Through the fence streaming its wall from both sides of the gate, through the inkdark smears and smudges of bars, everything muddled falls into focus: a lavabo to the left, a lavabo’s for the washing of hands…then, a vessel filled with tiny rocks ground down to pebbles positioned to the right, those are for placing atop the stones, the stele, the tombs; he’s prepared. Kaye tries the handle to the door set into the gate, tries again, grimaces wrinkles to an appearance older than he’ll ever live, to grow into his face to hide whether a blush or a blanch, turns to his trainload to ask for assistance, meekly, open of palm. Out of nowhere, there’s a mensch. His is the uniform of two wars ago or so that were never reported (who ever knew, the question every Group asks itself), a medal of uncertain insignia weighs as heavily as a head itself, decapitated, scalped to hang its shine from a scrap of ribbon a filmreel strangling a neck that’s scrawny, and mutual; that old sharp beak peeking from a bifurcate beard, one for you, one for him; onelegged, too, he feels deserving, and so he’s demanding an admission fee, supplementary, wordless, with his hands out, a sum additional to that of their entrance, which’d supposedly been allinclusive, extracted from each of them previously. Kaye shows the mensch his armband, reaches an arm through the bars, then, retracting to roll up the other sleeve, his tattoo, glossy with ointment lately applied, and then from his pockets, his documents disappeared of ink, everything he can think of, anything even remotely indicative of officialdom, of payment in full, but the mensch won’t understand, he couldn’t…he scratches his head, hops around in irrritation on the spring of his stump.
Anyway, says Kaye, cemeteries don’t have entrance fees…it only costs when you want to get in and stay in forever, that and a stone with your name on it spelled right, with the date — then a woman, thicklipped, frizzled, adds: they shouldn’t anyway, it’s not right, it’s a sin; we’re going to have to report you to Management. I’m sorry to ask, what’s your badge number, your name?
The mensch nods to second his silence, again shows his hands: tremulant, knurly; he grips the bars with one, keeps cupped the palm of the other as if to save in it weather with which to wash the dirt from his face; the trainload searches its pockets, a sprinkle of lint, as the mensch brings that hand back to pick at his teeth, with the teeth of a huge iron key, kept roped around his gluttonous waist.
But we came all this way just for this, Kaye protests.
No, says the mensch in their language, perfectly, without accent — you didn’t come, you were brought.
I’ll have you know, Kaye’s not listening to him, only to himself and that woman behind, whoever she was, how he’d like to know, that this armband entitles me to entrance anywhere within the borders of Polandland, then he nods admiringly to her, though it’s him who’s blushing. I’m prepared to talk to the Manager personally, he’s threatening, he’s not, if we’re unable to reach a solution.
The mensch lays a hand on Kaye’s shoulder, the shaky arm slung between the bars, with the other pokes at his own stomach with the tip of the key. Have a nosh, he says, a little to eat: you all look so hungry, so thin. Then, come back in an hour.
An hour, the woman asks, disbelief in the twitch of her nose that’s either repellent or enough to snare you for life — do we have that much time?
There are many fine restaurants in the area. Might I recommend one? It’s regional specialties you’re in the mood for, am I right?
Kaye graves his hands into his pockets, kicks a heel into the mud, turns from the gate only after his trainload’s dispersed: only after many have lifted themselves up on their tiptoes to peer over the low falling fence, a few attempting to decipher the inscriptions in an alphabet foreign, in a few alphabets equally foreign, abbreviated then acronymed to unintelligibility, dazzled into diacritics forgotten: acutes, graves, breves, carons, hooks and horns, dots and diaereses…it’s not that they’ll never understand, rather it’s that these invocations will always only make sense to the dead: a readership as obsolete as the language in which they’re left reading themselves — they’ll be literate in no time, give them a night. And yet, a flurry of bicker, of entitled complaint: some whine in hot whispers, others moan, then quietly enough dissipate into silence so as not to offend the sensibilities of Management (who or whatever that is, if undivine, though merciless), their observant Gates, their surveillant trees: the weather, the service, can you believe, the accommodations, the food; then, they go eat.
