Behind her on the terrace an icon glowered,
deeply vexed to hear the girl resisting
that demonstration of his godly power.
She’d read the message in part: “Our Great Lord’s vision
was fixed upon the lives of those poor children
and if He cares to draw them to His bosom
ours is not to question His decision.”
Too right…it’s not! agreed the god behind her.
Teri said, “We have to trust God’s wisdom.
Without His love all lives lack definition.
This shock,” she sniffled, “might be our reminder.”
Their friend said, “Ma’am, my thinking’s more empirical.”
He stroked his beard. “The problem starts with religion.
Amangan drivers trust too much in miracles,
so routine vehicle maintenance gets neglected…
…assume there’s no God…you’ll see such awful collisions
are precisely what would be expected.”
Ben addressed the man in the canvas hat,
“Doug, is that your view? You have no Faith?
But you must see the beauty in this place...
you think a Creator had no hand in that?”
“Frankly no,” said Doug, “but when I see
the works of nature, where evolution’s bashed
out birds and bees…butterflies and bats…
that’s many times more wonderful to me.
All the fabulous variety of birds I’ve seen...
eagles, penguins…ostriches and chats...
I’m awestruck at the thought that they’ve all been
moulded by nothing but time and random chance
of genetics to fit a niche in a habitat
by natural selection. That holds more romance…
…than the simple alibi that God begat
all the biosphere...it don’t hold water
to anyone that contemplates the welter
of animal forms, from elephants down to gnats...
…the twenty million different types of beetle.
Evolution - God should envy it -
it created human intelligence...my caveat
to that of course is it seems to’ve missed a few people...
But I can work alongside some religions...
…I’ve got a contract soon to study big cats
on land the government’s granted to an ashram.
It’s sacred to the Monkey God Rakiman,
and the monks’ll care for that forest like diplomats...
…at least I hope so...it’s full of orang-utans.”
Ben said, “That’s what I’ve been telling you, Teri.
It’s my belief that animistic cultures
are smarter than our monotheistic dogma
where all respect for nature has been buried.
I’d love to learn some more and test my hunch.”
“Well now’s your chance! The ashram’s sent a swami
to Zeelung village as an emissary.
I’m meeting him tomorrow after lunch.”
“When do we need to meet to go bird ringing?”
Teri asked, “The two of us are very
keen to help if we can…we’ve heard birds singing
but haven’t seen a thing...not with this drought.
Do you think it’s only temporary
or will the marshes always be dried out?”
“The crack of dawn...real birders don’t have lie-ins...”
He cast an eye on the desiccated marshland.
Nothing moved. Trees stood bare and blackened,
silent save for a buzzard’s mournful crying.
“...so meet me here...help me with the chores
and you can handle some of the birds I’m weighing.
As for this drought...ecologists are trying
to understand the cause but we’re not sure
whether climate change is the only factor...
as glaciers shrink the rivers they feed are drying
but agriculture too might have effect.”
He pointed towards a green horizon of fields.
“It’s possible this ecosystem’s dying
because the water’s diverted to boost crop yield.”
“It gets me…” Ben rejoined the conversation,
“…knowing that these crops don’t feed the poor.
The road coming down from the mountains, all we saw
was miles and miles of industrial scale plantations,
bananas, asparagus, soya, and I’d guess that
none of it goes to market in this nation…
…they steal Amangan water for irrigation
but all the profits go to foreign investors.
It’s opened my eyes...people back home should be humbled
to know that the catalyst of deforestation
is beef for cheap hamburgers.” Then Ben mumbled,
“But I shouldn’t talk...my great-great-grandfather’s name
was Gonzalez, as in ‘...Banana Corporation’,
so I guess my family shoulders some of the blame.”
Teri shook her head, “I can’t stop thinking
about those children...without you Doug, to update us
we’d not’ve known...we haven’t seen any papers.
Do you think the driver had been drinking?”
“You wouldn’t’ve read it,” said Doug. “The News in Amanga
gives stories about the poor the lowest ranking…
...news-readers reel off catastrophes without blinking
...that tourist girl whose body they’ve found in Lidonga…
...hear about that?” They shook their heads at the birder.
“Raped and strangled, but now the police are linking
the case to several Amanga City slum murders.
A foreigner dies and suddenly it’s headline news,
but up until now, no-one had an inkling
there’s been a serial killer on the loose.”
Imti Mentoo knew of course - he’d followed
the killer’s movements over several years.
Such men could be depended on to cheer
the lonely deity when his life felt hollow.
He’d watched him prowl the slums, his charm and japing
luring sweet young girls to his foul hovel
where he’d smack them up and make them swallow
knock-out pills before he did the raping.
