To America and Back

by Mordechai Landsberg

Recently Kaplansky had been very busy with his old screenplay. After two years of complaints that his mind had been blocked about finding the correct structure of the film, now he was sure that he should show the whole creative script to a well known scriptwriter, who would help him. That man had an experience of three Western movies in Hollywood.

  “One of my main reasons for emigrating to U.S.” Solomon told Benjy Wachfogel “was to study film photographing, and also to be working in the industry. However, the course of events had deviated from my main road. I had opened a photo store, having there good photo machinery and equipment. My success in that -had blinded my eyes. I have almost forgot my target. But Now I want to return to the project, in which I had invested my soul. I hope to be the Photographer Assitant in the movie, that I have accomplished this first draft for it. I’m ready… to invest one hundred thousands bucks in developing a film out of this. You call it Preproduction, I think. When we will come to producing – I hope the Producer would be helped by ‘Angels’ to do the real job: They would smell if the plot and characters and dialogues and structure and whole story- are not only acceptable, but have an amazing chance of being marketed inside and outside U.S.”

  Solomon was telling all this to Mr. Benjy, and the man was curious about Solomon’s C.V.; so he heard about his son Elkano, who had been a very capable photographer and well known horse rider and sportsman. “He was handsome like any actor that you could find in present and past movies. His soul was rich and his passion was great, and he was having a wonderful capability to be sociable. Yes, he had his own trouble of teenage, and that dragged him to adventures. He fell in love with a beautiful woman, intelligent and cultured as well, who had read and still reads literature, including difficult poetry, understands the fine arts, and is an ardent watcher of various movies… She is now my wife,” said Solomon very proudly, called Ramona, introduced her to the scriptwriter and they shook hands.

  “I understand, that your son has fallen in the war,” said Benjy, “and that you’ve based your draft screenplay on his short life.”

  “My wife was pregnant to him, and we have together taken care to raise the child here.” said Solomon. “that’s also a part of the plot.”

  “Well, let me read your script. Within three or four days we’ll start working on it, and see what we can do.”

  “The most terrible scene here is: Photos of missing soldiers from a famous battle, that suddenly begin to pass from hand to hand in the village, or call it small town. The photos are blurred, badly taken. Everybody sees in them his heartwish, not the objective terrible reality.”

  Benjy understood everything and next week returned to Solomon with two pages full of ‘general comments’, as he defined them:

  “I’m doing that, so that you will well prepare yourself for other comments, that a producers may smear on you. Film production is a very tough business. Most of films fail in the market, you know. They don’t cover the cost of production. O’key. Now-about the central concept expressed in this script:

  It’s too psychological and full of too much talks, like in a Russian novel. A film should show Pure Action, that’s the first rule. The plot should not be complicated as in a novel, and it should not be crowded with too many charactars. You should cut most of the ‘Crowdy Scenes’… My disappointmnet from your message derives also from the too much symbolic scenes, from episodes that sometime seem to make the watcher become outrageous, and from too much political debates and issues…

  “Can you give me an example?” asked Solomon.

  “Yes. There is a very difficult scene to watch – about nightbirds and then eagles and voltures surfing above and around the corpses of the soldiers, that had sacrificed their lives. After that, in daytime, there are coming schakals and fixen and other wild beasts, beating and eating limbs of the dead heroes: noses and ears and hairs and cheeks…These are too much. We don’t wish our watchers to get a psychological shock or nerves’ collapse. The same comment is valid for exaggeratd scenes, showing the sadness of the bereaved parents and other relatives of the brave men. It’s better to diminsh some! All that is an unefficient and un-necessary exaggeration, O’key?. .. I mean, imagine a family member of those sacrifices, who would go and see all that in theater: he would feel that you ‘play scenes’ on his soul.’

  Solomon asked “Just another example”, and began to see his movie fly in the dust, at least cut to pieces.

