Dante's Inferno

by Philip Terry

Whose border was marked by a pole bearing a sign.

  ‘These poles,’ said Berrigan, ‘serve a double purpose,

  For in the event of fire or other emergencies,

  They serve as Assembly Points; this one serves

  The Lecture Theatre Block, and some of the labs.’

  As he spoke, he pointed out the labs

  With his finger, then added:

  ‘When the alarm goes off it’s something else –

  Because it has to be heard over the voices

  Of the scholars delivering their lectures

  And since, in addition, it has to be sure

  To wake up any students who have dropped off

  It has a special sonic frequency

  Which can penetrate concrete and the thickest skull.

  The technology was pioneered right here

  On this campus, they call it Roland 2.’

  It was pretty dark where we were standing

  And as I cast my eye about in the gloom I

  Seemed to see a host of giants closing in

  On us. ‘What’s up with Goliath and Co.?’

  I asked, and Berrigan, my guide, said:

  ‘You’ve got it wrong, partner, these aren’t giants,

  They’re towers; the original plan was to

  Include a lot more than there are now

  As well, but let’s get a little closer,

  So you can see for yourself.’ As when

  Dry-ice lifts, the eye little by little reshapes

  What till then the air-crowding vapour hides,

  So, as my eye pierced that darksome air,

  Drawing closer to these edifices,

  My confusion began to clear too.

  Just as at Montereggione, the

  Round wall is crowned with high towers,

  So the round hill here was dotted with tower blocks.

  ‘Here,’ said Berrigan, ‘you see the ambition,

  But ultimately, too, the failure, of

  Modernism – the uniformity

  And functionalism first advocated

  By the likes of Le Corbusier,

  The so-called “international style”,

  See their apotheosis in these towers.

  But as Jencks later saw, these

  Monstrous structures were ultimately

  Uninhabitable – they filled up with

  Low-lifes and drug users until the point

  Was reached where they had to be given the

  Coup de grace by dynamite –

  Which as Jencks puts it marks the death of

  Modernist architecture.’

  As we drew close to one of the towers

  I could make out one of the faces at a window,

  A student who appeared to be off his head,

  And as we passed by he cried out

  What sounded to me like total gibberish:

  ‘Rafa! Maya! Make me shabby! All me!’

  ‘That dude,’ said Berrigan, ‘kind of makes the point.

  He’s like Nimrod, the one who built the Tower of Babel;

  After the building of that structure

  He lost the power of speech, just as the earth

  Lost a common tongue – of course, that’s just myth,

  But it kind of explains one of the problems

  With the modernist block – the overwhelming scale

  Ultimately leads to a breakdown in

  Communication amongst communities.’

  We strolled on along a rising track

  Until the towers lay behind us,

  Then I saw up ahead a low circle of

  Buildings, built from pale brick, with little

  Balconies overlooking an area of grass.

  They were brighter and much less

  Intimidating than the towers I

  Had mistaken for giants, and I asked Berrigan:

  ‘Who lives within these blocks, are they reserved

  For the graduate students, or visiting

  Professors? They certainly look like

  An improvement on the towers.’

  ‘Those are the South Courts,’ he said, ‘I think

  Anyone can stay there – it’s just a lottery

  Whether you end up here or in the towers.

  But you’re right, apart from the building work

  That’s still going on, which you’ll see in a minute,

  It’s a more user-friendly place to live – in that sense,

  As well as the nod to past architecture,

  I mean, it’s a bit like a Georgian crescent,

  It represents a more postmodern

  Approach to building in Jencks’ sense:

  It’s what he calls double-coded, at once

  Old and new, popular and elitist.’

  We kept on walking all this while,

  And by the time Berrigan had stopped talking

  We had arrived at a security gate,

  Which blocked our path. A notice in red

  Stated: ANTEUS SECURITY:

  RESTRICTED ACCESS. Berrigan went up to

  The window of the Portakabin:

  ‘We’re on a campus tour,’ he said, ‘we’d like

  To visit Zone 9, Areas A–D.’

  ‘Sorry mate,’ came the voice from within,

  ‘Authorised personnel only.’

  ‘This trip has AHRC funding,’ said Berrigan,

  ‘And Dean’s approval.’ ‘That’s what they all say,’

  Said the security guard, ‘I’ll need to

  See your ID if you claim you’ve got clearance.’

