Original subtitles

(city streets)

(city noise)

(muffled children shouting)

(dog barks)

(music playing in background)

(footsteps)

(moped drives by)

(stove starter clicking)

(telephone rings)

(hangs up phone)

(footsteps retreat)

Why did Amos' mother commit suicide

in Tel Aviv on a rainy day?

Around the same time, my Aunt Ruth commit suicide

on a pale sunny day in Brussels.

Suicides happen everywhere.

Was it, for most of them, a sort of exile

wherever they were?

Women who dreamed of something,

of what, they probably didn't know.

But they couldn't sleep anymore,

neither in Brussels no in Jerusalem.

They each had a son,

one of the sons became a great writer

afterward.

Long after the death of his mother.

The other didn't.

Even though his mother, my aunt,

would have liked that.

For awhile, he painted.

His painting was gloomy, he stopped,

then he work in haute couture

and he liked that, at least I think he did.

Now, he works in a luxury hotel

still in Brussels.

He likes Brussels.

I think of my Aunt Ruth when she came back

from the convent after the war.

She had changed, supposedly.

Supposedly, she was full of life before.

She gave up everything;

the piano, reading, everything.

I even think she wanted to convert.

It didn't last.

My grandfather, who was religious,

didn't want her to.

She got married,

and then it started to be bad.

She often came to our place to get away.

She took care of me.

She gave me my first books.

She had a child, my cousin,

but that didn't make anything better.

My father did all he could for her,

my father loved her sister,

and I loved my aunt.

Sometimes she scared me.

She talked to me like I was an adult.

She scared me.

But she did love me.

She sang me songs in Yiddish.

I would listen, but I wanted to go play.

My mother, my father would tell me,

"Be nice with Aunt Ruth.

She isn't well."

So, I was nice.

Sometimes, we went on vacation together.

It was always in Belgium

on the North Sea.

She didn't come with us when we went by boat

to Israel on vacation, no.

For her, the time for that was over.

And it probably wouldn't have changed anything.

It was too late.

Anyway, she already couldn't stand the heat,

the light anymore.

(footsteps approaching)

(floor creaks)

(footsteps)

(telephone rings)

Hello?

Ken?

Ken?

Yes, I'm okay.

Well, I don't know if I'm going to go today.

I have to work.

Well, if I go out I will be distracted.

Well, maybe next week.

No, I have to-- I have to work today.

Okay, oui.

I'll call you next week.

Bye.

(hangs up phone)

(rhythmic tapping)

(children shouting)

I don't feel like I belong,

and that's without real pain,

without pride.

Pride happens.

No, I'm just disconnected

from practically everything.

I have a few uncles and sometimes

I let them go, or they let me go,

and I drift.

That's most of the time.

Sometimes I hang on for a few days,

minutes, seconds,

then I let go again.

I can have the look, I can have the hair.

Semi-blind?

Semi-deaf?

I float.

Sometimes I sink,

but not quite.

Something, sometimes a detail,

brings me back to the surface,

and I start floating again.

I feel so disconnected that I can't even

have a house with bread, butter, coffee, milk,

toilet paper.

And when I buy some,

I feel like it's a heroic act.

Basically, I don't know how to live

or go anywhere.

When I take the bus,

it's a state of heroism, too.

And this all has to do with that,

with Israel or not Israel.

Of course notrealIsrael.

Within Israel where all of a sudden

I would belong.

But I know that's also a mirage.

Something in me has been damaged.

My relationship with the real,

with daily life.

How do you make a life in a non-rarified air?

It starts with bread in the house.

A minimum of order,

a minimum of life.

And besides all that, I lose everything;

my keys, my glasses, my notes, my sister,

and almost my mother.

My notes on Israel, too.

Because after months of non-reflection,

but reflection nonetheless,

I finally accepted Xavier's offer,

and I started to take some notes.

I lost my notes in Spain.

A big blue and white checkered notebook.

I either left this big notebook

at the movies.

That was the first time I had gone in months,

and I went with my niece,

otherwise I would have stayed in bed

at the hotel.

I either lost the notes

at the movies or at the fast food place

we went to before the movies.

I didn't go back to look for them

out of laziness, out of boredom,

but mostly out of lack of desire,

or out of parasites of desire,

disrupted, or worse.

Out of the feeling that if I sing,

well, then I should just sing.

