A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

The bathroom had two urinals and a stall. Although the Orientalist would have preferred the stall for privacy’s sake, a red arc above its door handle showed it was occupied. He took his place at the urinal, fumbling with his zipper. As he carefully pulled out his penis, the man next to him zipped his pants and walked away and Fu’ad slipped into his place. The Jew could not help stealing a glance at the Arab’s member. It was passing water with surprising speed.

Rivlin felt anger. He couldn’t relax enough to pee.

“It’s not the Jews who have ruined your Arabic, Fu’ad,” he said despairingly to the flower-patterned tiles in front of him. “It’s surrendering your freedom to the hotel.”

The plash of water stopped beside him. He continued, still looking straight ahead:

“When I beg you to tell me what happened with Ofer and Galya, and who was to blame, you just clam up. But I know you know, l’inno inta, ya Fu’ad, mowjud fi kul mahal. * You don’t give a damn how I’m suffering because you only think of yourself and of getting ahead. But where to? If you’re not free inside you’ll never get anywhere. You’ll end up writing elegies for yourself.”

The water flushed in the stall. Yet the door remained closed, and the next man in line lost patience and moved up behind them, waiting for someone to finish. Fu’ad, pale, looked stunned by the Orientalist’s words. He went to the sink, washed his hands quickly, and left.

Rivlin shut his eyes fervently and waited for the painfully slow trickle of his urine to increase. He had finished and was washing his hands, slowly squeezing detergent from a plastic bottle, when the door of the stall opened and out stepped Mr. Suissa. Had he overheard the conversation with Fu’ad? But what if he had?

“Well, what do you think of the festivities?” Rivlin asked. “Wasn’t I right, Mr. Suissa, that it was worth coming tonight?”

“Yes,” Suissa replied, “there’s always something to be learned. Those Sufi lyrics were golden.”

“And Hannah Tedeschi’s Hebrew translations? Marvelous.”

“They were. My son always said to me: ‘Doctor Tedeschi outranks her husband.’”

“And this Center — would you have believed it of the Palestinian Authority? Such a pleasant, elegant place!”

“I suppose so — if visiting a vipers’ nest can be pleasant.”

“A vipers’ nest?”

“Make no mistake about it, Professor Rivlin. They can stand and recite love poems all night, but they’re still vipers. Even that Arab you were just talking to.”

Rivlin, nettled, came to the maître d’s defense. “What do you know about him, Mr. Suissa?”

“Nothing, Professor,” Suissa replied, his face betraying no emotion. “Since my son was killed, I don’t know a thing. I’m listening and learning, just like your friend.”

Yet encountering Fu’ad waiting for them outside, Suissa dropped his eyes deferentially and headed for the stairs leading back to the second floor.

The top floor was emptying out. Even the young people who had ignored the poetry contest wanted to hear the Lebanese singer, whose white robe was still visible on the balcony. Her male chorus was gone, and she was alone with the festival’s director, who regarded her admiringly while smoking a little pipe.

Rivlin, convinced that the nun not only would but should remember him, set out in her direction. He was intercepted by Fu’ad, anxious to smooth things over.

“Don’t be angry, Professor. It’s been so many years…. Why should I be a tattletale? I wouldn’t even know what tale to tell.”

Rivlin just kept walking. “The truth is,” he said venomously, “ bas al-mazbut — inta hiwif. ” *

And he hurried to the nun without paying attention to the gray-haired Arab’s distress.

She remembered him. Who could forget a lone Jew in a village church in the middle of the night?

“ Inti shaifi, ya Madame, ana anid k’tir, ” he said to her with emotion. “ Jit kaman marra ta’asma’ eish bighanu fi ’l-janneh. Bas hal marra jibt el-mara kaman…. ” †

She smiled gently. “ Ahlan u-sahlan. ” ‡

He glanced at her bare feet in the plain sandals worn by her even on this cold, rainy night. Speaking in French to avoid embarrassing her in front of Ibn-Zaidoun, he said:

“I told my wife how you wouldn’t faint for me last summer. She joins me in hoping that this winter you’ll be more forthcoming….”

If shocked by the Israeli’s forwardness, the nun was too well bred to show it. She merely gave him a lucid Christian look and said, with a hint of irony:

“ Inshallah. ” *

15.

THE AUDITORIUM WAS twice as full as before. It took considerable effort for Rivlin, one of the last to reenter it, to make his way to his wife over the Palestinians on the floor.

“I thought you’d been kidnapped,” Hagit said, more curious than concerned by his absence.

“Where to?” Rivlin said, stroking her hair. “Anyway, we’re kidnapped already.” In a whisper he told her of his encounter with the nun, who now entered to stormy applause. On the floor at his feet, he noticed Ra’uda in his wife’s old clothes with her two boys.

“ Feyn Rashid ?” he asked. “ Feyn Samaher? ” †

“’Round,” she said, using what Hebrew she remembered. She seemed worried by their disappearance.

The second half of the program was entitled “Christian Arab Song.” More folkloristic than the performance in Zababdeh, it was all in Arabic, with no Greek Passions or Resurrections. He glanced at the words of the lyrics, obtained by the translatoress. Although they abounded in religious references — how else would the convent in Baalbek have agreed to send the nun to the Holy Land? — the emphasis was, in the spirit of the festival, on God’s love. The musicians, too, were more richly polyphonic than the monotonous droners of Zababdeh, whose four male singers, now taking their place by the band, were augmented by three more hefty, gray-haired men in dark suits indistinguishable from themselves. Rivlin hoped that this ensemble, backed by a small but vigorous drum, would force the Lebanese singer out of her angelic bubble and into a confrontation with the world.

And it did. At first every line warbled by the little nun was resoundingly seconded with all its grace notes by the lute, rebab, and drum. Then, however, these were joined by the shepherd’s pipe, whose plaintive tones turned their agreement into a protest or question to which the Lebanese was forced to reply — which in turn forced the male choir to stop its droning and rebel, pained and incredulous, against the white-robed singer’s unshakable harmonies. It was hard to tell what was rehearsed and what was improvised. At times, despite her great vocal resourcefulness, the nun was surprised and thrown off her stride. Yet she not only recovered quickly, she rose to the challenge and added still more quavers to her answer until these lengthened into a single long appoggiatura that brooked no response.

Was this her way, assisted by the musicians, of preparing for the swoon that Rivlin was looking forward to? Were they wearing down her resistance with their repeated phrases until its precise point of collapse was reached, not by calculation, but by a true intoxication of the spirit? Or did they, on the contrary, fearing that too quick a loss of consciousness might end the concert prematurely, engage her in this complex dialogue to keep her from passing out from sheer boredom?

The Orientalist felt a tug on his pants. It was Ra’uda, drawing his attention to the rear of the auditorium. There, in its crowded last row, was Samaher in a scarf, and behind her, her handsome cousin. His gaze zeroing in on the Orientalist, Rashid flashed him a V sign like the one Rivlin remembered from Zababdeh. Yet this time, he felt, there was something proud and debauched about it. Ra’uda, he saw by her frightened face, had the same reaction.