  Berrigan handed him some documents

  Which he began to leaf through suspiciously.

  ‘Is this one living?’ he asked, sounding surprised.

  ‘Sure is,’ said Berrigan. ‘Well, that’s a first!’

  Said the guard. He began to type something

  Into his computer, and Berrigan lit a smoke.

  Eventually, he looked up, smiling, and said:

  ‘You’re in,’ at which point the gate clicked open

  And he took us inside, handing us a couple

  Of hard hats. ‘You’ll need to put that cigarette

  Out, guv’nor,’ he said, ‘inflammable material.’

  Berrigan took a last, long drag, then stubbed it

  On the ground, as the guard led us towards

  The edge of a huge pit dug into the earth

  In the centre of the ring of flats.

  ‘It may just look like a massive hole in

  The ground to you, mate,’ he said, ‘but this

  Here is the future of student accommodation.

  When it’s finished, there’ll be a whole city

  Down there, Cocytus Campus we call it,

  All the flats come with wi-fi and en suite,

  And the whole lot’s carbon neutral as well.’

  We were now standing at the yellow

  Barrier which circumnavigated

  The rim of the pit. Peering over the edge

  I could see nothing, so deep and dark it seemed;

  ‘If you’re wanting to go down,’ the guard said,

  Pointing at a kind of cage on a pulley,

  Like those used to clean the outside of glass buildings,

  ‘This is the only way. I’ll leave you here.’

  At that Berrigan fastened his hard hat

  And stepped into the unsteady contraption,

  Pulling me in beside him. The guard shut the gate,

  Then pressed a button. Slowly we began our descent.

  CANTO XXXII

  If I had stanzas rough and jolting enough

  To describe our descent

  Into this pit hollowed out of the earth

  Whose walls supported the converging weight

  Of Hell, then I would press the juice of

  My memory to the last drop.

  But I don’t have them, so balk at going on.

  To describe this heart of darkness as it truly is

&nb
sp; Is no child’s play, no place for jingling lines

  That come off pat. I doubt those ladies that

  Helped Amphion wall in Thebes

  Can be of much help.

  As we went down, unsteadily,

  Scraping against the compacted layers of

  History, Berrigan handed me a snow-suit.

  ‘You might be needing this,’ he said, ‘put it on.’

  We hit rock bottom as I was pulling up the zip,

  And as I stepped out, dizzy, still gazing up at those

  High walls, I heard a voice address me:

  ‘Mind where you step, big fellow, you don’t want

  To be crushing the heads of these sorry souls

  With your big boots.’ At once I turned around

  And I saw stretching before me and beneath

  My feet a vast lake, frozen over,

  So that it looked more like perspex than ice.

  Even those freak winters cold enough to freeze

  The Colne over from Wivenhoe to Mersea Island,

  Or to freeze over the waters of Lough Neagh,

  Never made ice so thick as you saw down here;

  If Slieve Gullion had been dropped on it,

  Or even Slieve Donard, it wouldn’t have cracked,

  Not even at the edges. And as frogs sit

  With their bodies half out of the water,

  Croaking away, in that season when academics

  Put their feet up, brushing up on Gramsci,

  Or concocting a new reading of Paradise Lost,

  So these shivering shades were wedged in the ice,

  Right up to their belly buttons, their teeth

  Chattering away like joke-shop dentures.

  Every one of them held his face pointing

  Downwards, like politicians browsing in a porn

  Emporium, their teeth testifying to their

  Suffering, their eyes to the sorrow in their hearts.

  When I’d had a good look around, I glanced

  Down at my feet, and there I saw two shades

  So pressed together that the hair on their heads

  Was entwined. ‘You there,’ I said, ‘who won’t let

  Each other go, tell me who you are.’ At this,

  They twisted their stiff necks, and when they had

  Raised their faces towards me, their eyes,

  Which were bloodshot with the cold,

  Began to shed tears, which fell to their lips,

  Freezing fast as they went so that the two

  Were ever more firmly locked together.

  An industrial stapler never fixed

  Plasterboard to wood so strongly;

  And they, like dodgems, constantly bumped each other.

  Another one, who had lost both ears to the cold,

  His face peering into the icy mirror,

  Called out: ‘What are you staring at?

  If you want to know who these two are,

  The valley where the Bann descends

  Belonged to them, and to their father Brian

  O’Brien, an Ulster Chieftain; they fought over

  Their inheritance till both lay dead.

