The Janitor

The tango can be debated, and we have debates over it,

but it still encloses, as does all that which is truthful, a secret.

– Jorge Luis Borges

Along the northeastern wall of the Cementerio Israelita, in the town of La Tablada, province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, are several rows of neat, evenly spaced, gravestones. Except for the names, and an occasional change in the type of stone used, the markers are indistinguishable from one another. Unless one has come to this section of the cemetery looking for the grave of someone in particular, it is quite easy to walk past all the markers and notice none of them. This is not where the notables are buried, and one might be tempted to say that the lives of those buried beneath these markers were as indistinguishable as the markers themselves. One who says this, however, would be mistaken. Every person walks a unique path, no matter how much the scenery appears to be the same. Every person has his own secrets, his own share of suffering.

On the third row from the wall, near one of the few trees in this section of the cemetery, is a gravestone sacred to the memory of one Isaac Parness. Like the others, it is simple, containing only the man’s name, his birth and death dates, and an inscription. The inscription is from the thirtieth chapter of the Book of Psalms, “Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing.” It would seem to be a very appropriate epitaph to mark...