Witz

by Joshua Cohen

  An itinerary schedules the unveiling of monuments to the past—a past none of these entrants ever lived.

  Doesn’t matter.

  This Tour Group comprises old friends by now, from the aeroport, acquaintances from the plane, and even before: old homes; who sold who a house, a condo, a car whether used or previously owned, who knew who from this Lodge, that fraternity with the handshake to prove, who fixed what in whose houses, who worked in whose office with whom, who was a volunteer for what cause, and then those two what’re their names we met at which benefit for what do you call it…here, though, they only nod, grumble, shuffled exhausted, smalltalked to silence, out of their territory, out of their depth. Here, at the Tourist Gate, they stop, at the line marked a shock of white across the stones; they nod again, shuffle with their papers some more.

  An inscription above the Gate’s been inscribed twelve times over again the last who can tell how many centuries, roughly the same words though each time in a different language, until the words took on new spellings, newer meanings, newer words, until even the intent, the message, was inevitably altered.

  To what.

  One guard’s missing an eye and can invent a spiel on order as explanation, for an appropriate fee, which the two of you can later discuss, if there’s time. On his shoulder sits a songbird: a Kavka it’s called, which is a stealing, gossiping bird, commonly known as a jackdaw, Corvus monedula, a bastard crow, a mutant raven of sorts, popularly referred to as a Halka, or Galka—the winged symbol of the world that would inherit its name, Galicia, a kingdom lost to history’s flight. Silesia’s silenced itself. Ruthenia rerouted. To here. In the socket that once held the guard’s eye, is the egg. In the egg, is the songbird for the next Group. And in the next Group’s songbird, the egg. Who’s singing now. Mingle though, if you can, as they’ve been instructed: do whatever’s necessary, is the idea, but try to seem amiable for the Officials, likable but not too, anything goes, but don’t attract undue attention, unwanted scrutiny, you’ll just hold everyone up; avoid Shibboleths of any kind, memory, remember, smile and be amenable, whatever you say. They line toward the barrier, the wicket just beyond the line. Waiting here, they try to memorize the tattered, torn scripts the Guide’s just handed around, not enough copies for everyone, you’ll have to share, doubleup; surreptitiously, at least they think, they whisper the lines to themselves, those prefaced by ENTRANT—roll the words around on their tongues, a muddy pebble, a common sweet (See—Where To Eat). Their Guide’s explaining everything quickly, muddled what with the passing and handing and folding, the grasping and the practice of whisper: the person desirous of entry would tell the setup, and the Guard would get the punchline; it’s all in the timing. Often, though, and here’s the trick, the tongue that trips many up (trepverter of the guardrail), the Guard would come out with the punchline first, and then the entrant—prospective—would have to be quick with the setup. If anyone fails, nu, it’s okay, acceptable, there aren’t any consequences worse than what’s to come, there can’t be, and, anyway, they’ve all don’t ask how managed to smuggle in money with them, mere sums, a few valuables, too, gifts negligible when compared with what they once could afford but still, trades in kind, plenty, enough: with each entrant failed, the Guard would nod, hymn, then walk back to his house, little more than a hut, on his way pocketing the quote unquote admission fee, to which any gift is to be considered supplementary, knuckling a rash at his scruff. The entrant then must wait as the ritual proceeds.

