The Retrospective: Translated From the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman (2 page)

T
HOUGH THE DARKNESS
is total, the clock does not disappoint. It's 7:30
A.M.
, not 5:00. Sleep overcame consciousness and vanquished anxiety, and if during the night a strange dream had flickered, it didn't bother the dreamer. Yair slips out of bed and tries not to disturb his surroundings as he makes his way to the bathroom. His companion, asleep but not oblivious, instinctively occupies part of the vacated territory.

From the bathroom window, he can see people walking by the walls of the cathedral. Today is the first day of the retrospective, and it would be nice to rest a bit more before the commotion begins. Random rays of sunlight that have filtered onto the big bed cast a golden glow on the actress's bare feet, protruding from the quilt. Moses covers them, then carefully inspects the reproduction hanging on the wall. The stolen glance at night was superficial and misleading. Perhaps the picture represents some obscure mythological tale, not of an old man's lust for a young woman but rather of a hungry and desperate person. The old, muscular man is plainly a prisoner: his hands are tied behind him, and his naked, dirty feet have just been released from the stocks that rest nearby. His jailers have starved him so badly that he is drawn to the merciful breasts of a young nursing woman, who delicately guides his bald, sunburned head to the whiteness of her bosom.

Moses looks for the name of the artist and finds only two words in ornate script:
Caritas Romana,
meaning “Roman Charity,” and as if struck by a flash of distant lightning, he wonders whether Trigano knew of this strange and brazen painting hanging randomly in a hotel room in the Spanish province of Galicia. Is it conceivable that in the dawning light, by sheer coincidence, here in Santiago de Compostela, he has uncovered a secret source that long ago sparked the imagination of his former screenwriter? He was a talented young man, a near genius, but also fanatically inflexible, and because of one dropped scene, he had broken off relations with not only Moses but also his own lover, the actress, thus imposing her on the director—if not as an obligation, at least as a source of worry. Could this mythological picture have inspired Trigano to devise the crazy, provocative ending of their last film together?

The location chosen for the scene was a rundown back street not far from the fishermen's pier in Jaffa. The drizzly weather that day complemented the somber tone of the film. The cinematographer and the soundman, the makeup artist and the lighting man, were ready to roll, and despite the out-of-the-way location, a sizable crowd had gathered to watch. In the early 1970s, shooting a feature film on location was rare in Israel, and passersby were enchanted as if by magic. Moses has not forgotten that morning after all these years, for on that day the creative covenant between him and his screenwriter fell apart. On the street corner, on a stool, sat an elderly beggar dressed in rags—a well-known thespian from the National Theater. It was particularly important for Moses that in the final scene, it was not some anonymous extra playing the part, but a familiar and respected actor who would surprise the audience in the role of a miserable beggar and be engraved in their memory. The actor, however, demanded that his character be given a touch of intellectual flair, perhaps a top hat and not a mere cap to receive donations, or a pipe whose smoke would slither from his lips. As the final directions were given, Moses could sense the old actor's anticipation of sensual contact with a young woman's breasts, not least because the scene would doubtless be shot several times, with the most shocking yet plausible version to be achieved in the editing room. Despite its boldness, the scene wasn't difficult to stage. A young woman departs a private maternity clinic after leaving her newborn for adoption and wanders the streets anguished and forlorn, and when she sees the old beggar, she opens her coat, takes out a breast, and nurses him.

