The Retrospective

A Novel

A. B. Yehoshua

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780547501673
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Literatura del Medio Oriente

An ageing film director must face his past in the acclaimed Israeli author's prize-winning novel—"a compelling meditation on art, memory, love [and] guilt" ( Independent, UK). Yair Moses, an aging Israeli film director, has been invited to the Spanish pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela for a retrospective of his work. Accompanied by Ruth, his leading actress and longtime muse, Moses discovers a painting in their hotel room that triggers a distant memory from one of his early films: a scene that caused a rift with his brilliant but difficult screenwriter—who, as it happens, was once Ruth's lover. Upon their return to Israel, Moses decides to travel to the south to look for his elusive former partner and propose a new collaboration. But the screenwriter demands a price that will have strange and lasting consequences. A searching and original novel by one of the world's most esteemed writers, The Retrospective is a meditation on mortality and intimacy, on the limits of memory and the struggle of artistic creation. Winner, 2012 Prix Médicis étranger
Winner, 2012 Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice

eight

Supper with Your Former Screenwriter

1

YOU PLAN TO arrive in Netivot before dark, to locate Trigano’s studio more easily. If he is so insistent on estrangement from you, it’s best to show him that you’ve come not merely for your own personal agenda but to reconnect with his thoughts and imagination and be, if only for a short while, the student of your student.

In light of your recent road trips, you no longer trust the map you have in hand, so you buy a new one at a gas station. Its user-friendly design promises that this time you won’t get lost.

“Any rockets been fired at the south?” you inquire of the young man filling up your car.

And though this Israeli Arab appears indifferent to rockets not aimed at him, he says that so far as he knows, rockets are more likely to fall on the Jews at dinnertime. But it’s clear to you that he’s not familiar with the intentions of his fellow Arabs across the border in Gaza, since on the way down, long before dinner, there were radio reports about rockets falling in open fields. If so, you hope that the daily quota will have been filled before you enter the fire zone.

You are pleased to note that Netivot is no longer a peripheral village but an actual city, its status and prestige enhanced by the rocket war of recent years. Shops are still brightly lit and streets full as dusk falls, and everyone you ask knows the way to the community center. But you have arrived early. And since it would be humiliating if Trigano barred you at the door, it would be better to slip into his darkened classroom while a student film is being screened. So you sit down on a bench in a wooded park a stone’s throw from the community center, and though your hunger rumbles, you ignore it, preferring to break your fast with the scriptwriter, who as you recall is in the habit, like a Muslim during Ramadan, of eating hardly at all in daytime and enjoying a big meal at night. If you’ve made the trip down south to unravel an ancient hostility, it would be good to invite him for a generous meal, at your expense, conducive to relaxed conversation.

Sitting in the little cluster of pine trees, complete with a glimmering pond of goldfish, you watch with wonder as a multitude of night students, arriving no doubt from around the region, young and old, mainly women, park their cars side by side in the lot and go to classes and workshops at the center, which in the evening turns into a community college. Now and again muffled explosions are heard in the distance. And though a senior citizen who has sat down beside you on the bench dismisses those as “ours” and not “theirs,” you, the cautious Tel Avivian, head for the bomb shelter in the community center and are relieved to discover that the film workshop is held in the basement.

You wait awhile before sneaking into a large classroom, and you find a seat in the back row. Considering all the silver hair sparkling in the light of the projector, you will not stand out on account of your age.

You don’t yet see the man, but his voice is clear and confident, and it seems that since you parted ways his Sephardic accent has grown more pronounced, possibly to connect better with his students. The big old projector rattles in the middle of the room, presenting an amateur production shot on film, not video, perhaps to attune the budding directors to genuine shades of color. Judging from the conversation, this is apparently not the first screening of this film, since there are references to comments previously made and scenes viewed earlier. Sometimes, without turning on the lights, the teacher asks that the projection be interrupted in order to discuss fundamental issues—aesthetic, technical, or moral—and the conversation flowing in the dark indicates that the teacher can identify his students by their voices. As Trigano pinpoints weak spots and describes missed opportunities, you close your eyes and are propelled back in time, to the entrance of the Smadar Cinema in the German Colony in Jerusalem, where after the second show a student usher stands excitedly delivering his opinion of the film his mentor has just seen.

