A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

More and more young people kept pushing into the auditorium and finding places on the floor. The warmth of so many bodies made the heated hall stuffy, and a gray-haired Arab in jeans went to a window, drew its white lace curtain, and let in some cool night air. It took Rivlin a startled moment to realize it was Fu’ad. The maître d’ had taken off his black uniform and come to search for poetic inspiration among his compatriots across the border.

The first strains of hesitant melody, still lacking the firm beat of a drum, were forming from the random notes of zither, shepherd’s pipe, lute, and rebab. Ibn-Zaidoun, standing by the table, signaled the ushers to dim the lights. The melody stopped, and the audience was asked to rise for a moment of silence in memory of the great Palestinian educator after whom the new Cultural Center had been named. Then all sat down again, and Ibn-Zaidoun pulled from a pocket of his leather coat a Hebrew translation of a passage from es-Sakakini’s journals, published under the title This Is Me, Gentlemen. The educator’s first love letter to his future wife was read aloud:

My Sultana,

And so, like clouds scattered before the wind, my days in Jerusalem are over. Allow me to write you a last letter and to bid you farewell from a heart that has almost ceased to beat from so much love and that has melted away from so much suffering. I utter these words as though from the grave. Soon I will leave this city, with its people, houses, streets, and soil that I belong to, and in which I breathed love for the first time, for a place that will never be mine. How could it be when my heart is staying behind?

Yesterday I spent the day parting with people whose goodness and sterling qualities I will never forget for as long as I live. I thought this would be easy for me, because I had prepared myself for it ever since conceiving of my journey. But when the time came, I felt how bitter it was. All day my heart was in a turmoil. And even if I can part with friends and family, how can I part with you, Sultana? Every other parting is easy in comparison.

I will think of you, Sultana, each time the sun rises or sets; I will think of you when I come and go, rise and lie down, arrive and depart; I will think of you when I go to work; I will think of you when I am calm and free of worry, and when I am weary and exhausted.

To part with you is to part with comradeship, purity, light, and joy; it is to encounter loneliness and sorrow. The first man leaving Paradise was not more anguished than I am. You are my Paradise. You are my happiness. You are my pleasure in life, my soul’s joy, my life itself. What must a man feel when he leaves his own life?

Think of me, Sultana, each time you enter the church to pray, or open your Bible; think of me when you are teaching your students, or taking them for a nature walk to our beloved rock; think of me when you are at home. Stand at your window, which faces mine, and say: “Fare thee well, Khalil.” Ah, I would fain look at that window, for perhaps I would see you there!

And when springtime comes with its fair flowers and you feel a breeze, that is my greeting to you — or glimpse a flower, that is my smile — or hear the song of birds, that is my voice speaking. Should you glance up at the sky and see the sparkling stars, you have seen my eyes looking at you. If the moon peeps over the mountains and sends its silvery beams through the clouds — regard them, for perhaps I am seeing them too and our two gazes will meet.

Today I sat with my cousin Ya’akub, to whom I confessed: “I love Sultana, I adore her.” I did not tell him that I have revealed to you the secret of my love. He thinks I should do so before I depart. When will I receive a clear answer from you? Ah, Sultana, have pity and do not let me go with an anxious heart and a worried mind. The anguish of parting is enough.

Nazim Ibn-Zaidoun was now joined by the Palestinian beauty from the checkroom. Playing the role of Khalil es-Sakakini’s beloved, she stood with a white rose in her long hair and declaimed the letter written by the thirty-year-old Palestinian in its original Arabic.

Rivlin cast a warm glance at his wife, who was listening with empathy to the words even though they were only sounds for her. The eyes of the translatoress were damp with tears behind their glasses.

“What did you think of the translation?” he whispered.

She shrugged disdainfully. “Who can’t translate such simple Arabic?”

“Simple but beautiful,” he said.

She looked at him suspiciously, then nodded slowly and, annoyed, took off her glasses and wiped her eyes.

She was not the only one moved. Opening the festival, the simple but genuine love letter of the Palestinian educator — a revolutionary in his thoughts and a romantic in his feelings — sent a shiver through the audience and made it want more. As Es-Sakakini’s last words faded and Ibn-Zaidoun signaled the musicians to strike up a sweetly plaintive tune, the first poets edged toward the stage for the contest.

The cleverly creative festival director, however, was not in any hurry. First he wished to build up the suspense, setting the bar for the young poets with classical, but still bold and lively, verse. He would begin with some eighth-century poems by “the curly-headed one,” as he was known, the great Abu-Nawwas, followed by excerpts from the ninth-century poet Al-Hallaj. Both men were rebels and possibly not even true Arabs, for they were born in Persia and lived and wrote in Baghdad, where Abu-Nawwas ended his life in a dungeon and Al-Hallaj by losing his head. Their poems, Ibn-Zaidoun announced, ratcheting up the audience’s expectations, would be read by the great Palestinian poet, who need not fear their competition in tonight’s contest.

The poet recited the classic verse in a voice rusty from tobacco smoke. Hebrew translations, prepared in advance, were then read aloud by Ibn-Zaidoun, who appeared to consider himself knowledgeable on the sacred language of the Jews.

Uktubi In Katabti, Ya Maniyya

When you write, my precious one, I pray you,

Do so with an open heart and a frank spirit and your spit.

Make many mistakes and erase them all

With it. No fingers, please.

Wet the page with the sweetness

Of your lovely teeth.

Each time I read a line you have corrected,

I’ll lick it with my tongue,

A kiss from afar,

Leaving me giddy and dazed!

Ya Sakiyyati

O you who made me drink the bitter cup

That made a pleasant life unbearable!

Before I bore love’s yoke I was well thought of,

And she, the one I love, dwelt in king’s chambers.

Then some evil-wisher waylaid me with love,

And heaped upon me shame and degradation.

Her scent is of the musk of sea-dwellers.

Her smile outshines the buds of chamomile.

She laughs when friends bring gifts of fragrances.

“Does perfume need perfume?” she asks.

They say, “Why do you not adorn yourself?”

She answers, “Any jewelry

Would dull my luster.

Did I not throw away my silver bangles

To keep myself from blinding them?”

Next, to assure the Israelis — who by now had blended invisibly into the packed audience — that they, too, had a role in the golden age of the Arabs, two poems were read about Jews, who in days of old had pandered to Muslims with forbidden pleasures.

Ind al-Yahudiyya

I went to Kutkebul laden with gold crowns,

Eighty dinars saved by my hard work.

In no time I had blown them like flies,

And pledged a good silk shirt,

A fancy robe, and my best suit

To the Jewess who runs the tavern.

No woman more modest, more gracious, more lovely!