A. Yehoshua - The Retrospective

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” mumbles the director, pleased to be recognized. “I just wanted to know if this is where my films were dubbed.”

“Here, Mr. Moses, there is no other place. I hope that the voices we transplanted into your characters sound right.”

“Definitely.”

“These are our actors, students at the institute. And the gentleman there is a famous screenwriter from Vietnam, Mr. Ho Chi Minh, and the lady is his interpreter.”

“Ho Chin Lu,” corrects the writer, rising from his chair.

“Of course. For the next month we will be preparing a retrospective of Vietnamese films about love affairs between men from the North and women from the South, and vice versa, from the time of their endless wars.”

“Interesting and also important.”

“Amazing films, difficult and painful. What can you do, wars provide great film material.”

“Damn wars,” snaps Moses.

“Of course. But they must not be forgotten.”

“No doubt,” mutters Moses, and draws closer to the dubbers. “When you dubbed my films,” he says to the group, “was there an Israeli here to advise you?”

“Your screenwriter.”

“In other words—” says Moses, his heart pounding.

“Of course, Shaul Trigano. About a year ago he was here in the studio for quite a while. He explained a lot of things, acted them out, made us laugh. A sharp man. Very original.”

“So Trigano was here?”

“It wasn’t you who sent him, sir?”

“No, no… the idea was all his.”

“A blessed idea… We were very taken by your early films… especially the one based on the Kafka story.”

“In Our Synagogue.”

“Did Kafka really write this story about Jews in Israel?”

“About Jews in general.”

He roams the floors and corridors until he finds the room Ruth was supposed to have locked herself into. Its door is open, and lights and voices welcome him. De Viola has brought the guests from Madrid, opened a bottle of red wine in their honor, and all of them, Ruth and Rodrigo included, are laughing, glasses in hand. Moses bows slightly to the mother, Doña Elvira, a beautiful actress, age ninety-four, who has come to grace the retrospective with her presence, joined by her younger son, Manuel, a tall Dominican monk, about forty-five years old, a golden cross dangling on his white robe.

“Welcome to our abode.” He greets Moses in the classical Hebrew the Dominican order encourages its monks to study.

“What’s this?” Moses addresses the mother. “Religion has conquered your family?”

“What can one do”—she sighs—“today, religion conquers all.”

Juan laughs.

Wine is poured for Moses and he clinks glasses with everyone, takes a sip, and turns with a smile to the director of the archive. “They just told me in the lab that Trigano was here a year ago and that he helped with the dubbing. But if he is the hand behind my retrospective, why conceal it from me?”

“Because he asked us not to tell you.”

“Why?”

“Because he knew you would not want to follow him here.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You do know how much he hates you.”

“Still?” Moses sighs heavily. He turns to Ruth, who averts her eyes.

“Still…” whispers the priest. “And believe me, my dear Moses, that we, who do not wish to be emotionally involved in your conflict, are nonetheless grieved by any strife between brothers.”

“IN POINT OF fact,” Moses tells Juan de Viola in confidence, “when first I saw the list of my films you had selected, I suspected the ghost of Trigano behind this retrospective. But in the wake of our breakup, I’ve come to regard him as a failed artist, and it was hard to imagine that his faith in his early screenplays was so strong that he would go to an archive at the far edge of Spain to dub them in a foreign tongue.”

“As a distant descendant of Jews exiled from Spain — that is how he put it,” says Juan de Viola, “it was important to him to learn some Spanish and supervise his works in Spain.”

“Faith in the immortality of one’s art,” continues Moses, “even if unfounded, is understandable, but is it possible that he convinced you to hold a retrospective to force me to come and defend his delusions?”

“No, Moses, the opposite is true,” insists the director of the archive. “After we dubbed the films, including the one that disappeared from your official filmography, we asked Trigano if it was worth organizing a retrospective around them and inviting the director to reconnect with his old style.”

“And what did he say?”

“I would rather not repeat what he said.”

“I’ve put that loser way behind me, he can no longer upset me.”

“Funny how you define each other in a similar way.”

“Meaning what?”

“A failed artist,” whispers Juan, “that’s what he calls you. A director whose earliest achievements were not his own.”

Moses’ eyes narrow. He looks around to check if the scathing diagnosis was overheard in the room.

“A failed artist?” He laughs scornfully, resting his glass on a corner shelf. “That’s how he defines a man who has made so many successful films after breaking off with him?”

“And what if he said it?” The priest hurries to soften the blow. “If he is worthless in your eyes, why take what he says seriously? We here, all of us, at the institute and the archive, refused to accept his opinion and were keen to mount this retrospective. The four films we have seen in the past two days confirm that we were not mistaken.”

But Moses is overcome by gloom. He casts a baleful look at the sanctimonious little clergyman who has slandered him slyly yet again.

“Then why did you invite me? You could have done with his explanations of the films.”

The director of the archive is quick to answer.

“The writer can explain the intention, but only the director can justify the result.”

Moses takes his glass and refills it from the wine bottle on the desk. Silence has fallen in the room, as if to lay bare his humiliation. Doña Elvira, sitting on the sofa wrapped in Ruth’s blanket, smiles brightly, and her younger son, the Dominican, sitting beside Ruth, gives Moses a supportive look.

With his glass filled to the brim Moses returns to the director of the archive and says pointedly: “I don’t know of any film that was dropped from my filmography.”

“The one we are about to see, In Our Synagogue. ”

“That film?”

“Here,” says the priest, pulling from his pocket a familiar wrinkled page with Moses’ picture. “It’s not mentioned here, unless it’s under a different name.”

Moses straightens out a crease in his Internet biography.

“It’s true, this film is missing for some reason, but why would its name be changed? It’s based on a Kafka story of the same title. It was Kafka’s aura that enabled us to let a small wild animal join in prayer.”

“Join in prayer?”

“Be present at all times in the synagogue,” Moses clarifies. “It’s a film I am proud of in every way, and if it was dropped from my filmography, it’s one more proof that the Internet is full of mistakes and nonsense.”

“Exactly.” The priest sighs. “But the public perceives it as an omniscient deity that demands our confessions. In any case, I’m pleased that you stand staunchly behind this film, because to be frank I was a bit wary and decided to show it by invitation only, to people for whom Kafka is a holy name.”

“What were you afraid of?”

“Apart from the fact that I didn’t find it in your filmography, I also didn’t want to find Jews in the audience.”