Gravestone Fiction

Have you ever tried to carve a story in stone? | Fiction | Fresh Soup

Fourteen years ago, a close friend of mine called and tearfully asked me to meet him right away at a kosher pizzeria near my home. I hurried over there, worried. Only a few days earlier, this friend’s brother, with whom he was very close, had died prematurely. The friend asked the waiter at the pizza place for a placemat and pen, and while we waited, he explained that he had to urgently decide on the inscription for his brother’s gravestone. Since he had so many things to say about his brother and so little stone to do it on, he wanted my help writing the text. “After all, you write short stories,” he said, “and what is a gravestone inscription if not a short story about the person buried beneath it?” We sat in that pizzeria for three hours without managing to draft even a single good sentence. Eventually, my friend gave me a hug and tried to console me: “Don’t feel bad, I guess it’s a little harder than writing a short story.” I walked away feeling shaken. There was something hidden in that frustrating juncture where life meets writing. Something I couldn’t name. When I got home, I tried to write a story inspired by the experience, but I couldn’t come up with an ending. This week, fourteen years after our dismal meeting, I finally found it.

Image by Henry Horenstein

And then they started fighting about what the gravestone would say. Noam’s dad wanted “Son, something, and friend, plucked in the prime of his life.” He didn’t know what the “something” would be yet, just that there had to be three things, for the rhythm. Noam’s mom didn’t like “plucked”: “What do you mean, plucked? What is he, an apricot?” She wanted it to say “murdered.” Noam’s dad snapped that this was so typical of her: losing her temper, distorting reality, pointing fingers. To which Noam’s mom replied that if he wanted to call a drunk kid going 80mph, swerving into the wrong lane and killing their son a “plucker,” then that was just fine, but not on Noam’s grave.

And then Noam’s mother started weeping quietly, and his dad went over and hugged her. They’d been divorced since forever. Noam once told me that he’d never seen his mom and dad together in the same place since the day he was born, not even in a picture. When he was little he’d searched, but his father didn’t have any photo albums and his mother had meticulously cut his father out of all the photos she’d kept. Every last one. Even the wedding pictures.

And then Noam’s dad let go of the hug but left one arm on Noam’s mom’s shoulder, and suggested that I should be the one to come up with the gravestone inscription. That way, they wouldn’t fight. Besides, I was an author, words were my profession, so I’d probably do a better job than either of them could. I tried to politely refuse and explain that crafting a gravestone inscription had nothing to do with writing fiction, but Noam’s mom, who had stopped crying, said he was right: that’s what Noam would have wanted. And she said it made even more sense, since I was the last person who’d seen him alive.

And then Noam’s dad quickly went to get a pen and paper, as if he’d picked up on my discomfort with the whole thing and wanted to lock me in. He pulled over a kitchen chair and motioned for me to sit down. I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. Noam’s mom sat on my left, his dad on my right. It felt weird. Unnatural. As if we were about to sign a monumental peace accord or an apartment lease. I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave until I came up with an inscription, and I really wanted to leave. To buy time, I wrote down Noam’s date of birth and date of death on the piece of paper. Noam’s dad pointed out that we should use the Hebrew dates, not the Gregorian ones. I nodded, as if I already knew that, and admitted that I wasn’t very good with Hebrew dates. He leaned back and said, almost to himself, “A Hebrew writer who isn’t good with Hebrew dates?”

And then I started frantically jotting down all kinds of things about Noam: how talented and good-looking he was. How everyone loved him. How we’d miss him. How he was leaving behind a void, and so forth. Noam’s mom said, “That’ll never fit on the stone. It’s too long.” And his dad said, “But it’s nice. Nice, and true.” Noam’s mom looked at me with her paralyzing green eyes and asked what the last thing Noam had said to me was. That stressed me out. I started stammering. Noam’s dad wanted to know what that had to do with anything, and Noam’s mom said it did because whatever Noam had said might be something we could put on the stone. That convinced Noam’s dad. I pretended I couldn’t remember, but they wouldn’t let it go. Noam’s dad said we had plenty of time. He offered me coffee. He also offered Noam’s mom coffee, but she said she wasn’t thirsty. She didn’t take her eyes off me, even while she was answering him. I told them that before Noam got in the car he’d said to me, “Look at us, we’re not kids anymore.” Noam’s dad said we could write, “Son, not a kid anymore, friend,” but he was worried that might sound a little forced and we should try something else. Noam’s mom kept glaring at me. Then she said I was lying, that Noam had never said any such thing to me.

And then my phone rang. I looked at the screen and it said “unlisted number.” I pretended it was an important call. That I had to take it. On the other end of the line was a recorded message, but it took me a few seconds to realize that. It was someone named Aviram Yifrach, who was running for mayor of Ramat Gan. Yifrach promised that if I voted for him he would eliminate corruption and provide more parking spaces. I hadn’t lived in Ramat Gan for years but I’d never bothered to change my address. Yifrach said Ramat Gan was a sad, dying city and that he would bring it back to life. I listened to the entire message and then said, “Okay, I’ll be there in half an hour.” When they walked me out to my car, Noam’s mom accused me of lying again. She said I was lying to grieving parents, and that was an unforgivable thing to do.

And then Noam’s dad started yelling at her: A friend of Noam’s, a famous author, had volunteered to help them come up with a professional inscription for free, and instead of being grateful, she insisted on taking offence! “You’ve always been like that,” he added, “it’s like if you’re going down, you’re taking everyone down with you. When you’re not happy, you try your darndest to make everyone around you unhappy too.” Noam’s mom started crying again. Loudly, this time. She tried to keep her cool but she couldn’t. “Apologize to him,” Noam’s dad demanded, “right now. Or else he'll leave and not come back. And the two of us alone will never be able to get this text finalized.” I tried to stop him. I said there was no need to apologize, everything was fine. It’s just that I had to leave, but after my meeting I’d give them a call and we’d get it all sorted out over the phone. But that just made her even angrier. I know, I shouldn’t have used the phrase ‘everything’s fine’ when I was talking to a mother who’d just lost her son. What kind of a Hebrew writer was I? I couldn’t figure out the Hebrew dates, couldn’t even choose the right words to say.

And then Noam’s mom repeated that I was a liar. A liar and a coward. And that I always had been. In my stories, too. Noam used to bring her my books excitedly, as if I was at the very least some kind of Chekhov, but she’d always felt this way about my writing: cutting corners, pandering, withholding. Everything was always in there except the truth. She’d never told Noam how she felt. It was so rare for him to have an actual friend, and she hadn’t wanted to ruin it for him. But now wasn’t the time to be polite. This wasn’t just another saccharine story I was pulling together so the cardigan-wearing librarians would like me. When she finished saying all that, there was an uneasy silence. I was sitting in the car with the key in the ignition while the two of them stood outside. It was very cold. The car door was open and it seemed rude to shut it. Noam’s dad said that if Noam hadn’t been an only child, they could have written, “Son, brother, and friend,” but it couldn’t be helped: they’d barely even managed to have him, and by the time he was three months old they’d already filed for divorce.

On the way back to Tel Aviv, I tried to come up with an inscription. Something I could text them instead of apologizing or sending flowers. The last thing Noam had said to me before he drove off was, “That’s that, finito, you and I are done.” Which could have been a pretty good inscription for a gravestone. I tried to forget about those words and dig through all the other ones racing around my mind, including unsuitable ones, arranging them to fit into a 30” by 70” marble rectangle. But no matter which words I chose or what order I put them in, they always ended up coalescing into a story.

Translated by Jessica Cohen