“Thank you, Manuel, this was an unforgettable experience,” says Moses, his head spinning.
But Manuel has turned gloomy and he neither responds nor smiles, as if he has uncovered a defect in the Israeli’s confession. He grasps Moses’ arm, and carefully, as if the director were feeble or disabled, helps him climb the spiral stairs that ascend to the nave of the church.
THE MASS IS in progress. Surrounding the high altar are seven priests in elegant vestments conducting the service in various languages before a devoutly silent throng. And because Manuel and Moses enter from behind the altar, they cannot make their way through the worshippers without disturbing the holy rite.
“What do we do?” whispers Moses. “I can’t delay much longer, Ruth is surely worried about me.”
“The character?” The word slips silently, ironically, from the lips of the monk, who turns Moses around and leads him through a maze of rooms and dark stairs to a heavy wooden door. He opens the bolt and delivers Moses into the small square where the angel stands, pointing with his sword at the Jew fleeing the cathedral.
“From here you will easily find your way back to the hotel,” says Manuel in a cool, oddly severe tone; he does not invite a farewell handshake but merely presses his palms together, then turns on his heel and disappears behind the heavy door.
I disappointed him with my inflexibility, thinks Moses. Was it so hard for me to accept his absolution with an eye to the future? And he hurries from the little square to the great plaza, which is empty now.
Waiting by the hotel is the car that will take them to the airport. The driver, a directing student at the institute who has volunteered for the job, opens the trunk so the director can confirm that the three suitcases and two pilgrim walking sticks are securely there.
“But we have another few minutes, no?” asks Moses. “Just a few, not many,” says the student.
Tranquillity has returned to the hotel lobby as people have gone off, some to rest, others to pray, and from afar he espies the ethereal figure of Doña Elvira sitting alone in a corner, bathed in the soft light of a bright winter’s day. He rushes to her but finds her sound asleep. A shriveled, motionless old lady, breathing so minimally it seems that air flows through her with no effort of her own. He checks to see whether Ruth’s bag and coat are beside her, but doesn’t find them. He goes downstairs to the rest rooms. After urinating and rinsing his face with cold water, he goes to the ladies’ room, opens the door a wee crack, whistles the first notes of a tune, their longtime signal, to indicate his presence, and waits for the response. But no whistling from within completes the melody. He stays in the doorway, and, not to be suspected of sinister intent, he whispers her name and whistles the tune to the end. When one of the booths opens to the sound of rushing waters, and a big strong cleaning woman emerges brandishing a green brush, he withdraws at once.
We have some time, the airport is not far away, he reassures himself, and he returns to Doña Elvira, who has not changed position but who now has her eyes open. She smiles and invites him to sit by her side. He is careful not to create the illusion that he has time for a real conversation, so he remains standing as he tells her about the confession taken by her son in the bishop’s private booth.
The mother is not surprised by her son’s misdeed.
“You made a mistake, Mr. Moses, by agreeing to confess to a monk who is not authorized to receive confession, and if Manuel also granted you absolution, you should know that it counts for nothing.”
“I didn’t ask for absolution,” he says with a smile, “and I don’t need it.”
But Doña Elvira continues her complaint. “Lately he has been playing around with the principles of his monastic oath and looking for needless provocations. The Dominicans will end up tossing him out of the order, and he’ll come back and live with me and be even more dependent on his mother.”
Moses is touched by the candid and endearing complaint. “But my confession to Manuel is not a provocation, for I, as you recall, am not a Christian or even a believer, just a person.”
“Not a Christian?” For a moment she seems confused, but her memory quickly recovers and locates the proper identity of the Israeli director. Yet she does not give up entirely. “Not a Christian, but why not a believer?”
“Because that’s how God made me,” declares Moses with a triumphant look and a shrug of helplessness, “and I have neither the power nor the authority to change His will.”
She laughs. “Then come sit with me,” she says. “But first get me a blanket.”
“I’ll sit for just a minute,” he says and covers her shoulders with the blanket that lies folded beside her. “We should already have left for the airport, but Ruth has disappeared.”
Doña Elvira shrugs.
“She didn’t come back with you?”
It turns out Ruth went on her own in the Old Town, to look for more presents.
“And you came back on your own? When was that?”
“Less than an hour ago.”
“But she knows that we are supposed to leave at three for the airport.”
“And what time is it now?”
“One minute to three.”
“If she knows, why should you worry?” says Doña Elvira serenely. “In this city she is safe.”
“Why should I worry?” he challenges the old lady, as if he had entrusted her with a little girl, and he rushes to the front desk to see if there is a message for him.
But no message has been received.
He leaves the hotel and, skipping down the few steps, goes out into the great plaza, then hurries across to the first alley of the Old Town and stops. What now? Where to look?
She does have her passport and plane ticket with her, and she knows the time of the flight, and he has a fleeting suspicion that she is deliberately late, that she wants to part from him here at long last, this place where Trigano’s spirit has come and gone. As though the confession he has just made has risen from the depths of the cathedral and drifted to her in the Old Town, and she knows that there will be no role for her anymore in his work.
He goes back to the hotel. “What’s going on?” the student asks. “We’re late, and there’s traffic on the road to the airport.” Moses leans on the car. “We’ll wait a little longer. My actress seems to have a hard time saying goodbye to this wonderful place.”
“If she doesn’t get back,” says the student, “we have to remember to take her suitcase out of the trunk.”
“You’re right.” He grins at the future director and points to her suitcase, feeling vaguely vengeful. “Take it out now, and one of the walking sticks, and put them over there, and before we leave we’ll ask the porter to take them back into the hotel.” Suddenly he adds, “If you want to be a movie director, you ought to practice trips to the airport, because in every film today there’s at least ten minutes of driving to or from an airport.”
The student laughs.
It’s three thirty. No, he tells himself, this is no mistake or forgetfulness, but a deliberate act. She knows how anxious he is about time, knows about his punctuality, his sense of responsibility. However, the two of them are independent souls. Even when they are in bed together, they are like two actors supervised by a director and cinematographer and sound and lighting people.
“That’s it, we should go,” he says to the student as he finally accepts her absence. “Let me just leave her a message at the hotel.”