A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

“If he’s not worried about her, you can relax too. You’re not part of this birth.”

“Why not?”

She raised her head from the pillow to regard him with amazement. Her hair disarrayed, her face wild with anger, she had lost her last shred of patience.

“Because you aren’t! You’ll wait for Ofer to get in touch — if he does. And you’ll let him live out this day, and his meeting with Galya, and whatever is happening right now as he pleases.”

“Of course. Naturally.”

“Promise me you’ll stay out of it from now on.”

“I promise.”

“Swear you won’t phone or go looking for anyone while I’m asleep.”

“All right. All right….”

“No, it’s not all right. Swear!”

“I swear.”

She smiled. “And now get into bed. You’ll sleep better for having sworn.”

He undressed and got into bed, turning out the light and snuggling up to her. But the more regular her breathing grew as it carried her surely off to sleep, the more awake he became. His excitement getting the better of him, he disengaged himself and rose. Sleeping pills were out of the question on a night like this.

He entered his study apprehensively, as if the amniotic sac that had burst a few hours before might still be dripping. Hagit, with unusual alacrity, had mopped it up before he could get a look at it. Now, though, in the light of the desk lamp, he saw that his chair was still damp. Overcoming his qualms, he bent to sniff it. The stains had a slight, soapy scent. With a shiver of revulsion, he noticed what looked like bits of white, nearly colorless matter.

Galya had left her overnight bag on the couch. It was open. In it, beside her toilet articles and a book, were rolled her wet dress and underpants. He closed the bag and put it on the floor. Then, covering the chair with a sheet she had slept on as one covers the mirrors in a dead man’s house, he sat down, switched on his computer, loaded a chapter of his book onto the screen, and set to work on it. He was getting closer, he thought, to the crux of things that he had been groping for since the spring. Though still not out of the woods, he felt confident that he was onto something real. Yet he wondered if he would ever find out what it was, or if he would remain like a faithful courier with no idea of the message he carried.

True to his pledge to Hagit, he waited to hear from Ofer. One might have thought his son could pick up a telephone and tell his parents, “Galya had the baby.” Or, “We’re still waiting.” Or how the delivery was proceeding, or whether Jerusalem had been informed, or if Tehila and Bo’az were on their way. Or, at the very least, “I’ll be home soon,” or “I’m staying at the hospital,” or “Go to sleep, Abba,” or “Wait up for me.” Hagit was asleep. He could easily phone every hospital in town and find out. But he had sworn not to.

The editing went well. He worked on the chapter and made such progress that he was almost up to the next one. It was nearly two o’clock. For a moment he imagined that Ofer and Galya would soon come home from a disco, as in those distant days before the wedding.

It took him a while to realize that the tapping on the front door was not imaginary. He hurried downstairs. Through the frosted glass he made out a blurry figure. It was Tehila, standing in the darkness. As though continuing a conversation, she remarked, without saying hello:

“Tell me, am I wrong or did you once live somewhere else, in a fantastic wadi all your own?”

“We moved,” Rivlin said. She had hennaed her cropped hair, increasing her pallor.

“I’m told Galya made quite a scene.” She gave him a mischievous look as he stood there, blocking her way. “Listen, I’m sorry it’s so late, but she asked me to get her bag.”

“But what’s happening? Has she given birth?”

“There’s still time, I suppose,” Tehila said, with the nonchalance of an old maid who knows nothing about such matters. “The nurse in the delivery room says she’s still not dilated. Bo’az wants to take her back to Jerusalem. We came in the hotel’s tourist van, and there’s plenty of room for her to lie down. It will be better for everyone.”

“But where is she now?”

“Not far from here, at Carmel Hospital. It’s nice and clean and she can give birth with a view of the sea. But we have a room reserved for her at Hadassah on Mount Scopus. She’ll have to make do with a desert view there, but at least it’s the one she grew up with.”

“Who told you she was at Carmel?”

“Ofer. It was his decision to call us, because I think Galya would have been perfectly happy giving birth first and telling us later. But he didn’t want the responsibility, so he left us a message, and we came running. Just imagine, we even brought my mother!”

“How is Ofer?”

“He’s his usual excited, discombobulated self. And very sad-looking. Just see what you’ve done, Professor. Instead of liberating him as you planned, you and your Arabs have only complicated things. Now he has not only her but her baby to be attached to. Believe me, I still don’t get why she had to make him come all the way from Paris. A nice letter would have been simpler and cheaper. But never mind. It’s her right. It’s even her right to buy him an expensive ticket and charge it to the hotel. As long as you’re happy…”

“Me?” Rivlin mumbled. “Happy? I haven’t the vaguest idea what it’s all about.”

She smiled brightly, satisfied with herself as always. “By the way,” she added familiarly, “if your wife is awake, I’d love to say hello to her.”

“She isn’t,” he said, horrified by the thought. He had to get rid of Tehila. “Wait here and I’ll bring you the bag,” he told her.

Yet no sooner had he left his post at the door than she was in the house. Nor did she wait for him in the living room, but instead followed him upstairs, as if he were showing her to a room in a hotel. He had to wheel and turn back when, respecting no bounds, she stopped by the open door of his bedroom to look at his wife — who, curled fetally in a tangle of sheets and blankets, was sleeping peacefully. Shutting the door angrily, he pulled her after him to his study, where she inspected the bookshelves, desk, and couch before reaching down wearily to take her sister’s bag and return with it to the bottom floor.

He didn’t invite her to sit. She asked for a glass of water, drank half of it, and left, clearly loath to depart.

What was he to make of it all? Although he felt calmer knowing that Galya’s family was with her, he was still in the dark.

There was nothing to do but wait for Ofer. No longer in the mood to work at his computer, he sank onto the couch facing the TV and watched, with drowsy disinterest and the sound turned off, an old black-and-white thriller.

At four-thirty there was still no sign of Ofer. Had Galya stayed in Haifa to give birth? Or had they all gone back to Jerusalem together? It was a bad business either way. He went to the bedroom, determined to ask Hagit to absolve him of his pledge not to make phone calls. Although sound asleep, she so logically confuted the case he tried to make that he crawled into bed and dozed off beside her.

HE HAD HARDLY — or so it seemed to him — plunged to the depths of sleep when he was dredged up from them again. His wife and son, both fully dressed, were standing by the bed.

“Go back to sleep,” Hagit said. “Everything is fine. Ofer just wanted to say good-bye. He’s promised to return this summer, perhaps for good. I’ll take him to the airport. Don’t worry.”

Rivlin roused himself. This was no way to say good-bye.

“What happened?” he asked. “Did she give birth?”

“No,” Hagit answered. “She still has time. They took her back to Jerusalem. Now say good-bye to your son and go to sleep. We don’t want to be late.”