sentenced to dwell for all eternity among these balls, to breathe in their stench, which is worse than that of a rotting corpse, then my sin must be greater and more vile than I had miserably supposed even in moments of deepest repentance!

But there was no time for belated penitent contemplation: Marya's hand on my bony shoulder pushed me gently forward, and only then did I become aware that, while I was trying in disgust to keep back the stink of the terrible other-worldly spheres, my Master was striding among them, guided by some secret purpose. And lo, I beheld a new miracle: the balls moved aside obediently to let him pass, pressing each other as if they were a flock of sheep in a narrow pen and he a stern shepherd, and the way was thus opened for us all.

But whither? Taken by a sudden apprehension that this awful stench was not my final punishment, I turned my helpless, imploring eyes on Marya, but on her beautiful face remained the same smile. Was this the joyful expression of a guardian angel who had taken my sinful self under her wing, or the malicious grin of an evil spirit gloating beforehand over my future torment?

Torn by these twofold thoughts, I moved irresolutely after the Master, toward
encounter with my unknown destiny. But our slow progress through the spheres that moved aside for us as one and closed again in a dense crowd behind us was not to last long. My Master had hardly gone but twenty steps when he stopped abruptly.

I lacked any opportunity to wonder at this strange, unexpected halt amid another field of balls, for three of them, immediately ahead of us, swelled rapidly.

Warned by previous experience, I put my hand to my nose, to protect myself from the pestilent malodor that I knew would gush forth any moment now when the guts of these creatures burst open.

But it was not so.

The spheres reached the height of my waist without breaking up, and when two stopped swelling, their glow turned from rosy to black. The third continued to swell enormously, its leathery membrane growing ever thinner, until it reached the height of a man, or even a little over.

My hands slid of their own accord down my wrinkled face when a new marvel manifested itself before my eyes: a face, unclear at first, showed under the now transparent membrane of the biggest ball, amid the green fog that had thinned considerably. I stepped forward and lowered my head, the better to behold this miserable apparition, the monstrous destiny of which was to dwell shut up with the most dreadful stench for eternity. What terrible, unforgivable sin must that woeful creature have committed to merit such harsh punishment? Was there a sin great enough to call forth such enormous wrath from the Lord?

I soon received an answer, for regarding it closely, I saw a soldier inside, so wild and cruel in his mien that his appearance alone would send his opponents fleeing in horror. This soldier came not from our Christian times, but from an ancient pagan army, and was the one who had scourged Hrist Himself with a three-lashed knotted whip, driving Him bleeding and crowned with thorns to carry His cross on frail shoulders up the hill of Calvary to the crucifixion, that heavenly salvation for us, the later born.

In a twinkling, my previous pity for his ghastly destiny changed to avenging glee that the Lord's justice had caught up with the criminal, perhaps the most heinous of all, and allotted a punishment that might even be too mild. Are there indeed any tortures meet for the murderers of the Son of God, that they might expiate their hideous crime? No! Were this infectious green fog a hundred, a thousand times more malodorous, it would still be the finest perfume in comparison to that immeasurably evil transgression!

Blinded by sudden fury, I began raising my feeble old fists to repay him through the thin membrane for the sufferings of our Savior, though it be with
such weak blows, but my anger was not destined to be vented as I so dearly wished. For hardly had I raised my clenched fists to the level of my head and taken a short swing, when the Roman soldier moved adroitly and more swiftly than I. Drawing his sharp sword, he swiftly drove it through the tense membrane of the swollen sphere, burying it to the hilt just under my ribs.

We stood thus as if turned to stone for a few moments, he observing me with a blank, cross-eyed look, which seemed to wander beyond me, and I staring dully back at him, filled with a multitude of questions. But I had no time for any of them, nor even to feel the sharp pain, for as soon as the executioner withdrew his sword from my chest, a bottomless abyss seemed to yawn under me and I slid inexorably into it, into thick darkness and endless silence, the which brings blessed oblivion to doomed souls.