The Retrospective: Translated From the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman (12 page)

“The Nile relaxes them,” suggests Moses. “The Egyptians are always certain of their water sources; their surrealism as a result is less vulgar.”

The Spaniard's eyes open wide, then he smiles, as if he's heard a joke, but when the Israeli's expression remains serious, he tries to digest the answer, and a moment later he asks Moses if he really thinks the absurdist genre reflects national character or geography.

“No doubt about it,” says Moses, putting down his knife and fork to avert the temptation to talk with his mouth full. “Don't forget, we belong to an ancient people; for us, absurdity and surrealism are second nature, and so, when our art blends reality with a surrealistic spirit, or just bends it in an absurd direction, it needs a shot of violence, an overdose of imagination, because only then can art be distinguished from the absurd reality. You want only a free-floating threat? Our daily lives are filled with threats, which is why we cannot limit ourselves in a film to the threat to a speeding train—we have to actually throw it off the cliff.”

The young teacher closes his eyes to ponder the answer, his handsome face burnished by the glow of the copper pots and pans hanging on the wall. And then—after Moses picks up knife and fork—Bejerano wears a mischievous look as he challenges the director with a new hypothesis.

“If so, is it also possible to interpret the naturalistic detail in your recent films as a sort of inverted surrealism, a surrealism of calm reality?”

Moses chuckles with satisfaction.

“Let's assume . . . maybe . . . why not? That interpretation is yours and remains your property. I never get involved in interpretation of my films and I am willing to allow any interpretation, provided it's not an attack in disguise.”

Ruth is silent, dreamlike, not following the conversation. She is no longer eating what she piled on her plate in the first ravenous minute and has pushed it half full to the center of the table. Now she seizes her tea with both hands, presses the warm cup to her cheek, its pallor only thinly veiled by makeup.

In her absent-mindedness, can she still appreciate the delicate beauty of the young man sitting opposite her, or does this sort of thing no longer interest her? Over the years of their collaboration, Moses learned to gauge every shift in her mood. Even when she was not in front of the camera, or in his field of vision, he felt he knew what was on her mind. And now, in the dining room, despite the lusty singing in her morning shower, he can sense a depression setting in. Is the picture of
Roman Charity
slipping into her consciousness, an old memory giving rise to new melancholy?

“And today?” he asks Rodrigo. “Which films are being shown today?” The young man, unlike Pilar, does not need to pull a list from his pocket but quotes from memory the Spanish titles of the two films designated for today, quickly improvising their English titles.

Moses also asks about the film to be screened the next day, but Bejerano doesn't know; de Viola had given him only the list for today. In any case, the final decision is based on the experience of the day before—the reactions of students and teachers, the nature of the discussions, and the level of interest displayed by the wider audience. For the institute is not just an art-film house but a center of learning, and a retrospective here is not only part of the students' curriculum but also—please forgive the presumptuousness—an opportunity for the artists themselves to reconnect with their past and understand it better.

A waitress in a purple apron arrives and asks Moses to go to the reception desk after breakfast for a brief word. He assumes it has to do with the picture hanging by his bed, and since he would rather receive the information with Ruth not present, he doesn't wait till the end of the meal, but agrees to go at once, asking Ruth to guard his near-empty plate.

His assumption is correct. The quick response of the hotel staff to an unusual request by a guest apparently stems from its tradition of caring for weary pilgrims. The clerk on duty, after seeing the picture for himself, located in a nearby town his former art history teacher, and to the best of his ability described on the telephone its content and style. On the strength of his report, the teacher offered a strange story of the picture's background and even suggested the names of several possible German or Italian painters but said she could determine the identity of the artist only after actually seeing the painting. There are two options: invite the expert to the hotel, or send her the picture and hang another, less troubling one in its place. Moses immediately rejects the second possibility, and reminds the man that the picture does not bother him at all, quite the contrary; it connects with an important private memory . . .

“A private memory?” The hotel clerk is somewhat taken aback by the leap into the modern era.

“I mean the memory of a film I once made.”

In the end it is decided to bring in the art teacher, who can probably arrive within three hours.

On returning to the dining hall, he finds that Ruth has vanished. “She said,” the Spaniard explains, “that she forgot to take her medicine, and also that she would not be visiting the museum, but not to worry.”

“Why should I worry?” says Moses. Noticing the long line that has formed, he decides against another visit to the buffet, reaches for his companion's plate, and slowly finishes off her leftovers.

“The three films you screened yesterday,” he goes on, “were very early ones. I had no idea your retrospective would dig so deeply into my youth. And if you surprised me, the director, you surprised her, the actress, all the more. To meet her young self, and in a foreign language, would naturally excite her and also exhaust her. It's best she should rest this morning and be ready for the screenings this afternoon.”

Bejerano nods but adds that perhaps he is also to blame for her leaving; he may have worn her out with all his talk. Not often does a man get to sit face to face with an actress he has seen the night before in the full flower of her youth, and realize that despite the years, she has lost none of her magic.

Moses grabs the young man's hand with affection. “Your words are very generous, and even more if you actually believe them. If you get a chance to tell her how you feel, it will help her self-confidence, which naturally enough has faded in recent times. But don't torture yourself thinking she went back to the room because you talked too much. She loves conversation, and she enjoys listening to people talk, but her headaches are real, especially when she forgets to take her medicine. By the way, what did you talk about?”

“I talked. She listened. She asked what I thought of yesterday's films, and I told her frankly that despite understandable weaknesses, typical of such early films, I was pleased to find them free of a certain annoying flaw found in many films today. I mean the doubling of the plot in the last third of the movie.”

“Doubling of the plot?” Moses is intrigued. “I can guess what you mean, but please, tell me.”

