The following is a short excerpt from Moyshe Kulbak‘s short novel, Montog (monday), which depicts a Jewish shtetl in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian revolution. In this chapter, two feldmesterins – cemetery measurers – Stesye and Gnesye – measure the cemetery.

Stesye and Gnesye

Here are the two little old ladies, who Mordkhe Markus saw and stared at through his window from the little attic. Two altitshkes, two cemetery measurers – Stesye and Gnesye –wrapped in shawls with knots tied at the back. From their withered faces protrude little-old-lady potato-noses, on which perch spectacles with strings tightened up behind their ears. Two psalm-sayers, Stesye and Gnesye, grey like chickens, who go knocking on doors every Monday. Two old ladies, who sit quietly on the doorsteps, uttering curses and blessings with their sunken mouths.

Stesye and Gnesye live in the ta’are hut at the cemetery, where corpses are prepared for burial. Day after day, they look through the little window, watching the birds fly and the blades of grass grow. And at night they sleep; Stesye on the oven, Gnesye on the cot, covered with a small pelt and a rag And they whisper in their sleep as they lie there in their hut, laid out like two wax candles.

In the middle of the night Stesye stirs. She rubs the dry cracks that are her eyes, and she asks:

“Gnesye, Gnesye – are you asleep?”

Gnesye answers, “No, and you, Stesye?”

“Also no.”

Gnesye answers, “No, and you, Stesye?”

“Also no.”

They climb down from their sleeping places, pour water over their hands three times, reciting blessings and, tie and button themselves up. Then, little by little, they take out the dead thread from the casket.

Then they open the low, heavy door of the ta’are hut, and they come out into the cemetery. Oh, how the stars are shining. Stesye takes up the end of the thread and walks far ahead. And Gnesye holds the ball behind her, uncoiling it bit by bit, and like this they measure the cemetery.

Like this.

The white thread stretches out in the darkness, swirling and expanding in the blowing wind. It unfurls further and further, up up in the sky, until it has entangled even the church spires and tall towers of the city. It catches the stars in its web. It spins and weaves and envelopes the whole town in a dead thread.

Cite this: Moyshe Kulbak, “Stesye and Gnesye”, Montog – a kleyner roman (Monday – a short novel), Kultur Liga, Warsaw, 1929. Trans. Annabel Gottfried Cohen.

Excerpts from this translation were published in Annabel Cohen, “Gravewalkers”, T.S. Mendola (ed.), Strange Fire: Jewish voices from the pandemic, Ben Yehuda Press, 2021. https://www.benyehudapress.com/books/strange-fire/