The Retrospective: Translated From the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman (20 page)

“I walked around a little, to get away from this place. Past the Old Town there's a promenade and sculpture garden of clever local characters. Rodrigo showed it to me yesterday, and tonight I had the urge to feel them so I could tell what they were made of.”

He sits down on the bed, and cautiously, in the darkness, reaches for her hand. He counts her fingers one by one as if to be sure none is missing.

“If I didn't ruin your sleep, what did?”

“Thoughts.”

“For example?”

“For example, the film today.
The Refusal.
”

“You too? Funny, because ever since you said it would be closing the retrospective, I've been trying to remember what we did there. Do you remember it well?”

“Yes. It's the first film that centered on me alone from beginning to end.”

“Even before the beginning, from preadolescence, from the childhood of the main character.”

“Childhood?”

“Childhood, girlhood. The young amateur we brought in who played you as a grade-school student. For some reason I couldn't stop thinking about her tonight. I'm curious to see how I created your precursor.”

“You won't see a thing.”

“Why?”

“Because you cut all of her scenes from the final film.”

“Oy,” cries Moses in sorrow, “she was cut in the end?”

“You claimed at the time that the film turned out too long, and the producer was demanding cuts, so without asking or notifying anyone you took out all the early scenes in elementary school and began with my graduation ceremony.”

“Your graduation?”

“I mean the heroine's.”

Moses feels a need for self-defense. “I wouldn't have cut it shorter just for the producer. There was surely some other reason, which I don't recall at the moment. Trigano was sharp and clever with dramatic stories told in a limited time frame but was less convincing when it came to giving a character a strong background, like inventing a childhood for you that would add depth to what happened to you later.”

“To me?”

“I mean the heroine. But that girl, who in the end wasn't in the movie, keeps me up at night like a ghost. What was it about her that I want so much to see? Was she especially attractive? Did she really look like you?”

“Toledano, who discovered her, thought she looked like me as a schoolgirl, and there were people in the crew who saw a resemblance, but for me it was hard to see, which is natural. But she really was an impressive girl, smart and ambitious, and I invested a lot in her. In any case, you never had the patience to work with little kids or teenagers. There's also something about you that seems to scare them.”

Moses is amused. “What about me could be scary?”

“When you are next to the camera, fixated on your goal, you're not aware how alienated and hostile you become toward anything unconnected to the film. Although toward that girl, as I remember, you were a little more patient, maybe because her father the colonel was always at the rehearsals and shooting. That's why you didn't dare yell at her. Or maybe because you also thought she looked like me. Or because back then, every so often, you were a little in love with me.”

“I'm always in love with you. Sometimes a little, and sometimes more. But what was her name?”

“Ruth.”

“Ruth?”

“It was because of her that I added her name to my old one.”

“Because of her? Why? You never said you changed your name because of her.”

“I intended just to add it, but her name, the new one, swallowed up the old one.”

“Why because of her?”

“Because I was happy that a real Israeli like her, from a good, established family, was picked to represent the childhood of the heroine who gets into such trouble. Therefore, after you dropped her from my film, I decided to compensate her by adopting her name.”

“Compensate her for what?”

“For the fact that until the film's premiere, she didn't know she wasn't in it. And that you didn't see fit to inform her, and I didn't know.”

“You didn't know because you never, in any film, wanted to get near the editing room and always waited to see yourself in the finished film.”

“Because it was hard to watch how you and the editors would cut us up, destroy our continuity, then paste us back together. And therefore, at the premiere, as I recall, not only she but I was astonished to see that you had dropped all the scenes of my youth.”

“Again yours. Not yours. The heroine's.”

“No, mine too. Because I liked it that you chose such a perfect girl to portray me in my childhood.”

“What do you mean, perfect?”

“Perfect. Rooted. A real Israeli. Salt of the earth. Well connected. Because in those days I thought . . . and now too, really . . . I know that we—Trigano, Toledano, the lot of us—would always somehow stay a bit in the margins, so I was happy that you gave me a little sister, so to speak, a twin who could strengthen me.”

“Again you?”

“Me in the film.”

“What is this, the movie gets mixed up with reality for you?”

“Sometimes. And not for you?”

“Never. The boundary between reality and imagination is always there for me.”

“Because you never dare to stand in front of a camera, only behind it, because only from there can you be the one giving the orders.”

T
HE ROOM IS
still dark and neither one can clearly see the face of the other. He holds her hand, separating her fingers one by one and pressing them together again, filled with desire for the actress whose childhood memories make her voice tremble.

“She, the little Ruth, came to the premiere excited, and confident too; we all praised her acting during the filming. And you didn't even bother to inform Amsalem that you had cut her out, and he sent her numerous invitations to fill up the theater. She arrived happy, surrounded by her family and girlfriends. At first I thought you'd changed the sequence and would go from present to past in flashbacks, but the film went on and on, and no trace of her. You simply erased her. And now you have the gall to say that you can't recall if she's in the movie or not?”

“I honestly didn't remember. I honestly hoped to see her.”

“You won't. You wiped her out. That's why she comes back at you like a ghost. To take revenge.”

“Revenge for what?”

“Until the last minute she waited to see herself. And when the film was over and the lights came up and the congratulations began, I saw her sitting frozen in her seat, her father consoling her. But when I came over she was crying bitterly—she wanted to be an actress, she wanted to play my childhood me, she felt she'd played her part well, and now it was all lost. And though I had no idea how to explain to her what happened or why, she took it all out on me, as if I were complicit in eliminating her from the film. Her heart was broken, and mine broke along with hers.”

“You're breaking hearts left and right, but after all is said and done, what happened? This wasn't the first or last time that more than a third of the material was cut in the editing process.”

