Shots heard again from even farther off. No one hears the shot near the ponds.
âThereâs something written on his body,â says Sabana, âon his arms, thereâs something written.â
She sits up and takes his arm, folds back the sleeve of his jacket and looks at his forearm.
âItâs written where the number would be.â
âWritten where you arrive,â says Abahn, âin the capital of the world.â
Sabana looks at the arm.
âItâs written in blue.â
âWhat?â asks David.
âI donât understand it,â she says. âI canât read it.â
âItâs the word: NO,â says Abahn.
âWhen did they write it?â asks David.
âAt some point during his life,â says Abahn.
âItâs the same word for the Jew and for those who want to kill him,â says Sabana.
âThe same,â says Abahn. âThe word of the Jew and the word of those against the Jew.â
Sabana replaces the arm of the Jew and sits back, closing her eyes again, resting.
Abahn and Sabana both seem to be in the same exhausted state.
âHe had these stories,â says Abahn, âa hundred of them but all the same, those of the Jews. He has barely told any of them to the people of Staadt. He told them instead about the lives of others.â
David nods.
âBefore coming here the Jew was released from all parties, Gringoâs and others, and all his stories were finished, he was left with only his own. The Jew couldnât stand, one more time, to be alone with his own story. So he started again. He began to become a man of Staadt.â
Abahn pauses. He speaks with a great tiredness sweeping through him, slower. He looks down at the ground. He no longer seems to be speaking to David alone.
âWith forgetfulness descending everywhere, this new thing became possibleâto become a man of Staadt. So he did it. Began once more to become a man of another new place.â
Abahn pauses.
âHe wanted to live,â says Sabana.
âYes,â says Abahn. âHe wanted to live without working in the banlieues of Staadt. To exist without working at all, without any occupation but that of living, in the banlieues of Staadt. And he decided to do it like this from now on.â
Silence.
âJust like that? Why?â asks David.
âIt was his unchangeable desire. His purest desire.â
Silence.
âThatâs terrible,â murmurs David. âTo do nothing.â
âNo,â says Abahn, looking at David. âHe spoke.â
David struggles, searches in the emptiness.
âHe said to us: Leave it all behind.â
David speaks but he doesnât know what he says. He trembles.
âHe said: Look here, leave it all, youâre building on ruins.â
In the half-light someone laughs. Itâs the Jew.
Joy floods Davidâs face. He cries out, âHe hears us, he laughs!â
One after the other they all start laughing with the Jew.
âHe said: Enough with this foolishness. Leave the cement behind.â
âLeave the cement behind,â says the Jew.
âHe said: Go hunt.â
âGo hunt,â says the Jew.
âItâs he who spoke to me in the forest,â cries David. âAbout the jackrabbits. He said, keep going, theyâre beyond the barbed wire.â
âBeyond it,â says the Jew.
âHe spoke of the light in the forest,â says David, remembering, speaking slower now, âof summer also.â
âSummer,â says the Jew.
Silence.
The broken voice of the Jew then rises:
âDavidâs summer.â
Someone is shooting near the ponds.
They speak no more. David listens and trembles. Sabana, sitting next to the Jew, also listens. Her voice then rises:
âWhat is Gringo waiting for?â
The shots cease.
â¢
A bahn is speaking to David, still overcome by exhaustion. âFirst he forgets what work he did. Then