Psalm 44

“Poor Polja,” Žana said; but it could just as well have been (at least so it seemed to her) “Poor Marija” or “Poor Jan”; and Marija became completely engrossed in the following thought: was it all the same whether Žana said Poor Jan or Poor Marija? For if that too were a matter of indifference, it would mean that nothing had happened and that nothing was happening. Polja can’t go with us: she pretended that she was thinking this for the first time and that she was only now grasping the gravity of the whole situation, but all she said was:

“She didn’t regain consciousness the whole day.”

Then Žana said: “It’s better for her. . Understand?” Her opinion once more in four words of black crystal; and then immediately: “I’d like it to happen as soon as possible. Understand? As soon as possible.”

Finally something had been said that retied the sliced thread into a knot and Marija sensed that this once again meant something, something different and something more than the bitter and straightforward truth Polja is going to die or Polja will not be able to come with us, for it also meant We are going to go or at least we will attempt it. And she rebelled against the slow birth of a truth already obvious and it seemed to her even a little bit hypocritical that not one of them would admit to herself that they had reconciled themselves to this truth — the fact that they would attempt an escape without Polja — and that this had already been decided and determined not by their wills or by common agreement but simply, terrifyingly and simply, decided and nothing else now remained for them to do beyond acquiescing (or not acquiescing, it was all the same) with this fact.

“She won’t be able to come with us,” Marija said, attempting — even if she wasn’t conscious of it — to condense every part of the nightmare into this single sentence that she could get out in one breath the same way that one tries to choke down a bitter pill or poison with one swallow. So she said it hoping to help Žana say once and for all what she needed to say or to do what she had planned or was considering doing, but Žana watched doggedly through the crack in the plank, until she said, as if giving out a slightly altered echo of her own words:

“That’s why I want it to happen as soon as possible. You understand: it’ll be easier,” but then she (Marija) wanted to completely unburden her conscience of these accusations that weighed heavier and heavier upon her and now upon Žana too and she thought, Perhaps Žana is thinking something out right now and perhaps nothing has happened but really things only gave her that impression because she wanted them to be that way, just as she likewise wanted something to happen because she knew that it wasn’t possible to wait any longer — the cannons were slowly demolishing the concrete parapet of passive anticipation and resignation to fate. But then — as soon as she heard Žana’s voice, to try to calm herself down, for she knew that she wouldn’t be able to get to sleep tonight, at least not until Žana said what she was thinking — she said:

“I’m going to try to sleep,” and then — as if doing so would hasten the answer and ultimately the decision about which Žana was thinking and in the absence of which it didn’t seem to her (Marija) that she could think of anything else or do anything else, not until whatever it was came out, whatever it was concerning herself and those three other women, for little Eržika Kon had been among them at first, Eržika Kon who had earlier, one night, hurled herself at the wire and fallen, riddled with bullets, forgetting everything, because that’s what death is, To forget everything, she thought — she asked: “What time could it be?” as if through this question the hand of death or at least its sister would be summoned to close her tired eyes, but with this question resistance was born in her consciousness, as a consequence of some dim recollection of the ultimate interconnectedness of forgetting-death-sleep-and-time and her consciousness, which set this whole causal chain in motion and must rank highest in its hierarchy, hand-in-hand with time.

“I don’t know,” Žana said, but then, as if resistance had been awakened in her too, she went on to say, as though picking up a forgotten weapon: “I think it’s past eleven. I don’t think it’s any later than that.” Then like a buoy it popped up to the surface, that which until this moment had filled the gloom and which now all at once crystallized and condensed into the space of two or three words in a whisper: “Tonight we’ll try.”