I should just deny myself,

like I usually do,

except sometimes in spurts,

that's what I generally do,

except for my notes or work.

When I still manage to work

by refusing to let all the rest

get near the surface.

Sometimes.

And it's getting harder and harder.

(water sloshing)

(airplane soars overhead)

(waves breaking ashore)

(echo of instrumental music)

(city street noise)

(dial-up internet sounds)

(footsteps)

(typing)

(airplane soars overhead)

In the book I'm reading someone says,

"Rabbi never stopped pestering us."

One day, we'll have to look Israel straight on.

without reservation or procrastination,

we won't escape it.

Here we are, I'm here,

and I'm leaving again.

When I go to the airport,

at security, I was asked

if I wanted my passport stamped.

I said, "Sure, why not?"

Like if it was an act of courage,

an act of allegiance as well.

She couldn't care less.

She stamped it.

And if one day I have to go to Syria,

what will happen?

Probably nothing,

or else I have to get a new passport.

A passport costs 280 Euros.

My act of bravado will cost me that much.

Bravado.

This is where I've gotten to.

I don't mind that people know I came here.

It isn't very pragmatic,

but it's not wearing a yellow star, either.

No. I'd even say it's the opposite.

And I won't escape the yellow star.

I'm with it.

It's written inside me.

Yesterday I had a very bad day.

A day like in Paris, but worse.

I had a gastro something,

and when Judy came to get me,

I said, "Let's go down to the beach."

After two minutes, I got terrible cramps.

I wanted to go back.

She took me.

I was dying of cold,

and though it must have been 65 degrees

and I was dressed for mid-winter...

I was shivering.

I went to bed and I slept.

It was raining when Amos Oz's mother

committed suicide.

Amos became a great Israeli writer.

Everyone I know reads him,

although sometimes they criticize him.

I went out at seven in the morning.

I was out of cigarettes.

I walked to the beach.

It's half a block from the apartment

where I'm staying.

I saw a small crowd,

someone was filming,

someone who embraced a man.

Some debris from window panes.

I turned the corner, bought my cigarettes,

and I asked, "What happened?"

Just three words of him, boom they went.

I asked if anyone was injured.

Four dead was the answer.

I was speechless.

All of that was supposed to be over.

Nothing is normal.

Someone else add, "and 50 wounded," in English.

And seriously, too, it could've been worse.

I said, "So, this is over?"

The man says, "No, it's not over.

It's just set back three months."

I didn't know what to do anymore.

People kept on running on the beach.

Others were picking up garbage.

Others walked.

I really didn't know what to do.

I said to myself,

"Let's go get some tea somewhere."

But nothing appealed to me.

I mean, I couldn't imagine

sitting down somewhere after that.

(brakes squeak)

(car horn honks)

(airplane soars overhead)

(footsteps)

(footsteps)

All day afterward the telephone kept ringing.

It was people who, for the most part,

I didn't know.

Friends of my landlord who knew I was there,

and got worried.

And they all said, "It's a good thing

you were sleeping."

And each one said,

"We should get together one day."

I said, "Yes" but I said "No."

Well, I said I would call them back.

And during the night the phone calls came, too,

I only found out later.

I was sleeping so deeply that I didn't hear.

So people worried.

Kindness on the telephone.

That's what made me fall apart.

I have fallen apart since then.

I have had trouble getting over it.

When I finally did answer,

they were relieved.

I'm alive.

I told Sonia it put things in perspective.

It puts things in perspective,

and then sorrow returns.

I think of my Aunt Ruth who came back to the house

after electroshock treatments.

It put things in perspective,

sometimes for months.

Sometimes more, sometimes less.

Then she had to go back.

I remember one time when we thought it was for good,

because she bought herself a pretty summer dress.

She got us drinks,

and even something to eat, I think.

I'm not sure anymore.

I must have been about eight.

She was wearing her pretty dress.

She had company: us.

My father, my mother, not my sister.

I don't think my sister was born yet.

And then there was her husband

and her son, my cousin.

We all act happy,

but underneath, we were still worried.

How long would it be this time

before she had to go back there

to the hospital?

"It puts things in perspective"

I said to Sonia.

"What perspective?"

(street sounds)

(clang of object on table)

(ripping of envelope)

(birds chirping)

(city street sounds)

(muffled conversation)

(circular saw whining)

I called my mother.