  Within an hour or so, the Guard returns, or a day, says some little phrase to the effect that the entrant’s papers aren’t in order, which is nonsense, of course, but no one’s to panic, this is just part of the ceremony, carefully scripted if to be played lingually loose, each time different. The entrant then protests, politely, yet firmly; the Guard then intimates through shrugs, nods, shakes, wrung hands, finger fiddling accompanied by guttural vocables that something might be done, after all, you’re a friend, about this little mess only if what, a grunt guarded by swallows, if only the appropriate measures and yadda. At this, the entrant is to raise an eyebrow, one eyebrow and only one eyebrow, make sure it’s the right one, though, a left, and that you don’t raise it too eagerly, not too earnestly (they’re being prepped as much to inform them as to ready them scared). The Guard then appears to lose interest, suggesting to the entrant an alternate gate, a referral, only a suggestion that the entrant must, of course, though with less frustration than friendly adamancy, refuse. Then the Guard’s partner, and no one knows why, the guard of the guard, maybe, he’s to suddenly give a loud laugh from inside the guardhouse (don’t ask, I didn’t write the script—it’d been found in two parts atop a mountain slugged Lost)—leaves the hut to approach the entrant and then demand from him or her either a smoke or a light, a sip or a swig…insisting on posing for a picture with the entrant to be taken by his partner, the first Guard, him holding their camera to his eyeless egged socket, snapping them with their arms around each other while the second Guard picks at the entrant’s pockets. Once accomplished, the second Guard, who later will become the first Guard, the negotiator for the next Group, returns to the hut, and the first Guard, who becomes the untelevised good cop as second guard for the next Group, say, pretends to inspect the camera for security purposes, in the process allowing his songbird to fly away with it, its strap in the bird’s beak, toward the sun. Momentarily forgetting his lines, where he was, in the script, in this role, he then again suggests that the entrant might want to try another gate, there’s another gate only right around the corner, a perfectly good gate, just as accommodating, really; as the entrant, who’s by now—or so he or she always thinks, flattering—internalized what they’re supposed to say, how and where and when, getting the feel for this, the idea, yet again insists that no, that yes this is the right gate, the Tourist Gate, right. I’m sure of it. Has to be. Anyway, their Guard says, they’re not allowed in through any of the other gates. Just as well. It’s telling to observe, too, though none do, that throughout their entire encounter no one exits through this Tourist Gate, that no one passes through in the direction opposite their intention. And so it’s only now that the entrant, exhausted, and exhausted, too, of his or her options, searches around in their pockets for their offering only to find nothing’s there, nothing to proffer, not money nor any valuables smuggled, without item; he or she feigns denial then, anger, grief, and blah blah these reasoned excuses, it’s in receivership, escrow, I’ve been robbed, there’s a thief in our midst, as the Guard laughs to his guard, winks a lid over his socket, shakes his head, avoids the hopefully imploring eyes of the entrant by shutting his own one functioning. In time, a week, a moon, the songbird returns to his shoulder, without camera, twittering caw. And an exchange like this—it can last for hours, and often does, an entire day, days…in truth, who can tell as all the clocks are within, and are on their own time; this is how the authorities of Polandland control incoming flow (amid everything else).

  Finally, bribeless, moneyless, and only after it’s been endless haggling, accusation, recriminations, a strange sort of compromise is reached, inevitably, but don’t tell them that, don’t let on: invariably, the Guard settles upon an appropriate denigration, an adequate indignity, and so requests as prerequisite to any admission the presentation of a story, a fiction, essentially an additional falsehood, the supplement lie; for example, he might do anything…maybe asking each entrant and always individually to tell him why he or she wants to enter Polandland, for what purpose and how badly, perhaps, to which all replies are equally valid, if they so satisfy the Guard, the only arbiter here, the only gatekeeper around—all replies, that is, except one that betrays circumstances, the true nature of their presence (with forms long filled out, everything signed away, waivered): one that divulges their forced entrance, reveals their future unfutured in its impatience, impertinence, how put out they are. He needs to hear from each of these entrants all about, up to you, it’s your call: their invalid/dying relative
s, their family reunions, business engagements, Polandland’s cultural wonders, the absolute necessity of visiting this religious shrine or that historical site; and expecting, too, to hear in reply to his demand however absurd an accounting of lifelong goals and kinderhood dreams, the more creative the better, the more outlandish the more convincing, the crazed and impassioned among them the most effectively entertaining, it’s said; he hopes to hear names dropped, held on to tightly, then let go of, dates and times invoked, of longstanding invitations, of unalterable appointments with specialist doctors or lawyers, engineers, industrial executives and municipal agencies the more obscurely recounted the more valued, the more nonexistent, whether delusionary or merely imaginary, the evermore incredibly received…to hear, too, their whining and crying, to see with his own good eye an ample measure of their begging and mouthgrovel, knee-beseeching, and tears; and if at any time in this entreaty the entrant might fail, falls from his or her identity within the role into an acknowledgement of the lie that’s required, at depth, then entrance is postponed, delayed until further notice, until a more convincing offering can be developed, and delivered, and it must: if you refuse, though, don’t worry, as one’s eventually forced upon you, delivered for you by proxy, in your stead, however embarrassing it is or will be, how shameful, and base. And only when appeased—or delighted, applauding, and laughing, or merely wryly nodding acceptance—will the Guard stamp for you the appropriate document, which is the stub of the admission ticket previously ripped in exchange for the fee originally pocketed upon your Departure, and then his guard, the Guard’s guard, raises for you the barrier of birchwood, the peeled white of the wicket. Only now is the entrant allowed inside, finally, permitted to pass through the Tourist Gate only to wait on the opposite of its portal for the rest of his or her Group. And for hours. For days. Though the ritual’s only begun.

