A. Yehoshua - The Retrospective

“He loves her that much…” whispers Moses.

“What can you do? His whole life is ahead of him, and he’s caught up in this love for that crazy American girl. Now that she’s in America, he can’t get over her, and the love just gets stronger by the day. Meanwhile, he’s raising a baby with his mother. And who is this Yoav? Just a kid; he had his bar mitzvah two years ago. A real tragedy for him… So, Moses, we should let the English have a story like this? Why not grab it?”

“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.”

MOSES 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.”