The Blue Mountain(110)

‘I can’t believe that this hideous dream is taking place right under my nose,’ he said.

‘Grandfather told me to do it,’ I answered.

‘It’s unspeakable!’ Pinness said.

‘Grandfather told me to.’

‘And such violence – flying chains, iron rods. You’re like Cerberus guarding the gates of Hell.’

‘Grandfather told me.’

Pinness looked at me sternly. Little by little, however, as though in an abstraction of surrender, he backed down. Grandfather knew that the perplexed old teacher would try to convince me and fail. Out on his long evolutionary limb, Pinness belonged to a generation whose necks were adapted to nooses of words. ‘Buried in His Own Earth’ or ‘Here Lies the Farmer in the Soil He Tilled’ were irresistible phrases for someone like him.

‘And he died and was buried in the garden of his own house,’ he quoted with open envy from the Bible.

Nor did he protest when I buried Shulamit. Fanya had a fit for a few days until she realised it was useless and calmed down. It was only when Rosa Munkin’s coffin arrived several months later and her pink tombstone was unveiled next to Grandfather’s, marking my professional début as an undertaker, that Pinness was shaken to the core.

The orchard was in its last days then. Despite Uri’s prediction that the trees would flourish manured by Grandfather’s body, the ones nearest his grave were as quick to die as if poisoned, while those farther away became ill and nervous: they crawled with aphids, rustled their branches in breezeless weather, dropped their fruit before it was ripe, and were mined by the shafts of every conceivable pest. They also flowered fitfully, their blossoms reeking of dead bees and flies killed by their toxic nectar and pollen. Margulis took his hives elsewhere. The wind rolled up the carpet of petals, leaving behind a hard layer of earth. Now and then I picked the fruits that hung from the dead branches, but they tasted and felt like meatballs. At night the owls and the polecats gnawed at them, and Grandfather’s orchard soon died and rotted away.

Avraham had Grandfather’s name carved on his tombstone with the dates of his birth and death and the verse that had served as the caption of the first tree he had ever planted.

‘A green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit.’





            37



During the first spring after Grandfather’s death, the earth around his grave began to stir. Red beetles with black-spotted backs crawled out of it, awaiting the tread of more dead. Soon enough they arrived. Pioneer Home was a fact and the village was in an uproar. I refused to appear before the Committee for a hearing, from which Busquilla returned in high spirits to read me what he thought to be the protocol’s most entertaining passage.

‘“Comrade Liberson: Comrades, for the past year Comrade Baruch Shenhar has been burying dead people on the Mirkin farm. Comrade Shenhar started with his grandfather, whose will he claimed he was executing, without requesting permission from the authorities. A few months later he buried Shulamit Motzkin, a recent immigrant from Russia, whom you all know as the woman Ya’akov Mirkin lived with during his last months. Subsequently he began burying on a commercial basis, even importing the corpses of ex-émigrés.

‘“Comrade Rilov: In the past half-year he’s put away close to fifty stiffs.

‘“Advocate Shapiro: I request that Mr Rilov resort to more dignified language.

‘“Comrade Rilov: You’re not dealing with just anyone. You’re dealing with Committee! The Committee demands that Comrade Shenhar exhume the graves on the Mirkin farm and desist from any more such acts.

‘“Advocate Shapiro: If I may be permitted a comment, we are discussing a livelihood, not ‘acts’. My client makes his living by providing burial services to interested parties.

‘“Busquilla: We’ve never buried anyone against his will.

‘“Comrade Rilov: You shut up, Busquilla.

‘“Comrade Liberson: The village has a perfectly fine tree-shaded cemetery on a hill overlooking the Valley, situated more than three miles away in conformity with hygienic requirements. This is not the case with the Mirkin farm, which is in a residential area.

‘“Advocate Shapiro: According to the Public Health Act of 1940, subsequently amended in 1946, the Ministry of Health will not refuse a permit for the establishment of a new cemetery if: one, it is satisfied that said cemetery does not threaten to pollute any river, well, or other water source; and two, it is satisfied that on the date of opening said cemetery is at least one hundred yards from the nearest existing residence. Every new cemetery must be enclosed by a permanent fence or wall whose height shall be no less than five feet. Every cemetery must have adequate drainage. My client maintains that Pioneer Home meets these specifications and has been inspected and authorised by the appropriate government commission, in testimony of which I submit to you this licence.