“Come!”
She does not hear him. He searches her face. She has turned away. She looks at the Jew.
The Jew is looking back at her.
“The Jew used to believe that success was real,” says Abahn. “Not anymore.”
David does not respond, does not acknowledge them at all.
“He thinks now that success is a failure,” says Abahn. “That the greater, more obvious success is the greater and more serious failure.”
“Strength,” says the Jew.
David, one more time, touches his gun.
“Death,” says the Jew.
David yanks his hand back as if the gun were a flame.
“I saw,” says Sabana. “I saw it.”
“Quiet,” David begs her.
“It burned your hand,” Sabana says.
•
No one speaks.
The dogs howl.
“Gringo may turn back in the cold,” says Sabana.
She leaves the window, returns to her place on the floor, leaning back against the wall.
“Sabana!” David calls out.
“I don’t hear you anymore,” she says.
“Come over.”
“She won’t come anymore,” says Abahn.
David doesn’t ask again.
“The love she had for David has, this night, turned into love for the Jew,” says Abahn.
“Shut up, you,” mutters David.
And then the voice of the Jew, breaking, muted:
“Sabana.”
And then the voice of Sabana:
“I will be killed along with the Jew.”
Silence.
“Who said that?” asks David.
“Sabana,” says Abahn.
“She’s crazy,” says David.
Again the voice of Sabana:
“Gringo will shoot from the road in front.”
David, quiet for a moment, suddenly bursts out:
“She’s crazy when she’s like this.”
No one replies. He goes on.
“She doesn’t understand anything.”
“Sabana,” says the Jew.
“She doesn’t know how to read,” says David, “she doesn’t know anything.” He addresses Sabana, “Do you know where Staadt is?”
“I don’t.”
David laughs, a short, fake laugh, and then stops sharply.
“Look,” he says. He is talking to the Jews. He speaks so quickly. “She doesn’t know how old she is, she doesn’t even know her name.”
He stops. Then speaks again, a little slower.
“She doesn’t know if she has a child.”
Sabana does not reply. David speaks directly to the Jews.
“She doesn’t know where she came from, look at her.”
He waits. Sabana has been quiet.
“Some say she’s Jewish,” says David. “That she came from far away.”
“From the German Jewry,” says the Jew. “From the town of Auschstaadt.”
David pauses. Then repeats slowly:
“Auschstaadt.”
His frenzy has dissipated.
He turns to Sabana. Fear rises in her eyes. He asks her:
“Are you from Auschstaadt?”
They all look at her. She is frozen, sitting there against the wall, in the light. The clear blue eyes are unfocused: they seek Auschstaadt.
“Auschstaadt,” she repeats.
“Yes,” says the Jew.
“Where is Auschstaadt?” asks David.
“Here,” says the Jew.
“Everywhere,” says Abahn. “Like Gringo. Like the Jew. Like David.”
“Here. Everywhere,” says the Jew.
Sabana is still thinking about Auschstaadt.
“And when?” asks David.
“Always,” says the Jew. “Right now.”
“We’re all from Auschstaadt,” says Abahn.
Silence. A new fear seems to grow in David.
“She wouldn’t be any different from the Jew if she knew something,” says Abahn.
David recoils, still looking at the form of Sabana on the ground, leaning back, as if he recognizes something evil in her. He says:
“It’s true, Gringo said she was crazy, that she makes things up.”
“What do you think?” asks Abahn.
David makes an effort to speak. The fear retreats a little. He tries to pull his thoughts together. He answers without looking up:
“I don’t know.” He smiles a tight and painful smile. “I amuse myself with her.”
Silence.
“Who is she?” demands David.
The fear has gone.
“No one knows,” says the Jew.
David and the Jew look up at one another.
•
David and the Jew are looking at each other still.
“You have to try anyway,” says the Jew to David.
David starts to attention.
“What?”
“To move toward communism,” says the Jew.
“To where?” David smiles as if it were a joke. The Jews smile too.
“To where we don’t know,” says Abahn. “You don’t know.”
The Jew smiles, at David, at everyone.
“You have to try not to create it,” says the Jew.
Unthinking, David strokes his gun. Having found it again, he yanks his hand back as if burned.
“To arrive in the forest,” says Abahn.
“Wild,” says the Jew.
“The forest,” David repeats.
They fall silent. David is still looking at them. They look elsewhere.
“You came to destroy our unity,” says David. His voice is dull, flat. Trembling.
“Yes.”
“To divide? Sow dissent in our unity?”
“Yes,” says the Jew.
“To sow dissent in our spirit?”
“Yes.”
“To what end?” asks David.
“No one knows,” says the Jew.
“To break, to shatter,” says Sabana.
“Where?” asks David.
“To Sabana,” says the Jew.
Silence. David fights against sleep.
“It would be normal to kill you, to hunt you like a pest.”
“Yes,” says the Jew.
Silence.
Sabana looks through the dark window.
David stands up.
Sabana and David can hear what the Jews do not hear, see what the Jews do not see.
“We walk by the ponds,” says Sabana.
“There’s a light!” David calls out.
She turns back to the window, the darkened park, the field of the dead.
“There’s a light out in the field,” says David.
Sabana peers out, listening. “I saw it,” she says calmly. “It’s not there anymore.”
He turns to her. She is still there, at the window, looking out at the field.
“I’m afraid,” says David. “Come over here.”
“No.”
He collapses back into his chair. He closes his eyes. With all his strength he tries to fall asleep again. He calls out to Sabana. He tells her to come back to him, he says he doesn’t understand.
She does not answer.
He calls again, weaker. Then he calls to her no more.
She turns toward him, sleep is overcoming him, his arms again on the armrests, his face fallen. She leaves the window, goes to his side, she takes his hand, sits next to him.
“Don’t fall asleep,” says Sabana.
“No,” says David.
•
Sabana stays with David.
“Don’t fall asleep,” she says.
“No,” says David.
She holds his hand in her own. She says:
“The light in the field wasn’t real. Your hands are so cold.”
He does not answer.
“You’re less afraid,” she says.
He turns an inquiring look upon her.
“I think so,” he says.
The Jews are at the table, in the same position. Heads resting back against the wall, they are silent. The Jew looks at Sabana, her blue eyes, dark, blue, fixed upon David.
“You must not be afraid,” she says to David.
“No.”
There is a look of complete confidence on David’s face. She takes his hand, she studies it.