Het korte verhaal van Avrom Reyzen Een begraafplaats verwerven verscheen na de Eerste Wereldoorlog. De Jiddisje schrijver werd in 1876 geboren in Dzyarzhynsk, veertig kilometer zuidwestelijk van Minsk in (het huidige) Wit-Rusland. Reeds op zijn veertiende publiceerde hij zijn eerste verhalen in een Jiddisje krant (Dos Yudishes folks-blat) in Sint-Petersburg. In 1911 emigreerde hij naar New York waar stierf in 1953. Hij was een productief schrijver en had een bijzonder talent voor het korte verhaal. De Amerikaanse vertaler Joachim Neugroschel maakte van de tekst een Engelse versie. Voor bronnen en bio-bibliografische informatie zie de Aantekeningen.
Het dorpje waarover Reyzen vertelt heeft geen eigen begraafplaats. Het is zo klein dat de bewoners een dodenakker, in het Jiddisj , overbodig vinden.
Acquiring a Graveyard
The tiny Jewish town was isolated from the rest of the world. Only rare echoes came straying here from the cities or even the large towns. No one needed the little shtetl, and it needed no one. It got along all on its own. With potatoes from its own fields, flour from its own windmill, and meat from its own sheep. As for clothing, Leybe the Tailor was a genius at his trade, and he sewed for both women and men. True, the material was brought in from the city, but this was done by Yankel, who was practically the only storekeeper in town; once a year, he would travel to the state capital to buy various goods.
But Yankel was a quiet man. You didn’t have to hawk your wares in the shtetl. And he was so quiet about his trip that it almost seemed like a secret. Every year, he would vanish for two days with no sign of life, and when he came back, only a few people, not all, would find out where he’d been. The curious ones would pounce upon him:
“Yankel, what’s happening out in the world?”
But Yankel had nothing to say. To his way of thinking, there was nothing to tell – everything was trivial! Once though, when they really cornered him and he felt he had to tell them something, he smirked, stroked his black beard, and replied:
“It’s like, well, say-a hundred shtetls rolled into one. Altogether, it’s a hundred times bigger than our little town, so how can you be surprised at the hubbub!”
And that was the only news that the townsfolk, Jews of course, ever received from the big world, once in a blue moon.
But while they never knew about real life (though they imagined they were having a fine time!), they also never knew about real death. Because of the tiny number of people, the “mortality rate” (as the statisticians phrase it) was generally very low, close to zero, and so the town had no graveyard of its own. The few old people there were diehards, they kept on living, on and on. The townsfolk even bore a grudge against Hendel the Bagel-baker, who was so old that no one could remember his age.
People would count and count, always getting mixed up. And there was nothing you could do but start all over again! … Now one old man, did finally get around to dying. But after thinking it over, he slipped off to Palestine. Once there, he actually died six months later, but it took the town any number of years to find out. Old Hendel was the one who told them. He broke the news with a smile, one weekday evening in synagogue:
“Did ya hear about old Henekh? … He up and died!”
And the men simply couldn’t understand, and decided this miracle was somehow connected with Palestine … They were sure that if he hadn’t left town, he would even have outlived old Hendel. On the other hand, they were jealous, for if you’re buried in the Diaspora, the Angel of Death comes to your grave and pounds your corpse into dust and ashes, and Henekh, by coming to rest in the Holy Land, was spared this fate.
What with the old people so stubbornly refusing to die, it is quite understandable why a corpse was such a rarity in town! Now the middle-aged people were less stubborn, and every now and then, one of them, a man or a woman, would fall dangerously ill. But with no doctor around, the patient would be taken to the next town, which was slightly bigger, and there he would usually die, and be buried in the local cemetery.
And thus, the little shtetl had no graveyard of its own.
Strolling around on a Sabbath or a holiday, some of the philosophically inclined burghers would talk about the town’s lack of a graveyard. And even on a weekday, someone or other would come out with:
“And what about a graveyard?”
