For Those Who Dream Monsters (21 page)

“Oh,”
Anna was starting to panic. “I didn’t notice, I’m sorry – I’m not very well. I
have cancer, you know. Perhaps you can help me find the right bottle.”

“That
won’t be necessary.” The policeman smiled sympathetically. The policewoman also
smiled, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

Barely a few days had passed, and the police were back, questioning Anna about
her friend Teresa.

“We
understand from her husband, that she came to see you last week.”

“No,
she didn’t.” Anna was feeling sick again. “I mean, she was meant to come and
see me, but she never showed up.”

“So
what did you do when she didn’t show up?” asked the policewoman. “Did you call
her house?”

Anna
had the distinct feeling that both the policewoman and the policeman knew the
answer to that already.

“No,
I didn’t,” Anna told them. “I didn’t do anything. I mean, Teresa often told me
that she would be coming round, and then I wouldn’t hear from her for six
months. I didn’t think anything had happened to her.”

“Her
husband said that you’d won the lottery and that you wanted to give her some of
your money. Is this true?”

“No,
it’s not true.”

“No,
you didn’t win the lottery, or no, you didn’t tell Mrs Trent that you’d won the
lottery.”

“Neither.”

“Then
why would Mr Trent say such a thing?”

“I
don’t know.”

“I
think you told Mrs Trent that you’d won the lottery and that you’d give her the
money, and when she came here and found that there was no money, the two of you
had an argument and something happened.”

“Like
what?”

“Like
maybe you killed her.”

“What!
How can you say that? I wouldn’t kill anyone. I’ve got cancer, you know.”

“Yes,
we know.”

“I
told you, Teresa wasn’t even here.”

“Well,
two of your neighbours told us they saw a woman matching Mrs Trent’s description
entering the building.”

“Well,
she wasn’t here.”

The
policewoman sat back, finished for the moment. Her colleague took over.

“Do
you mind if we have a look around?” he asked. Anna shook her head. They found
nothing.

“We’ll
be back,” they told Anna on their way out. And they were – a few days later.

This time the two police officers were armed with a list of missing people –
all linked by the fact that they knew Anna – and more eyewitness testimony:
concerning men entering the building with a woman who matched Anna’s
description. Anna co-operated and gave them a full statement, under threat of
having to do so at the police station. A further search of her bedsit revealed
nothing, but Anna was sure that they were watching the entrance to her
building.

That
evening she went down to see the creature, empty-handed.

“I
can’t feed you for a while,” she tried to explain. “The police are watching the
building. I can’t bring anyone here.”

“I
need to eat,” the creature’s voice resounded in Anna’s ears, and the fiend’s
eyes blazed at Anna angrily.

“I
can’t bring anyone.”

“If
you don’t feed me, the pain will return.”

Anna
felt that familiar twinge in her abdomen. She hadn’t felt it for weeks now, and
she doubled over, clutching her underbelly and crying out.

“Stop!
Please stop! I thought you were my friend.” It would be a lie to say that the
fiend’s betrayal of their ‘friendship’ hurt almost as much as Anna’s abdomen,
but it hurt nonetheless.

“I
am
your friend,” the creature told Anna. The pain subsided, but Anna was
left reeling and scared. “You will bring me someone tonight and I will continue
to be your friend.”

Anna found the young Polish man sitting on a bench in the local park, drinking
a can of beer. By the look of the grass around the bench, he had drunk more
than one already. His English was poor, he had obviously not been in London
long, and was homesick and lonely. Anna told him that her boyfriend had dumped
her and she needed someone to walk her home, as she didn’t like walking home on
her own in the dark. She didn’t know if the young man understood what she was
saying, but he certainly seemed keen enough to follow her home, and drunk
enough to accompany her to the cellar.

As
Anna led the man down the steps, she had a change of heart. He had done nothing
wrong: he hadn’t betrayed her, he hadn’t tried to grope her, judging by the
lack of ring on his ring finger he wasn’t hoping to cheat on his wife with her.
All he had done was walk her home and smile at her in a tipsy, perplexed kind
of way. Anna stopped abruptly on the steps and was about to tell the man to go
back up, that this had all been a mistake, but just then bright lights appeared
behind them, followed by running footsteps and shouting.