  Some find it perplexing, or funny, even, gatesgallowshumorous, but others understand its seriousness, its gravity, and it’s them that do best; understanding that it’s all party to the experience, packagedealed; that what’s required is less an appreciation of the end than of the means by which the end must come to be suffered: what’s important isn’t the moral, which is bankrupt despite, but the spiel by which the moral must be indulged. For the sake of the sake, say. Get in line; stay for the line, too. Throughout, without doubt, and yet with doubt, as well, the entrant must suppress an urge to seek, to turn, over a shoulder, to receive or solicit advice of any kind or kindness, and must also refrain, once passed and waiting again, from offering any advice to those who would follow, to provide them with any encouragement or instruction from what’s only the safety perceived of their waiting area, their line’s muster, its haven hopedfor, designated behind a cordon of columns. As they wait for the rest of the Group, any pride in their passing slowly diminishes, gives way person to person, with each other subsequent pass; a disappointment: by the time the remainder arrive, pass through and wait for their Guide to pass as the guiding umbrella’s inspected for holes, their supplicant stamps are already gone—it’s disappearing ink.

  Unprompted, then, they follow the script, though entrance is becoming easier and easier, easier than ever these days, especially once you’re inside…in the earliest days of the first transport, the initial experiments, how Polandland had tried to micromanage, age and height and health requirements strictly enforced; for certain attractions, that is, but not anymore—what’s the use? Lately, all are welcome to everywhere, whether they’re ready or not, preparation or no, they’re forced to a welcome—and now, it’s become not program but pilgrimage, is how it’s put, now that they’re not scheduled but punctually leisured to death, that’s how we like to think of it, anyway; the Gates swung open, rustily, perfectly, perfect in their rust and swing, and everything’s available, save exit, of course. They’ve paid their entrance in eyeteeth, fees in wives and daughters, in family, in fingers and toes; reduced admission for students, and seniors, too, with presentation of proper ID. Many have been wheeled through the eminently accessible Handicapped Gate, steeply ramped. Most are happy to walk. To pay extras, miscellaneous surcharges, the price of exorbitant whim. To sign those waivers, initial here here and here the disclaimers—there’s my X, cross me off, black me out. They replace their wallets under their layers, larval, their varval strata, these personal rings…stuff their documents, too many documents, too much paper, into their shoes for warmth, too many seals, too many approvals. They’re lined through the turnstiles just past the Gate, a distracting concession to the modern; despite the ceremony, an accounting must strictly be made. A record, is meant. A son, too short, underneath the metal arm and so, unregistered; despite, even he won’t survive. Clock strikes Bell, the nest of a cock whose comb is a bejeweled caparison. Crowing. It’s never closingtime. Until. There’s so little of it, time, and O their God there’s so much to do!

