The Retrospective

by A. B. Yehoshua

  At this point, the mighty Israeli landscape enters the picture. Moses is struck by how Toledano’s old camera managed to wrap wind, waves, and sky around the heavily pregnant woman as she walks on the beach. Here begins the turnabout in her mind, a reversal that Moses had to convey with few words and many silences. Slowly the meaning of the mission she has undertaken becomes clear to her: even after the child is handed over to its adoptive parents, she will always, as its mother, be tied to it. And not only to it, but to them. She, too, will have to bear the burden of their memories.

  From now on, a new, painful recognition comes into focus, devised by Trigano for the ending of the film in keeping with his personal ideology. In Jerusalem, the two future adoptive parents are preparing for the imminent birth, their anxiety mingled with excitement, retaining an obstetrician and a veteran midwife, splurging on overpriced baby gear to pamper the newborn, while in Tel Aviv, the heroine is in touch with a local agency and is offering her unborn child for immediate, anonymous adoption.

  And so, when the hour arrives, with no one by her side and without a word to anyone, she disappears behind the iron door of a semi-legal clinic, a door whose color Toledano requested be changed from green to blue.

  Moses feels the suspense among the Spanish audience as the birth, filmed in a studio, draws near. Trigano demanded that this time he not be barred from the set and that he even take part in the directing. But the childbirth scene was cut out in the editing room, where it seemed crude and inconsistent with the spirit of the film. Ruth had screamed and writhed more than she’d been asked to, and the blood did not look realistic. The transfer of the newborn to the social worker was filmed in a real hospital, in the maternity wing. The infant, who was a week old, was loaned to the production by the sister-in-law of the soundman, but only on condition that she play the social worker receiving the child for adoption. And though the woman had never stood before a movie camera, she played her role so naturally that Ruth broke uncontrollably into real tears. Who knows better than Moses about all the fake tears he got out of her in subsequent films. He is amazed how genuine and pained was her weeping in this one, so much so that the screen seems to tremble.

  He turns around to find Ruth and sees that Doña Elvira, the experienced actress, also appreciates the dramatic quality of this crying and holds Ruth’s hand as if to congratulate and console her.

  From here the film carries on to the end, but not to Trigano’s stormy ending. The pale new mother will not open her coat and undo her blouse in a gesture of generosity and despair. She will not breastfeed the aged actor from the National Theater. She will just keep walking and head to the beach.

  Moses had to improvise these last moments of the film on the spot, and he made do with an atmospheric ending. The young mother is distressed not only over the child she has given up, but by the disappointment she has caused her two beloved teachers, the survivors of hell, who so believed in her, and she begins walking slowly but steadily along the beach, and when she vanishes in the distance, the audience in the dark is meant to believe that she is secure in her newly acquired freedom.

  13

  “THE HOUR IS late and the municipal workers must get back to work,” whispers de Viola to Moses amid the robust applause in the room. “Let’s try,” he suggests, “to make the ceremony short. There’s been more than enough talking at your retrospective.”

  “Indeed.”

  While the credits roll, employees of the mayor’s office bring a small table, cover it with a green cloth, place two chairs behind it, and set up a microphone and next to it a pitcher of water and two glasses. The names keep parading down the screen, albeit in smaller and smaller letters. People stand and stretch and start to chat, but the projectionist has yet to stop the film. And Manuel, picking up a signal from his brother to get things moving, steers his elderly mother in small steps to the table, where a city official shoves an envelope into her hand, at which point the director of the archive nudges Moses from his chair and invites him to the stage.

  But on the makeshift screen, with remarkable persistence, continues the recitation of gratitude to all manner of institutions, large and small, and to private individuals, and artisans and drivers, restaurant owners and cooks, all of them engaged, often unknowingly, in the creation of this film. See, Moses says, congratulating himself, even in an early film I had many partners, overt and covert, who supported my art.

