“Which you didn’t even remember was in the film. Apparently you are worn out in spirit as well as in body.”
“I told you.”
She says nothing, regards him with hostility.
“When I saw you watching your hands and fingers waving on the screen this evening, I asked myself if you could still understand them.”
“Mostly.”
“And if I spoke to you now in sign language, could you understand?”
She is surprised, even suspicious, as Moses makes broad hand motions and points at the bed.
She immediately gets what he means, perhaps because she guessed his intent from the start, and sits up to make room for her own gestures, which signal an emphatic no. And as a sly spark flashes in her eyes, she gives a few animalistic grunts, as if to say, It’s not me you want, it’s the character you saw in your films, but even if you can get yourself satisfaction from the character you created on the screen, from me, tonight, you won’t get a thing.
Is that what was actually said to him in sign language at midnight in a hotel that was once a hostel for pilgrims, or was it convenient for him to interpret the signs that way? But since, according to the established convention between them, they could be together only if both sent the same clear signals, he shuffles to the bathroom, locks the door, and starts to fill up the big tub. As he waits, he examines his image in the mirror. Time has turned his hair white but has not yet bared his skull. And he hopes that the wrinkles that proliferate around his eyes offer a touch of humanity and not just an intimation of mortality. He gets into the tub and enjoys the water that lightens his bulk. He washes his hair vigorously, as if that could darken it. And when he returns to the room, clean and fragrant, he finds that his companion has turned out the lights, and to outwit her hunger she has let sleep swallow her whole, coat, boots, and all.
For a moment he wonders if he should wake her, remove her clothes so she can sleep more soundly. But he decides not to touch her, lest she think he intends to violate a clear sign just given him. On second thought, he decides to remove her boots, so they will not soil the white quilt cover. She moves slightly, feels his hands loosening the laces, sighs, and appears to struggle, but does not wake. Finally he manages to pull off the boots, and he removes her woolen socks too. White feet in the darkness, small and tired. Suddenly the young woman materializes from the first film of the day, standing in his family home, fearful and demoralized in baggy white shorts, leaning on a broom, and her pale, delicate foot strokes his hair. Was it the left foot or the right that Toledano’s camera caressed more than forty years ago? he wonders as he gathers both her feet to him, kisses each one gently, and rests them carefully on the bed.
Three. The Slumbering Soldiers
LATER THAT NIGHT, when he gets up to go to the toilet, he sees she is still wearing her coat. In the dim light of Roman Charity he sits down close to her, careful not to touch her, and explains in a fatherly tone that such uncivilized sleep will not leave her rested. And she, without opening her eyes, mumbles that even uncivilized sleep can be restful, but nevertheless lets him peel off the coat and then, in utter exhaustion, curls up beneath the quilt and goes back to sleep.
But when he wakes up in the morning, her singing in the shower is louder than the roar of the water, and her hungry voice propels him from under the covers, in words not unlike his own: “Let’s get down there fast, before other people eat it all.”
As he emerges from the bathroom, she is dressed and made up, looking at the reproduction that hangs on the wall. But there is still no sign that the scene that repulsed her so in her youth and caused her to rebel against her lover triggers any memory. Moses, however, resolves not to give up. If not today, then tomorrow, he says to himself. I will not let her leave Santiago without reconnecting her to the repulsion that inflicted years of obligation and worry on me.
“Something wrong?” She is troubled by his look, but he waves her off, echoing her warning: “Let’s hurry down, before others leave us hungry.”
A new escort has been assigned for the second day of the retrospective. He waits now at the entrance to the dining room, the young teacher, handsome and refined, who at yesterday’s lunch complained about the absence of abstraction and symbolism in the later films of the Israeli. His name is Rodrigo Bejerano, and although his English is not as lush or fluent as Pilar’s, his thoughts are more complex and interesting. Moses invites him to breakfast.
Bejerano teaches the history of Spanish cinema at the film institute, but his field crosses borders; he is also an expert on French and Italian films of the postwar period. And he admits to being surprised by the three Israeli films screened yesterday.
“Why?”
The Spaniard tries hard to find the right words. “The determinism of the absurdist plot,” he says finally. “I couldn’t believe that in the end, Mr. Moses, you would actually plunge the train into the abyss.”
“It was not I,” says the disingenuous director, “it was the village people.”
“Still…”
“So what could we do? Be content with just a threat?”
“Yes, why not? There is great strength in restraint, in a threat that merely hovers, an irrational threat that one can imagine but that does not spill blood quickly and sow destruction easily… After all, in that period, not long after World War Two, you were not alone in this genre. Not only in Europe, but even in the Far East and Middle East, there blew an absurdist and surrealist wind. Take for example Egypt, your close neighbor. A few months ago we screened some old Egyptian films, underground films, surrealistic, but their grotesque and absurd elements were gentle, much less violent than yours.”
“The Nile relaxes them,” suggests Moses. “The Egyptians are always certain of their water sources; their surrealism as a result is less vulgar.”
The Spaniard’s eyes open wide, then he smiles, as if he’s heard a joke, but when the Israeli’s expression remains serious, he tries to digest the answer, and a moment later he asks Moses if he really thinks the absurdist genre reflects national character or geography.
“No doubt about it,” says Moses, putting down his knife and fork to avert the temptation to talk with his mouth full. “Don’t forget, we belong to an ancient people; for us, absurdity and surrealism are second nature, and so, when our art blends reality with a surrealistic spirit, or just bends it in an absurd direction, it needs a shot of violence, an overdose of imagination, because only then can art be distinguished from the absurd reality. You want only a free-floating threat? Our daily lives are filled with threats, which is why we cannot limit ourselves in a film to the threat to a speeding train — we have to actually throw it off the cliff.”
The young teacher closes his eyes to ponder the answer, his handsome face burnished by the glow of the copper pots and pans hanging on the wall. And then — after Moses picks up knife and fork — Bejerano wears a mischievous look as he challenges the director with a new hypothesis.
“If so, is it also possible to interpret the naturalistic detail in your recent films as a sort of inverted surrealism, a surrealism of calm reality?”
Moses chuckles with satisfaction.
“Let’s assume… maybe… why not? That interpretation is yours and remains your property. I never get involved in interpretation of my films and I am willing to allow any interpretation, provided it’s not an attack in disguise.”