And so you’re also a liar! the onelegged mensch says, he’s leaning between the bars and panting, heaving his lungs out; he broke my crutch, too…shortfat takes hold of Kaye with one hand, liberally pinches his fiancée, unprotesting, with the other, as tallskinny goes to telephone, maybe, and never returns; shortfat relents, it’s getting dark and there’s Curfew to think of, last rounds coming on, rubs his hands for warmth, grows tetchy about the eyes and mouth then nervously asks the old mensch — who’s turned out in his second statement to the officer to be only the cemetery’s (and at that, third asst.) caretaker — for the time…are you sure that’s exact?
Quite.
And so shortfat dismisses the caretaker, nods to Kaye his release, walks up the street leaving him alone, without fiancée or Group — one gone back to plead his case to the head concierge (The Swiss is his title), who she’s been told has vast intercessionary connections, unspecified privileges, abusable power; the others gone showered, then mealed again to their sleeps, forgetting about everyone not dreaming their dream — as Kaye, enraged, freecaged, tries once last to bend the bars of the gate, smacks them with his head, flails in an exhaustion of even frustration.
You’d better be getting back to your hotel, shortfat yells over his shoulder, it’s Curfew.
Soon enough. Whenever we want.
We wouldn’t want you getting into any trouble you can’t afford.
By now, it’s dark, and the Cemetery would be closed: he’ll have to try again tomorrow; that is, if Faye’s up to it, if he is, not too sick from a night out in the snow; if she’d still love him, if he’d love her still, if they’d let him live just one more moon into morning.
A trashcan upended to its rumbustious side tumbles past him a laugh down the street — rolled in snow, rolling, still burning cold: crumpled corrugated with letters that’ve been sent by and to these tourists, his tourists, these postcards not censored, only forbidden, unsent, consigned to, cosigned by, a sinister flame. Dear Father dead father, and yet, never Sincerely. A dissevered chimney bellowing ash, the ciphers of sentiment’s cinefaction: Kaye follows the smoke, as he slips down the street, and every other step he takes he’s making moves for his hat, though he knows it’s not there.
It seems to be the season of disappointment, now, doesn’t it?
And so, in the spirit, here’s another interpretation: it’s that the Cemetery, this cemetery, was open all the while. It has been open, and is open still, six days a week dawn to dusk, major holidays excepted — though if it shuts its gates a moment too early upon Friday afternoons, which is the eve of our Sabbath, who can blame them, who would — and that anyone who ever wanted to might’ve walked in, and wandered around, without hindrance or hurt, beheld the Grave, had their audience, spent however satisfactory hours in contemplation, in suitable prayer, appeal, thanks or no thanks, a murmuring of hope, the laying of a florid rock, mulling over own mortalities, your blessing, your call. Without denial, without interruption. But it’s that these visitors, these maudlin tourists, wouldn’t have wanted that, wouldn’t have had it that way; it’s a situation existing only in their disappointment, what a waste: as it was, as it is, as it could’ve been, as it still can be — they’d file in, to pay not admission but homage, respect (entrance is free, as it is to every cemetery, the way it should be: after all, the people interred, the permanent visitors, the visitors permanentmaking, they’ve already paid for the privilege of any future visitation, dearly, in death then in the fees for death’s upkeep); the Gate’s open, any gate’s open; generous hours are prominently posted, again: excluding holidays secular, and religious, and Shabbos; the elderly groundskeeper or caretaker, call him what you will and he’ll smile, he’s always smiling, he welcomes the visitors, happy to have them, he’s lonely, he pities; the Grave’s kept in flowers, it’s kept full of them season depending — they’re sprouting from the very earth that’s the grave of all graves.
