Don’t let her rule your life,” he chided churlishly.
“You said you’d come with me to Nor-Ban-Wei…
...your only chance to see it...be a bit stronger!”
“Jesus rules my life!” But she eyed him girlishly
and acquiesced to travel with him longer.
They strolled the ramparts. Clouds like skeins of swans
with gold-leaf feathers and rubies for embellishment
arched between the horizon and the battlements.
The sun withdrew to a spark and then was gone.
Back at street level the girl made a face. “This poo!
It’s vile! The streetside gutters are clogged with jobs.”
“I know,” said Ben, “I don’t like to use the john
when I know it’ll land in the street in a minute or two.”
Both of them laughed. They joined hands. The atmosphere
relaxed. “Don’t come to the ashram...I’ll see you anon.
I’ve promised I’d help with that outing come the New Year.”
Their casual meanderings lead to a rooftop pizzeria,
its panorama the citadel that shone
under floodlights - the gold coronet of the area.
But mounting the stairs they walked straight into a party:
the girl who’d been with Alec - the one who’d confused
a potoo with a marsupial poteroo -
was sitting at a table with a tarty
looking blonde she’d met by her hotel pool:
a girl who laughed with abandon, directing flirty
eyelid flutters towards an arty-farty
pair of youths, one of whose idea of cool
was an Imti Mentoo tee-shirt. Like a grandmother
presiding over her family sat a smartly
suited lady, senior to the others.
The tee-shirt thought her bust made Teri’s seem pint-sized.
She clicked at a waiter and ordered herself a hearty
Pizza-House Special, then urged the group do likewise.
The friend of the young man wearing the god on his chest
looked sick at the thought. “My bowels feel so terrible.
I can’t touch alcohol, spices...food in general.
I think I need to let my stomach rest.”
“I’ll have to start calling you ‘Diarrhoea Davey’ soon,”
his comrade mocked, “that or ‘The Belly Beast’,”
and ordered Moroccan: a dish of chicken breast
served on couscous with sauce of almonds and prunes.
Ben and Teri ordered plain margaritas.
Jasmin, the girl they’d met before, confessed
she’d like that too but had sworn off eating pizzas
because, “Pizza’s all I ever eat at college.”
Her new-found friend, Charlene, put in a request
for olive and pepperoni, “without any olives.”
Teri said to Davey, “Oh it’s horrid
travelling when you’re suffering diarrhoea.
We were like that last night arriving here.”
“We know you were,” said Davey with a stolid
resignation, “I stood in the line
when Ben came out at a sprint! I’ve never been squeamish,
but nowhere-town latrines..! Far side of squalid!
Everyone passing has helped with the interior design.
Was it you that did the spray-job in the stall?”
“Not guilty!” laughed Ben, “But yes, the decor was...florid.
Have you tried these pills? ...they’re really the wherewithal.”
“Antibiotics?” said Davey’s friend, “That’s cheating!
Davey’s a purist: it’s a month since he passed something solid.”
And Charlene said, “Hey guys...we’re gonna be eating...!”
“Forsooth Milady,” quipped the tee-shirt wearer,
“absolve this ordurous cant mine lip doth utter.
‘Tis suited less for table than for gutter!
Such ribaldry oft afflicts the Amangan wayfarer.”
Charlene slapped his arm. “You cheeky wuss!”
but laughed as long as anybody near her
then took revenge and seized a chance to declare her
opinion they were nuts to go by bus
when taxis get you anywhere much faster.
“They look unsafe, and I don’t think I could bear a
nine hour ride to Destination Disaster.”
“Oooh...hark at her!” teased Wilf (the wuss), “I bet
she’s rich enough to fund us all.” Then Sarah
- the breasty lady - lit a cigarette...
...laughed and leaned back louchely, languidly toking
as she spoke. The god on the shirt-front liked that:
he deemed her fetching enough to rate being looked at
despite her years. “Charlene...I wouldn’t be poking
fun at Amangan buses...I’m rapt with them...
they’re works of art.” And Ben said, “Apart from walking,
public buses are best for the climate.” “You’re joking!
Have you seen the shit coming out of the backs of them!?
They smoke like volcanos.” Charlene scowled her stricture
sideways at Sarah who sat impassively smoking.
“A six-cylinder convertible...now that’s a work of sculpture,
like what my dad’s got.” She then went on to claim
it’s nonsense (or so her dad said) that earth is choking
on greenhouse gases: “It’s people who fart that’s to blame!”
She howled at her own bad quip but the joke fell flat.
Embarrassed silence. Ben quickly changed the subject.
“Sarah...are you here to do a project?
We saw you this afternoon at the tannery vats
taking photos...you looked like you’re a professional.”
The god enjoyed the heaving of Sarah’s tits
as she over-commended Ben for deducing that.
