Dawn: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

As the Movement fighters sit around drinking tea and thinking about David ben Moshe, Elisha thinks instead about John Dawson. To pass the time, the group starts swapping memories related to death. Joab, nicknamed “the Madman,” a young, innocent-faced man with white hair, says that death saved his life. When reported to the police as a terrorist, he claimed insanity and took shelter in an asylum, pretending he believed he was dead. When the police tracked Joab down and interrogated him for two days, he just stayed unresponsive to their questions and abuse. Eventually, he was returned to the asylum. After that, his hair turned white, which Elisha calls “death’s little joke.”

Next, Gideon, called “the Saint,” claims that God saved him from death. Gideon, a rabbi’s son, wears a beard and side curls and prays constantly. He says that when he was arrested and tortured, he kept quiet because he could feel God’s eyes watching him, and he didn’t want to disappoint God by admitting guilt. God’s eyes, Gideon says, are always “drawn to human pain.”

Next it’s Ilana’s turn. She says that a head cold saved her life. One day the British brought her in for questioning, along with a group of other women, and each woman’s voice was compared to a recording of the Voice of Freedom. But since Ilana’s cold distorted her voice, she was quickly eliminated from suspicion and released.

Gad shares his memory next. He says that he owes his life to three English sergeants. They were hostages that the Old Man had ordered to be taken; he’d left it up to Gad to kill one of the three. Gad recoiled from playing the role of judge. Finally, he told the prisoners that the choice was up to them. They drew lots, and Gad shot the unlucky prisoner. He admits that if the sergeants had refused to choose, he would have killed himself instead, because he was “young and very weak.”

Finally it’s Elisha’s turn. He tells the group that he owes his life to a laugh. One cold winter morning in Buchenwald, Elisha felt so sick that he hid in his barracks when ordered to leave. When he was found and brought to a barracks leader, the leader coldly decided to choke Elisha to death. Elisha was so tired that he didn’t even resist. Yet when Elisha’s head swelled during the choking, the barracks leader burst out laughing at the ludicrous sight and forgot his original intention. Elisha owes his life to the man’s twisted sense of humor.

After a long stretch of silence, Gideon suggests that they give John Dawson something to eat. Elisha says he can’t imagine that a condemned man would have an appetite. The others stare at him. Finally Gideon tells him that Dawson doesn’t know he’s about to die. He offers to go downstairs and tell him. Elisha is relieved—he finds it easier to be the one to kill Dawson than to have to break the news. Joab mentions that it’s midnight. Elisha knows that’s the hour when the dead rise from their graves to pray.

Ilana tearfully calls Elisha “poor boy,” which disturbs him. Slowly, Ilana disappears from before him, and Catherine appears. Catherine is a woman he once knew who liked to talk to young boys about love. Elisha thinks she appears because she transcends everything in the room—life and death, past and present. Elisha met Catherine in France in 1945, soon after Buchenwald was liberated. He was spending his summer in a camp sponsored by a rescue committee in Normandy, and Catherine was one of the only German-speakers he came across. She was a small, blonde woman in her late 20s and the first woman Elisha looked at up close.

One evening, Catherine approached Elisha as he was walking in the woods near the camp. They walked together in silence for a while and studied the night sky. Shy at first, Elisha eventually told Catherine the grizzled master’s legend of the open sky. According to the legend, the night sky clears in order to make room for children’s prayers. Once, a little boy prayed for his sick father, and in exchange, the little boy was turned into a prayer and carried to heaven. Elisha always looks for the child on nights like this. But there’s nothing there. In response to this story, Catherine exclaims, “Poor boy!” Elisha thinks she’s referring to the child in the legend.

After that night, Catherine and Elisha often walk together. Catherine asks Elisha questions about his past. Eventually, she starts speaking about love. She tells him that a man is most alive when he’s in the presence of a woman he loves. One evening, she starts kissing him, and over the coming days, Elisha gets familiar with her body. The night before Elisha returns to Paris, Catherine tells him they’re going to make love and gets undressed. Elisha is so stunned by this first sexual encounter that Catherine has to undress him and encourage him. Before going any further, Elisha insists on telling Catherine that he loves her. She tries to stop him from saying this and bursts into tears, saying, “You poor boy!”

Then Elisha grabs his clothes and runs away. He realizes that Catherine thinks of him as that poor little boy in the sky, and that she is drawn to sorrowful young boys who think about death. Brought back to the present, Elisha hears Ilana say again, “Poor boy!” She begins to cry as if she’ll never stop.