The Retrospective: Translated From the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman (29 page)

“Why is it important to grab it?”

“As an educational film for our youth. To warn them. The Ministry of Education and also the Welfare Ministry could invest in it . . .”

Moses rests his head on his hand, takes a sip of water. He is uneasy with the transition from a tragic personal story to possible investment by a government ministry.

“Let's talk later,” he says to the producer.

“Don't worry,” says Amsalem, laying his hands on the shoulders of the greengrocers, who have listened raptly, “these are good friends, why shouldn't they hear the story?”

The two nod their agreement.

“By the way, how was the roast beef?” continues Amsalem. “Want some more?”

“No,” says Moses. “If I want some more, I'll help myself. You're making me dizzy.”

“I don't know why you're dizzy—I suppose too much retrospective made you oversensitive. Have more meat before the cake and dessert. And before you go back to Tel Aviv, rest in the room I reserved for you. I know your siesta is worth more to you than all your friends.”

M
OSES GOES TO
the buffet, takes a fresh plate, and again inspects the meat dishes. But the story of the young mother has upset him and he puts the plate back, takes a bowl, and surveys the colorful desserts, then puts the bowl back, takes a red apple, sticks it in his pocket, and makes his way to the garden. The mother and son are sitting under an olive tree waiting for the little sister to finish her ice cream. He stops, puts a hand on the girl's head, and bends over to look at the baby in the carriage. The tiny baby, light-skinned, flutters his hands. Moses touches the white scarf wrapped around his head. The father, tense, watches him, but Moses smiles and says, with the confidence of a veteran grandpa, “A sweet baby, but does he let you sleep?” “Not all the time,” says the boy, “in fact, hardly ever.” Moses takes a closer look at the boy. He is not much older than his own grandson, but he has already known a woman and sired a child and seems mature, serious. And Moses looks with warm encouragement at the young grandmother, whose allure has only grown in the sunshine. “Yes,” he says, “your brother-in-law told me the rest of the story, and I must admit, it is a truly unusual story.”

“That's why we thought,” interjects the boy, “that my story could be the basis for a film of yours . . . with some changes, obviously.”

Moses is stunned by the clear willingness of the boy to turn his sin into a film, as if art could atone for his disgrace. Careful to say nothing hurtful, he mumbles softly, “Yes, maybe . . . but to make a decision I need more details. Like how your classmates have reacted, what they think about what you did or what happened to you . . .”

“At first they didn't believe it. Then, when they saw it was real, they were scared, they didn't want to get near her or me, and after the birth they were even more distant. It wasn't so much them as their parents, they made us and the baby sound contagious. It was like a boycott. But now it's not a boycott, now some friends, especially the girls, come to see the baby and want to help. They bring me assignments from classes I missed, and they volunteer to diaper him or give him a bath. Not just girls . . . boys too . . .”

“Wonderful,” says Moses, who is devising a scene in his mind, boys and girls getting a bath ready for the baby. “But what does your father say about all this?”

Silence falls. The boy's face darkens.

“His father doesn't say anything,” says his mother. “His father abandoned his son, abandoned us all.”

“Abandoned? Why? Religious reasons?”

“Religious? Why religious?”

“No reason . . . I thought . . . because I understand you are a bit Orthodox.”

“We are traditional, and if you are traditional you decide for yourself what is forbidden and what is permitted.”

“Beautiful, that's how it should be,” declares Moses, getting carried away. “I noticed that despite your lovely headscarf you allow yourself to write on Shabbat.”

She seems confused. “Not just write . . .” she whispers, stopping there, not spelling out what else she does on the Sabbath.

“In any case, why did the father abandon the son?”

“From the start we had agreed that the baby would be given up for adoption. Because Yoav's father is positive that the girl, the mother of the baby, won't be coming back.”

“And you believe that she will,” volunteers Moses.

“I don't know . . . But how can I not respect the love and loyalty of my son? Would it be right to dismiss his hope that because he is taking care of their baby, she might come back—to him, or even just to the baby?”