“Police!
Freeze!”

Anna
screamed and tried to run down the remaining steps, but slipped and fell. Her
head hit something hard and the world went grey, then black.

Anna dreamt about stroking the creature’s fur and listening to its strange
purring as she fell asleep. She woke up cold and alone, and started to get up,
intending to go back up to her bedsit, but instead found herself in a small
cell with bars in the window. And that’s when the pain hit her.

As
Anna screamed in vain to God and the Devil to take the pain away, the thing in
the underbelly of her building scuttled back through its gateway into the hell
from which it had come, and settled down to sleep. By the time it would wake
up, Anna’s suffering would long be over.

The street was strangely quiet for Halloween. No trick-or-treaters as far as
the eye could see, and even the candles in the carved pumpkins had been
extinguished by a wind that appeared from nowhere and disappeared again just as
fast. It was early evening and the light had all but faded from the dirty urban
sky. There was a distinct chill in the autumn air and for a moment the street
seemed quite deserted. Then a flurry of footsteps and a tall man wearing a long
coat, with a cap pulled down tightly over his ears, rounded the corner at great
speed. Close on his heels came three youths, hatred in their eyes and baseball
bats in their hands.

The
man disappeared round the side of a large block of flats and the youths
followed, pausing when they realised that he had entered the building.

Once inside the block of flats, the tall man headed straight for a flat on the
ground floor and pounded on the door. An eye appeared in the peephole and the
door opened, the man inside delighted to see his old friend.

“What
a wonderful surprise, come on in!” An energetic, grey-haired man in his early
sixties was holding open the door, smiling at his unexpected guest. “How long’s
it been now?”

The
tall man quickly pushed his host inside, leapt across the threshold and slammed
the door behind him.

“I’m
being chased,” panted the new arrival. His host looked surprised.

“Oh,”
he said, pointing to his guest’s head, “did they notice your … um…?”

The
tall man pulled off his cap, revealing a fine, if rather tussled, head of
shoulder length black hair. As he smoothed it down, through his hair poked two
perfect little horns.

“No.
Definitely not,” the tall man shook his head. “I had my cap on all the time.”
He took off his coat. His host took it from him and hung it on a coat rack,
then turned to his guest and pointed at his backside.

“Perhaps
it popped out from under your coat?” he suggested helpfully. The tall man
glanced down, over his shoulder. He was wearing an elegant, if somewhat worn
set of black tails. From the slit at the back protruded a long, thick tail with
a fluffy black tip. The tall man smoothed down his tail.

“It
couldn’t have,” he said. “My coat is very long. They couldn’t have seen it. In
any case, there are a lot of strange looking fellows out tonight.”

“Then
what on earth happened?” asked his host, a look of concern on his amiable face.

“I
really have no idea. Some louts threw themselves at me. Each one shouted
something different. One of them yelled ‘Fucking Gyppo!’ Another one, ‘Yids to
the gas!’ And the third, ‘Fuck off back to where you come from, you fucking
nigger wop!’ Do you understand any of this?”

“Well,
the ‘nigger wop’ you must have misheard. But, all in all, I guess you don’t
look quite like the rest of us. You’re complexion is kind of dusky, and not everyone
likes that around here.”

“Oh
well, in that case there’s nothing more to be said.” The tall man relaxed a
little and smiled at his host. “And what about you? Has your collection grown
since I last saw you?”

“Oh
yes, it’s definitely grown!” The grey-haired man positively beamed. “Would you
like to see?”

“Of
course. You know that I enjoy looking at depictions of my fellows.”

The grey-haired man took his friend around the large flat, proudly displaying
new additions to his exceptionally fine collection of devils: painted devils,
wooden devils, bronze devils, cuddly devils, scary devils, big devils and small
devils.

The
tall man smiled as he contemplated all these likenesses of himself and other
fiends. It seemed to him that since God had created mankind, people had been
fascinated with the fallen angels, just as the fallen angels were drawn to
people. The difference was, of course, that the fallen angels were jealous of
people – of their closeness to God, whereas people had nothing to be jealous of.

