M.G. Vassanji

Bhakti

Angels from the Vatican exhibition, May-June 1999

He shuffles on hurriedly down Bloor Street, dragging bad foot after good one, bones howling agony, jumbled nerves screaming murder. Stubbled, eyebagged, grey strands crawling around his bald pate, his flesh hangs heavily on him, at the belly, at the neck. His head clamorous after last night's, this afternoon's cocktails, mixed from leftovers, gleaned drops at a time, from empties outside a house after a revelry the night before. Anger, bitterness, hurt, at people passing him, at bystanders looking away. Why do they shrink from me, do I stink, yes I do, perhaps; yes, I do...no john, should have gone behind a building for a leak instead of letting it all trickle down. He turns into a parkette, sinks onto a bench, breathless, stares longingly like a dog at a bone: young women on the grass, Filipino nannies standing in a bunch, lanky little girls he extrapolates into their fair mothers; gets up, roused, no, almost, just a hint of a stir there, give it a chance. I wish, only if...evil, evil...he lurches off back for the street, his stench, his look clearing for him his path like a broom. Do I stink, yes, I do, probably, yes I do, the ammoniac bitter pungent stickiness at the joints, the crevices, sweat trickling down the belly, the arms, the ass...and girls laugh, sense the eyes longing, perverted, impotent, boys tense muscles, ready to hit but can't for the traffic. Stomach growls, belly whines, half-eaten burger from a dump raging for outlet, I have to go, I have to go, but where, what door will open to you.

Washed, cleaned, in this refuge paid up till next week, because before leaving the other side he made arrangements six months ago and then took off on a road to hell; which he did not find, every thing was manageable, every step down livable, till he wanted to howl and tear at his hair. Tell me, where is this bottommost level, where is the simply intolerable - or are we made so we will learn to take any punishment - or am I simply a coward, spinning my wheels still here in this first circle of hell...I would like a scorpion to pick at my heart, a crow to pick at my eyes, thousands of ants to eat into my flesh...an ape to stuff pus into my mouth. Give me pain, give me so much pain I howl in agony, let the flesh burn and roast into rubbery blotches and peel off, and the nerves sizzle, and the head explode from the hot gases, the boiling brain inside, let acid consume all my insides, let a wooden spike impale and screw upward from anus to stomach and mouth, and yet not kill, for how blissful simply to expire, to be extinguished.

For I have sinned; and the more I sin the more I crave it, this opium. I don't want forgiveness, do you understand, spare your forgiveness for the dogs. Just sin, and its gift, torture.

At first he would rage, shout at them - his once loved ones - he would embarrass them, make her cry, when they came and picked him up from the muck and shit, and when he awoke everything would be new like a spring day and he was alone in a new world. And he would get up and go on as before; they would find him. His turn, their turn, his turn. Till eternity. And he began to feel their pain, and he hurt them the more because he needed the pain, he pushed her down the stairs so she almost died, his sons beat him up till he almost died...his turn, their turn, but now if he passed out in the street they would not come to find him; only, when he returned, sometimes the place would be clean.

There is no eternal pain...but oh yes there is, I've heard it whispered about in my rounds of the soup kitchens and the night hostels, there is a way, the all-the-way to hell way, only I don't have the guts...I think too much, and bring myself to a stop, just before the abyss.

He looks at himself in the wall, the red eyes, the bags, the stubble, the hair...the plea in the mouth, the howl in the face, and he follows deeper and deeper into the mirror-wall this face, and deeper and deeper, farther and farther and sees - not a naked little boy, an innocent cherub, but as devout and blind, as blissed and dumb, and loving and servile, a young woman in white, her long black hair plaited, parted in the middle, her face of ivory, moon-shaped. His lost self. Her name is Bhakti. She looks up at him and begins to sing, a haunting melody, a plaintive voice, and he howls at her, Don't do it! You are no piper and I am no kid. I will hear you, but your voice will only goad me on like a whip upon this path on this street.