Abahn Sabana David (4 page)

“It looks like he's suffering.”

“Who?” asks the Jew.

She moves. She rises up and goes to the window. She passes by the Jew, she does not look at him, she is at the window, facing the empty street, lingering there.

•

T
he only
sound is David's breathing, which occasionally stops as if bumping up against some barrier, and then begins again, longer, deeper.

“He's dreaming,” says Sabana.

“Of what?”

“Cement. And dogs.”

The Jew draws close to David. Sabana goes with him. They watch David.

“A thousand years?” the Jew says to David.

The hands of David flutter lightly.

“A thousand years,” repeats David.

He sleeps.

His hands fall back to his body. The effort of articulating the words makes them tremble.

He is sleeping. He sleeps. His hands, his wounded hands, rest again on the arms of the chair. The eyes of the Jew are focused on the sleeping hands.

“A thousand thousand years?” the Jew continues.

It seems that David will speak.

No.

“A thousand thousand years?” continues the Jew.

A light tremor passes through David's body.

“A thousand thousand years,” repeats David.

David's breath grows faster. Then stops. He does not take another.

The silence grows. It blinds. It sharpens to a peak. Spreads out. Spreads to the chink in the wall of slumber, a dull stone, a clamor, brief and strange.

David has cried out.

Having cried out, David thrashes in sleep, he lifts his head, his eyes open, he sees nothing, his head falls back, he speaks:

“Leave me alone,” he begs.

In the silence that follows comes Sabana's rough voice:

“David.”

And the voice of the Jew, the same:

“David.”

Silence.

Abahn rises. He turns to face the dark road, his back turned to them. He says:

“And now falls the night.”

•

T
he Jew
walks away from Sabana and David. He once more resumes his pacing through the house.

The wide stride of the Jew appears and disappears from the gaze of Sabana and Abahn.

Eyes closed, the Jew walks and talks to David.

“A thousand years? That's it? And it goes on?”

He speaks loudly. His voice echoes off the walls. Sabana stands looking out the window at the darkened park.

“A thousand years? A thousand years and it goes on?”

The peals of his voice resound from the walls.

“A thousand years more?”

Sabana looks away from the park, the dark ground, the earth, when the Jew cries out.

“David,” cries the Jew. “David, David!”

He stops.

Abahn comes over as well.

“David,” says Abahn.

Abahn does not cry out. Sabana returns. She sees that Abahn is talking to her. Sabana's blue gaze rests on Abahn.

Looking at Abahn, Sabana speaks to David. “David,” she says, “The Jew is speaking to you?”

“Yes,” says Abahn.

Sabana leaves the Jews and walks toward David. The Jews follow behind, allow her to approach alone. They linger behind her.

It is she who interrupts his reverie. She grabs hold of him, her
hands on his shoulders. “Wake up, David. The Jew wants to talk to you.”

David's head sags back and falls into sleep.

“David, the Jew wants to talk to you.”

“No,” says David, in his sleep.

Sabana releases his shoulders. She cradles his head. The hands of Sabana on David's head.

“The Jew is going to die, he wants to talk to you.”

“No,” says David, in his sleep.

She holds the head of David in her hands.

“He is going to die, he wants to talk to you.”

She speaks in even tones.

David does not respond. He opens his eyes with a blank stare.

“You said a thousand years, why?” asks Sabana.

David answers:

“A thousand years.”

She loosens her grip. She releases David's head.

She has released the head of David.

The head stays up. The eyes remain open.

Sabana turns, walks away.

Abahn and the Jew talk to David.

“You said cement, ice, wind, a thousand years?”

“A thousand years,” David repeats.

“You said cement, fear, cement, fear, fear, cement, a thousand years? A thousand more years?”

David's eyes lift toward Abahn. Their color, David's eyes, is light blue, blue mixed with white.

Abahn draws close to David. The Jew is behind him.

Sabana stands over the Jew, next to him. Abahn and the Jew speak again to the sleeping David.

