The Retrospective: Translated From the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman (11 page)

The authority figure, giving no answer one way or another, confers by his silence the permission to execute the plot. And now, in place of the dumbfounded stationmaster, who closeted himself at sundown inside the tiny station, villagers stand by the rails, torches in hand, poised for their encounter with an arrogant train that will veer from its regular track. Since fewer extras than anticipated were available to the production, they had to hustle them down as agitated onlookers, and then transform them from local residents into passengers, after the crash, rip their clothes, smear them with grime, pour red liquids on them, to ensure their credibility as they screamed in agony. In the artificial lighting intended to improve on the moonlight and stars, Moses can see that he too was forced to abandon his post beside the camera and join the extras as a passenger writhing in pain. The camera closes in on his face as he lies among bushes in torn clothing, his face horribly gashed, waiting for the deaf girl to lavish mercy on his suffering. “As a living actor, you have no future,” joked the film editor when they looked at the scene on the editing table, “but as a dying one, you're a big success, especially when a girl is stroking your head.”

Yes, the beauty of the deaf girl lights up the screen, and the stationmaster's assistant does not wait long to exact his due for the wicked plan that came off well. Though in years to come the violent scenes in his films grew more and more audacious, one might still wonder about the license given here to the actor to express his lust. He wrests the girl savagely from the wreckage of the train, takes her up a dirt path, and drags her into the bushes, and though she knows that is the price of her exhilarating vision, she fights the arms that seize her, screams with her hands and fingers, and finally lets loose the wail of a wounded animal. Moses wonders if this brutal scene was simply to be faithful to the script or whether some strange desire was also a factor.

The lights in the hall come on. Moses scans the first few rows to locate the person who looked like Trigano. But if such a person had been there at all, he escaped before the lights went up.

At first the applause is stuttering and embarrassed, but gradually it becomes louder and rhythmic. As it continues, de Viola rises and invites Ruth to join him. He looks toward the rear to invite the director as well, but Moses is in no hurry to get up and gestures to the actress to go first. As she is led to the stage, the audience redoubles its applause, with scattered cries of
Brava!

Ruth is nervous, and de Viola, to allow her time to compose herself, gives a lengthy introduction in Spanish. But when he cedes her the floor, her English is replete with Hebrew words in critical places. Then a man gets up—a Jew, or a former Israeli of the sort found everywhere and always—and offers his assistance in translation from Hebrew to Spanish.

There is relief as the Hebrew is freed from the filter of broken English. But even now, Ruth's words are confused and almost childish, suggesting that not only as a character in a film but as a woman, she is defending her former lover's notion that destruction and disaster improve and refine mankind. When the priest, smiling gently, tries to modify her remarks, she persists, her hands waving exuberantly, her eyes ablaze, as if at any moment she will revert to sign language. Now Moses raises his hand, to the relief of the moderator, who invites the director to the stage to restore order to the chaos created by the actress. And despite the temptation to continue in Hebrew, Moses prefers to speak in English, which allows him to digress more easily from moral dilemmas to tricks of the movie trade.

The hour is late. The aged farmers in the audience slip from the hall one by one, but the young people won't let matters rest. They demand to know if the director subscribes to the views of the actress. Moses is wary of an imprecise answer, so he speaks compellingly of obligation and regret and atonement, and how these alone can yield true compassion, as opposed to the self-pity that masquerades as sympathy for others. And he promises the inquisitive young people further discussion. The retrospective, after all, continues tomorrow.

“Y
OU SEE
,”
HE
says to Juan on their way to the hotel, “it is a wise man who knows the limits of his strength and declines in advance a meal in a good restaurant.” “Wise or otherwise,” answers Juan, “tomorrow you will not be able to shirk your duty. A distinguished lady, far older than you, will be making a special trip from Madrid to honor the conclusion of your retrospective with her presence.”