  Doña Elvira speaks softly in Spanish, with Manuel translating line by line into formal Hebrew, and Moses gets the gist: The prize is not large, but it is presented with appreciation for a director who at the beginning of his career was unafraid of the absurd and metaphysical and allegorical, and we all know, going back to Luis Buñuel, how hard it is to inject authenticity and warmth into abstract ideas and wild, surrealistic dreams cloaked in a shaft of light cast upon a screen, and we thus owe a great debt to those courageous enough to take this difficult path.

  Moses kisses her on both cheeks and offers a brief response:

  “During my long life I have participated in any number of retrospectives of my films, in my homeland and abroad, but I know that these three days in Santiago de Compostela I shall remember till my dying day. Yes, Doña Elvira, beyond the manifest reality lurks a dark abyss, and we must rip open the screen and look straight into it, for only then will we know how best to handle what is known and apparently understood. But we must not become addicted to it, for then despair will sap our strength. Therefore a prize is also due those who loyally stick to the familiar and day-to-day, to draw from it joy and consolation.”

  And Moses again warmly embraces the elderly actress, who whispers to him: “Your film touched me and made me think, but why was the ending so vague and empty of meaning?”

  “The ending?” Moses smiles.

  “Yes, the end. The very end.”

  “The end,” Moses explains, “is always a compromise between what was and what will never be.”

  five

  Confession

  1

  NO DOUBT, thinks Moses, sticking the envelope in the inside pocket of his jacket, this was a far-reaching retrospective, and if the Spaniards drew pleasure from the vertigo they caused me, I earned my prize. He watches Doña Elvira, who has chosen to lean not on her son the monk, whose robe billows mischievously down the marble stairs, but on the arm of the Israeli actress, who makes sure the fragile Spanish lady does not trip on the hem of her long dress.

  After her feet land safely on the rain-spangled pavement, the legendary actress does not let go of the helpful womanly arm but asks Ruth to come with her to an antique store in the Old Town. Don’t worry about my mother, Manuel assures Moses, who briefly wondered if he too should not escort the prize giver to the Old Town. Everywhere in Spain people know who she is and attend to her. And he invites Moses to accompany him to the library of the cathedral to browse through one collection or another of the many treasures amassed over the centuries.

  Moses politely declines the invitation. The “plenty of time” promised him on the first night was an overstatement, but nonetheless, because of his age and habits, he would prefer to take a quick nap before the long flight ahead. But he promises the Dominican that this is not a final farewell to St. James. He intends to come back, perhaps as the guest of a more balanced retrospective that does not ignore the best of his works. Or he might come on a private visit and bring his eldest grandson. In short, he jokes, he will not rush to relocate to the World to Come before returning for another look at the mighty cathedral.

  At the reception desk he is reminded that checkout time has passed and he needs to vacate his room. But when he gets to the room he sees that departure has begun without him. Two African chambermaids are inside, wielding a noisy vacuum cleaner, stripping the bed, preparing to scour the bathroom. When they see him, they freeze in place, then return to work as if a light breeze had blown through the room and not an actual guest whose belongings and those of his companion are strewn everywhere. Moses infers t
hat his presence will not prompt them to leave, so firm is the decree to ready the room for the next incumbent. He points to the door and indicates with three motions of his outstretched hands how much time he will need to get organized—a mere thirty minutes. But they brazenly reject his request, agreeing to one hand only. Five minutes, not more. He holds firm—thirty minutes, not a minute less. But the two, who seem amused by the sign language they’ve improvised with the old man, bargain as if every minute were made of gold. At the end they settle on twenty, and the two women entwine their twenty dark fingers together, to avoid misunderstanding.

  “Yalla, bye,” he says as he hurries them out, a fine fusion of East and West, presumably intelligible to anyone anywhere. The two women leave, laughing, taking the sheets and towels with them, as well as the soaps and lotions, lest there remain in the room any temptations to slow down his exit.

