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A Diagonal View
translated from the Hebrew by Judi Levi

I.

I position the camera on the roof of the old outpost. I've been looking for the perfect observation point ever since yesterday. What I need is a clear, infinite field of vision. A stretch of road, of course, not too short; long enough for Captain Bar-Oz, on entering the Kibbutz, to be seen on all sides. It would be better to set the range of visibility slightly further back.

Perhaps I'll begin at the junction of the main road. Captain Bar-Oz is to arrive in a fast car from the direction of Tel Aviv. But he may, in fact come by way of Hadera.

Hadera is a smaller town and will rouse greater confidence in the audience. Before screening the junction, together with the road sign, of course, to help the average viewer find his bearings, one could flash on a few shots of Hadera: busy cranes to the side of the water tower and the darkness of the old orange groves, piling up cubes one top of the other; the violet morning-glory hedges climbing through the tops of the cypress trees, struggling up to the sky; long, cracked cement water-ditches. That will do.

Now the camera concentrates on the car dropping Captain Bar-Oz off at the junction. The pace can be accelerated a little: Captain Bar-Oz appears to be ejected from the car door, his knapsack thrown out after him to the side of the road by an invisible hand.

His face cannot be seen as yet but his movements are strange. He is in such a hurry that he forgets to thank the driver. Here one should stop for a moment to consider whether he shouldn't be placed in a ceremonious convoy of cars. Kibbutz cars, yes, cheerfully decorated; tubes of musical instruments stick out the windows and the riders' faces express endless rejoicing.

No, here real cruelty is called for. There will be no convoy of joy. No ringing of carriages of delight. He must arrive alone, accompanied only by his meager knapsack. Something in his clothes must indicate that he has been away a long while.

At this point, the camera must be carefully aimed to capture the discrepant sense of estrangement between Captain Bar-Oz and the stones of the road, and the shady avenue of carobs, and the fields and oranges groves which he sees through the gaps in the trees. But it is a queer, imposed estrangement as it is obvious that he is familiar with the entire scene from childhood.

The camera should follow him slowly, surrounding him on all sides and giving the audience the feel of the covering of foreign-ness enveloping him, that unfelt, transparent covering, moving one small step ahead of him like the pillar of fire in the desert.

Now I have doubts. The best thing would be to take a consecutive series of aerial views, at low altitude, over his head, let us say from a helicopter quietly lingering in the air, making no sound. A helicopter hovering above. But without all the damage the engine can cause: strong air waves and the fear of decapitation by the shining blades. Incidentally, that's a good idea.

An accidental beheading, short and brilliant, accompanied by the jet's clamour pouring in a torrent through the tail-pipe. I must think about that. Perhaps I'll leave it to the end. If there is no other, more convenient solution.

If Captain Bar-Oz finds himself in irrevocable complications so that I can't get him back to the beginning, and if the viewers, bent tensely forward, say that the end is no end, then I'll surprise them. I'll think up a beautiful end. A jet end.

Perhaps I could attach a small, even minute, camera to the propeller blades. A camera which would activate itself at the precise moment, not a second too soon, a jet decapitation-camera. Ingenious ideas. Perhaps I'll use them later.

I bring the camera back to Captain Bar-Oz. What defeatist thinking. To foresee such calamities for him from the very moment of his ejection on to the inner road. When the entire world is here, at the end of the road, waiting for him, longing for him, yearning for him terribly! Well, I must accept my limitations. I don't have a helicopter. I have only a portable camera, positioned on the roof of the old cement outpost.

Now I can descend, go up to Captain Bar-Oz, kiss him, shake hands with him, break through the aura of alienation which is surrounding him. I can get even closer. I can forget my job as photographer, give the camera to one of the children who have been swarming about here for hours, and exchange tears with him. The rare but very real tears of man.

Of course one mustn't weep for a soldier returning from the front, or a prisoner from captivity or a shadow from land of shadows. The tears won't show up on film. There's nothing to worry about. I'll see to it. But who wouldn't contribute a few seconds of weeping in honour of Bar-Oz, of his return?