It is almost midnight, and again the empty square is spread out before them in splendid gloom. “You don't want another little look at our cathedral before bedtime?” jokes the priest. “Why not?” says Ruth, still energized by the film. “No, the night is so short,” Moses firmly interjects. But before they part, he expresses genuine appreciation, first for the fine hotel accommodations and generous hospitality, and for the quality of the dubbing and the high level of questions from the audience. He is especially grateful to the host for his excellent and efficient handling of the retrospective, yet he must ask that the pace tomorrow be a bit slower, and without giving the priest a chance to promise anything, he turns to the reception desk and collects the room key and the two pilgrim walking sticks.

How good to return to the calm of the spacious, pleasant attic, which is made up for the second night's sleep. The sheets have been changed, and little chocolates in gold wrappers glitter on the big pillows.

But Ruth, suddenly cold and distant, dives fully dressed onto the bed, in fur jacket and boots, quickly unwraps a chocolate, and pops it whole into her mouth.

Moses removes his two hearing aids and tucks them in their box. Then he steals a look at the picture of the old prisoner steadfastly suckling at the pure white breast. He still refrains from saying anything about the picture to his companion, who is watching him with something akin to hatred.

He undoes his necktie and takes off his shirt.

“You could have asked whether I also wanted to decline the dinner.”

“I assumed you wouldn't want to go without me.”

“Then you could have stayed with me, even if you weren't hungry.”

“Again you ignore the age difference between us. When you're my age, and I am no longer among the living, you'll understand better how one feels at the end of a long and tiring day.”

She closes her eyes.

“In the morning, a big breakfast, but if you're still hungry now, you can have my chocolate.”

She reaches for his pillow, takes the chocolate, and puts it in her mouth.

Now, as he stands naked to the waist at the foot of their bed, he feels that in the many years since
Distant Station,
not only has her spirit remained fundamentally unchanged, but her older body has preserved the contours of the young actress, walking up the hilly path.

“How did you feel about yourself in the film?”

“I really liked what I saw.”

“As always.”

“More than ever.”

“When you spoke, for a moment I felt you really believed disasters are a good means of true communion among people.”

“You planted the idea in me when we made the film.”

“You can actually remember what I told you then?”

“More or less, but what I do remember clearly is you didn't pay me.”

Moses is surprised, breaks into hearty laughter.

“Suddenly you remember?”

“This evening, in the dark, I remembered.”

“In our early films none of us got paid. We worked in partnership, in a cooperative venture. We shared expenses and would share equally in the profits, if there were any.”

“I don't remember you including me in your cooperative.”

“But you belonged then to Trigano . . . to Shaul.”

“
Belonged
? What an awful word.”

“What I mean is, you were included in the screenwriter's budget. You lived together, you were like a little family; whatever he got from the film was automatically yours too.”

“Nothing was automatic. It was unjust and unfair. Tonight I saw that the character who carried the whole film was me. Without my sign language, nobody in the village would have lifted a finger. So even if you thought that Shaul and I were a little family, you should have paid me separately.”

“I should've?”

“Who else?”

“Okay, then, I'll pay you now. I'll compensate you for all the injustice. Especially now that I've seen how exquisitely you played a character in sign language—”

“Which you didn't even remember was in the film. Apparently you are worn out in spirit as well as in body.”

“I told you.”

She says nothing, regards him with hostility.

“When I saw you watching your hands and fingers waving on the screen this evening, I asked myself if you could still understand them.”

“Mostly.”

“And if I spoke to you now in sign language, could you understand?”

She is surprised, even suspicious, as Moses makes broad hand motions and points at the bed.

She immediately gets what he means, perhaps because she guessed his intent from the start, and sits up to make room for her own gestures, which signal an emphatic no. And as a sly spark flashes in her eyes, she gives a few animalistic grunts, as if to say,
It's not me you want, it's the character you saw in your films, but even if you can get yourself satisfaction from the character you created on the screen, from me, tonight, you won't get a thing.

