A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

“ La, walla la, ya madam, la! ” *the Palestinians cried at once, commiserating with the strange Jewess. “Don’t insult us. What’s a telephone call to Jerusalem? Nothing. You can call all you like… even to America… to Japan… a kul hal, b’nidfa’sh el-hasab l’isra’il. ” †

There was a sense of merriment in the room. When they left it, properly name-tagged (Rashid must have told someone he had important passengers), a jeep with a machine gunner was waiting to escort them. The rain had tapered off to a thin drizzle. They traveled in a little convoy through the streets of the brightly lit Palestinian city. At the new Khalil el-Sakakini Cultural Center, teenagers holding torches directed them to a nearly full parking lot. If last summer he had crossed the border as a one-man show, Rivlin thought, he was now heading a multinational, multisexual, and multigenerational delegation. He took care to keep his five women together as they climbed out of the minibus, while saying some encouraging words to Mr. Suissa, who had sat in the car looking tense. Meanwhile, Rashid handed each of his nephews a small carton and disappeared with them around the back of the building.

They climbed some stairs to the aristocratically arched stone entrance of the Cultural Center, which looked like a wealthy private mansion. There to greet them was the festival’s director, Nazim Ibn-Zaidoun, an energetic, gap-toothed, baby-faced man who in his old leather coat, Rivlin thought, resembled a trade union official. Ibn-Zaidoun shook hands briskly with the Israelis, introduced them to the British judge of the poetry contest, who towered over him like a thoroughbred horse, and urged them to help themselves to refreshments on the second floor. Tonight’s festival, he assured them, was meant for body and mind alike.

10.

A LOCAL BEAUTY welcomed them to the high-ceilinged second floor and politely but firmly made them take off their coats, for which there would be no room in the auditorium, and hang them in the checkroom. With the thrill of old intimacy Rivlin spied, beneath Hagit’s fur-collared coat, her beloved blouse and velvet pants on Ra’uda’s tall, dark figure. He tried to catch her eye, wishing to share his amusement at her simulacrum from the other side of the border. But Hagit, still involved with the translatoress, who was greatly distressed by her husband’s coolness, had no time for her old clothes, which now vanished with their wearer in the wake of Samaher.

Rivlin let himself be carried along by the festive hubbub of the guests, most of them young people of unclear identity. It was hard to tell the Arabs from the Jews, or either of the two from anyone else. Taking Ibn-Zaidoun’s advice, he headed for the buffet, followed by Suissa’s widow with Suissa senior on her heels. The murdered scholar’s father, awed by the occasion despite his vengeful feelings toward its Palestinian organizers, had taken off his fedora and put on a big, colorful skullcap that might have been knit back in his North African childhood. At the buffet, by plates of stuffed grape leaves and cigar-shaped meat pastries, the conversation flowed in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, with an occasional German exclamation mark. Holding a glass and surrounded by Israeli peace activists, the most famous of Palestinian poets stood by the auditorium door. An aging, though still boyish, bachelor and full-time exile who circulated among the world’s capitals reading his poetry, he was trying to follow, a bored glitter in his eyes, the singsong English of an Israeli poet of his own generation, a tall, balding, protuberant man with thick glasses, who was known for his marvelously erotic sonnets — which, though politically naive, were said to embody his lust for peace. At his side, seeking to elbow his way into the conversation, was another poet from Tel Aviv — a literary critic as well, whose brilliant but nasty essays took advantage of the Middle East conflict to settle scores with his numerous rivals.

There was a tap on Rivlin’s shoulder. It was Rashid, visibly excited. “Is everything all right, Professor?” he asked softly and disappeared before the Orientalist could answer, leaving Rivlin to smile sympathetically at the sad widow — who, a glass of water in her hand, regarded him with silent resentment, as if still waiting, even though he now was entrusted with five women, for the protection she demanded.

“It seems,” he said in a friendly whisper, trying to keep from being overheard by Suissa senior, who was cruising the counter in search of a kosher Middle Eastern hors d’oeuvre, “that you’re getting used to your hedgehog.”

The young widow, giving him the cold shoulder, merely shook her head and set her glass down on the counter.

Hagit and Hannah stepped out of the ladies’ room, smiling and relaxed. Still more people were filing into the lobby, among them some country musicians in traditional costume who hurried to the auditorium with their instruments. Rivlin, his inhibitions dispelled by the noisy crowd, put two fingers to his mouth and startled those around him by shrilling his and Hagit’s old whistle of recognition. At once came the judge’s soft answering call. Spotting him, she linked arms with Hannah and headed in his direction. It pleased yet saddened him to see that although the two were the same age his wife looked much younger than her companion, who had been kept childless by a husband fearing rivals for her love.

“What happened to your driver?” Hannah chided him. “Don’t forget that you’ve left your old teacher all alone. I only came because you promised I could be brought back any time I wanted.”

“Any time after Rashid’s performance.”

“What performance is that?”

Rivlin smiled mysteriously. “You’ll see. He’s a demon in disguise, not just a driver.”

Ibn-Zaidoun, accompanied by two policemen serving as ushers, now opened the doors of the auditorium and began shooing the audience inside. From within came the sounds of a shepherd’s pipe and a three-stringed rebab. At the doorway they were blocked by a conversation, started by the remark of an Israeli that according to the latest studies Jews and Palestinians had the same DNA. Although this had occasioned much laughter, it was hard to tell whether the laughter was approving or embarrassed.

“We all come from the same monkey’s ass,” the erotic poet guffawed. “And should go back there.”

The Palestinian poet grinned provocatively. “I trust that’s one place where the Law of Return applies equally.”

“Please, no politics tonight! Just love,” Ibn-Zaidoun warned through the gap between his front teeth. Rivlin was startled to see a shiny pistol protruding from his old leather coat.

“ They say there is love in this world, ” quoted the Palestinian poet — who, like Ra’uda, knew his Bialik. “ But I ask: What is love? ”

He entered the auditorium.

On the spur of the moment, Rivlin decided to introduce himself and his companions to the poet, which he did while praising his verse, read by him in the original. The world-famous exile, his slim figure neat in a custom-made suit and a last cigarette butt between his yellowed fingers, listened to the Jewish Orientalist politely. He beamed when told of the accomplishments of the translatoress of Ignorance. “ Na’am, ya sitti, ” he said with an intense handshake, “el- jahaliya mish bas asas esh-shi’ir el-arabi, hiyya kaman asas el-kiyan. ” *

11.

THE AUDITORIUM OF THE Khalil el-Sakakini Cultural Center was designed in the best modern taste, with unadorned white walls and columns bearing a vaulted ceiling of white arches graceful as the wings of a dove. Although it was so crowded that the Haifa professor and his entourage at first had nowhere to sit, Ibn-Zaidoun soon appeared, made some young Palestinians move to the floor, and gave the Jewish VIPs their seats. These looked down on a stage covered with a checked carpet, on which stood a long wooden table and three chairs. The musicians, seated in the back, were tuning their instruments while sipping little cups of coffee.