Finally
the grey-haired man led his guest to his prized new acquisition – a small oil
painting hanging at the far end of the sitting room. It portrayed a group of
men on horseback, silhouetted against a twilit sky. They rode slowly through a
forest, their horses tired and their heads hung low. Some had rifles strapped
to their saddles. Just visible on the head of the last rider were two small
horns.

“Oh,
I don’t believe I recognise this fellow,” said the tall man, studying the
painting closely. “He’s not one of our original lot.”

“No,
indeed. This one started off human.”

“Ah,
that would explain it,” the tall man mused, “but what’s he doing riding with
men?”

“They’re
Polish partisans,” explained his host, “fighting the Nazis.”

“Ah
yes, the Nazis… But why does a devil ride with partisans? That kind of
co-mingling isn’t strictly allowed, you know. We’re supposed to remain
neutral.”

“It’s a very interesting story.” The grey-haired man
was excited about having got his friend’s attention. “It was told to me in an
antique shop by the old Pole who sold me the painting. It will be my pleasure
to relate it to you, should you wish to hear it.”

“Please
do.” His host’s enthusiasm for all things devilish touched Lucifer deeply. The
grey-haired man looked delighted.

“Well,
it all began in a small Polish village in the seventeenth century. In the
village lived a peasant called Boruta. He was a God-fearing man … oops!” He
threw his guest an apologetic glance. The devil smiled back benevolently and
shrugged his shoulders. His friend carried on with his tale.

“He
was a hardworking man, well-liked by the other peasants and respected for his
incredible strength. One day, when King Jan the Third was travelling through
the countryside to visit his mistress, his carriage got stuck in mud near a
field in which Boruta was working. The king’s servants pushed and pulled, and
beat the horses, but the carriage did not shift. Boruta spotted their plight
and hurried over. The peasant braced his shoulders and single-handedly pushed
the king’s carriage out of the mud. So impressed was the king with Boruta’s
strength that he rewarded him with land and a title. But, like many people who
move rapidly from poverty to riches, Boruta did not take well to his newly
acquired wealth. He was a cruel and dissolute lord; he beat his peasants and
indulged in every conceivable vice. He stopped going to church and insulted the
parish priest when he tried to visit his manor. So vile did Boruta become that
when he died, he was sent back into the world as a devil, destined forever to
haunt the marshes and forests around his village, frightening maids and luring
men into the chest high bogs.”

The
devil smiled, evidently enjoying his friend’s tale. The grey-haired man
continued.

“A
couple of hundred years went by and Boruta got bored out in the marshes.
Scaring the villagers wasn’t enough for him anymore. Then one Sunday in May he
heard the church bells ringing and crept to the edge of the forest to watch the
people going to their temple. How pathetic they all looked – dressed up to the
nines, sucking up to the equally pathetic parish priest (a different one now,
of course, to the one that Boruta had thrown out of his manor all those years
ago). What empty ritual. Boruta wondered how they would look if the church
tower they were all so proud of were to fall down. That gave him the idea he
needed. Now he had a mission.

“Boruta
waited until dark and then set about his plan to bring down the church tower.
He climbed on it and shook it, but the structure would not budge. He howled and
scratched, but nothing happened. He struck at the tower all night with his
powerful tail and finally succeeded in knocking off a couple of roof tiles. The
following morning the priest prayed, the women wailed and the men fixed the
roof tiles. That night Boruta went back to the church and pawed at the tower
with his strong curved claws. He managed to inflict some visible scratches, but
that was all. The next day the priest prayed and the people prayed, and Boruta
waited until nightfall to resume his attack on the tower.

“For
a hundred years the devil attacked the tower, and the villagers prayed to God for
salvation from the unholy creature that kept them awake at night with his
howling and scratching. For a hundred years the tower stood proud on the little
church and did not succumb to the devil’s attacks. But then war came to Poland.
Not for the first time, of course, because Poland had seen many wars and had
even on occasion ceased to exist as a country in its own right, but Boruta’s
small village had remained pretty much intact; too insignificant to warrant the
attention of invading forces. But this time things were different.