  “Your attitude toward the leader, Ben Gurion – seems to me unacceptable. You just claim that he had sent your son to be killed in vain, without a fustified purpose. Sir, you show this Israeli Prime Minister cutting branches in a forest, with a sparkling ax! Then he is cursing a crowd of some politiocians who come to his office, requesting him not to declare the State of Israel. You then have a scene, showing General Marshal- U.S. then Secretary of Defence, who says the same! The average watcher in U.S.nowadys – or in Israel, sees Ben Gurion as a very great Statesman. He had rescued his nation, having succeeded in fighting against seven Arab States. So, if the Americans would refuse to watch such a filmt, you can forget about producing it.”

  Solomon had no choice. He agreed to all the adjustments and repairing steps the screenplays’ expert had suggested. Within an additional month the script copies were in the hands of three producers. One has agreed to persuade a Director and some Jewish Films’ Angels in Hollywood to undertake ‘Solomon’s life-effort’ to preproduction. The producer had begun to search actors and actresses for the film, and announced it in some magazines and on the radio and even on TV program.

  We tell all that complicated story, for one reason: Solomon suggested to Humik – to come back to LA. He, his pa-in-law, who appreciates very much his knowledge ‘from first source’ about the period in which the story had taken place; and having recognized and loved the Lead Character- he, Humik, should be the actor who will personify the protagonist, Elkano.

  Wise Solomon had presumed that his son-in-law will not hesitate. Humik might think that it is a trick to get him back home – and avoid him even thinking to join the Israeli Army in the coming months. But it is not reasonable that he would resist to have a chance becoming a Hollywood star. So, Solomon wrote to Humik that the Lead actor’s salary will not be less than one hundred bucks, and he, Solomon, would add to it twenty thosand. Such a big deal will base Humik’s future, and if he is enough ‘Oriented’ to accept that proposal, he should come back – and try to push himelf. Of course, nobody can promise an absolute success, and if it is not good in his eyes – he will be able to quit. God bless him, and “Piece upon Israel.”

  Humik fell now into a morbid mood. He saw himself torn by an unresolved conflict. He re-read Solomon’s letter, and believed that his Mom and Solomon had written it quite sincerely. They really thoughtb that there were at least fifty percents of chance that he would win the main role in that film. ‘You are very handsome’, they said, ‘and you know even the character’s way of speaking. You will read the story and understand thoroughly what has to be shown in detail. You’ll will pass an auditioning process, that is – a ‘screen test’ in order to let the producer and director know if you are capable to become a star… But even if another actor is chosen, you will be -toghther with us – a well paid consultant to the Direcctor about technical matters: Choosing ‘Statitsts’ for some shots, hiring vehicles that have existed at the war time, and so on …

  After two sleepless nights – Humik decided that because he had always hated illusions, he should immediately order a sailing ticket to Israel. He had not found it necessary or reasonable to answer Solomon by a detailed refusal letter. He only told his mother on the phone, that he did not believe in what Solomon had written about the future film… - and immediately banged the phone.

  Ramona heard from Simone about the departure of Raphaella from Himik, and was worried. She tried to find Humik, and talk to him again about his refusal to Solomon’s proposal, but in vain. ‘He is really still a boy.’ she said to herself. ‘I thought that moving to
NY would bring to him self control and recognition of reality, but no… It seems that all his life he’ll feel bad with himself, if he does not try his chance to reunite with his motherland. What can I do? I have to find him, surely. But now he had disconnected his phone line – or changed the phone number in his hired room.

  Meanwhile Raphaella found enough courage and willpower in herself – to send a short postcard to Humik, and explain what has happened:

  “Maybe at the first moment you will be upset,” she wrote, “but your anger will pass, I’m sure. You can relate to our close friendship as a beautiful adventure- and I’ll strongly appreciate it… I am really sorry, for having disappeared from your sight so soon. But the circumstances had forced me doing that. O’key- I could have done it not by the phone. But what’s the difference? So, I have decided to return to my previous boyfriend, who is now getting on the right track. He is Nathan, that you’ve heard about. I am sorry if you had pains, but please understand…”

  ‘I’d only asked myself why a couple should end like that,’ said Humik to himself, ‘Well. Stand strong and be healthy, dear Raphaella. I have seen that you are a precious kind of grown up woman. I’m sure … that you’re doing the best for yourself. I wish you all the best.’

