“What is this?” Moses is nervous. “What does it say?”
“Read it for yourself…”
CTA of coronary arteries
The examination was conducted on a new 128-slice Cardiac CT scanner as part of a clinical trial with the consent of the examined.
In the course of the examination two scans were performed:
One of the entire chest with low radiation and no injection of contrast dye.
The second a CTA of the heart with the injection of 70 cc Ultravist 370.
In the course of the scan the heart rate varied in the range of 75 beats per minute and a good imaging of the heart and coronary arteries was obtained.
The heart is of normal size. No pericardial fluid detected.
Minor calcification in mitral valve annulus.
The organs scanned in the upper abdomen are free of gross pathology.
Calcium score of 186 corresponds to 52nd percentile of subject’s age group.
Upper aorta with circumference of 35 mm.
Left-dominant coronary artery system.
Eccentric calcium plaque in the anterior area without significant stenosis.
No evidence of defective myocardial perfusion.
Summary: Non-occlusive sclerosis as described in coronary arteries.
“So?” asks Moses, but now without anxiety. “So”—the doctor pats his father-in-law’s shoulder—“you won an extra prize, a retrospective of a healthy heart, so you can keep going wild with no worries.”
IS THE IMAGE of a free and hedonistic person attached to him by family and friends alike solely the product of his ambiguous relationship with the character abandoned by his former screenwriter? Or does the art of cinema, where directors are always changing characters, locations, and plots while working closely with actors and crew, create the impression that the loneliness of a director cannot be genuine or painful, since he is always surrounded by people? Not even his family members can imagine the depth of his solitude or the magnitude of his misgivings amid his cast and crew. And can he be fairly described as unrestrained if he has no real authority over the character he drags from film to film? For Ruth has made his visit to her studio conditional on getting some idea of the new film, and only after he gives in and tells her, albeit in general terms, is she intrigued enough to set a time for him to visit.
For Hanukkah, she has suggested to one of the schools in south Tel Aviv where she runs drama clubs that they not settle for some banal holiday skit about the little cruse of oil that lasted eight days but stage a real play about the Maccabees based on a fine novel by Howard Fast, My Glorious Brothers. The school’s principal was concerned that the lofty language of the Hebrew adaptation might prove too difficult for many students. However, when Ruth explained that many years back, in a school in the desert town of Yeruham, she herself as a girl had acted in My Glorious Brothers, and that even though the parents and children were new immigrants the play was received with awe and appreciation, the principal gave her approval, provided that the play run no longer than fifty minutes.
And so, for several weeks now, Ruth has been coaching the Maccabees at the school, occasionally inviting the lead actors to her studio to polish their performance. She would not, of course, think of inviting Moses to the school, but if he wants to attend the individual coaching sessions, he can come, on two conditions — first, that he not introduce himself as a movie director, as that might generate false hopes; and second, that he not share his comments, positive or negative, with the students, only with her.
He has often visited her apartment in Neve Tzedek, to discuss a new role or as a loving friend who happened to be in the neighborhood, but she has never opened her studio door to him, even though it is across the hall from her flat. More than once, when he inquired about her sources of income and expressed interest in seeing the studio, she refused. “It’s a mess and you will not find what you’re looking for.” “But what am I looking for?” he would protest. “I only want to know you better.” And she would persist in her refusaclass="underline" “What you know is more than enough.”
But today, in hopes of being a partner in his new film, she will open the door of her studio to him and let him observe her work. In so doing she forces him to go without his afternoon nap and get to her place before the students arrive, and she repeats the stipulation that he must sit on the side and not intervene and, most important of all, not introduce himself as a film director.
The studio is not nearly as small as he had been warned. It’s a fair-sized room, with an adjacent kitchenette used for storage. Though the room has only one window, it’s large and faces the sea, admitting mellow afternoon light. True, there are lots of costumes in the studio — some that she and other actors had worm in his films — alongside props meant to stimulate the imagination of children: masks, swords and spears of tin or wood, toy guns and hand grenades, all stuffed into the kitchenette. She seats him beside a tiny bathroom partitioned by a curtain, near a white tunic worn by the cantor in In Our Synagogue.
“To hide you completely would be dangerous,” she says, “because if you sneeze or cough it will scare the children, but for once in your life, try to minimize your presence.”
Before long, three students pile into the room, two boys and a girl, quickly removing their coats and overstuffed backpacks, dumping them in a heap in the corner by Moses. He smiles at them but is careful not to say a word. Ruth, contradicting her own instructions, introduces him as an old friend, a famous film director, who has come to observe the rehearsal.
Predictably, the kids, for whom film is the pinnacle of all the arts, are excited, and one of them, a dark-complexioned boy of about thirteen, wants to know the director’s name and film credits. Moses, with a sheepish smile, lists a few from his retrospective, but Ruth interrupts and says, “That’s enough, kids, let’s get down to work.” The two boys are apparently of Middle Eastern extraction, but the girl’s coloring suggests the Far East. A tall, slim Asian with a finely sculpted face and big slanted eyes — perhaps she’s the child of foreign workers who put down roots here, or a member of some tribe from deepest Asia that qualified as Jews under the Law of Return. Their drama teacher has them perform a few warm-up exercises to loosen their bodies and wake them from the torpor of their school day, and then she seats them on a bench to refresh their knowledge of the text before they perform the scene.
The boy who took an interest in Moses plays Simon the Hasmonean, the main character, and has mastered his lines of dialogue. The girl, who is called Ruth in the play, is still a bit shaky in her part, but the traces of a foreign accent in her delivery add to her charm and beauty.
He will need to get her name and address, decides Moses. Even if she had no dialogue, a close-up of her marvelous face would captivate the audience.
A nighttime conversation ensues between Simon the Hasmonean and the girl who courts him, while the other boy, Judah Maccabee, sits still on the side, staring at the young lovers.
RUTH: Simon, where art thou?
SIMON: Who calls Simon?
RUTH: A moonstruck lad like you, sitting and dreaming of a lovely lass — were you bored, Simon?
SIMON: I feared that jackals had broken into the corral. It is not proper, Ruth, that you sit here with me.
RUTH: Why? Why is it not proper that I should sit with you, Simon, and is it not a lion you wait for and not a jackal?
It is three hundred years since a lion has arisen in Judea.
You never smile, you are never amused, is this not so, Simon, son of Mattathias? There is no one unhappier than you in all of Modi’in — in all of Judea — in all the world. Methinks I would give the best years of my life to see a lion leap hither and swallow you up.