“The
Nazis swept through the country in search of Jews and Gypsies, scholars and
priests, and anyone else they didn’t like. And so it came to pass that they
arrived in the small village. They couldn’t find any Jews or scholars or
Gypsies, but they pulled the priest out of his church and shot him in front of
the villagers, and then they proceeded to blow up the ancient church tower.
Smoke and rubble flew in all directions, and orange flames leapt up to heaven.

“Boruta
gazed at the church in disbelief. It looked strange – wrong. The mighty tower,
disproportionately large for the small church it had adorned, lay shattered
into a thousand pieces all over the ground. The tower that Boruta had scratched
and shaken and pummelled with his tail for a hundred years was no more. The
devil looked at the rubble and wept. He sat on the ground, curled his fine tail
under his body, and wept and wept. Then he disappeared. But rumours spread
through the surrounding area of a brave partisan riding against the Nazis at
night – a partisan with a pair of horns and a long black tail.”

The
grey-haired man smiled at his friend.

“A
fine tale,” responded the devil, “and a fine painting. I’m pleased it has found
its way into your wonderful museum”.

“Thank
you, my friend,” said the grey-haired man and, the tour being over, the two of
them retired to a small parlour, the host beaming even more than earlier.

“You’ve
no idea how happy it makes me that you like my collection. But surely you’re
not in a hurry? Surely you can stay for tea? I have some lovely biscuits.”

“You’re
such a strange species,” the devil mused. “Kind, generous, civilised, so many
great achievements, and yet so brutal, cruel and blood thirsty – for no real
reason. There are enough resources on earth to go around for everyone, and
enough capable people to run things, and yet the world is in a terrible state.”

The
host studied his old friend carefully.

“You
don’t seem quite yourself today. You should be celebrating.”

“And
why is that?” the devil asked.

“Precisely
because there are terrible things going on in the world today. People are
killing each other for nothing. There’s so much evil in the world. You should
be proud!”

“Proud
of what? I didn’t invent the atom bomb. I didn’t come up with the Holocaust, or
with ethnic cleansing, the Tutsi massacre or any of those things…”

“And
what happened recently in the Balkans, and Iraq,” added the grey-haired man,
“and all the bombings, and what’s going on in Syria right now… The world’s a
right devils’ playground.”

“Mr
John,” the tall man glanced at this friend with a hint of disapproval in his
dark eyes, “please don’t insult us. We don’t torture children – they haven’t
had time to sin yet. We don’t rape little girls or build death camps.”

The
grey-haired man studied his friend thoughtfully for a moment.

“I’ll
bring us some tea,” he said, and left the devil to his thoughts.

The devil walked over to the window, pulled back the net curtain a fraction and
peered outside. He noticed his tormentors hanging around, smoking cigarettes
and watching the building. He quickly let the curtain drop and moved away from
the window. John entered, bringing a tea tray, which he set down before them,
pouring a cup and passing it to his guest along with a chocolate chip cookie.

“You
don’t look too good, Mr Lucifer,” he eyed his friend sympathetically. “You
mustn’t worry, everything will be fine. That is, what I meant to say was,
everything will be bad and then even worse.”

“You’re
a nice man, Mr John. To be honest, I have a great favour to ask you.”

“Oh
no, not that. I’m very fond of you – you know I am. But I won’t give you my
soul. No way!”

“No,
no. It’s not about your soul. We have too many souls at the moment. Can’t get
rid of them. Once upon a time you had to resort to temptation – great wealth,
limitless knowledge, beautiful women … those were the days… Now they’ll give
their soul away for a lousy buck, or for free. There are no more Fausts, Mr
John – those times are long gone.”

“Well,
what is it then?”

Lucifer
frowned as a door slammed outside the flat.

“How
should I put it?” he continued. “It’s about justice. People are doing terrible
things, soon they’ll demolish the whole earth, the end of the world will come
and they will be saved. We rebelled once, a long time ago, soon we will be out
of work, and we would like – how should I put it? – to be saved as well.”