Sometimes there was torture and the screams
moved the god like music moved Apollo.
The killer too was working on a dream:
he’d stolen golden jewellery from each
and bought a guest-house where the foreigners wallow
in the sunshine - on Lidonga Beach.
A waiter came to clear away the remnants
of their meal. The setting sun was gilding
the desiccated landscape bronze and golden.
The sky was streaks of orange, lime and lemon.
Then Teri twigged. “That bus we saw...My God!”
and Imti Mentoo thought, Durr!...cle-verrr...!!
but Ben’s reaction sparked a new dilemma:
the message was for The Messiah, but the sod
enraged him with the scepticism he showed.
“There’s very little chance it would be them
...hundreds of buses travel on those roads.”
His anger was mounting because in recent days
Imti Mentoo’s prophet Benjamin Bremmer
had pissed his Lord God off in other ways...
For instance, on the evening they’d arrived
with Imti Mentoo travelling in Ben’s bag
he’d heard them tramp the village seeking digs
in vain until, past midnight, Ben contrived
to haggle the price of a twin-bed hostel room
that barely befit
ted a person so divine:
a grotty box in a budget backpacker dive,
its shadeless lightbulb grappling against the gloom.
Ben set down the god on a bedside table.
Freed from the bag his spirits part-revived
though the room was a dump: two beds and one unstable
chipboard wardrobe. The carpet was showing its threads.
At the end of the room a plastic curtain deprived
the god of the glory of Teri dressing for bed.
But then the girl emerged in striped pajamas
laughing at the crude Amangan plumbing,
wobblers joggling, ramping up his longing.
Imti Mentoo felt his great banana
strain against the bounds of expectation,
assured that Ben would shortly do the honours.
But the wooden cock by her travel clock alarmed her.
She niggled Ben with sharp expostulations
to shut it up in the wardrobe with their luggage,
and then she carried on her fierce palaver
rebuking Ben for buying pagan rubbish,
and all the thwarted god could do was listen
to sounds of the man contritely trying to calm her
followed by some chaste and short-lived kissing.
The second night was certainly no better.
Teri sounded glum and Ben consoled
her saying they’d change hotels but she said no
- she didn’t mind the room - what had upset her
was all the rotten luck they’d had while travelling:
first no condors, then this lack of water.
“The guide books called it Eden when it was wetter
but now I feel our plans are all unravelling.
It seemed like a sign...those birds outside the market...”
“We’ll find some birds…” her boyfriend tried to pet her.
Teri shrieked, “No Ben! Not my armpit!”
Imti Mentoo in the wardrobe dreamed
the feel of his own hand inside her sweater
but wakened when the shriek became a scream.
“No Ben! No! Just stop that…that’s enough!
I’ve pledged myself to celibacy till I’m married,”
and Ben was mumbling, voice abashed and worried,
“Sorry Teri...was I being too rough?”
He moved to the other bed at her insistence.
Naturally the phallic god was miffed
he’d picked a man so shy of chasing muff,
who gave up at the first sign of resistance.
Soon after, the pair of them were snoring
and Imti Mentoo flumped into a huff.
Spying on these lovers was so boring.
He wished he’d picked a prophet who was stronger,
who’d over-rule this Christian chastity stuff
- someone like the Rapist of Lidonga.
Their third night in Zeelung, the angry imp
was in a greater rage. This was the day
they’d eaten out with Doug. He’d heard Ben say
about his interest in Rakiman, that chimp.
Trapped in the wardrobe, no light except a chink
around the door from the feeble ceiling lamp,
he listened to his prophet declare a limp
allegiance to a deified Missing Link
- the wrong way to woo a girl whose loins are frozen.
It crossed his mind that Ben his Chosen Wimp
probably didn’t know that he was chosen.
He figured Ben might embrace his destiny faster
if Eros intervened in the style of a pimp.
If I get him laid, he might acknowledge his Master…
…a-thump-a-thump-a-thump-a-thump-a-thump...
A small lagoon adorned with ducks and storks
deep inside the Zeelung National Park
was topped-up by a noisy diesel pump,
a decrepit spluttering monster spitting slops,
repaired too many times with tape and clamps.
Beside this lake there stood a thirsty clump
of blackened, leafless trees, amongst the tops
of which a troupe of rhesus monkeys scampered
flourishing ugly, protuberant, scarlet rumps,
as irksome as the hirsute shaman who pampered
Rakiman’s icon ignoring Imti Mentoo’s
installed in a nearby pagoda. “Yuck! What a dump!”
Teri’s voice, addressing Doug, and Ben too.
The trio had stolen into a picnic area
near his pagoda while he’d been diverted.
