by Joshua Cohen
The purpose of this gathering’s hushed like a baby born into sin then flushed down the Nile, is to lay to suckling sleep the groundwork, in Jerusalem, for a lasting peace—and so nothing’s new under Ecclesiastes’ sun, Kohelet’s, which is as oppressive as it ever was, if only here, the shadow of its former dominion. Idea is to fix a ration of reparations to the remaining few Unaffiliated; who first need to be counted, who, Shade thinks, to receive such reparation would just love to be counted, and then and only then—it’s proposed—to get them their own nation, some small wound of bloody dreck somewhere, anywhere, to become infected, infecting…proposing to appease them, to shtum them up—to let the world get on with what it has to get on with, the Law. On the wall opposite the projection, there’s hung an extensively taut skinlike tatter, a parchment spliced then nailed as if to dry itself of slaughter in that light in from the one thin teardrop window still arcing, not yet walled: it’s a map, of the nation in question, that questionable nation, what to name it, why—partitioned wherever as an exclave, an excrescence, balmed in roughly the shape of B’s body, it’s said; that is, if you examine it squinting then sort of to the left, looking upsidedown, too, and through an obstruction, a column…Shade’s head in his hands, staring down, heedless, unhearing. What would’ve been B’s bodyparts: organs, glands, and yadda in that vein, leeching fourcolored inside these black borders some thick with others dotted as if for future severance, all sectioned then labeled with the names of the assembled, and to him the President what’re inexplicable numbers, indicating spheres of influence, responsibilities, domains of empire imminent only in their destiny, never to manifest…His forbiddenaround, tabooedabout hindquarters, there at the sinew of the thigh marked thickly in red with the term Undecided as if expecting, or provoking, a fight with any angel that would deign to sponsor; His heart’s hachures bearing the name Shade in black, His heart that is itself a Shade, which name is shadowed, too, under the tongue and then upon the forehead, marking due north toward a border that’s going to prove a problem, a pain in the international tush that’s labeled across the entirety’s lakelike middle Abulafia (its southern extremity, though, also marking the ocean, and so they’d be controlling what would be this country’s major port and largest city), a solution to which’ll probably eventuate even more death and, what’s worse for Shade, another invitation to a meeting amid the rooms of this scorched soaking Jerusalem tomb, yet another convocation of this body, and their seconded, protracted session of parceling His—this legislating of it parsed, skinned and grown then shed—this body that’s to be His not much longer, which will become as foreign to Him and to us as will be that makeshift nation to any, to be grafted onto the spine of whichever continent so deserves it, would deserve if only. And if, ultimately, amid all these arguments, these questions unanswered because still and forever unasked, unproposed, a solution can’t be found, and soon, by eventuality’s timetable, which is wellappointed, placecarded, and centerpieced, too, with Sinai’s two tablets, with the settings around them in place for first seating and already amply spread with the dew—listen, there’s always Shade’s solution, which is final, enough. Intifada. Plan B. It remains a Shem unnaming, however, this thirdtablet silence—for now not a label, placard, or scrap, but a gag. Hands are shook. If only in hope. All arches, their gates and their avenues, remain open.
The Arch
In the beginning as in its end—though Maimonides the Rambam might deny one—we are told Without form and void, and we listen, we respond, we repeat, Without form and void, generation after generation, Without form and void, generation Without form, generation And void…though we might add, if only now, forever late in a latening time, that it’d been soft, too, and as warm and as wet as a womb. Then the pressure from within, and then that from without, as substance separated and those separations separated; all was already old, existenced deeply. A mouth was forming, a mouth in the making—an arch. Then, the waters were divided into waters down here, waters up there, the waters were rent, the wet ripped, and hardness ensued, hardnesses, and we say—Darkness was upon the face of the deep…
An eruption down the dirtied throat, an irruption, others hold, dirtying, the blown breath of God, taking with its flow all the detritus that webbed the esophageal walls, venously scummy—ejectamenta, those spoiled little gel-fishes, and that vegetative stink, to fall laval down to the depth of the stomach’s valley. The stones, though, they went up the other way, were vomited up from where they lay like macle: there they sat as rock inside stones yea when they remembered…had been quarried up from deep in the gut, having laid there lo under layers and layers of layers maternal of rocks and the stony paternal for ages that weren’t yet ages but Then—finally to be formed, as found, unfinal, never. Verily, the finding gave them form, And it was good, then the form gave them function, and it was open, opening: these stones destined for heaps, which were found in other heaps, founded in heaps predating heaps, preterite piles, they were arranged, they’d be arranged—in an arch…into two arches facing each other, these arches of soaked stones rocking in vomit up from the gut, whites surfaced from the gutted river of tongue, not yet forked between the good, the bad, and the unsayable flow of the middle, which itself is never to fork. Rocks, punishments exacted to yellow. Gravestones. Teeth to lose.
