Dante's Inferno (3 page)

We left the garden behind us, descending

By a long track, till we reached Square 2,

Which encompasses less space,

But greater pain. Nearby Todd Landman,

Professor of Government, has his desk,

Where he sits, interrogating new arrivals.

Barely have they entered his room

Than he shows them how many books he’s written;

If they have a weakness, he pounces on it,

And he, who is an expert judge,

Then leaps up, winding his scarf round his neck,

And tells them where to go.

‘Hi,’ he said, when he caught sight of me,

‘And welcome to the place where pain is host –

As we say round here, no pain no gain

(That’s one from our team in marketing).

Now, please, be careful where you go,

There’s a health and safety talk in half an hour,

And an address from our Faculty Manager

Will follow – be warned, it may be easy

To get in, but don’t let that deceive you.’

‘Put a sock in it you windbag,’

Said Berrigan, ‘this one doesn’t need

All that bullshit, he’s just visiting;

It is willed there where the power is,

That’s all

                          you have to know.’

And now the cries of anguish

                        struck my ears

Drowning out all else.

I came to a place void of light

Which rioted like the sea in a tempest

When it is buffeted by warring winds.

The hellish storm

                  forever tossed

                    helpless screaming spirits

        into the black air

It was like some infernal

                        fairground ride

And when the faces whirled past our eyes

        they had the look

                of those grown sick with fear.

I learned that to such torment are doomed

The lustful,

                  who subject reason to appetite.

As the wings of crows roosting in winter

Bear them along in vast swirling flocks,

              as Mark Cocker has written,

So that blast transported these souls,

Stretching as far as the eye can see.

And I asked: ‘Berrigan, tell me,

Who are these people, lashed in the black air?’

‘The one who’s just going by,’

Berrigan replied, ‘is Maeve, Queen of Connacht,

She had so many lovers you couldn’t count them,

And more husbands than the Wife of Bath;

In her kingdom she made lust and law alike.

It was she who started the cattle raid

To steal Ulster’s prize bull from her former husband,

And there are those who say she had bull-longing.

That other one is Marilyn, who slew

Herself for love, behind her’s Berlusconi

Whose scandal knew no shame,

That’s King Edward and Mrs Simpson, whose affair

Rocked the crown, then Bill Clinton,

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor,

And there’s Paris Hilton…’ – then over a thousand

Shades he showed to me, and pointing with

His finger gave me their stories.

When I had heard my teacher name so many,

I was overcome by pity, and felt faint.

‘Poet,’ I began, ‘I would like to talk to

That pair that go together

And seem so light upon the wind.’

‘Wait till they’re a bit nearer,’ he said,

‘If you entreat them in the name of

That love they share, they’ll come.’

As soon as the wind gusted them towards us

I raised my voice: ‘Oh wearied spirits!

Come and speak with us if it isn’t forbidden!’

And then, just as on
Shooting Stars

The dove comes down, when bidden, so those

Spirits issued from the band where Ulrika is,

Such was the power of my call.

When they came into view, I beheld

An aged tutor, balding on top,

And a young student, with coal black hair.

‘Oh living creature, gracious and kind,

Who goes through the black air

         to visit us,’ said the girl,

‘Whatever you wish to hear

          you shall hear it, whilst the wind,

          as now, is silent for us.

The place I was born was Londonderry,

I came here to study,

              and to escape the Troubles.

Love, quick to kindle in a seasoned heart,

Led my tutor to fall for my young body,

And I in turn loved back.’

‘Dear creature,’ I said, ‘the terrible torment

You suffer brings tears of pity

To my eyes,

                           but tell me,

How, and by what signs, did love let you

                 know your desires?’

And she replied: ‘There is no greater pain

Than to recall a happy time from a state

Of wretchedness (as your companion knows)

But if you wish to know

                   the first root of our love

                   I will tell it, though I weep.

It was the Essex way, when Donald Davie still

Held sway, to teach in tutorials, one on one;

One day, the course was LT361:

Arthurian Literature, we were comparing

Malory with an Old French version of

The legend; we read of Lancelot,

Of how he fell in love, time and again

Our eyes were united by the text,

Gregory tried to impress me with an

Interpretative aside; we blushed.