  A day after he phoned to the Peepshow Cellar manager. The man told him that Raphella’s contract with him had been cancelled, and so both she and Humik wouldn’t get their last weekly salary.

  “Yes, you are a new guy in this mess. Believe me- if you find another girl who’s fit for these shows, be my guests.”

  “No, I cannot bring anyone.” said Humik, “But please have pity on me. I have no one in New York. I must get that money.”

  “O’key. Because I am circumcized like you, and my papa was a Hosid, a grand grandchild of great Alexadry Rabbi, I’ll tell you something. The Rabbi was saying it: ”On a grave – I always say the Prayer: ‘Therefore the Owner of mercy (So is the Hebrew version of merciful) will shelter, etc.’ So, I’ll do like this Rabbi and have pity on you. Come here and take your envelope. I understand that you’ll come without her. Our Effy had already reported me.”

  So, Humik had to re-gain his job with Mike as Travellers’ porter, carrying baggages mainly from NY airport or railway station to Manhatten hotels. Mike was hiring his cab from a black man, paying him an hourly rate for using the car, all gasoline costs on him; only big repairs would be on the owner’s account.

  Humik suffered again from his low earning rate, but thought he could still afford to finish his evening Course. Raphaella has not returned there, and Humik thought she was wrong in doing that. But Naitty had ordered her to stop. Maybe he was too suspicious of her, or maybe she would help him till late in his grocery minimarket.

  Two weeks afterward – NY police caught drugs in the taxi, driven by Mike. Humik was seated at his side as an assistant carrier. The cab was driving on the line from the airport to the city; and the guys went into that trouble just after passing the Bridge, that would take them inside Manhatten. The cops halted the cab, taking Mike’s driving license. Both he and Humik were also bodily searched, because narcotics were found in the cab. They were hidden inside a suitcase lying in the cab’s trunk, and over the drugs were found also faked bucks, maybe hundred thousands.

  The driver and the carrier denied they had known the man who put the stuff there: The suitcase owner, who had hired their taxi, had seen the cops from far. He asked Mike to stop and quickly fled out – and succeeded hiding somewhere. The cops attacked Mike and Humik, who had shown no signs of contradiction and revealed their papers. Mike had no previous condemnation; but the policemen were very tough, and denied having seen the real smuggler running away into the streeet, along the opposite sidwalk. He was a Mexican or Puerto Rican or Spanish, only the devil would know exactly. Humik was told he would be invited to the Courts as a witness, though one of the cops told him, that he might be asked to to sign a written witness in Police Station. Mike had no American citizenship, and he might be sentenced to prison- so said a lawyer, who had been hired by the poor guys for their defence. One of Mike’s ‘chauffeur friends’ presumed that the criminal had intended to change a default drug with a true and worthy drug, and that the Big Mafia was involved…

  Humik’s mind was not bothered about a future trial. If they let him go with a small penalty, like the lawyer had said, that would be finel. Now he thanked Kaplansky for his effort -years ago- to arrange him an American citizenship. But his Israeli citizenship is still also valid. ’God will do what is good in his eyes’, so was Humik citating to himself the sentence from the Bible (Prophet Samuel) … ’Mike has gotten a stronger blow than myself. He had died to be in wonderful United States for a long time. Now his hope might be cut. He would hate to return to Israel, where he should join the army. He said that if so- he was going to pretend mad, and bribe a psychiatrist.’

