David starts in surprise. His eyes shift to the new person, Abahn, and then back to the Jew.
Sabana says, “He said, ‘I want to live, I want to die.’”
“Maybe he doesn’t care which,” David says.
“Maybe.”
Sabana leaves David. She walks toward the back of the room and sits down against a wall. David finds himself alone in the light.
Silence.
No one speaks.
David waits. There is an obvious awkwardness.
“I don’t understand,” David says. “You told me the Jew was speaking to me.”
“You can’t force him to say more,” says Sabana.
David addresses Abahn. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Nothing. Something else. Otherwise. Somewhere else.’”
David looks from one Jew the other, and then at Sabana. He wants to laugh. He says:
“You woke me up for this?”
No one answers him. He sees the Jew looking at him. He starts. The Jew is not looking at him anymore. The Jew closes his eyes. For the first time it seems a great effort for David to speak.
“Who is he?” David asks.
“I don’t know him,” says Abahn.
“I don’t know,” says Sabana.
“His life is invisible,” says Abahn.
Silence.
“Who are you?” Sabana asks the Jew.
The Jew shakes his head.
“He has no more courage,” says David.
“Yes,” says Abahn. “His strength is still there. Still present.”
David studies the Jew who is smiling, his eyes closed, and realizes the strength within him.
“It’s true,” says David.
“It’s just momentary. It will pass,” says Sabana.
“The dead of the night,” says Abahn.
The Jew rises, takes a few steps, slowly, distracted it seems, his shadow falling over David, he turns toward the door to the darkened park. Pauses there.
“He wants to live,” says Sabana. “And he won’t make the effort to do so.”
Silence.
David leans forward out of the light.
“He wants to live in the banlieues of Staadt without working,” Abahn says slowly. “To live without work at all, without any occupation, to live like that in the banlieues of Staadt.”
“Without any work at all,” murmurs David.
David looks again at the Jew. He wants to say something. He says nothing. He stares with a tangible intensity at the back of the Jew.
“One night,” says Sabana, “I wasn’t here, where was I? Just hanging about? You were going to the café, you and the Jew, he was telling you a little bit about his situation.”
David’s face grows pale.
“I didn’t listen,” says David. “I didn’t understand.”
“None of it?” Sabana asks.
“He must have heard some of it,” comments Abahn.
David thinks for a while.
“Something about freedom,” says David at last. “Something about liberty.”
He thinks again.
“About despair,” says David. He seems confused, intimidated. He smiles. “Then I slept.”
They are silent. Abahn gestures toward the Jew.
“He’s unsure now. That’s what I think.”
David thinks.
“It’s completely normal for Gringo to kill him.”
“Normal,” says Abahn.
David lowers his voice a little:
“He’s Gringo’s enemy.”
“He’s a different kind of man,” says Abahn. “He’s a communist who believes that communism is impossible. And Gringo thinks it is.”
David smiles as if at a joke. He hesitates.
“Yes, definitely,” he says.
“Which?” Abahn asks.
David stops smiling. He looks toward Sabana. He wants her help. She is silent.
“You don’t know,” says Abahn. “We don’t know.”
They are silent. Again Abahn gestures toward the Jew:
“He doesn’t think it’s worth the trouble to kill Gringo.”
“He thinks Gringo is dead,” says Sabana.
“What? How?” cries David.
No one answers him.
“It’s completely normal that Gringo would kill him,” says David again, his voice trembling.
“Yes. Gringo,” says Sabana.
David stares at Sabana in terror, seized by brutal shock.
He waits. Sabana says no more. His terror grows.
“The life of the Jew is unseeable, invisible.” says Abahn. “Like the life of David.”
His terror grows still. Silence falls.
“Before, the Jew was so sure. Like Gringo is now,” says Sabana.
“Of what?”
“Of what we would find after the wait. And of where only the wait could lead.”
“And when the Jew was very young,” asks Sabana, “did he believe as Gringo does now?”
“Yes,” says Abahn. “He came to this conclusion after a number of years.”
“I don’t understand,” says David.
“For a long time. Gringo. A long time, you understand.”
David does not answer.
“We believed in the wait, logical and unending. Now we believe it’s useless,” says Abahn.
David thinks on this. He searches the faces around him. “What happened?” he wants to know.
“Patience became our goal.”
David shakes his head brusquely, grabs his gun, releases it as if were aflame: it’s the Jew who has spoken. His voice is soft.
“I found this patience,” says Sabana.
David’s glare shifts abruptly to Sabana.
“Patience burned your hand,” she adds.
Silence.
“It’s possible we were wrong,” says Abahn.
“Yes,” agrees the Jew. “Possible. Always possible.”
•
The Jew returns slowly to his place. He sits on the ground, leans back against the wall. A tight smile spreads across his face. He says:
“It’s been a while.”
He closes his eyes.
Sabana turns to the window that looks out onto the road. She hears the baying dogs out on the field of the dead.
“David I see outside,” she says. “I see that if we open up then the cold comes in. You, you see David in David.”
“Yes,” says the Jew.
“David, you’re David,” murmurs David.
He looks at them, an unanswered question hovering. He tries to figure out what he said.
“He saw that you were young,” says Abahn. “He saw you as a child. He wanted to know your name. He’s crying. He has seen evil.”
“He cried,” murmured David.
“Yes. Now he sees you better.”
Silence, all at once and deep. The dogs bark no more. No one breathes.
“How does he see me?” mutters David.
The Jew opens his eyes and looks at David. David and the Jew look at each other for the first time.
“I want to kill you,” says the Jew.
His voice cracks. Love, once again, comes into the voice of the Jew.
David stretches out an arm and calls out:
“Sabana!”
She does not answer.
“You were sleeping,” says Abahn. “He saw your sleeping body only. He saw your hands.”
Silence. Far off in the distance the dogs howl madly.
“And now suddenly we are uncertain about the fate of David,” says Abahn.
David sits up in his chair, looks over at Sabana and opens his mouth as if to cry out. He does not.
Silence then.
The voice of Sabana:
“I’m afraid.”
“We are afraid,” says the Jew.
Sabana takes a few steps, stops by the window, turns her face toward the cold glass.
“No one but Gringo can live outside.”
“And Jeanne.”
“Yes.”
She listens. Her voice dwindles.
“The wild animals break free in the forest.” She listens. “The pools and ponds overflow.”
“It’s a profound slumber,” says Abahn, “at the end of the night.”
Their voices seem identical, slow, even. David cries out: