Dante's Inferno (7 page)

‘Steady,’ said Berrigan, ‘don’t lose your nerve.

This creature which you behold swimming up

From the quarry pit, with its arms outstretched

In supplication, is no enemy, nor is

It an evil spirit – it’s the soul of

The trees which were desecrated to make

This eyesore, in the face of local opposition.

Even Swampy couldn’t have put a stop

To this development, so rapacious

Are the quarry company and their backers.

Here profit is the only good, and here

You see the results of that philosophy,

Which no scorched earth policy could match.’

These were the words I heard Berrigan speak

As he beckoned the creature to come ashore

Near the end of the rocky promontory.

The gentle creature, its eyes full of pain

And sorrow, came onward, landing its head

And trunk, but drew not its roots upon the bank.

Its face was like that of a mother who

Has lost all her children in some catastrophe

Yet it shone from inside with a glow of

Benediction; within its translucent head no

Brain matter, but the ghostly silhouettes of trees.

As at times fishing boats lie on the shore,

Moored part on water and part on land,

Or as the endangered beaver, once common

On the polluted banks of the Rhine

In the land of the rowdy
bierkellers
,

Squats to hide from its persecutors,

Just so this great creature lay upon the

Brim of that dusty and bottomless pit.

Berrigan said: ‘Let’s take a shortcut to

Where the king of limbs has landed.’

Then we made our way down on the right and

Took ten paces towards the edge

Careful to avoid the flames which were falling here.

When we came to the creature, I saw nearby,

Crouched in the burning ruin of the church,

People huddled close to the altar.

Here Berrigan said to me: ‘So you can

Get a complete picture of this Zone,

Go over and have a word with them,

But don’t hang around; meanwhile I’ll have a

Talk with our friend here, and see if we can

Borrow his strong shoulders.’ Leaving Berrigan

Behind, I sidled up to these woeful folk,

Sheltering under the narthex.

Their eyes appeared to be bursting with grief;

On this side and on that their hands were flapping

To ward off the flames and the burning flakes

Of sand which rained down on them without let-up.

They were like dogs in summer, plagued by

Fleas that bite them, attacking

Their itch now with snout, now with paw.

When I had examined the faces of

A few of these wretches on whom the flames fell

I couldn’t recognise anyone, so burned up

Were their features, but I noticed that each

Wore a singed baseball cap or a T-shirt,

On which I recognised some of the logos,

And these they seemed to wish to protect from

The flames at the expense of all else.

I saw the crest of a blue eagle, a

Black horse, four red triangles arranged to form

A hexagon, a blue and white globe and

A black key; then one who wore a sweatshirt

Stamped with a blue cross surrounded by four

Circles, said: ‘What are you doing in this pit?

Didn’t you see the
KEEP OUT
signs?

If you’re a protestor, you’re too late,

Get out of here! And seeing you’re still alive,

You can tell my friend Sir Fred Goodwin

That I have a pew reserved for him right here,

And another one for Peter Cummings,

A lot hotter than his villa on the

Costa del Sol!’ Then he made a face, thrusting

His tongue out like a bull that licks its nose.

Not wanting to try Ted’s patience, and he’d

Told me to be quick, I hurried back to his side,

Where I found him already saddled up

On the trunk of that great spectre, and he

Said to me: ‘I forgot to ask, how’s your

Horsemanship? You’ve read Castiglione,

Now’s the time to put your book-learning to the test!’

I climbed up beside him as one who

Reluctantly boards a scary ride at

The funfair, then, putting his arms about

Me, he said: ‘Tree spirit, now we’re ready,

Take it slowly, be mindful of the living weight

You carry.’ As a ferry goes from its mooring

Backwards, so this living airship moved,

And when it felt itself free from the ridge

There where its trunk had been it turned its roots

Which undulated like the tentacles of

An octopus, propelling us over the abyss.

I doubt if Phaethon feared more when he took

The reins of the chariot of the sun,

Scorching the earth as can still be seen today,

Or if Harry Potter was more afraid

The first time he mounted a broomstick

In a game of quidditch, than I was then

When I saw only air on all sides

And saw extinguished every sight

Save the broad back of the king of limbs.