  He looks sadly at the naked mattress, stained with ancient stigmata of other men, and the room filled with cleaning materials, the vacuum cleaner hose uncoiled like a snake—an afternoon nap a lost cause. The splendid harmony of the attic, which impressed him so on the first night, is shattered. He has to start packing. First he puts his own clothes and other belongings in his suitcase, and then, absent his companion, he takes charge and carefully folds the clothes she wore during the retrospective, plus items, more numerous, that she didn’t. He carefully wraps up her boots and shoes, making sure to isolate in a plastic bag everything destined for the laundry. He takes special care with cosmetics and perfumes and small makeup implements. He does not resist the temptation to ferret through the side pocket of her suitcase, in case the results of her blood test have wandered there. But there is nothing medical in the pocket, only maps of European cities and brochures from hotels, along with My Glorious Brothers, an old historical novel Ruth intends to adapt as a Hanukkah play for her drama class. Once the two suitcases are by the door, he looks under the bed, not in vain, as her slippers have migrated into the darkness.

  Had he been more focused and assertive in his desire, he reflects ruefully, he could have taken with him a sweet memory of this room, but the hidden hand of Trigano that had raised old works from the dead had surprised and confused him to such a degree that on the final night, it felt as if the former screenwriter were watching him as he slept. In any case, he has decided this is the last time he will bring Ruth to a retrospective. If she wants to ignore her illness and destroy herself, let her. He is not the man who can stop her.

  His hearing aids detect faint tapping at the door, but he ignores it, gets up for a final look at Caritas Romana, now that he has come to understand the story of the bold and beneficent daughter who breastfeeds a father dying of hunger.

  There is persistent knocking at the door, but the agreed-upon twenty minutes have not elapsed. It is hard for him to part from what might have been but was not. And in the sunlight generously pouring through the window he approaches the reproduction and interprets small details he had not noticed before—the calm and contented facial expression of the nursing daughter, whom the Dutch painter had chosen to depict not as a frightened and bashful girl or a wild and defiant young woman but as a mature individual whose serene demeanor signifies confidence in her bold act of grace, perhaps because the infant that had endowed her with milk may not be her first but one of many she has brought into the world, and she knows from experience that she is not depriving or neglecting it if she also feeds its unfortunate grandfather.

  But is the grandfather really unfortunate? Apart from the baldness at the center of his head—which the daughter’s steady hand maneuvers, bringing it near or distancing it, so his lips will not demand more than their due—he really does seem like a sturdy man in his prime. Although his hands are tied uncomfortably behind him, his naked back is straight and strong. No, this is not a pathetic person or an innocent victim, Moses decides, but a suspicious old character, convicted by law and serving his sentence, and if, after the gift of nursing, his jailers let him go, he will likely do further harm in the world.

  The knocking on the door gets louder. The twenty minutes have passed, and what was agreed in sign language does obligate him. He puts on his coat, takes the walking stick, and opens the door. “Yalla, bye.” The African women burst into laughter, having brought as reinforcements two gray-haired bellhops. One loads the suitcases on a small cart and heads for the elevator, the other walks over to Roman Charity, takes it down from the wall, and hangs in its place a picture of pears and dark grapes.

  Moses observes the switch uneasily and hurries after his suitcases. At the reception desk he asks if he has any outstanding bill and is told no, the city council is taking care of all expenses, whatever they may be. He then decides to exchange his prize check for cash so that in Israel he won’t need to share it with the bank and the state. To his pleasant surprise, in this city of believers, honor is instantly given to a check signed by the mayor, and it is cashed into notes of many colors.

  “When my lady companion arrives,” he cheerfully tells the desk clerk, “please tell her that our room is vacant and her bag packed, and that she is to wait for me here.”

  2

  HE GOES OUT into the square, walks amid its chains and palaces, and finds the plaza flooded with new groups of tourists gathered around tour guides who point with sticks at the cathedral, investing every statue, tower, and alcove with significance. Moses checks his watch to see if there is time to revisit the cathedral, as he will almost certainly never have occasion to come back.