It's because of the nasty fight that broke out that morning that small details stick in the memory. The long old coat Ruth wore. Her face made up to look sickly and tormented. A rusty iron door on an abandoned house, meant to be the entrance to the clinic. But most memorable is the distress of the young actress. Toledano reshot her exit from the clinic door, hoping to strengthen the credibility of her action, but Moses sensed that something was amiss. Her gestures became more hesitant and hollow, as if her whole being was in rebellion against the scene written for her by her lover, the screenwriter. At first Moses assumed she was embarrassed by the presence of curious onlookers and suggested they film the breastfeeding behind a partition. But it became clear that it wasn't the gaze of strangers that unsettled her, since she had stripped for the camera before, and even craved it, Moses thought. Nor was she repulsed by the touch of the old actor's lips on her breast. Her spirit rebelled against the absurdity of a young woman who, right after giving up her child for adoption, feels impelled to breastfeed an old stranger. Knowing Trigano, she decided to dodge the scene decisively, without getting tangled up in words. As she approached the street corner, tracked by the camera, she suddenly dashed into the cab of the production truck, locked the doors, and rolled up the windows.

Moses instantly empathized with her action. Notwithstanding the disruption and the time and effort spent in preparing the location, he told Toledano, who had so looked forward to this scene, to turn off the camera, shut down the lighting, dismantle the track. And since in those days Moses was both the director and producer, he hurried to inform the beggar from the National Theater that the scene had been canceled and paid him right there in cash, the full amount. He still remembers the hot flush of insult on the face of the rejected actor, who had once played classic roles in the theater but in recent years couldn't find a job and thus needed something, however marginal, that would revive his reputation, or at least his self-worth. First the actor wanted to know if the actress was repulsed by him, and after Moses assured him that he wasn't the issue, it was the credibility of the scene, the actor let fly a curse, flung the burning pipe into the top hat, and demanded a taxi. A year or two later, reading the actor's obituary, Moses wondered if the shock he had dealt him that drizzly morning had perhaps hastened his death.

At first Trigano refused to accept the violation of his script and tried to convince his lover to reverse her decision. But since she knew it was in his power to subdue her rebellion, she decided to ignore him. She covered her face with her hands and refused even to lower the window. Trigano slammed his fist on the glass as if to break it. And Moses, trying to forestall further violence, took quick responsibility for canceling the final scene. Let's find a different ending, he suggested, something more heartfelt and plausible, a scene that conveys simple compassion, not intellectual provocation. And though he knew he was wounding the pride of his partner and former student, he got carried away and complained about the boring nonsense he'd had to direct lately, the sick and twisted situations he was increasingly expected to bring to life. He deliberately chose extreme language—
boredom,
not
difficulty
;
nonsense
, not
oddity
—that would undermine the self-confidence of his young collaborator. Trigano, who had been Moses' loyal and beloved student, had convinced him that together they could create visionary art, something utterly new, and persuaded him to switch from teacher to filmmaker. And now, suddenly, the teacher had denied not only the artistic value of his student's work but its moral quality.

Trigano bore the offense with a quiet hatred that undermined any chance of continued collaboration. True, creative differences had flared up between them before, arguments over characters and relationships, the content and style of dialogue, camera angles that had been spelled out in the screenplay. But a good partnership had endured, resulting in six films, admittedly unprofitable but unique and original and praised by those whose opinions mattered. But when the actress rebelled in the last scene of the seventh film—a scene that for the writer was the very point of the film—and the director not only made no effort to get her back in front of the camera but supported her action, Trigano quickly tore their collaboration to shreds. For it had been agreed that the screenplay could be discussed and debated during the writing process, but once the shooting started, the director was to honor the script.

And even though many years have gone by with no contact at all between the two, Moses still feels the stump of amputation, and he believes the screenwriter feels it too, even if he is too proud to ad- mit it.

After all, once they parted ways, Moses continued to make feature films, first from screenplays written by others and later, as success favored him, from scripts he wrote himself based on original ideas or adapted from books. Whereas the screenwriter's output was confined to short, esoteric films, and then, when his new collaborators proved incompetent and saddled the productions with financial problems, he stopped making films altogether and went into teaching.