“Not so simple. I held her deep inside me while we worked on that film, and despite Trigano's difficult script I led myself to believe that I was a natural extension of her, not of the girl in the movie, of the real girl I knew. I knew her family too, and I was even in their home a few times. You should know that when it came to that crazy scene with the beggar—it was because of her that I ran away.”

“Because of her?”

“And I didn't even know that you intended to cut her from the film.”

“I didn't know either. But where's the connection? Why her?”

“Because if she is me when I was young, and I am her as an adult, if she saw me on the screen in that sick scene Trigano scripted—and you standing there, demanding that I expose my breast and force a filthy old beggar to suck milk meant for the baby taken away from me—if she were to see that onscreen . . . As I faced that scene, I thought of her, the young actress, this pure and intelligent girl, and I thought how shocked and disappointed she would be, she and her whole family, when she saw this repulsive scene, and she might say to herself, Why did I get involved with this film in the first place? What possible connection could I have with such a disturbed woman?”

Moses speaks softly, as to a person who is ill: “What are you talking about? About characters in a film or about human beings?”

“Both.”

“Both? How does one mix the two up?”

“One does, if one lives the right way.”

“So in order to protect the ego of a spoiled, ambitious child from a good family, you ran away from the camera and killed our entire scene? And I even defended you. Maybe dropping that girl from the film was a good thing,” he says and regrets it immediately, considers how to soothe her, when the room phone rings. The reception clerk timidly informs Moses that the professor from the film institute is awaiting his presence in the lobby. “It's okay, I'm awake,” Moses assures him, “I'll be down soon.”

But instead of going down, he undresses, gets under the warm covers, tightly holds on to the real character, and kisses her as if asking for forgiveness and absolution. But as Ruth, surprised, yields in his arms, the phone rings again, the reception clerk announcing that the professor is now awaiting him in dining room.

“Damn,” grumbles Moses, trying to tighten his embrace, but Ruth pushes him away gently and says, “Go. I didn't understand a word of what he said at dinner, but I felt he was making an effort. Don't disappoint him.”

“And what will I understand? He speaks only Spanish.”

“Sometimes it's better for an artist not to understand the interpretation of his art.”

T
HE DINING ROOM
is still empty of guests, and Moses spots the theoretician right away. The man in his black suit sits at a table near a window slightly ajar, with only a carafe of coffee before him. Moses walks over briskly, apologizes for his tardiness, hoping to receive in return a simple “Good morning” in English.

But at this breakfast there is to be no English.
So,
thinks Moses,
if another monologue in Spanish is in store, I may finally be able to eat a full meal in peace.

The Spaniard escorts his guest to the buffet, and the meal is full indeed. The theoretician of cinema recommends traditional dishes of the region of Galicia, apparently providing details of origin and history. Moses, as someone who attaches aesthetic importance to food in his films, dares to broaden his palate, filling his plate with foods that in the past repulsed him.

So starts the breakfast. Two waitresses attend the two guests, one talking and the other one eating. The theoretician consumes nothing but black coffee, and when Moses raises an eyebrow to ask why, the theoretician sighs and interpolates bits of his medical history in his interpretation of film.

Now, with the teacher sitting across the table and not in an audience, Moses can get a good look at him. Don Gomez is actually his junior, but his hair is sparse, and the redness of his eyes suggests a chronic malady or sleepless nights. His black suit is shiny from use, and threads dangle from his jacket in place of two missing buttons, suggesting the absence of a spouse or close friend to look after him. Ink stains on the fingers of his right hand indicate an intellectual who is still fearful of computers. If he were asked to make a film in Spain, Moses would invite not only the reception clerk and the pilgrim to go before the camera but also this man, to talk for thirty seconds about anything he wanted. He appears to have considerable acting talent, able as he is to carry on in a resonant voice to a man who doesn't understand his language. And when Moses hears the names Kafka and Trigano repeated again and again and sees the Spaniard sketching in the air with his little hands the
animal
and
sinagoga
and talking about
servicio militar
and the
desierto,
and from there to the
tren
and
accidente,
it is clear that this scholar has delved deeply into his early works and is attempting a grand synthesis of them all. Guests now entering the dining room acknowledge with a curious smile the teacher's histrionic performance. With great appreciation Moses sees Ruth entering. This means she had not sought to be rid of him when she shoved him out of bed, for here she is now, giving up her lazy morning to join in and help him endure the unintelligible. Before she sits down with them she helps herself to a little bowl of dry cereal and pours in some milk.

A
T ELEVEN O
'
CLOCK
a student from the film institute arrives at the Parador and escorts the two guests to the municipal auditorium, for there, and not at the institute, will be held the screening of the last film in the retrospective of the early work of the Israeli director, for which he will be awarded a prize. Is the prize only for that film? Is it a consolation prize, Moses wonders, or an award of merit? Or a prize to encourage new projects? He is taken with the grandeur of the municipal auditorium, full of fine paintings and sculptures representing generations of connoisseurship. The screen, made of a sheer grayish fabric, hangs at the rear of the stage, failing to conceal adequately the colorful fresco behind it.

The invited guests, about a hundred in number, are a varied lot. Alongside a few dignitaries in dark suits sit teachers and students from the institute, and behind them elderly men and women from a local old-age home, some holding canes; the back rows are filled with municipal workers, clerks and secretaries and traffic inspectors, and Moses believes he recognizes a few of the whistling and pot-banging sanitation workers.

“You have certainly gathered a diverse crowd,” Moses says to Juan, who is quick to separate the two Israelis. He suggests that Ruth sit beside his mother, in the second row, and directs Moses to the front row, next to the mayor, who nods a friendly hello.