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Am I in Heaven?

【聯合報／讀李家同學英文】

Our history professor was a formidable scholar. A Serbian, he became interested in the Ottoman Empire’s invasion of the Balkan peninsula while working on his Ph.D., and he wrote many books on the subject.

He hated Muslims with every fiber of his being. He thought they should never have come to Europe. If he’d had the power, he would have driven all the Muslims on the Balkan peninsula back to Turkey.

The Bosnian Serb leaders practically worshiped our professor. The reason they were able to sustain a multi-year Bosnian civil war was entirely due to the influence of his propaganda. His hatemongering was so effective that the United Nations eventually declared him a war criminal. The Serbian government gave him two bodyguards; one of them served as his chauffeur.

He never dreamed that while he was traveling in Bosnia, his car would hit a land mine—a Serbian land mine, no less. Too many mines had been planted: the American ambassador had been blown up only the day before our professor met the same fate.

As his car was flung into the air, there was a split second while our history professor was still alive. It was then that he asked the last question of his life: “What will I do if there’s really a hell?”

In front of the doorway, as he motioned the professor in, the man said, “Professor, before you enter, please abandon hope.” The history professor recognized this as a line from Dante’s Divine Comedy; it meant that hell was a place without hope. Evidently, he was going to hell.

Before going in, the professor couldn’t restrain himself from asking the man, “Is it really terrible inside?” The man didn’t answer directly—he only said, “You’ll find out once you get there. If you have any questions, you can give me a call.”

As he had no other choice, the professor pushed open the door and entered.

He was shocked to find that the world on the other side of the door seemed filled with happiness. He felt as though he had come home—the scenery looked just like Yugoslavia’s, and he was delighted to hear many people speaking Serbian.

That threw the professor for a loop. He had obviously been sent to hell—how could he possibly be in heaven?

He recalled that he could call and ask the man who led him there, so he did. “Sir, I was talking to someone just now, and he said he’s in heaven,” he said when the man answered the phone. “How is that possible?”

“Of course he’s in heaven.”

“Then what about me? Where am I?”

“You’re in hell. You must know that heaven and hell are states of mind. If you have love in your heart, you’re in heaven; if you have hate, you’re in hell. You’ve always had hate in your heart; back when you were alive, you were already in hell. You can’t blame anyone for sending you to hell—all we did is grant your own wish.”

（本文摘錄於《讀李家同學英文5》，已由聯經出版事業公司出版）