  In the Cemetery

  Here is the Cemetery…a field circumscribed by walls, which are a fence, shot through with gates of its own. The field’s a sharp rise, a precipitous mound, almost a grave itself, unmarked and yet mounting against that anonymity, a natural monument to its own forgottenness, a mess of enclosed earth overgrown not made of layers poured upon layers, which would be like the turned and turning pages of a book, or like consecutive, linear, narrative time, but more like a book whose pages are inseparable from one another, its covers, more like a time that doesn’t proceed forward or back but that stands still subsuming every moment, past, present, and future. Atop this hunch, within it, of and below it, it itself, are its tombstones, the topmost of them lately pulled up straight to stand, reset, like starved teeth, like cuticle parchment, the exposed bones of eggs…becoming pushed in, out, clustered, crowded, dirt-dense, rockthick, stonetight, as if the most impermeable efflorescences of the mound itself, forget weather; of the same material, only its most exterior, and so necessarily hardest, manifestation, that with the most edges, the sharpest against the shaped, shaping wind. Overgrown with grass, weathered to pale, this small parcel of fenced land, this earthen scar allotted for burial—a hump’s wound wanting for raum, for its healing. There will be no further exhumation; it’s not allowed. For them, it’s only the transience of this one walk through, a quick cursory circuit, twisting left, winding right, their eyes trying to take everything in—to mouth to themselves, each other, these names, which are halfheard, which are mispronounced, between their tongue and these teeth: to see the, which is the sound the tongue makes clucked between the teeth; to inscribe them upon their pupils, too, to make gravestones, tombstones, headstones out of their very own heads: stonestones, markers made of wood and of rock, of all different ages and eras leaning on each other, falling for one another, and over, huddled to keep warm in the freeze.

  This is one of the very few cemeteries to be found inside walled cities, or so the Guide says.

  Most are outside, says the Guide, most were forced outside, had been granted outside: begrudged to them nearby sites of execution, adjacent to carrion pits.

  Everyone with me?

  Here’s where you wash your hands clean, called the lavabo; don’t worry, we’ll be passing another.

  Here’s where you purify, where you ritually guard the body, the corpse, keep watch over and yadda.

  Here’s the shed for the funeral coach, the caravanserai’s the term, if you will.

  Here the bier, here the common coffin for transport, because…

  There, the loom of the shrouds; they’re woven from eyelash, you know…the Guide points with her umbrella, she’s poking.

  Here the Sexton’s quarters, the Shammes’, the Cemetery Caretaker’s there. Across the street, the Guide umbrellas—the mason and wheelwright over there then the smithy, turn around, marked on the maps they hold in their hands with their respective guild seals, interpret…here, she says, it’s another lavabo, and so someone finally stops, riffles through his clothing for a camera not yet confiscated (how even the few survivals have been carefully plann
ed for effect), takes a photograph of this relic in silver tarnished, smoky, handled in ivory, austerely no frills, half sunken in ivy, grass, and miscellaneous weed. Suddenly, that blackishbird swoops down out of the sky to fly away with the camera that anyway wasn’t loaded, that didn’t have any film, which’d been confiscated back at the aeroport.

  There’s a nest of lenses, somewhere, it’s said.

  Here, the Guide says again, the gate for the Priests, opposite the Gate where we’ve entered.

  In the beginning, there were slab tombstones, stele, then the tombs with lids like sarcophagieyes, Egypt, if you remember it, then the desert, which’d been tented in rock like a mountain; then a period of double tombstones over a single plot, like another pair of peeled stones keeping watch: husband and wife sharing one earth. Menschs laid to rest under their names, the symbols of their family, their labor, occupations, as they once lived under the signs of their houses: the Cohens, the priests, they were buried in their own section under the relief of their hands, splayed and winged, then a fish, for the Levites, a jug, a dish, a crown and a book, a tailor’s scissors, a doctor’s scalpel, a lawyer’s scales, lions and deer; more birds swooping down to perch atop tombs, crows turned to rock, ravenrock. Dark. Pinch me, the icemensch’s pincette. They approach the inscriptions, wearied, weathereffaced, and they kneel, go to make rubbings with provided materials. One year later, their Guide says, not that they’d live—it’s the consecration of the burial, the unveiling, that’s when the tombstone’s set, placed: at least, that’s the tradition, they’re told, they believe. There, the rabbi’s section of the Cemetery. Here, husbands and wives had been buried separately…over yonder the sections reserved for the suicides, for the murderers further, and then that reserved for the bastards, no more illegitimate than anyone else nowadays. They lay little stones upon all the graves except these, as their Guide suggests, then instructs against their compliance, then for it, resistance, then none, stones, pebbles, gravel obtained from vessels in locations wellmarked, well in advance of their arrival, thousands of years; stones atop stones, they’re burying rock, consecrating memory itself, to itself.