A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

But Hagit was not through with him. “Is that all you did?”

For good measure he decided to throw in a visit to the Agnon House in Talpiyot, if only to demonstrate that he didn’t need her agreement to go there.

“The Agnon House? It wasn’t nice of you to go by yourself.”

“But you never wanted to come.”

“Only because I didn’t want to run into Galya or her parents.”

“What would have happened if you did?”

“Nothing. I just didn’t want to see her.”

“And now?”

“Now I don’t care. She’s ancient history.”

“You can’t mean that.”

“Of course I can.” Hagit yawned. “What’s the Agnon House like?”

“I don’t know. It was closed,” he said, realizing in the nick of time that he would have to describe a place he had never been in.

“So what did you do then?”

“Then I rejoined you and Ofra.”

23.

IN HIS ROOM in the university tower, facing the bald top of Mount Hermon in the distance, he tore open, with a slight trepidation, the wrapping paper containing the scholarly remains of the Jerusalem prodigy. The old, moth-eaten pages, many from the house organs of North African trade unions, were mimeographed or printed on rough paper. How could he tell the old stains from new ones made by blood or spattered brain? Since, like the blots in a Rorschach test, the dim yellow marks could tell him only about himself, he decided to ignore them and concentrate on the printed words.

The Tedeschis had been right. The amount of fiction and poetry in old North African newspapers and publications from the 1950s and ’60s was amazing. It left the impression that the Arabs of the Maghreb had cared less for their struggle for independence than for their own private lives — their personal loves, friendships, and griefs, and the villages and landscapes they inhabited. Many of these compositions, marked in red by the murdered scholar, had been singled out by him for analysis.

But an analysis pointing to what?

A spark of inspiration, Rivlin concluded after leafing through the old pages, which left his fingers smelling of an unfamiliar spice, would not be found here. He was too much a believer in the tried-and-tested approaches to history to have much faith in the potential of such writings. Still, it might be possible, as Tedeschi had suggested, to use the odd poem or story to illustrate popular attitudes discussed in his book. Yet this called for precise translation, and the marked passages, though written in standard literary Arabic, had, as he had anticipated, expressions in local dialect that would give his critics a field day if he misconstrued them. Of course, he could always consult Ephraim Akri, who was a better philologist than intellectual historian. Yet a full professor had to be careful about exposing his academic weaknesses to a junior colleague eager for promotion.

So intense was his concentration as he labored to decipher, without noticeable success, the murdered Arabist’s motives for singling out certain passages, the strange smell of whose paper was now on his face as well, that he failed to hear the light knock on his door. As though in a dream, a nervously smiling woman in her middle forties, well groomed and perfumed, slipped into the seat across from him and began to inquire, in typical Arab fashion, about him and his family without bothering to introduce herself or explain why she had come.

He pushed away the newspapers and cast a friendly glance at the woman, whose attractive features caused an old memory to flicker pleasantly. Sure from his smile that he had recognized her, she was now telling him how hard it was to find his room. It wasn’t clear whether she was complaining or expressing her wonder at the size of the university. Still groping for her name, he suddenly remembered her standing guard outside a clean, fragrant bathroom and exclaimed happily, “Why, it’s…”

“Afifa.” Her modest smile bared two rows of marvelously white and flawless teeth.

Judging by his response, the name pleased him greatly. His interest in her feminine ripeness, which spoke more to an aging heart like his own than did the flaunted sexuality of the young students who flitted down the university’s hallways, was indeed growing. Was it possible, he wondered with amused alarm, that this middle-aged Arab woman had taken seriously his casual suggestion that she return to her studies?

“How is the newlywed?” Rivlin asked. “We haven’t seen her since the wedding.”

“That’s why I’ve come….” Afifa’s face fell. “Samaher isn’t well again.”

“Not well?” He snickered incredulously, rocking back and forth in his chair. “Don’t believe her. She’s just afraid to show her face. There’s a small criminal case awaiting her.”

“A what case?”

“Criminal. Jina’i. ”

“I know what that means.” She was insulted by the idea that she needed the word translated. “But what has she done criminal? She’s an honest girl, Samaher. Ever since she was a baby….”

“Why don’t you ask her? She can tell you all about how she gave old term papers of hers to friends who copied them and handed them in as their own.”

“Copied them?” Samaher’s mother apparently knew all about it. “She just let those bums read them, to see how it’s done. Why blame her? She has a good heart. She’s too kind. That’s always been her problem. We could never even slaughter a chicken or a sheep without her crying and calling us names….”

“ Shu ma l’ha issa? Shu m’dayi’ha? ” *

“Pardon?”

“ Shu indha il’an? ” †

“She has that sickness of hers again,” Afifa answered, declining to speak to Rivlin in Arabic. “She wants me to ask you for another postponement for that composition she owes you.”

Who, Rivlin wondered, did the woman think he was — a grade-school teacher on Parents’ Day? Yet, loath to offend her, he asked gently again in Arabic:

“ Shu maradha?” ‡

The attractive woman crimsoned as brightly as if she had been to Tierra del Fuego herself. A tear, dabbed at in vain with a little handkerchief held in her hand, dropped from her large, almond-shaped eyes. The handkerchief was torn by a wail, a primitive bleat of pain that burst from her throat and sent a seductive shudder through his loins.

When had a woman last cried like this in front of him? Only on television. Hagit was too accustomed to the sobs of her defendants to indulge in such a thing herself, while his sister cried only over the telephone — hardly the place for the cleansing, eye-dilating tears he was looking at now. As if reluctant to let go of them, Afifa went on dabbing at them with her little handkerchief even when he carefully nudged toward her a box of tissues.

But at least now she gave in and switched to her own language. In a colorful village patois, she described Samaher’s depressions, which had grown so bad a year ago that her daughter had had to be hospitalized for a while in Safed and put on powerful drugs, which affected her concentration and ability to write. Ashamed to tell her professor about it, his M.A. student had blamed her grandmother, who loved her dearly and would do anything for her.

Rivlin thought of, but did not mention, his wife’s opinion of psychiatrists. Why undermine the Arabs’ faith in the Jews’ ability to cure them? It surprised him that he had not noticed anything amiss in Samaher, who, her usual chatty self, had sat in the second row of his seminar class. Even in her “Hamas period,” as she referred to the year when she’d come to his classes in a long dress and white shawl, she had retained her vivaciousness. Was his knowledge of his students that superficial? Or had he become so detached from reality himself that the aberrations of others seemed normal?