The Retrospective

by A. B. Yehoshua

  On his way back to the table, Moses asks the waitress for another cup of coffee. At the table, the two women are deep in conversation. “All right, then,” says Moses, “let’s get going and see the cathedral.”

  “But wait,” insists Ruth, “which films were picked for our retrospective?” Linking herself, as usual, to Moses.

  “What’s the difference,” Moses says in Hebrew, “we know our own films.”

  “But if we have to explain, or defend them . . .”

  “Defend?” Moses pats her arm affectionately. “You mean discuss them. But even if we need to defend them, so what? We won’t know how to defend what we created?”

  Pilar pulls out a piece of paper with the titles in Spanish of the three films to be screened that day, improvising their translation into English, and the visitors do not recognize a single one. “You’re sure these are ours?” asks Moses with a laugh. “Or did you bring someone else’s films by mistake?”

  It turns out that here in Spain, foreign films are freely assigned titles that appeal to the local audience. It takes a bit of wit and ingenuity to excavate the old titles hiding behind the new. There has been no mistake. These are indeed Moses’ films, from the dawn of his career, forgotten films made in full collaboration with Trigano.

  “Why did you pick such ancient films of mine?”

  “For you they are ancient,” says Pilar, “but not for us. We have silent films here in which the mother of de Viola, the director of our archive, performed as an actress.”

  “She’s still alive?”

  “Barely. But if she feels well enough, she will personally present you with the award you’ve been promised.”

  6

  “IF THESE ARE today’s films,” says Moses to Ruth as they walk into the giant square, whose majestic emptiness in daylight is no less glorious than its nakedness at night, “we won’t be able to go shopping during the screenings. We’ll have to sit in the dark and try and remember the details, or we won’t be able to answer the audience’s questions intelligently.”

  The day is cold and bright. The plaza is lined by imposing palaces, which Pilar identifies by name—Palacio de Rajoy, where the mayor will soon receive them for an official visit, and the former Colegio de San Jerónimo, today the Institute of Galician Studies, whose rector, says Pilar, hopes to honor them with his presence at one of the screenings. And of course the massive cathedral itself, built atop a Romanesque church, its towers looming above a grand quadruple flight of stairs, the battered, greenish steps leading to the entrance. An aficionado of European cathedrals, Moses enjoys the novel experience of a long climb from ground level to the towering church. At the northern face of the cathedral stands a statue of Santiago, Saint James, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus and the patron saint of Spain; his sacred remains migrated to this place and since the Middle Ages have attracted pilgrims from all over the world who seek blessings and healing.

  Therefore, in contrast to many European cathedrals, where often one finds only an African or Korean priest celebrating the Mass for a handful of foreign workers and a few local women, here the cathedral is crammed with tourists, who upon entering are transformed into pilgrims; they kneel and make the sign of the cross, sing sweet hymns at masses performed in small chapels. Near the stairs leading to the crypt housing the relics of the saint, believers wait patiently in line, hoping to draw strength from the dry bones.

  Because the birdlike emissary of the archive is not sure if Jews draw strength from a competing religion, she leads them instead alongside the pews, pausing occasionally at statues and explaining their significance.

  One cannot help but notice the brisk activity in the confessional booths. Along the interior walls, on both sides, the booths are arrayed one after the next, many more than generally found in cathedrals. Remarkably, even at this early hour, the confessionals are manned by priests in robes, some hidden behind a curtain, others on view awaiting prospective clients, immersed in books that through the lattices of the booths appear to be novels rather than holy scriptures.

  Moses is impressed by the vitality of the religious rite of confession, which he had naively assumed was on the decline. “Decline? Not in Spain,” Pilar replies, “and surely not in this cathedral.” She blushes, her eyes glinting with mischief. Perhaps the visitors from Israel wish to confess?

  “I don’t rule it out,” Yair Moses says with a smile, “but I would first need to put my sins in order.”

  “In order? How so?”

  “Separate personal from professional sins, for which I would need a priest who is also an expert in film. But is it possible for a priest to take confession from someone who is neither a Christian nor a believer in God?”

  “It is possible for him to take confession from such a person, but he cannot grant absolution,” answers Pilar confidently, “and don’t be surprised if you find a priest here who also understands film.”

  “Then I’m ready to confess,” Ruth chimes in, attracted by the idea of confession at a safe distance of a few thousand kilometers from home, though it is unclear whether her fractured English could express her sins adequately.

  The animation teacher smiles faintly, steering the pair toward the large altar at the front. Here, too, one last confessional, isolated and closed, apparently in use. Pilar asks the two to wait until the curtain is opened, and after a huge red-faced man emerges, wiping away tears, she approaches cautiously and pulls from the darkness a short priest in a big robe. His face brightens at the sight of the Israelis, and he cordially inquires whether their hotel room was comfortable and their breakfast satisfactory.

  Ruth recognizes him and speaks his name, but Moses is still grappling with the fact that Juan de Viola, their host and the director of the film archive, is also an ordained priest.

  “Films and the Church?”

