"Leila my love, you ask me for news from here." "They've killed the mayor, wrecked the polytechnic, burned down the school, slit old Ahmed's throat and closed his coffee shop, killed the mothers of some conscripts who knew them and stuck their heads on traffic signs." "A week ago, an old man accosted me and took the book I had with me." "It was my father's poems." "He wanted to show me how perverted they were." "I ran away." "He kept the book." "Later, I had a drink with our friends." "After seeing them out," "I fell asleep in the street." "The same old man woke me up, asking if I was Haddou's son." "You can guess my reply." "He insisted." ""Aren't you Haddou's son, Ismahel?"" "I say I don't know any Haddou." "He asks me my name." "I say "Ismahel."" ""Then you must be the son of Haddou Ben Allal and Mimouna. "" "I say no." "He asks me my father's name." "I say he died before I was born." "He looked at me and sighed, "It was God's will."" "He gave me a few coins to buy food." "I said I had money and food," "I didn't need anything." "He started shouting." ""You have money but sleep in the street like a cat?" ""Are you crazy?"" "I looked him in the eye." "I said "y ou're the old cat!"" "And meowed at the top of my voice." "He hurried off, saying "Allah save me from the youth of today. "" "Coming home yesterday, I found our daughter's room ransacked and the walls daubed with threats to murder me." "Leila my heart, they'll never find you two where you are, but if I joined you, I could lead them to you." "If I manage to get away to France, it will be a comfort to think" "I'm not there to be happy, but to live with a different anxiety, maybe as bad as our present one." "France means nothing to me." "I don't care what the French are like." "As soon as I get there," "I'll get a job." "There are backwoods there, too." "In a year or so, I'll have earned enough to see us through." "Then I'll come back to Algeria." "Leila my love, everything I know about here will go with me, years of a life I don't know when I'll return to." "It already feels like another man's life, a man who once vaguely had my body and mind." "Perhaps the only way to be in a place, to really be there, is to miss it from far away." "Tell our Princess my next letters will be for her." "Hug her for me, as I hug you to my heart." "Your Ismahel." ""It's a very ancient scene, repeated indefinitely." "Gathered in the night, around a big fire, men learn about their roots as a tribe, a family, or a people." "We don't know if the fire burns to warm them, to keep wild beasts away, to cook food," "or to light the face of the storyteller." "He recites the story, sometimes singing, with gestures, costumes or masks." "Sometimes, the fire is used to burn a sacrifice to the ancestors, to the gods, or brave men glorified in the story." "The story isn't always easy to follow." "It often scares the listeners." "It tells of strange powers and frightening transformations." "It invents names they've never heard and creatures they've never seen, but the congregated listeners will remember every word." "They'll understand why they had to congregate and why the story had to be told."" "Eddy, come to the board." "Read the rest, from here to here." "After the reading, review verbs and tenses, and analyze the grammar of the words behind the screen." "We'll finish together." "Paul?" "It's you?" "No, I'm OK." "I'm being inspected this morning so I'm a bit..." "Nothing serious." "Talk to me." "What about Simon?" "What happened?" "Was he alone?" "And the other guy?" "The other driver?" "So how do you know..." "Of course I'll come." "Is someone looking after your father?" "Other than you three, you need..." "Yes, OK, OK." "I love you a lot." "Take care..." "I "say", past tense, then, colon, quote," "brother, comma," "I "wish you", present tense, a blue sky, comma, many young deer, comma, a beaver coat and hope," "period, unquote." "I "see", past tense, that there "is", past tense," "tears at the heart of this story, comma, and I "keep silent", past tense, period." "The man "take down", past tense, his son from the branches of the tree, comma, and "give him", past tense," "to his other sons to carry, period, end of dictation." "Grammar practice." "First word, "origins"." "Part of speech, function?" "Who's first?" "Don't all shout at once." "Everyone will go through it." "My dear little Princess, for a year or two, we won't be able to see or talk to each other" "but you don't know what a year is." "When we meet again, all this time will be whisked away like a speck of dust that wasn't worth