He goes on, swimming slowly, rising up

Like a jumbo jet played back in slow motion,

Then wheels round, changing track,

But I only know this from the wind in my face.

From below, I hear the roar of machinery,

As it scythes into the earth, and at this

I stretch out my neck to look down,

But doing so only made me more apprehensive,

For beneath me I could see nothing but

A city of flames, full of fearful cries

And lamentings, and I drew back tightening

My grip. And then I saw what I had not

Been able to till then: the spiral path

Of our descent, like that of a jet coming in

To Stansted, that has to kill time before

The runway is clear, and as we went down

I saw torment heaped upon torment

Closing in on us from every side.

The tree spirit brought us down gently,

Before a building that resembled a

Multi-storey car park, and here we alighted.

Unburdened, the ghost shot off, like an arrow from a bowstring.

Hell has a stricture called Al’s Bulge,

A block of

                 ferruginous-hued concrete;

At the gateway of this tottering

Pile is a huge chasm,

                               for unread books.

Abandoned by the tree spirit,

                        Berrigan walked

Straight in, me behind.

Packed into the dusty foyer,

New misery I see,

                    new hands on the whip:

Naked scholars

Stuck in                      two-way traffic,

Against us this side, with us that,

Like the ranks when Diana died,

As on one side they queued to sign,

On the other to escape the tide.

Here some queued to take out books,

Others to find them, crammed into

Paternosters, some going up, some down.

On both sides

Librarians in horn-rims

Flayed students fiercely,

Hell, how they made them bleed

In Freshers’

                   Week!

Struggling to move, my eyes lit on

One man; immediately I think

‘I recognise this one,’

And as I stop to make him out better,

Berrigan, my guide,

                               stops too.

The one with the weals tries to hide,

Lowering his swarthy face; but it’s no use,

‘Friend,’ I say,

‘Aren’t you he

           who translated our Percy

Into the Conquistadors’ noble tongue?’

And he says, ‘I grudge telling you;

But your meaning forces me,

It brings me back to old tomes.

I was he who couldn’t get enough

Of the wives of friends;

Drawing the beef curtains,

As the smutty story says.

To cover my tracks

                              I kept

A hoover

                in the trunk of my Rover;

Caught in flagrante

I’d dash out               for

My equipment, make out I was

A rep.’

As he speaks

                     the Head Librarian,

A softly-spoken Scot,

        hits him with a lash

        saying, ‘Get going, you ogre!

Women aren’t meat here.’

In a few steps we reach

        where the paternoster yawns

Below,

Letting the lashed

Go under, into the shit,

That seemed on tap from some sewer.

Rolling a joint, Berrigan points

Towards the

                    stairs,

‘See that haughty one,’ he says,

‘Like a goatherd down from the mountain,

Seeming to scorn any tears at pain?

He’s a dude whose skill with myth

Got him inside

                        many knickers.

He hitch-hiked to Lemnos once,

After the first-generation feminists

Had slaughtered their menfolk.

Here his gilded tongue

Tricked Hypsipyle, a young poetess,

And he left her all alone, pregnant.

And over there a little,

                              clawing off the shit,

The one in heels

With the pink leather suit

                and all the lipstick,

Look closely at that woman’s face,

Under the stinking make-up,

                that’s our Professor Emerita,

A hard-nosed Lacanian,

               whether she’s

                          written more books

Or screwed more dons

Is a tough call.’

David Willetts, you wanker, and your shit-brained

Followers, pick-pockets in silk suits,

Who play the pimp with HE,

Which should be a right,

                                      and free;

Can you imagine being told, age 25,

That you’d got cerebral palsy and the

Treatment would cost you an arm and a leg –

But it’s OK, you can defer payment,

Spread it over 20 years, no cause for alarm…

Don’t you ever stop

                                      to think?

Now, in your honour, let the fire-alarm sound,

For it’s here, in Al’s Bulge,

‘The Pits’, as the students call it,

That you and your kind hang out.

Already, we had stopped, to spit on his statue,

When we began to make our way

Up a wide granite stairway.