But while I'm preparing the camera for a quick descent down the iron ladder crumbling with rust, I change my mind, that is to say, the angle of filming. I'll simply sprawl on the road, a few steps in front of Bar-Oz and film him from below, upwards. His uniform, faded from so many washings, his ranks hanging on his shoulders in a strange voluntary abandonment, his eyes fixed on a distant point in space; and over his head the dark tops of the carob trees, the wild and meaningless darting to and fro of small, grey songbirds.

The carobs are in flower now, their blossoms give off a horrible odour, the stench vapour rising from an obstructed sewer. But the camera does not capture smells. Only shapes. And the fetid carob flower, if you look at it closely, is of interest. As always, the wonderous complexity of nature, its usual mocking ways, in the flowers, the songbirds crowding together, in the prisoner returning from the land of shadows.

Now will come a slow, lingering but enlarged shot of the meeting of his shoes with the earth that he loved so much. I'll press the camera tightly to the asphalt, lean on it with all my weight until a precise picture emerges, with no movement distortion. The sole's crashing tread, the strangeness crackling between sole and heel, the alienation trampled on almost as an afterthought.

Then a flash up to his face. To the bite of his lips. To a kind of secret blinking of his eyes. To a bead of sweat staring down his pale face. And for a poetic touch, I could light up the curls under his hat, and linger over the few grey threads which have begun to threaten his hair.

I have a proposal which I'm looking into now -- the problems is the reception. That is, the reception for the lost Captain. And if I divide it for filming purposes into points, this would be the order: the origin of the message, receiving of the message, the couriers, the message bringers and the obsessive distribution which takes hold from the moment the message arrives. Here I have a brilliant thought. I must organize, via the film, a concentric distribution.

That is to say, the circle of those who know of Captain Bar-Oz's sudden return, makes a strange skip over a dark centre. The message, on its path of distribution, plays strange tricks on the eye, passing over small pockets of people, especially over one central pocket. His closest family stand there. Or to be more exact, his parents aren't there. Neither are his brothers. His friends aren't there. They are dispersed on all sides of the circles of distribution.

At the centre of the dark space one woman stands alone. His wife.

Oh, if only it were possible to move the camera at the speed of thought! From world to world, and under the world and over the world. And perhaps to all kinds of worlds.

There is only one professional question: will the camera really film what can be guessed at in mind? Or perhaps not, perhaps such figures do not leave their mark on celluloid.

When I finish organizing the distribution, I will begin activating a great movement in all the circles. A movement towards a meeting. A sudden flow, new circles kiss the old, a hidden commotion like in burrows. Here one should stand a large camera with an wide an angle as possible and hang it, like the sun, over the Kibbutz. A few hours of hard lighting and then a quick interpretation.

In such cases the developing makes me really exited. My heart beats faster, streams of perspiration crawl on my palms and a sort of quick but monotonous tune buzzes in my left ear. The fingers involuntarily tap out a strange beat on the table. No, I reject that idea. Its too general, encompassing too much. I'll lose Captain Bar-Oz, whether under the thick tops of the old fiscuses by the Culture Hall, or among the women's colourful kerchiefs.

Strange how the kerchiefs suddenly appear on festivals or on days of mourning. Masses of them. It's a pity, with my black-and-white, however sophisticated, the kerchiefs are a great loss. Their colourfulness is really frightening. And the way they are worn is so expressive. How they gather and crowd, all at once, like a herd of frisky lambs, round the dark patch.

The women stands there: his wife. That's where he should be standing too. Pushed by hundreds of aiding hands, flowing with good will. But well come to that later. The dark patch will not let go of us. I'm preparing a special roll for it.

II.

I urgently need the children now. I gather them around me. I give them short, simple instructions. Take cameras, I tell them, many small, and put them into all of the surrounding rooms. Put them also in the tree trunk and on the old benches. And even into the sprinklers. To the children's question of 'and in the woodpeckers' hollows?' I answer, yes, in the woodpeckers' hollows too. They are of special interest. The children disperse like lightning, raiding the rooms, the lawns, the pavements. Thousands of small cameras begin to click, Captain Bar-Oz is now being filmed from every possible angle. Thousands of minute eyes are following him. Every step he takes, every hair doulled out, every twitch of a muscle. The children hide in the bushes, behind the wall closets, beyond the balcony screens, like little foxes. Their eyes are the eyes of foxes in ambush.

