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.
Inside, darker down these stairs spiraling into the vertiginous, spiderspinning of passages, webbed steps steeped to the pitch of night’s fall, precipitous, scary, and not recommended for those with the conditions of having a heart or a brain — the hammering’s loud, reverberant with the stone, and so he shouts over it, while apologizing all the while as he’s screaming, too, that he has to, their Guide he’s restless…now waving the Group toward him with a hand, then away with an umbrella, as if a warning of sorts, despite underground; they follow behind him, close and yet far enough away to estrange, always toward and then into what seems like a small, dankmoldy antechamber at the furthest eastern edge of the Island: an Introitus of sorts, a space just beyond dark, walled against light, keeping it from them, behind which heavy uniform slab this tunneling once went on, once led — as it’s said, as it’s guided over and over — into Manhattan: a passage proximately ruined into this wall, a progress thwarted, an answer, there’s your answer right there. Less than a mile off, what they’re sold. It’s told to have given out onto the bathrooms of City Hall, which stall…we’re not sure, that surety not included. I’ll take your questions only at the end of the tour. Inaccessible, too. Please, save them for the end, and yourselves. They feel at the walls on their ways so as not to be lost, though the tunnel tunnels on only straight, keeping their eye fixed on the halo of their Guide, which is the glint of voice from his person and that that’s flashed from the hat — not the voice of his person, but that of his function, his task, the glow of the plasticized crown…and so feeling their way, they go gripping a grope at walls knocked through with others, with these walls, and halfwalls, with quarters, ruin fortified, then reconstructed again to appear just rubbled enough to be safe, ostensibly, it’s passed around, ideally these fallen rocks falling as stones, some of them glassy, others dropped dull, this haphazard deconstruction of destruction even more haphazardly rehabilitated to now. And then — wall. Masonry. Ashlar. And now again, stop. This wall’s been arched, their Guide says, this arch’s walled in. Here, with newer stones. There, and with rocks found variously around the Island, its shores. In the style, though. Of the period. From the tympanum (which is the space between the top of an entry, or exit, then the arch arching above it, he explains while realizing, too, he’s forgotten to previously — wisdom lost on those arrived early) on down, all the way, it’s filled in now, full up. Me-zu-zah — there’s that, too. A crowning chink, beyond which it’s impassable, inaccessible, not today, try tomorrow. Kiss it, no matter — respect. The stragglers, those behind the curious, their spouses and kinder, their compensating others, have come to a stop, to a stand. Finally. They come and they come, they come then keep coming. Forever, six days a week nine to Shabbos. And then — they’re here, and then there’s no more, no further to go, turn around. About face. Stragglers first, with the Guide to guide now from the rear.