To the movement of one line alone we yielded:

When we read about the forbidden kiss

Then my teacher kissed me on the mouth

Tremblingly; that book was our Galeotto;

That day we read it no further.’

Whilst the one spirit thus spake she wept

Constantly, while the other bowed his head.

The sight of these wretched souls filled me with pity,

And I fell, as a body, dead, falls.

Regaining now my senses, which had zoned out

At the sight of that old roué

                                          and his student

New wretchedness and new sinners retching

I see, wherever I move,

                             wherever I look.

I am in the sewer that is Square 3,

Fast food joints all around me,

Knee-deep in chip cartons and half-chewed kebabs;

Men in boiler suits hose it with jet sprays,

The dirty water fills the air, like Irish mist,

The stink never leaves the place.

There’s a stoner wearing dreads and

A filthy poncho, with a three-headed

            bulldog on a frayed bit of string,

The dog’s six eyes are bloodshot, the three mouths

Black, the three bellies swollen, ribs poking out –

It’s like something out of
Harry Potter.

Spilling from Food on 3 and the SU bar,

Hung-over students howl like mutts

             slipping and sliding      in the filth.

When the slimy hound got a sniff of us,

He pulled on the leash, snarling,

                              showing his fangs.

Berrigan, my guide, bent down slowly,

Without taking his eyes off the beast, and,

       spreading wide             his wiry fingers,

Shovelled up a fistful of spewed-up sausage

And beans, flinging it down those

                                     gawping gullets.

As a famished hound, hungering to

Be fed, quiets down when you bring out the Bonzo,

So the filthy heads now ceased their barking.

We walked across this slippery square

Of shades squirming in the soup,

When one of them sat up suddenly:

‘You there, on a tour of Hell’s diners,’

He beckoned, ‘do you not remember my face,

For you were born before I expired.’

I said: ‘It may be the torments you

              suffer have disfigured you,

                      I can’t put a name to your face,

But my memory              is not

What it was

                           tell me who you are.’

‘Your own city,’ he said, ‘so full of hate

It overflows the pan,

Once held me in the fresh air above.

Your people called me Round Nick

And I’m damned

                      for always stuffing my fat face,

All the bodies flattened here

Share in my sin

                           and in my pain.’

‘Nick,’ I said to him, ‘I recall you now,

And your sad suffering makes me weep,

But tell me what’ll happen, if you can,

To the people of that         divided state,

And are there any honest men among them?

And tell me, why is it so fucked up?’

‘Some blame the Act of Union, some Kitty O’Shea,

Some the Brits, some the Prods, some the IRA,

                   but sheer bigotry has played its

Part, coupled with sectarianism

And lust for power. Who knows

                when the violence will run its course?

There are honest men, but no-one wants to know,

For pride and hate and envy are the three

Tunes the Orangemen sing,

They kindle in men’s hearts, and set them ablaze.’

With this his dirge ended, but I answered:

‘Tell me more, what of

Rowlands, and Trimble, who had such good

Intentions, Cathal Goulding,

Michael Farrell, and the rest,

Bent on doing good? Where are they?

Do they taste Heaven’s sweetness

                      or Hell’s tandoori?’

‘Some taste Heaven’s sweetness, others lie

Below with blacker souls. If you keep on,

You may see them still. I speak no more.’

He twisted his great head towards me

And eyed me a moment,

Then rolled beneath the scum.

Berrigan, my guide, then spoke:

‘He’ll wake no more till Donald Davie

Blows his shrill whistle,

Then the dead souls will put on

Flesh once more,

                     and face their
viva voce
.’

And so we splashed through the filth

Of goners and doners,

Talking a little of the afterlife.

I said: ‘Master, will these torments be increased,

Or lessened, on Finals’ Day,

Or will the misery remain the same?’

And Berrigan: ‘Remember your theory;

The more a thing is subject to deconstruction,

As Derrida says, the more monstrous

Its pleasure, or its pain.’ We

Talked of Foucault, and punishment,

And Ginsters, till we came to a steep bank;

There we found Mervyn King, man’s arch-enemy.

‘Give Col a bonus! Give Col a bonus!’

The voice of Mervyn King spat out these words,

And Berrigan, my guide,

Whispered: ‘Don’t let him freak

You out, he’s a powerful mother,

But he can’t stop our campus tour.’

