The Keeper of the Cemetery

This story was published four times in print—in collections and newspapers. Then, a long time ago, I asked my friend to translate it into English. My friend is a Canadian pilot, which means he should know his language well. But as it turned out, that's not how things work.

I started sending the story to magazines, but all I received were rejections. And I thought: "How can this be? Everyone loved this story in Russian." It turned out the problem was in the translation, so I decided to translate everything myself.

And here's my advice: never trust Canadian pilots to translate your works.

(Translated from Russian by René Maori)

In the distant city of Tel Aviv, nestled within the area of Ben Yehuda Street, there lies an abandoned Jewish cemetery. Few know of its existence, as this forgotten patch of land—crowded with ancient stone tombstones—is hidden between residential buildings, its entrance overgrown with dense greenery. And truly, who would care about a handful of weathered stones with faded inscriptions and carvings of the Shield of David? Or about the crumbling mausoleums whose doors have long been torn from their hinges, their gloomy recesses revealing only emptiness. Emptiness and darkness.

But regardless of what people may think of it, the cemetery’s inhabitants reverently uphold their traditions—for they have never been abolished. And the most sacred tradition of any graveyard has always been its Keeper. The Keeper is born at the very moment when mortals declare over a plot of land: “Here shall be a cemetery.” And he dies... No—he never dies. The Keeper’s eternal duty is to await the Day of Judgment and ensure that all is in perfect order: to prevent chaos before the divine throne and to make certain that no soul arrives late—or heaven forbid—oversleeps.

Thus, the Keeper spends his days wandering through the cemetery under his care—each night meticulously checking for the presence of the deceased like a weathered shepherd tending to his flock entrusted to his eternal guardianship—all while awaiting his celestial hour. In many ways, he is a prisoner of this forsaken patch of earth that birthed him and swallowed the rest whole. His companions have long since perished; their conversations endlessly circle around one topic—their past lives. And if the cemetery is abandoned? Well then... forget about news or gossip; no one will ever reach him.
In that same wondrous city of Tel Aviv, there are also living. They dwell somewhere beyond the boundaries of the land belonging to the dead. Their homes tower above the stone wall—twice the height of even the tallest of corpses. Yet the Keeper hadn’t seen them in many years. Perhaps they had long vanished from this world and passed under the watchful eyes of other Keepers in other graveyards.

Such were the musings of our Keeper, who bore a beautiful and formidable name: Hatuli’el. Though formidable only to those who knew the Words—for everyone else it simply meant “Cat of God.” Charming, isn’t it?

But people hadn’t disappeared after all. In the glorious city of Tel Aviv, they lived and thrived with no intention of vanishing anytime soon. And what makes this city so renowned—a place so often mentioned in our tale? What is it about this congregation of buildings on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea that earns it the title “the city that never sleeps”? I’ll tell you—it’s its youth. Tel Aviv is brimming with spontaneous and unconventional communities. You’ll meet punks, metalheads, hippies—and somewhere in its hidden corners—emos too.

And here are our story’s protagonists: three unyielding romantics of a new formation—Maria, Sofia, and Shaul. If you don’t know what goths are like, let me enlighten you: their faces are deathly pale; their eye sockets and lips as black as the night over Bethlehem. Of them a poet once said:
Whose eyes are darker than betrayal's shade,
Whose cheeks are whiter than snow's cascade.
They wear only black garments of antique cuts and adore everything dark and beautiful—vampires, heavy rock music, and poetry steeped in despair. Their makeup is envied by many who cannot break free from their status forever burdened by societal conventions. And they have a peculiar fondness for spending nights in cemeteries and abandoned houses—a game that lends a spark of vitality to their grim and somber play.
The three goths of our tale were young—oh, so young! Maria’s ears still bore fresh piercings for the garland of rings that tinkled softly as she walked. Her cheeks, though covered in deathly pale makeup, still carried the faint puffiness of childhood. And despite all their dark trappings, the trio’s youthful innocence had not yet faded. It was this very naivety that had drawn them to the stone wall hiding who-know-what behind it. For some time now, the young trio had been eyeing it with curiosity. Tonight, they decided to uncover what lay hidden among the city’s buildings—and perhaps expand their nocturnal playground in the process.

Pushing through overgrown bushes, they stumbled upon a rusty iron gate barring their way like a final warning before the unknown. Shaul, paying little heed to such ominous symbolism, threw his weight against the stubborn barrier. With a long screech of protest, the rusted beast yielded to his efforts.

The three goths froze in awe as their eyes fell upon a small ancient graveyard—one that no one seemed to know existed.

- Beautiful, - Maria whispered as she gracefully stepped into the realm of the dead first, carefully peeling the hem of her velvet dress away from the thorny bushes along the path.