The youth gazes at his mother in gratitude, as if this is the first time he is hearing such a strong and clear statement of her support for him.

“And you still don't believe that this story in our hands can be turned into a marvelous film,” mutters Amsalem, who has been standing behind them.

“I'll understand once I've thought it through.”

“Bravo!” shouts the producer. “Get some rest and do some thinking.”

Amsalem steers him through the crowd to a little room connected to the house through the kitchen, tucked into a rear courtyard and exposed to the arid desert air. A little office of sorts, where Amsalem sequesters himself with account books and documents, most of which he does not care to make public. “The real accounting room,” as he calls it, is furnished with a desk and computer and shelves, and also a big reclining armchair where one may nap while the real and true accounts balance themselves.

“You want a blanket?” the host asks the guest. “Or should I turn on the heat?”

“Both,” says the director, “though I don't want to fall asleep, just get refreshed.”

“Even if you sleep a little it wouldn't be so bad. It's more comfortable here than under my truck.”

“In the days when I would rest under your truck during the shoot I thought it was a way of reviving brain cells that had died that morning. Then I discovered that what dies doesn't come back to life. If you can, please, have somebody bring me coffee, black, Turkish, strong, of the kind your first wife of blessed memory knew how to make.”

“The second one also knows. I wouldn't marry a woman who didn't know how to make good coffee.”

“She does seem like a wonderful woman. Her sister too. Though she is slightly odd.”

“Not odd, stubborn. She injected something religious into the argument with her husband over the baby, got God involved. I said to my wife, Get her off God, but my wife didn't succeed. We also tried to convince her to give the baby for adoption but we couldn't. She knows the mother won't be coming back to Israel but is afraid to ruin the boy's hopes and doesn't realize that meanwhile, the baby is robbing him of his youth. Tell me, Moses, the truth: Isn't this a good story?”

“Slow down, you're overexcited. So far it sounds like a Bollywood picture.”

“Maybe the basic idea. But if we got a clever screenwriter, a bit crazy, like Trigano, he would upgrade the film from India to Europe, stir the pot and spice it up, maybe even have the lovesick and desperate boy threaten to harm the child, not seriously, but as a way of getting his loved one back.”

Moses closes his eyes.

“What made you think of Trigano?”

“No reason. You didn't mention him when you told me about Spain?”

“I might have. You still in touch with him?”

“Not at all.”

“Now, for God's sake, be a good host and get me some coffee. And let's call a time-out.”

“As you wish. But do me a favor, don't touch anything here. It's all organized so that if one piece of paper is moved, I'm a dead man.”

T
HE HOST IS
gone and a sweet silence fills his bookkeeping hideaway. Beyond the barred window, a view of skies as blue as if painted by a child. The power of the desert, thinks Moses. Eighty kilometers away you have rainstorms, and here, pure clear skies. Though the little room is warm, he has no intention of falling asleep, and while he waits for the coffee to revive him, he wraps himself in a checkered woolen blanket, eats the apple he stashed in his pocket, and studies the portrait of the king of Morocco hanging over the desk where Amsalem performs his tax evasions.

He is so accustomed to afternoon naps that despite his decision to rest and not sleep, his eyes snap open only when Amsalem's sister-in-law, the young grandmother, enters, pulling the baby carriage while balancing a tray of coffee and cookies, the sounds of robust Israeli singing accompanied by accordion trailing behind her.

Moses suspects she took the coffee delivery upon herself so she could continue narrating her family story, but she surprises him with a strange request—she would like to leave the baby with him in this room. The young father wants to unwind a bit in a soccer game with the kids, and she would like to join the group singing in the living room, to lift her spirits a little, and if the baby starts crying he can call her. After all, Moses once had grandchildren this age, didn't he?

“Four,” he proudly declares, “with more to come, I hope.”

“Good, then.” The woman smiles.

What's good? He is baffled by the rather presumptuous request for him to babysit this problematic child—perhaps to tempt him to make a film that will alleviate the indignity. But he smiles kindly, helps the attractive woman find a suitable place for the carriage, and takes charge of the pacifier, making it clear that he will seek help at the first signs of yowling.