looking at." "It's nearly bedtime." "Shall I tell you a story?" "Y ou don't answer." "I imagine you quietly waiting for me to begin." "Once upon a time, really long ago, longer ago than you can imagine," "God was worried because men were growing wicked in the great city of Niniveh." "Each deed, each thought, each moment in Niniveh was steeped in evil." "Day after day, the wickedness grew worse." "And the Angel of Death had already come before God." "But before the final battle began," "God did what chieftains do when they're facing an enemy army." "He decided to send an envoy to speak one last time to the city-dwellers." "So God spoke to Jonah, son of Amittai, and told him," ""Arise, go to the great city of Niniveh and preach against it, for its wickedness has come before me. "" "Jonah got up and left at once, but he didn't set off for Niniveh." "He ran away, far, far away," "where he hoped God would never find him." "I thank Thee, O God, for so many marvels." "I thank Thee, O God, for so many marvels." "Happy is he who rests on the Lord his God." "His faithfulness is sure." "He brings justice to the oppressed." "To the hungry, he gives bread." "I thank Thee..." "You told me on the first day that ever since you were young, you had the impression that you had been chosen for something special." "You were firmly convinced that something would happen one day." "Do you still have that premonition?" "Whatever may await you," "I notice that it hasn't happened yet." "I told you, it's not some act of distinction on my part." "It's something I'm waiting for." "Perhaps it will change me." "But perhaps I'll stay the same and the world around me will change instead." "A change?" "Is that what you want?" "I don't know." "It's not about what I want." "God knows I don't want anything." "Father, I want to confess." "The Lord frees those in chains, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord uplifts the downtrodden, the Lord loves the righteous." "What I see is that by inuring yourself to danger by living so near it, so long," "you no longer see it." "You know it's there, but... you're indifferent to it." "I think there's a certain courage in you." "But also pride, you mean?" "Remember, my Princess, that Jonah's fault was to disobey God's commandment, for in order to obey God, man must disobey himself." "So Jonah flouted God." "He skulks about the wharves, seeking a ship bound for Tarshish." "He thinks that a ship made by men will take him where God does not reign, but only the Captains of this earth." "He prowls among the ships at berth like a thief hurrying to cross the sea." "He looks so guilty that had there been policemen then," "Jonah would never have got aboard." "Look!" "Plainly, he's a fugitive." "So little baggage and no friend to bid him adieu." "After much searching," "Jonah finds a ship bound for Tarshish." "As they finish loading the cargo, the eyes of all the crew are on the stranger." "Jonah tries to look at ease but something tells the mariners that he's no innocent." "Jokingly, but still seriously, one whispers to the other," ""Hey Joe, you see that guy?"" ""I bet he's a thief that broke jail from old Gomorrah. "" "God had chosen Jonah to be His prophet" "and proclaim His truth." "Scared of the hostility that he would face," "Jonah had evaded his mission and shirked his duty." "But in this story, my Princess," "God is everywhere and Jonah is very wrong to think he can escape Him." "Remember, my Princess, how Jonah looked so suspicious to the men on the wharf?" "." "As he steps on deck, a sailor runs to read a notice pasted to a bollard," "offering 500 gold coins for the arrest of a criminal and giving his description." "As he reads it, the sailor looks at Jonah while others crowd around him, ready to seize him." "Jonah is petrified." "He tries to look innocent but only looks more guilty." "By pretending not to notice, he only makes things worse." "But the sailors, seeing he's not the wanted man," "finally let him pass." "Dear Simon," "After I got the call from the police," "I sat beside the phone for a long while." "I called our neighbour, Myriam, to ask if she wanted some watermelon." "I had bought one for some guests and we hadn't eaten it, so I was stuck with too much watermelon." "Dad was already in bed," "Paul still working in the pig shed." "I couldn't face helping him." "Myriam said she'd like the watermelon." "Why didn't I come in an hour and stay to dinner with Gerard-Georges?" "I was so eager to see somebody," "I said I'd come right now." "She said OK." "I walked to her house, a short way down