B stands in front of an arched gateway once passingly ornate whose doming gold can now be found within the mouths of those around Him, those asking of Him, questioning with smiles that can’t comfort but glow, the untrustworthy wrinkles of the pious. It’s the opening here to a town with no name and, too, with every name they’re speaking in glinty hints, who knows the nyms, the polyonymous endos and exos, I don’t, onomastics masticating on and how, either, it doesn’t matter to nostalgia, never does…east from whence the world came from the belly of the bestial valley, vulvar and dark with a breath of its own that blows cold. He speaks none of the languages, I speak nothing. B yawns stumped, standing at its guardhouse, its gatehouse, passage’s home without guard, at least none that I’ve noticed, noticing me…His legs arched open to walk through the arch, to walk through this gate’s village, which town, then out its arch opposite, to flee toward the horizon then into the rise of the sun, from its set—all the while casting His own arch, against the day’s brightness, its shadow arcing His shade, behind Him then ahead its towns and its villages, toward the horizon that’s the rise of all arching and His, which wanders on with Him even while He’s fleeing it, too, and so arriving and departing forever, and never.
Hold on a moment, though, langsam, slow down, says the Guide—it’s that there’s this interesting thing about arches.
The Group quiets.
It’s that they’re built with crosses, just follow me here, the Crucifix…there’s mumbling, a snarky grumble—the cross being the frame, he says by way of quick explanation, hurried, hurrying FYI; they’re the gallows for the gallows, if you will, the construction of an arch involving the use of a scaffold, have patience, usually of wood, until the placement of the central voussior, the quoin as it’s often called, the keystone, or crown: a cantilever, that’s the stone that’s in the middle, to be placed at the highest peak of the arch, the stone that negotiates, that mediates, that bears every burden…the pressure, you with me—without it, all would fall.
A cross, the Guide says, it’s the form of the body—and the floorplan, too, of every ruined church that doesn’t awe, just disgusts…
A Crucifix, their Guide guiding on, but without any symbolism: only think of it now as two lengths of wood, how it’s urged…one just longer than the other, laid across it then nailed.
A cross, the Guide says again, call the crossbeam the lintel, then mirror that by nailing another board, as long as the lintel, across the bottom, down by the knees.
A hammer and nails.
Good, says the Guide, everyone with me?
Or should I wait?
Almost too easy to get a laugh out of them (it’s the nerves).
Now, he say
s, the workers here—gesturing to a group of overweight, overalled types who they grunt in response to their introduction, then make a show to roll up their sleeves…they’ll place two posts there, to form a V between the lintels, the upper and lower; then, they’ll nail two more between the upper and the very top of the arch, which is the keystone, remember—the crown.
Now we have two Vs, openfacing…imagine a diamond.
Can-ti-le-ver. Can’t you leave it? Here?
We’re touring an arch today, is what the next Group’s Guide explains.
Why? To support? to strengthen? what else?
To open, his opening goes.
As the Group nods.
The cross, the Guide explains now and again, it’s the wooden frame for the arch, erected to support the structure before the last stone’s placed at its peak.