  Mike sent a letter to the singer Semadar in Israel. He wrote – in his bad English (the style and spelling – partly corrected by his girlfriend) that he was doing that, “To remain in touch with you; and please also tell Gilla – your sister, that I don’t forget her. I’m sure you both know, that I was working on a taxicab, and now I myself and Humik- had been caught by dirty cops for smuggling drugs: It is a lie, we had nothing to do with that. The criminal who had put his suitcase in my cab succeded to escape. So we two had remained with the criminal’s suitcase, and maybe -I myself will be set in prison. Humik may get a ‘conditional prison verdict’: if he is caught again for same ‘crime’- then he will be punished.”

  “Oh, my poor friends,” said Semadar to her sister. “Now I will not write about that to Tamy. She is busy with her music studies and Humik’s life do not matter to her any more. She had done very well, that she’d departed from him.”

  “What more did Mike write to you?” asked her sister, “I see that the letter you are reading is quite long.”

  “Oh, he writes also, that Humik seems to him insane. He gave him to add here two sentences.”

  “What did Humik write?”

  “Life is cruel. Sometime your face are cut by a razor, and you can do nothing. Bye Bye, Semadar, I may contact you or visit you when I’ll arrive in Israel. It will soon happen, hopefully. I’ll let you know the exact date!’ … It’s Humik’s handwriting.”

  “But why should he come here?” asked Hedwa.

  “Wait, let me turn the letter’s page: Again Mike’s handwriting:

  ‘Humik had a strange work, before he had returned to work with me, you won’t believe: It’s not a based information, but somebody had told me, that he had seen him with old women tourists, on the road of the Jigolos. I don’t believe it. So, we have queer jokes in America. You can laugh on us, when I am really weeping at nights for my bad luck. Your friend – Mike.”

  The phone was ringing in café Ruth, where the sisters were.

  “Semadar, a phone call for you,” said a voice.

  Semadar spoke on the phone with Erga Lifshits, her Musical boss. She called her for a rehearsal of a new song that had just arrived, and Erga liked it. Its words were as follows:

  “The Shadows brought an evening message, the battalion’s rows fell down like waves.

  Our sweethearts had fallen in the Wadi passage.

  Who would bring them to to their graves?”

  As Humik had disappeared from Ramona’s control, she tried to seach him wherever she could. Even to Semadar in Tel Aviv she had phoned. The singer told her that she had received Mike’s letter. If Mike and Humik changed their Phone’s line – Ramona should write to Mike an Express postcard. If –by good luck – Humik won’t be at the postbox on the ground floor, Mike will get the letter and phone to calm her.

  Ramona sent the Express letter, but she did not receive any phone call from Mike. She could not sleep well, thinking about her big son, who was a special kind of a youth. She was sure he had been strongly fascinated in his childhood by Elkano, as well as by his Rabbi Aaron; both characters had a bad impact on his tee
nage life… It’s interesting, if he had imagined that Elkano was Danny’s father. Or –perhaps he still believes that Solomon is the one… I had made enormous efforts to become pregnant from Solomon. We went to the greatest birth problems’ professor in Hollywood, but nothing… Now Humik is on his way to Israel, for sure. His dream is to volunteer to the Parachuters’ troops. I hope that the physicians there – find in him some ailment. In his hand or foot, or wherever. He might sacrifice his life, and we will be dropped into hell. I’ve read in The Los Angeles Times, that people in Israel are talking about a ‘second round’ of war with the Arabs. The Independence War, that I had witnessed, was the ‘First Round.’ The newspapers talk about war, as if it were a round of a football game. ‘As a result of the Egyptian Dictator’s self confidence, the odds for a new war break have risen’, what a nice language. But see what a pessimistic vision it has for Israel. ’Unbribed viewers’ anticipate that the Jewish state will not stand in a new war, after it’s crazy Government had streamed the country with more than million mewcomers, having but poor dresses on their skins. They were put into tents and tin huts that boil in summertime; most of them are unemployed’… And now my elder son’s ambition is in its heights. He dances from joy – on his way to the promised Land. Cursed land, damned mother. I am sleepless in my comfortable bed, trying not to wake Mister Kaplansky. I’m frightened by my pounding heart, getting crazy from anger on myself. I have not done enough to stop him still in NY. Last afternoon I was told – that no Israeli ship has sailed from NY port for about ten days. Not ‘Kedma’ ship, nor ‘Negba’, nor ‘Best Jerusalem.’ I have had already a nightmare, that he would educate my little one- Danny- to be like him. Humik might be a negative example! Can you understand? ‘Solomon, wake up!’

