“Such a thought is not only absurd, it’s despicable, total madness.”
“Exactly, madness.” He happily seizes the word. “You’re right, total madness, sweet, private madness… superfluous madness but nonetheless real… madness that commands respect. But enough. We’ll stop now. They’re bringing us a stove.”
The old farmer pushes a jerky baby carriage containing an old oil stove, its flame already burning, and a woolen blanket. “I came to warm you up a little,” he announces. And while Trigano wraps his son in the blanket, the farmer shoos the dogs away from the table to make room for the stove.
“If the feet are warm,” he declares, “the whole body is warm.” He collects dishes from the table and puts them in the carriage and scolds you: “You, sir, the teacher, will come to regret you didn’t eat. Soon our neighbors might send us a little red alert, you’ll have to drop everything and run to the shelter.”
In a whirl of emotion your heart aches for the wounded creature wrapped by his father in the blanket, now resembling a newborn with his flattened drooping head, and you rise, stand up straight, and make a strange little speech to the farmer:
“Yes, your wife already chastised me, but I beg for more time. I am paralyzed by the meeting with this man, a former student, the most brilliant and original of all my students, which is why I chose him as my partner at the beginning of my career, until he ripped asunder our partnership in a ferocious argument, which we are trying to arbitrate now. Please tell your wife not to give up on me.”
And upon concluding your speech, as the astounded gaze of the brilliant student impales your back, you exit the arbor with head held high and stride through the main house, across the big living room with the little screens sporting a seventies singer in black-and-white, down corridors where breathing and snoring blend with the sound of sighs, and though the toilets are vacant, you prefer a visit to the old mule out by the big cabbages, now that you know the mule’s name, and he cocks his head with curiosity as you urinate, slowly and thoroughly, and the subversive notion enters your mind to get in your car and leave, for surely a soldier can be found at a nearby junction who will be happy for the ride and point you in the right direction.
THE HONEYSUCKLED ARBOR, all lit up, looks from a distance like a purplish installation with a perforated dome. Two big dogs hunch over a small trough, politely dividing its spoils, the leftovers from Trigano’s dinner. And within the arbor Trigano is patiently feeding his son soft rice scooped from the tomato soup. Has he guessed your thoughts of escape? For he gives you a friendly, open look, as though he shed his anger the minute he slammed you with his absurd accusation.
“What’s this, Trigano,” you joke, “these dogs were trained in table manners?”
“When they are castrated they are well-mannered,” he answers, “but do sit down and start eating. There is culinary pride here, so it’s important to the lady of the house that accidental guests eat and praise her.”
“I have praised her. By the way, does Uriel usually need to be fed, or is this a treat on a special night?”
“A treat, but I’m helping. He knows how to eat, but needs a bit of prodding.”
“What kind of work does he do here?”
“He works in the packing house of the moshav, sorting fruits and vegetables. He has a good eye for potatoes and onions, sees what will go bad quickly and what will keep longer. They’re so happy with him, they even give him a small salary, right?”
“Two hundred shekels,” Uriel burbles cheerfully.
“Is treatment here expensive?”
“The state will subsidize anyone willing to get treatment in a place close to the border.”
“That doesn’t eliminate anxiety for his well-being.”
“Obviously. On the other hand, the caregivers here are good and dedicated, and there are plenty of bomb shelters.”
The whole time, he keeps feeding his son, who opens his mouth wide like a baby bird and tilts his head from side to side, his eyes fixed on you, listening to your conversation. You flash him smiles but don’t speak to him, for you are afraid of saying something that will embroil you in an answer you won’t understand. It turns out your smiles disturb him; he tugs at his father’s ear and whispers at length, in choppy bursts, and his father nods his head vigorously to signify both understanding and agreement.
“What’s he saying?”
“He’s worried about you, wants you to stay here. He says we should make a bed for you.”
“Ah, Uriel, how good of you to be concerned about me.”
“Yes, from the care and love that he gets from everyone, he has learned how to give to others. By the way, apart from the wadi of Slumbering Soldiers, did you look for any other locations from those films?”
“Yes, my parents’ house. But I looked only from the outside, to figure out how we managed to turn it into three separate houses.”
“And that’s all?”
“No. I also took Ruth to that Jordanian village Toledano annexed and we went down to the railroad station and the tracks and the wadi of the train wreck. Because when I saw the film in Spain, it seemed like the station wasn’t a real one, that we built it, like the installation in Slumbering Soldiers.”
“No, it was a real train station.”
“Right, but today you won’t find it. The people in the village took it apart stone by stone. But the stretch of track built by the Turks is alive and well. And the railcars are still running, and the train to Jerusalem still crawls by but doesn’t stop. You see, Trigano, in the twenty-first century, your international express is still an Israeli fantasy.”
“Which makes it doubly powerful.”
Silence.
“Did you also go to Kafka’s synagogue?” He snickers.
“It’s gone. You tore it down in your script, no? But I have faith that the old animal found herself another synagogue, where she still runs around between the ark and the women’s section. But the women of today aren’t scared of her.”
Now at last you share a laugh.
“When I saw that mongoose on the screen at the Spanish archive,” you go on, “I was impressed all over again by Toledano’s talent for catching her at exactly the right moment.”
“Don’t dismiss your own role in taming the shrew,” Trigano says with a thin smile. “You do have a talent for directing animals. Maybe that should be your true calling in the few years you have left, a director of animals.”
“It’s too late,” you say, keeping your cool. “I’m too old to start a new career, especially without Toledano’s help. He could have become an important cinematographer, had it not been for Ruth driving him crazy.”
“He drove himself crazy.”
His son listens, smiling, as if sensing the irony between the lines.
You pour yourself some wine and stare at the food still left on the table, weighing where to begin.
“At the film institute, when I saw the Kafka movie,” you say, “I asked myself why you picked that story. Even though it’s an abstract Kafka story, with no defined time or place, it’s still about an old synagogue in Eastern Europe, in a very old community drenched in memories of pogroms and foreshadowing Holocaust terror. By the way, who played the rabbi? A wonderful actor.”
“Really wonderful.”
“How did he end up in our film? I never saw him again anywhere on the screen. It wasn’t you who brought him in?”
“No, I don’t think so…” He’s avoiding the question.