the road." "I rang the bell." "It took her a while to come down from her bedroom." ""Here's the watermelon." I put it on the kitchen table." "She said, "Watermelon in spring?"" "I said, "It's possible." "Just a matter of price. "" "I wanted to talk to her about the phone call from the police, but she seemed strangely distant, not there in the kitchen with me." "After a minute, she awkwardly said she'd left Gerard-Georges upstairs, writhing around on the bed." "In bringing the watermelon, I'd interrupted their lovemaking." "So why had she answered the phone?" "Why didn't she make an excuse for me not to come over?" "I went back home and I wanted to call you and tell you what had just happened." "It's just the kind of story that would have made you laugh and say something like," ""Oh, no!" "Y ou're kidding!"" "I sat there staring at the phone, wanting very much to call you, but completely unable to do so because the call I'd just had from the police had told me you'd died the day before and I'd never see your body or face again" "because they were nothing but ash mixed up with tar and melted plastic and metal from the car." "The watermelon was just an excuse to share my grief." "I realized I can never call you again to tell you something like I've just told you." "Are you ready?" ""If a man is found slain in a field and it is not known who slew him, you shall go to the nearest town." "The elders shall take a heifer, lead her down to a stream and break her neck." "The priest shall step forward, for God has chosen him to adjudicate by his word every dispute and assault." "The elders shall wash their hands over the dead heifer and they shall testify:" "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it shed." "Pardon us, O Lord." "And the crime shall be atoned for."" ""This" crime." ""And this crime shall be atoned for."" ""This crime shall be atoned for." I know, don't I?" "Go and get dressed." "Appalling." "Appalling times." "All times are appalling, but these..." "Politically, we've hit rock bottom." "As low as it gets." "Incompetence rules." "It's the key to success." "Show incompetence and mediocrity." "To succeed, flaunt your mediocrity." "My father once asked me if I wanted to be rich." "I said, sure." "But I'd never do what he did to get rich." "Still, you're rich." "Not like my brothers." "No comparison." "You were hot last night." "For shame, the day of your brother's funeral!" "When I think of my future, having to work till I die..." " You have no boss." " Count yourself lucky." "I loved having a boss." "He told me what to do, and how." "I just had to do what he said." "Thinking what to do is harder." "In fact, my ideal employee would be a boss." "Another pig died." "What did you do?" "Bury it?" " You'll get noticed." " I'm careful." "I'm not crazy." " Where d'you put them?" " Somewhere." "It's like a pig plantation up there." "Hell, I'm giving up pigs." "Dad doesn't want us to." "Dad?" "Is he asleep?" "Dad?" "Are you asleep?" ""Special heat-resistant elastic waistband."" "What heat?" "Frankly, this is bullshit." ""Super-soft elastic thigh hem, itch-proof crotch..."" "When you find a product customers like, why change it?" "I don't know." "I'll check." "Hold on." "Do we carry Excellence?" "No, we don't." "No, but we will at this rate." "What exclusivity?" "You want the death of capitalism?" "Their Classic's been running 30 years." "No change since '68, and they have an XXL American vanguard." "Novelty?" "It's a con." "Yeah, right." "Goodbye." " Do you sell Excellence for men?" " I'm afraid not." "How about Predominance?" "Sure thing." "There's the Predominance Supremacy..." "Two for 12 euros?" "Excellence are three for 19." "But the Supremacy's much better." "Or else there's the new, improved Predominance Classic." "Two for 14.60." "What's a "Swiss edge cut"?" "It's much better." " What is it?" " Let's say... it's a better cut." "What do you normally buy?" "Excellence." "The Supremacy's longer." "Still brief, but cut longer." "If you like Excellence, the closest thing is the new, improved Predominance Classic." "There's a nice blue-green called "Bottle"." " How about white?" " No white." "These are white, but not so brief." "Why's it new?" "Two-tone." "Green and blue, it's new." "I prefer plain." "That leaves you with a choice of four." "Black, brown, mid-grey and navy blue." " Let's see the navy." " Here's the navy." "By daylight, it's not so dark." "It looks black." "Might as well take black." "Coming!" "One." "One." "One-two." "My brothers..." "One-two-three." "My son, shed tears upon the dead." "The