The Retrospective

Nine. Roman Charity

“CAN AND WOULD you help me turn a verbal confession into a photographed atonement?” Moses asks the Dominican after finally getting through to his mobile. Manuel de Viola, who often makes the rounds of poor neighborhoods in the capital, is required to carry a cell phone to assist him in places where a monk’s robe offers no protection. But Manuel, who has faith in human innocence, generally leaves the device turned off in the folds of his robe, using it only at night to check on his mother’s welfare. So days went by before Moses could speak with him and explain what he needed and why. “I am willing,” Moses tells him, “to dedicate my entire prize to this.”

Manuel, who remembers the Israeli’s confession, subscribes to the religious logic that such a confession demands continuity and perhaps absolution. And although he is appalled by the deviant nature of the screenwriter’s request, he is neither willing nor able to refuse. “I must extinguish the fire I ignited in you,” says the monk, his deliberate Hebrew reverberating in the tiny phone. He also expresses optimism that with the help of the prize money he will be able to cover the needs of a distressed neighborhood in Madrid.

Moses turns next to Toledano’s son David, the photographer, and asks him to join his journey. “I need you to take only one picture in Spain — specifically, an artistic picture of me beside a female character not yet chosen. The picture will be printed in my presence, in two copies. I will take custody of them, along with the film or memory chip of the camera, to make sure that the picture will never be duplicated and with the hope that over time it will be deleted from your memory. Yes, I could have found a Spanish photographer, but I would not trust him as I trust you, not because I know you, but because I knew your father, my friend and collaborator, and I’m certain that were he still alive, he would not hesitate for a minute to agree to my request.

“So, will you come with me?”

“If Abba wouldn’t have hesitated, neither will I,” answers the young man gallantly. He wants to know how many cameras to bring. “Two will be more than enough,” Moses answers confidently, “we’re talking about only one picture, but bring equipment that will work in dark places.”

Moses has come to terms with the fact that he will part with his prize money; when all is said and done, the sum is puny, and spending it this way will not only please Trigano and open the door to a new partnership, but get Ruth to repeat her blood tests. Thus he treats himself to a business-class ticket, seating the young man in coach not so much out of stinginess or frugality but from concern that if the boy sits next to him on the plane, Moses will be forced to answer questions he would rather not yet address. But such worries are unfounded. At the airport it is amply clear that Toledano’s son is a quiet and courteous young man and that the early loss of his father left him heir to the man’s good qualities but not his troubled soul.

The white robe and black jacket, the cowl, the big copper cross dangling from his belt, distinguish Manuel de Viola amid the welcoming crowd. He and Moses bow slightly to each other, and Moses enthusiastically introduces the young cameraman.

“We too, like you Jews, seek to glide in the path of righteousness,” says the Dominican as he takes hold of Moses’ rolling suitcase, but it quickly becomes clear that the pursuit of virtue will not be simple. In an effort to help reduce the level of air pollution in Madrid, the man of God does not take taxis but rather travels by rail, which means they have to pick up the suitcase and carry it down rough and crooked stairs to a lower level, onto a platform from which they and grimy industrial workers, foreign laborers, African peddlers, and students in school uniforms pile into a commuter train that despite its dilapidated appearance takes off with a burst of energy.

Yair Moses is at peace. He is certain the monk knows his way, and that his religious presence shelters them from pickpockets. “Is the hotel in the center of the city?” he inquires hopefully, but it turns out that Manuel has chosen to put up the two Israelis at his mother’s house. Moreover, he explains, Doña Elvira has purchased three small ceramic plates depicting the motif of Roman Charity, to provide the Israeli with added inspiration for his pose in the scene he will soon direct.

“What?” Moses is shocked. “You told your mother?”

“I did,” says Manuel. He can conceal nothing from his mother. Luckily, his monastic vows have sentenced him to a life of bachelorhood, otherwise he would have been compelled to bare his wife’s secrets too. But he reassures Moses: His mother may be trusted with secrets, his and those of others. Speaking frankly to her is like confessing to the Crucified One Who hears and understands everything but speaks not a word.

When they emerge from underground, dusk has fallen, but the streetlights are not yet on in the narrow alleys. The de Viola home is a large and attractive villa where during the civil war, family members remained amicable despite loyalties to opposing camps. But by the end of the century, they were forced to divide the big house into apartments for rental so that the aging actress could maintain her way of life and be dependent on the good graces of no one.

Although the monk often spends the night at his childhood home, mainly to lift his mother’s spirits, he prefers not to use his key and risk frightening the elderly occupant, so he rings the bell, and they wait for the housekeeper to unlock the door. She leads them down a long and narrow corridor crowded with pictures and bookshelves to their room, at whose center stands only one bed, though a wide one, stocked with pillows and blankets.

Moses is startled. Must he again share his bed in Spain, and this time not with a character from his films but with an unfamiliar young man? But if this is the only guest room in the house, how can he embarrass the hostess by requesting another one? And it would not be right to send the young man to a hotel. In the distant past, when filming at an outdoor location, he and the cinematographer would sometimes share a little pup tent, and Toledano Senior had not pushed Moses around in his sleep, so why should the son be any different?

But the young cameraman can guess his misgivings and quickly announces that he will sleep on the rug, leaving the bed to Moses. And to minimize his presence he goes off to shower and change his clothes. Moses takes his toiletry kit and medicines from his suitcase and considers whether to hang his clothes in the closet, then decides to leave them folded in the valise. This is not a retrospective before a foreign audience or an appearance at a formal dinner but a secretive, revolutionary act that calls for wrinkled clothing. He feels the little bag containing the handcuffs and runs his hand over the red robe he borrowed from Ruth’s studio, which he claimed he needed for his grandson’s Purim costume. How many times, he chastises himself, have I demanded that others, men and women, put on bizarre clothes and accessories and stand shamelessly before the camera? It’s only right that for once I make the same demand of myself. From his jacket pocket he removes an envelope, counts the prize money, deliberates whether to hide it and not risk carrying it in precarious streets, or take it with him and not leave it in a room with no lock on the door. Finally he decides to spread the risk. He hides a third of the money in a woolen sock; a third he shoves through a torn lining in the suitcase; and a third he replaces in his jacket pocket. The white robe and copper cross might be able to protect one thousand euros, but it’s doubtful they could hold their own in the case of three.

The housekeeper appears in an embroidered apron and white cap straight from an old movie and invites them to supper at the bedside of their frail landlady. The two Israelis tiptoe into the bedroom, which is spacious and splendid enough for a banquet. The armchairs and couch are upholstered in a flowered fabric matching the window curtains, and small tables are arranged among them. In the corner stands a large round bed, and upon it sits a smiling Doña Elvira, the old actress, who seems to have shrunk since their meeting in Santiago. Moses approaches and does not stop at a handshake but lifts her hand to his lips, and holding it close he asks her how he has deserved such warm and devoted care from her and her two sons, for he is not even a descendant of the Spanish exiles and thus not properly entitled to compensation for injustices visited upon his ancestors.

Doña Elvira smiles feebly. In the evening, her English gets very shaky, and she requires the translation skills of her son, who has removed his robe and in his spotless white shirt looks like an elegant bearded bohemian.