Sofia followed close behind her, clutching a fan adorned with mourning feathers tightly to her chest. Shaul hesitated for a moment—he was the timidest of the three and deeply afraid of watchmen. But who would think to hire a guard and pay wages for protecting a forgotten plot of land? Besides, his recent triumph in forcing open the rusty gate had instilled in him a semblance of pride and courage.
Wandering among old graves overgrown with ivy and stained with patches of decayed mold, the trio grew bolder and settled themselves atop a long tombstone beneath which, as it seemed, an entire family had been buried. Maria pulled cans of beer and a large bag of chips from her backpack, while Shaul retrieved a camera from its case and began snapping pictures of everything that caught his eye.

- Strange, - Sofia suddenly remarked, - why is it so quiet here? You can’t even hear cars.

- We’re in another world, - Maria reassured her. - This isn’t the city; it’s the underside. We’re nowhere now—no one will fiiind us… - she sang softly.

- And we’re not expecting anyone, - Shaul added in a deep bass voice—a tone he often adopted when he felt uneasy but refused to admit it.

So, they ate, drank, and reveled in their own gothic way—joy eventually found them after all. In the end, what can you expect from children so recently grown? They’ll find their fun anywhere they go. Meanwhile, the hour of spirits crept ever closer—the very hour when the dead rise from their graves and the Keeper conducts his roll call.

Hatuli’el stirred within his crypt; he stretched and peered outside. He saw spirits seated upon their stones—spirits he knew as well as his own five fingers—chattering among themselves so that a hum filled the graveyard like it does any crowd of people. But there was something peculiar—something new: three strangers sat beside the Galili family’s tombstone. Hatuli’el rubbed his eyes and began counting: Father and two sons—that makes three. But then who were these other three sitting near them? They clearly looked like corpses and bore no outward difference from any other local spirit except for their attire—old European garments of an antique cut. The Keeper emerged from his crypt and stopped nearby.

- Oh, a kitty! - Maria suddenly exclaimed. - Look, look—a beautiful black kitty! Come here, come to us. Here kitty-kitty-kitty.

Hatuli’el looked around in bewilderment. There were clearly no feline members of the tribe of those four-legged creatures that wandered between worlds anywhere in the cemetery. Yet these three were staring directly at him. One of the girls was even holding something between her fingers—a yellow chip—and cooing:

- Kitty, want a chip? Yum-yum…

The Keeper crept closer and then—oh horror!—he realized that these beings were alive. Alive in the flesh! And that could only mean one thing… Judgment Day was near! The dead would need to rise immediately, don their bodies, and make haste to Jerusalem! Surely these three had come for them. The pale boy with long hair—clearly a recently deceased soul—pointed some strange device at him and squinted before a sudden flash of light blinded the Keeper’s world. The strange boy was throwing lightning bolts! A Messenger!!!

Hatuli’el dropped to his knees for a moment as the ritual demanded and then bolted toward his crypt at full speed.

- Well done—you scared the cat, - Maria said indignantly. - Did you really have to take a picture right now? You could’ve waited until it came closer—I would’ve picked it up in my arms! Now look—you terrified the poor thing; it’s crawling on the ground in fear.

- Nothing will happen to the cat. So, what, a flash, - Shaul replied gruffly. - It’ll come back soon enough when it remembers the snack waiting for it.

Meanwhile, Hatuli’el was frantically rummaging through his stash of trinkets hidden in a secret nook beneath the floor of his crypt. Most of his treasures had long since turned to dust. The chain that had once bound a Templar knight had fused into a solid lump of rust over the centuries. At last, he unearthed an old tarnished shofar that had rolled into a forgotten corner and dashed outside with it.

- Friends!!! - he bellowed in a booming voice. - The time has come! Behold! Messengers have arrived to proclaim that Judgment Day has begun!

And with that, he blew into the shofar. The sound of the massive horn echoed across the graveyard as ancient dust within the graves began to glow with an eerie blue light. The dust coalesced into the long-buried flesh of the dead, restoring their bodies to their original form—for this was one of the horn’s powers: to resurrect the mortal shell so it could stand ready for judgment.

The spirits were momentarily stunned by the news but quickly sprang into action as Hatuli’el blew the horn again. They dove back into their graves and hastily began pulling on their bodies—somewhat haphazardly. In their rush, a few got their bodies backward and emerged from their graves rear-first; fortunately for them, they could still see through the backs of their heads.