The screening is over and the lights go on, but Trigano has not yet spotted the new arrival. While reels are changed in the projector, an older woman in a headscarf and long dress stands before the class and delivers a few introductory words about her short film, an imaginary and experimental story, as she defines it, about a religious family that decides unanimously, after careful thought, to become secular. She and her husband play the leading roles, and relatives and friends play secondary roles and serve as extras. Despite the cast members’ doubts, they were all swept up by the story, and as it turned out, the imaginary heresy in front of the camera was so pleasurable it was hard to let it go and get back to reality.

The lights go down, and on the screen an unprofessional film unfolds, confused and choppy, but also bold and entertaining, and the Orthodox amateurs portraying their newfound irreligiosity play their parts with conviction and élan. All eyes are drawn to the leading character, a beautiful religious girl who lures her family to a bacchanal on the beach, and even the neighborhood rabbi who tries to hold the family is forced to give in and ends up splashing in the sea as the ultimate heretic.

As credits and acknowledgments sail down the screen, cheers break out in the classroom, and you join in. Trigano, grinning with emotion, stands up to embrace the artist with the headscarf, who in real life recoils from his male touch. And now, as he surveys his students with pride and affection, he notices you, an auditor in the back row, and his face turns dark.

2

AT THE END of the session he has to face the fact that there’s no escaping the old man who waits for him in the now-empty classroom.

For the moment, just a handshake. There is a tremor in physical contact renewed after an eon.

“You really stay the night here?” you wonder. “Because if the area is quiet, it doesn’t take long to get back.”

“Even when it’s not quiet, it doesn’t take long,” he says dismissively. “I took on this workshop in Netivot because we have a son in the area, in an agricultural moshav, with a foster family. So after my class I have a chance to be with him at night, and in the morning, before he goes to work.”

“This is the boy . . .” You hesitate as you recall distressing knowledge, forgotten in the passage of time.

“Yes.” He interrupts the hesitation and defiantly pronounces the name of his eldest child, Uriel, who years ago found a good home with a family in the moshav nearby, where he works as a packer of fruits and vegetables.

“How old is he now?” You are curious to know the age of the mentally disabled son, to measure the toll on his father.

“He’s twenty-one.”

“He’s not your only son,” you say, as if to reassure yourself.

He throws you a sharp look.

“Uriel has a brother and a sister.”

“And they?”

“His brother is in the army and his sister is in high school.”

“Oh, nice. I didn’t know.”

“It’s not the only thing you don’t know.”

“Of course. It’s been years. But you too . . . about me . . .”

“A lot less than you think.”

“We’ll see,” you say, rising to the challenge. “But what I did know about you, I remember. For example, that you postpone your main meal to the evening. If that’s still true, let me take you out to a good dinner, assuming there is a decent restaurant in Netivot open at this hour.”

His smile suggests that the personal detail preserved in your memory might overcome his hostile preference for a quick exchange of words in an empty classroom.

“You have no choice.” You continue to provoke him. “If you went on a pilgrimage all the way to Santiago to renew ties with me, you’ll have to hear me out patiently in Israel.”

“I didn’t go to Santiago to renew any connection with you,” he objects. “I went to deposit some of my films in the archive, to save them from oblivion.”

“But since I happen to be a collaborator in these films, you dragged me out there too, whether you wanted to or not. And because of you they organized an odd retrospective for me, which came with a little prize at the end, if you can believe it.”

“I had no part in your retrospective.” The voice echoes firmly in the empty room. “And you didn’t deserve any prize for films that were my ideas, whose value you doubted. But what can I do, Moses, if people from a civilized country, no less sensitive and discriminating than you and your friends, recognize the quality of my work and are interested in preserving it in an archive, to learn from it? But I have no interest in you. If I wanted to reconnect, why go all the way to Spain, when here in Israel you’re open to everyone and running around everywhere?”