These stones (Jerusalem stone was used here—a goodwill gift from friends former, they’re doublefistsized, about the hurt of a head if they’d tumble atop), they exert pressure, they push and they pull up against each other from both sides, from every; they ache, one against another, along their ways to the top.
They’re irregularly shaped, rough’s the word and unmortared.
Ages of pressure, of all this madinsane I’m talking tectoniclike pushpull—like, too, the process by which coal becomes diamond, it’s offered by way of example—will eventually annul the arch, destroy it, lay it to waste…will finally let’s say excommunicate the stone of the crown, casting it forward to B’s feet, without sin; and then with it, the other stones they’ll fall, too, with nothing to hold them up anymore, how they’ll fall to lie in two piles loose at the feet, as He turns to wander His on…
On the Island, amid the ruins of the Garden, which have been at pains staked preserved, made rubblesafe, they tour the subterranean tunnels, take in the vaults: arches barreling high, the groined crosses, lancet and ogee, passing through passages of all possible lean, of every potentiality for their own destruction; they walk in the dark, feeling their way toward a voice, following its light, that of their Guide what with the microphone and the miniature speaker clasped to his belt and the flash, the sentinel of his hardhat. As they’d descended from the floor of the Great Hall, there’s a sign: Mind Your Step, and God how they’re minding…you’d be proud; this way, please.
This began with the cross, there before the crown’s what we’re looking for here, the keystone, the foundation stone, the rock of all ages…then, Let there be the crucifix, and there was, heretically or not, here it crosses; the whole Group nods and they grumble, once an hour, on the hour, they nod and they grumble, like this, shuffly grumble, just so, six days a week nod again. And it was good, the Guide says, was good only because it lacked meaning, was not yet a symbol, not yet this curse, not so blasphemed underground: how they’re encouraged to think of the form as just two pieces of wood, really, merely material, nature’s own exuviæ, one actually a length longer than the other, these branches if you want them to be, sticks even, twigs; kinder poke each other, their mothers shoot them this look.
You must be this tall to…in the dark.
This tour, it’s a survey of the Garden’s fall, openaired: the State owns all of this now, owns this as they own almost everything, the public absorbed, assimilated finally to its power, a People. Their sleighs leave the city every halfhour, and on the halfhour nine to sunset, accommodating those who’ve purchased their tickets at least a Shabbos in advance, or, if sameday, maybe they know someone important, someone high up in the business of memory…I don’t, I forget, what’s his name. These workers, former Garden employees lately re-hired to work unrecompensed penance at the site of their sin: they have nails in their mouths, dulled, piggish teeth, they wave hands at the Groups with their hammers, then set to work, sparking the dim with their din. They’re re-raising the fallen, resurrecting what’s better left buried, graved underground. A Group makes its way to the furthest project, their present worksite, situated just past a score of glassed enclosures, up against a wall hewn from rock, the objects encased there (photographs, souvenir Garden products, personal effects of Garden employees) labeled with tiny tacked placards: naming names, materials, date, place. A lintel is mirrored, the workers hammer fiercely, another plank’s nailed below, there at bottom…a plank as long as the other above, both shorter than the central length, which is longer and goldengray. Another sign, this hung in the corner and rather beaten and crumpled, its letters handblocked, or in this pitch poorly stenciled, says—Please Excuse Our Appearance During Renovations. We’re reasonably sorry. And so they excuse, grumble and nod. A worker falls from a ladder, his nails scatter, and in the frozen darkness and noise the Group hews unto stone. Be right with you. Cleavage it’s called, giving a laugh. Then receiving, confirmed. Other workers don’t give any notice, though: they work on…now nailing two short vertical boards to the lintel lower, place two posts in a V between the lintels lower and upper, then place two more between the upper and the placement of the keystone atop, the crown of the construct: you’ll notice how they now have two Vs, openfacing, in the shape of a valley, think of a diamond, iyiyi, if you must—not to support, their Guide affirms, not to strengthen, and the Group nods its neck sore, approval. To open. Understand, more. This begins with a cross. All begins