Is that what was actually said to him in sign language at midnight in a hotel that was once a hostel for pilgrims, or was it convenient for him to interpret the signs that way? But since, according to the established convention between them, they could be together only if both sent the same clear signals, he shuffles to the bathroom, locks the door, and starts to fill up the big tub. As he waits, he examines his image in the mirror. Time has turned his hair white but has not yet bared his skull. And he hopes that the wrinkles that proliferate around his eyes offer a touch of humanity and not just an intimation of mortality. He gets into the tub and enjoys the water that lightens his bulk. He washes his hair vigorously, as if that could darken it. And when he returns to the room, clean and fragrant, he finds that his companion has turned out the lights, and to outwit her hunger she has let sleep swallow her whole, coat, boots, and all.

For a moment he wonders if he should wake her, remove her clothes so she can sleep more soundly. But he decides not to touch her, lest she think he intends to violate a clear sign just given him. On second thought, he decides to remove her boots, so they will not soil the white quilt cover. She moves slightly, feels his hands loosening the laces, sighs, and appears to struggle, but does not wake. Finally he manages to pull off the boots, and he removes her woolen socks too. White feet in the darkness, small and tired. Suddenly the young woman materializes from the first film of the day, standing in his family home, fearful and demoralized in baggy white shorts, leaning on a broom, and her pale, delicate foot strokes his hair. Was it the left foot or the right that Toledano's camera caressed more than forty years ago? he wonders as he gathers both her feet to him, kisses each one gently, and rests them carefully on the bed.

three

L
ATER THAT NIGHT
, when he gets up to go to the toilet, he sees she is still wearing her coat. In the dim light of
Roman Charity
he sits down close to her, careful not to touch her, and explains in a fatherly tone that such uncivilized sleep will not leave her rested. And she, without opening her eyes, mumbles that even uncivilized sleep can be restful, but nevertheless lets him peel off the coat and then, in utter exhaustion, curls up beneath the quilt and goes back to sleep.

But when he wakes up in the morning, her singing in the shower is louder than the roar of the water, and her hungry voice propels him from under the covers, in words not unlike his own: “Let's get down there fast, before other people eat it all.”

As he emerges from the bathroom, she is dressed and made up, looking at the reproduction that hangs on the wall. But there is still no sign that the scene that repulsed her so in her youth and caused her to rebel against her lover triggers any memory. Moses, however, resolves not to give up.
If not today, then tomorrow,
he says to himself.
I will not let her leave Santiago without reconnecting her to the repulsion that inflicted years of obligation and worry on me.

“Something wrong?” She is troubled by his look, but he waves her off, echoing her warning: “Let's hurry down, before others leave us hungry.”

A new escort has been assigned for the second day of the retrospective. He waits now at the entrance to the dining room, the young teacher, handsome and refined, who at yesterday's lunch complained about the absence of abstraction and symbolism in the later films of the Israeli. His name is Rodrigo Bejerano, and although his English is not as lush or fluent as Pilar's, his thoughts are more complex and interesting. Moses invites him to breakfast.   

Bejerano teaches the history of Spanish cinema at the film institute, but his field crosses borders; he is also an expert on French and Italian films of the postwar period. And he admits to being surprised by the three Israeli films screened yesterday.

“Why?”

The Spaniard tries hard to find the right words. “The determinism of the absurdist plot,” he says finally. “I couldn't believe that in the end, Mr. Moses, you would actually plunge the train into the abyss.”

“It was not I,” says the disingenuous director, “it was the village people.”

“Still . . .”

“So what could we do? Be content with just a threat?”

“Yes, why not? There is great strength in restraint, in a threat that merely hovers, an irrational threat that one can imagine but that does not spill blood quickly and sow destruction easily . . . After all, in that period, not long after World War Two, you were not alone in this genre. Not only in Europe, but even in the Far East and Middle East, there blew an absurdist and surrealist wind. Take for example Egypt, your close neighbor. A few months ago we screened some old Egyptian films, underground films, surrealistic, but their grotesque and absurd elements were gentle, much less violent than yours.”