dead." "Begin to lament and grieve for your loved one." "One." "Then cover his body according to the custom, and neglect not his burial." "One-two." "Weep, weep bitterly and beat your breast and mourn him, for he is worthy." "Then comfort thyself for the loss of a loved one." "One." "Can you hear me at the back?" "What if I lower my voice?" "Take not thy heart..." "No." "Take not thy grief to heart." "When the deceased is at rest, let his remembrance rest." "Be comforted for him when his spirit is departed." "Remember thy own last end, for there is no turning." "What if I speak up?" "Remember my judgment, for thine also shall be so." "His today, and thine tomorrow." "That was OK?" "Yes?" "Hello?" "OK then." "TO OUR DEAR LITTLE BROTHER" "Cool it, we're not late." "No need to go so fast." "Dad, you OK?" "You asleep, Dad?" "He's asleep." "What did Doc say?" " See he takes his pills." " Pills for what?" " To sleep." " But he sleeps nonstop!" "Yeah." "So he'll sleep at night." "Is that all?" "That's all he said?" "Dad?" "He was my little one." "I wish I could see him again, just once." "Not to get close, not even... not even talk to him." "Gentlemen." "We'll never meet again, anywhere." "We'll never be together again." "Dad, are you OK?" "It's a grey evening, at dusk." "The road is deep in shadow." "A stranger approaches them, speaks to them," "and breaks bread." "Then, they recognize him." "With simplicity and humanity," "the face of God in pain addresses them." "But they take fright for darkness has fallen" "and something incomprehensible takes hold of them." "It is not the fear of ghosts, no." "Rather imagine a person who sees, approaching him, a dead man." "A dead man he once loved." "Imagine it." "A dead man comes to meet him," "as in the past, in the sadness and quiet of the evening." "When somebody dies, brothers," "someone we love or admire," "we sometimes need to make a portrait of him." "Not to glorify him, nor even less to defend him." "Not to remember him, but to take the final likeness" "that only his death can bring, and which makes us say" ""That's him."" ""Always death," you'll say." "Yes, always death, but not always the same death." "The loss of a loved one, brothers, is nothing special, except... for those who mourn him." "With him, they lose all sense of what is usual and mire themselves in endless hesitation" "between what is alive and what could have remained so." "Yes, death is in the realm of faith." "You are right to believe you will die." "Of course!" "It sustains you." "If you didn't believe it, could you endure the life you have?" "If you were not... solidly supported by the certainty that it will end," "how could you endure this whole affair?" "Take it from me, we have no knowledge of what we should know when we think we know something," "for God has chosen the things that are not, to nullify the things that are." "Brothers, young Simon was struck down by... what the Ancients called "a dire fate"." "An untimely death, a death... before its time had come." "The ancient thinkers did not regard death as bad in itself," "for death comes to us all." "No, what they thought was bad was when death strikes a person who has not performed his task," "like fruit plucked from a tree before it is ripe and tossed away" "like a thing of no interest, no interest even to death." "Have you seen an elderly man, I mean old?" "No, we haven't seen anyone." "OK, thanks." "Aren't you the watermelon guy?" "You're Myriam's friend?" "Gerard-Georges, right." "Sorry about the other evening." "It's OK." "You couldn't have known." "Sorry about your brother." "It's sad." "Yes." "Thanks." "Dad?" "Hey, Dad?" "Is it bad?" "Depends what you call bad." "Is he sick, or what?" "Your father isn't sick." "Not biologically." "Everything's working." "His legs, arms, eyes." "How can I put it?" "When an obsession unhinges the mind, there's a real risk of cerebral breakdown." "Once it enters the mind, it digs itself in." "For the subject, it's rather... as if time stood still." "Look." "It can sometimes appear... in the form of an imaginary problem." "You go to bed one night and it occurs to you that you left your car lights on." "You look out the window." "The car is there, the lights are out." "So you think," ""I must have left them on for so long that the battery's dead."" "You go out, open the car door and flip the switch." "The lights go on." "You've gone mad." "Stay to lunch, Doctor?" "Because you didn't trust your senses." "You saw from the window that the lights were off but still, you went out to check." "You saw but you didn't