I told her I was fine.

She said, "Take care of yourself."

Of course I take care.

I don't take the bus,

I don't go to the supermarket

or to the movie theaters.

Well, mostly I stay here in the apartment

and I eat what my landlord has left.

And I read very complicated books

about the Jews.

I take notes,

I reread them,

I try to understand.

Sometimes I understand,

or I get the whiff of something,

something that's already there inside me

but I can't express.

I reread my notes.

Once again, I tell myself,

"It's really complicated."

On the radio they said a poem in German.

Then they translated it into Hebrew.

I didn't understand the Hebrew or the German.

It was very soft German.

Well, it was spoken very softly.

It was a poem.

This, I'm certain of it.

It must have been a very beautiful poem.

Just before I left for Israel,

my mother came back from Mexico City.

When she got back, she called me in Paris.

With a weak voice she told me, "I'm tired."

I told her, "Who wouldn't be tired

coming back from such a trip?"

Just that.

"Yes," she agreed.

(birds chirping)

(muffled music plays)

(telephone rings)

Hello?

(muffled conversation)

(echoed hammering)

(city street sounds)

(circular saw whining)

(waves breaking ashore)

(airplane soars overhead)

(airplane soars overhead)

(helicopter blades chopping)

(wind blowing)

(plane soars overhead)

(muffled conversation)

(waves crashing ashore)

(wind blowing)

(airplane soars overhead)

I hear an airplane passing.

I go out on the terrace for a look.

I no longer like going out on this terrace.

From this terrace you can see the sea.

The explosion was near the sea.

The airplane has passed.

I can't see it anymore.

I see the neighbor again.

He's sitting on the terrace with his wife

drinking Nescafé.

I reread my notes.

It's complicated.

I finished a loaf of bread

which was not supposed to be for me.

It was frozen.

How am I going to find another one?

Maybe Judy made it herself.

When she described the apartment on the phone,

she said I could even make bread

because there was a bread making machine.

I said, "That's nice,

but I don't think I make any."

They have everything now in Israel,

but I never saw that bread.

I finished the last slice,

and I'm already obsessed with it.

I will have to try every bakery in town.

I'm dead set on Judy finding her bread

when she comes back.

In my notes, there is stuff

about time and space,

about putting down roots in space.

This I can understand.

Even in the really good bread

and pastry shop on Yehuda Street,

I didn't see that bread.

Maybe they would know where to find it.

I should have kept a slice to show them.

I'll never be able to describe

what the bread is like.

Maybe there is another one in the freezer,

behind the frozen meat.

No.

In the meantime, I am going to make rice

and carrots to get rid of my cramps and all the rest.

Happiness begins with thinking about yourself

and doing what you have to do to get better.

I ate rice,

the water from the rice,

and the carrots.

I liked it.

I got sick eating all the good salad

you can get all over Israel.

But it will pass,

and I eat them again,

and I won't get sick again.

Who knows.

I break a glass,

a glass which is part of a set of six.

In the four pages of instruction

it says that anything broken must be replaced

or reimbursed.

I add a glass to my list.

Last night I went out.

I saw people, some of whom I know,

others I don't.

Everyone talked about what went wrong in the world.

"In '47, they should have done this."

"In '56, they should have done that."

"And in '68, the other thing."

Everyone was always wrong.

Everyone spoke French, so I understand.

And everyone tells me I was lucky to sleeping.

I leave Yona Hanavi Street,

which means "street of the Prophet Yonah."

My grandfather was named Yonah, too.

And he was a descendant of the Rabbi of Belz.

My cousin explains that they were

Ultra-Orthodox.

They are called "The Blacks"

because of their clothing.

I walked to Yona Hanavi Street,

I don't get lost.

I watch TV, the French channel,

I fall asleep.

I get up,

the plant man is already on the terrace.

He seems to be watching the plants grow.

I think plants don't grow that fast,

not even in Israel.

On the other hand, you never know.

(traffic noise)

My cousin is leaving for Paris today.

It's too bad.

I like having my cousin near me.

She seems to know how to live.

"Come more often," she always tells me.

Yes.

I like to be here.

Why?

Because, because of everything,

of nothing.

Something in the air, something in me.

I make rice and carrots for myself.

I leave things around,

then I decide to put everything away.

"In this country, I won't let things

lie around anymore," I tell myself.

The man drinks coffee with his wife on the terrace.