  And let me tell you, if you search the whole of

  Cain’s Corner, you won’t find souls

  More fit to be stuck in this frozen aspic;

  Not she who beheaded her cousin Mary,

  Not Jack Wall, who stabbed his brother after

  A day’s drinking, not even this one here

  Whose head blocks my view, Sean MacHeron:

  His family ran a removals firm in

  Carrickfergus where he murdered his cousin,

  Burying him in concrete, to get his hands on

  The business; if you’re a northerner, you’ll no doubt

  Know the tale. And to save you the trouble of

  Asking, I’m Seamus O’Connol, who quarrelled

  With my uncle over a farm; my crime

  Was nothing compared to my cousin Owen’s,

  Who told the Brits we were storming the castle.’

  Afterwards, I saw a thousand doglike faces

  Made purple by the cold, and I thought of

  The pub at the top of Scheregate Steps,

  The Purple Dog, and wondered if its owners

  Had visited this region of Hell.

  That’s why I shudder, and always will,

  Each time I walk past it, and rush by

  The man selling The Big Issue there.

  While we made our way farther into the

  Frozen Zone, crossing the ice with careful steps,

  Perhaps it was fate, perhaps chance, I don’t know,

  But picking our way through the heads,

  My Docs struck one of them in the face.

  Letting out a yelp, it barked at me:

  ‘What the Hell do you think you’re doing!

  Surely you haven’t come to punish me

  For fetching the English across the water?

  For Christ’s sake, lay off!’ And I:

  ‘Berrigan, my master, wait here a moment,

  I’d like to check this one out, then

  We can press on as quickly as you like.’

  Berrigan stopped dead in his tracks,

  And I turned to that purple shade,

  Who still hadn’t let up cursing, and said:

  ‘Who the Hell are you, losing your rag at us like that?’

  ‘I like your sauce,’ he answered, ‘what on earth

  do you think you’re doing marching through here

  Kicking people in the head? Not even a

  Living man could kick as hard as you do!’

  ‘I am a living man,’ I said, ‘and if you

  Know what’s good for you, tell me your name,

  So I can put you in my notebook

  And spread your fame at the Writers’ Forum.’

  ‘Not likely,’ he said, ‘that’s the last thing I want.

  You’ve got a funny idea of flattery.

  Now bugger off and leave me alone!’

  Then I grabbed him by the scruff and said:

  ‘If you want any hairs left on your head

  You’d better give me your name.’

  ‘You can tug away till I’m bald,

  And kick my teeth in for all I care,’ he said,

  ‘I’m giving neither name nor number!’

  I already had his hair twisted round my

  Fist, and had pulled out a few handfuls,

  As he kept up his howling,

  When another voice cried: ‘What’s up, Dermot?

  It’s bad enough listening to your teeth chattering,

  Do you have to start barking as well?’

  ‘So it’s you,’ I said, ‘Dermot MacMurrough,

  The biggest traitor of the lot! I might have guessed.

  I’ll make sure I tell about you, don’t worry.’

  ‘Fuck off!’ he answered. ‘Tell what you like,

  But if you’re lucky enough to escape this hole

  Don’t forget to mention that blabbermouth

  Russell: “I saw,” you can tell them, “the bastard

  Who stood by as the Irish dropped dead through hunger,

  Stuck up to his neck in the fridge.”

  And if anyone asks you who else was there,

  Right under your feet is Billy McCaughey,

  And if you go on a wee bit, you’ll find that

  Turncoat Florence MacCarthy, along with

  MacMahon and Gerald Fennell who would have

  Opened the gates at Clonmel while the people slept.’

  We had already left him, when I saw

  Two frozen in one hole so close together

  That the one head was a cap for the other,

  And as a famished man sinks his teeth into

  A crust of bread, so the uppermost sank

  His teeth into the brain of the lower.

  If old books carry any truth, this must

  Have been how Tyd
eus gnawed the severed

  Head of Menalippus in his rage.

  ‘You,’ I shouted, ‘you on top, what fury

  Makes you suck the very marrow from that

  Meat, what hatred feeds your appetite?

  If you’ve good reason to take such revenge,

  Tell me what it is, and I will repay

  Your trust, repeating your words in the world

  Above, if my tongue doesn’t dry up first.’

  CANTO XXXIII

  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