“You said a thousand years not hearing?”

“A thousand years not seeing?”

“A thousand years,” David repeats.

“A thousand years the brain of an ape?”

David's blue eyes turn in the direction of the voice. He does not recognize it.

“A thousand years the ape Gringo?”

“A thousand years a killer? An ape killer?”

They do not say more. David's eyes are still open in the direction of the voice.

“David, you're David,” It is the broken voice of the Jew.

“The hunter,” says Abahn.

“The hunter,” David repeats.

They fall silent. It must be this silence that then reveals an unease in David's fixed gaze. He has a stunned air about him, his stare questioning. He strains toward the voice. He sleeps, he says:

“The dogs.”

Sabana takes a step toward the Jew. She does not take her eyes away from the darkened park.

It is Abahn who speaks to David. “You labor in the workshop of the merchants? You're twenty-five years old? Your wife is Jeanne?”

David responds in the same tone Abahn used, slowly and clearly:

“The dogs.”

“You're a mason? You make cement? You work with the Portuguese? The Portuguese?”

“The dogs,” says David.

He struggles against sleep. He articulates his words with difficulty. He finally makes a sentence.

“I want the dogs of the Jew.”

He looks toward the rest of them with growing alarm. His gaze is clear and focused. One could say his stubbornness surprises him. He says again:

“I want the dogs.”

He is quiet. He seems about to speak. He does not speak. He holds his head up. His eyes are open. He looks at Abahn with a questioning look.

The silence is unpierced. Then Abahn speaks.

“You've given the Jew to Gringo.”

He answers without doubt in a simple, clear way. His response springs forth from sleep.

“Yes.”

His eyes questioning still.

“The dogs.”

He struggles visibly against immense fatigue. His eyes questioning still.

“Yes,” says Abahn. “You gave up the Jew in order to have his dogs.”

“Yes.”

The softness of his voices is penetrating. Gratitude in his eyes.

“Listen,” says Abahn. “David spoke. David said, ‘I gave up the Jew in order to have his dogs.'”

“Yes,” says David.

He is talking to Abahn without looking at him. Abahn looks deep into his eyes.

Sabana slumps against the body of the Jew. She continues to gaze out at the darkened park. The Jew is looking at David.

“David said, ‘I repeated what the Jew said in the café,'” says Abahn. “‘Gringo asked me and I repeated it. Gringo said that I had to make the connection and that it wasn't what the Jew said in the café, but a different thing. A simpler thing: that the Jew said one thing in the café but meant another.'”

Abahn pauses. David waits. He has a look of deep interest on his face. The pack roaming the field of death growl and bark out one after the other. The dogs in the park howl in response. Then, silence falls anew.

David calls out:

“Sabana!”

No one answers him.

“He said, ‘I did what Gringo wanted,'” continues Abahn. “‘I said the Jew offered me money if I would tell him what Gringo did with the other Jews. The Jew said to me: Freedom. Gringo said that what he meant was: money, money to leave Staadt if I gave up the names of the Jews who were executed.'”

David makes a great effort. He finds the words:

“No. The dogs.”

“He said, ‘I at once tried to say that the Jew proposed to give me the dogs if I gave up the names of the executed Jews, but Gringo said no: No, the Jew proposed to give you the dogs to sell for a high price. Don't forget, the Jew said he would give you money. Money.'”

“No, the dogs.”

“Money,” repeats Abahn.

David does not answer.

At any moment it seems sleep might finally overcome David. Abahn continues speaking in a low voice as if they were still in danger.

“He continued, ‘Gringo asked Jeanne to make the connection. I didn't know. Gringo said that the Jew had gotten money from powerful foreigners. Jeanne had talked about this with Gringo. I didn't understand what Jeanne meant.'”

David's eyes fall from Abahn, search the shadows.

“Sabana!” he cries out in his sleep.

Sabana does not answer. He calls out again:

“Sabana!”