She’d landed a contract from an international
charity making a calendar about child labour.
“I see some dreadful sights,” she said, whereat
Teri chipped in, “The Home where I work’s the saviour
of many exploited children. It’s a disgrace…
...it’s meant to be banned in Amanga but bureaucrats
won’t do their jobs, and the President’s just two-faced.”
“That sounds,” said Sarah, “a noble excuse for travelling
and notching up the air-miles.” She smiled at Ben
and drew a look from Charlene like a hen
deprived of the worm for which they’d both been scrabbling.
“If you don’t mind I’d like to ask what draws
the rest of you to a country with poverty rivalling
the worst I’ve seen in Africa. I like unravelling
what motivates young people to visit these shores.”
“Certainly not the cuisine,” said Davey, queasily.
Wilf explained they were fashion students dabbling
in abstracts of deities. His shirt design listened uneasily.
“I’m on a six-month language exchange,” said Jasmin.
“I must admit, Amangan still sounds like babbling,
but I want a career in overseas charity admin.”
Then Sarah fastened Ben in a diamond stare.
“This man could help you...he’s fluent in language and manners.
I heard him this morning joking with the tanners.”
She breathed out smoke that hung in motionless air,
a silvery gauze before the floodlit fortress.
“So Ben...learning or business that brought you here?
...or have you,” she winked, “a secret you’d like to share?”
Colouring up, Ben told them that the
shortest
answer he could give was that his father
had sent him here. He laughed and his golden hair
shone through the haze of tobacco. “But I would rather
call it an instinct, call it my deepest yearning…
...you could even call it a form of prayer…
…but Amanga’s my being. It’s the orbit which I turn in.”
With the fort at his back lit up like a ship at sea
Ben explained his connections with Amanga:
his father’s Mission fighting want and hunger;
the family name in ‘Gonzalez Banana plc’.
Then he confessed his Christian convictions were wobbling,
“...and in need of a chart to steer my life-journey by.
It’s silly but this land seems made to be
a microcosm of all the Third World’s problems…
...like someone’s filled it deliberately with pain
to force me to find my vocation. I can see
my destiny’s here somewhere. It must sound vain
but I feel that there’s a reason I’m on earth.”
They stared at him speechless. Then, “That’s too deep for me,”
laughed Charlene the blonde. “I just came for the surf!”
Jasmin queried, “You’re a long way from the beach...?”
“I thought I’d see some sights y’know, since I’m here…
...I came with a surfer boyfriend for sun and beer
but he’s buggered off out of the country, the slimy leech.
All week the maggot was secretly on the phone
arranging a sponsorship deal to get himself rich,
then off...on a flight to Hawaii. That was a breach
of our package conditions, so I’m stuck here now on my own.
“Wouldn’t he take you with him?” asked Teri, surprised.
“He would’ve, but I dumped him. You gotta teach
these men a lesson if they tell you lies…
...and hey…my dad says don’t be thrifty when
there’s fruit on the bough…your next might be a peach.”
She tittered and looked a little too long at Ben.
“Oo-err!” said Wilf, “Don’t let her near to us!”
Teri shot the girl a furious look
and Sarah bristled, but then a stroke of luck:
a waiter brought their food which calmed the fuss
- or at least it did till Charlene saw her supper:
“I don’t believe it! They’ve not only burnt the crust
and smeared it with local cheese that looks like pus
but they’ve given me olives! I hate them! They taste like rubber!”
“Swap it for mine,” said Ben, “it’s not so bad…
...I looked at worse things yesterday on the bus.”
Teri glowered at him like he was mad,
and walking back to their rooms with Wilf and Davey
who stayed there too, the god was bothered because
he sensed the pious girl was inwardly raving.
Another budget lodging like the last.
The sandalwood icon perched on a windowsill
with indignation gnawing at his soul.
His plonker, bandaged with Elastoplast,
kept fresh his vow that someone would be doomed.
A key in the lock announced the One Who Is Blessed
followed by the Cursed Iconoclast
- the one who’d dealt the god that grievous wound.
In this manifestation, the sight of Teri
sent a stab of pain to his broken mast.
“Why don’t you stay for a while?” said Ben in a merry
tone of voice, seeing too late his mistake.
The virgin had frozen rigid, expression aghast.
With eyes like blazing coal she screamed, “You snake!”
She spouted a stream of venom. “Well…you’re not fussy!
Did you think you’d have another go
at me when you’ve spent the evening making eyes
and palling up to that shameless little hussy?
‘Don’t like your pizza? Swap it for mine!’” she mimicked,
“Then think you’ll go home and Teri will make you cozy?”
Ben looked stunned. He faced her, mumbling because he
had had no time to come up with a gimmick
to calm her down. He hung his head and took it.
