Coda for Raymond's Life

This a is revised version of an email I sent to Katarina; she who indulges me in my propensity to spend too much time on this computer telling stories and sending them to her full of typos:

Some time ago you asked for pictures of me and my dad. I include a few--- had to pull them out of albums and scan them on my not so good scanner; forgive the quality. One could not know my dad and not like, or even love, him--- I sure miss the hell out of him, as you must yours...

Every year when we go to Switzerland, Curtis and I make “a pilgrimage” to visit my dad’s tomb. The Jewish cemetery in which he is buried is in the middle of farm fields on the outskirts of the city of Lausanne. We don’t have a car there, so we take a tram to the closest stop, Cery, and then walk the rest of the way.

The walk ritualizes the visit and further solidifies any meaning that the viewing of a piece of granite with his name on it might have. Coincidentally, and redolent of personal historical meaning, Cery is also where one gets off to go visit the mental hospital my mother was interned in when she was non-functional when she was mis-diagnosed with depression. In fact, to access the cemetery, Curtis and I have to walk through its grounds before taking the beautiful path pictured above. It is indeed a trek fraught with significance.

When visiting tombs in Jewish cemeteries, one does not bring flowers but puts small stones on them. We are a harsh people. I am sure it signifies something interesting that the atheist despiser of organized religion that I am knows nothing about. Also, as Atheist Despiser of Organized Religion That I Am, I annually break the rules of “no graven image” by using the pebbles to write out the year of our visit on dad’s tomb before clicking a picture. Somebody always scatters the stones, for no vestige of my doodling is ever there when I return the next year...

The following story happened on our annual visit last March. I’ve been meaning to tell it to you since then, but have been lazy about sitting here and doing it justice. It’s nothing earth shattering; but life always throws me for a loop with all its coincidences. Your blog entry about sharing my dad’s story with Christopher was impetus for me to sit down here and try to tell it as coda to his life.

Notes from March 2009:

Today: one more visit to dad’s tomb. Bad day: morning: annual bank visit to see my mom’s situation: hers much better than ours, thank god! That was not bad; lunch was bad. I got caught in the middle of a battle of wills between my mother and my husband over what restaurant to eat in. We ended up eating bad food (her choice). Mother was happy; Curtis turned into the taciturn impossible self that he becomes when he eats bad food; and I just got pissed off at the food, at my mom, and at my husband. In that state of mind, Curtis and I took the tram to Cery to go to the cemetery and say hi to my father.

After getting out at the tram stop, we walked through the grounds of the psychiatric hospital of Cery where a patient was screaming. Everyone else was acting as if nothing were happening, so we did too. We then took the not so traveled road that leads to the cemetery and that cuts through the dairy farm where a border Collie looked at us in confusion.

Europe is wonderful this way, public paths run through private properties and pedestrians always have the right of way. We said hi to the farmer and to his cows, and kept walking down what is one of the most beautiful and peaceful tree-lined ways I have ever been on.

We arrived at the cemetery where, for the first time, we met a caretaker. Usually the place is deserted. Taking advantage of the fact that someone with keys to the bathroom was actually on the premises, Curtis asked if he could use it. In all our past visits, the bathroom has been locked, forcing Curtis and I to occasionally urinate on a plant or two around the property; action for which I am sure the bible decrees we should be smited. Given that I have a propensity to talk to “deus e todo mundo” (god and everybody), I started talking to the caretaker who proceeded to tell me the history of the cemetery. He told me that this new Jewish cemetery was built because the old one is running out of space, and the Jewish community needed to start planning for the future of its dead. This I already knew since my grandparents are buried in the old one and there was no more real estate available for my dad to buy when he was dying.

I guess that because Curtis had asked to use the restroom, the caretaker started telling me the story of his life together with that of the man who founded the cemetery by bringing up a disagreement they had had over whether or not to leave the bathroom open for visitors. The caretaker had argued for leaving the bathroom unlocked. But the bathroom stays locked because Theodore Guissman, the man who founded the cemetery, wanted it that way to ensure against vandals and to keep drug addicts from shooting up in there; a common occurrence in Europe where drug laws are more rational than in America. I can’t see heroin addicts being industrious enough to walk all the way to this place in order to shoot up; but vandals in a Jewish cemetery, that’s not so hard to imagine.

The caretaker proceeded to tell me about his respect and love for Theodore Guissman (recently deceased and, ironically, not buried in the new cemetery). Theo was in finance and real estate. He moved in the upper echelons of society and politics, and worked very hard to establish this cemetery in which my dad finds himself now buried. It took him five years of wheeling and dealing to find a piece of land in the Canton de Vaud where to build it. Switzerland is divided into Cantons; and perhaps the closest we have to those are States, but Cantons seem to be fully sovereign. After all these years of visiting, Switzerland is still a mystery... I digress.

It took Theo so long to find a piece of land for this project because no one wanted a Jewish cemetery situated anywhere near them. When those words came out of the caretaker’s mouth, to my surprise, I actually felt physically pained. Eventually, Theo took his plea to the state, which ceded some of its farmland for the “dirty deed”. 

It was here where I found out that all the farmland in Switzerland is state owned and that farmers lease it for long periods of time, such as 25 to 50 years. The state then, by plebiscite, decides whether the land should or not be maintained as such or developed for other uses. As I said, a mystery...

The state ceded the land for the cemetery with the stipulation that Theo himself would be responsible for establishing all the infrastructure necessary for the construction of this sacred place in the middle of nowhere. The Caretaker, such a nice man whose name I should have asked, told me that Theo put two million francs of his own money, plus whatever other donations from the Jewish community, into the project simply to bring water and electricity to this place that, at the time, was off the grid.

While Curtis visited the tomb to no doubt tell my dad about the terrible lunch we had had, The Caretaker kept on telling me stories about the place. He told me it was built on top of fill dirt removed from the area where a highway now runs adjacent to the farmland. The cemetery had been a pasture once; but because of the fill dirt, the soil is now heavy and never drains properly, flooding every time it rains or snows. I now imagine winters with putrefying soggy flesh...

After telling me about the trials and tribulations Theo had to go through to get the place completed, The Caretaker proceeded to tell me about the people buried in the place and their funerals. He regaled me with the story of one grand funeral of a “florist from Christian Dior”, saying that this florist was the most important man ever buried in the cemetery at Cery. For no rational reason, I felt elated to hear this, for as it turns out, my dad had also worked for Dior, and I, pathetically, thought of him having company. I excitedly told the Caretaker about my father also working for Dior, not as florist but as a representative in Brazil, and pointed to his tomb. The Caretaker looked at me and said, “Alors c’est de votre père que je parle!” (Then it is of your father that I speak). “Ou lá lá,” he said, “There were 250 people here; two policemen to direct traffic; many speeches were given. Your father was well-loved; and there were enormous arrangements of flowers which I threw away when they were no longer alive!”

He then asked me if I had been there. How does one explain to a stranger one’s family dynamics and the fact that my mother had asked me not to come.... I told him I lived in America, and that seemed to be as good an explanation as any. We talked some more, and he told me he was from France and not a citizen of Switzerland. We talked politics and about the bureaucratic rigmaroles of becoming a citizen anywhere; and then I excused myself to go say hi to dad.

I smiled my way to my father’s tomb. I used the pebbles to draw out the ‘O9 date, clicked a picture, and felt so happy that my father had had such an incredible send-off; and that my mom had been able to be Queen that day; and that there is somebody other than me that thinks my father is the most important man buried at the new Jewish cemetery at the Bois de Cery! Knowing what I know about who we are, I had to laugh, not cynically but mirthfully. It turned out not to be such a bad day after all.