Marguerite Duras: Abahn Sabana David

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.”

Silence.

“Why?” asks Jeanne.

“They love everyone,” says Sabana.

Silence.

Jeanne says, “They want the world to end.”

“Yes,” says Sabana.

Silence.

“You want to say something more?” Sabana asks.

“Pay attention,” says Jeanne.

“Yes,” says the Jew.

“What else?” Sabana asks.

“The dogs.”

“David moved the kennels behind the garages yesterday,” says Sabana, “in the night.”

“That’s better,” says Jeanne.

She falls silent.

“What else?”

“Return to your life,” says Jeanne. “Don’t leave Staadt before nightfall. I won’t leave until your departure.” She pauses. “And above all. .”

“Yes?”

“STAY TOGETHER,” says Jeanne. “DON’T LEAVE ONE ANOTHER.”

“Yes,” says the Jew.

She falls silent. The Jew calls out:

“You cannot help but follow him?”

There is a long silence. Then: “No. I am Gringo as well. The female Gringo.”

She pauses and then:

“But I’m barren. I can’t bear children.”

She pauses again but speaks no more. They do not press her with any more questions.

She stands there still, silent, just like them.

Then in the silence they hear her body move. She is walking away from the door.

Then, light footsteps on the cobblestone, hers.

Sabana turns back to the field of the dead.

The Jew slowly straightens up. He does not try to make out through the window the form passing by. He does not move. He seems indifferent to everything around him. He has left once more, left again, now he is with her, the one walking away on the deserted road in the new day dawning on Staadt, once more anew in his life.

An excerpt appeared in Clockhouse .

Douglas A. Martin gave me encouragement and feedback at the right moment. Jeffrey Zuckerman read an earlier draft and gave invaluable feedback, corrections and suggestions. I am indebted to his keen eye. At every thorny moment when I could not bridge the gap between Duras’s extremely subtle poetic mind and her clean and spare prose style, Nathanaël was there, sometimes to salve, sometimes to scold, but always to guide me toward a deeper and more difficult relationship to the text.

I also thank Libby Murphy, who was my co-translator on L’Amour . Working with her on that project made me feel capable to tackle this one on my own. Certainly throughout this work I felt her influence and sensibility as a translator guiding me.

There is a sideways debt I offer to Ananda Devi, whose powerful book of poetry and prose When the Night Agrees to Speak to Me I was translating simultaneously. Her sensibility drew me through languages to find this book in English.

Finally, I want to thank Open Letter Books and Chad and Kaija, who are so devoted to literature in translation and to Duras in particular.

Marguerite Duras was born in Giadinh, Vietnam (then Indochina) to French parents. During her lifetime she wrote dozens of plays, film scripts, and novels, including The Ravishing of Lol Stein, The Sea Wall , and Hiroshima, Mon Amour , and was associated with the nouveau roman (or new novel) French literary movement. Duras is probably most well known for The Lover , an autobiographical work that received the Goncourt prize in 1984 and was made into a film in 1992. She died in Paris in 1996 at the age of 81.

Kazim Ali is a poet, essayist, and novelist. In addition to his own writing, he has published a translation of Water’s Footfall by Sohrab Sepehri, and, along with Libby Murphy, he translated L’Amour by Margeurite Duras, which is also available from Open Letter.