“A film begins,” says the young Spaniard, trying to formulate a thought precisely in his halting English, “I mean a realistic film, serious, psychological, with a believable plot.” A film about human relationships, about people with a real problem that demands attention and a decision that is painful and not simple. The suspense is genuine, subtle but clearly defined. However, past the halfway point, the film drops off, not because the original problem has been resolved, but because the filmmakers, or more exactly the producers, were afraid the audience would be bored. There is a sense of an ending to the film, and there should be, because a work of art, as opposed to life, has a clear shape, but in the meantime the screenwriter and director have run out of ideas. They cannot drill to a deeper layer in the relationships that have been formed. And the producer begins to complain that the product he has in hand is good for only sixty or seventy minutes, but what happens after that? So then, instead of developing new aspects of the existing conflict, they spread a layer of glue on the story to attach an additional plot—ghosts arise, long-lost relatives come to visit, painful family secrets are exposed, or one of the characters gets cancer. No, this is not the same old deus ex machina of the Greek plays, a god brought down from the skies with a butcher's knife to slice through the complications that the characters can't manage to resolve. This is actually an additional plot, connected to the other one with crude, implausible threads, to please the distributors of the film.

“Outstanding. A sharp diagnosis.” Moses applauds. “And in my early films, you say, you found no tendency toward a double plot.”

“Not yet. The plot line is clear and unified, though very simple, maybe a bit primitive, but not doubled in any way.”

This young and handsome Spaniard—I like him a lot,
thinks Moses. He is thoughtful, honest, open, and it will be possible to get information out of him that the sly little priest shrouds in secrecy.

“Let's have another cup of coffee and see if there's some double plot on the buffet, and have a taste of that. Then we'll go to the museum, and perhaps again to the cathedral. When I arrived I said to de Viola that we'll have plenty of time here, but the plenty will too soon be over.”

“Three days in a city like Santiago de Compostela is a quick trip, but if your time is running out, my time will make it better.”

M
OSES GOES TO
get his jacket and finds the room is dark, except for a bedside lamp by which Ruth, relaxed in her nightgown, is leafing through a booklet of photos of the city.

“Good thing you decided to go back to bed.”

“Only because you said last night that uncivilized sleep isn't restful.”

“Precisely”—he is gratified that she remembers—“which is why you need to rest before the exhausting encounter with two films we made in our childhood.”

“Exhausting?”

“Because it's harder and harder for me to understand what we made then and why.”

“Hard? For you?”

“Even for me. Because, as you know, for me the plot is not enough, not in my films or in the films of others. And in those first screenplays, the real power was not in the story, not even in the strange situations, but in the sharp dialogue that he . . . Trigano . . . wrote. That's where his wild imagination really shone.”

Only rarely does he explicitly mention in her presence the man who drove her away, and her face catches fire, and she seems about to respond but thinks the better of it and returns to the photo brochure.

“You still have a headache?”

“Who told you I had a headache?”

“The Spaniard, the teacher.”

“Aha.”

“So how is it?”

“Going away . . . Soon it'll be gone.”

“I'm sorry I told you to postpone the blood test.”

“And I'm sorry I mentioned it.”

“Why?”

“Because I have no intention of letting anybody take my blood ever again. So don't be sorry. I'm healthy.”

“Of course you're healthy,” mumbles Moses, sensing the old resentment. It was imprudent of him to take her to the retrospective before clarifying in advance what would be screened. The gap between past and present would likely be painful for her. He glances at
Roman Charity
and notices that the little light above the picture is off. Did the bulb burn out, or did Ruth find the hidden switch? He still resists directing her attention to the painting. She should make the connection on her own.

“As a matter of fact,” he says, “the handsome young man, our escort Bejerano, an intelligent and honest man, told me that he didn't get around to telling you that despite all the years that have passed, you still have the allure that was evident in yesterday's films.”

“Why didn't he get around to it?”

“Because all his talk about the double plot drove you away from the table.”

“Why should it drive me away? Your recent films are filled with double plots and I tolerate them anyway.”

“Double plots in my films?” He laughs to mask the sting. “In what sense? Tell me.”

“Not now.” She switches off her bedside lamp. “We still have plenty of time together here . . .”

“Not that much,” he mumbles, and puts on his jacket.

 

A freezing wind gusts through the huge, empty square.

“Thanks to your Israeli presence,” says Rodrigo, “we have been blessed with perfectly clear skies.”

“But very cold days,” Moses adds.

“That's not a bad thing. Cold and dry sharpens the thoughts; rain and snow dull them.”

Rodrigo suggests going first to the museum situated beneath the cathedral. Not a large museum, nor in his view an important one, but since it is included in the schedule, best to get it over with before it is flooded with tourists. And instead of making another visit to the cathedral, he suggests taking advantage of the sunny morning and going to the promenade on the far side of the Old Town.

Is this teacher, wonders Moses, trying to save him money? For he stubbornly argues with the museum director, demanding that he not make the guest of honor and laureate of the retrospective pay for admission. Moses quickly takes out his wallet and pays for them both. The museum director offers, perhaps by way of compensation, to show him around, but Moses declines. He who pays to get in deserves an exemption from the erudition of an enthusiastic guide.

Rodrigo is right; even at first glance, the sculptures are mediocre and the paintings boring. No need to impersonate art lovers strolling through the exhibits. Moses picks up his pace and makes for the exit. “Already? Your visit is over?” The museum director is dismayed, and even as Rodrigo tries to apologize, Moses turns and asks him if he happens to have heard of
Caritas Romana.
He has found a reproduction hanging in his hotel room but without the name of the artist. And with his hands and lips he acts out the scene of the old man and the bare-breasted woman.