Marguerite Duras - Abahn Sabana David

“He didn’t know where to go when he came here. He came here because he didn’t have anywhere else to go. He’s been here for a few days already, waiting for us. The merchants were also looking to get rid of him, as you see.”

“Yes.”

She looks at Abahn for a long time.

“And you?”

“I came to Staadt now, tonight.”

“By chance?”

“No.”

Silence. She is still focused on him.

“You’re alone as well?”

“Yes. With the Jews.”

He smiles. She does not return his smile. It is almost as if she doesn’t see it. She says:

“This house is being confiscated by the merchants, the park, too. Not because of the dogs; we don’t know what will happen to them. They find it hard to adjust to a new master. We don’t know what to do with them.”

“Maybe. Did the Jew have anything to say about it?”

“Not yet.”

He looks at her more intensely.

“Did you ask him that question?”

“Which one?”

“About what is going to happen to the dogs?”

She turns toward the dark park.

“Maybe later,” she says, “later in the night.”

David shifts in his chair. He opens his eyes.

Then falls asleep again. Abahn says:

“David wakes up when we talk about the dogs?”

“Yes. You guessed it.”

The same slowness creeps into their voices. He asks:

“Why did you let me in? For what?”

She says quickly:

“You came in.”

“Why did you speak to me?”

“You spoke to me.”

Abruptly his glare flares, then subsides.

“You’re not afraid of anything,” he says. “Nothing.”

Silence. He regards her slim form, erect, alert. Her half-lidded stare. She listens out the window: the dogs are barking.

Far, in the direction she listens, that of the setting sun, the dogs are barking. Muted but numerous.

The barking ceases. He asks:

“Are you afraid now?”

“Not as much.”

“You’re not afraid for yourself?”

“No.” She pauses, considers. “Not fear.”

He waits. She is thinking. She finds what she wants to say:

“It’s to be suffered.”

“Badly?”

She considers again:

“No. In full.”

They fall silent.

•

She gets up. She walks toward David. She gestures toward Abahn. She speaks in a low tone. “They know each other a little, David and the Jew.”

She is listening to the sounds of Staadt outside.

“I think they are still coming.”

She turns in the direction of the frost-covered road, pauses.

“You said they knew David a little?”

“Yes. Some people knew him. David may have forgotten, but they knew him.” She pauses again. He says nothing. She turns to him.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

They look at one another.

He asks:

“Who are you?”

She focuses on him, his intense gaze, interrogating.

“I don’t know,” she says.

His stare bores into her.

“I mean to him — who are you to him?”

She shrugs. She does not know anymore.

“Are you his wife?”

“Yes.”

“Are you his mother?”

She does not answer. She is thinking.

“You’re not his mother?”

“He wishes I were his mother.”

“You don’t want that?”

“No.”

The Jew raises his head. She sees him. For a long while she looks at him. Then she goes to sit down next to him again. She is quiet the whole time. Then she speaks to him in even tones:

“You wrote. You talked with people. You didn’t work.”

She is talking to Abahn.

“He walked in the streets, the avenues, night and day. He went to see the shipyards. From time to time he went to the cafes to talk with people.”

“He spoke to them?”

“Yes, he asked them many questions.”

“And David too?”

“Yes, David too. From time to time you would tell them some things difficult to follow, as if they could understand. And then it was explained to us what you were saying.”

“Gringo?” asked Abahn.

“Yes.”

She is trying to remember.

“He said, ‘Liberty.’”

“And how did Gringo explain it?”

“Money.”

“He said, ‘Underneath the truth.’”

“And how did Gringo explain that?”

“Crime.”

“He said, ‘Live into the future.’”

“And how did Gringo explain that?”

“Proof.”

She thinks. She asks the Jew:

“What did you say?”

“Don’t believe anything anymore,” says the Jew.

“Nothing. No one,” says Abahn.

“Not even you?” asks Sabana.

“Not me, not him, no one.”

“Not him?”

“Not him. How would Gringo put it?”

“Don’t listen to Gringo anymore.”

They fall silent. Sabana considers what the Jew said.

“He said, ‘You should be happy no matter what.’”

“How would Gringo put it?”

“He didn’t explain.”

Sabana, her eyes on the ground, in a dream, for a long moment. Then she speaks without shifting her gaze.

“Where would he go if they let him go?”

No one answers her.

“And if someone grabbed David’s gun?” she says. “I’ve never left Staadt. I don’t know anything about what’s beyond.”

“Are you thinking about the Jew?” asks Abahn.

“I’m thinking. Where would he go?”

“Beyond here,” says Abahn, “more Staadt, other Jews. And beyond that more, an unending chain all the way to the border.”

“Until when?”

“The sea. And then along the bottom of the sea.”

She is dreaming.

“It’s fully occupied?”

“Fully.”

Silence.

She looks away at the invisible distant border. The Jew, unmoving, watches.

“Other Jews,” she says.

“Yes, and other Gringos,” says the Jew.

“Merchants or no,” says Abahn, “other Jews, other Gringos, all the same.”

She is still looking off into the distance.

“It wouldn’t do any good to run away then,” she says.

“No,” says the Jew.

Again sounds the muted barking of the dogs, their growls rising, in the direction Sabana looks.

She says:

“Those are the dogs of the killing fields.”

Silence.

Abahn asks:

“Are there many dead?”

Sabana seems uncertain.

“They say twenty million in all. I don’t know about the dead.”

Sabana’s gaze returns to them. The Jew still watches.

•

The cold deepens still. And the night. The sky is nearly gone. The park completely in shadow.

“It’s the ice,” says Sabana. “Outside you walk on the road — you slip, it’ll kill you.”

“We are locked in then,” says Abahn.

“Together,” says the Jew.

Silence.

The dogs howl, those belonging to the Jew, close by, in the park.

Like every other time, David briefly rouses.

Abahn stands, slowly turns around the room, then walks toward David, stops in front of him. Sabana watches him.

“How old is he?” asks Abahn.

“Twenty-five,” says Sabana. “Married to Jeanne.”

“Neither Jew nor dog, ever?”

“No.”

He gestures at David’s calloused hands. “A laborer?”

“He’s not qualified for it, he works on the Portuguese crew.”

He comes closer to David. Sabana does not move.

“And whose gun is it?”

“It’s Gringo’s.”

“Taken just for tonight?”

“Yes.”

“To execute the Jew?”

Sabana turns toward the Jew. He does not look like he is listening.

“No. Just to keep him here.”

“So it’s Gringo who’s in charge of the Jew’s execution?”

“Yes. Gringo.”

“You’re sure? Gringo?”

Her eyes widen suddenly with fear. She gestures toward David.