TOWN CHRONICLER: As they sit eating dinner, the man’s face suddenly turns. He thrusts his plate away. Knives and forks clang. He stands up and seems not to know where he is. The woman recoils in her chair. His gaze hovers around her without taking hold, and she—wounded already by disaster—senses immediately: it’s here again, touching me, its cold fingers on my lips. But what happened? she whispers with her eyes. Bewildered, the man looks at her and speaks:
—I have to go.
—Where?
—To him.
—Where?
—To him, there.
—To the place where it happened?
—No, no. There.
—What do you mean, there?
—I don’t know.
—You’re scaring me.
—Just to see him once more.
—But what could you see now? What is left to see?
—I might be able to see him there. Maybe even talk to him?
—Talk?!
TOWN CHRONICLER: Now they both unfold, awaken. The man speaks again.
—Your voice.
—It’s back. Yours too.
—How I missed your voice.
—I thought we … that we’d never …
—I missed your voice more than I missed my own.
—But what is
there
? There’s no such place.
There
doesn’t exist!
—If you go there, it does.
—But you don’t come back. No one ever has.
—Because only the dead have gone.
—And you—how will you go?
—I will go there alive.
—But you won’t come back.
—Maybe he’s waiting for us.
—He’s not. It’s been five years and he’s still not. He’s not.
—Maybe he’s wondering why we gave up on him so quickly, the minute they notified us …
—Look at me. Look into my eyes. What are you doing to us? It’s me, can’t you see? This is us, the two of us. This is our home. Our kitchen.
Come, sit down. I’ll give you some soup.
MAN:
Lovely—
So lovely—
The kitchen
is lovely
right now,
with you ladling soup.
Here it’s warm and soft,
and steam
covers the cold
windowpane—
TOWN CHRONICLER: Perhaps because of the long years of silence, his hoarse voice fades to a whisper. He does not take his eyes off her. He watches so intently that her hand trembles.
MAN:
And loveliest of all are your tender,
curved arms.
Life is here,
dear one.
I had forgotten:
life is in the place where you
ladle soup
under the glowing light.
You did well to remind me:
we are here
and he is there,
and a timeless border
stands between us.
I had forgotten:
we are here
and he—
but it’s impossible!
Impossible
.
WOMAN:
Look at me. No,
not with that empty gaze.
Stop.
Come back to me,
to us. It’s so easy
to forsake us, and this
light, and tender
arms, and the thought
that we have come back
to life,
and that time
nonetheless
places thin compresses—
MAN:
No, this is impossible.
It’s no longer possible
that we,
that the sun,
that the watches, the shops,
that the moon,
the couples,
that tree-lined boulevards
turn green, that blood
in our veins,
that spring and autumn,
that people
innocently,
that things just are.
That the children
of others,
that their brightness
and warmness—
WOMAN:
Be careful,
you are saying
things.
The threads
are so fine.
MAN:
At night people came
bearing news.
They walked a long way,
quietly grave,
and perhaps, as they did so,
they stole a taste, a lick.
With a child’s wonder
they learned they could hold
death in their mouths
like candy made of poison
to which they are miraculously
immune.
We opened the door,
this one. We stood here,
you and I,
shoulder to shoulder,
they
on the threshold
and we
facing them,
and they,
mercifully,
quietly,
stood there and
gave us
the breath
of death.
WOMAN:
It was awfully quiet.
Cold flames lapped around us.
I said: I knew, tonight
you would come. I thought:
Come, noiseful void.
MAN:
From far away,
I heard you:
Don’t be afraid, you said,
I did not shout
when he was born, and
I won’t shout now either.
WOMAN:
Our prior life
kept growing
inside us
for a few moments
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