with a Crucifix. These wooden posts make the frame for the arch, are the frame for the arch, the structural support, he says, its strengthened foundation—to hold all up, he says, to keep it from falling down before the crown’s placed, he says, before the arch becomes crowned, they say now and so everything’s explained all over again how he says it. The keystone, the key to the stones as much as their lock. And then, a lick of a laugh. Every hour, this is. And again. On. The hour. Outside, even the sky’s stone, it’s goldening late, the sun the sky’s keystone falling the day into night, the night into dark and its scatter of stars. Ice holds firm under the freshgreased runners of sleighs. But it’s a walkingtour, and so might we suggest you wear comfortable shoes. People become Groups just beyond the entrance to the Great Hall, its steps, the Registry a floor aboveground, are then herded into Groups by age and by sex, hauled around by their time of arrival here, and there of departure, let’s go. There’s a mysticism to the making of a Group, it’s been said. In any Group, in every, there must be weakness and there must be strength, curiosity and complacency in equal measure, they’re told—the askers and the answerers, the talky then the mass, shushing silent. An arch—the height of a question, its mark. Photograph the video for posterity’s sake, then meet me in the giftshop for food, drink, and toilets. All groups are equal in function if not in form, in pressures, their pushes and pulls. What I’m saying is this—a person alone’s unsupportable. Be aware. Be burdened aware. Don’t forget to crown your Guide. A tip, always appreciated.
Inside, darker down these stairs spiraling into the vertiginous, spiderspinning of passages, webbed steps steeped to the pitch of night’s fall, precipitous, scary, and not recommended for those with the conditions of having a heart or a brain—the hammering’s loud, reverberant with the stone, and so he shouts over it, while apologizing all the while as he’s screaming, too, that he has to, their Guide he’s restless…now waving the Group toward him with a hand, then away with an umbrella, as if a warning of sorts, despite underground; they follow behind him, close and yet far enough away to estrange, always toward and then into what seems like a small, dankmoldy antechamber at the furthest eastern edge of the Island: an Introitus of sorts, a space just beyond dark, walled against light, keeping it from them, behind which heavy uniform slab this tunneling once went on, once led—as it’s said, as it’s guided over and over—into Manhattan: a passage proximately ruined into this wall, a progress thwarted, an answer, there’s your answer right there. Less than a mile off, what they’re sold. It’s told to have given out onto the bathrooms of City Hall, which stall…we’re not sure, that surety not included. I’ll take your questions only at the end of the tour. Inaccessible, too. Please, save them for the end, and
yourselves. They feel at the walls on their ways so as not to be lost, though the tunnel tunnels on only straight, keeping their eye fixed on the halo of their Guide, which is the glint of voice from his person and that that’s flashed from the hat—not the voice of his person, but that of his function, his task, the glow of the plasticized crown…and so feeling their way, they go gripping a grope at walls knocked through with others, with these walls, and halfwalls, with quarters, ruin fortified, then reconstructed again to appear just rubbled enough to be safe, ostensibly, it’s passed around, ideally these fallen rocks falling as stones, some of them glassy, others dropped dull, this haphazard deconstruction of destruction even more haphazardly rehabilitated to now. And then—wall. Masonry. Ashlar. And now again, stop. This wall’s been arched, their Guide says, this arch’s walled in. Here, with newer stones. There, and with rocks found variously around the Island, its shores. In the style, though. Of the period. From the tympanum (which is the space between the top of an entry, or exit, then the arch arching above it, he explains while realizing, too, he’s forgotten to previously—wisdom lost on those arrived early) on down, all the way, it’s filled in now, full up. Me-zu-zah—there’s that, too. A crowning chink, beyond which it’s impassable, inaccessible, not today, try tomorrow. Kiss it, no matter—respect. The stragglers, those behind the curious, their spouses and kinder, their compensating others, have come to a stop, to a stand. Finally. They come and they come, they come then keep coming. Forever, six days a week nine to Shabbos. And then—they’re here, and then there’s no more, no further to go, turn around. About face. Stragglers first, with the Guide to guide now from the rear.