Only the elderly people kept tactfully silent about this defect, but those who were in their middle years or even quite young harped on it, insisting it was a matter of life and death. The community bigwigs even called a town meeting, and this important issue was hotly debated. Old Hendel himself showed up at one session. He did most of the talking and pointed out that for now a graveyard was still unnecessary. There was no hurry.
The younger people, who fully believed that there is such a thing as death in the world, and that a human being has to die sooner or later, were resolutely in favour of a graveyard. One of them, Chaim the Carpenter, even drew up a plan of the site and the layout. But, since nobody died for a long while after the meeting, people forgot about the graveyard issue. And that was how things stood for years and years.
Till the war broke out.
Before the war was even officially declared, soldiers appeared in town, from our own emperor’s army. Our own countrymen. Yankel the Storekeeper was certain he’d do good business: Soldiers, he had once heard, do a lot of buying. But these soldiers were of a different kidney. They did walk off with a lot of stuff, but they wouldn’t pay, and you could argue with them till doomsday.
So Yankel hit upon the idea of shutting down his store: Let them think it was a holiday! Whereupon they opened it up themselves and took the few left-over wares they needed. Then they went to Yankel: “Who do you think you are closing your store to military men!” And one of them stuck his rifle up against Yankel’s chest.
Yankel was sure the soldier was joking, the man wouldn’t actually go and shoot someone for such stuff and nonsense.
And Yankel’s face lit up with a good-natured smile, as if to say:
“C’mon now! Would you shoot one of your own countrymen? Wait till the enemy comes! You’ll have enough work on your hands then!”
But the soldier took the smile as an insult, and soon Yankel was lying stretched out in front of his store, wide-eyed and gaping, as if bowled over by the whole business!
And so the little town found itself face to face with death.
Even Old Hendel now realized that a graveyard is an important matter, and that there is indeed such a thing as death.
A few days after that, the soldiers began searching for spies. Mottl the Butcher, who was bringing two oxen from a nearby village, was thought to be a provider for the enemy army. Forty eight hours later, he was publicly hanged.
Next, the enemy army arrived. The battle took place behind the shtetl.
The shrapnel and the bullets flew over the shtetl like hail. Wherever they could the Jews took cover.
But their hiding places were of little use. After three days of battle, the Jews had twelve casualties.
They could never have imagined so many corpses. Being new to such matters, they tried to awaken the bodies as though they were asleep. But none of them got up – they were dead.
Now the graveyard had at last become an urgent matter.
Even Old Hendel, who once again had managed to slip away from death, freely admitted:
“Yes, now we’ve got to have a graveyard! … This is just the right time! …”
But one of the younger men waved him off:
“The whole town’s become a graveyard!”
De vertaler geeft in zijn bloemlezing geen bio-bibliografische gegevens over de door hem vertaalde Jiddische auteurs, slechts een korte toelichting over de gepresenteerde teksten. Over Reyzens verhaal zegt hij: ‘… modern war affected civilian life far more devastatingly. Avrom Reyzen’s “Acquiring a Graveyard,” with its tender irony, sketches one such aspect of World War I in the Jewish Pale of Settlement in Tsarist Russia.’ (p. 457.) Wat mager als commentaar, het raadselachtigste in het verhaal is immers de vraag waarom de inwoners een beet chajiem voor hun gemeenschap overbodig vinden.
Aantekeningen bij Avrom Reyzen Een begraafplaats verwerven.
- Zie het biografische artikel van Nathan Cohen, Avrom Reyzen op YIVO.
- Het verhaal “Acquiring a Graveyard” komt uit de bekende bloemlezing van Joachim Neugroschel, The Shtetl. New York: Perigee Books, 1982, pp. 481-484. Hij nam nog twee andere verhalen van Reyzen op: “The Dog”, pp. 273-279, en “Te Creek”. pp. 281-285.