  She had told him her nightmare, and he calmed her, carressing her hair. “We will bring Humik back. Don’t worry so much. Danny will not be another ring of Humik’s chain… But you continue to search him there, in New York. Phone again to Simone – send her again to his room or to the whorehouse. There must be somebody who knows where he is. He won’t do anything to himself; you, foolish girl,” Solomon ended his speech with a kiss in her cheek.

  Simone had gone back to the Peepshow Cellar, and found the guard Effy at the gate. He had already known that she was Raphaella’s aunt, and remarked that he also was a Jew, “like the guy who was performing here with your niece.”

  “Humik had gotten a fuck from her,” he added, “she is going to marry her ex-courtier, who is my cousine. What do I know about Humik now? That he’s arrived here a week ago, and received his last weekly salary.”

  “His Mom is afraid, that he intends to emigrate to Israel.”

  “I swear: I aspire to do the same,” smiled Effy. “You see what kind of job I’ve here. D’you think that going to Israel would be a bad idea to a guy like me? I’m ready to undertake there any job. The problem is, that I need also my cousin there.”

  “You are mature enough,” she said, “to try first by your own. What’s the problem? I swear to you, that if you find there the guy Nahum Kaplansky, or Nahumik, Humik– you’ll be paid.”

  “If I could arrive there by an airflight, right away, straight ahead- that would be fine. But it’s depending on the sum that you – or his Mom, hand me to cover my costs,plus a small profit. I have various ideas how to find him. If you’re in contact with his mother, please tell her about me, and give her my phone number. I’ll write it.” Effy wrote on a note, that he pulled out of his pants.

  “Are you serious about going to Israel?” repeated Simone.

  “Of course,” he said. “But I must have with me a big amount of rustling green papers. I have to bribe him, make him crazy to fly back to LA or NY.”

  “In this moment,” said Simone, “Humik’s mother is in a general psychological crisis. By his kid’s behavior, Humik discontacted himself from her. You know, it happens with teenagers… ”

  “O’key, let me have her phone number. I’ll talk to her myself. Though a cardinal problem still remains: my cousine… .”

  ”O’key, without him – how much d’you request?” asked Simone.

  “If you hand me three thousand, I can bring Humik back.”

  Simone pulled a samll ‘visit card’ from her purse. She wrote Ramona’s phone Number on it, and gave it to Effy. The guy had begun looking at the note, and his eyes balled while he was reading: “Simone Richland, Actress., Entertainer, Playing Coach, Adviser for the films Industry. Contacts with Studios, Actors, Directors and Producers for any Film Genre.”

  Effy was a simple guy, who was used to worship young actresses. He decided to tell Simone, that for her he would do everything possible. He promised her to tell Ramona that for two thousand Bucks he would send a weekly report by telegraph or by mail, so that Humik’s family would know everything about his moves.

  A day after, Effy talked on the phone with Ramona. She promised to pay him thousand bucks, even if he won’t bring her son back, but only get an evidence that Humik is alive. But if Humik would contact his parents by his own initiative, without any involvement of Effy in that- Effy should have to return five hundred Bucks to Ramona’s Lawyer in Israel. His name was Malakhy Benajahu and he lived in Jerusalem.

  Ramona had no time nor nerves to argue with Effy. She immediately sent to him – by telegram- the necessary addresses and/or Phone numbers, of the following people, where presumably he could find Humik: Mike in New York; and in Israel: Rabbi Aaron, Semadar, Mike’s parents.

  Ramona was now very busy in the Photography store. Her husband was missing full days. He went to Hollywood, to produce or pre-produce his film.

  CHAPTER 29