The Extra (4 page)

“If not Mozart,” consoled the aged flutist, on occasion her discreet lover, “then together we shall play the
Fantaisie
by Saint-Saëns,” referring to a work for harp and violin where the violin part is sometimes played by a flute. “Only as an encore,” cautioned the harpist, “only as an encore. No fantasia can be a consolation for the Mozart.”

Honi was privy from afar to these deliberations, but hid them from his mother, so as not to upset her with the thought that the experiment might hamper the advancement of her daughter's career.

Finally the date was set: after Passover, at the beginning of summer. Late one evening Honi arrived to pick up his sister at the airport, and when he saw her wheeling two suitcases on her cart, not just one as on previous visits, he hugged her tight: “Thank you. Thank you for coming. I know you don't believe in our experiment, but even so, she's your mother too.”

Plainly exhausted, his face pale but eyes glinting happily at the sight of his sister, he pushed her cart and talked of the previous day's move to the garden flat, and of their childhood apartment in Jerusalem, now awaiting her.

“We threw some stuff out, then more and more. I was surprised Ima was more into it than I was. She had no mercy on Abba's clothes and possessions, or her own for that matter. It's a good thing the
haredi
charities are so efficient. They take everything, even furniture that's falling apart. But Ima left a few old things of yours, so you could toss them out yourself.”

“Old things of mine? What are you talking about? I moved out years ago and didn't leave a thing.”

“Oh yes you did, plenty of stuff, believe me. You'll see for yourself—old toys, school notebooks, even clothes. And the little harp that Abba bought you, I took it down from storage. Go through everything and get rid of things—Ima and I threw out and gave away stuff with great enthusiasm, which is a sign, for me anyway, that the experiment you believe will fail will in fact succeed.”

“One hopes,” she whispered wearily, unaccustomed to the Israeli heat. Suddenly she stopped.

“Where are we going?”

“To the car.”

“You're not planning to take me to Jerusalem.”

“Why not? To help you with the suitcases, to show you what hasn't yet been tossed, and on the way there, to finalize our arrangements.”

“Absolutely not. You're wiped out, and none of this is urgent. I'll take a taxi, you'll give me the key and go home to your wife and kids. What makes you think I can't manage by myself in the house I grew up in? Just do it.”

For a moment he tried to protest, but she quickly got into a taxi, and Honi gave in and paid the driver, but held on to the open door. “I have a few ideas for you,” he said with a confidential smile.

“Tomorrow. It's not urgent.”

But he pressed on.

“I also have something to tell you, something about your concerto.”

“My concerto?”

“The Mozart. I bought the CD and listened to it. Interesting, but—”

“But not now.”

He thought himself knowledgeable about music, and though she regarded his knowledge as spotty and superficial, she persisted in trying to edify him.

“And most important, lock the door securely, and the windows too.”

“The windows?”

“I mean in the bathroom, because the kids—”

“What kids?”

The taxi now needed to move.

“Okay, not now. We'll talk.”

It was nearly midnight, but the Mekor Baruch neighborhood, which in her youth had been stone silent at such a late hour, was still whispering nervously, in search of sleep.

The apartment door opened easily, as if by the mere touch of the key, and when she switched on the light she was struck not only by cleanliness and order, never strictly enforced in her parents' home, but by the new emptiness.

Honi was right, a great many things had been removed, including furniture, and the living room was shockingly bare. She went into her childhood room to deposit her suitcases. Her bed was neatly made, and a clean-smelling bathrobe was laid on it. Her heartbeat quickened as she entered her parents' room, and to her surprise, the new electric bed, which she'd heard about from her mother, was also made up, as an alternative for sleeping. She opened her parents' closet. Her father's side was empty, his clothes were gone, but one suit, black and elegant, remained hanging, presumably because no worthy recipient had yet been found, and beneath it a pair of shoes sat waiting, with socks lying on top, as if the father or his successor were about to walk in. She pressed her tired face to the thick fabric to sniff a familiar scent, then mischievously took down the suit jacket and slipped into it, checking herself out in the mirror. Though her father had shrunk slightly in his last years, the jacket was wide and made her shoulders look bulky and square, and the sleeves swallowed her hands. With a little smile she slowly raised her arms and imagined herself conducting, with graceful rounded gestures, the harp and the flute in Mozart's concerto.

The ringing of the telephone cut short the imaginary performance. Honi couldn't fall asleep, had to know if she'd arrived safely, if she appreciated how much stuff was discarded from the apartment in her honor.

“In
my
honor? Why? I didn't ask for anything.”

But excited by the experiment that was becoming a reality, he wanted to talk at this late hour about his specific plans for his sister. “Not now, it's bedtime,” she protested, worried that from here on he would try to manage not just her mother, but her as well, and she hung up and unplugged the phone.

In the refrigerator there was food her mother knew she liked—hard cheeses, herring in cream, grilled cauliflower, potato pancakes. She eats a light supper, checks the bathroom window and lies down in the bed in her childhood room. After three hours of sleep she wakes up and walks in a daze to her parents' room, sinking into her mother's electric bed. But as dawn approaches she again feels drawn to her childhood bed, and the nocturnal shuttle between two beds promises to be an enjoyable experience for the duration of the trial period.

She reconnects the phone at ten in the morning, so her mother won't worry. Sure enough, it rings at once, but it's not the worried mother calling, it's the brother, whose patience has run out and he cannot wait to present his sister with a surprising offer.

“A movie extra?” She laughs. “What? I'm not an actress!”

“You're not supposed to act, but to be . . . just be . . . try it. What have you got to lose? Nowadays there's a boom in film and television in this country, and many opportunities come up, and you'll also meet new people, be part of other people's stories and make a little money, which you're unwilling to take from us. What else do you have going here in Israel? To keep chasing after music? Really, Noga, doesn't music also deserve a break from you?”

