Dawn

John Dawson is handsome and distinguished. He is in his 40s, seemingly a professional soldier. He has searching eyes and a firm chin. He sits up when Elisha enters the room and stares at him for a long time. Then he asks what time it is. Elisha tells him it will be dawn in about an hour. Yet to Elisha it feels as if this hour of waiting will last forever and will never be joined to the past. As Elisha stands before Dawson, it also feels as if he and Dawson are alone in creation. God is here somewhere, but it’s unclear where—perhaps in Elisha’s lack of hatred for Dawson.

As the two men continue to stare at each other, Elisha feels that he simply likes Dawson. He feels no hatred or pity. Dawson asks Elisha’s name. Elisha doesn’t understand why Dawson would want to know this, but he tells him anyway. He explains that Elisha was a biblical prophet, known for restoring a boy to life by breathing into his mouth. With a trace of humor, Dawson observes that Elisha is doing the opposite.

Dawson asks how old Elisha is and looks at the boy with pity when he hears the answer. Elisha then asks him for a story, preferably a funny one. Again Dawson tells Elisha he’s sorry for him. Elisha says that isn’t funny, but as they smile at each other as if they’re lifelong friends, he wonders if there is something funny about the moment and the unlikely situation that’s been imposed on them both.

Dawson invites Elisha to sit down with him. He says he has a son Elisha’s age who’s studying at Cambridge; his son loves to go to the movies and date girls. He tells Elisha that his son “has none of your anxiety, your unhappiness.” Elisha tries not to listen to Dawson’s stories; he’s the enemy, after all, and the enemy doesn’t have a story. But Elisha can’t think of anything else, not even David ben Moshe, whom he only knows by name. So he tries to pretend that Dawson is David, and that the rabbi has come in to pray with him and hear his last confession before death.

Dawson says that he isn’t worried about his son; he’s worried about Elisha. He paces in the small cell and smokes. Elisha gives Dawson a notebook so that he can jot a last note to his son. Elisha watches Dawson’s slender, elegant fingers as he writes. The fingers remind him of a German sculptor he’d known in Buchenwald, Stefan. Stefan had been part of the German resistance movement and refused to give up the names of others, even under torture. Eventually, a mild-mannered Gestapo chief, a former surgeon, cut off the fingers on Stefan’s right hand, explaining that Stefan’s silence forced him to do this.

After Dawson finishes writing his letter, he studies Elisha’s face sadly and asks, “You hate me, don’t you?” Elisha wants to hate John Dawson. He imagines explaining the execution someday—he would have to explain that Dawson was his enemy and that he was acting under orders. If he could claim to hate Dawson, though, it would make further questions unnecessary. Yet, so far, this conversation has given Elisha nothing to hate.

Elisha thinks that someone hates an enemy in order to hate one’s own hate—the other person is responsible for stirring up that hatred. So it’s John Dawson’s fault that he is a murderer; he deserves Elisha’s hate. In thinking this way, Elisha knows, he’s drawing on the propaganda technique of projecting all evil onto his enemy. That’s why he tries to see in John Dawson the same man who condemned David ben Moshe and the one who killed Elisha’s parents.

Elisha tries again to think of David ben Moshe. He knows exactly what will happen: around five o’clock in the morning, the rabbi will guide David out of the cell. The other prisoners, seeing him pass by, will begin to sing the Hatikva louder and louder. Elisha imagines that John Dawson’s words are drowning out the sound of David’s footsteps and the Hatikva. But it isn’t working.

Dawson’s eyes are filled with tenderness, and he asks Elisha again if he hates him. Elisha says he’s trying. He’s trying because the Jewish people have never succeeded in hating those who’ve humiliated and killed them; now they must learn to hate in order to survive. He tells Dawson that he must try to hate him “in order to give my action a meaning which may somehow transcend it.” Dawson says he is sorry for Elisha.

Elisha grips the revolver; there are less than 10 minutes to go until dawn. His mind clears, and there’s no more doubt, only the certainty of his duty. He thinks of the rabbi, right now assuring David ben Moshe that God is with him. Dawson asks Elisha if he’ll make sure the note is sent to his son, and Elisha promises to mail it today. Elisha pictures David entering the execution chamber and seeing the hangman, who is “all eyes.” He knows David would refuse to die with his eyes covered, wanting to look death in the face. Dawson, too, refuses a handkerchief.

A minute before five, the cell door silently opens and the dead enter, filling the narrow space with their heat. The beggar tells Elisha, “day is at hand.” The little boy says uneasily that this is the first time he’s seen an execution. Elisha’s father and mother, the grizzled master, and Yerachmiel stare silently at him.

John Dawson suddenly smiles. He tells Elisha it’s because he’s just realized that he doesn’t know why he’s dying. Elisha tells him not to smile. There are 10 seconds to go. Elisha raises his revolver. Still smiling, Dawson says, “Elisha.” By the time Dawson repeats his name, Elisha has fired. “Elisha” was on Dawson’s lips as he died.

Dawson sinks to the ground in a sitting position. Elisha stays beside him for a moment, deafened by the gunfire and feeling heavy. “It’s done […] I’ve killed Elisha,” he thinks. The ghosts begin to leave, and they take Dawson with them, the little boy at his side. His mother keeps crying, “Poor boy!”

Elisha climbs the stairs. The ghosts aren’t there. Gideon is praying, Ilana looks at him sadly, and Gad smokes. Elisha walks to the window to watch the dawn break over the still-sleeping city. He hears a baby crying. As night fades, the light turns a grayish color. There’s a dark shape beyond the glass; it has a face. Fearfully, Elisha recognizes that the face is his own.