  “Why not? If painting and sculpture, music and poetry, choral performance and theater have been nurtured for centuries under the wing of the Catholic Church, why not include their younger sister, the seventh art? What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing wrong at all,” says Moses, “but it is odd that I was not warned in advance that my retrospective was organized by a religious institution.”

  “Warned?” says the priest, flaring his robe with mild irritation. “And if you had been warned, you would not have honored us with your presence?”

  “I would have come.”

  “And why not? Especially,” says de Viola, “since the municipality and the government are partners with the institute and archive, which also receive contributions from private individuals. My mother, for one, who in her youth acted in silent films by Luis Buñuel, is a generous contributor. This is why the bishop has freed me from certain obligations, to enable me to join the administration of the institute and make sure that my family’s assets are squandered only on worthy causes.” He winks.

  A friendly and unusual fellow, thinks Moses. On the third day, before we leave, perhaps I’ll make a small confession in his booth.

  “And your mother,” says the director, leaning closer to the priest, enthralled by the notion of an ancient actress from the silent era, “your mother also lives here in Santiago?”

  No, his mother lives in Madrid. She is ninety-four, sharp of mind, though her body is infirm. She knows about the Moses retrospective and is one of its financial backers, and if she feels up to it, she will attend the prize ceremony on the third day. She is even familiar with a few of Moses’ films and believes in his future.

  “My future?” Moses blushes. “At my age?”

  “‘When the future is short,’” the son quotes his mother, “‘it becomes more concentrated and interesting.’”

  They cross the big square on their way to the mayor. About thirty sanitation workers are staging a demonstration, banging pans and blowing whistles, lustily shouting rhythmic protests and waving red flags. Two bored policemen stroll calmly beside them, making sure the demonstrators do not overstep some invisible line ap
parently agreed upon. Yet every so often, the agreement gives way to rage, and one of the protesters bursts forth with his whistle. As the policemen casually approach him, he retreats with equal ease.

  On the magnificent steps of the municipal palace, Moses realizes he left his hearing aids at the hotel. A simple courtesy call should not be a problem, provided he sits close enough to the mayor and tilts his head at a certain angle, but what if the chambermaid thinks they are used earplugs and tosses them into the wastebasket? For a moment he considers asking his hosts to wait a minute on the stairs while he runs to the hotel, but the actress, always sensitive to his anxieties, calms him. “I have brought them, though you seem fine without them.”

  “Yes, my guardian angel,” says Moses shakily, “sometimes I can manage without them, but it’s better to have them with me.”

  She removes the hearing aids from her bag and sneaks them into his hand, so as not to reveal his disability to strangers. But he no longer considers people who know his biography, and honor him with a three-day retrospective, to be strangers, and he sticks the devices in his ears in front of Pilar and the priest, noting with a touch of irony: “This way I can better hear the possibilities for my short but concentrated future.”

  Good thing he has improved his hearing, for the mayor, Antonio Santos, a thickset man and as short as the priest, turns out to be amiable and curious, and to the joyful sounds of the sanitation protest, he shifts the routine courtesy call into a serious interview.

  “I’ve read your bio,” he says in Spanish, waving the printout from the Internet with the blurry photo, “but I ask that you expand on it a bit.”

  A surprising and flattering request, and though simultaneous translation by Pilar requires that he pause every few sentences, Moses expands a good deal, and looking over the great square of pilgrimage on this dazzling morning, he unspools his life story, the full director’s cut, outtakes and all.

  He was born into an upstanding, educated Jerusalem family before the outbreak of the Second World War. After the establishment of the State of Israel, his father and mother both went to work for the state comptroller’s office, in which capacity they spent most of their time scrutinizing the faults and failings of the new government. At work, the mother outranked the father, who reported to her, and so at home, as compensation, she served and coddled him. Yair Moses was an only child, and he learned from his parents that every politician had a little back pocket filled with secrets worth investigating. His parents insisted that after his military service he pursue higher education that would enable him to follow in their footsteps and be useful to society. At first he studied economics and accounting, but then, breaking free of his parents, he switched to philosophy and history, and ultimately got a teaching job at an elite Jerusalem high school, the same one he had attended as a youth. He had no trouble controlling his students. If a teacher maintains a cool distance and occasionally erupts in spontaneous rage, students are careful not to defy him. In those days he still lived at home to save on rent, and his parents would pester him to go out at night to get free of his dependence on them. But as an only child, accustomed to solitude, he didn’t tend to seek the company of others and often found himself wandering about Jerusalem or going to see a film alone, never thinking he might someday want to make motion pictures and certainly not believing he had the capacity to do so.

  Then, after three or four years, there appeared in his eleventh-grade class an unusual student whose creative originality and aura of self-confidence deflated the standoffish pose of the teacher. This talented young man was from a small town in the south of Israel, formerly a transit camp for Jewish immigrants from North Africa. While still in elementary school, the boy had lost his father, and was sent to a vocational school in the hope he would find employment as an auto mechanic or factory worker and support his mother. But the power of his imagination and ideas prompted his teachers to put him on an academic track, and a modest scholarship was arranged so he could attend a first-rate school. It was under the influence of this student who happened to land in his class that the teacher of history and philosophy became a film director.