On the side wall, as we climbed,

I noticed what at first I took for

Some weird art installation,

Something from the Latin American Collection:

Here a series of round holes were

Punched into livid rock. They looked

About as wide and as deep as a manhole,

And from the mouth of each a pair of feet

Stuck out, and legs up to the knee,

And these were twitching frenziedly, as if

Dancing to electropop, like a robot

From
1984
, while on the soles of

The feet a flame too danced, as

Lit brandy on a Christmas pudding.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Berrigan,

‘But this is no surrealist montage,

The feet you see sticking out of the wall

Belong to the vice-chancellors

Of the university, the rest of their bodies

Are stuffed inside.’

‘Who’s that one,’ I asked, ‘the one

Who’s really going for it

                                         up ahead?’

‘If you really want to know, why don’t

You ask him yourself?’ said Berrigan.

‘
He
can talk.’ When we reached the eighth

Or the ninth step, where the stairs begin to turn

To the left, we came up close to the cleft.

‘Hello,’ I stuttered, ‘I can only see your feet,

But if you can hear me, and still have a voice, speak.’

I stood like a holy man confessing some

Hardened assassin on Death Row,

Who, strapped in his chair, calls him back

To delay the moment of death:

The feet stilled, then a voice came out,

Muffled, but audible: ‘Is that you on the stair,

Riordan? Here already? The statutes

Were out by several years on your account.

Are you so soon sated with that wealth for which

You made no bones about seizing the university

By deceit, only then to make havoc with her?’

I stood as one in negative equity,

Unsure how to understand what I heard

And uncertain how to reply.

Then Berrigan nudged me, saying:

‘Tell him you’re not the one he takes you for.’

At which I stepped right up to the hole

And did as he instructed. At this

The shade knotted his feet together,

Sighing in a laboured fashion,

Then in a voice which was half whining,

He said: ‘Then what do you want of me?

If you’ve trudged up these stairs, rather than

Take the paternoster, to know who I am,

Learn that I was once clothed in the great mantle,

But beneath the finery

I was greed incarnate, so eager

To advance my own ends, that up above

I stuffed my pockets, and here am stuffed in one.

I was the one who lobbied for top-up fees,

I shut down any subject area that wasn’t

Making a killing, and encouraged those that would

Bring in cash – the EBS was my brainchild, to the arts

I was no friend. Under my head are stuffed all the

Others who came before me, moneygrubbers to a man,

Cowering within the fissures of the rock.

I too will go down there when the one I

Mistook you for retires.

But already I’ve stood toasting in this

Undignified posture longer than he will,

For after him, from the north, will come

A ruthless shepherd who will liquidate

All of the humanities, a man who will

Put our deeds in the shade.

He’ll be another John Brooks:

If he doesn’t shut you down, he’ll either

Pension you off or make you work longer hours.’

He rambled on and on, like one who enjoyed

The sound of his own voice and was used

To his audience hanging on every word.

Perhaps I spoke out of turn, but I answered

Him with what was upmost in my mind:

‘While your salaries can be counted in

Hundreds of thousands,

                                     have you any

                      idea how much we pay our TAs?

And do you know how much the cleaners earn,

Who even have to pay to park at work?

Do you know what we pay poets?

Stay stuck where you are, for you’ve got exactly

What you deserve; your avarice grieves the world,

And your vision of a chrestomathic university

Chained to markets and so-called creative industries

Leaves no room for thought, and cares nothing for

The rubbished margins of your success story.

It’s you and your like who have put the “vice”

In “vice-chancellor”, you should be ashamed.’

And as I ranted on at him like this,

Like I do when I’m completely pissed,

Whether it was through rage,

Or because he had a bad conscience,

His feet kicked out violently at the air.

I think Berrigan dug what I said,

For all the while he couldn’t stop grinning.

Then he gave me a big bear-hug,

Crushing me against his broad chest,

And holding me like this, he lifted me up,

And didn’t let go until we’d reached

The top of the stairwell, where he put me

Down by a glass cabinet containing

Some pamphlets by Tom Raworth,
Lion Lion,

Haiku, From the Hungarian
, then after

We’d looked at these for some minutes Berrigan

Turned to me and said: ‘Let’s split.’