Gehenna’s unimaginable Stygian depths spilled open before me like a lanced boil. Spanning an arroyo through which flows, like pus, a malodorous rivulet of greenish-colored swill, an old bridge heavy with traffic and swarming with street vendors, separates a would-be purgatory from the pestilential netherworld below.
Reaching the base of the bridge was no easy task. I followed a dizzying spiral of steep ascents and lateral downward convolutions, first through a darkened arcade reeking of urine where a teenage couple copulated against a wall, then down a fetid stairwell where rats, oblivious to it all, fed from a pile of fast-food containers, and, finally, around ditches and embankments covered knee-high with rotting refuse.
Escher came to mind. Then Kafka. Then Hieronymus Bosch. And when I alit under the arch, perspiring and out of breath, I knew I had set foot on some spectral domain where outcasts and wastrels, the spurned and the unloved congregate like ghosts doomed to roam the void.
*
On the long and narrow ledge that hugs the foot of the bridge lives a family of seven, perhaps more. Rawboned, spidery, disheveled, prematurely old, a woman folds and refolds, sorts and rearranges a precious few possessions with a tedium induced by boredom or despair or madness. There’s a pile of soiled rags for bedding, plastic bags to shield against the rain, a metal box to keep the tinder dry, a pot, scorched, misshapen and overrun with vermin, a disemboweled foam-rubber cushion to lean against on starry nights, a frayed straw hat, a sooty, half-burned candle, a rumpled picture of a blond, blue-eyed, pink-faced Christ smiling quizzically at the world. Tugging at a fleshless, sagging teat, an infant squirms and whimpers with frustration.
The woman bares a toothless grin. Sitting on his heels, a man -- her husband? -- is busy pounding back into shape an unyielding slab of iron with a wooden mallet. The metal will not give but he keeps on striking it time after time with an obstinacy that bears little fruit. There is no emotion on the man’s waxen face, not a trace of impatience or anticipation or astonishment at the futility of his Sisyphean ordeal. Staring into space, visibly exhausted but unwilling to quit, he persists, lost in a hypnotic syncopation that marks the passage of time.
Below, perched on an earthen mound overgrown with weeds, two toddlers, both flaunting distended bellies and herniated navels, rummage for worms. Barefoot, naked, soiled, green slime oozing from their nostrils, oblivious to the horror that surrounds them, they shriek with delight with every worm they pry from the muck. A few feet away, a young girl squats and relieves herself. A youngster, perhaps her brother, barely older and small for his age, sleeps nearby, one arm folded over his eyes to block out the light, the other extended and limp. Clasped in his hand is a small can of cobbler’s glue. He risks not waking up. Oblivion is a one-way trip. Sniffing glue is a dead-end occupation. Literally.
“Hey, you!” I call out. Startled, the boy stirs from a dark, dreamless slumber. His eyes don’t open fully but he reflexively tightens a childlike grip around the small can of glue. Turning on his side, compressing an emaciated body into a fetal position, then stretching, he makes contact with reality. I place a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
The boy staggers to a sitting position, rubs eyes thick with stupefaction and insensibility, and grants me a lifeless, clammy handshake. An odious smell of uncleanness fills the air, soon neutralized by the pungent odor of glue on his breath.
“Where am I? Who are you,” I ask. The boy uncaps the can of toluene-based rubber cement, passes the opening over his nose and mouth, and inhales deeply, avidly. I look at him, detecting subtle signs of aphasia. Averting my eyes, the boy answers in mono-syllables, seeking to save face in ambiguity and equivocation. But such ruse could well denote the presence of a host of other latent syndromes, all resulting from the corrosive effects of inhalants on the cerebral cortex.
“Where am I? Who are you,” I repeat. Attempting a smile, the boy scratches a lice-infested head, and draws another long snort of glue.
“Where are you?” The boy chuckles dejectedly “You’re in my world of darkness, in the accursed valley, Ein Sof’s garbage dump. Who am I,” he echoes, his inflection tinted with grim solemnity and bitterness, his voice raspy and sepulchral. Sniffing glue devours sinuses and lungs. It causes horrible hallucinations. Irreversible brain damage and kidney failure are never far behind. Such fate seldom deters those who, like this boy, seem to fear life more than death.
The woman on the ledge unleashes a barrage of invectives at the boy. I have trouble understanding the words but her tone and gestures convey impatience, disgust. The boy dismisses her with a wave of the hand.
“Screw you, you’re not my mother,” he mutters, with more than a trace of envy and sadness. We shake hands again, this time in a complex ritual involving palm-smacking and finger-twisting. He takes leave, a longing smile on his lips, and ambles toward the water’s edge where other kids are busy sniffing glue as the river’s putrid current travels its lazy course.
“Who am I?” he yells out, this time in the interrogative. “You tell me, mister.” He laughs a raucous laugh, more like a bark. “Yes, mister, you tell me. We have many names. Try Azazel, Dybbuk, Ghoul, Zombie. To many we are known simply as the others, the ones consigned to do your dirty work. Pick the name you like, we’ll respond.”
The woman plugs away at her senseless chores, one arm still cradling the infant at her breast. Unrelenting, headstrong or mad, her husband continues to strike wood against metal. I see no change in its configuration. Invincible, it taunts the would-be smith. But guided by some exquisite obsession, he persists.
Overhead, vultures glide in wide sweeping circles, surveying life, espying death, smelling it down below in the bottomless, sulfurous pits where the corpses of murdered street children are dumped. Many of the birds are now perched on roofs and tree limbs. Emboldened by some irresistible effluvia, a few make landfall. Waddling from side to side, wary and cunning, they will fight for the vilest scrap of offal in their path. The leathery flutter of their wings sends chills down my spine.