A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

“ I have read, listened, accompanied, and lived with this paper and am pleased with it. ”

Although this struck him as rather bland, it was too late to change it. Nor could he think of anything else to add. And so he simply signed his name.

26.

IN EARLY SUMMER, three months after Ofer’s return from Paris, Tsakhi finished his military service. Remembering his fears when his youngest son went into the army with the thought of volunteering for a commando unit, Rivlin thanked his lucky stars for having enabled him to sleep well at night. The army, deciding it needed Tsakhi’s brains more than his fighting prowess, had sent him from the induction center to an intelligence course that landed him in a secret base well-protected from the perils of the Jewish state. His officer’s pay had even allowed him to squirrel away a tidy sum in the bank, there having been nothing to spend it on in the secret bowels of his mountain that he was forbidden to discuss even with his inquisitive father.

And yet since this high-interest savings account was a long-term one that could not be dipped into, the provident ex-soldier had no money to pay for the traditional post-army trip taken abroad by young Israelis — a problem aggravated by his intention of traveling, not on the cheap in the Far East or South America, but with his brother in France and Europe. And so, the day after his discharge, he wasted no time in finding a job. In fact he created one, going into business with the blond, baby-faced sergeant who had been his aide. Receiving permission to use Rivlin’s computer, the two found room on it, between the professor’s reflections on the disintegration of Algerian identity, to design an attractively colored ad for two experienced, responsible, and reasonably priced housepainters and plasterers.

“But what do you know about painting and plastering?” the amazed Orientalist asked. “Who would hire two nerds like you? And how do you know the walls you paint won’t start peeling the day after?”

“Don’t worry, Abba,” Tsakhi assured him. “Nothing will peel.” Without his uniform, he looked like the high-school boy he had been before being drafted.

Rivlin had grown accustomed, in the morning hours before Hagit came home from court, to a quiet house in which he was alone. Now he had a young partner — a most pleasant and much loved one, to be sure, but also a noisy and messy one who never switched off a light and who played strange, pounding music.

The blond sergeant arrived that same evening. He and Tsakhi ran off dozens of ads on the printer, waited until late at night for the municipal inspectors to be gone from the streets, and went to stick their notices on every electric pole, tree, traffic sign, storefront, bus station, and café they could find. Their coverage was so extensive that when a week later Rivlin glanced at a university bulletin board on which his colleagues had posted grades, he discovered a piece of paper with his own telephone number on it.

Another week went by, and one morning Tsakhi asked if the old jalopy could be spared so he and his sidekick could transport materials from a large hardware store, whose owners had promised to give them some professional tips. A few hours later, while Rivlin was hard at work trying to abstract a valid generality or two from Samaher’s texts, the telephone rang. It was his son, asking whether he needed anything.

“Like what?”

The two youngsters were at the hardware store and wanted to know if he needed any tools, a new hammer or screwdriver, say, or perhaps some spare lightbulbs. They could get everything at a discount.

“No, Tsakhi,” Rivlin said, delighted to have been thought of. “I don’t need a thing, honestly.”

“How about the car?”

“You can have it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

The main thing the ex-officer wanted to know was whether his father could direct him to the income-tax bureau.

“What do you need that for?” Rivlin asked.

He and his friend, Tsakhi explained, wanted to give their customers receipts. That meant registering with the tax authorities.

“You want to register before you’ve earned your first cent? Forget about it.”

His son heard him out imperturbably and asked again:

“But do you know where they are?”

“Of course I do. But there’s no point going there. You’ve just been discharged. You don’t owe any taxes. Why register now?”

“Never mind,” the young officer said soothingly. “Just tell me where they are.”

“On Ha-Namal Street, near the outdoor market. Ask when you get there.”

“Thanks,” Tsakhi said, offering to buy fruit and vegetables for the house.

Rivlin was touched. “You needn’t bother,” he said. “You have enough on your mind. Do your thing.”

“You’re positive?”

“Well, if you insist, I suppose you could bring home some artichokes.”

“How many?”

“You’re asking me? Five or six.”

“Fine. Anything else?”

“No. Just artichokes.” He was impatient to get back to work.

Since their storeroom in the basement of their building was too small for all the ladders, paint cans, rollers, and brushes, some of this equipment was moved into Tsakhi’s bedroom, along with a folding cot for the blond sergeant. The two got along well, at least to judge by the quiet, mutually respectful way they sat planning their business. Although the tax authorities were happy to open a file, and receipt books were printed, prospective customers were hard to find. The few who phoned often did so when Tsakhi was out, and Rivlin, who took to identifying himself as “the housepainter’s father,” had to take their calls.

The problem was the baby-faced sergeant, whose blond hair and blue eyes failed to win the confidence of potential clients, especially given the high prices the two asked for. This led to a revised marketing strategy, whereby Tsakhi’s partner stayed below while his former CO, unshaven and wearing paint-spattered overalls, visited the apartment to be painted and gave a low estimate. Then, the deal concluded, he called in his expert assistant to go over everything with a fine-tooth comb and suggest a few extras for a slight increase.

This worked better. The two young housepainters soon acquired a reputation on the Carmel. Returning in the evening proud and pleased after a hard day’s work, they lingered in their overalls, wearing them like a badge of distinction while cooking their supper and planning the next day. So great was their comradeship that Rivlin was tempted to come downstairs from his computer to join them. It was a chance to hear about small, old apartments with their rickety terraces and strange storerooms and funny owners, elderly pensioners or widows who, infected by the two young workers’ enthusiasm, decided to do another wall or door… and then another and another…

“What a waste,” Rivlin teased. “Here the army invests a fortune in teaching you high technology, and you end up painting walls.”

But they didn’t see it that way. Heatedly they defended the house-painter’s profession, which needed skill and judgment and rewarded them with the bright colors and good smells that they had been deprived of all the years that they had lived, while staring at flickering screens, like moles in the belly of their mountain.

27.

THE DAYS WERE GETTING warmer. Rivlin, opening his study window as far as it would go, tried longingly to remember the aroma of spring flowers that had bathed their old apartment in the wadi. His eyes, tired from hours at the computer, instinctively sought out the old woman across the street. She, too, had raised all the blinds on her terrace. A large ladder was standing there. On it, Rivlin was astonished to see the blond sergeant. He was talking to the young officer, who was seated at the card table, while slapping plaster on the wall.