The Extra

Twenty-Seven

THANKS TO THE EARLY DEPARTURE, her eyelids droop repeatedly on the ride, her head bobs, and she arrives at Masada asleep. With her in the minibus are six other extras, a few of them former singers in the opera chorus, arriving today to reinforce the ranks of their former colleagues, not with their voices but with their presence.

To the women’s surprise, the bus doesn’t take them to the hotel but heads straight to the opera site at the base of Masada, where the sounds of rehearsal are heard.

The singers, dancers and chorus, all in street clothes, mill about the enormous stage, a wooden floor with built scenery supplemented by the natural landscape. Dirt paths run between two small hills planted with low plastic olive trees and artificial flowering bushes. The director and his assistants, wielding bullhorns, prompt the chorus members, who burst loudly into song and quickly stop. The orchestra, in its pit in front of the stage, missing some of its players, is under the baton of a young assistant conductor while the illustrious maestro, a man of three identities, gathers strength in his hotel room.

The seven women extras are greeted by an assistant director who instructs them as to their positions and movements. In the first scene, taking place in Seville, their job is to give the audience a sense of agricultural surroundings, so that while the singing of the tobacco factory workers grows louder, they as farm women will walk along the paths between the two hills, two of them with pitchfork and hoe, three bearing bushels of fruits and vegetables, and the two others, on either side, leading small wagons drawn by donkeys.

“Real donkeys?”

“Why not? In Europe they sometimes put elephants and horses on the opera stage.”

The assistant director asks Noga if she would be willing to lead a donkey hitched to a small wagon carrying a few children, since no self-respecting opera production can do without children.

“What if the donkey gets wild?” Noga asks.

“It won’t get wild. Its owner is sitting here on the side, and he guarantees its good behavior.”

And indeed, near the hill stands a little two-wheeled cart, an elderly donkey harnessed to it, ruminating on the state of the world.

Noga approaches the animal, and as a sign of affection she gently folds one of its big ears, smiles at the owner and asks if he has a kurbash.

“Kurbash?” The man is amused by the Arabic word uttered by a Jewish woman. “No need, this is the most polite donkey in the world.”

He rises and wraps the reins around her hand.

“Here, now you can take him up the hill so he’ll get used to you, and I’ll walk beside you.”

When they are up on the hill the assistant conductor gives a sign to the orchestra and chorus, the assistant director motions to Noga to take the donkey down the hill to the stage, while on the opposite hill the other extra walks her donkey down, accompanied by the two extras carrying the pitchfork and hoe, and the remaining three carrying the bushels of fruit and vegetables — proof positive for the opera audience that the Seville of that time was most fertile and lively.

The rehearsal exhausts the orchestra and the choir. The same passage, again and again. The singers playing Carmen, the Lieutenant and the Corporal warm up their voices in their dressing rooms while three understudies perform onstage, to coordinate the movements of the chorus and dancers. The director and assistant conductor are pleased at last, and everyone is sent off to the hotel to rest, except the seven extras, who arrived late and require fine-tuning for the upcoming scenes — the entrance of the toreador, the smugglers in the hills, the packed crowd at the bullfight arena.

After the rehearsal, waiting for the minibus to take them to the hotel, the seven women flee the blazing sun into the pit, scattering among the empty chairs.

Most of the musicians have taken their instruments with them, but the big ones, impractical to carry, remain in place, among them, of course, the harp, draped in a blue zippered cover. At first Noga observes it from afar, then draws closer. A guard stands on the conductor’s podium, enjoying a meal spread out on the music stand. At first she considers asking permission, but decides the guard won’t care, and might take her for one of the musicians. She silently goes to the instrument, pulls the zipper of its cloak partway down and lightly touches the strings, which respond with a quiet sigh. Eight weeks have passed since she last touched a harp. She is dizzy with longing.

The guard watches her. What is he protecting, the instruments or music itself? She can see from afar her donkey standing serenely. Its feed bag of barley must be empty by now, for the donkey is not nibbling but gazing toward Masada. She too lifts her eyes to the ancient mountain, whose desolation has outlived its myth. She then completely undoes the zipper and strips the harp of its cover, sits in its shade, pulls and hugs it with both her arms and, without hesitation or tuning, as if her concert has begun, plays the Saint-Saëns Fantaisie.