believe." "Or rather, you saw nothing but believed it all the same." "You could keep going endlessly indoors and out, opening the car, testing the lights, and going back indoors." "But it's unlikely." "On the other hand, if you're racked by guilt, pain and doubt, an obsession might appear as a solution." "Once it appears, an obsession blends in with religion and becomes a small part of the enormous tendency to believe in another world." "What's the difference between believing in a God you can't see and believing in a dead son you can't see anymore?" "What distinguishes one invisibility from another?" "I prayed for you on Friday." "Prayed for me?" "Did you ask heaven to fix my car?" "The padre says he prayed for me but he won't say why." "Nothing serious." "I asked for a little help." " For him?" " No, for me." "But you prayed for me." "Haven't you learned yet it's pointless?" "Suppose it's not pointless." "How's your father?" "Not too good." "Why not tell me what you prayed for?" " What if you don't get it?" " Father... what makes you think God exists?" "Faith." "Yes, apart from faith." "There's... the ontological proof." "Saint Anselm's argument, whereby if such a being can be imagined..." "Why do people suffer?" "The smallest pang of pain threatens God's existence." "It's the main reason for atheism." "Is the ontological proof a proof?" "It's an argument." "Is there any proof that God exists?" "There are arguments." "Teilhard de Chardin's biological argument of evolution." "The very fact of evolution seems to imply an architect." "Morrison's argument... which... rests on... our planet's hospitality... to complex life forms." "The random odds of that happening... are very slim." "That's the teleological argument." "That there's a master plan contained in Nature." "That's all?" "I'm sorry, I don't feel very well." "Can we discuss it some other time?" "Those proofs only prove that God doesn't exist or you wouldn't need so many." "Right, Padre?" "Listen, the Father is tired..." "The Father's tired!" "Too tired to give one proof that God exists?" "Do you have any aspirin?" "Of course there's no proof." "Everyone knows that." "In the Old Testament..." "God spoke to mankind... through the prophets." "But... nowadays... it's over." "God has stopped speaking to us." "We call it... the Long Silence." "And it has lasted for... two thousand years." "If God spoke in the Bible, why doesn't he now?" "Why did he stop?" ""There were two farmers who had adjoining acres." "One was a pious man, and once his field was ploughed and harrowed in the spring," "he took a bag of rye and this is what he did." "He took a pinch of seed and scattered it like this, saying," ""God bless the good seed."" ""God bless the good seed."" "Across the fence, his neighbour also went out sowing." "He threw the seed around by the handful, saying, as he strode along," ""And to hell with it!"" ""To hell with it!"" "Now, Gentlemen, which of these farmers do you think got the crop?"" "There is no God." "I believed all through my childhood, but when you think a little bit, you're disappointed." "You lose all your illusions." "Me, I gave up." ""Who's there?"" "Cries the Captain at his desk, busily making out his papers for the Customs." ""Who's there?"" "Oh!" "How that harmless question falls upon Jonah and torments him!" "For an instant, he almost turns to flee again." "But he rallies." ""I seek a passage on this ship to Tarshish. "" "The Captain makes no reply." "Jonah steadies his voice." ""When sail you, Sir?"" "Busy with his papers, the Captain still does not deign to raise his eyes." "A third time," "Jonah addresses the Captain." ""I seek a passage on your ship."" "The mere sound of this voice makes the Captain look up, eyeing Jonah with suspicion." ""We sail with the next tide,"" "says the Captain, still intently eyeing him." ""No sooner?" asks Jonah." ""Soon enough for any honest passenger," replies the Captain." "Jonah feels it like a dagger." ""I'll sail with you nonetheless," he says." ""How much is the fare?" "I'll pay right now. "" "Remember this, best Beloved, for it is written with particular importance and not to be forgotten in this story." ""And he paid the fare and embarked."" "In Jonah's context, the meaning of this is especially dire." "Why, my Princess?" "Why is it especially dire that Jonah paid his fare?" "Listen, my Precious." "Remember, best Beloved, that the Captain in Jonah's case was a man capable of detecting crime in anybody, but because of his greed, he exposed it only in the penniless." "In this world, sin that pays its way can travel