- I don’t like how that cat is screaming—it sounds like… - Shaul began to say but abruptly fell silent as the entire graveyard seemed to fill with bald naked people all at once. They awkwardly covered themselves with filthy scraps of cloth as they shuffled about in confusion. Shaul froze in place, pointing at them with a trembling finger and stammering:
- Th-thugs…

Maria and Sofia screamed in unison and all three ducked behind a tombstone to wait out the gathering. None of the goths doubted that these mysterious figures harbored ill intentions. Their long-acquired gothic intuition told them that tonight they had crossed a line—one that no one should ever cross—not even thrice-over goths. And ,so the story graciously leaves them trembling behind the grave marker.

- To Jerusalem! - Hatuli’el proclaimed solemnly, blowing once more into his ceremonial shofar. Strictly speaking, this wasn’t necessary at all, but the grandeur of the moment was too much for him to resist. He proudly raised the message to the sullen sky, illuminated by the low-hanging moon.

- To Jerusalem! - echoed a dozen voices.

And in a chaotic mob, the cemetery’s residents rushed toward the exit and into the bustling city beyond. The Keeper ran at the head of them all—his sidelocks streaming in the wind—as he held the shofar aloft in his right hand like a banner of triumph.

Nighttime passersby stared in astonishment at the cluster of half-naked people charging after a screaming black cat with faces full of fervent determination. This picturesque procession raced onward, shedding decayed scraps of fabric that disintegrated into dust before their very eyes. The naked figures dodged occasional cars with shrieks as their backsides dimly glowed in the headlights’ beams while their bald heads gleamed brightly in the moonlight whenever its mistress cast her gaze upon them through gaps between trees and buildings.

Only when the outline of the Mount of Olives appeared ahead—phantom-like and foreboding in this hour—did they slow their pace. The Keeper realized they had arrived on time—the Judgment had not yet begun—for the mountain remained desolate and silent. Only a few incorporeal shadows wandered about on their nightly strolls.

- Arieh! - Hatuli’el called out in a thunderous voice, summoning the Keeper of the Mount of Olives. - Wake your own! The messengers have arrived—messengers! By the way… where are they? - he added in a casual tone to the head of the Galili family.

The man merely shrugged:
- I haven’t seen them. I was admiring the moon. They’ve probably flown off—there are plenty of cemeteries around.

Arieh—a small Jew clad in a stained tallit—stepped forward to meet them. Though modest in appearance, he exuded an air of stern authority and significance. After all, he was Arieh—the Keeper of the Mount of Olives—the greatest among the greats, first among the firsts, equal among equals. His name, meaning “lion” in Hebrew, symbolized strength and majesty—the very essence of his role as protector of this sacred ground. He had appeared at the dawn of time when the first human was buried there, carrying knowledge passed down to all other Keepers.

- Who are they? - Arieh asked, pointing an arthritic finger at the Tel Aviv dead, who had suddenly become aware of their Not-Deadness and were now shivering from the unfamiliar chill of the night air, huddling together for warmth.

- Who? Them? My boys—the men’s cemetery of Tel Aviv.

- So, it’s a men’s cemetery, is it? - Arieh scoffed. - Well, that clears things up—I was starting to have my doubts about that one over there... And what’s the occasion?

- The end of the world has been declared. E-n-d o-f t-h-e w-o-r-l-d, - Hatuli’el replied deliberately, raising the shofar high for emphasis.

- What?! You mean we... you... overslept?! - Arieh exclaimed in alarm.

Without hesitation, he snatched the shofar from his colleague’s hands and blew into it with all his might. The ground began to tremble beneath them; dust rose into the air as if heralding the arrival of hundreds—no—thousands of souls…

But let us pause our imagination here: there were no hundreds or thousands. Not even a dozen appeared. For Arieh suddenly glanced at the sky and noticed the first light of dawn breaking over the horizon.

- You fools! And you—mangy stupid cat! - Arieh snapped at Hatuli’el and his companions. -What end of the world? There it is—the light! Look up at the sky! Now get back home before... - He left his sentence unfinished and vanished on the spot.

With him disappeared poor Hatuli’el as well—for the hour of spirits had ended; the time for incorporeal beings was over. Morning broke over the Mount of Olives, signaling only one thing: the end of the world had been canceled. Worse still—the dead could not return to their graves until nightfall. That’s when they realized something unsettling: they were alive again.

By morning, residents of Jerusalem spotted small groups of naked people roaming here and there in dirty loincloths as they eagerly took in the city’s landmarks. Some sat directly on the ground in tight circles whispering quietly among themselves.

“A Krishnaite gathering,” decided Jerusalem’s citizens. “Clearly, they’ve emerged from caves... pale as if from another world. You see all sorts around here.”

Meanwhile, newspapers ran headlines about nocturnal orgies among aging nudists.

Blessed be Jerusalem!