A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

The Snake and the Hyena

Once upon a time there was an old hyena named Abu-Maher who had trouble finding carcasses to eat. In part this was because of a drought, which made the leopards and wolves less generous with the meat from their kills, and in part because younger and spryer hyenas than Abu-Maher were getting to it before him. One way or another, he grew thinner and thinner and more and more depressed. His laughter at night was bitter and strained, and life was a burden to him. All hyenas hang their heads, since they are ashamed of eating what others have killed, but Abu-Maher’s head hung so low that although he was tall for a hyena, his tongue practically licked the ground.

One night, as Abu-Maher was nosing around some rocks in the desert, he encountered the wary old viper Ibn Sa’id, who was busy digesting inside his long striped stomach a young field mouse eaten two days earlier. Abu-Maher was so hungry that even though fresh meat disgusted him, he thought of eating Ibn-Sa’id. His cast-iron stomach could digest the worst offal; however, his parents of blessed memory had never taught him whether a snake’s poison is found only in its fangs, or in its veins as well. And so before undertaking so risky an enterprise, as he bent over the coiled viper and opened his jaws, which glistened with good, strong teeth, he said, without beating around the bush, “Would you mind telling me where you keep your poison? And also, does it lose its power when you die, or does it remain deadly?”

Ibn-Sa’id had never been asked such a searching question about himself, let alone by an experienced and desperate pair of jaws located so near his head. Though brave and honest to a fault, he was afraid to tell the truth, which was that all his poison was concentrated in a gland behind his fangs. And so he lied and told the old hyena that the poison was everywhere in his body, even in his tail, and that it was best to leave him alone.

The old hyena Abu-Maher, not knowing any better, found the snake’s answer logical, sadly snapped his jaws shut, and went off behind a large rock to lie down and pray for mercy.

The snake felt sorry for the hungry but fair-minded hyena, who could have killed him from sheer disappointment. Having digested the field mouse and passed what was left of it, he crawled quietly over to Abu-Maher, coiled himself gently around his neck, and whispered a surprising proposal:

“You know as well as I do that nobody likes snakes or hyenas. Even though we work hard for our livelihood and are no worse than other animals, we aren’t well thought of. Frankly, I see no hope of changing such superstitions in the near future. Yet if the two of us get together and become friends, perhaps others will think better of us, too.

Abu-Maher listened to the snake’s hisses and replied:

“But there is a great difference between us. Your bad reputation comes from God and is very ancient. Mine comes from holding up a mirror to mankind, because I eat dead meat and laugh, just as men do.”

“Indeed,” the snake admitted, “my reputation is worse and more frightening than yours, since I have been cursed by Allah himself. And as I need your help to improve it, I’ll do more for you than you need do for me. Not only do I require less food than you, I’m a better hunter, especially in times of drought. If you let me ride on your back, we can easily approach animals that have no fear of you, since they know you won’t eat them until they’ve been killed by another animal. I’ll slip off your back, kill them by surprise, and then you can feast on them.”

And so the cunning snake and the hungry old hyena became friends. Hated by everyone else, they learned to like each other and formed a single monster that the beasts of the desert were soon afraid of. This great fear of them led to their being held in awe, and awe is the mother of glory.

5.

RIVLIN LISTENED ATTENTIVELY, his chin in his palm. Despite his efforts to find some social or political moral in the Egyptian veterinarian’s fable, all he could think of was Samaher in her beard, dressed as a young rabbi and pulling out a whip to lash the doll held by her cousin.

He took the translation from her mother and put it in her file. “Very good,” he said. “There’s food for thought here. These old stories collected by Dr. Suissa are treasure troves.” And while Afifa, plump and bejeweled, regarded him with big eyes, waiting to see whether Samaher had completed her seminar requirements, he added, “The translation is excellent. Did you help her?”

He could not tell whether her hot flush meant “yes” or “no.”

“It’s a pity you never finished your studies,” he rebuked her. “You should ask one of the secretaries if your university entrance-exam results are still valid.”

She spread helpless hands. “Valid for what?”

“For continuing your studies.”

“But why should I continue them? It’s Samaher who needs her degree.”

“And she’ll get it. Just keep her cousin away from her. He hangs around her too much.”

“It’s not her fault, Professor. It’s yours.”

“Why mine?”

“He’s always talking about you. He thinks that if he can get you to like him, you’ll help his sister return to Israel.”

“But that’s crazy.”

“He’s even found some official in the General Security Service who’s an old student of yours. Do you have a student in the GSS, Professor? What is he doing there?”

“What kind of question is that?” The Orientalist chuckled. “I have old students in the GSS, in the Mossad, in the foreign office. Why do you think there’s a demand for Near Eastern Studies? To hear about hyenas and snakes?”

Afifa reddened again. “Well, there’s a student of yours there who thinks a lot of you. Rashid says he could take care of everything if you’d talk to him. Believe me, that’s the only reason he hangs around Samaher. It has nothing to do with her.”

“Then why doesn’t he speak to me?”

“He’s afraid to.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of your having thought he was making fun of the Jews in that play in Ramallah.”

“But it’s his right to make fun of us. His Dybbuk was marvelous.”

“Well, I’m telling you, Professor, you’re all he thinks and talks about.”

“Honestly, Afifa, would it make sense to separate Ra’uda from her husband by bringing her back to Israel?”

“But of course it would, Professor. She’s Israeli. And this husband of hers, he’s from the West Bank and a Christian and sick. He could die at any time. Where will that leave her?”

“I suppose so.” Rivlin felt exhausted. He rose, stretched, led Afifa to the departmental office, and asked a secretary to look for her old file and tell her what credits she could get for courses taken twenty years ago.

Afifa, who had no intention of going back to school, stood embarrassed in a corner. Rivlin went to check his mailbox. As he emptied it, he smelled the scent of Miller’s aftershave. The young lecturer was in the middle of sealing an envelope, doing a thorough job of it. Rivlin gave him a friendly smile and invited him to speak at a one-day Orientalists’ conference soon to take place in Jerusalem, on the first month’s anniversary of Tedeschi’s death.

6.

THE WINTER, HAVING BEGUN at Hanukkah with an impressive display of wind and rain, had petered out. Days of unseasonably high temperatures arrived and parched the earth. “If the summer has no bounds,” Rivlin said to Hagit, “I may as well take some vacation.” He intended, he told her, to take all the shopping coupons accumulated over the past year and exchange them for gifts. “They lose their value after December 31,” he explained. “Pick what you want from the catalogs, and I’ll get it.”