freely and without a passport, whereas virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers." "So before judging Jonah, the Captain tests the weight of his purse." "He charges him three times the usual fare, and Jonah agrees." "Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive but decides to say nothing, knowing that his flight will make him rich." "When Jonah takes out his purse, the Captain rings every coin." "Finally, he says to himself," ""In any case, the man is not a forger"" "and lists Jonah as a passenger." "When she tried to make me jealous, it made me sad." "I told myself," "I'm not good enough." "No wonder." "She's such an amazing woman, one man like me isn't enough." "It's good that there are others." "She can make several men happy." "It's no loss to me if she loves another man." "Sometimes she'd say," ""I'll be out tonight." "Don't you wonder where?"" "A lover needn't always know where his beloved is." "I love you, you love me." "You do what you have to do." "If you ever feel you have to tell me, you'll tell me." " Did she sleep around?" " I expect so." "Everyone gets cheated on, one day." "No reason why I shouldn't be." "Did you?" "No, it's different with me." "I chose her." "I told her it was her or nobody." "It's not the same." "When I met her," "I'd been permanently celibate for two years, because I'd known too many suicidal women." "We'd have sex, it went well, and next thing they'd want to commit suicide because I wouldn't marry them," "on the pretext that we'd had sex five or six times and it was dynamite." "Besides, you can't always talk." "It's not always interesting." "Sex is always interesting." "It adds novelty." "But I was through with it." "I was too fed up with all that talk of suicide." "She know you're coming?" "It'll be my little surprise." "Stop here." "I'll park and come too." "No." "Call me about Dad." "I've been offered a new job." "Better paid." "Is it dangerous?" "It's different." "Not construction sites." "I thought you worked on construction sites." "It's not on sites but you need to know them." "What is it?" "I'd be hiring unskilled guys to make up teams of hands." "Hands?" "Farmhands." "Will you have to work more?" "No." "Far?" "I don't know." "It depends." "Once inside his cabin," "Jonah looked for a key in the door, hoping to lock it," "but there was no key." "Hearing him nervously fumbling about the lock, the Captain laughed softly to himself," "muttering something about convicts and prison cells whose doors were never made to be locked from within." "The air is close and Jonah gasps." "Fully dressed and dusty as he is, he has thrown himself onto his bunk, having found the little cabin's ceiling so low that it almost rests on his head." "And there, the weight of his prodigious misery" "drags Jonah drowning down to sleep." "In France, in springtime, when the minimum temperature stabilizes above 10C, the adult Semiadalia emerge from shelter and start moving around the rocks." "This is the start of the mating season." "The males revive first and mate in the den with the still-drowsy females." "A few days later, couples form outside the shelter." "Placing the spermatophore in the copulatory pouch can take hours, so the female often drags the male around, firmly clamped to her elytra." "In the cropland around Saint Amand," "Semiadalia are found in the field layer, especially in bean fields often infested with blackflies, Aphis Fabae, which attack many other crops besides." "Beans also attract other predators." "Seven-spotted beetles often get there first." "Ladybugs, once known as "Our Lady's bugs", are similar in size, shape and predatory behaviour." "They are useful farmhands." "A single adult can eat over two hundred aphids per day, at every stage of their growth." "Feeding and mating are the two main routines in an adult's life." "Feeding does not even stop for mating." "The blackfly is a staple food for ladybugs but other insects, such as green pea aphids, Macrosiphon Pisi, also provide a healthy diet to various ladybug species, e.g. Propylea Quatuordecimpunctata, which opts to feed in the shrub layer..." "or Adalia Bipunctata, which normally lives on the aphids of the tree layer." "This species can be red with two black spots, or black with red spots." "The widest variation in colour and spots occurs in Coccinella Decempunctata, which varies between a pale, blotchy cream colour and a single, dark hue." "Nutritionally, aphids such as the oleander scale are low-grade prey." "Only Adonia Variegata can subsist on this species for a full cycle." "Feeding often