Carafes of wine and cups are placed before the guests, and a small table is pulled from the side of the round bed. The housekeeper serves a platter of hot and cold tapas, and as they eat, Moses is shown three small ceramic plates embossed with colorful renderings of the Roman Charity scene, each with different characters and poses.

Moses feels the embossing with his fingertips and passes the plates to the young photographer, who is still unaware of the connection between them and his assignment. Moses explains to his hosts that since his first encounter with the reproduction by his bed at the Parador, he has studied the subject of Roman Charity, finding much material in books and on the Internet, and so when Trigano came to him with his astonishing demand, he knew that this evoked an ancient and venerable topic and did not rebuff his friend’s fantasy with disgust. Indeed, the reproduction in his hotel room had been hung there at the initiative of Juan, who sowed the first seed, the point at which the involvement of the de Viola family in the act of atonement began. The reproduction he saw at the hotel will be the model for the scene he will direct and appear in himself, though in his case the nursing woman’s gaze may be turned to the side — as he saw in some Renaissance paintings, as opposed to the Parador picture — so as not to embarrass her or the man. As to whether the woman should also hold a baby — that will depend on the circumstances. Moses would prefer to play the scene alone so Trigano could not claim afterward that the baby stole the atonement.

Yes, Trigano had admitted that when he thought of the ending to his script, he had not yet heard of Roman Charity, and after he discovered that his imagination was deeply rooted in classical art, his pain over the lost scene and anger over the insult by the director had flared up again. Clearly, then, at the outset of their renewed collaboration, it makes sense to reenact the scene in keeping with its classical roots. There is no point in masquerading as an old beggar to whom some unrelated woman exposes her breast. Only by getting to basics and re-creating the original source of the scene will it be possible to restore trust that was damaged — albeit in a discreet fashion, as one copy of the picture will be given to Trigano, and the other he will keep for himself, so he can privately enjoy his own daring, but the negative or memory chip will be destroyed so that the picture will never again be reproduced.

“That’s what we agreed, am I right?” He turns to the young man drinking a glass of wine.

“Right.”

He explains to Doña Elvira that David is the son of Toledano, the cinematographer of his early films. He too, like his boyhood friend Trigano, was upset at the time by the elimination of the scene, for which he had specially prepared soft, delicate lighting. But since Toledano the father knew Ruth from childhood, he understood her refusal, or at least accepted it, and unlike his friend, he did not break his tie with Moses but continued to collaborate with him until he lost his life in an unfortunate accident. Moses feels there is symbolic significance in his collaboration with the son who follows in his father’s footsteps in the field of photography and who has carried everything necessary all the way from Israel on his back — except for the prize money, which Moses himself has carried.

“Do not grieve for the money,” Manuel tells him in Hebrew, “it will be given to those who are truly in need.”

“The money doesn’t grieve me,” replies Moses, “prizes come and go, but I fear humiliation, even before strangers I will never see again. I am not young nor am I an adventurer. I am a solid citizen in the last stages of his life.”

Suddenly fearful, he whispers to the Spaniard: “Have you prepared the place? Found a suitable woman?”

“Don’t worry,” says the monk. “It may happen this very night.”

THE PORTIONS OF tapas are small but varied, the meal pleasant and relaxed, so Moses is puzzled as to how and why the conversation comes around to the Marranos and the Inquisition, with Manuel trying to convince them that he is related to one of its top officials. He brings from the hallway two large paintings of family members, portraits of middle-aged men, severe-looking priests in white collars, then opens a Spanish encyclopedia of the history of the Inquisition and compares their pictures to that of a churchman from the sixteenth century, a cruel Inquisitor. In his opinion, anyone can see the similarity of the three, and some of their features have filtered down to him. We have a shared genetic destiny, says Manuel, who has switched into English laced with Spanish so his mother can participate in the conversation.

“Obsession…” scoffs his mother, sipping her herbal tea. In the vast round bed she looks like a dwarf. “An obsession to convince yourself you are a cousin of such a man,” she says.

Manuel smiles sheepishly but carries on. If his ancestors persecuted New Christians and tortured those unable to prove the purity of their blood, then it is his responsibility to cleanse their sins by giving shelter to undocumented people of dubious origin — namely, illegal foreign workers.

“Obsession…” his mother says a third time, but now her tone suggests she has not merely come to terms with her younger son’s obsession but rather enjoys it.

From the corridor comes the ringtone of the cell phone abandoned in the folds of the monk’s robe. Manuel hurries to answer it, and his voice is heard in the distance, tense and excited. Moses smiles at the elderly hostess, nods his head in friendship, says nothing. David, steadily drinking wine, seems enchanted by the place he has implausibly landed, and he asks the director if he can take pictures of the room and the round bed with the old lady parked in its midst.

Moses refuses firmly. “No,” he warns the young man, “do not photograph here, or anywhere else either. You have come to Spain for one picture only, which you will take in total secrecy. Limit your artistic passions to Israel, or come back to Spain on your own. As a cameraman you are here for me and subject to my orders.”

The young man blanches. His eyes spring open, and he clenches his jaw. But he restrains himself and does not respond. Though the words were spoken in Hebrew, Doña Elvira senses the aggressive tone, and to calm the Israelis she dims the lights with a switch hidden by her bed. The darkness that minimizes her wrinkles enables the director’s practiced eye to spot the signs of her former beauty that time has not erased.

“You, madam,” says Moses in English, “are still very beautiful.” Manuel returns from the corridor in time to repeat Moses’ words in Spanish.

Doña Elvira does not smile or thank the guest; she throws him a sharp look. “Beauty is still important to you,” she says and rings for the housekeeper, who arrives instantly, clears the dishes, and slides the lady’s table back into the side of the round bed. Then, as they watch, she quickly and skillfully readies the bed for the night’s rest. She tucks the old woman in a big blanket, spreads pillows around her in a circle, and crowns the remains of ancient beauty with a little white cap. The Israelis rise from their seats as the housekeeper is about to turn out the lights. But Moses is not done. He quietly approaches the actress’s bed and says, “Yes, Doña Elvira, beauty is always important to a man, and especially at a hard time. And you know that a hard time awaits me.”

Manuel guides the director and the photographer to their room and despite the early hour advises them to go to bed. Chances are the moment may be tonight.

“So soon?” Moses is confused. Manuel reports that a moral tug of war is taking place between financial temptation and the perversity of the quid pro quo. Although there is great hesitation, the people realize others will jump at the opportunity and they will lose out, and they say nighttime would be better for them than day. “After all,” says Manuel, “the original Roman Charity took place in darkness; a prison cell is always dark.”

Pondering the word original, Moses nods: “Who is the woman? Have you seen her?”

“I’ve never seen her. I only saw her husband.”

“Husband,” says Moses, “she has a husband?”

“Of course. If she is a nursing mother with a baby, there has to be a man, the baby’s father. Pero, the nursing daughter in the Roman story, is not a holy virgin, and the father of her baby may have known that she went to the prison to save her father.”

“Amazing,” says Moses. “I have read and learned much about Roman Charity but have never come across any mention of the husband of the benevolent daughter.”

“I exchanged a few words with the husband, and he will be there to supervise the photography and stand guard lest any harm befall his wife.”

“But what harm could I do?” Moses protests. “My hands will be tied.”