She plucks the notes vigorously, to overpower the desert wind, and their ring in the wilderness is richer than in any concert hall. The guard steps down from the podium but is reluctant to interrupt her, as the six extras slowly awaken to the music and gather around to watch her fingers up close and her feet on the pedals.

She does not smile at them, or even look. Focused on the blue and red strings, she is amazed how precisely the melody flows through her fingertips, not a single mistake or dropped note. From time to time, by force of habit, she glances at the empty podium, as if unaware that no orchestra is playing beside her.

When she is done, her fellow extras loudly applaud. “Why are you an extra if you’re such a talented harpist?” one of them asks.

“Actually, I am a harpist and not an extra,” she says, and tells the story of her mother’s experiment with the old folks’ home.

“When will she decide?”

“In less than a month. That’s how long I gave her.”

Finally the minibus arrives to take them to the hotel. She shares a lovely room, with a view of the Dead Sea, with one of the older extras, a former singer in the opera chorus, and the arrangement is a pleasant one. They talk about music and life, and her roommate sings a few phrases from Carmen to demonstrate that her dismissal from the chorus was unfair.

The performance begins at nine, and the singers, musicians, dancers and production people have all arrived by seven. As the distant sun, setting beyond the mesa of Masada, casts delicate stripes of light on the darkening Dead Sea, the musicians tune their instruments and practice their solos. Noga, hidden behind her hillock, dressed like a nineteenth-century country girl, stands beside the donkey, now adorned with a colorful blanket, a little bell tied around its neck. The donkey’s owner sits to the side, smoking, surrounded by children. “How many children do you want for the cart?” he asks Noga and smiles.

“How many can your donkey pull?”

“He can pull four, but the opera needs a couple to run after the cart, to give some energy. Look, we dressed them like Arabs from old Andalusia.”

The children have been costumed with colorful scarves and embroidered blankets, and several are wearing shiny boots. And for the price of the donkey rental the man threw in various other adornments for everybody.

They finally decide on the division of children. Two will sit in the cart, three will run after it.

“Are they all brothers and sisters?” asks Noga.

“Some are, some aren’t,” answers the Arab.

A little before eight, a strong searchlight is beamed at Masada, and the myth returns to life. Tiny lights switch on at eight-fifteen atop dozens of music stands, as the players warm up with their instruments. In the distance, a roar of buses, ferrying the audience to the site.

At five after nine, the tall conductor with the tripartite identity — Jewish, Arab and Italian — arrives, clad in a jacket like a Protestant minister’s, with a small skullcap pinned to his hair lest it fly off during his stormy performance. Noga had heard gossip in the Arnhem orchestra about his style of conducting, and today she will be able to witness the ecstasy with her own eyes.

The stage lights go on and the sounds of Carmen rise from the pit and flood the air, and though the music is famous and familiar, its beauty continues to astonish. The extras are given a sign, and Noga takes hold of the halter and leads the donkey, wondering if his long ears appreciate the music.

The two Arab children in the cart wave to the delighted audience, of whom they were supposed to act unaware. The three on foot hum to themselves. They cross the stage from north to south, intersecting the path of the empty cart rolling from south to north. While the tobacco workers jostle each other with female abandon, the walking donkey defecates on the stage. Outstanding, Noga says to herself as the fresh aroma strikes her nostrils. Every moment here is a gift. She will entertain her friends in the Arnhem orchestra with stories of her wonderful turn as an extra. Meanwhile, she prods the donkey to pull the cart with the children to the far side of the hill, where, amid the tempest of music and banging of drums, she detects the modest part of the harp.

The performance ended at midnight, but the participants did not arrive at the hotel until two in the morning. In the lobby, a message from her brother awaited her.

“Noga dear: Yoni is sick, and Sarai won’t want to leave him alone or with Ima. I tried to sell the tickets, but sworn enemies of opera swarm all around me. So Ima and I will come tonight to see Carmen and the extra standing by her side, to cheer you both on and shower you with praise.”