involves pre-oral digestion." "Digestive fluid is injected into the aphid and then reabsorbed while the mandibles clasp the prey." "A major foe of adult ladybugs is Perilitus Coccinellae, Hymenoptera Braconidae." "This parasite attacks the ladybug, which freezes defensively." "The braconid deploys its ovipositor to lay an egg in the subelytral cavity." "The larvae develop inside the host." "The forecast, country by country, starting with France, Belgium and the Netherlands." "Here's what's in store for you today." "Temperatures in major cities, Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris..." "Further north in Britain..." "I wasn't reading philosophy." "I just watched... a film about beetles eating aphids." "At 6 o'clock, I got in my car and drove to the dentist in tears." "If I were like you, Father, and still believed in God," "I'd say he showed me something last night." "He showed me that everything's real." "My tooth, the insects, my pain." "This pain delivered me into the real world." "I had an ingrown tooth." "The dentist had to break part of my jaw and dig the pieces out." "I went home, took some tablets" "and a strong painkilling suppository" "and went to bed." "I talk to him." "He talks to me." "We know each other well." "He tells me a lot." "We're very close." "About sex... and how it depresses him, and..." "I just read a very beautiful, very sad poem about the infidelity of women" "and how hard it is to sleep beside her when night has fallen and during the day, you know she's been with another man." "She drifts off to sleep and you lie there, stretched out beside her with your eyes wide open and an immensity of loneliness comes over you as you touch her sleeping body." "The other man's sperm is there inside her." "She's hot like an old stove, but you feel cold," "very cold, so cold, it's like you're in the Antarctic." "Y ou're like a baby penguin newly hatched from its egg, dead in an instant, a fistful of frozen feathers lost in the midst of the icy continent." "She rolls over in her sleep and slips her arm around you," "and when she touches you, she's like the polar wind of Antarctica that with one puff consigns your heart to darkness." "Paul?" "You, of course, will go on loving her, but it will be in a different way," "with another sort of love." "Nothing will ever be the same again and as you lie there, waiting for morning," "it's all the men since the dawn of time who keep you company and you think," "Why did she do it?" "Why did she do it?" "And now the tide is high." "The ship casts off her cables." "Uncheered, from the deserted wharf, heavily laden, she glides out to sea." "That ship, my Princess, was the first ever smuggler." "Her contraband... was Jonah." "But the sea rebels." "It will not bear the wicked burden." "A dreadful storm comes on." "The ship is about to break." "The Captain calls all hands to lighten her." "Boxes, bales and jars go flying overboard." "The men are yelling, the wind is shrieking, and right over Jonah's head, every plank thunders with trampling feet, but Jonah sleeps." "His ears hear nothing." "He sees no black sky and raging sea." "He heeds not the giant, leaping rush of the mighty whale with its gaping jaws that God has sent to chase him." "I heard him knock and saw him come in." "His body was all twisted to the left, his face smeared with pig dirt." "His clothes, too." "Hugging his left arm, he asked me to pull it." "He said he dislocated it, falling in the pigs." "Listen." "He's singing." "Remember how Jonah was down in the ship, my Beloved, fast asleep on a mean bunk?" "The frightened first mate finds him there and cries in his sleeping ear," ""Get up!" "How can you sleep like this?" "Get up!"" "Awoken by that dreadful cry," "Jonah staggers to his feet." "Wave after wave breaks over the deck." "And time and again, as the moon shows her face through jagged holes in the darkness," "Jonah, aghast, sees the bowsprit stab skyward" "and plunge again into the raging sea." "In Jonah's heart, terror follows terror." "His whole body quakes." "He blames the cold and rain, but by his attitude the God-fugitive is known." "The sailors look at him, their former suspicions growing almost certain," "until at last, referring the matter to Heaven," "they end up casting lots to see who caused this monstrous tempest." "The lot falls on Jonah." "Unmasked, how they mob him with their questions, my Princess!" ""Where are you from?" "Where bound?"" ""Who are your people?"" "Now, best Beloved, watch well how poor Jonah behaves." "Not content with answering the questions asked of