Condition: To Be On A Horse

This is an essay written for the exhibition ‘Dig the hole! Dig it!’. It is the third collaborative project from the leaders of NJK, for whom Lychakiv cemetery became the finishing point for presentation of an anthropological study of Medzhybizh, the capital of the Chasidic Kingdom.

Original version of the text: https://syg.ma/@njk/sostoianiie-byt-na-konie-tochka-vystavka-njk-na-lychakovskom-kladbishchie

There’s a man standing yonder, between the cross and the sign!

Forget the weather in Europe. There’s been no place for us there for ages. Long nights, short days there. We went to the great pilgrimage back then; we built a big bridge. We needed that path since we had forgotten the sweet taste in the mouth. I’m hitching up my horse, destroying the equilibrium of the ancient laws, but choosing the way of ‘Joy’. The muscles of my legs, they’re so strong, I’ll manage to stay in the saddle. I have to realize that moment that plunged into my memory up on that peak. We failed to take the height then.

Back then, we were just simple footmen,

An army with no nimbleness,

An army with no pride,

An army with no smell,

An army with no taste,

An army with no orgasm,

An army with no cries,

An army with no despair,

An army with no instinct.

I’ve managed to understand the true strength: it incorporates hatred and a lively friend. We passed three fields and met a merchant in the fourth. He suggested that we spend our money on warm women, told us to revive the instinct of life that barely glimmered in our bodies on a peak near Sadhora.

The Maggid of Mezeritch told me about that state and disclosed the mystery of being within the instinct. My horse doesn’t have a name anymore. My friend doesn’t have a name anymore. We became part of a sharp blow which bore us over the secret land, an ignorant terrain. I sped up, the stallion takes me further and further, my state is unstoppable, I am a rider. It’s crucial to stay in the saddle. As long as I’m that fast, there will be no death.

Merchant: I watched you for a long time. You’ve been leading your caravan since the baptism.

Stranger: 2000 years. I was allotted that much time.

Merchant: I’m waiting for you. Dismount. Let us go and spend our money on warm women.

We set forth to reap the fruits, but we suffered a total failure. There was an imaginary land laying around us, it turned into a forgotten embossed tile. A little tile bought for a little round man’s money.

I’m suffering.

I loved beauty.

I wept.

Am I a human?

I’m climbing to the peak.

I’m singing a song.

I wept.

Am I a human?

I prayed.

I fasted.

I wept.

Am I a human?

A large table was laid amidst the field near the grave marked by a headstone with my friend’s name inscribed on it. He didn’t dare to sit down to the table. I begged him to defend our honour, I asked him to start eating. He refused.

Our good horses stood too far away; we won’t flee.

Our good brothers lived too far away; we won’t escape.

Our good parents laid too far away; we won’t disappear.

My friend, sit down to the table.

My friend, bless this bread.

My friend, eat the egg.

My friend, stain your neighbour’s jacket.

My friend, stain your own jacket.

We talked about our lot, how difficult it is to be a horseman, how uncomfortable is life in the saddle, yet how reluctant we are to dismount. We didn’t want to start this fight, but we came in business, we’re not after a fateful deed. They made us face the fact; they victimized us. The feast is not that huge anymore! We emptied all the red pots; we swallowed all the pulp; we blessed the master and went along. A big Ukrainian house appeared before us. It was waiting for us, it was thinking about us, dreaming about us. We made its dream come true, we aroused its doors, we came in and stayed for quite a while. The space was designed exactly for us alone: beautiful volumes standing on the bookshelves, the main cabinet, a washing mug, a wooden bench, a little beggar in the corner.

I wished so much you were there with me, in that house. I exist for you. I am looking for you. My queen! The golden days after the hell! How fierce the wind was! My friend started asking us to leave the house, to free him from the wise jew’s hut, but the people from the East are knocking on the door. Impatient people, mean people, wild people!

You’ll get your lifelong sorrow of stone, I said to my friend.

Stop boasting at the table, I shouted to my neighbour.

Stop ruling during dinner, I begged the tzar.

Stop attacking us, I asked the enemy.

There was a suitcase in his hand, full of embroidered red saris. The day quickly came to an end. Everything looked different. We had to stick the ‘Ramla to Lod’ road sign, yet she’s working all the time every morning, not giving a damn about me. Dig the hole! Dig it! Stick the sharp pointer to the ground, spill some blood. 
A huge tomb with a tiny crevice. It’s not that easy to stay ahorse. The foes don’t go. The totalitarian regime built a train station for the country I want to leave, for the landscape I want to forget, for you I won’t ever manage to forget.

We’ve conducted another anthropological study. Each of us has their own goal that brought us to a huge collapse of production. A symbolic footnote will help us to endure it, the imagination will scatter the events, while we’ll forget the 13 fields and the junction, and only two shops with different names will leave us to the everlasting agony of the choosing.

Why can’t I be everywhere at the same time?

Why didn’t you give me an opportunity to be everywhere?

Why couldn’t I fill everything with my own essence?

Why am I not everything?

That’s all.

Harri Kraievets
2019