If my grandfather is a descendent

of the Rabbi of Belz,

then so am I.

I search within myself to see if I can feel it.

Yes, yes I feel it.

No, now I can't anymore.

What is it to feel it anyway?

I don't know.

Actually, I realize I know more words in Hebrew

than I thought.

I remember "chalutzim," that means pioneers.

"Chalutzot" is woman pioneers.

"Chawerim" is comrades.

"Chaweroth" is comrades, too.

(speaking in Hebrew)

On the telephone, I can almost

have a conversation in Hebrew.

I mix it up with Russian,

then someone says lots of words,

I can't keep it up.

So, I say...

(speaks Hebrew)

"I don't speak Hebrew."

If I had been born here,

my mother would have let me play in the street

with the other children.

In Brussels, she wouldn't let me.

She was afraid.

Here, she would have let me,

and I wouldn't have spent hours looking

out of the window at the other children playing

with a ball or something else.

Looking out the window,

I got all up inside myself.

Here, I would have run.

I would have screamed.

Here, the child is a king,

like in America.

Now, I'm in the habit of looking out the window.

I look and I get all up inside myself.

(children shouting)

(airplane soars overhead)

(woman speaking in Hebrew)

It's hot out today, it feels good.

I hear children.

They are already playing in the schoolyard.

I make my bed, do a little exercise.

It feels good.

The man from the university came.

He's a calm man.

He says little, but when he says it,

I tell myself, "Yes."

I try to get him to speak about Israel,

he does, calmly.

I agree with everything he says.

I don't really remember what he said,

but it was all self-evident.

I asked him if it was because Amos Oz's mother

felt like she was exiled here,

that she committed suicide?

If she had lost something of herself

when she left Europe?

He looked at me for awhile,

and then he said, "Maybe, yes, that happens.

People don't ever think about that,

but it happens.

It can happen."

He asked me, "And you?"

"I don't count.

I go home next week."

"Yes, I know."

"I have to start getting the apartment

back in shape.

Everything was so tidy here.

How will I manage?"

He smiles.

He rises and opens the drapes.

The air, the light pours in.

For a few seconds, I'm blinded.

Then I can see again.

He says, "It's hard to get out of prison,

especially your own prison.

But you do get out."

I don't dare ask how.

Another time, maybe.

But when he leaves, I realize he has done me good.

He's a man like before.

He's calm, and he knows.

He knows exile, prison, inside, outside.

Well, I think he does.

(circular saw whining)

(brushing teeth)

(running water)

(airplane soars overhead)

(roar of jet engines)

(car horn honks)

(airplanes soaring overhead)

What if we had gone to Israel

instead of Belgium?

Yes.

Perhaps we should have.

But it's so hot down there,

and the earth is so arid, yes.

But we would have gotten off easy.

It would have been an inspiration.

Perhaps we would all still be here.

My father wasn't strong enough

for this arid land, my father said.

One day, he told me that when it started

to smell bad,

he brought us to Danzig,

my mother, my three sisters and me,

and he went to Marseille.

He intended to take a boat to Palestine.

He had his mind made up to go to see

how it was down there.

Find us a place to live, find work,

and then send for us.

Then, on the dock, he met someone from Kazimierz

who was coming back from there

gaunt, exhausted.

Somebody who I don't remember who he was,

told him, "Don't go down there.

There is malaria, swamps, mosquitoes,

and hot.

Life is too hard.

Maybe alone you'd get along there,

but with a family and young children,

it's not possible."

And the hot wind kicks up the sand.

The sand gets into everything.

In your eyes and all your fingernails,

in your clothing.

It's only sand, rock, stone,

swamps, mosquitoes.

You'll die.

Die once again."

"So, where can we go?"

"I heard that in Belgium it was good.

You can live, work, raise a family.

So they say anyway."

"Let's go see."

They went.

They survived, more or less, well.

On my father's side, they live to the end of the war.

But how?

Without wind, without sand.

Now, I'm here in Israel.

I'm here in an apartment

which is not mine,

and I live on everything my landlady left in the fridge.

I don't go out.

I close the drapes.

I hide.

Well, a little.

Actually, I begin by reading very complicated books

and taking notes.

I hear the sounds of the city.

I'm in Tel Aviv.

(telephone rings)

Hello?

(muffled conversation)

(cityscape sounds)