him, he answers a question put by nobody," "an unsolicited confession forced from him by the hard hand of God." ""I am a Hebrew," he says and adds," ""And I fear God who created the world. "" "Then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, each crewman reluctantly lays the other hand on Jonah." "To him, it's already in the past." "Here and now, in this room, he says it happened 60 years ago." "He's lost track." "He says everything recurs." "I think he's with us." "He says he hears Simon," "Simon talks to him but he can't see him." "He thinks he's here." "He hears but can't see him." "I can't recall what he said." "He pronounces... very distinct... sentences." "Your son is dead." "You know it." "Not completely." "He's deceased, not dead." "He really hears him but not us, anymore." "It could last, who knows?" "We can take turns if you like." "Vegetables are meat." "If not, why do they rot?" "He says if plants rot, they're meat." "When you get something on the brain..." "He's often singing the same tune at bedtime and when he wakes up." "He may be delirious, but he may also be... coming to terms with death." "Maybe it's the same thing." "No, don't move." "Y ou need peace." "Let the day end." "Let time go by." "Let your mouth shut." "Y ou try to lift your head... to reach out your hands... you try to roll over... y ou'd like to get away... start again like before... but you belong here now." "Look." "Y our feet have gone numb." "Feel it?" "It's climbing." "Y our heart jumps." "It hurts, of course." "You see no more." "Hear no more." "You're all alone now." "Remember when you couldn't see why Cinderella didn't just pack her bundle and walk out if her life was really so bad?" "Remember the Indian burn?" "When you take someone's arm and twist the skin in both directions?" "And waving your arms, flat in the snow to make angels, remember?" "Y es, Dad." "You're an old man and a child in one." "Y ou've wanted to know for ages..." "Now you know." "Y ou're cold." "And the cold is spreading." "But it's now, Dad..." "It's the moment of your death." "Now that Jonah has been thrown overboard, best Beloved, he sinks in the heart of the storm, sucked into such a maelstrom that he barely heeds the moment when he drops into the whale's gaping jaws," "and all the watery world of woe bowls over his captive body." "Then, out of the giant creature's belly," "Jonah prays to God." "And from the depths of measureless profundity, as the great whale grounds on the ocean's floor, in uttermost seclusion," "God hears Jonah's cry." "But observe his prayer carefully, my Precious." "Jonah does not weep and wail for deliverance." "He feels his dreadful punishment is just." "He leaves all his deliverance to God, despite all his pains and pangs." "Then the Lord commands the fish, and from the icy blackness of the deep, the whale slowly rises towards the sun and vomits out Jonah upon the dry land." "The word of God comes a second time and Jonah, my Princess, best Beloved..." "Jonah, bruised and beaten, his ears buzzing like sea shells in which one hears the surging of the sea," "Jonah does the Almighty's bidding." "LfJonah had been able to stay as he was, an insignificant man with no legal papers, living in a flophouse in a seamy part of town," "if he'd been able to stay that way, maybe he could have survived, at least... provisionally." "But God knew that Jonah, in time, would want to be seen and acknowledged, with a home of his own and legal ID." "And God, best Beloved," "God spoke to Jonah one last time and said," ""Jonah, my friend." "Look." "Y ou're back where you started." "When you're dead and buried, your open mouth will still be asking," ""What did I do?"" "For all this serves a higher purpose that you don't understand, and never will." "Y ou'll stay like this forever, open-mouthed, uncomprehending." "But maybe I can tell you this." "Don't get noticed." "Don't catch our eye." "Don't become known to us." "Maybe one day, in the distant future, when all this is irrelevant, the manner of your downfall will be publicized." "And then perhaps, when there are no more holding areas at international airports, no more camps guarded by police with machine guns, perhaps a legal process of rehabilitation will teach us that you never harmed anyone, nor ever really did anything" "except arouse our curiosity." "The great truth, the essential truth, is that although you represent a multitude, you don't count." "I count." "That's how we're different." "And that's why, Jonah, my friend, you must disappear and I must remain. "" "Subtitles by Nigel Palmer"