“Of course… of course. I also showed him pictures from art books. He is fearful, nonetheless, because it all seems odd to him. Understandable, no?”

“The fear is natural and appropriate, I feel it too, and perhaps you do as well. The crucial thing is for the photographer to remain calm.”

They go into their room. The young Toledano sets up his bed on the rug in the corner, padding it with blankets and pillows, but the director decides to take a long shower. On returning, he finds that the photographer has turned the light off and burrowed beneath the blankets.

Moses appreciates the darkness. When he gets under the covers, he describes the details of the atonement to the young Toledano, its reasons and purposes. That way the photographer can be prepared mentally, not be surprised or confused. He is willing to undergo this debasement not only to renew his partnership with Shaul Trigano but to bring about Trigano’s reconciliation with Ruth and persuade her to stop ignoring her illness.

From the sound of the young man’s breathing, Moses senses the emotion of his listener. A long silence followed by a low voice: “All you’ve just said I’ve known all along, so nothing will shock or confuse me. I was surprised that a director of your caliber was willing to atone for what was lost long ago in the imaginary world of another artist. It seems, though, that despite all the films you’ve made without Trigano, collaboration with him is important to you. You are obviously prepared to tie your hands and suck from the breast of a complete stranger, who symbolizes another woman, a woman who made many people miserable.”

“Many people?”

“Look, I don’t need to tell you that my father’s addiction to her ruined my mother’s life. And when he died because of her, we were so angry with him that a long time passed before we could speak his name in the house. But if you’re willing to humiliate yourself tonight for that woman, my collaboration can be a gesture toward my father, atonement for having hated him because of his love.”

“In which case, it’s a good thing I picked you for a partner.” Moses plucks the hearing aids from his ears, tucks them in their little box, and covers his face with the blanket.

MOSES’ FATIGUE CONQUERS his anxiety, so at three in the morning he needs to be shaken awake to restore his soul to reality. At first he has a hard time understanding that the reality is Spanish, and that he is being summoned to perform the deed that is his sole reason for being here. Manuel wears layman’s clothes, no robe and no cross. Why? The Israeli is disappointed, not least out of concern for his own welfare in dark alleys. But the opposite is the case: they are going to a mixed neighborhood, also home to immigrants from North Africa, and Manuel deems it unwise to raise suspicions that a man of the Church is there to influence Muslims to convert. In that case, it might have been better to invite the man and his wife here and take the photograph in one of the rooms, says Moses. But Manuel cannot entangle his mother or the housekeeper in this story. There is always a chance that someone will be struck with remorse after the picture is taken and will come here and demand the film, or try to extort more money. Manuel believes it best that those involved in the matter not know of any specific place they could return to. Besides, he was careful not to reveal to them the national origin of the photographer and the man to be photographed. He merely spoke in general terms about artists from a faraway continent who wished to re-create a classical picture for a modern museum in their country.

“A modern museum… Nice touch.”

In civilian clothes, at this hour of night, the monk looks tough and decisive. Before they leave he pours wine for everyone and prays for success, and once the handcuffs and robe join the camera equipment in the photographer’s knapsack, they silently exit the house.

Wintry cold outside. And as they take their first steps Moses realizes that Manuel has every intention of taking them on foot to the appointed place, which he promises is not far. “No,” says Moses, stopping at the street corner, “I can’t go on foot tonight, let’s take a taxi, even if it’s close. I have plenty of money with me.” But at such a late hour, approaching dawn, there are no taxis around. Manuel leads them on a shortcut through a deserted park, passing seesaws and slides, arriving finally at an apartment building where a few lights are burning.

Moses stops at the entrance. He demands that the middleman call a halt to secrecy and reveal the identity of the husband before whose wife he must kneel with cuffed hands.

Manuel is not prepared to supply the man’s name, and the wife’s name he doesn’t know because he never saw her and didn’t ask. He introduced himself to the man at the employment office he visits from time to time to help the unemployed with their requests. There he met a North African man of about sixty who seemed wary of approaching the clerk. Manuel spoke with him and was able to win his trust. The man is an illegal immigrant who slipped into Spain more than a year ago. He apparently fled his homeland following a run-in with the law and wandered for a few months in the south of Spain. There he met a young woman, also an illegal immigrant, who joined him and supported them both with odd jobs. But recently she bore him a child, and she is still worn out from the delivery, so given no alternative, he summoned his strength and went to the employment bureau. But when he found that they required papers, he was frightened.

“Does he speak Spanish?”

“Only a little. We managed the rest in Arabic, which I learned at the same time I learned Hebrew.” At first the man was horrified, but the monk’s robe combined with the Muslim’s distress yielded the faith that proper boundaries would be observed.

“How much did you promise him?”

“A thousand euros.”

“A thousand euros? You overdid it.”

“But this family has no money for food, and you told me you were willing to sacrifice your entire prize, so I thought it would be best to be generous to the man and woman, even at the expense of others.”

“Others? Meaning who?”

“I assumed,” says the monk uneasily, “that the remainder of the money you got from my mother would be donated to charity.”

Moses smiles. At this hour, at the entrance to this building, Manuel de Viola seems much more clever and practical than he did in the gloom of the confessional booth in the cathedral.

“You thought correctly,” he says, laying a friendly hand on the monk’s shoulder. “What is left we shall give to other needy people. Since the retrospective took place in Spain, it is right that the prize money also remain in Spain.”

And they ascend a darkened stairway in a building that looks even shabbier on the inside than it did on the outside. They walk through narrow hallways filled with junk and rags and broken furniture and strollers. On an upper floor they are met by a tall, sturdy man, his dark hair sprinkled with gray. In a gesture of greeting he places his hand on his heart, then kisses his fingers as a sign of respect, and hurries them into his flat, locking the door behind them.

It is a rundown apartment, just one room and an improvised kitchen. On a clothesline in the kitchen hang cloth diapers. In one corner is a pile of empty bottles, apparently picked from trash cans to be exchanged for deposit money. Part of the room is set off behind a curtain stitched from old burlap bags. And as they enter Moses thinks he hears the feeble crying of a baby, or perhaps of a woman. The space is already arranged for the photography. A tattered sofa has been pushed to the side and a table laid on it upside down along with two chairs. But the space is not big enough for the required camera angle, and in the manner of cameramen confident of their craft, the photographer repositions a chest of drawers and other chairs. The North African stands silently to the side, transfixed by every movement of the foreigners. Manuel stands across from the Arab and gazes at him intently, as at a garden sculpture. “What do you think,” whispers Moses to the photographer, “do you have enough light?” “No,” answers Toledano, taking his flash from the knapsack and wondering how to set it up. “Come on, my friend,” Moses says urgently, “let’s try to get this over with.” He suddenly feels dizzy and grabs hold of a chair. Is it the wine at three in the morning on an empty stomach, or is it the anxiety of humiliation surging in his mind? Frightened and amused by the situation, he closes his eyes. It’s been many years, he thinks ruefully, since there’s been a woman by my side to make sure I don’t fall.

