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“The Maker has to know all things,” I said My voice broke I could hear Ankanoc laughing, but this was memory She”

He nodded

“Where’s The Boss?” I asked I meant Malchiah

“He’ll coh,” said Shmarya “You need to take care of yourself now”

“Why do I have the feeling that you don’t like him?”

“I love him,” he said siree After all, I’ne”

“And Malchiah?”

“Again, you know the answer to your own question He’s a Seraph He’s sent to answer the prayers of s I’m not sent to do”

“But I thought you all know everything,” I said It sounded immediately stupid

He shook his head

“Then you can’t tell me, can you, whether or not Lodovico went to Hell?” I insisted

He shook his head

I nodded I pulled the blinds over theAnd I turned on the lamp by the bed

It was powerfully coht He looked as solid as anything else in the room I wanted to touch him but I didn’t, and then I remembered that he had just touched me

I couldn’t read anything into his blue eyes, or the relaxed way in which he studied ave a little lift to his eyebrows, and then he said in a whisper, “Trust the Maker What you think or what I think does not put a man in Hell”

“You knohy I’ry?”

He nodded

I went on, “Because before I saw that man take his own life, I didn’t believe in Hell I didn’t believe in the Devil or demons, and when I came to God, it was not out of fear of Hell”

He nodded

“And now there is Ankanoc, and there is Hell”

He pondered this and then he shrugged

“You’ve heard the voices of evil in the past,” he said “You’ve always knohat evil is You never lied to yourself”

“I have but I thought the voices caht all the evil I’d ever witnessed came from within individuals, that devils and Hell were old constructs I felt myself becorow ever more evil as I killed others I can live with an evil that was inside myself, perhaps because I was able to repent But now there’s Ankanoc, a dybbuk, and I don’t want to believe in such things”