David Grossman: Falling out of time

TOWN CHRONICLER: As they sit eating dinner, the man’s face suddenly turns. He thrusts his plate away. Knives and forks clang. He stands up and seems not to know where he is. The woman recoils in her chair. His gaze hovers around her without taking hold, and she — wounded already by disaster — senses immediately: it’s here again, touching me, its cold fingers on my lips. But what happened? she whispers with her eyes. Bewildered, the man looks at her and speaks:

— I have to go.

— Where?

— To him.

— Where?

— To him, there.

— To the place where it happened?

— No, no. There.

— What do you mean, there?

— I don’t know.

— You’re scaring me.

— Just to see him once more.

— But what could you see now? What is left to see?

— I might be able to see him there. Maybe even talk to him?

— Talk?!

TOWN CHRONICLER: Now they both unfold, awaken. The man speaks again.

— Your voice.

— It’s back. Yours too.

— How I missed your voice.

— I thought we … that we’d never …

— I missed your voice more than I missed my own.

— But what is there ? There’s no such place. There doesn’t exist!

— If you go there, it does.

— But you don’t come back. No one ever has.

— Because only the dead have gone.

— And you — how will you go?

— I will go there alive.

— But you won’t come back.

— Maybe he’s waiting for us.

— He’s not. It’s been five years and he’s still not. He’s not.

— Maybe he’s wondering why we gave up on him so quickly, the minute they notified us …

— Look at me. Look into my eyes. What are you doing to us? It’s me, can’t you see? This is us, the two of us. This is our home. Our kitchen.

Come, sit down. I’ll give you some soup.

MAN:

Lovely—

So lovely—

The kitchen

is lovely

right now,

with you ladling soup.

Here it’s warm and soft,

and steam

covers the cold

windowpane—

TOWN CHRONICLER: Perhaps because of the long years of silence, his hoarse voice fades to a whisper. He does not take his eyes off her. He watches so intently that her hand trembles.

MAN:

And loveliest of all are your tender,

curved arms.

Life is here,

dear one.

I had forgotten:

life is in the place where you

ladle soup

under the glowing light.

You did well to remind me:

we are here

and he is there,

and a timeless border

stands between us.

I had forgotten:

we are here

and he—

but it’s impossible!

Impossible .

WOMAN:

Look at me. No,

not with that empty gaze.

Stop.

Come back to me,

to us. It’s so easy

to forsake us, and this

light, and tender

arms, and the thought

that we have come back

to life,

and that time

nonetheless

places thin compresses—

MAN:

No, this is impossible.

It’s no longer possible

that we,

that the sun,

that the watches, the shops,

that the moon,

the couples,

that tree-lined boulevards

turn green, that blood

in our veins,

that spring and autumn,

that people

innocently,

that things just are.

That the children

of others,

that their brightness

and warmness—

WOMAN:

Be careful,

you are saying

things.

The threads

are so fine.

MAN:

At night people came

bearing news.

They walked a long way,

quietly grave,

and perhaps, as they did so,

they stole a taste, a lick.

With a child’s wonder

they learned they could hold

death in their mouths

like candy made of poison

to which they are miraculously

immune.

We opened the door,

this one. We stood here,

you and I,

shoulder to shoulder,

they

on the threshold

and we

facing them,

and they,

mercifully,

quietly,

stood there and

gave us

the breath

of death.

WOMAN:

It was awfully quiet.

Cold flames lapped around us.

I said: I knew, tonight

you would come. I thought:

Come, noiseful void.

MAN:

From far away,

I heard you:

Don’t be afraid, you said,

I did not shout

when he was born, and

I won’t shout now either.

WOMAN:

Our prior life

kept growing

inside us

for a few moments longer.

Speech,

movements,

expressions.

MAN AND WOMAN:

Now,

for a moment,

we sink.

Both not saying

the same words.

Not bewailing him,

for now,

but bewailing the music

of our previous life, the

wondrously simple, the

ease, the

face

free of wrinkles.

WOMAN:

But we promised each other,

we swore to be,

to ache,

to miss

him,

to live.

So what is it now

that makes you

suddenly tear away?

MAN:

After that night

a stranger came and grasped

my shoulders and said: Save

what is left.

Fight, try to heal.

Look into her eyes, cling

to her eyes, always

her eyes—

do not let go.

WOMAN:

Don’t go back there,

to those days. Do not

turn back your gaze.

MAN:

In that darkness I saw

one eye

weeping

and one eye

crazed.

A human eye,

extinguished,

and the eye

of a beast.

A beast half

devoured in the predator’s mouth,

soaked with blood,

insane,

peered out at me from your eye.

WOMAN:

The earth

gaped open,

gulped us

and disgorged.

Don’t go back

there, do not go,

not even one step

out of the light.

MAN:

I could not, I dared not

look into your eye,

that eye of

madness,

into your noneness.

WOMAN:

I did not see you,

I did not see

a thing,

from the human eye

or the eye

of the beast.

My soul was uprooted.

It was very cold then

and it is cold

now, too.

Come to sleep,

it’s late.

MAN:

For five years

we unspoke

that night.

You fell mute,

then I.

For you the quiet

was good,

and I felt it clutch

at my throat. One after

the other, the words

died, and we were

like a house

where the lights

go slowly out,

until a somber silence

fell—

WOMAN:

And in it

I rediscovered you,

and him. A dark mantle

cloaked the three of us,

enfolded us

with him, and we were mute

like him. Three embryos

conceived

by the bane—

MAN:

And together

we were born

on the other side,

without words,

without colors,

and we learned

to live

the inverse

of life.

(silence)

WOMAN:

See how

word by word

our confiding

is attenuated, macerated,

like a dream

illuminated

by a torch. There was

a certain miracle

within the quietude,

a secrecy

within the silence

that swallowed us up

with him. We were silent there

like him, there we spoke

his tongue.

For words—

how does the drumming

of words voice

his death?!

TOWN CHRONICLER: In the hush that follows her shout, the man retreats until his back touches the wall. Slowly, as if in his sleep, he spreads both arms out and steps along the wall. He circles the small kitchen, around and around her.