You concede the point with a smile.

“And in general,” he carries on, “from the time we split up, I never had the slightest desire to get near you again, especially when I hear about the inferior quality of your movies. But what can I do. You force yourself on me.”

“Indeed, what can you do.”

“I asked David, Toledano’s son, not to invite you—after all, Toledano didn’t draw a single picture of you. But you invited yourself, told me you needed my help, which I don’t believe you really do. And no matter how hard I tried to escape, or at least delay, you insisted and chased after me all the way here—so, please, Moses, a meal? Let’s talk here right now. It’s nice and quiet. Talk, but make it quick, what more do you want from me?”

Up against such harsh language, it might be best to preserve your dignity and walk out now, but the fatigue and hunger fortify your self-control. Beyond your former scriptwriter’s insults and anger hovers the image of the disabled son, deleted from your memory, inviting clemency for the father who does everything in his power to hurt you.

“Come, Trigano,” you say, your hand on his shoulder. “Even so . . . not like this . . . not standing, not in an empty classroom . . . I came to you hungry and thirsty, with goodwill, so, please, let’s sit someplace more reasonable, and the minute you tell me it’s enough, I’ll get up and leave.”

But he customarily eats his evening meal at the moshav, with the family that cares for his son.

“And you can’t include me?”

“Not sure the place would suit you.”

“Why not? Where is it?”

“A few kilometers west of here, near Netiv Ha’asarah, on the Gaza border. But don’t worry, they won’t kill you tonight.”

For a moment you freeze at the malicious spark in his eyes. Then you burst into laughter.

But he isn’t laughing. He gathers his papers, puts on a windbreaker and a white, wide-brimmed hat, and turns out the classroom lights. He bids a warm long farewell to the security guards and leads you outside, to the empty parking lot, bathed in the yellowy light of a full moon. “Follow me in your car,” he barks, “and I’ll explain later how you get back north. Make sure not to lose me, especially at turnoffs to back roads.”

“Just a minute”—you grab his shoulder—“it’s not my job not to lose you, it’s your job not to lose me.” And he stares at you, startled for a second by your powerful grip.

After the city lights disappear he leads you down narrow, desolate roads, where only military vehicles pass now and then, with dimmed lights. Though he could easily shake you on the road and be done with an unwelcome guest, he is careful not to lose you en route. He slows down at traffic lights so you can continue together when they turn green. He waits for you at the turns, signaling in advance at each one. And because he knows well the way to his son, he takes a few shortcuts, including dirt roads, heading west the whole time toward a horizon intermittently brightened by a silent flash, perhaps lightning freed of thunder, or a missile bearing its payload. And though he stays in the area merely as a guest for the night, you have faith that he too has learned to distinguish between “ours” and “theirs.” But when a flare goes off in the distance, with a boom that mimics the drumbeat on your car stereo, you are surprised to see him stop at once, jump from his car, and point at the sky, and when he sees you don’t understand, he pulls you from your seat to a ditch at the side of the road and shoves your face hard in the ground, and then a second blast, stronger and closer, shakes you both, pebbles land on your head, and when the air regains its composure, it exudes a sweetish smell of gunpowder.

When Trigano gets back on his feet you are still lying in the ditch, and you say facetiously, “What happened, habibi? You promised me that they won’t kill me tonight.”

He finally breaks into the old smile, the wise smile of the dreamer who won your heart the first time you met him. Yes, he confirms, not they. Something else. Wait and see. He brushes the dirt from his clothes and lights a cigarette; you are still in no hurry to get up. Curled amid weeds and stones you inhale deeply the smell of the earth you have not been this close to in years. Trigano may have guessed that you enjoy this moment of weakness, because he doesn’t offer you a hand but blows smoke and regards you with ...