ON FRIDAY EVENING Amsalem again insists Moses come down to Beersheba. “There’ll be a few people at lunch we can persuade to invest in the new film, but they need to see who and how you are.” “Instead of seeing me,” replies Moses, “tell them to see my latest films.” “No,” objects Amsalem, “these are plain folks with too much money who know nothing about film but understand people, and so they want a sense of the dreamer before they start to fund his fantasies. Besides,” he adds, “my sister-in-law will be there, and she recently got divorced.”
“How old is she?”
“Forty-five. But I’m not thinking about her for you. I’m thinking about a young man with a baby, which I have a feeling would make a great story that hasn’t been seen before.”
“Everything has been seen,” says Moses, and gives him a tentative promise predicated on various conditions: how he feels, the weather, visiting grandchildren. But the next morning, as he lazes in bed with the newspapers, the producer again calls and tries to coax him to come. “A storm is coming,” protests Moses, “let’s postpone the visit till next Saturday?” “Only in Tel Aviv is a storm coming,” says Amsalem. “In the south the skies are blue, and the new highway will zip you to Beersheba in under an hour.”
Although the investments by the Amsalem-Tamir Company have never exceeded 3 or 4 percent of his films’ budgets, the wholesaler’s loyalty and faith inspire the director’s affection. For Amsalem, as opposed to the production companies and public film funds that support his projects, has a fundamental folksiness. The scent of the fruits and vegetables that made him rich stayed with him even after he broke into real estate, and despite his advanced age, he has lately begun wearing his hair in a small braided ponytail. Although Amsalem also disconnected himself from Trigano, Moses does not forget that it was the screenwriter who brought them together, and even if Trigano is gone from his life, the connection he left behind is not forgotten.
He phones his daughter to persuade her to switch Africa for Europe before he increases his bar mitzvah gift. She is taken aback. Though the Africa decision has been made, and they plan to order the tickets next week, she is willing to hear why Africa is anathema to her father. “Come, let’s talk about this in person, Abba, without Itay or Zvi. Not this morning, because people will be here. Tonight we’ll be at a concert. But tomorrow morning, at the hospital, I have a break between ten and eleven, and we can sit undisturbed in the cafeteria, and I’d also like to hear about your retrospective and the prize that Imma told me you got in Spain.”
“A small prize. Negligible.”
“The main thing is they honored you.”
He knows his son-in-law is touchy about his intervention in family matters, so he welcomes the idea of a private meeting at the hospital, especially because she could — he realizes — do an ultrasound of one or another of his internal organs and tell him what’s what.
The storm has not yet hit, but the darkening sky has further dulled the city’s spirit on this quiet Saturday, and he decides to trade the drizzle of Tel Aviv for the dazzle of the desert. And indeed, in one hour flat, following precise directions he receives en route, he finds himself looking for a parking spot amid the many cars circling the vegetable magnate’s villa.
Amsalem did not mislead him. Among the guests, merchants and middlemen and contractors, are some who are interested in his films, but first they want to get to know the director and learn where he’s heading in the next one. Before long he is sitting in the middle of a massive living room, sipping from a glass his host keeps refilling with a superior wine, providing answers to curious questioners who blend artistic naiveté and practical guile. Now and again unruly youngsters of various ages surge to the buffet, help themselves to the rich spread of savories and sweets, then lope back outside to play.
“So what’s the next picture?” asks a guest, whose financial worth Amsalem has already confided to Moses. “What’s cooking on your front burner?”
“The pot is still empty,” Moses says frankly, “and the fire’s still out.” He senses at once that he has made a mistake, for an artist who complains that the muse is snubbing him encourages people to shower him with suggestions and ideas, true stories or ones concocted on the spot. And when they see that Moses’ attention has faltered under the torrent of ideas, they press the host to bring a sheet of paper so they can write their names and phone numbers, should the director want further details. And Amsalem, old and experienced, who knows and loves his friends, is weighing his inclination to meet their request against the need to rein them in, and summons a boy, who sits alone sadly in a corner, rocking a baby carriage, to bring him paper to write down the names of those who do not want to be forgotten.
But the boy ignores the call and stays at his post. Instead, a most charming woman advances, her hair gathered in a colorful scarf. This is Amsalem’s sister-in-law, younger sister of his second wife. Moses had met her and her husband among the many people the producer invited to “his” films. Now he makes room for her beside him, and the holy Sabbath notwithstanding, she diligently writes down, in an oddly childlike hand, the names of those wishing to breathe life, and possibly money, into the dying ember. Can it be that the recent divorcée, pretty and sweet, her perfume pleasantly enticing, is why Amsalem insisted on getting him down here today? For if Amsalem had allowed himself, after the death of his first wife, the mother of his children, to marry a woman twenty years younger than he, why should Moses, ten years younger than Amsalem, not follow his example?
The sign-up is complete. Moses folds the page, sticks it in his pocket, promises to get back to them all, and invites the lovely scribe to join him at the buffet. As he piles food on the plate that the woman, Rachel Siko by name, has handed him, he takes the liberty to inquire where she lives and what kind of work she does, and naturally about her children, who, despite her religious proclivities, turn out to be but two in number, and still young. The older one, Yoav, celebrated his bar mitzvah not long ago, and he is the pale lad rocking the baby carriage in the corner and casting a longing eye at the buffet. Whereas the daughter, Meirav, who according to her mother is a ten-year-old beauty, is running around with the other kids. Moses listens politely and concludes that the children are too young; any permanent relationship is out of the question, only friendship. But the woman keeps talking about herself, fixing her radiant eyes on the listener, and with bold, near self-destructive candor, she tells him that in addition to her two children she has a grandson, seven months old.
“Grandson?” He tilts his head to make sure his hearing aid picked up the word correctly.
“Yes, a grandson. There in the carriage, with his father.”
“His father?” he asks. “Meaning your husband?”
“Not my husband, my son. Yoav, the boy sitting there.”
“The boy?”
“Yes, the young man sitting by the carriage and looking after his son. He is his father.”
“His father…” whispers Moses.
“Yes. And that’s the story my brother-in-law and I were thinking to propose for your next film… unless you’re already set on a different one.”
As Moses casts a horrified look toward the corner of the enormous room at the callow youth who sadly rocks his baby, he drops his plate, which shatters at his feet. But his conversation partner quickly calms him with “Mazel tov!” and bends over to pick up the pieces.