The photographer’s energetic movements remind Moses of the young man’s father. He sets one chair atop another and hangs the flash in the kitchen, among the diapers. A good thing he remembered to bring an extension cord from Israel, so he can unplug the refrigerator and use its socket to flood the room with light filtered through blue cellophane. This way the picture will acquire a slight aura of mystery. The North African disappears behind the thin burlap curtain, where the silhouette of the waiting woman is now visible. How nice, the light that all at once produces a woman, Moses rhapsodizes. He must produce a similar silhouette of a woman in his next film.

“If we’ve come this far,” he says to David, “let’s shoot the scene two ways, with two different cameras, then pick the right picture and destroy the others.”

The North African paces around them like a caged tiger.

“Perhaps we should pay him in advance, calm him down,” suggests Manuel in English.

“By all means,” agrees Moses, and he hands him ten greenish bills, feeling he is sinking fast into a dream.

The photographer selects a lens and snaps it into the camera, takes out the red robe and handcuffs. Moses removes his topcoat and jacket and hesitates before dispensing with the shirt, then stands naked from the waist up. He wraps the robe around him like a skirt. He takes a chair and turns it sideways and sits on it as if on a footstool, spreading out the robe-skirt to conceal it, then puts his hands together behind his back and tells the photographer to place the handcuffs on him, and now that the ancient Cimon is ready to receive the nursing woman, the man goes to get her. From behind the curtain come whispers of an argument in Arabic in three distinct pitches, then silence. A few moments later, the curtain rises, as in a theater, revealing not one woman but two: an older, heavy one, holding the baby in her arms, and, walking behind her, a veiled woman with hands as black as night and a body so boyish she seems to be a daughter, not a spouse.

Seventy years ago, thinks Moses, trembling, my mother fed me from a white breast, and now, as I approach death, the time has come for me to nurse from the black breast of a young girl. But I am still in control of the scene. This time I am the director and I am the screenwriter, and I am the actor whose lips will touch the warm nipple of the young black breast. He is on the verge of losing consciousness from fear and joy. His head is slipping downward, but the photographer, standing on a chair and adjusting his lens, calls to him: “Wait a second, Moses, she has to take off the veil, otherwise when she leans toward you, your head will disappear under the cloth and the whole point of the picture will be lost.” Moses freezes in place, his hands bound, unable to stand up, but he collects himself and conveys the request to Manuel in English, adding a literary rationale to the technical issue. “It makes no sense for the face of the daughter bestowing kindness to be veiled from her own father, so please ask the husband to remove the wife’s veil for a few minutes. We paid him handsomely.”

Manuel speaks to the man in Arabic that sounds formal and awkward, and the man turns to the two women and gives an order to the younger one, but she, agitated, shakes her head no. The man apparently tries to coax her, but she still refuses, and in the midst of their stormy exchange the word yahud is spoken, and again a second time; the Muslim has apparently identified them. And why not? After all, Hebrew can be heard anywhere in the world these days.

The young woman begins to wail. Is it the nationality of the old man about to press his hoary head to her breast that escalates her fear and resistance? For the wailing now segues into powerful crying, and when the older woman, who might be her mother or maybe another wife of the father of her baby, tries to pull the veil from her face, the young woman snatches the child with feral swiftness and vanishes behind the curtain in a storm of tears and shouting. The man and older woman are quick to follow.

Can it be, after forty years, that the scene has again eluded him? There’s no doubt that the casting here is questionable. The money will alleviate genuine distress, but it cannot produce a credible, touching picture that enshrines a beautiful legend about a bold act of kindness. This is how it was with Ruth: a wise and experienced director knows that an actor cannot be forced to do something that contradicts his or her inner nature, even if the screenwriter believes he can bend the world to his will.

The shouting and weeping continue behind the curtain, and Moses, relieved, asks the photographer to free him from the handcuffs, dismantle the camera, take down the flash from the clothesline — in brief, to repeat what his father had done forty years before. Moses quickly takes off the skirt and puts his clothes back on. And to the utter astonishment of Manuel, he announces, “I am unwilling to force the young woman to remove the veil and thereby give offense to her faith. There’s no choice— you will have to find a more harmonious collaborator.” With a twist of irony, he adds: “Perhaps your forefathers were right after all when they believed that assumed identities are not to be trusted.”

Even as Manuel’s expression protests Moses’ decision, the man returns. The young woman has asked that her eyes be covered when she nurses the Jew. He pleads with Manuel, pointing to his own face to show the boundary between hidden and revealed. “No, it’s impossible not to have the woman’s eyes in the shot,” says Moses emphatically, “but I don’t want to coerce her to expose them, so go tell her that we’re giving up and leaving.”

Manuel interprets. The man is shocked and angry. He seizes the Spaniard as if about to tear his clothes, then turns to Moses and shouts his disappointment in shrill Arabic. “But the money?” whispers Manuel to the director, in English. “Leave them something to alleviate the misery you see around you.” And Moses, with a dismissive wave and without hesitation, says, “Money is not the issue; he can keep what we’ve given him, to make up for the anguish we caused the woman and to save her from the abuse of that unhappy man. Please find me another woman, a free-spirited woman capable of looking straight at me with compassion and love. The prize has not been used up.”

THERE WAS NO hope of finding a taxi, but it was near dawn and the subway was running. They traveled one stop and emerged into the street to find that during the short ride, subtle signs of a new day had crept into the sky of the Spanish capital. Again Manuel refrains from unlocking the door of his mother’s house and rings for the housekeeper, who arrives barefoot in her bathrobe. “Is it over? The picture’s been taken?” she inquires, hoping the guests will leave this very day. “Not yet,” says Manuel, “they are staying until we find someone else more suitable.” Moses, of course, can only guess at their Spanish conversation, but he gathers that the housekeeper, like her employer, knows why he has returned to Spain.

He asks for a glass of warm milk, and she invites him into the kitchen, seats him at the table, and serves him a slice of bread with butter. Though his hands were manacled for only a few minutes and show no signs of bruising, he continues to rub them. The excitement over the scene that nearly came to pass in the tiny apartment, the poignant entrance of the young black woman, his quick decision to withdraw — all this has left him enormously fatigued. “I want you to know,” he says to Manuel, who comes in and sits beside him, “I have no regrets about backing out, or about the money we gave them. If we had insisted they return it, they might have responded with violence, and I’ve got enough Muslim disillusion at home, I don’t need to arouse it elsewhere. So until you find me, today or tomorrow, a woman in need of both money and artistic adventure, a woman who will expose her face to uplift her soul, I, a man no longer young, will regain my strength under the covers.”

And he does so. Pleased to have been saved at the last minute from a humiliating picture with a veiled young woman — and gratified to have chosen the right photographer, who hadn’t lost his cool and with great professionalism had averted a mistake — he enters the bedroom, sees young Toledano sleeping soundly on his improvised bed, makes sure the money is still where he hid it, takes off his clothes, and puts on his pajamas. All this was not for naught, he says to himself. I learned something, I tested myself. I rehearsed, though expensively. He claps his hands and rubs them. The handcuffs actually felt good. True, the whole affair was more than a little mad, but if madness means liberation, it empowers art. And art, even in old age, is the purpose of his existence.