A queer scene: from beyond the gate a strange troupe enters the Kibbutz: I am at its head, that is, with my back to front, the helpless camera fastened to my shoulder, my stomach, my hands latched on to it in a kind of fear and anxiety. Behind me, that is in front of me, since I am walking backwards (like a stumbling reluctant crab, scrambling and halting, probably falling into potholes) walks Captain Bar-Oz. The distance between us remains unchanged, as if set by someone other than ourselves. Not large, but strictly maintained. I try to regulate my paces to his. And he, although he is not looking in front of him at all, knows with a wonderful sense of degree, not to shorten the range between us. Not to shorten it beyond the seemingly agreed upon, beyond this dryness. And round us, unseen, hidden in the transparent air, all the children of the Kibbutz are ready and alert, like springs yearning to uncoil.

Prisoners of my command, dispersed like tiny spy cameras, all their mechanisms clicking. Trembling, a dryness in their mouths, and a great shout balled up in their throats. They lie in ambush and see his wretched knapsack on his shoulder, his clothes almost disintegrating from washings, and the lump of estrangement dancing before him like a gay troupe of monkeys tied to its master by a hidden collar chain. An immense curiosity seizes my mind: Will the cloud of estrangement leave tracks on the film? Or does that too leave its mark only on my cornea, unable to penetrate the barriers of the indifferent lenses? But I don't have time now to stop and answer myself. The lost Captain's dogged, harsh movement makes me run in front of him. And I am already skipping backwards in a bad posture, so uncomfortable. My whole body aches.

This is where I should break away from him. I am thinking of taking off to a better, a higher, filming position. But now it is impossible. He continues to walk. He has even increased his pace somewhat and the field is completely deep shadow. I put my trust in the children whom I shook off in all directions. Profiles, half-length, diagonal shots which could be wonderful, right from the insides of the woodpeckers' hollows. I feel as if I'm a prisoner in the pace of his advance. Because he still hasn't bestowed a single glance on me and we haven't exchanged half a word, and despite all the manly embracing and kissing, not one tear has fallen. He dictates a fast pace of filming and skipping backwards. And so we move for a while, film and skip, skip and film.

Now, just before my fall, I halt the film, raise the question and put it on the cutting table. The tension is great. Children hiding in the gardens. The square in front of the dining-hall is about to burst with anticipation. Masses of the men who have put on their sunglasses and women who have donned their coloured kerchiefs, are locked in their rooms. Just behind the doors. Waiting for the hidden signal to pour outside and be swept into colourful streams gushing to the large square. The heavy rag smell of the carob blossoms stands in the air and the burdensome sound of the bees swooping down to the nectar drowns almost every other noise. There are no screeches of planes in the air, no call-signals from the radio sets. There are no tidings heard anywhere.

The calm is so suspect that my heart-beats, even here by the cutting table, suddenly jump. One moment, I'll just take advantage of this tension-ridden pause before the decisive event, so flash on a few background stills for relief: here is the lost Captain as Amos, a smiling baby whose fat, creased limbs are entwined between the wooden poles of his cot of hastily-put-together boards. And then the boy Amossi, in a white, sweet-smelling shirt, with a stiff, overstarched collar.

Now the camera moves. The picture of the boy will come closer and closer until it fills the entire frame. Of course there are difficulties. The downy moustache suddenly appears, before its time. Unseen wrinkles show up. And badly-healed scars of childhood are especially, exaggeratedly exposed. But these are the usual ills of enormous enlargement. There is no getting around them. The quick flashes on the screen light up the faces of the viewers. The faces assume a strange pallor. As if they already know the end of the boy with the downy upper lip who is now crossing the lawn with his meager satchel swinging from his shoulder. The material of his clothes is so worn, and what has he left? I mustn't linger so long at the cutting table. I must run and take shots in the field. And I can already hear voices buzzing and shouting, where is that photographer who was just here, where has he disappeared to? I hurry. I have a very short way to go. At this point Captain Bar-Oz is already crossing the lawn. The paved dining-hall square is no longer far away. I attach myself to him as before, a crab-like attachment, embarrassing. Here I'll have to put something in. I feel that there is a gap in the series of takes. The Captain has been abandoned and somebody must fill in all those dark spaces. Amazing close-ups of his face. The pallor of his skin will compete with that of the screen. The backwards walking was dangerous from start. It's a miracle that I've reached the edge of the lawn. I should thank God that I haven't failed thus far. But now it's coming. A small hole, an unimportant bump, and I'm still attached to the Captain's walk, the camera pressed hard to my chest. The heel slips, the foot searches for firm ground, turns, and I go after it. Thrown forward on my back, struck backwards, stunned, momentarily dizzy, and then I see, with my eye in the camera protruding out of me, that Captain Bar-Oz does not stop walking. He continues straight over me. His shoes throw a shadow over the lens. The air-brush of his trousers blows over me like a breath of wind. A wonderful shot.

