Following his story, Mordechi listened with a warm smile. I asked my cinematographer to tape both of them. Mordechi who understood John's situation, asked him if the Rabbi noticed his special needs when he was there, and John remember a bearded Rabbi who talked to him. "The Fire of the Torah," is a special Yeshiva (religious seminary). We didn't have to wear a hat while sitting there. They accept anyone in need trying to help him get "born again". They did accept John on his first day, but during his night at the hostel and his second day at the seminary, he started feeling that everyone was talking about him. The Hebrew blessing , "be healthy" was interpreted by him as though they all knew that he was un healthy and that something is wrong with him. He left in the early night, he recalled. He started following two people whom he suspected of following him. He heard someone saying "the intelligence are coming" and he replied, "Please bring them on." Someone gave him a few more Shelels (Israeli money).
He called us at home in the US, and Andrea, his mother, told him to take a cab and go to a hospital. He did, and we followed him to "Hadasah" hospital. The emergency room had been renovated, and nothing looked familiar. From the hospital he was taken by a police car to a mental hospital called Aitanim. We drove there. This was the hospital where I saw John for the first time. We set on the bench where we first talked. I recalled thinking that John was manipulating us, and wasn't sick. I read to the camera parts of my journal. The old ward, ward A, was going through renovations and we were able to go inside. We shot John's walking... pacing, in a similar way he paced eight years ago. He showed us the bed he was chained to with another fat patient. He recalled how he and the other patient couldn't stop laughing the whole time. The belly of the other patient was shaking. Then chained him because he didn't stop mumbling, "It's not my fault, it's not my fault". They laughed about their "crazy" situation, being chained to the bed with green belts. Nothing changed for John.
I heard many of his "stories" in the past. They remained non-linear. The details were exactly the same. He was scared that the people he snitched on are still walking the streets of Tel Aviv. His level of concentration was extremely high. In a moment, outside the religious seminary, I could see his eyes moving all over looking for the people who were still there.When he entered a space, he moved in it as though time stood still. He remembered his bed in the hostel, and where he smoked in the hospital. When he recited his story to Mordechi, he was pleading for his help and understanding. Nothing bothered, even angered him more than the feeling that we do not believe him. I saw him, in my imagination running through the narrow, stone covered streets of the Jewish quarter in East Jerusalem.
He told Mordechi that he is reliving his story for the film, and Mordechi told me to take care of him. Tomorrow we are going to the Lebanese boarder where John and his best friend from the Army "Maor" will stand on a guard post and recall the days before he AWALed. For the first time since we came to Israel, John took the bus, by himself to meet his friend and spend the weekend with him. We'll meet them tomorrow for the shoot. I drove him to the bus stop. He was repeating the bus number to himself. He took a backpack with his medicine, a cell phone, toothbrush, and some cloth to wear.
On my way back, I watched him by the bus station, with his white hat and T-shirt, lonely. A pretty Israeli woman soldier stood there. I knew he will not talk to her, but wished he did.
Eran Preis
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