by. I saw someone crying. I came.”
The deep blue gaze of Sabana now fixed on the newcomer.
“Who are you?”
“They call me Abahn.”
“His name is also Abahn, but we call him the Jew. Gringo had a meeting this evening. We’re guarding this one until he comes. He said he’ll come at daybreak.”
“Before the light?”
Sabana doesn’t respond immediately. Then:
“Yes.”
Abahn has noticed that David is asleep.
“That’s David,” Sabana says, “the stonemason. I’m Sabana. We’re from the village of Staadt. From Gringo’s party.”
She turns then, gestures toward the Jew, resting his head on the table.
“I don’t think he’s crying.”
Abahn looks at the Jew.
“He is crying.”
She looks then at the one who is crying. Then the one who is speaking.
“He can’t be crying, he wants to live.”
“He’s not crying for himself,” says Abahn. “It’s an empathy for others that forces him to cry. It’s too much for him to bear alone. He has more than enough desire for himself to live, it’s for others that he can’t live.”
She looks at him with interest, his white hands, his smile.
“Who are you to know all this?”
“A Jew.”
She studies his smiling face, his hands, his manner, for a long time.
“You’re not from around here.”
“No.”
She turns away from the night and the cold. “We call him Abahn the Jew, Abahn the Dog.”
“The Jew, also? And the Dog?”
“Yes.”
“And the other Jews here? You call them that, too?”
“Yes.”
“And the dogs?”
“We call them Jews. And where you come from?”
“There as well.”
Her gaze returns to Abahn.
“Are you an enemy?”
“Yes.”
“Of Gringo only?”
“No.”
She does not move at all for a moment, her eyes open, vacant. Then she waves a hand once more at the one who is crying.
“We don’t know anymore whether he is himself. An enemy, too. He’s not from this place after all.
“We don’t know where he comes from.
“He’ll be dead at daybreak.”
Silence. She continues:
“They don’t kill them every single time.”
In the shadows her blue eyes train themselves on Abahn.
“There are no gas chambers here.”
He answers slowly, his gaze frozen.
“There aren’t. There never have been.”
“No.”
“There aren’t any anywhere anymore.”
“No, there aren’t any anymore.”
“Nowhere,” says Abahn.
Sabana’s gaze empties out once more. He says:
“Nowhere.” He looks at her, says again, “Nowhere.”
“No.”
She is quiet again. Then she gestures in the direction of the road, at something no one else can see. Her voice is flat, her stare vacant.
“The ones they leave alive are sent to the salt mines in the North,” she pauses.
“The ones they kill they bury at the edge of the field—” she gestures off. “That way.”
“Under the barbed wire.”
“Yes. No one knows that.”
He does not answer.
“It’s barren, no farming there. The merchants and tradesmen gave it to Gringo after the war for his parties.”
He has not taken his eyes off of her. He asks:
“There aren’t any more parties?”
“The last ones were deserted. It’s been a long time since then.”
“The young people don’t come anymore?”
She doesn’t know, it appears. She is distracted.
“I think so, I don’t really know.”
Her stare is always empty, her voice always flat.
“You could kill them one by one,” she says slowly, “in the Nazi gas chambers.”
“Yes. But not anymore. There aren’t any chambers anymore. Anywhere.”
“No. No, here you get the labor camp or a quick death.”
“Yes.”
Her blue eyes slash always in the direction of the road. She says:
“It wasn’t these Jews here in those gas chambers.”
“No, it was others.”
“Others,” she pauses, “but the same name: Jews.”
“Yes. We wanted that.”
She asks nothing more.
He looks at the bare walls, the white road white with frost, the darkened park beyond.
“It was his house,” he says.
“Yes. And there’s a park. There. And in the park there are dogs.”
Her
