A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

She said nothing. Unable to make out her expression in the dark, he did not know what she was thinking. One after another, her shoes dropped to the floor. The bed creaked. Only then did she say:

“You’re a hard man, Yochanan Rivlin. Really hard. Your Ofer was much nicer. What a pity you didn’t make a career in the police or the secret service instead of wasting your time teaching. You would have felt at home there, looking for the truth in all the wrong places. It’s too bad, because I thought you wanted something else from me — something I could have given you.”

A shiver went through him.

“Come to think of it, why not ask my sister? You can go on giving her the third degree. If anyone knows what happened to her, she does.”

“She refused twice,” Rivlin said. “I couldn’t get anything out of her.”

“And so you’ve decided to pick on me?”

“You’re a liberal woman. You’re open for a relationship. And you’ve chosen, if I may say so, an uninhibited single life that lets you be frank and do what you want despite your loyalty to your family and the hotel… or am I wrong?”

She sat up on the bed. His eyes, now accustomed to the dim light, discerned the shadow of a smile as she pulled off her sweater, unfastened her apron, and opened the linen drawer beneath the bed. She took out a sheet, spread it on the mattress, and lay down again.

“Thank you for telling me how liberal and open I am. But it won’t do you any good, because I really know and understand nothing about my sister and Ofer.”

“But you must!” he burst out, placing professorial hands on his heart.

She laughed out loud. “You don’t believe me, do you?” she said easily. “And maybe you’re right not to. In a family, after all, everything is connected, even what no one understands. But there has to be some closeness before one can talk about such things. And if you’re really such a big-time sleuth, I have a proposal, or rather a condition, to make… yes, a condition. That’s the right word for it. Before I can loosen up with you, I need some love. I don’t suppose you would mind a secret little bedtime adventure, would you? We might as well start now. After all, you’re a busy man — and you must realize by now how uninhibited I really am….”

His arms stayed crossed. Although he wasn’t sure whether he was being challenged to a test of his determination or a battle of wills, he knew deep down that he had expected this — that his unforeseen visit had been made with it in mind.

“If such is your condition,” he said with mock formality, “I am prepared to surrender my precious faithfulness to my wife. But what is it you look forward to in an old man like me?”

She smiled. “Leave that to me. You already made me curious at the bereavement, when I saw how lovingly you embraced my mother. That’s why I insisted you wait for Galya. And when I saw you pleading with her in the garden, I said to myself, this is a man who will come back. And you did….”

“But curious about what?”

“About what you’re like when you’re turned on.”

“But what good to you is my pretending to be turned on?”

“As good as my pretending to know something is to you.”

“Then you don’t?”

“Don’t know and don’t care. I’m not like you. I respect other people’s boundaries and wills. I’ve never understood how you dared snoop on your son’s life, poking into his affairs while pretending to save him. If I were your daughter I’d have murdered you long ago.”

“ Murdered me?”

“With my own hands.”

“Then how lucky I’m not your father.” But the feeble joke fell flat. Her hard face jutting with disappointment, she turned to the wall, curled up her long body, and withdrew. At that moment he knew that, in a basement full of files, he had lost his last link to a world that would forever keep his son’s secret. Reluctantly he rose, wanting to touch the long body one last time. But he lacked the courage to do so and only said a weak good-bye that was not acknowledged. He walked past the silent stove, running his fingers over the crib, then traversed the corridor and climbed the stairs to the kitchen, in which a solitary chef was concentrating on beheading a large fish.

The two Arabs were in the smoking lounge, talking quietly like old friends. Fu’ad was smoking a cigarette while Rashid twirled a cigar between his fingers as if uncertain what to do with it. They looked at him accusingly as he entered. For the first time he felt that neither of them liked him. “ Shu hada, ya Brofesor ?” Rashid asked in a cold voice. “ Kul halkad b’sur’ah hillis nomak? ” *

12.

IT WAS CLEAR AND getting frostier outside. The snow had been cleared from the streets. Here and there, in the afternoon sun, rosy icicles gleamed on the roofs.

Rashid was in low spirits, disappointed by his failure at the Civil Administration Bureau and embarrassed to have been found naked. He drove silently, with his eyes on the road, passing in front of the walls of the Old City and heading for the underground parking lot on Mount Scopus. Bluish clouds were stamped on the skies above Hebrew University. To the east, over the desert, hung a thick haze.

The guard at the entrance to the parking lot found an Orientalist in a hunting jeep suspicious and insisted on seeing Rivlin’s invitation to the conference. This, however, was not to be found, having been lost in the hotel or the basement. Not even a faculty ID card from Haifa could persuade the guard to let the car through. Rivlin felt he had had enough of Rashid. Why not, he suggested lamely, start back for the Galilee without him? He would probably find someone to give him a ride back to Haifa.

Rashid demurred. “I’ll come for you at the end of the session,” he said. “Your wife won’t like it, Professor, if I leave you here in Jerusalem.” Despite the anger in his voice, he still held the judge in high esteem.

In the reception room of the Truman Institute, a large gathering was crowded around the refreshment-laden tables. The translatoress of Ignorance, circulating excitedly, lit up when she saw Rivlin. “Where did you disappear to?” she scolded. “Everyone has been looking for you. Hagit called, too. She said not to try calling her back — she’ll try again. Look how many people came in the end! Do you think we should move to a bigger auditorium?”

“There’s no need for it,” he assured the happy widow, explaining that the more crowded the audience, the better the lectures, since packed rows of listeners were an erotic stimulus to an intellectual.

The rows of the little hall were indeed so full that a janitor had to bring extra chairs. Although many of those present were unfamiliar to Rivlin, he had a good idea of who they were. Apart from university officials and administrators, there were members of the small Italian-Jewish community of Jerusalem, most of them slight, elderly women in high heels and black dresses set off by colorful scarves, who took pride in their scholarly compatriot and hoped to hear stories that would remind them of their childhoods in the beautiful land of fascism they had fled. There were also Arabists from various universities and colleges, and, to his surprise, quite a few young M.A. and Ph.D. students, as well as strange hybrids spawned by pseudoacademic think tanks and research institutes. These, in the spirit of the times, were confusingly interdisciplinary, their Orientalism combined with sociology, law, literature, political science, philosophy, education, Jewish history, computer science, and other things. As he was wondering what they were doing at a memorial for Tedeschi, who had done his best scholarship before most of them were born, he noticed a group of them swarming around Dr. Miller. With a mixture of amazement and consternation, it dawned on him that this pale, quiet man whose promotion he had foiled had disciples. One day, no doubt, they would take their revenge on their guru’s nemesis.