“YOU SAW THROUGH THE WINDOW THAT THE JEW STILL LIVES.”
Silence on the other side of the door. No one responds to what David said.
There is a cry:
“There’s no point in hiding! We saw you!”
David doesn’t understand.
Silence.
David takes another step toward the door.
Silence still.
Then the voice of the Jew, slow, calming:
“We will walk past the ponds, we will walk north.”
David turns roughly toward the Jew: his eyes are closed, he’s not looking anywhere.
“Open up! It’s useless to hide! Open up!”
David advances again. He says:
“The door’s open.”
Silence. No one opens the door. No one responds to David.
“We will escape the field of death,” the Jew continues, “the dogs on the field of death.” His voice suddenly empties of its calm. “We will try.”
David turns once more. The Jew has the same expression still. Sabana’s gaze shifts from the door to the Jew.
Once more from behind the door comes a cry, very loud:
“It’s useless to deny it! You have been seen! Open up!”
Silence.
Silence behind the door. David’s fear returns. He takes his gun in his hand and calls out:
“The door is open! Come in!”
Silence.
Again the voice of the Jew:
“We will try not to build it. We will try.”
David holsters his gun. He turns back to the Jew. A wild spark of savage joy flashes across his eyes.
Sabana understands then that there is another person behind the door.
“Jeanne is with him,” she says.
Suddenly, on the other side of the door, Gringo’s voice bursts out; to David it is as if he has never heard it before:
“We demand that the Jew return David!”
David listens to the voice with great attention.
“David must return!”
David isn’t listening to the voice anymore.
“Dirty Jew, you better give David back!”
“We will try,” says the Jew, his voice breaking.
David isn’t listening to the voice anymore. He looks at the Jew.
“Yes,” says David.
“David has to come back!”
“We will find the forest,” says the Jew.
“Yes,” cries David.
“Dirty Jew! You give back David!”
The Jew lifts his eyes, looks toward the road, the dawning day, the invisible border, he does not hear Gringo. A painful smile — as exhausted and light as his voice — draws across his face. Sabana watches him.
“You dirty traitor! Give back David!”
“We will live,” says the Jew. In the silence between the cries his voice is just a murmur. “We will try.”
“Yes!” cries David.
David is overtaken by an involuntary shudder. His face grimaces in silence and then: David laughs.
“David is ours! David must be returned!”
At first timid, still mired in tears, the laughing slowly bursts forth from David’s body, from the cement and stone. The dogs cry out. Laughter issues from David in hiccups. The dogs start to howl in accompaniment with the violin sounds of Gringo’s shouts.
“David!”
David’s laughter takes its shape. No longer smothered. David’s entire body shakes with laughter.
In the half-light another laughter is heard: Abahn. The laughter of David and Abahn goes through the doors of the house of the Jew.
“David, come back!”
The laughter of Abahn and David passes through the walls, unrolls in the half-night of Staadt, spreads across the field of death.
“David!”
The laughter stills the howling.
“David.”
The voice is colorless, just like that: the anger fading, the voice is Gringo’s again.
“I want to speak in the name of our great Party. I will do my duty.”
The laughter comes again, irrepressible, crazy, child-like, mixing with the howling of the dogs, breaking apart the conversation, order, sense, meaning, light. It is the laughter of pure joy.
“Before we took over bad element bad worker he stole from the warehouses of Staadt unworthy worker without class consciousness without valid professional training with individual morality without a future from the Technical School of Staadt out of all the sites in the region whim criminal dilettantism the arrival of the Jew of the traitor for the first time in his life kept his job David was well taken care of two years yes two years spirit of anarchy and insubordination that increased David’s misfortune Two years yes of efforts all right the result was worth the trouble.”
Silence.
The howling of the dogs dies down. The howling of a man this time:
“Dirty Jew! Dog! I’ll teach you that a revolutionary doesn’t give up to anyone! Another six months and David will have you shot, you and your dogs!”
The howling stops.
Silence.
“Open it,” says David.
Silence.
David laughs again.
“I’m going to open the door,” says David, still laughing.
He smiles still.
“I’m opening it!” cries David.
Silence. They wait.
“He’s gone,” says David.
They wait longer. Steps resound on the cobblestones, rapid. They turn, see a shadow pass, etched onto the half-light of the new day.
Abahn and David walk to the table in the shadowy light, they fall into the chair there, laughter of joy still covering their faces.
The Jew goes to the door.
Sabana follows him.
•
“Jeanne,” says the Jew.
They are standing in front of the door, where David just was.
No response.
“Are you there?”
“Yes,” says Jeanne. And after a moment: “He’s gone.”
She falls silent.
“It’s you?” the Jew asks again. “Yes.”
“It’s you,” says Sabana.
The voice of Jeanne is heavy, slow, already seized by the ice of death.
“Don’t open the door,” she says. “I’m not coming in.”
The Jew listens to the voice of Jeanne. He does not answer.
“He went a little far,” Jeanne said. “He spoke in anger because you were laughing.”
“You lie,” the Jew says lightly.
Jeanne does not answer.
“I want to hear your voice,” the Jew says. “You’re David’s wife.”
“Yes. Sabana and I.”
Silence.
“Forget what he said,” says Jeanne.
“He didn’t listen. He didn’t hear,” says Sabana.
“The way I want to understand your voice,” says the Jew.
Jeanne pauses a moment, then says, “I don’t want to meet you.”
“He knows,” says Sabana.
They wait for Jeanne to speak.
“Gringo is gone to the House of the People. Their meeting is still going on. I should go there and join him.”
Silence.
“He has to report on David’s mission,” says Jeanne. “I should go there.” She pauses. “I’m going to go.”
“There’s no meeting,” says the Jew.
Silence.
“Are you still there?” asks Sabana. “I can hear you.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“What are you waiting for?” asks the Jew. “You can speak without fear.”
“For Sabana to speak to me,” says Jeanne.
Sabana hesitates.
“David isn’t coming back,” she says finally.
A sob is heard. Sabana and the Jew go closer to the door.
“Never?” asks Jeanne.
“Never,” says Sabana. “He doesn’t fully realize it yet. I’ll explain it to him later.”
They do not hear anything from Jeanne. They are still there, against the door.
“I’ll stay with him,” says Sabana.
A brief moan.
“Whatever happens,” says Sabana, “from now on I’ll stay with the Jews.”