  “A student?”

  “Who later became my screenwriter.”

  “This fellow . . .” murmurs the mayor, perusing the bio sheet, looking for the name.

  “I don’t think you’ll find him there,” Moses quickly comments, “he was the writer in only my very first films.”

  “The marvelous ones . . .” whispers the priest to himself.

  “And perhaps may again be in the future,” graciously suggests the mayor.

  “Perhaps . . .” softly repeats the actress, closely following the detailed story she knows so well and will soon be part of.

  “In the future?” Moses chuckles. “But the future is so short and concentrated . . .”

  “If a student turns a teacher of history and philosophy into a film director,” says de Viola, “it proves that students can revolutionize the lives of their teachers, not just the other way around.”

  Of course, the director continues, but if the connection had existed only in the classroom, it’s doubtful even so special a student would have had such an influence. The student’s stipend was small and he had to work. He found a job as an usher and janitor at a local movie theater beloved by Jerusalemites for the caliber of its films and its location in a pleasant, formerly Arab neighborhood outside the shabby city center. In those days—because Ben-Gurion, the legendary prime minister, prohibited television broadcasting in the young country lest hard-working citizens waste precious sleeping time—people went often to the movies. Moses would usually go to a second show, and he’d bump into the usher on entering and leaving. It wasn’t right to give only a passing nod in the evening to a student so active and intelligent in the morning, and Moses was agreeable when the young man wished to hear the teacher’s impressions of the film just seen and, even more, to offer the teacher his own opinions.

  Given the advantage of being an usher, who sees a film many times, the boy achieved a deep understanding not only of what went on in films, but also of what went wrong, of missed opportunities. He knew how to link what he learned in the morning with what he saw and heard in the evening, and so Moses, to encourage him, would engage him in late-night conversation about the movie just ended.

  The protest songs outside grow louder, but the mayor stays on track. Patiently, almost like a therapist, he asks his guest to continue. In recent years, ever since his wife left him, Moses has avoided personal disclosures, but he is won over by the interest in his professional development on the part of a mayor of so famous a city. The hearing aids pick up every word, and Pilar’s translations of questions and answers seem accurate in rhythm and tone. And while she translates, he feasts his eyes on the mayor’s office, on whose walls, amid portraits of the city’s mayors and other dignitaries, hang pictures of hunting scenes, replete with straining dogs and bleeding stags, and young women in states of undress, adding a splash of sensuality to the severe vista of the cathedral outside. Now and again, he exchanges a tender glance with Ruth, who follows the conversation, eagerly anticipating the moment when she will appear in the story.

  And there is no doubt that she will.

  The late-night discussions with the student involved close analysis of the films—of characters and plot, ideas and emotions, questions about what touched the viewer’s heart and what left him cold and sometimes angry and disappointed, what provoked laughter and what brought a person to tears, what was believable, what seemed arbitrary, what would surely be remembered, and what was eminently forgettable.

  This is all about Trigano, de Viola explains to the mayor, who nods as if he actually recognizes the name, and for a moment Moses is alarmed that the name of the screenwriter he broke off relations with so many years ago has come up here, in this strange and distant place, but he quickly reminds himself that Trigano’s name appears in the credits of his early films. Relieved, he continues to speak well of him. />
  “Yes, that’s his name, and although he was younger than me by almost ten years, I found nothing wrong in the intellectual connection between us in those nighttime conversations, particularly because the boy never tried to exploit this connection to gain privileges in the morning. In class, he continued to meet his obligations, was as well behaved and focused as ever, answered questions concisely and to the point, with none of the excitement he displayed at night. Slowly I sensed that the young man was not content to analyze and understand films made by others but was dreaming of making films of his own. And so I was therefore not surprised when at the end of his last year, he asked me to help him make a short eight-millimeter film about the school, to be shown at the graduation ceremony.”

  At first it appeared that Moses’ role in this short film would be limited to oversight of the budget provided by the school. But he soon found himself offering advice, getting involved on the artistic side. In the end, the work was widely praised, so much so that this amateurish film, lasting all of ten minutes, was Trigano’s admission ticket to the film unit of the Israeli army. During the years of his military service, he would come in uniform to visit his teacher, to tell him of his activities and consult about the future. Also in the film unit were a cinematographer and a lighting man who were both, like Trigano, North African immigrants from Israeli development towns, and Trigano tried to interest them in working with him after they were discharged. But his friends were ready to collaborate only if somebody serious supervised his fantasies—in short, they demanded a senior partner who would see to the proper management of the production. Trigano invited his teacher to join his young group. It’ll bore you to repeat yourself year after year, Trigano said. You can have a real connection to young people only by working with them, not from a teacher’s podium. But Moses imposed a condition: If he was a partner, he would not be just a bookkeeper and production manager, he would also participate in the creative process. Trigano would dream up the plot, make up scenes, and write the dialogue, and Moses as director would bring Trigano’s vision to life. Why not? The screenwriter overflowed with ideas, and his friends took care of camera work and lighting, but they needed a leader, a man whose authority people were glad to respect.