“Thank you, Yair.” Suddenly they are on a first-name basis. She hurries back to the singing, he closes the door after her. Before checking on the uninvited guest, he gulps several small cups of hot coffee. Now, wide awake, he takes a close look at the baby whose name nobody has bothered to tell him.

The baby is awake and gives the director a quiet, knowing look. Is the blue-black color of his eyes a joint venture of America and Israel or something temporary, likely to change? Moses considers whether to stick in the pacifier right away to head off a scream, or wait for one patiently so he can put a quick end to babysitting and restore the child to his grandmother, who didn't leave him milk. He offers the baby the pacifier, and the little one hesitates before accepting it as consolation for the breast that had gone all the way to America. But even as he sucks at it avidly, he maintains a curious gaze at the unfamiliar old man who might make him a character in his next film.

Moses knows from experience that the pacifier will not prevent a round of wailing, nor will smiling or making funny faces. He leans over and picks up the baby in his arms, amazed how light he is.

He takes him to the window, to the vista of the gleaming desert in the noonday sun, carefully holding the child's head lest it fall back, though he seems already able to hold it up on his own. The baby is quiet. Moses points at the blue skies stretched over the desert, and the pacifier falls out as the child gapes with wonder. A new, urgent idea crosses the director's mind, and he replaces the baby in his carriage.

The baby, disappointed, produces a slight wail of protest, a clear enough sign for Moses, who will not do battle with any child. He picks him up again and carries him through the kitchen, its air thick with the smell of leftovers, to the front yard, looking for the young father, who is indeed there, a boy among boys, excitedly chasing a ball, and Moses suddenly laments the lost childhood of this lad trapped by love, and he retreats to the house with the baby in his arms and sternly scans the group of singers, and as he searches for the young grandmother, she hurries toward him, takes her grandson, and says, disappointed: “What happened? So fast?”

“Nothing I could do; you didn't leave any milk, and besides, I have to be going, because I'm paying another visit on the way back.”

I
T'S STILL EARLY
afternoon, and Moses asks Amsalem, who escorts him to his car, if he remembers the location of the wadi where
Slumbering Soldiers
was filmed. Amsalem remembers, for it was he who supplied fresh food during the shoot. “It's no more than forty-five kilometers from here, and the road has surely been improved.”

“It's been more than forty years,” says Moses, “so find me the place on the map. When I saw the film in Spain I got all nostalgic for the Nabataean ruin we turned into a secret installation.”

“Let's hope it hasn't been razed.”

Moses takes out an old map from the trunk and follows Amsalem's thick finger as it moves from the Ohalim junction by the Ohalei Kedar prison, to the Nokdim junction by Ramat Hovav, to the forest of Nahal Secher, to the Negev junction, then heads left from there to the old oil pipeline road that passes at the foot of Hyena Hill to the vicinity of Yeruham and then straight to the Big Crater, where it plunges down to Wadi Matmor. “This is where we made that crazy movie,” says Amsalem.

“Matmor?”

“Or maybe it was Hatira. When you get there you'll remember, or just ask any Bedouin. If I didn't have guests, I would gladly drive you, but since you're already in Beersheba, why not go there? The roads are empty on Shabbat and the police don't go there, you can speed down and back in an hour.”

Given such encouragement, Moses heads south and not north. He drives the route of Amsalem's finger and finds that the late-afternoon road is indeed empty, taking a holy Sabbath nap. Here and there, an old pickup truck emerges from a distant Bedouin encampment. Sometimes Bedouins cross the road, raising a hand in greeting or just wanting to hitch a ride.

Yellow dominates the desert scenery, dotted here and there by reddish bushes and green shoots, encouraged by infrequent rain. The mountains in the distance look like a giant accordion, their foothills arranged like loaves of dough awaiting a blazing oven. The view is joined by the whistle of a new wind, which thickens the haze and fans the road with a fine coating of sand.