They’d purchased tea and snacks from a kiosk, and started
scribbling numbers in notebooks. Doug gave Teri a
sympathetic smile and said, “I know
just what you mean...this litter...” he shrugged, surveying a
prospect which to any eyes looked very
uncared for: plastic lay like drifted snow
across the clearing. “Most of it ends up bobbing
down the rivers to pollute the sea, but barely a
person in Amanga sees the problem.
They’ve other concerns.” Teri grimaced, “That’s bleak!”
but nonetheless the god perceived her as merrier
than he’d seen her all the previous week.
“It’s such a shame,” said Teri. “If people saw
the things we’ve seen today, they’d understand...
…that darling hummingbird I had in my hand!..
…I’m sure they’d respect the world of nature more.”
Doug replied, “I hope one day we’ll manage
to change the mindset...many view wildlife with fear.
That’s partly what my ringing project’s for:
to understand the workings of the planet.”
“But Doug!” she said, “When you study bird migration
how can you not be overcome with awe?
Don’t you see God in the perfection of Creation?”
To which Doug said, “Your beliefs of course are respected,
but science is showing that birds are subject to laws
not made by God,” at which Ben interjected,
“Whatever’s the case, that’s why I keep on saying
that Christianity ignores the natural world
but Amangan faiths show reverence for the wild.
On every street you see a shrine displaying
some representation of an animal or bird.
‘God gave Adam dominion...’ - that’s implying
that mass extinction is the price we’re paying
for taking the Book of Genesis at its word.”
Imti Mentoo watched, while Ben was waffling,
the shaman at the Monkey pagoda laying
peanuts before the image as an offering.
As soon as he’d left, the rhesus monkeys hopped
down to eat the nuts then started playing
with the plastic carrier bag he’d dropped.
The shaman was not young. His stance was hunched
and he shuffled with support of a walking stick.
His long grey beard was dyed with scarlet streaks.
Crossing the glade, his rubber sandals scrunched
through plastic cups. He made towards an awning
thatched with reeds that shaded the picnic bench
most distant from the pump, where sat the bunch
of budding ecologists chatting about their morning.
“When Dad lived here banana leaves were used
to wrap up food,” said Ben. The others munched
on chocolate biscuits. “The ants could deal with the refuse.
That’s why they’ve not got the hang of rubbish bins,
it’s not in the culture...” Before the young man plunged
into another sermon, Doug cut in:
“Look Ben…here’s a
man you need to meet
if the cult of Rakiman is your new passion:
Swami Narga, from the forest ashram.
Welcome Swami! Won’t you take a seat?”
The shaman propped his stick against a tree,
pressed his hands together in delight,
bowed to the men, effected a discrete
nod to the woman and sat down with the three.
Ben didn’t waste any time. “Greetings Swami!
Talking to a holy man is a treat!
Your Monkey God both fascinates and charms me.
I hear your forest is home to orang-utans,
but the faces on the images look too sweet…
…what sort of monkey is he, Rakiman?”
…a-thump-a-thump...the pump up-spunked its load.
“All monkeys are as one,” the shaman said
...a-thump-a-thump-a...Doug caressed his beard
restraining a knowing smile to maintain composure.
...thump-a-thump... “Well that’s a thought to savour,”
said Ben, “the Monkey as a Tantric idea!”
...thump-a-thump... “The Guru reveals the Code of
Rakiman at the ashram to those that stay there”
...thump-a-thump-a-thump...then Ben announced
that yes, he would. He opened a bottle of soda.
...thump-a-thump... A spritely antelope bounced
across the glade. Teri’s look could’ve slayed him.
...thump-a... Imti Mentoo in his pagoda
chafed and growled. His Chosen One had betrayed him.
That same evening, reposited in the cupboard
Imti Mentoo listened in on a row.
Ben was taking a lashing from the cow.
It pained the god, the realisation that love had
bloomed and died so quickly for this couple.
“Stay at an ashram!? Can’t you see how awkward
that would be if Rosemary ever discovered
where I’d been? Are you trying to topple
my faith in Jesus Christ? When you promised
you’d show me the country I didn’t agree to be smothered
in pagan baloney...that wasn’t part of the premise.”
Ben kept quiet throughout her shouting fit,
but when she’d done, the wimpy messiah blubbered,
“Teri, think what you’ll get out of it...
...there’s nothing in native faith that denies Christianity.
When colonists came to Amanga it was an atrocity
to repress the animist culture with such ferocity,
treating worship of nature as a profanity:
the systems of belief can be reciprocal.
Shamans are spiritual people...they see sanctity
in every living thing...it’s just vanity
to think one view of God is unequivocal.