Dante's Inferno (13 page)

Raising his mouth from that horrible snack,

This blood-soaked shade wiped his lips clean on the

Squashed thatch of that head he had chewed up behind

Then spoke: ‘You’ve got a cheek, wee man, asking

Me to rake over the coals of a grief so desperate

That the very thought of it freezes my bones;

But if my words are to be a seed, that may

Bear the fruit of infamy for this traitor

That I gnaw, then prick up your ears,

For you shall hear me weep and gas at once.

I’ve no idea who you are, nor what business

Brings you traipsing around down here, but something

In your voice tells me that you were once from Belfast.

Know then, that I was Bobby Sands, and this

Here is Maggie Bloody Thatcher – now let me

Tell you why I am so unneighbourly.

Maybe I’ve no need to tell youse that it was her

Government that locked us up with common criminals,

Denying us political status

When there was a war on. But the cruelty of

My imprisonment you can not imagine.

When they took away our fucking clothes, we went

On the blanket; when they emptied our chamber pots

All over our fucking beds, only then did we

Start our dirty protest. The stench was appalling,

The cells were literally covered in shite,

And everywhere you looked there were flies and maggots.

It was like something out of Dante, like,

Only this was really happening, in 1979.

Through the thick pane of frosted glass

I’d gazed on many passing moons, when I

Woke to the banging of truncheons on perspex.

Before you could say “Up the IRA!”

We were ripped from our cells and dragged along

The corridor by our legs, then we ran the gauntlet

Of the ranked riot police who hit us with

Truncheons as we passed; we were kicked and

Pushed to the floor, where they pinned us down,

Then sheared us like sheep, scrubbing us

With floor mops, before they tossed us back inside

Our cells. They had done their best to break us,

And had failed, when at last they seemed to give in

To our demands – but it was a lousy trick,

The clothes they offered were not our own.

We trashed the place screaming blue murder,

Vowing revenge on the whole pack of them.

The next day we sat in silence, and the

Day after that as well.

It was around the time they brought our food

That the idea came to me, it had

Worked in the past, so why not try it again?

Hunger Strike. But this one would be to the death,

Each striker starting at intervals, and each time one

Of us died, another man would step into his shoes.

It’s no joke watching yourself die like that,

The pain is indescribable

As you start digesting your own innards –

Anyone but the immovable Thatcher

Would have compromised before ten men died,

But all she said was “A crime is a crime is a crime.”’

When he had spoken these words he rolled his eyes

Like a famine victim, then seized the miserable

Skull with his teeth, which as a dog’s were

Strong upon the bone. Oh Long Kesh, blot

Upon the landscape of that fair country

Where the sound of ‘aye’ is heard!

So what if Bobby Sands bombed the

Balmoral Furnishing Company,

Did that give you the right to make him

And nine others die before letting the

Politicals wear their own shirts?

The greatest betrayal in politics is retrenchment,

And the British Government’s inflexibility,

Matched only by the inflexibility of the hunger strikers

Themselves, prolonged the conflict by 20 years.

We made tracks to where the frost encases

Another pack of shades, not bent downwards

But fixed gazing up.

Here the very weeping puts an end to tears,

And the grief, which cannot find release through their eyes,

Turns inwards like desire in hysteria,

For their first tears formed a frozen knot

And, like freezing eye-packs, filled up

All the cavity beneath their eyebrows.

It was so cold that all feeling had been driven from

My face, my lips were numb, like skin that has

Hardened to form a callus,

Yet even so, it seemed to me I felt

A wind getting up, so I asked Berrigan:

‘What’s the cause of such a wind,

I thought no heat could reach these depths?’

And Berrigan replied: ‘Just be patient, soon

Enough you’ll see for yourself the cause of this blast.’

They must have heard us talking, for one of the shades

With their eyes buried beneath the crust

Cried out as we passed: ‘You wretched sinners,

Sunk so low that you’ve been given the last post!

Remove the hard veils from my eyes,

That I may give vent to my grief a wee bit,

Before the tears ice up again.’

Then I told him: ‘If you want me to give you

Some first aid, first tell me who you are,

And if I don’t help you afterwards

May I be sunk forever beneath the ice.’

He answered then:

‘I am Gerald Barry, I was given life

For murdering Manuela Riedo, a Swiss student

On vacation in Galway, in 2007,

Then they gave me life again, even though I

Pleaded guilty, for the rape of a French student

A couple of months earlier.’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘and you’re already dead?

Didn’t you serve your sentence?’

And he replied: ‘Just what my body’s doing

Up in the world I couldn’t tell you,

But I’ll let you in on a secret:

This isn’t the only corner of the campus

Where you’ll find a fellow who hasn’t yet

Popped his clogs. And just so that you’ll be

All the more wanting to peel the ice-flows

Off my face, let me tell you, when a soul

Behaves like I did, a demon takes over the

Body, controlling it like a zombie

For all its remaining days on the earth,

While the soul drops straight into this cistern here;

And that smarmy Baptist wintering out

Behind me, he may well be up on earth still,

For all I know, perhaps you could tell me,

If you’ve just come from there: he’s the

Baptist dentist, Colin Howell, who bumped off

His wife and his mistress’s husband,

Then staged their joint suicide in a car

In Castlerock. He’s been down here so many years

I’ve lost count.’ ‘But that can’t be so,’ I said,

‘I’ve heard about this case, it was only recently

He confessed, after a crisis of conscience,

He’s only just started serving time.’

‘That may well be,’ he said, ‘but believe me,

The souls of Lesley Howell and Trevor

Buchanan had not yet reached the muddy shore

Where Dr May greets the freshers before

The dentist left a zombie in his place

At the surgery, and the same goes

For his accomplice. I swear to you,

That’s God’s own truth. But enough of that,

Lend me a hand as you promised, open

My eyes.’ I did not open them.

