SCENE 5 
Three days have passed. The factory workers are rolling cigars and organizing the tobacco leaves by their proper size and shape. Marela is still wearing her coat.
OFELIA: What silence! I never knew that silence could have so much weight. Can someone say something? Can someone read? We are listeners! We are oidores! I can’t get used to this silence all around us. It’s as if a metal blanket has fallen on us.
PALOMO: The same silence we had when our last reader died.
OFELIA: No, this silence is louder. Much louder. Much louder.
SANTIAGO: That’s because Juan Julian died before his time, and the shadows of the young are heavier and they linger over the earth like a cloud.
MARELA: I should write his name on a piece of paper and place it in a glass of water with brown sugar, so his spirit knows that he is welcomed in this factory, and he can come here and drink sweet water. And nobody better tell me that it’s wrong for me to do this! You hear me, Mamá! (For the first time tears come to her eyes)
SANTIAGO: Your mother hasn’t said anything, my child.
MARELA: I know she hasn’t. But we must look after the dead, so they can feel part of the world. So they don’t forget us and we could count on them when we cross to the other side.
CONCHITA: We should continue reading, Papá!
MARELA: Yes, we should continue reading the story in his honor, so he doesn’t feel that he left his job undone. He should know that we’re still his faithful listeners.
CONCHITA: If I could, I would read, but I know that if I open that book I’ll be weak.
MARELA: We shouldn’t cry. Tears are for the weak that mourn the knife and the killer, and the trickle of blood that streams from this factory all the way to the house where he was born.
OFELIA: Could someone read?
PALOMO: I will read.
OFELIA: That’s it, read, so we can get rid of this silence and this heat. And we can pause over a few lines and sigh and be glad that we are alive.
SANTIAGO: Read something cheerful.
MARELA: Stories should be finished, Papá. Let him finish the book.
CONCHITA: She’s right. Stories should be finished or they suffer the same fate as those who die before their time.
(Palomo opens the book. He looks at Conchita.)
PALOMO: Anna Karenina. Part 3, Chapter 14:
By the time he arrived in Petersburg, Anna Karenina’s husband was not only completely determined to carry out his decision, but he had composed in his head a letter he would write to his wife.
(He looks up from the book and stares at Conchita.)
In his letter he was going to write everything he’d been meaning to tell her.
(The lights begin to fade.)
END OF PLAY