Sometimes Moses feels a vague desire to get back in touch, but he never does. Reconciliation after a serious breakup is harder than smoothing feathers after an argument. When they ran into each other at public events, at festivals or symposia, they barely exchanged more than a few empty words. Moses had at first believed that Trigano left him because of the affront to his professional dignity, but when he saw that the writer had left his friend and lover too, Moses understood that Trigano's pride was injured not only by a director's excessive indulgence of an actress repulsed by a twisted script but also by the extreme kindness of another man to a distressed woman whom Trigano regarded as his own. For had Moses not truly melted at the sight of a frightened female refusing her breast to an old street beggar, he would never have dropped a scene he was previously willing to direct—one never seen on the screen before. Toledano, the cinematographer, in love with Ruth, had adjusted the lighting and the camera so the moment at the end, when the beggar's head touches her breast, would project the nuanced eroticism, the sense of longing and nostalgia characteristic of Ruth's performance in those days.

 

Now, contemplating the picture of Roman Charity, Moses dismisses the possibility that Trigano had known about this painting, or another one like it, when he came up with his scene. Shaul Trigano had been a pupil in his class, and he was the type who relied more on imagination than knowledge, which in his case was spotty. Besides, Trigano had not described an old prisoner, hands bound behind him, who can't touch the woman dispensing kindness, but rather an old beggar on a street corner who grabs like a baby for the breast that feeds him.

W
ITH THE FIRST
glimmer of consciousness, Ruth expands her conquest of the big bed, assuming a diagonal position that sends a clear message:
Don't come back to bed, my friend.
Other companions might have sought an alternative interpretation of the angle—such as
Come, I wait upon your pillow
—but Moses' stricter reading had been proven right in the past. He doesn't go near her except if she asks, and she doesn't ask unless he gives her a sign that he is willing and able to respond. In essence she is not a partner but a companion; more precisely, a character who reappears in his films because he feels obligated to take care of her. They've never lived under the same roof, and she has a social world of her own, where she stays in touch with friends and lovers. She has a modest income from her work as a drama teacher for children, so she is not dependent on movie roles given her by Moses or any other director. But lately, despite her long experience and lingering beauty, she is not exactly in demand. And as she is unfit for the theater, since she can't remember long stretches of dialogue, Moses has been trying to find her smaller parts in his films, and he recommends her for others. It would be a shame if her career ended in commercials for insurance companies or organic foods. Her intellectual resources are not deep. She came from a religious background, and in her father's house, not one unholy book sat on the shelf, and all the record albums were Jewish folk songs. Her mother died in childbirth, and her father, a tall, silent man who was a respected rabbi in their village of Debdou, in eastern Morocco, left his community to make aliyah to Israel, where to support himself and his only daughter he became a farm worker. Therefore, when Trigano began to take an interest in her and plan her future, her father wholeheartedly turned her over to the energetic young man, who persuaded his girlfriend to drop out of high school, believing that whatever he learned and knew would be hers too. Moses doesn't want to turn on the light but opens the curtains a bit to take another look at the picture, to decide whether to call it to Ruth's attention, possibly awaking painful memories, or let her discover it for herself. But the winter sun is in no hurry to visit the westernmost province of the Iberian peninsula, and in the faint gathering light, Ruth's diagonal position has exposed her legs, which are rubbing each other to keep warm. He takes the quilt and carefully covers them. All these years later he still remembers the praise once accorded them by an old painter who came three times in one day to see the first film she starred in.

That was in the 1960s, in a small movie theater in north Tel Aviv that specialized in unconventional art films, mostly foreign, some of them without subtitles. But ambitiously avant-garde Israeli films unable to make their way into the bigger theaters were also welcome to try their luck, which is how Moses and his collaborators came to show their film there.

In most of his early films, Ruth had significant roles, since as the scriptwriter's girlfriend she was available to work for free. The director and cinematographer were curious to feel out the audience, so they would sneak into the first screenings, with no expectation of favorable response. These were modest films, made under primitive conditions. Yet at their core lay an intense and arresting surrealism that attracted sophisticated viewers.