T
HE DAY DWINDLES SLOWLY
, the jury still sitting in two rows at the back of the gymnasium. Sometimes the camera closes in on their faces, sometimes it pulls back, at other times it seems to disappear entirely, though it is always there. “Please don't be upset we're keeping you so long,” a cameraman apologizes, “but this trial is important to the film, and the changing light outside, which in the film changes within minutes, will indicate that you've been here all day, listening carefully, and only in the evening are you supposed to deliberate and render your verdict.”

Other extras, not from Jerusalem, are scattered around the gym along with actors, from scenes that have been shot and scenes that will be, but the judge, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the witnesses and the woman defendant are not yet present, presumably still rehearsing.

“Do you know anything about the content of the film?” she asks the retired magistrate, who sits next to her in the first row.

“Just in broad strokes. At the booking agency they are stingy with information, maybe for fear of people dropping out at the last minute. Because extras, not being actors, sometimes confuse the imagination of others with the reality of themselves.”

At dusk, two additional lights are set up opposite the jurors. A procession of robed figures enters—the prosecutor and defense lawyer and judge, who disappear into a classroom that is now the courtroom. Two burly men in indeterminate uniforms march the handcuffed defendant past the jury, back and forth. Noga recognizes her as the pretty young woman who in the morning had given her the perfumed red scarf. Her makeup gone now, her face is pale, her eyes ringed with black circles. Her clothes are gray and her walk slow, contemplative, as if she is lost in thoughts of her crime. She scans the jurors, and when she sees the red scarf on the neck of the extra, she nods her head and stops in front of her as if about to say something, but no lines have been scripted. Yet the anguish in her eyes is so credible and persuasive that Noga fearfully tugs the scarf tighter around her neck, as if this were not an actress standing before her, but a despondent fellow traveler from her past.

“What did she do?” she whispers to the retired judge after the accused is gone.

“Murdered her husband.”

“Why?”

“You'll know when you see the movie,” he answers ironically, “if it actually gets done.”

All the actors in the trial have vanished into the classroom-turned-courtroom, but the camera refuses to let the jury go. The time has come to announce the verdict of the trial that has not yet begun.

And as determined ahead of time, the portly magistrate rises from his seat, and with a look of satisfaction pronounces the answer to the question that has not yet been asked.

“Guilty.”

His pathetic pleasure displeases the director, who asks him to do it over. Yet the veteran extra cannot suppress the joy of a tiny speaking part.

The director then turns to Noga and asks her to stand and announce the same verdict.

“Guilty,” she says, simply and softly.

The director appears satisfied and asks if she can also say it in English.

And again she pronounces the word, softly and sadly, this time in English.

The producer whispers something in the ear of the director, who asks Noga if she knows other languages.

“Yes, Dutch and a little German.”

“Then please, in Dutch and German as well.”

At first she is confused, but regains her composure and reiterates the guilt in the other languages.

S
HE HAD INTENDED TO VISIT
her mother two days after arriving in Israel, but Honi tried to delay it. “You came for three months, not a week, so rest, get acclimated. In two days the retirement home has scheduled an excursion for the residents, and it would be good for Ima to join them. Wait another two, three days, let her get acclimated too, and I'll try to pick you up from Jerusalem.”

She realized that the experiment on which he hung his hopes required his constant vigilance, not only regarding his mother, but her as well. But after four days in Jerusalem, she decided to elude his control and go down to Tel Aviv without his knowledge.

When she entered the gleaming lobby of the facility she was told her mother was at a concert. At first she stood by the closed door and listened to an amateur string trio, then grew impatient, silently opened the door and stood in the back of a small, dark hall, where perhaps twenty elderly residents were concentrating on their friends, a violinist, a violist and a cellist in a wheelchair, who played a trio by Schubert, missing more than a few notes as they fiddled vigorously together. The musicians noticed as she entered, and it seemed that her stately presence made them slightly anxious, but her mother, tranquilly enjoying the musical bonus of assisted living, did not yet see her.

Finally, she too noticed the extra woman standing in the back, and urgently wished to join her, but Noga signaled her to wait, and sat down so as not to offend the musicians.

At the end of the concert her mother introduced her to one of the old women.

“This is my daughter, a musician, but she lives in Holland . . .”

The visitor liked her mother's experimental one-room apartment, which though located on the street level was attached to a private patch of ground, with flowers and bushes abutting a grassy lawn. The furniture was modest but new, and the bathroom was spanking clean.

“Would you believe, Noga,” said her mother, “that I as a tenant have to water the flowers?”

“And you don't like that?”

“The watering I like, but not the obligation. In Mekor Baruch nobody has flowers anymore.”

“Don't exaggerate.”

“And besides,” sighed her mother, “if Abba could have imagined that after he died I'd end up in Tel Aviv, he wouldn't have left the world so peacefully.”

“But you're not in Tel Aviv, you're in assisted living.”

“Assisted in what?”

“In tolerating Tel Aviv.”

Her mother laughed. “In the six days I've been here, some nice old women have befriended me, one of them from Jerusalem, who remembers me from kindergarten and insists I haven't changed a bit, not my looks or my mind.”

“So you already have a good friend.”

“Yes, it's easy to make friends here, but to create a solid connection you have to provide stories of illness and other misfortunes. So many amazing stories here about exotic maladies, so vividly described you imagine catching them right then and there.”

“And you don't have a disease you can spread in return?”

“None, my child. You know I'm healthy. Also, Abba's death was so easy and simple, people are jealous.”

“Then talk about family problems.”

“We don't have any. We were always a normal and stable family.”

“Normal?” Noga laughed. “What about me?”

“What about you?”

“A woman no longer young, whose husband left her because she refused to have children.”