He turns off the room’s remaining light, for only in pitch-darkness can sleep overpower his imagination. But on the wall by the bed, close to the ceiling, one stubborn point of light stays on, apparently intended to illuminate the picture hanging below it in a gilt frame or to draw attention to it, and as he deliberates the need to get up and struggle with so faint a light, he feels the sweet pull of exhaustion and curls into fetal position, stealing a glance in the darkness at two mythological characters — a bald man, his upper body naked, sitting or kneeling at the feet of a bare-breasted nymph. Then he takes off his glasses, removes his hearing aids, and falls asleep.
It was Ruth who first diagnosed his hearing loss; she noticed that in public appearances he was raising his voice and giving answers not always pertinent to the questions. Although such responses might be appreciated by courteous people who’d been touched by his films in the past, the younger generation, whose questions are more precise and demanding, are less inclined to accept irrelevant answers. Sometimes a member of the audience will rise kindly to the occasion, restating the question and perhaps supplying an answer, but such assistance, even if well intended, does not enhance the dignity of any lecturer.
Moses was thus persuaded to acquire hearing aids, which, though minuscule, cannot entirely escape the notice of keen-eyed observers, thus calling attention to his age. When he sticks the pinkish gadgets in both ears, they emit a brief tune — as if to say, At your service—and immediately amplify the hubbub of the surrounding world. Now and then, they chirp and hum as they please, perhaps because a stranger’s hearing aid has sent them a friendly signal or because some clandestine military radar is checking their identity. When one of the batteries runs down, it announces its demise with an insistent, continuous ring that can’t be ignored, and thus in social situations or in the middle of a lecture, he has to remove the device and replace its battery.
All in all, the hearing aids have been good to Moses. When he is directing, the dialogue between him and the actors and crew is clearer now, and at public events he appears focused and relaxed. In an odd way, these tiny devices have taught him that deafness is not merely a physiological issue but a psychological one too. When he forgets to stick them in his ears, he can occasionally still pick up subtle overtones in the speech of others. His prostate, which has become enlarged in recent years, has taught him a similar lesson. He and it are able to ignore each other for many hours, even after the consumption of liquids, but sometimes, for no apparent reason — the stimulus of a new idea or an emotional reaction, or a slow descent in a narrow elevator — the prostate can threaten its master without warning. In which case, if the toilet is far away or its location is unknown, there may be no choice but to dart behind a parked car or find a hidden spot among the trash bins and gas canisters of a nearby apartment building. Once, in desperation, he slipped into a private garden, where the owner lay in wait and rebuked him. “What if I were just a stray dog,” protested Moses with a smile, “would you insult a dog?” “But you’re not a dog,” retorted the man with a sneer, “and you couldn’t be if you tried.” Moses zipped up his trousers and retreated in silence, though he could have told him that at the beginning of his directing career, he and his screenwriter Trigano had made a thirty-minute surrealistic film about a jealous husband who fears his wife is cheating and so, to follow her, he masquerades as a dog. To their great surprise, the film turned out to be more than a comical sketch. The ingenious script and nuanced camera work, along with the right music, enabled the dog who played the jealous husband to exhibit credible human gestures. He still drifts through Moses’ thoughts — a big yellowy mutt, hairy and melancholy, looking more like a hyena than a dog, with drooping ears suggesting spaniel ancestry. The dog was so faithful to the director’s commands that it seemed his canine soul had absorbed the obsessions of the jealous husband. After the filming, the dog stayed on with the director — a strange companion, loyal, tormented, as if Moses had actually succeeded in imbuing him with human spirit, until in the end he recklessly crossed a road and was run over by a car.
THOUGH THE DARKNESS is total, the clock does not disappoint. It’s 7:30 A.M., not 5:00. Sleep overcame consciousness and vanquished anxiety, and if during the night a strange dream had flickered, it didn’t bother the dreamer. Yair slips out of bed and tries not to disturb his surroundings as he makes his way to the bathroom. His companion, asleep but not oblivious, instinctively occupies part of the vacated territory.
From the bathroom window, he can see people walking by the walls of the cathedral. Today is the first day of the retrospective, and it would be nice to rest a bit more before the commotion begins. Random rays of sunlight that have filtered onto the big bed cast a golden glow on the actress’s bare feet, protruding from the quilt. Moses covers them, then carefully inspects the reproduction hanging on the wall. The stolen glance at night was superficial and misleading. Perhaps the picture represents some obscure mythological tale, not of an old man’s lust for a young woman but rather of a hungry and desperate person. The old, muscular man is plainly a prisoner: his hands are tied behind him, and his naked, dirty feet have just been released from the stocks that rest nearby. His jailers have starved him so badly that he is drawn to the merciful breasts of a young nursing woman, who delicately guides his bald, sunburned head to the whiteness of her bosom.
Moses looks for the name of the artist and finds only two words in ornate script: Caritas Romana, meaning “Roman Charity,” and as if struck by a flash of distant lightning, he wonders whether Trigano knew of this strange and brazen painting hanging randomly in a hotel room in the Spanish province of Galicia. Is it conceivable that in the dawning light, by sheer coincidence, here in Santiago de Compostela, he has uncovered a secret source that long ago sparked the imagination of his former screenwriter? He was a talented young man, a near genius, but also fanatically inflexible, and because of one dropped scene, he had broken off relations with not only Moses but also his own lover, the actress, thus imposing her on the director — if not as an obligation, at least as a source of worry. Could this mythological picture have inspired Trigano to devise the crazy, provocative ending of their last film together?
The location chosen for the scene was a rundown back street not far from the fishermen’s pier in Jaffa. The drizzly weather that day complemented the somber tone of the film. The cinematographer and the soundman, the makeup artist and the lighting man, were ready to roll, and despite the out-of-the-way location, a sizable crowd had gathered to watch. In the early 1970s, shooting a feature film on location was rare in Israel, and passersby were enchanted as if by magic. Moses has not forgotten that morning after all these years, for on that day the creative covenant between him and his screenwriter fell apart. On the street corner, on a stool, sat an elderly beggar dressed in rags — a well-known thespian from the National Theater. It was particularly important for Moses that in the final scene, it was not some anonymous extra playing the part, but a familiar and respected actor who would surprise the audience in the role of a miserable beggar and be engraved in their memory. The actor, however, demanded that his character be given a touch of intellectual flair, perhaps a top hat and not a mere cap to receive donations, or a pipe whose smoke would slither from his lips. As the final directions were given, Moses could sense the old actor’s anticipation of sensual contact with a young woman’s breasts, not least because the scene would doubtless be shot several times, with the most shocking yet plausible version to be achieved in the editing room. Despite its boldness, the scene wasn’t difficult to stage. A young woman departs a private maternity clinic after leaving her newborn for adoption and wanders the streets anguished and forlorn, and when she sees the old beggar, she opens her coat, takes out a breast, and nurses him.