The number settles. Some exiles have quietly gone. Those who remain look to AVIVA. She turns to SABA ELAN, kneels, and begins to unwrap the ancient harp. AVIVA. The seventy years are over, Saba. You kept your vow — not one note, the whole time. (she holds the harp out to him) Now take it down from the willows. Play us the song of the road home. The one you promised. SABA ELAN. (he reaches out; his trembling fingers find the strings; he tries to pluck a chord — and cannot. The hand will not obey. He tries again. Nothing. A long, broken breath.) ...My hands belong to the riverbank now, little bird. (quietly devastated) I carved this wood. I strung it. I carried it three months through the desert and fifty years through this exile waiting for this exact morning. (he looks at his ruined hands) And now it's here, and I cannot make it speak. AVIVA. (her voice cracking) No. No, Saba — you have to lead us. You're the one who — MIRYAM. (weakly, reaching out from the linens) He has led us, Aviva. Every night by the fire for seventy years, he led us. (a wet cough) But the desert doesn't belong to the old. (she beckons her daughter close, touches her face) Look at me, little bird. AVIVA. (kneeling beside her, already knowing) Mama. No. Don't. MIRYAM. I was a child when the walls fell. I have spent my whole life keeping a ghost alive in your ear so it wouldn't die with me. (she smiles, exhausted) But these feet cannot walk to Judah. I won't make it past the first ridge, and you know it, and I won't have you carrying a dying woman when you could be carrying the future. AVIVA. Then I'm not going. I'll stay. I'll — MIRYAM. You cannot carry me and the vessels of the temple, Aviva. (gently, firmly) You cannot carry the past and the future in the same two arms. (she takes her daughter's hands and presses them onto the frame of the harp) So carry this. The song is yours now. You asked me once how to grieve a home you've never seen. (her eyes shining) You don't have to grieve it anymore, little bird. You get to go and build it.
