Mensch who raised the bar
fedora. “Ah, that’s very kind of you,” my grandfather said. He put it on. I could see it didn’t fit him very well – it was a bit too small – but it was good enough.
We walked out of the building into the stillness of the day. All around us it was quiet. He smiled at me as he jostled the hat on his head, trying to make it fit better. “I’ll bet I don’t look the part now,” he said.
We walked along the tarred road, glancing now and then at the map, until we saw a low brick wall, and then we turned left. The road went down towards a grove of trees.
“Yes, that’s right, my mother is down among the trees.”
As we walked he looked at the headstones and sometimes read the names out aloud. I let him get ahead of me and I took some pictures of him stepping between the graves. I was on a mission now: a recording mission. I had only a month to go and I didn’t know if I was going to make it. I didn’t know what I was going to tell them. Could I ask for more time?
There was a hole in his mother’s grave. Not a big hole, but big enough. The soil must have become eroded beneath the gravel chips that lay on top, because a sinkhole had appeared right in the middle. It wasn’t a hollowing or a crater but a proper hole, and unless you went right in close it seemed to lead all the way into the other world.
“Barbara’s right,” he said. “There’s a hole.” My grandfather took off the hat they’d given him and held it with both hands. The inscription on the grave read:
“Ida Browde. Passed away 27th of October 1973.”
After a couple of minutes, in which neither of us breathed a word, he said: “Well, there she is.”
And then, another short while later: “Well, she’s not there, of course. It’s just bones.” I had heard him use the same words at other times, at other graves.
He stood still and silent for a long while. Before we left the grave, he wanted me to take some pictures of him standing next to the tombstone. I tried to flatten out my angle so you couldn’t see the hole. But in most of the shots you can still see it. It looks like a wound.
“I must have this hole fixed up,” he said. “We can talk to them when we go back,” I told him. I also wanted it gone. The cemetery is supposed to smooth it all down like a sheet, help us to believe that they are resting in peace. Otherwise what’s the point?
When we’d walked a little way away, up past the row of trees, he stopped and turned and looked back in the direction from which we’d come. Smiling, he said, “She wanted to be buried out here, my mom. Out here by the trees. Because she said there was a lot of fresh air out here.”
Then he prepared to laugh, but did not. He was still looking back. It was as if he’d thought the thing about the fresh air was going to be a joke, but then it turned out not to be.
We stopped twice on the way back to the offices. The first time was at the grave of his sister. My grandfather took the hat off his head again.
On the tall dark stone was carved: “Lily Rabinowitz. Passed away 26th of July 1989.”
I recalled that late in her life Lily had married a man, Louis Rabinowitz. Many years after her first husband, Phil, had died. We’d been standing there for a few minutes when my grandfather asked: “Did I ever tell you about Phil Greenberg?” “Yes, you did.” “A nicer chap you could never meet,” he said. “A really lovely man.”
He stood at his sister’s grave for about 10 more minutes while I cleaned bits of grass and leaves and twigs off it, placing them carefully to one side.
The grave of his brother Len was back near where we’d started. It was in a special section of the cemetery, in the shade of some tall trees.
Graves and trees were surrounded by a white picket fence that was less than knee-high. An agedulled bronze plaque just inside the fence informed us that this section was for people who had “contributed in a special way to the community”. And there it was, about three rows in:
“Leonard Browde. Passed away 24th of July 1971.”
We didn’t stay long here. My grandfather took off his hat again, and seemed uncomfortable. I asked him why Len was buried in this section. As we walked away he explained to me that it was because Len had helped to start the Oxford Shul in North Road. The Oxford Shul was a large synagogue down the road from where I lived. I found it surprising nobody mentioned this to me.
When we were back in the cool of the office, Frank – the tall one’s name was Frank – explained the maintenance options to us. I remember the “Eternal Care” package because that was the one my grandfather chose for his mom’s grave. He put his brother and sister on it as well.
After that we looked up the location of his father’s grave. This information was right at the end of one of the books, because his father was buried at another cemetery, in Brixton, an older cemetery, closer to town. The shorter one, whose name was Bram, said he would come with us. “Brixton is no longer a good neighbourhood,” he explained.
She wanted to be buried here, by the trees
This is an extract from The Relatively Public Life of Jules Browde by Daniel Browde published by Jonathan Ball Publishers at a recommended retail price of R260.