Dante's Inferno

by Philip Terry

  ‘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.’

  CANTO XX

  Now I must make punishment into poetry

  To make the matter of the twentieth canto

  Of the first chant, the one about the fallen.

  Already, we had reached that spot from where

  You can peer down into the pit of Al’s Bulge;

  The floor, here, was sticky with tears,

  And walking between the rows of books

  Near Sociology and Demographics

  I saw people go silent and weeping,

  Like a funeral procession in our world.

  When my sight descended lower on them

  I saw that each was strangely distorted:

  Their faces were twisted so that their chins

  Rested on their backbones, and they shuffled backwards

  To go forwards, gazing down at their own buttocks.

  Perhaps there was a case of Freud’s – some forgotten

  Hysteric whose hang-ups expressed themselves so,

  But none that I’ve heard of.

  Reader, if the theorists are correct, you

  Need to be active in the construction of the text,

  So imagine for yourself whether or not

  I could keep my eyes dry, when I saw the

  Human form so twisted, that weeping eyes

  Streamed down to wash their own arses.

  I wept, I couldn’t help myself, since having

  A child I’ve gone soft like that.

  I had to sit down next to one of the

  Computer terminals, then Berrigan said:

  ‘Quit blubbing, the shades in this hole

  Aren’t worth your tears, they’re mostly

  Folk who were so tied up with growth charts

  Or tea leaves they couldn’t see

  What was happening in their own back yards.

  Lift your head up, right up, see the

  Seismologist for whom the earth

  Split wide open while on a research trip

  In Haiti. “Where you rushing off to

  Doctor?” they cried, as he ran for home;

  He kept running till he fell into a crevice

  And into the hands of Landman, who gets them all.

  See how he makes a chest of his back: because

  He wished to see too far ahead he goes backwards.

  And look, there’s Tiresias, the old devil,

  You’ll have heard of him, he changed himself

  From man to woman, altering his bits,

  And later, he had to strike two serpents

  Coiled together in the grass with his rod,

  So that he could resume his man form.

  The next one, with her back facing

  Tiresias’ belly, is Mystic Meg,

  She was a graduate in English at

  The University of Leeds who claimed

  To possess psychic powers – but she

  Didn’t predict the Yorkshire Ripper.

  And that one with her long red hair

  Covering her breasts, and with her hairy

  Parts protruding behind her, was Providence,

  Who searched through many lands before

  She ended up where I was born; let

  Me tell you a little about her history.

  After the death of her father, it’s said, she found

  Herself alone and with a child in New England;

  At that time single mothers were hunted down


  Like witches, so she fled into the wilderness

  Living for some years in the heart of a swamp

  Where she dwelt amongst the Narragansett Indians,

  Learning how to treat sickness with natural

  Medicines, and how to tell when cold was coming.

  Here her daughter secretly married a chieftain,

  But they were discovered, then banished, and with the

  Mother and some servants they set up a new

  Settlement beyond the boundaries of the marsh,

  Where the land was uncultivated and

  Naked of inhabitants, declaring it a

  Place of religious freedom and offering

  Equal treatment to Indians and white folk.

  There she stopped to practise her arts,

  And there she lived

  till her 130th year,

  When her soul took leave of the earth

  And left her body vacant.

  Afterwards, they built a city over her

  Dead bones, and in memory of her who

  First chose the place, they named it Providence.

  And now, swear to me, if you ever hear

  The origin of my city described otherwise,

  Don’t let tall tales rob you of the truth.’

  And I replied: ‘Berrigan, I don’t

  Believe a word of it, you’re pulling my

  Leg, aren’t you?’ And he did not reply,

  But let out a loud belly laugh instead.

  ‘Now tell me,’ I said, ‘no joking, who

  Are these shades passing us now,

  Are any of them people I should know?’

  ‘That one,’ he said to me, ‘with the white beard

  Falling down his backbone, was a climate

  Scientist at UEA, who by fiddling

  His data brought just science into disrepute,

  You might have seen his story in the papers.

  That other one, with the skinny legs,

  Was an academic at Carnegie who

  Predicted robots would be in every

  Household by the mid-1980s.

  Behind him is the man who said of rock’n’roll

  In 1955: “It will be gone by June.”

  And look, this wretched crowd taking up the rear,

  They were all women from Essex,

  Most of them guilty of nothing but owning a pet,

  Tried by Matthew Hopkins for witchcraft,

  Then hanged – the methods that dude used would

  Raise eyebrows at Guantanamo.

  The procession is endless, but come,

  We need to get moving, believe me, there

  Are plenty more shades for you to meet yet.

  Quick, let’s jump into the paternoster

  Which will take us to our next port of call.’

  And then Berrigan stepped towards the lift shaft,

  And when the right moment came, grabbing me, leapt.