  He ascends the steps and finds the great church on the verge of religious ecstasy, with the scent of incense merging with stately organ chords to announce the mass. Pilgrims flow into the pews, some kneeling, crossing themselves, and murmuring, others staring at the ornate altar and waiting for someone to navigate their faith. The confessionals on both sides of the sanctuary are occupied, and near them wait men and women who surely believe that confession in such a historic place upgrades their piety. Too bad, thinks Moses, I didn’t act on Pilar’s suggestion to try a brief confession with the director of the archive. When will I ever get another chance?

  He asks someone who looks like an official beadle of the church to lead him to the library, where he finds Manuel de Viola standing at a lectern and leafing through a hefty volume.

  “They evicted me from the hotel,” he says to the monk, who is delighted to see him. “So I came to bid farewell to the cathedral, since at my age, who knows if I’ll be able to come back. But why the crowds? Have I stumbled into a special holiday?”

  Manuel knows of no holiday that Moses has stumbled into and thinks it is mere coincidence that several organized tour groups have arrived all at once and are attempting to perform in a few hectic hours the entire pilgrimage ritual that in the past took weeks and months. But it’s quiet here in the library, and he can show the Israeli director something of the priceless collection.

  The guest is disinclined to spend the minutes he normally spends napping immersed in antique drawings. He would not, however, object to fulfilling a wish that arises every time he visits a church—to be closeted just once in a real confession booth and confess whatever comes to mind to an unseen authority. And would not the confessing of a non-Christian person, a disbeliever in divine providence, be an interesting experience, not only for the giver of the confession but for the receiver as well?

  “You wish to confess?” The Dominican’s eyes light up.

  “To try it, to get a taste of this ancient and venerable practice. In churches in Israel it’s hard to find a priest who is not an Arab, or at least a supporter of Arabs, and therefore the confession of an Israeli Jew is likely to get tangled in a political debate that would undercut its simple humanity.” As an artist, Moses has been wary of trying psychotherapy, out of concern that it would burrow too far into his meager unconscious and extract childhood lies and secrets that even in old age spur him on and nourish his creative work. For the psyche is a nest of vipers: you pull out one snake, and its fr
iends are dragged along with it. But a short confession, offered by chance in a foreign country before boarding an airplane, might restore his soul.

  “A fine wish for you, but hard to fulfill. If my brother were here, he would be happy to be your confessor.”

  “Then why not you, Manuel? You strike me as trustworthy and attentive, and besides, there’s little chance we’ll ever meet again. So let’s do a confession in Hebrew, as in the early days of Christianity, and I’ll concentrate on my professional sins so as not to interfere with our friendship.”

  “Ah, my friend,” Manuel says with a clap of his hands, “I am a monk, not a priest, and I cannot grant absolution to anyone.”

  “Absolution?” Moses is taken by surprise. “I don’t need absolution, nor do I believe in absolution that does not follow an act of atonement—which no one else can perform in my place.”

  “If you want just confession”—Manuel smiles—“let’s sit down at the table, and please, speak slowly.”

  “No, no, not here,” objects Moses, “what I want is a confession in a real booth, tiny and dark, with a curtain and grille, opposite a hidden face that enables total freedom. But now, as I walked through the church, I saw that the booths were full and the lines were long.”

  Manuel promises to try to find a suitable confessional on the lower floor, for everyone who comes to Santiago is something of a pilgrim, and it would be a shame if Moses returned to his homeland with an empty soul.

  Manuel goes out to look, and Moses regrets embroiling such an amiable fellow in his scheme, a man of goodwill, if a tad disorganized. The flight to Barcelona is four hours from now, and the airport is not far away, but because the bags are ticketed to Israel, they are suspect by definition and must be checked well in advance. Meanwhile, Ruth will return to the hotel and be worried by his absence, so he decides to wait for only ten minutes, and if Manuel has not returned, he will leave him a note of apology next to the open book.