A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

“One way or another, it’s still there, Ofer, eh?”

And with that he locked the door. “You mustn’t miss your flight,” he murmured.

Ofer took the book he had put by the baby carriage and started up the stairs. “You can throw out those two cartons,” he called scornfully over his shoulder to Fu’ad. “Or give them to someone in your village. Come on,” he said to his father. “We’ll be late.”

But in the empty parking lot, by their car baking in the sun, he halted and said to Rivlin:

“I have nothing more to say to you. Just shut up and don’t answer me. Not one word. I don’t want any explanations or rationalizations. I’ve had enough. Let’s go to the goddamn airport and say good-bye.”

“But what have I done to you, Ofer? What’s wrong?”

“You haven’t done anything. You’re simply an impossible man. A sneaking, bossy traitor who wants to spy on my soul. Well, you can’t. You’re not spying on anything.”

“But what have I done?”

“You know perfectly well what you’ve done and what you’re doing. Ever since her fucking father’s bereavement, you’ve kept coming back here to paw at my past. It’s sickening, and it’s pointless. God! Am I glad I’m leaving and won’t have to see you anymore!”

“How can you say such a thing?”

“I can say what I like!” The stifled cry burst from him, echoing through the garden. “What gives you the right to trespass on anyone’s life?”

Rivlin felt on fire. The sunlight wounded his eyes. His son’s sudden anger frightened him.

“But I only wanted to help you to move on. To share your pain and find a way for you to…”

“You’re not finding a way for me to do anything. You can’t.”

“But why can’t I? Only because I know nothing. If you’d tell me why they drove you from here…”

“But I won’t! Do you hear me?” He was shouting now. “I won’t tell you anything. You’d better accept that. Either you stop your vile habit of poking around basements or you’re not my father anymore. I swear to God, I’ll have nothing more to do with you!”

“But why?” Rivlin implored, desperately trying to keep calm. “Who are you protecting? Yourself — or her too? Why keep secrets after so many years? There’s a statute of limitations on secrets too. Ask your mother. She’ll tell you.”

Ofer’s face was contorted. “I’m not asking anyone. I’ll decide when enough time has passed. Not you! Do you hear me? Not you! I don’t want to talk about it any more. Period. And you’ll either accept that or lose one son.”

Yet just when it seemed that his anguish would end in tears or violence, he looked away and out over the large garden with its gravel paths and gazebo, silent in the noonday heat. When he turned back and spoke to his father, who was watching him motionlessly, it was in a different, quiet tone. “Because if I tell you what happened,” he said, “I’ll lose my only chance of coming back here.”

“Coming back here?” Rivlin clutched at the car door for support. “Are you telling me that you’re still hoping… to get together again… now, when she’s about to have a child?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Ofer, my darling, I’ll swear to you never to come back here. I’ll swear never to say a word to anyone. I won’t even think about it anymore. This is the last time. I beg you, don’t leave me more tormented than I’ve been. Just say one sentence, because I have to be sure I understand. Do you really believe she’ll take you back?” Ofer said nothing.

“I beg you. Just say yes or no. Answer your father. Because maybe I misunderstood you.”

“You understood me very well,” his son murmured with a sudden tenderness, as though lapsing into an inner reverie. “Amazingly enough, I do believe it.”

“If that’s so,” Rivlin said in horror, “it’s because you’ve decided to chain yourself forever. You’re destroying yourself and your future…”

“That’s my right.” He made a fist as though to strike his father. “It’s my right just as it’s anyone’s right to live by real or imagined love. But listen here, I’m warning you. If there’s one more word out of you — one word! about anything! — I’m not getting into this car. I’ll get to the airport by myself, and that’s the last you’ll see of me.”

ALTHOUGH HE KNEW there was no getting out of it, since not even a generous present, given in advance, would have soothed the sting of their absence, he went on hoping on that autumn evening, right up to the last minute, for something unexpected to save him from the wedding. Yet he kept his grumbling to himself. For all his criticism in recent years of their housekeeper’s careless cleaning and dull cooking, he would always be grateful for her unstinting loyalty, for her love for his two boys, even for some of her meals. And so while Hagit debated what to wear, he sat in his black suit by the front door and studied the map on the invitation.

There was no Arab driver this time; there were no young parking attendants waving lanterns to show them the road, just the two of them, trying to find their way in the industrial zone of Haifa Bay. They passed garages, textile plants, furniture outlets, and appliance stores and finally reached a large wedding hall that glittered with neon magic. And even then they had to look for their wedding, since the disco music pounding inside came from several celebrations at once.

Was this the right one? Despondent and already exhausted, they stood on a palatial marble staircase that led to a reception room decorated with artificial flowers, wondering whether to slip the check they had brought into the gold-leafed box in front of them or to hand it directly to the housekeeper.

“Well,” Rivlin said, deciding to deposit the check in the box, “we can go now.” The sight of so many overweight cousins and aunts, escorted by little husbands in loud jackets, filled him with odium. However, as they knew none of these people and so would have no one to testify to their attendance, they had no choice but to take their seats at a numbered table with a basket of stale-looking rolls, a bottle of white wine, and a tray of wizened garnishes, there to wait, beneath the savage onslaught of the music, to see who would be their dinner mates.

Nothing had changed since the Arab wedding in the Galilee that spring. Surrounded by strangers, ordinary people with every right to celebrate and enjoy themselves, he felt only his own failure. The bile of envy rose in his gorge, as if all the weddings taking place in this building had conspired to reopen his old wound.

“Why don’t we just get up and walk out?” he shouted to his wife over the violent music, which had driven a wedge between them. “Don’t tell me you came here for the food.”

This proposal was so undeserving of a response that the judge did not bother to make one. Only when Rivlin repeated it did she reply severely:

“Believe me, I’d rather be in bed now, too. But we have to wait for the ceremony so that we can congratulate her. Why can’t you understand how much we, and especially I, mean to her?”

The ceremony did not appear to be imminent. Some members of the younger set were already gyrating wildly to the music, and new guests continued to arrive. No one joined them at their table. Time passed. “The families must be haggling over the wedding contract,” Hagit remarked, lighting another cigarette while staring at the red velvet curtain from which the bride and groom were to emerge. Rivlin, though he had only a vague notion of the family feuds that the housekeeper kept the judge informed about, gave up all hope for a quick getaway and reached for the tray of garnishes, from which he began to collect the olives. His ennui was only heightened when a small, elderly man in an old brown three-piece suit sat down warily at their table. The man, who had a slight palsy, recognized the Rivlins, at whose company he seemed pleased. Contentedly reaching for a roll, he crumbled it between his fingers and held out his wineglass for Rivlin to fill.