David & Death

A master had a servant who saw Death as they walked in the market in Baghdad. Death turned her face, looked straight at the servant and beckoned. The servant went pale and asked the master for a speedy horse so he could ride fast to Samarra where he could hide, so that Death would not find him. After the servant galloped away, the master himself saw Death as she meandered among the wares of the market, and he asked her why she had frightened his servant. Death replied that she had not tried to frighten him, she was just surprised to see him in Baghdad, since she had an appointment with him in Samarra that same evening. . .

Early morning. As night was losing its grip without completely surrendering the darkness to wan grey light, a lonely figure was trudging down a street. Dressed in a shabby coat, the person walked bent as he were pushing through the frigid wind. Random snowflakes flew from the metallic sky onto frozen white patches. Loose garbage tumbled at the whim of the wind through desolate streets of an abandoned industrial neighborhood.

The man wrapped his pale face in a black shawl to keep warm, but neither that nor his heavy, torn, oversized coat, kept the weather out.

Several figures huddled in front of a large, rusty, twisted metal door covered with graffiti in front of a two-story building with broken windows. When the man approached, they greeted him and he nodded.

The door was locked with a rusty padlock, hanging on a chain. He bent down to open the padlock with keys on a round key ring and then pushed at the door. The door opened with a loud screeching sound.

The people disappeared through the door into the darkness, as if swallowed by a toothless creature. The man stood outside, waiting. Two other women, at intervals of several minutes, ran by him with a hasty "Good morning, Mr. David," and quickly vanished inside. Only then did David himself enter, closing the screeching door and locking the padlock from the inside.

Inside, dank and fetid walls crumbled under greenish patches of mold. Broken, uneven stairs with crooked, rusty railings turned into darkness, and the monotonous sound of dripping water punctuated the muted sound of the restive wind outside.

David climbed the creaky staircase with heavy feet. When he opened a rusty metal door, he walked into a spacious workshop hall. The large windows covered by metal screens did not let much of the weak daylight penetrate the gloomy space. Naked light bulbs hanging on wires gave a little extra light, which made hardly any difference.

The women were already busy at work, bending over sewing machines. Several of the windows were cracked and the glassless spaces were fitted with pieces of cardboard. The workshop hall was freezing; the women were wrapped in sweaters, and portable electric heaters cranked to full blast next to each workstation were exercises of futility. Their gloveless hands were red and the women had to blow into them often to warm them up.

Pipes and wires hung from the ceiling and pieces of textiles of various sizes haphazardly littered the concrete floor. David walked from the entrance around the workers to the other end of the workshop, where he had a small cramped office. The office was really part of the hall; it had just a plexiglass partition, up to about six feet. It was fixed to the floor to separate him from the rest of the space. The plexiglass had two equally long sides attached at right angles to the brick walls, so his office was a perfect square. David entered through a narrow plexiglass door in the middle of the partition. His desk was buried under stacks of paper, which he moved aside. He took off his coat, hanging it on the coat stand next to his desk, and sat down. From his seat he had a good view of the workers. With one cursory look at the women, he bent down over papers and various forms. The work was monotonous and he worked wordlessly, only from time to time making phone calls on an old-fashioned telephone.