With this comforting thought he gives himself over to a deep sleep. When he wakes he finds a house flooded with midday sunlight but silent and empty. Young Toledano has probably gone for a walk in the city, Manuel has surely gone to find a barefaced woman, and the housekeeper has vanished, so he taps lightly on the bedroom door of the lady of the house, and, there being no reply, he opens it cautiously and finds her gone. But he doesn’t retreat, instead entering to inspect and admire the round bed in daylight. In the next film, or the one after, he thinks, we should build a round bed for a woman character waiting to die; this circularity has a calming metaphysical effect. After the shoot, I’ll take the bed home with me. I have enough space in my bedroom.

The room is clean and neat, the blankets folded, everything back in place. The Roman Charity plates are nowhere to be seen. On a little table sits the Spanish encyclopedia of the history of the Inquisition. Since he doesn’t understand the text, Moses turns pages and looks at pictures of major figures and instruments of torture. He is so absorbed, he doesn’t notice Doña Elvira soundlessly entering the bedroom, still wearing her coat and holding a pilgrim staff from Santiago de Compostela.

“Ah, Mr. Moses, here you are.”

“I didn’t find anyone at home, so I came looking for you,” he says, and quickly rises to apologize for invading her room.

Doña Elvira calms him. Her house is wide open to him, and though she is sorry over the way Manuel had failed him with the North Africans, she is glad that the director and photographer will be guests in her home for another day.

It turns out that Manuel has gone to speak with a friend who works in the Department of Welfare, and the photographer took a trip to Toledo to see the place that gave its name to his ancestors.

“Everyone these days is looking for remote ancestors to get inspired by or argue with.” Doña Elvira sighs. “Only last night I saw the childish confusion of my younger son, who thought he could help a Muslim family through absurd methods that violate their religion. The evening could have ended in disaster. The obsession to atone for the deeds of the Inquisition is indeed noble, but is that a reason for me not to have grandchildren? I’ve heard that you people serve God differently, and your priests and monks are allowed to marry and even have children.”

“Many children, too many…”

“There is no such thing as too many. How many children do you have, Mr. Moses?”

“A son and daughter, and four grandchildren. Two grandchildren live in Germany and speak a language I don’t understand, but two are in Israel, living nearby and very attached to me. Especially the older one, the grandson.”

“In that case, you can think of yourself as a happy man.”

“Thinking is easy, feeling is harder.”

She smiles. She likes his answer. She lays the pilgrim staff at her feet, takes off her coat, sits down on her round bed, and calls for the housekeeper to bring tea and biscuits for her and the guest. As they drink their tea, Moses interrogates her about her life long ago in silent films. In what ways was it different — the manner of acting, the movements of the body, the relationship between actor and director — and how did music relate to the silent scenes? Ever since he returned to Israel from the retrospective, he’s been thinking of making a silent film in the old style, toward the end of his career. Perhaps not full-length, but silent.

Doña Elvira does not envision great prospects for his silent film. In her day, the inter-titles between the scenes were brief and to the point, so as not to impede the flow of the action. People then were more intelligent and could read between the lines, even when the words were few and the sentences short. Today there is an inflation of words. Unless you repeat the same thing dozens of times, there’s no way to get attention.

In the afternoon Manuel returns with encouraging news. He consulted with his Welfare Department friend, who is in charge of aid to artists in distress, especially foreigners from Eastern Europe recently landed in Spain — musicians, singers, actors. His friend, after Manuel explained the nature of the wish — without, heaven forbid, disclosing the identity of the wisher — promised to locate by this evening an actress who also happens to be a young mother and would consent, perhaps without pay, or for a small sum, to play the role of the daughter in the scene, out of loyalty to the grand classical tradition in which it stands.

“She must be paid,” Moses interjects, “and generously.”

“Yes… you are right… one may not exploit the actress,” agrees Manuel, suggesting that something be given perhaps to the municipal official, who was enthusiastic about the possibility of an artist’s atonement for an artist’s sin. After examining the painting that Manuel showed him, the official proposed a location: the municipal supervisory department cellar, which has a high ceiling and a barred window. Such an atmosphere could enhance the credibility of the reenactment, and should the photographer require technical assistance, say a ladder to hold up the lighting, the guard on duty would be happy to help.

“I see that little by little, all of Spain will hear about my Roman Charity,” jokes Moses. “I came all the way here to stay anonymous. In Israel there are no secrets.”

“Even if all of Spain does hear,” Manuel says, rising to the challenge, “after you leave, this country will forget you, whereas your country is always remembering the forgotten.”

At four in the afternoon Toledano returns from Toledo, exhilarated. He bought another camera there and took dozens of pictures so he could show his younger brother the city that gave its name to their ancestors, then expelled them. I hope, he says to the director, that it was all right for me, without your express permission, to photograph streets and alleys and castles and rivers, and people, with a camera not associated with you, and to keep the pictures for myself.

“I hope so too,” grumbles Moses.

The high spirits the young man brought inspire the older man to get out and breathe fresh air of his own. If the meeting again takes place at night, why wait around for tiny dinner portions served by the housekeeper, and the monk’s theological chatter? Since the tea and biscuits, he has not eaten a thing. To be on the safe side, he asks his host to write the address and phone number of the house on three slips of paper, and briefly considers asking the old lady to lend him her pilgrim staff but deems it too intimate and takes an umbrella, which can serve as a stick if necessary, even though the skies of Madrid are calm and friendly. More people will join my adventure tonight, he thinks dolefully. If only I had settled for a Muslim veil and a hidden face, I could have been on my way back to Israel this evening instead of wandering the streets of a foreign city. Did the photographer’s perfectionism arise merely from loyalty to the original scene, or is he using it to punish both the director and his father? What would it matter to Trigano if he got a picture of the director handcuffed before a veiled black woman? In fact, such a picture, hinting at the North African desert, might have fulfilled the scriptwriter’s wish even more nobly.

With the three slips of paper in three different pockets, he undertakes a brisk walk to the city center. On arrival he slows his pace, strolls from plaza to plaza, contemplating statues of kings and generals, dropping occasional coins into the caps of young people pretending to be statues. He has never visited Madrid before and doesn’t know what’s worth seeing and what’s not; he is not necessarily keen on churches and palaces and would rather soak up daily life. He pauses by shop windows, surveys the Spanish women passing by, in an effort to discover what still arouses him.

Since he has again abandoned his hearing aids by his bed, the city of Madrid feels hushed and mysterious in the reddening winter dusk. Yes, he berates himself, tonight I need to be done with this craziness, no turning back. If she’s a foreign immigrant, a young mother, an actress pining for a job, in exchange for a proper fee, she can inhabit the role. No humiliation, just connection with mythology. The window of a small jewelry shop catches his eye. He looks at distinctive rings, bracelets, and watches, all devoid of price tags. He goes inside to inquire about cost, specifically watches. After protracted haggling he chooses a simple but elegant watch for Ruth, its hands and numbers legible by day and luminescent at night. It’s about time she replaced the little watch with the blurry face she has worn since childhood. Besides, she deserves a portion of the prize, which will soon be down to its last penny. Certainly I am not the first, he says to himself. Directors far greater than I have become entangled in obsessive relationships with actresses they eventually married.

He tucks the gift box in his jacket pocket, pats one of the slips of paper, and decides to satisfy his hunger, selecting a restaurant not far from a big plaza. Though it is earlier than the usual Spanish dinnertime, and the waiters have not yet laid the tablecloths, he is greeted hospitably. His request is modest: a big plate of fried potatoes and a glass of red wine.

