Yes, the beauty of the deaf girl lights up the screen, and the stationmaster’s assistant does not wait long to exact his due for the wicked plan that came off well. Though in years to come the violent scenes in his films grew more and more audacious, one might still wonder about the license given here to the actor to express his lust. He wrests the girl savagely from the wreckage of the train, takes her up a dirt path, and drags her into the bushes, and though she knows that is the price of her exhilarating vision, she fights the arms that seize her, screams with her hands and fingers, and finally lets loose the wail of a wounded animal. Moses wonders if this brutal scene was simply to be faithful to the script or whether some strange desire was also a factor.
The lights in the hall come on. Moses scans the first few rows to locate the person who looked like Trigano. But if such a person had been there at all, he escaped before the lights went up.
At first the applause is stuttering and embarrassed, but gradually it becomes louder and rhythmic. As it continues, de Viola rises and invites Ruth to join him. He looks toward the rear to invite the director as well, but Moses is in no hurry to get up and gestures to the actress to go first. As she is led to the stage, the audience redoubles its applause, with scattered cries of Brava!
Ruth is nervous, and de Viola, to allow her time to compose herself, gives a lengthy introduction in Spanish. But when he cedes her the floor, her English is replete with Hebrew words in critical places. Then a man gets up — a Jew, or a former Israeli of the sort found everywhere and always — and offers his assistance in translation from Hebrew to Spanish.
There is relief as the Hebrew is freed from the filter of broken English. But even now, Ruth’s words are confused and almost childish, suggesting that not only as a character in a film but as a woman, she is defending her former lover’s notion that destruction and disaster improve and refine mankind. When the priest, smiling gently, tries to modify her remarks, she persists, her hands waving exuberantly, her eyes ablaze, as if at any moment she will revert to sign language. Now Moses raises his hand, to the relief of the moderator, who invites the director to the stage to restore order to the chaos created by the actress. And despite the temptation to continue in Hebrew, Moses prefers to speak in English, which allows him to digress more easily from moral dilemmas to tricks of the movie trade.
The hour is late. The aged farmers in the audience slip from the hall one by one, but the young people won’t let matters rest. They demand to know if the director subscribes to the views of the actress. Moses is wary of an imprecise answer, so he speaks compellingly of obligation and regret and atonement, and how these alone can yield true compassion, as opposed to the self-pity that masquerades as sympathy for others. And he promises the inquisitive young people further discussion. The retrospective, after all, continues tomorrow.
“YOU SEE,” HE says to Juan on their way to the hotel, “it is a wise man who knows the limits of his strength and declines in advance a meal in a good restaurant.” “Wise or otherwise,” answers Juan, “tomorrow you will not be able to shirk your duty. A distinguished lady, far older than you, will be making a special trip from Madrid to honor the conclusion of your retrospective with her presence.”
It is almost midnight, and again the empty square is spread out before them in splendid gloom. “You don’t want another little look at our cathedral before bedtime?” jokes the priest. “Why not?” says Ruth, still energized by the film. “No, the night is so short,” Moses firmly interjects. But before they part, he expresses genuine appreciation, first for the fine hotel accommodations and generous hospitality, and for the quality of the dubbing and the high level of questions from the audience. He is especially grateful to the host for his excellent and efficient handling of the retrospective, yet he must ask that the pace tomorrow be a bit slower, and without giving the priest a chance to promise anything, he turns to the reception desk and collects the room key and the two pilgrim walking sticks.
How good to return to the calm of the spacious, pleasant attic, which is made up for the second night’s sleep. The sheets have been changed, and little chocolates in gold wrappers glitter on the big pillows.
But Ruth, suddenly cold and distant, dives fully dressed onto the bed, in fur jacket and boots, quickly unwraps a chocolate, and pops it whole into her mouth.
Moses removes his two hearing aids and tucks them in their box. Then he steals a look at the picture of the old prisoner steadfastly suckling at the pure white breast. He still refrains from saying anything about the picture to his companion, who is watching him with something akin to hatred.
He undoes his necktie and takes off his shirt.
“You could have asked whether I also wanted to decline the dinner.”
“I assumed you wouldn’t want to go without me.”
“Then you could have stayed with me, even if you weren’t hungry.”
“Again you ignore the age difference between us. When you’re my age, and I am no longer among the living, you’ll understand better how one feels at the end of a long and tiring day.”
She closes her eyes.
“In the morning, a big breakfast, but if you’re still hungry now, you can have my chocolate.”
She reaches for his pillow, takes the chocolate, and puts it in her mouth.
Now, as he stands naked to the waist at the foot of their bed, he feels that in the many years since Distant Station, not only has her spirit remained fundamentally unchanged, but her older body has preserved the contours of the young actress, walking up the hilly path.
“How did you feel about yourself in the film?”
“I really liked what I saw.”
“As always.”
“More than ever.”
“When you spoke, for a moment I felt you really believed disasters are a good means of true communion among people.”
“You planted the idea in me when we made the film.”
“You can actually remember what I told you then?”
“More or less, but what I do remember clearly is you didn’t pay me.”
Moses is surprised, breaks into hearty laughter.
“Suddenly you remember?”
“This evening, in the dark, I remembered.”
“In our early films none of us got paid. We worked in partnership, in a cooperative venture. We shared expenses and would share equally in the profits, if there were any.”
“I don’t remember you including me in your cooperative.”
“But you belonged then to Trigano… to Shaul.”
“Belonged? What an awful word.”
“What I mean is, you were included in the screenwriter’s budget. You lived together, you were like a little family; whatever he got from the film was automatically yours too.”
“Nothing was automatic. It was unjust and unfair. Tonight I saw that the character who carried the whole film was me. Without my sign language, nobody in the village would have lifted a finger. So even if you thought that Shaul and I were a little family, you should have paid me separately.”
“I should’ve?”
“Who else?”
“Okay, then, I’ll pay you now. I’ll compensate you for all the injustice. Especially now that I’ve seen how exquisitely you played a character in sign language—”