I just reread my post from two weeks ago, on Israel election day, predicting the election results. On the whole, I didn’t completely embarrass myself, although I did overestimate the impact of Bennet’s campaign and underestimate that of Eisenkot’s. However, the predicted indecisive result is what emerged, and, buoyed by my partial success, I’ll give you another prediction. Despite the encouraging noises that certain parties are making about the progress of coalition negotiations, I predict that the jockeying, the direct talks, the indirect talks, and all of the shenanigans will go right down to the wire, which is still some time away. As a result, I feel no compulsion to write about politics today. I strongly suspect we will still be here next week…and the week after.
Instead, there is another topic occupying my attention this week, for a couple of reasons. One reason is the film Bernice and I saw this week: Wild Horse 9. I recommend it unhesitatingly and wholeheartedly, with only one proviso. If you cannot tolerate frequent use of the F*** word, then the film is not for you.
Note that I don’t say ‘gratuitous use’, because nothing in this perfect jewel of a film is gratuitous. Every moment of its 120 minutes is carefully considered and every scene – almost every line of dialogue – adds something significant to the meaning and power of the film. It is incredibly concentrated. If I counted correctly, there are only 13 speaking roles (and one singing one), and the two central characters are seldom off-screen. There is really only one central plot-line, served by every moment of the action. The screenplay’s control of the revealing of the backstory is masterful. All of the cast give pitch-perfect performances, and it may just be that the principal reason John Malkovitch was born is simply to play his role in this film. The film as a whole is mysterious, magical, thrilling, profoundly moving, touching, and hilariously funny. I’ll stop there, before giving away any spoilers.
The other reason for today’s topic is that today marks the 31st anniversary of my father’s death. In marking his yahrzeit, I find myself pondering how we remember our dead loved ones. There are, of course, within the Jewish religious framework, rituals of remembrance: the giving to charity in memory of a dead family member; the reciting of kaddish in shul; the lighting of a memorial light on the day of the yahrzeit. As I find with all rituals, there is no guarantee that the act of performing the ritual will trigger a strong emotional reaction. I can only speak for myself, but sometimes saying kaddish on a relative’s yahrzeit fails to engage me emotionally; other times it is all I can do to speak the words without breaking into tears.
Speaking purely for myself again, I feel that carrying out these rituals is a means of ensuring that, on those occasions when, for whatever reason, I am emotionally and spiritually ready to immerse myself in the significance of the moment, I will be able to do so, because I will be in the framework of the ritual. This is, for me, part of the tremendous value of the ritual of daily prayer. There are some days when I feel I am doing little more than going through the motions. However, if I pray every day then I know that, on the days when I am receptive to the emotional and spiritual power of the prayer, on the days when I feel ready and able to speak to God, the opportunity will be there. If I do not pray every day, who knows how many of those opportunities I will miss?
The fact is that, in the course of the routine of a normal week, I do not often think of my late parents. In this (as in so many things), I am unlike Bernice. Her late mother is, I know, a daily presence in her life. She visits her grave frequently, and speaks to her, both at the graveside and at other times. Very often, when experiencing a new place, or tasting a dish, or seeing an item of clothing in a shop window, she will reflect on what her mother’s assessment of it would be.
Note the verb tense at the end of that last paragraph. I originally planned to write: “…what her mother’s assessment of it would have been”. I then rejected that because it removed her mother much further from the world than Bernice experiences her as being. I considered writing: “…what her mother’s assessment of it will be”. I then rejected that because it places her mother more firmly in the world than I can contemplate her being. “…what her mother’s assessment of it would be” represents a compromise between our two apprehensions.
I do not enjoy such a relationship with either of my late parents. (I use the word ‘enjoy’ consciously, because I sense how much comfort and pleasure Bernice’s ongoing interaction with her mother gives her.) For myself, I cannot envisage my parents in the present in the same way. However, I have been fortunate enough to experience them, since their deaths, in another meaningful way.
As I believe I have mentioned before, my father served in the British armed forces throughout the Second World War. He was with the British Expeditionary Forces in France, and after evacuation in June 1940, he spent 18 months in various bases around Britain, as the severely depleted Royal Artillery reorganised and rearmed. During this period, my future parents renewed their acquaintance, started dating during his leaves in London, and fell in love. Dad then shipped out, to serve three-and-a-half years in India and Burma. Throughout those five years, he wrote letters, aerogrammes and postcards home to his mother and siblings on an almost weekly basis, and to my mother even more frequently. After Mum died, we discovered all of Dad’s letters to them and to her.
Reading those letters reveals a lot about Mum and Dad as a young couple (in their early twenties). It is intriguing to hear Dad’s voice as a young man, and to infer much about Mum as a young woman, from these letters, which reveal a couple both recognisable as, and simultaneously different in subtle ways from, the parents I knew. I feel immensely privileged that I have been able to spend time getting to know them through what is, tantalisingly, only one side of a long and close correspondence. I would love to have the other half of that correspondence, but, sadly, Dad was unable to bring Mum’s letters home from India.
While it is qualitatively very different from what I sense is Bernice’s ongoing relationship with her mother, Dad’s letters help me to feel a closeness to him, even at the distance of 31 years since his death. So much of what now informs my life has happened in the intervening years, and even in the 23 years since Mum died. I have no sense of my parents sharing in what my life has become over those years. However, at least I have a sense of being able to share a part of their lives that ended over four years before I was born.
To some small degree, these letters compensate me for squandering the opportunity to ask my parents more about their childhood and early adulthood. It is a constant source of amazement to me that I seldom thought to ask such questions over the years of my own youth. I suppose, I seldom, if ever, contemplated my parents’ mortality. Perhaps I thought there would always be other opportunities. But, of course, life took over, the opportunities became fewer, and then, one day, they disappeared altogether, leaving me with many memories, but also many lacunae, many gaps in the overall picture.
And then, as life goes on, those family members and friends whose memories go back further than mine also gradually leave, until I must face the fact that there is no one alive who knew my parents as children or teenagers. I cannot reasonably expect, at this stage of my life, ever to learn anything about them that I do not already know. All I can do is count the blessings of the power of the sum total of what I do know, the life I shared with them, all that they gave me, the glimpses of them I see in their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and, increasingly, in my brother and myself. This, of course, is, as it has always been, the authentic immortality of a life lived in fulfilment. This must suffice, and, to be honest, it genuinely does.
On that basis, I recommend Three Billboards with a great cast if you haven’t seen it already