He sits at a table overlooking the plaza, where the streetlamps are not yet lighted, and eats with great gusto the potatoes browned gold in olive oil, and when the waiter, gratified by his pleasure, offers another portion, Moses happily accepts. Meanwhile the plaza is filling up with a large crowd. In the half-light, near a flight of steps, he can see the statue of a horse whose rider waves one hand in the air and holds a long spear in the other. “What’s the name of this plaza?” he asks the waiter as he arrives with the bill. Plaza de España is the reply. Moses smiles. “In which case, I’ve come to the heart of Spain — I’ve landed well.” The waiter goes on in English, but between the waiter’s accent and the absence of the hearing aids, Moses doesn’t understand a word. Once again he fears that Doña Elvira’s housekeeper will think they are used earplugs and throw them in the wastebasket. I still refuse to grant them the mandatory status of eyeglasses. The truth is that what I don’t hear is usually not important, but what I don’t see always is. He leaves the waiter a generous tip and decides it’s time to go home, since one can’t call a private home a hotel, can one? He hands the taxi driver not one slip of paper but two, and the driver reads them both and finds a contradiction. As the taxi circles the plaza all the lights go on, and Moses manages a glimpse, alongside the horse and rider, of a mule whose rider’s helmet is skewed backward. Maybe these are Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, he says to himself, and why not? This is the right place.

“I thought you’d decided to forget your atonement and disappear in the country that expelled my forefathers,” the young photographer says half jestingly, half impertinently. The house is quiet and dark. Doña Elvira has eaten her dinner and is closeted in her bedroom; Manuel and the photographer have also had their meal and now sit in the kitchen, where the housekeeper is washing the dishes. Manuel reads aloud from the book of Psalms while the young photographer corrects his pronunciation and explains obscure Hebrew words to the best of his ability.

Moses heads for the bathroom. In a spontaneous decision, he shaves off his bohemian goatee. Even a tiny symbolic beard, he says to himself, might repel a nursing woman and be a barrier between me and the breast. And in the emotion of parting with such an unmistakable symbol of his character, he cuts himself, but succeeds in stemming the blood.

ON THE SECOND night the Dominican doesn’t escort the Israelis on foot but rather takes them by tram to a large building surrounded by a high wall, where three figures await them at the iron gate. I’m becoming famous in Spain. Moses chuckles. Manuel introduces Moses to his friend, a former monk turned social worker in the city district, and to the night watchman of the municipal supervisory department, but not to the third person, who stands removed from the other two. Bundled in a winter coat, she now draws near and is revealed as Pero, the young daughter, the woman, the actress. Strands of blond hair poke from under her beret. The cigarette between her lips faintly illuminates her delicate, pale features, but she is wary of looking straight at Moses, who cordially shakes her damp, limp hand. Toledano introduces himself and says something to her that Moses doesn’t catch, though he notices the embarrassed smile on her gaunt face.

The building was once a prison, and after Franco’s death it became municipal offices. The watchman opens the gate and leads the five down stone steps to the prison cellar, now serving as an archive. A mythological picture, Moses says to himself, with parking tickets and citations for building violations and other peccadilloes of the citizens of the capital of Spain.

The light in the basement is feeble, and the cameraman and director understand that it will have to be significantly enhanced if they want to include the barred window, which is near the shadowy high ceiling. “Are these bars essential?” wonders Moses. “Essential?” The photographer shrugs. “Nothing is essential, but the bars in your picture will make it stronger and more credible. In many renditions of Roman Charity, the bars of the cell are visible. I think Trigano will be pleased to see bars in your picture,” he adds. Hearing the name Trigano uttered by the photographer arouses vague anxiety in Moses, as if the two had conspired behind his back.

“Give it a try… what have we got to lose?”

The cameraman asks the guard for a ladder, takes out the extension cord he brought from Israel, and looks for a suitable socket. Without the Israeli cord we’d be lost, thinks Moses while the cameraman sets up the ladder opposite the barred window and mounts the flash on it, then looks through the lens to find the right spot for Cimon, the old father dying of hunger.

After the spot is designated the director takes off his coat and spreads it like a rug on the stone floor. Then, with expertise attained the night before, he repeats the ritual of undressing and dressing, then stacks up three thick folders of parking tickets to serve as the stool concealed by the robe, sits down, puts his hands behind his back, and waits for the young man to come down from the ladder and bind them.

The woman is frozen in place, keeping her distance. She does not remove her coat or even her French beret, merely studies the old Israeli with a blue-eyed gaze that blends anxiety and contempt. But when the light is focused on her, and with Moses sitting and waiting in his outlandish skirt, she takes off the beret and shakes out her hair, baring her tormented beauty.

“Maybe, like we did yesterday,” the monk whispers to the director in English, “we should pay the woman in advance to calm her?”

“You’re the one who needs calming, not she, but if it will ease your anxiety, take the wallet from the inside pocket of my jacket and give everyone what you promised. I hope you didn’t promise the actress a thousand euros.”

“No, no, only five hundred, she is after all an actress. Though she is also in deep distress, she is a real actress who has come to work here and not get charity.”

He counts and recounts five greenish bank notes and then hands them to the young woman, whose face reddens; she is insulted by the advance payment. She looks at the bills with anger, like someone who doesn’t know what to do with them. Then she sticks them in her coat pocket, quickly removes the coat, and unties her scarf, revealing a very white neck. But before taking off her sweater and blouse, she holds before her, like lines at a play rehearsal, the picture of Roman Charity handed her by the social worker and studies it.

Once Toledano has bound Moses’ hands, she quietly and coolly takes off her sweater and her shirt, and, since she has prepared for the role, she is not wearing a bra. Her bare breasts are shapely and symmetrical, yet arouse compassion in their absolute whiteness, as if no blood flows in them, just pure milk. Only the nipples are red, sunken, as if burned. And when she raises her arms to brush her hair from her face, Moses spots blue track marks.

He looks at the photographer to see if he has noticed the marks, gestures to ask if they will be visible on camera. Toledano gives a little nod, meaning yes, they will, but signaling encouragement. “So,” says Moses, “they brought me a junkie, no doubt about it. Her silence is deceiving.” If he puts his lips on her nipple, he will suck not mother’s milk but a drug. His face turns pale. A primal, childlike fear grips him. How good, he comforts himself, that we’ve paid her; we can make a clean break right away with no contact, but respecting her professionalism. However, the young woman, perhaps from the poison in her blood, does not sense the revulsion of the old man but sticks to the role assigned her and approaches him, no longer herself but Pero, the beneficent daughter who, according to the tale by Valerius Maximus, will now cradle the head of her manacled father dying of hunger and thirst, and nurse him with mercy.

Pleading desperately with his eyes, Moses signals to Toledano to click the camera, so the actress will realize she need do nothing more and her bare-breasted presence will suffice to achieve the desired picture. The flash floods the municipal cellar with blinding light again and again. The startled woman does not budge; Moses hunches over with eyes closed tight and struggles to stand, but his bound hands hobble him and he topples to his side at her feet.

