Free The Retrospective: Translated From the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman by A. B. Yehoshua Page A

reveals that Moses’ mother played the first old woman, obvious questions arise, such as: Was it hard for you to direct your own mother? Did she follow your instructions? Why didn’t you try to include your father?
    Attention shifts to the actress, her fetching screen presence still lingering in the room. A young woman asks whether the smile that brightened her face at the end of the movie was genuine or produced at the director’s request. In other words, if the scene had happened in real life and not before a camera, and a white ghost dragging intravenous bottles had darted out of the darkness to console her, would she have welcomed it, or run away in terror? Ruth answers firmly, though in poor English. Yes, she would have happily welcomed the dying man, whose care that night would keep her in Jerusalem, and she would not flee the city in the morning.
    Then an old farmer speaks. His bald pate reddening with emotion, he asks if he is permitted to think that this dying man, who earned the trust of not only the girl on the screen but also himself as a spectator, will wrestle with death after the film is done and overcome it. Is such hope possible, and was it the intention of the filmmaker?
    â€œNo, it wasn’t, but neither does it contradict it,” answers Moses. “The ending of a work of art is an absolute ending, and whoever imagines what happens next speaks only for himself.”
    The disappointed farmer slowly sits down, but several of his friends ask for permission to speak. Fearing the local farmers will lower the level of conversation, the priest urges them to keep their questions short, and he answers them himself hastily, and then, to bring the discussion to a close, he poses his own question to the honoree: “Do you yourself believe in the idea of the film you created? In other words, is everyone who receives care also a caregiver?”
    Moses is startled by the question but is quick to answer.
    â€œMy screenwriter believed it, and in those days I respected his ideas and agreed to direct films based on them. After we went our separate ways, this idea seemed unrealistic to me, since there are invalids who are chronic and stubborn, concerned only with themselves. But today, after watching this film of mine, which I had not seen for decades, I’m ready to give his vision another chance.”
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    T HE ARCHIVE DIRECTOR has two options for the intermission before the next screening. They can further tour the film labs and classrooms, or they can rest in his office, which was once the apartment of the army base commander. It has a modest sofa on which one man can stretch out comfortably. As a devout believer in afternoon naps, Moses chooses the second alternative. In recent years, even on filming days, he has managed to arrange the working day to include an hour or so for a nap. Not even when shooting on location does he pass it up; he crawls, blanket in hand, under the production truck to grab a quick snooze in the oily darkness below the chassis, first making sure the vehicle is locked and the keys are in his pocket.
    How good to enter a quiet, spacious room, albeit slightly monkish in character, with logs burning in the hearth. The priest removes two woolen military blankets from the closet, shuts the blinds, disconnects the telephone, and locks the door from the outside.
    Moses goes immediately for the couch, but Ruth asks sheepishly if this time she could have it and he make do with the armchair. He is surprised, but he agrees. After all the excitement over her past beauty, she is probably depressed and seeks the consolation of curling into the fetal position.
    He covers her with the blanket and turns out the light, hoping to catch some sleep in the chair. The next film is about the army, and he has a vague recollection of long nature shots and of soldiers fast asleep. He closes his eyes, pondering his mother’s devotion to the role he entrusted to her. He knows a good many