Joshua Cohen - Witz

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 says, 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.