Then he turned towards that bloated countenance,

Saying, ‘Shut it, moneybags,

Feed on last night’s oysters that rot your guts,

This tour of your wretched kingdom

Has Dean’s approval, and funding

                         from the AHRC.’

As sails, swollen by wind, collapse

              when the yacht’s mast snaps,

So the savage beast collapsed before our eyes,

And then we started up those slippery steps,

Past wasted students stopped for a smoke,

                                that led to Square 4.

Who could imagine misery

              as strange as I saw here,

Like something out of                  Dalí.

As a speeding car on the road loses its

Grip on the tarmac, spinning into a stream of

Oncoming traffic, so these folk danced the conga;

More sinners were here than anywhere below

And from both sides, to the piercing cry of their

Screams, chests stuck out, they rolled giant coins,

And when they clashed against each other they

Turned to push the other way, one bunch yelling

‘What’s the point in saving?’, the other bunch

‘Take out an ISA!’ And so they whirled round

A grooved circle of pale concrete, like a

Treadmill, some retreating as far as Barclays,

Some sheltering near the Abbey. Then once more

They clash and turn and roll in their circular joust.

And I, shaken by such a sight,

Turned to Berrigan, my guide: ‘Tell me, master,

Who are these wretched souls?

                          Were they all moneylenders?’

He said: ‘Up above, the souls

                                        you see here

                            had such myopic minds

They could not judge with moderation

                 when it came to money. The ones

         with nothing on top were loan-sharks,

Or managed Building Societies, amassing fortunes,

While whole generations went to the wall

                        struggling to pay back mortgages.’

‘Ted,’ I said, ‘if I may, I reckon

I should be able to recognise a few of these,

Not least the shit who sold me shares in Gartmore,

Just before the Credit Crunch.’

And he replied: ‘Dream on, buddy,

The undistinguished life

                               of these moneygrubbers

That made them slaves to cash,

Now makes it hard to tell them apart.

Squandering and hoarding robbed them

Of any life, enlisting them in this scrum,

What more can I say?

Here you see the short-lived mockery

Of Capital,

             for which men bicker and connive.

As Dylan said: “All the money

                you made

                       will never buy back your soul.”’

‘This Capital you speak of,

               what is it,

            that has the world so in its clutches?’

And he replied: ‘People are mugs,

            things of real value,

                      friendship, love,

Poetry, health,

            they ride over roughshod

                    for a slice of Capital’s cake.

Commodity fetishism rules the day

            drowning us in a sea of white goods

                     and smart gadgets,

Online markets transfer empty futures

                   through time and space

            beyond all human wit to tell.

One state grows fat with power,

                  another lean,

                      according to Capital’s law

Which (like a snake in the grass) cannot

            be seen.

Nothing human can touch it,

Capital divides

                      and rules        its kingdom

Like a greedy spoilt dictator.

Its changing changes never rest,

Now in houses, now in arms, gold, wheat,

Beef, rice, diamonds, manganese,

Tumbling markets keep it constantly

       in motion, as investors come and go,

                  glad to be part of the ride.

But now let us go on to greater sorrow

                    night is coming

                         we’ve no time to lose.’

We crossed Square 4 to the other side,

Past Happy Days, where tomato ketchup spills

Into a trench formed by its overflow;

That stream was darker than blood

And we, accompanied by that shadowy sauce,

Moved down along a strange path.

When it has reached the foot of a

Grey slope, that melancholy stream descends,

              forming a black lake.

And I, peering into its depths,

Could make out muddied students in that slime

Totally naked and their faces mad.

They struck each other not only with hands,

But with their heads and chests and feet,

And tore each other apart with knives.

Berrigan, my guide, said: ‘These are the

Souls of Greek and Turkish MA students

Who war on campus after dark,

Full of hate and anger; and beneath

The surface there are arts students

Whose sighs make the bubbles you can see.

Wedged in the slime they say: “We were lazy

Sods and never turned up for lectures;

Most of the time we were completely stoned,

Now we are lazy sods in the black mud.”

This is the dirge they gurgle in their throats,

They can’t even get their words out properly.’

And so, across the water,

    we circled that disgusting pond

Our eyes glued to the slime swallowers.

We came, at last, to a tower’s base.