  CANTO XXI

  As we reached the top of the paternoster

  I saw the red sign warning us to alight –

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Berrigan,

  As we lurched on, into the darkness.

  When the lift reached the highest point of

  Its trajectory, it began to go down once more,

  And just as it did so a door appeared

  Which I hadn’t noticed before. I’d scarcely

  Had time to read the words NO ENTRY,

  When Berrigan shoved me through it

  Then jumped in behind,

  As the paternoster continued its course:

  The place we came to was strangely dark.

  On the waterfront at Wivenhoe,

  Just down from the Rose and Crown,

  Lies a busy boatyard, where in winter

  They boil the dark brown pitch to caulk their boats;

  As they cannot sail, here, between pints, they toil:

  Some build new boats, bending the planks into

  Shape with steam, others repair old ones,

  Plugging the broken boards

  with fibreglass,

  Some hammer at the prow, some at the stern,

  Some make oars, some mend the sails.

  Here, too, but heated by a thermoelectric

  Ring, not a camping gas, a sticky brown soup

  Boiled away in an industrial-sized vat,

  All smeared round the rim with sticky residue.

  I peered into it, but saw nothing there,

  Only the huge bubbles, which rose and fell.

  I was standing there, gazing fixedly into

  The soup, when Berrigan shouted: ‘Watch out!’

  Then pulled me to him from where I stood.

  As I turned round, I saw behind us,

  Cruising along the rim, a caterer,

  Winged, dressed in black. He looked scary,

  Like someone you wouldn’t want to mess with,

  His wings outstretched as he skimmed over the broth.

  ‘Now you can see,’ said Berrigan, ‘the raw

  Recruits for the new Catering College.’

  On one of his hunched shoulders, this one carried

  A young student from the summer school.

  He shouted out from above the soup: ‘Hey!

  Kitchen Devils! Here’s one of Saint Zita’s

  Children, you know, the exchange students from Lucca,

  You shove him under while I go back for more.

  They really are a bunch of Mafiosi, this lot,

  They’ll do anything for a backhander,

  Except their tutor, Paolo, of course – he wouldn’t

  Let me touch them until I offered him

  Some free luncheon vouchers.’

  He flung him in, then wheeled off over the soup;

  I’ve never seen a police dog move so fast,

  Not even to catch a G7 protester.

  The student plunged in, head first,

  Then rose to the surface, waving his arms about

  As he tried to come up for air.

  ‘No backstroke allowed in this pool!’ cried one

  Of the Kitchen Devils, ‘You’re not in the

  Serchio now! Unless you want to feel

  Our forks, I’d stay under the surface, mate!’

  Then they all jabbed him with their prongs,

  Like scullery boys poking the meat into

  The pot to keep it near the flame.

  Berrigan said: ‘You’d better keep a low profile

  And let me do the talking, otherwise

  They might want to throw you into the pot –

  It’s a long time since they had fresh meat.’

  He left me crouching behind a pile of old

  Cookbooks, as he stepped forward to talk to them.

  With all the noise and ferocity of guard dogs

  Rushing out on an unsuspecting rambler,

  The Kitchen Devils surrounded Berrigan,

  Turning against him all their crooks.

  But Berrigan stood his ground, and said:

  ‘Hold it right there, you’re wasting your time

  If you think you’re going to hook me –

  Who’s in charge here? Let me have a word with them.’

  They all cried: ‘Jamie, he wants you!’

  At which one stepped forward from their midst.

  This one had no wings and wore a checked shirt,

  Saying: ‘Sorry, guv’nor, but you’ve entered

  A restricted area – only

  Catering students are allowed down here.’

  ‘Look,’ said Berrigan, losing his patience,

  ‘Do you really think I’d have gotten this far

  Without recommendation from the top? Our trip

  Has approval from the Dean, from the VC,

  And we have funding from the AHRC,

  What more do you want?’

  At this, all his bravado collapsed,

  The ladle he carried, too, fell to his feet, />
  And he said to the others: ‘Hands off this one!’

  Now, Berrigan called me from my

  Hiding place, yet as I stepped towards him,

  From the movements they made, and from the

  Looks on their faces, I was worried they

  Would break their pact. I was reminded of

  A photograph I had seen of de Valera’s

  Men on the day they surrendered,

  And the worried looks on their faces

  As they marched past the Brits.

  I drew up near to Berrigan, my guide,

  Keeping a close watch on the under-chefs.

  They fingered their prongs, saying:

  ‘Shall I give him one up the arse?’

  And ‘Why don’t we show him the carvery?’

  But Jamie, who spoke with my guide, turned round

  And said: ‘You lot, behave! Or you’re out of here!’

  Then he turned to us, saying: ‘If you’re

  Trying to find your way out of the kitchens

  You’re heading the wrong way – the fire exit’s blocked.

  If you want to get out you’ll need to walk round

  This vat of soup and go through the café.