From the bottom of hell. From the lowest possible place. His heel slips on the straps. I am dust under your heels, photographer dust. I forgot, there's no soundtrack. There's no reason to shout. I pull myself up to overtake him. Someone must warn him. Not about the pits on the way, those are unimportant. But the dark patches outside the circles. I fear a serious development. I do a quick change of film under pressure. Faster than the change of magazines under fire. This is the special roll. I've kept it for this moment. It's just as well that I fell and the filming stopped for a moment. I am ground under your heels that do not turn back. I am crushed beneath you. Oh, would I were in your place.

III.

The earth splits open with an immense roar, a river of people breaks through and flows and streams to the square. Colourful, singing, moving and dancing. The air explodes from the howls of the children who are set free in a split second. They break out of their hiding-places with wild jumps, as if my fall was a signal to them. A benevolent human river surrounds Captain Bar-Oz and he is carried and pushed on the waves of hundred of well-wishing arms. His clothes disintegrate on him from the patting, the embracing and affectionate caressing of those around him. His knapsack is removed, passed from hand to hand, goes round the whole circle. Its old strap is torn and throw somewhere outside the dancing circle. I scurry around the crowed like a madman. I'm looking for an observation point. I'm dying to position the camera so that it will have a free, infinite field of vision. I need clear, long shots: the square empty, before everything; the square half-full, something beginning to happen, and the last precise shot, the square seething with the crowd. But there is no vantage point round the celebration anywhere. The roofs are far, the carob foliage is heavy and obstructive. I've no choice. I must apologize, send the entire crowd back to its burrows, the children back to their dens. And while the square is empty, stand a painter's ladder on it, or a blacksmith's iron tower. I climb to the top of the tower, slipping in haste, give a hidden signal with my finger, and the earth splits open around me again.

Oh, if only I had a small helicopter now. A jet-copter with tiny cameras welded to its blades. From its jet tail-pipe a yellowish cloud of the carob odour would be ejected. The heavy smell mists over and envelops the whole crowd and as though anaesthetize it with its drog-like aroma. There is his closest family. She stands here: the woman, his wife. It is to her he makes his way constantly, indefinably. For her he sheds his disintegrating clothes. For her he discards his wretched knapsack. Now I'm filming him from right above his head in a long, continuous series of wonderful aerial views. His covering of alienation melts. I can see it with my eyes. The people touch and touch him again. Touch his torn clothes, shoes, hands, flesh. There is no barrier stretched between the crowd and his heart. Someone wants to tear out his heart and embrace it. But to him these are all obstacles that have to be set aside. He is drawn towards her alone. Now the last circle breaks open and he penetrates the dark path. My special film works frantically. I pray for it to last. I put the brakes on the blades of the helicopter, slow down. Now everything is shot in slow motion. He falls into her arms, she into his. Some sort of turbid vapour disturbs the functioning of the camera.

The penetration of lights is somehow impeded. Wait, she actually falls out of his arms. I curse the obstructing vapour. What is he doing to her with such force? Embracing her? Strangling her? The dark patch turns quite black. The crowd presses on to them and a whirlpool of screams, bodies aloft, cries and frantic runs covers the square.

I jump into the whirlpool with my jet decapitation-blades. It's too late. There's no need. They're ahead of me. She is already being carried outside the circle. What a pity, none of my schemes worked out. The crowding interfered again. Now I leave everything and run to my dark room. A strange excitement is bubbling in me. I identify the perverse lust for interpretation. When I enter I rush to the window. I must close it tight. The yellowish cloud of the thick carob smell is threatening to choke me.

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