Imti Mentoo was inches from Teri and thus he
caught full force the shrill and strident racket
and couldn’t bear her screeching any more.
He flipped his sentient being from the dusty
window ledge and into the room next door...
...where Wilf’s lewd tee-shirt hung on the back of a chair
and he could listen to the couple sparring
while suffering no discomfort to his hearing.
But then he looked around the room. The pair
of fashion students lay on a double bed.
“Who would be a straight? Just listen to her!”
said Wilf and ran a hand through Davey’s hair.
“That din should fill up any man with dread.”
Imti Mentoo shuddered in horror: the boys
with nothing on except their underwear
were commentating camply on the noise.
“What joker said they were the fairer sex?”
The homophobic god just couldn’t bear
the thought of what the young men might do next.
He quickly settled on a plan of action.
While Teri screamed, “Don’t tell ME to calm my emotions!”
Imti Mentoo did rapid calculations
on thwarting her neighbours’ sexual satisfaction.
Beside the bed was a bottle of mineral water
and a similar type of bottle where Wilf was mixing
Amanga Bangers for his own distraction.
Imti Mentoo’s brainwave came when he thought
about poor Davey’s bowels which were so iffy
that any alcohol could cause a reaction
and send him rushing pell-mell to the privy.
Amangan glue’s the feeblest of concoctions
so it needed but a trifling power of traction
to peel the bottles’ labels off and swap them.
The boys were petting, preparatory to screwing,
but Wilf was getting no arousal from it:
“Davey dear, your mouth still tastes like vomit.
Go brush, but remember: tap-water’s been your undoing!”
The product grabbed was naturally the wrong one,
and Wilf soon heard the price his friend was paying.
“Davey darling…don’t you ever stop pooing?”
but Wilf liked drink, so the Banger had been a strong one.
The WC was one of those squat-down holes,
and hunkered over it simultaneously spewing
and trying to land his puke in the hand-washing bowl,
Davey was spraying the bulk of his shit on the floor.
A knifing pain from the room where the fight was ensuing
sent Imti Mentoo’s sentience scuttling next door.
She’d seen the carving, and Ben’s first-aid to it.
“A tantric embodiment? What’re you now? A Hindu?”
She’d snatched at the icon which toppled out the window
- most of it anyway - he gets a laughing fit
now in the nave, recalling the look that gripped
Theresa’s face (the blasphemous prurient bat!)
the moment she beheld exactly which bit
of the phallic god - flying an Elastoplast strip
but torn from its mooring - her shaking hand was holding.
The god went plummetting down to the street and hit
the bandaged stump of a leper, bounced off and rolled in
the gutter as Davey
flushed, so over his head
there broke a copious stream of liquid shit.
Imti Mentoo snarled, That girl is DEAD!
Next morning: a platform at Rankoor railway station
where Imti Mentoo has a miniature shrine.
People were hugging and crying beside a train
but he was uncertain whether from grief or elation.
Porters hand-unloaded slabs of ice
used in the slums to chill the meagre rations
of those who lack electric refrigeration.
Stacked precariously as a poetic device,
like frozen figures, they wept in the heat of day
undergoing inverse glaciation,
their pure ephemeral beauty dripping away
as pitiless sunshine salvoed down from the sky.
In the train’s deep shade beside these frosty creations
Ben and Teri were saying a long goodbye.
“Teri...are you sure you want to go?”
“We both know this isn’t working...so yes, I’m sure.”
“I’ll see you New Year won’t I? Moshadir?”
“Of course you will. Don’t take this as a blow.”
“Perhaps a blow’s exactly what I need.”
“What you need’s to decide where your loyalties lie.”
“The ashram might help, but now I feel so low.”
“You think too much...that’s how despondency breeds.”
“Don’t you think that love can conquer all?”
“The love of God’s the only love I know.”
“I envy your faith, but I’ve not yet heard that call.”
“The road to self-knowledge is one you must travel alone.”
“I’m mixed-up, Teri...my feelings don’t always show.”
“Well…text me if there’s a signal on your phone.”
At this point their talk was interrupted;
a trio of raggedy children came begging money.
Ben delved into his trouser pocket for pennies.
Teri tutted. “Rosemary’s always instructed
we shouldn’t give money to children on the street.”
“I know, I know, and Rosemary’s correct,” said
Ben, “these children quickly get corrupted.
They bunk off school to beg for coins and sweets
but I can’t bring myself to hold back help.”
“That’s why I work where I do,” said Teri abruptly,
“and I don’t need to tramp the world to find myself.”
She grabbed her pack and stomped past the ice-block creatures
so only the snooping god saw tears that erupted
burning tracks of fire through grieving features.
The bustle of stowing and seating at length was done