To be rude to him was courtesy itself.

Ah, Londonderry! You’ve bred so many

Fucked-up fanatics it’s a wonder God

Doesn’t wipe you off the map, for I found

One of your men, consorting with Galway’s worst,

Who for his foul deeds bathes already in Cocytus,

But his body seems alive and is serving time amongst you.

‘Now put your goggles on,’ said Berrigan,

‘We’re going into Zone 9, Area D,

The Judas Precinct as they call it,

You’ll see why soon enough.’ As he spoke

I peered ahead through the freezing mist,

Which now blew fiercely into our faces,

And in the distance I could make out

What looked like a huge underground wind-farm,

Though the blades were spinning faster than

Any I’d seen before. ‘What’s with the

Wind-turbines,’ I said, ‘why would you put something

Like that underground?’ ‘That,’ said Berrigan,

‘Is no wind-farm, it was developed by

People in Computer Science to simulate

Arctic weather conditions – the idea was

To reverse global warming, and they thought

The device might have military potential too,

Like their Robotic Fish, you know, kind of

If they won’t do what you want, put their whole

Country into deep freeze. If it had worked, whatever

The ethics, they’d have made a fortune, but they

Couldn’t get it to function outside lab

Conditions, too many variables in the end,

Though it’s highly effective at creating

The freezing conditions down here, which they

Need to preserve the Biological Archive.’

‘The Biological Archive?’ I asked.

Berrigan knelt down and began to scrape

Away the layer of frost that covered

The ice, and as he did so I saw that

Beneath the surface were souls fixed in this

Frozen element (I tremble as I write it in verse),

They looked like flies trapped in an ice cube.

Some of them were lying flat, some stood upright,

Some were suspended upside-down, others,

Like gymnasts, bent their heads towards their toes.

‘Look,’ said Berrigan, ‘that one standing on

His head is Enoch Powell, who gave a talk

Here in the sixties; beside him,

In the military garb, is Dr Inch from

Porton Down, an army research base which

Had links with chemical warfare –

It was his visit which sparked the student sit-in

Which once made Essex notorious.

If you look closely beneath the ice

You can still see a few groups of students

Sitting around – they’ll sit there till doomsday

Waiting for their demands to be met.

Further down still, though so far down you’d be

Lucky to catch a glimpse of them, are the

Politicians who made war on countries

They’d previously been happy to sell arms to –

Some of them you might recognise, like Blair and Bush,

Others are buried so deep you’ll never spot them.’

‘Berrigan,’ I said, ‘why do all these people

Suffer together here, I mean, what do they

Have in common? The students’ cause was just,

From what I know about it, they were fighting

To stop one of their fellows from being expelled

For heckling a fascist.’

‘That’s true,’ he said, ‘like any archive, what’s

Collected here, at the end of the day,

Is a pretty mixed bag, but one thing that

Links all these people together on a

Technical level is the betrayal of

Benefactors:

Blair betrayed those who’d voted him into office

By going to war with Iraq, the students,

Whatever the rights and wrongs of their cause,

Betrayed those who fought to get them a free

Education, and ultimately put this

Right in jeopardy; Powell,

Whose crime is the worst of all,

Betrayed a whole generation

                                             of immigrants.’

I don’t know how long we crouched, gazing into

The ice, but by the time we stood up my

Back was aching. ‘This way,’ said Berrigan,

‘There’s another part of the archive I want

To show you.’ As we advanced into the cooler

We reached a point where our path began to

Descend, and on each side a wall of ice

Rose up. When the path levelled out again

We stopped for breath, for now the wind had dropped,

And looking round I found myself in what

Looked like a maze of corridors carved into

The ice. ‘The Archive of Dreams,’ said Berrigan.

He reached out his hand, touching the wall,

And pulled out a vertical sheet of ice,

Which slid out like a drawer. Looking closely

I could see that it had a text carved

Into its surface. ‘Read it,’ said Berrigan,

‘Or pick another one. This is where all the

Dreams of staff and students who have been

At Essex are stored, there are billions of them.’

As he spoke I pulled out another sheet of ice

On my left and, squinting, read out its contents:

‘In my dream I was racing with the VC down

A long corridor. We both rode penny-farthings.

The faster I pedalled the slower I went.

At the end of the corridor lay my pension.

As we approached it seemed to get further

And further away. When we finally got

To it there was nothing left except a

Pre-decimalisation ten-shilling note.

“I win,” said the VC. (Gender: Female.

Member of: Staff. Age range: 36–45).’

‘OK,’ said Berrigan, ‘now we must go,

We’ve seen it all.’ So saying he took my hand

And led me down a corridor on the right

Which was dark and endless. At last

We came to the head of a metal staircase

Which descended in a spiral, and as we went

Down I grew dizzy. ‘Hold fast!’ said

Berrigan, ‘For by such stairs must we depart

From so much ill. The way is long, and difficult

The road.’ I was hot and sticky by the time

We reached the bottom. Berrigan kicked open

The door and we stepped out into the stinking

Service area once more, making our way

Past the bins and the cars and the litter,

Choking on the fumes which came from Hell’s kitchens,

Till we came to a point from which we could

Once more see the clear light of day.

We took off our snow gear, throwing it

In a skip, and crossed the road,

Stepping straight onto a number 62.

It was crowded with students going home

From class, we couldn’t find a seat for us both.

Then, as we pulled out, Berrigan began

To tremble like a heatwave

                                             and vanished.

The girl beside me was reading her stars.