He falls silent. Abahn continues calmly:

“And he said, ‘I didn't know what Gringo meant.'”

“Where is she?” David asks in his sleep.

Abahn does not answer him. He continues:

“David recounted, ‘In the café the Jew said: I am hopeless, desperate.'”

“Sabana!” David cries out.

“He said, ‘I didn't understand what the Jew meant,'” continues Abahn.

David does not cry out anymore. He has been conquered.

Slumber won, his head sags to the side.

“He said, ‘Gringo told me: Forget this desperate, dirty word, this Jewish word.'”

Abahn tries to reach David faster than sleep.

“He said, ‘I told all of this to Sabana.'”

“Sabana,” murmurs David. “Sabana.”

He struggles against sleep. His eyelids flutter.

“‘And Sabana told me: Don't worry. David, you will have the dogs of the Jew. I will give them to you.'”

“Yes.”

Sabana still looks out at the darkened park.

David leans his head against the back of the chair. His eyes are half-closed, his gaze toward Abahn, sleepy.

“He said, ‘We speak of the Jews who will be executed. Gringo has forbidden it. We don't know why Gringo has forbidden it.'”

Abahn is quiet. He walks away from David. Does David see him leave?

“Sabana,” David calls out again in his sleep.

David sees no more, his gaze floats away.

“Sabana!” His body turns toward her, he straightens up, his eyes becoming cloudy as if waking. He takes his gun, points it.

“Where is Sabana?”

He searches for her with his eyes.

His wakefulness is so brief, he looks too quickly to see her there, in the shadows, next to the Jew.

His hand releases the gun.

He falls in one quick movement back into the chair.

He sleeps.

•

S
abana leaves
the Jew. She walks away from David to the table where the Jew sat.

The Jew stands where she left him, looking out toward the park.

Abahn walks once more between the rooms.

Sabana looks around. Abahn is out of sight, the Jew on the other side of the room. David sleeps. She is quiet for a long time. Then she speaks:

“He won't remember anything.”

Her voice has changed, is low and brittle.

“He'll remember a little,” says Abahn.

Sabana does not move. She too seems as if asleep. She moves no more than does David.

The Jew has turned. Abahn comes back. They look at her. She raises her eyes to them. Eyes like dark wounds.

“Give us the dogs,” she says.

•

“G
ive your
dogs to David,” says Sabana. “Your dirty dogs, your Jew dogs.”

The Jew comes toward Sabana. She watches him approach. She says to him:

“I'll wake him. I'll tell him you tried to run away. We'll take off with the dogs.”

The Jew sits at Sabana's feet. He leans his head against her knees. He wraps his arms tightly around them.

“Your millions of dogs, you should give them to him. Write it down: I leave my dogs to David.”

The Jew doesn't answer. His arms are locked around Sabana's body.

“You understand. Your dogs, your dirty dogs, your Jewish dogs, you should give them to him.”

She does not try to wrench free from the grip of the Jew. She speaks without looking at him.

“The dogs are already David's. He gave them the Jew, so the dogs belong to him now.”

Her voice is low and sleepy. She has the same blank stare as does David.

Abahn returns from the other room. She sees him. She speaks to him:

“I want the dogs of the Jew for David to go into the forest.”

Abahn pauses in front of her and the Jew. He regards them both without responding.

“You brought these dogs with you and now they want to kill you. They want to get these dogs out of Staadt.”

She pulls free from the Jew's embrace. She rises.

“You should give them to David before you die. If you give them to David they will live. You understand?”

She regards David.

“David will keep them safe from Gringo. He'll take them into the forest. They'll live.”

She falls silent. Then starts speaking again:

“A kennel in the forest—he'll sell puppies, neither seen nor found out by anyone, secret dogs—he'll leave the mason work behind, goodbye to Gringo.”

The Jew raises his head, he looks at her. He is listening with great attention. She begins to smile. There is a little spit on the corner of his lips. She addresses him:

“Maybe you don't understand? The dogs should be David's.”