Abahn Sabana David by Marguerite Duras Page B

closer to the house of Abahn.
    David, once more, makes an attempt. He grabs hold of the armrests with his hands, swollen by the work with cement, and lifts up his body.
    He stands.
    He finds himself upright once more in the room. He does not move. He looks at the Jew. His hands are hanging, swollen. He listens to Gringo’s shots over the ice of the pond. He alone knows what those shots mean.
    â€œHe’s the only one armed. It’s the same gun firing.”
    Another shot, the dogs howling.
    â€œGo,” says the Jew, “do whatever you have to.” He pauses. “By any means, try to live.”
    â€œYes,” David says to the Jew.
    David closes his eyes, tries to separate Gringo’s shots from the howling of the dogs, he tries to calculate the distance, plan out the course.
    â€œHe is shooting in the direction of the field.” He opens his eyes, looks at the Jew. “Talk to me.”
    â€œIf you succeed and live,” says the Jew, “tell this story.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œTell it. To everyone. Without distrust. Look around you. Closely. All this is destroyed.”
    â€œYes.”
    Silence. Diane is no longer howling. There’s no shooting anymore, either. David listens.
    â€œHe is still coming. We have five minutes.”
    David hasn’t taken his eyes off the Jew; all the while he has been listening to the turmoil of the Staadt night.
    â€œHe shoots because he is afraid,” says David.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHe should be alone,” says David. “There’s no group. He made it up to make us believe he was busy. For me to be left alone with you, with a gun and the Jew.”
    â€œYes.”
    The dogs, once more, howl.
    â€œLeave your work,” says the Jew. “It’s difficult to do, but try.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd your fear. And your hunger.”
    â€œYes.”
    Silence. Gringo approaches without firing.
    â€œDon’t be alone,” says the Jew. “That’s what I’m telling you. Leave that behind too.”
    David does not answer.
    â€œI don’t speak to you in your position but to myself if I were David. Not otherwise. You, do what you like. Go back to Gringo if that’s your plan.”
    Silence.
    Suddenly a shot rings out quite close to the house.
    â€œI told you this in the forest,” says the Jew.
    â€œYes,” says David. “It feels far.”
    â€œFar off, through the place of Jews.”
    A shot hits the outside wall of the house.
    Sabana and the Jew seem neither to have heard nor understood.
    â€œHe’s walking in front of the windows,” says David. “Flatten yourself against the wall.”
    The Jew does not move. Neither does Sabana.
    â€œI can’t see anything anymore,” cries out David. “I can’t see the Jew.”
    Someone walks on the road a few meters in front of the house.
    David says:
    â€œHe’s here.”
    â€¢
    A nd now, the first cry through the howling of the dogs.
    â€œDavid!”
    â€œThere is the brother, the ape,” says Abahn.
    Sabana turns to look toward the road.
    Abahn and David turn that way, too.
    The Jew stops looking at David, he turns toward the darkened park.
    They stay like that, as they are, scattered throughout the room, unmoving. Sabana next to the Jew, behind the bare windows. They all have the same expression of rapt attention.
    The fear grows no more.
    â€œDavid!”
    The voice is getting closer. Still, that long howling of dogs in the park. The shooting has stopped.
    â€œThree minutes,” says David.
    â€œIt’s daybreak,” says Sabana.
    Beyond the road, toward the barbed wire, flush with the sky, with the growing light, still dark.
    They talk, first one, then the others.
    â€œHe isn’t shooting through the windows.”
    â€œHe isn’t shooting.”
    The howls of the dogs die down.
    â€œHe’s out there. He’s watching us. He isn’t