Manuel cannot believe the scene is again unraveling, but the municipal social worker rushes to the Israeli rolling on the floor, quickly undoes his handcuffs, and pulls him to his feet, and, without asking him or the cameraman but with the insight of a former monk, he motions for the woman to put on her shirt. Yet she holds back, lingers before them with bare breasts and blue arms, pleading as if for her life in Slavic-inflected Spanish. The social worker takes her hand, calming her in her native tongue.

NOW THEY WON’T just hear about me in Spain, they’ll remember me. Moses wants to tease Manuel de Viola for failing him yet again in his Christian innocence but decides not to tease or blame and just sits sulkily beside the taxi driver, gazing at the empty streets of Madrid, feeling the weight of the silence of the two men seated behind him. No matter, he promises himself, tomorrow we leave for Israel. If Spain scares me, and Israel unnerves me, then it’s best I give up on a new partnership with that old dreamer and look for a realistic screenplay, something psychological, family-based. That’s what I’m still equipped to do. Moses went to him to seek reconciliation not just for himself, but for Trigano, and especially for Ruth, so they could console her with a new role. But if Trigano insists on indulging the vengeful and childish temperament he brought with him from the Atlas Mountains, he’ll end up in prideful isolation, and he will keep on teaching, as he did in the days he was an usher in that Jerusalem movie theater, what’s right and what’s wrong in the films of others but won’t create anything of his own.

In their room he says nothing to the cameraman, who has undressed and curled up on his rug. They exchange looks. Can this young man empathize with his revulsion, or does he think the old man is fooling himself?

“How many pictures did you take?” Moses asks finally. “Two for sure,” answers Toledano, “but I may have grabbed a third one.” “Did you use your father’s old camera, or the new digital one?” “The old camera.” “Please take out the film now, so I can destroy it immediately,” says Moses sharply. “Why destroy it?” says the photographer. “A pity to waste high-grade film we’ve barely used. When I develop it in Israel, I promise to destroy the pictures immediately.”

“No,” insists the director, “don’t develop any picture. Take the film out now, please, and give it to me.”

“You don’t trust me? You don’t believe me?”

“I believe you and trust you, but we are all human and can forget or be tempted. I’m not a totally anonymous person, and I have to protect my good name.”

The young man jumps from his bed in his underwear, takes the camera, rips out the film, and gives it to Moses, who holds it up to the light to wipe out anything captured on it.

Then he undresses, goes to bed, gets under the blanket, turns out the light, and says to the young man, “Thank you for your restraint and your patience. Tomorrow we’ll try to catch the first flight to Israel.” “But why?” wonders the voice in the dark corner. “Why give up? If you made an agreement with Shaul Trigano, don’t quit after two tries — you have money enough for a third. Listen, this may sound strange, but tonight, in the cellar, I had a thought that my father of blessed memory would be pleased if he knew you were trying to re-create the scene.”

“It’s not the same scene,” says Moses.

“But it’s still the true source, even if none of you knew it.”

Moses says nothing. Turns his head to the wall and closes his eyes. The delicate breasts of the drugged woman hover before his eyes. Does the money he advanced her atone for the insult, or does he owe her an apology too?

Only after he swallows the sleeping pill designated for emergencies does he manage to banish his worries and fears to the outskirts of a soul striving for unconsciousness. And since the pill is joined to extreme fatigue produced by the night’s adventures, not even the noonday sun pouring through the uncurtained window can wake him, nor is he affected by the clatter of the kitchen or the slamming of the front door. Only the gentle hand of the worried Doña Elvira lures the castaway consciousness to climb back to its owner and open his eyes.

Doña Elvira makes no apologies for the liberty she has taken, nor does she retreat from his bed, but instead brings a chair and sits beside him. A woman of ninety-four, an actress in both silent and talking films, wearing dark glasses to protect her eyes, begins to speak intimately to the foreigner aged seventy, as if he were her son.

“I know what happened to you last night. Not only did Manuel tell me; you will be surprised to hear that the young man you brought with you also tried to explain to me what happened. I think, Mr. Moses, that if you were frightened, it wasn’t because of that poor girl. Manuel, who made sure you paid her in advance, foretold the future with his intuition and wanted her to feel she had done her job. For you know there is nothing more infuriating for an actor than when he or she is stopped in the middle and told, Get out of character and get back into yourself.”

“Very true,” says the director.

“But you were afraid not of the woman,” continues Doña Elvira, “for how much could she hurt you, at your age? You, sir, permit me to interpret you, are frightened each time by the subject, by Roman Charity. The fear is understandable, because on second look this strange story — even though so many important artists drew inspiration from it and honored it for hundreds of years — this story remains perverse. Your screenwriter has no right to demand it of you. And yet, despite everything, it pains me that you will go back to your country empty-handed, that all of us here will give up on the picture.”

“All of us?” he asks, startled, his white head resting on the pillow. “You care?”

“Of course I care. And it pains me that Manuel, whose achievements as an itinerant monk are so meager, will feel that he failed you too. Also the young man, who has gone to buy film to replace the roll you exposed yesterday, will feel disappointed, though he is just a technical person.”

“A cinematographer is not just a technical person. In my profession I came to realize, time and time again, that everything depends on the cameraman.”

“Perhaps not everything,” Doña Elvira corrects him, “but a great deal.”

Silence falls. Not since his childhood has a woman more than twenty years his senior sat by his side as he lay in bed with his head on the pillow. What does this old lady want from me? Maybe, at my age, instead of a young girl nursing her father, an elderly mother should offer me her withered breast?

Moses smiles at her contentedly. “Yes, Doña Elvira, I hear you.”

“I think we must continue, not despair. Manuel wants to succeed, the cameraman wants to take pictures, your screenwriter wants to make peace. And it is also not good that the nice lady, your companion, should stay ill and without a role.”

“I see you’re on top of things. And if everybody wants this so badly, what choice do I have?”

“The scene, the picture, must be revived and immortalized, and I know exactly where this can be done without frightening you. My son Manuel, because of his obsession, is always looking for people in distress — foreigners, the sick, the unemployed — but a woman in distress, expecting kindness from you, cannot give you any Roman Charity. I prefer simple, happy people who combine the authentic with the classical, naturally and without fear.”

“You are persuasive, but I don’t really understand.”

“Give me a little time to explain it to you in actions, not words. Don’t hurry to leave Spain. Let me surprise you with something worthy of your talent, but as a very old woman, I can’t surprise you with what will be, only with what was.”

He tries to rise from the pillow, but his head feels like a block of lead.

“Good.” He surrenders. “I am in your hands, but only till tomorrow.”

THOUGH HUNGER AND thirst wake him as a rule, he is neither hungry nor thirsty now, and he sleeps soundly. At five in the afternoon Manuel shakes him firmly: “Come, Mr. Moses, we’re going, and this time the journey is longer.”

He responds to the call, rises, washes his face, puts on his clothes, and still feels no hunger. “Let’s eat and drink on the road, no point in wasting time,” he says.

Doña Elvira has called for her favorite cab — a boxy black one, London-style, easy for humans whose limbs have gone brittle to climb in and out of, and the seating is capacious, so passengers sitting face to face are compelled to be convivial, to exchange witticisms.

