The Secret Life of Words Page #5

l felt ...

l felt uncomfortable.

Just thinking that they were uncomfortable.

But ...

l soon realized that ...

people like being clean.

No matter how you do it, or ...

or who does it.

They like being in your hands.

They like trusting you with their bodies.

As if they were saying, ''lt's only a body.''

''lt's only a body.

You'll never know what l am thinking,

or who l am.''

l had a ...

l had a friend who studied with me.

We got on very well.

She was ...

She was so cheerful.

l've never been cheerful.

l was so proud to be her friend.

We used to read all the same books

and stay up, late into the night,

just talking about them.

The books were always more real than ...

More real than anything else.

We lived together during the war, and ...

We were 20 years old

when they closed the school.

And we decided to go back to the town

where we were both from.

We couldn't get in touch with our families.

They said terrible things were happening.

But you know, nobody really believed them.

l mean ...

People always exaggerate.

lt couldn't be true, l mean, war ...

Somehow it always happens somewhere else.

So we borrowed a car, she could drive,

and we ...

We set off.

Nothing happened on the journey.

We saw ...

We saw fires far off, and ... dead dogs.

Nothing.

Lots of dead dogs.

We listened to this

cassette of ltalian disco music.

And we laughed.

We laughed so much on that journey.

Do you remember, there was this song called,

La Do lce Vita?

lt was so stupid. lt was ...

We're livin' like a Do lce Vita

This time we got it right

We're livin' like a Do lce Vita

Got a dream ...

They stopped us just

They took us to a hotel.

We thought they just wanted to steal the car.

We were very worried about

how we would explain this to the owner.

lt's ridiculous, isn't it?

Your whole life is about to ...

change ...

And you are worrying about an old Fiat Turbo.

The soldiers were our soldiers.

They were soldiers, they spoke like me,

they spoke my own language.

Some of them were only 18 years old.

l remember, one day,

UN troops were brought in, and ...

We thought that day

that they were going to take us out of there.

No.

Voices like yours, Josef.

Talking like you.

l remember that one of them ...

apologized all the time.

He would apologize ...

while smiling.

lf you can imagine that they ...

rape you, time and again, and whisper

in your ears, so only you can hear ...

l'm sorry, l'm so sorry.

Forgive me.

There were 15 of us women.

Sometimes more. We knew that when

the food ran out, they'd kill some of us.

They made a woman kill her daughter.

They put a gun in her hand

and her finger on the trigger.

They put the barrel of the gun in the girl's

vagina. They made her pull that trigger.

Saying something like,

now you're not going to be a grandmother.

Something like that.

So, the woman died soon after, of sorrow.

One day dawned and she had died of sorrow.

Know what they did

to the ones who dared to scream?

They said ...

''Now we are really going to

give you reasons for screaming.''

And they made hundreds of cuts

all over their bodies, with a knife.

And they rubbed salt in the wounds and

sewed up deeper cuts with sewing needles.

That's what they did to my friend.

And l couldn't ...

They wouldn't let me clean her wounds, so ...

She slowly bled to death.

lt was just so ...

lt was so slowly.

And the blood ran down her arms,

and her legs.

l just prayed that she would die quickly.

l counted the screams.

The moans, l measured ...

l measured the pain.

And l thought ...

''She can't suffer anymore.''

''Now she'll die.''

''Now. Please.''

''The very next minute, please.''

What was her name?

Your friend.

What was her name?

Hanna.

Hanna?

Hanna!

Hanna!

Hanna!

Josef.

Your bag.

- That's not mine.

lt's yours.

Would you come with me?

Did you have a good trip? Do sit down.

- Yes, thank you.

ls this your first time in Copenhagen?

- Yes, it's quite nice.

lt's lovely.

What do you need from me?

Well, l've been thinking about what

l would say to you this entire journey.

l'm not quite sure.

As l told you on the phone,

l met Hanna when she was my nurse.

l never really ... got to see her.

Do you want a photo of her,

see if she's as beautiful as her voice?

No.

- No.

You wouldn't have come

all this way just for a photograph.

l was Hanna's councilor for 2 years.

Since then l receive

a phone call, from time to time.

She doesn't speak, she doesn't say anything,

but l know it's her, l know she's alive.

Why doesn't she say anything?

- That's between Hanna and me.

She ... she told me something.

About what happened ... in the hotel.

She must have trusted you.

- But l know ...

l know, don't ask me how or why,

but l know ...

There's something she didn't tell me.

And many things ..

she didn't tell me, and l want to know.

And you want me to tell you.

Haven't you had your ration of horror?

What do you want?

What do you really want? Didn't you read

the newspaper during those 10 years of war?

What? l don't know.

l think l want ...

to spend the rest of my life with her.

Oh, the rest of your life.

How romantic.

The rest of your life with a refugee

from a war that everybody has forgotten?

With a woman you've never even seen?

With a woman that you

only know has suffered things ...

neither your nor l could bear?

Have you ever thought that what Hanna needs,

most of all, is to be left alone?

Yeah. Yeah, l've thought about that.

But ... l know she needs me.

And l need her.

l know it.

Come with me.

This is Hanna Amiran.

Here is everything you want to know.

But, even if you

really feel the way you say you do,

does that give you

the right to see this tape?

Without her consent?

Do you know how many Hannas there are here?

Do you know how much blood?

How many deaths?

Do you know how much hatred these tapes hold?

Do you know why we record them?

- No, why?

Before the Holocaust, Adolph Hitler

called his collaborators together,

and in order to convince them

that he could get away with his plan,

he asked them, ''Who remembers

the extermination of the Armenians?''

That's what he said.

nobody remembered the million Armenians

exterminated in the cruelest possible way.

Who remembers what happened in the Balkans?

The survivors.

Those who managed,

by some twist of fate, to tell it.

lf they can.

Those who are ashamed ...

of having survived.

Like Hanna.

That's the irony of it,

if you can call it that.

The shame they feel

for having managed to survive.

And that shame,

which is greater than the pain,

which is bigger than anything else,

can last forever.

l believe l have a photograph of Hanna,

somewhere.

Hanna.

Hanna.

l knew you were blond.

l came to bring you your backpack.

Thanks.

You have done it, now you can go.

l ... l took a bar of soap.

Hope you don't mind.

No, l have lots.

lt's a nice scar that you've got.

Yeah, well, they said it won't look so bad,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes