“This is the boy…” You hesitate as you recall distressing knowledge, forgotten in the passage of time.
“Yes.” He interrupts the hesitation and defiantly pronounces the name of his eldest child, Uriel, who years ago found a good home with a family in the moshav nearby, where he works as a packer of fruits and vegetables.
“How old is he now?” You are curious to know the age of the mentally disabled son, to measure the toll on his father.
“He’s twenty-one.”
“He’s not your only son,” you say, as if to reassure yourself.
He throws you a sharp look.
“Uriel has a brother and a sister.”
“And they?”
“His brother is in the army and his sister is in high school.”
“Oh, nice. I didn’t know.”
“It’s not the only thing you don’t know.”
“Of course. It’s been years. But you too… about me…”
“A lot less than you think.”
“We’ll see,” you say, rising to the challenge. “But what I did know about you, I remember. For example, that you postpone your main meal to the evening. If that’s still true, let me take you out to a good dinner, assuming there is a decent restaurant in Netivot open at this hour.”
His smile suggests that the personal detail preserved in your memory might overcome his hostile preference for a quick exchange of words in an empty classroom.
“You have no choice.” You continue to provoke him. “If you went on a pilgrimage all the way to Santiago to renew ties with me, you’ll have to hear me out patiently in Israel.”
“I didn’t go to Santiago to renew any connection with you,” he objects. “I went to deposit some of my films in the archive, to save them from oblivion.”
“But since I happen to be a collaborator in these films, you dragged me out there too, whether you wanted to or not. And because of you they organized an odd retrospective for me, which came with a little prize at the end, if you can believe it.”
“I had no part in your retrospective.” The voice echoes firmly in the empty room. “And you didn’t deserve any prize for films that were my ideas, whose value you doubted. But what can I do, Moses, if people from a civilized country, no less sensitive and discriminating than you and your friends, recognize the quality of my work and are interested in preserving it in an archive, to learn from it? But I have no interest in you. If I wanted to reconnect, why go all the way to Spain, when here in Israel you’re open to everyone and running around everywhere?”
You concede the point with a smile.
“And in general,” he carries on, “from the time we split up, I never had the slightest desire to get near you again, especially when I hear about the inferior quality of your movies. But what can I do. You force yourself on me.”
“Indeed, what can you do.”
“I asked David, Toledano’s son, not to invite you — after all, Toledano didn’t draw a single picture of you. But you invited yourself, told me you needed my help, which I don’t believe you really do. And no matter how hard I tried to escape, or at least delay, you insisted and chased after me all the way here — so, please, Moses, a meal? Let’s talk here right now. It’s nice and quiet. Talk, but make it quick, what more do you want from me?”
Up against such harsh language, it might be best to preserve your dignity and walk out now, but the fatigue and hunger fortify your self-control. Beyond your former scriptwriter’s insults and anger hovers the image of the disabled son, deleted from your memory, inviting clemency for the father who does everything in his power to hurt you.
“Come, Trigano,” you say, your hand on his shoulder. “Even so… not like this… not standing, not in an empty classroom… I came to you hungry and thirsty, with goodwill, so, please, let’s sit someplace more reasonable, and the minute you tell me it’s enough, I’ll get up and leave.”
But he customarily eats his evening meal at the moshav, with the family that cares for his son.
“And you can’t include me?”
“Not sure the place would suit you.”
“Why not? Where is it?”
“A few kilometers west of here, near Netiv Ha’asarah, on the Gaza border. But don’t worry, they won’t kill you tonight.”
For a moment you freeze at the malicious spark in his eyes. Then you burst into laughter.
But he isn’t laughing. He gathers his papers, puts on a windbreaker and a white, wide-brimmed hat, and turns out the classroom lights. He bids a warm long farewell to the security guards and leads you outside, to the empty parking lot, bathed in the yellowy light of a full moon. “Follow me in your car,” he barks, “and I’ll explain later how you get back north. Make sure not to lose me, especially at turnoffs to back roads.”
“Just a minute”—you grab his shoulder—“it’s not my job not to lose you, it’s your job not to lose me.” And he stares at you, startled for a second by your powerful grip.
After the city lights disappear he leads you down narrow, desolate roads, where only military vehicles pass now and then, with dimmed lights. Though he could easily shake you on the road and be done with an unwelcome guest, he is careful not to lose you en route. He slows down at traffic lights so you can continue together when they turn green. He waits for you at the turns, signaling in advance at each one. And because he knows well the way to his son, he takes a few shortcuts, including dirt roads, heading west the whole time toward a horizon intermittently brightened by a silent flash, perhaps lightning freed of thunder, or a missile bearing its payload. And though he stays in the area merely as a guest for the night, you have faith that he too has learned to distinguish between “ours” and “theirs.” But when a flare goes off in the distance, with a boom that mimics the drumbeat on your car stereo, you are surprised to see him stop at once, jump from his car, and point at the sky, and when he sees you don’t understand, he pulls you from your seat to a ditch at the side of the road and shoves your face hard in the ground, and then a second blast, stronger and closer, shakes you both, pebbles land on your head, and when the air regains its composure, it exudes a sweetish smell of gunpowder.
When Trigano gets back on his feet you are still lying in the ditch, and you say facetiously, “What happened, habibi? You promised me that they won’t kill me tonight.”
He finally breaks into the old smile, the wise smile of the dreamer who won your heart the first time you met him. Yes, he confirms, not they. Something else. Wait and see. He brushes the dirt from his clothes and lights a cigarette; you are still in no hurry to get up. Curled amid weeds and stones you inhale deeply the smell of the earth you have not been this close to in years. Trigano may have guessed that you enjoy this moment of weakness, because he doesn’t offer you a hand but blows smoke and regards you with an ironic gaze, as if to say it’s good that the director who betrayed him should grovel at his feet.
“I don’t understand”—you hold on to a rock and get up slowly—“I was told that they always fire in early evening, not at night when everyone is home near a bomb shelter.”
“There’s no system. They fire when they feel a longing, and longing as you know cannot be controlled. It comes and it goes.”
“Longing for what?”
“Longing for fields and homes that were taken from them in 1948, and maybe also longing for our greenhouses and canneries, our nursery schools and pretty houses with red-tiled roofs we shoved in the face of the refugee shacks. They want us next to them again, so they can envy and hate and take revenge, and not only in their thoughts. Like frustrated children they fire stupid rockets that barely scratch us, to entice us to return and be at their side again.”