Manuel wears his monk’s robe with all its accessories, and Doña Elvira is wrapped in a robe of green velvet she may have worn in one of her past roles as a femme fatale. The taxi sails away with the four of them, navigating the streets of Madrid and escaping the city by side roads — shortcuts that are sometimes unpaved — bringing them at nightfall to a rural area where buildings are few and far between, planted on large plots of land that in the past were probably flourishing estates and that today look desolate and abandoned. The buildings are big and dark, with occasional glimmers of light that might be electric or oil — the electrical poles are now fewer in number — and the narrowing and winding roads don’t cross any railroad track or highway with a gas station or cafeteria to stop at. Now and then, it’s possible on this clear winter’s night to spot, on a distant hilltop, the vanes of a windmill, moving slowly, like the wings of a giant, languid bird.

“Will the driver have enough gas to get back?” Moses asks Manuel, who this time is taking his chances with air pollution.

“He is a veteran and reliable driver; Mother can always depend on him. He is from the area, and if he gets lost there’ll always be a roadside inn where he can get directions.”

“I haven’t seen any roadside inn so far.”

“That’s because they’re dark. Country people go to bed early, but don’t worry, if you rouse them they get up right away.”

Before long they indeed arrive at a darkened inn, and only after exiting the cab does Moses see the dim light within. By the side of the building stands a large carriage, its shafts resting on the ground, the unharnessed horses grazing nearby in a patch of soft grass. They enter a small dining hall with pots and pans hanging on the walls. In the middle is a large table, lit by oil lamps, surrounded by about ten men and women, laughing, enjoying food and drink; their colorful clothes seem like costumes. “Who are these people?” marvels Moses. “They are traveling actors,” says Doña Elvira, greeting them.

The actors recognize her and make room for her and her companions. The innkeeper, a big-bellied Spaniard, greets the cabdriver warmly and pours the visitors wine in yellow ceramic cups. But Moses refuses any drink and ignores the platters of food that arrive at the table. Ever since the failed municipality cellar scene, he has, in effect, taken a vow of fasting. His eyes again take in the driver, now outside the cab, a short, chubby man, happy and content, loved and accepted by all, eating and drinking and laughing. Suddenly Moses thinks that he knows this character, that he ran into him in the distant past, but where and when? Can it be that the driver was once an actor in some film, or did he envision him when he read some old novel?

He doesn’t ask Doña Elvira, who is engaged in cheerful conversation with the actors. Manuel urges him to eat. “We have far to go,” he says, “you will die of hunger.” But Moses resists. “No, thank you,” he says, “even if I lose some weight there will still be more than enough of me left, maybe too much.”

When they return to the cab they find the night has grown brighter. The moon risen in the east floods the skies with magical milky light. “How can it be that not far from the capital city we are in such an empty, deserted landscape?” asks Moses. “So it only seems,” answers Doña Elvira. “Many people live here, but the darkness conceals them from your sight.”

It is near midnight when the black box arrives at an old farmhouse. A large dog greets them enthusiastically and jumps on the driver, whom he apparently knows or who might be his master. A country woman holding an oil lamp emerges out from the ground floor and bows to them deeply, and from behind her peek boys and girls of various ages. The driver hugs them all and picks them up. It would seem, says Moses to himself, not all the locals go to bed early. He looks at the cameraman carrying his gear from the cab, and thinks, A fine young man. He is desperate to take pictures of the inn and the actors and the carriage and the grazing horses, but he respects my orders.

The driver leads them to the rear of the farmhouse, and on the way they pass a stable where stand a horse and a mule, like old friends, snorting at a shared trough apparently stocked insufficiently, since the horse is gaunt, a skeleton of a horse.

In a rear building, near wooden stairs that appear singed by fire, are the scorched remnants of books in leather bindings. Moses trembles with all his being: It seems I have reached a very important place.

From the upper floor comes a man of about fifty, tall, as gaunt as the horse in the stable. His face is long, his eyes are sad, a tiny beard sprouts from his chin. It’s really him. Tears fill the director’s eyes. The knight is alive. His books were burned but he didn’t die at the end of the story. Sancho Panza saved his master from deadly sanity and moved him to his house in the country, to his family and children, so he would no longer be alone in his delusions and frustrations.

The knight warmly welcomes the director and cameraman and their companions and takes them into a big room where on one wall hang an ancient helmet and spear, bent and dented over many years in battles, but gleaming with reality.

Toledano takes from his pack the old camera inherited from his father and measures the light with a meter.

Does this young man see what is going on here? Moses asks himself. Has he ever read the wonderful book? Today you can’t rely on anyone’s education.

His head is spinning, he feels his face is flushed, and Doña Elvira and Manuel are happy to see the eyes of the veteran director brimming with tears.

The two are chatting with the skinny man, and the Spanish they speak sounds different now, softer, less jarring, similar to the language he heard in his childhood in Jerusalem among the Sephardic Jews who lived there for many generations.

The chivalrous man, though he has probably not left this village for many years, is not taken by surprise at the request of the foreigner who has come from far away and scornfully refuses the payment offered by Manuel. He has no need of any payment. Even if they fill the trough to overflowing, the horse will never get fat.

He opens another door and escorts his guests into an inner room, and amid the shadows cast by the oil lamp appears a stout country woman sitting up in bed. It is hard to tell how old she is or if she is still nursing.

Toledano sets up his tripod and camera; this time he clearly needs to make do with the light of the oil lamp, for not only this house, but the whole area is without electricity, and the Israeli extension cord will be of no help.

“This is the place, this is the source,” Moses says, and he takes off his overcoat, his jacket, and then his shirt and undershirt, and he allows the elderly Doña Elvira to place the robe on him but doesn’t invite anyone to tie his hands.

“How is this?” he asks the cameraman. “Are you ready?”

“Do we have a choice?”

“Which camera do you want to start with?”

“My father’s old camera. Only film can get the nuance, digital’s not an option.”

“Then let’s begin.”

“Yes,” says Toledano, “but pay attention, Moses, I’m opening the aperture to the max and widening the lens, but you have to hold still, freeze in place, otherwise we won’t get a picture out of this, only mush.”

Moses approaches the country woman, who sits in her bed, and with his own hands he takes off her blouse and exposes her breasts. Though this is a country woman whose face is coarse and witless, she radiates a true and simple light. And Moses says to her in Hebrew, “I know who you are, you are Dulcinea, you are the fantasy, in person, the knight captured in the end.” And facing a massive breast bisected by a bluish vein, he thrusts his hands behind him and declares that only the Knight of the Sorrowful Face may bind them.

A fragrant breeze blows through the window. Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Moses asks himself. If Dulcinea can feed me, it means she has borne the knight a child and the fantasy of his love is not merely the fruit of imagination. The director brings his lips to the big brown nipple, and though this is a country breast, a magnificent breast, he is unsure whether he will find it soft or hard. The woman smiles and squeezes her breast, and between his lips Moses feels a first drop of milk.

The milk is warm — strong sweetish mother’s milk with a mysterious taste, a hint perhaps of a country dish consumed by the woman. Well, then, this is the fantasy. The inspiration I craved has returned, he muses with joy, I am drinking it straight into the chambers of my heart, against the reality that strangles us. My heart is intact, my daughter checked it not long ago. If so, this is my true retrospective, a retrospective meant from the start only for me.

HAIFA, 2008–2010