A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

“But what is it that you want?” he asked, reverting to Hebrew before their intimacy could grow too great.

“ Iza b’ti’dar, Elbrofesor Rivlin, aazilhha shwoy elwaza’if. ” *

“Another postponement? I’ve already given her too many….”

“Then ahsan shi tilghi’ha bilmara .” †

“But I can’t just forget about it!” He rocked again in his chair, amused by the impudence of it.

“Because she’ll never finish it. She’ll lose a whole year’s credit. And she’s pregnant and has to stay home because the doctor says school is bad for her depressions. Why can’t you? What difference would it make? Give her an exam instead of a paper, anything to help her get the degree. Maskini, ishtaghlat ketir lisanawat adidi. ” ‡

“It’s out of the question. Shu fi hon, su’ ?” §

“But why a marketplace?” The affront made her flush. “Why can’t you give her an exam instead of a paper? Isn’t it the same?”

“Not at all.”

“But you can make it the same. Samaher says so. Professor Rivlin is the best and most important teacher, she says. Everyone listens to him.”

“Ha!”

“Everyone does. They all say so. You’re the one who has the power. The head of everything. That’s what she told us from her first day as a student. He’s the man, she said. The one worth studying for. The most interesting and important. Much more important than that dark, nasty man who was at the wedding. She’s always talking about you. At first her father was afraid for her. He thought she’d gone and fallen in love with some young teacher. ‘But he isn’t that at all,’ she told us. ‘He’s an elderly, dignified man. He could be a grandfather.’”

Rivlin smiled a melancholy smile.

“Listen,” he said. “It’s no use. This is a university. I’m not the one who makes the rules. You can’t change a paper to an exam. If it’s too much for her, she can put the M.A. off. She already has a B.A. That’s enough for the time being. She can continue later. We’ll help her.”

“How? Once you drop out, you’re out.”

“Not necessarily.”

“What about me? The secretaries at the wedding said I’d have to start all over again.”

“If you really wanted to go back to school, we could make a special arrangement.”

“You see? You can do it if you want to.”

He grinned.

“Well? What do you say?”

“I’m sorry. First she needs to shake off her depression. Let her have some children. Then we’ll see. Trust in Allah.”

He didn’t know what in the world had made him say that. And yet why not? Allah was a handy word.

The little room fell silent. The woman, refusing to accept defeat, remained in her seat. Her glance drifted past him to the hills of the Galilee, returning to regard him with a quiet hostility that only increased her beauty.

“It’s no tragedy,” he said soothingly. “Unless you’re interested in an academic career, there’s no great difference in Near Eastern studies between a B.A. and an M.A. Samaher can get a government job with just the B.A.”

Her mother placed a soft white hand despairingly on the table.

“You’re making fun of us, Professor. Samaher, a government job? You think she needs to work? The degree is for her honor. For ours, too. We promised the groom’s parents. They didn’t like her depressions. They only agreed to the marriage because we explained how educated she was to be getting her M.A.”

He shut his eyes for a moment, wishing she would cry some more.

“I’ll tell you what.”

Afifa regarded him.

“Tell Samaher to come see me. I’ll give her a new subject. An easier one.”

But she just kept at him.

“Samaher can’t come to the university now. Her husband won’t let her leave the village. Hayif ti’malu-lo doshe .” *

“Ay doshe?” †

“ Ma ba’aref. Huwa bahaf min el-habl .” ‡

This time the bleat was stifled. Rivlin reached out cautiously and gave the moist, pudgy hand on his desk a friendly pat.

“I’ll give Samaher something in place of a paper. Something from the newspapers you see on this desk. She’ll read some passages and summarize them. Nothing complicated. Just a few stories and poems. She can do it at home. She won’t need a library. Maybe it will even help get her out of her depression.”

“I’ll take them with me now.”

“Easy does it! In the first place, they’re too heavy for you. And second, I have to photocopy them. They’re rare material and not mine. Why don’t you send Samaher’s husband to make copies?”

“Forget about her husband. He has no time. I’ll send someone else. The cousin who drove you to the wedding.”

“Rashid.”

“Rashid.” She was surprised Rivlin remembered the name. “Rashid is best. He’ll take care of everything. Stories and poems are just the thing for her.”

24.

THAT MONDAY THE young officer was supposed get leave so that he could see his newly arrived uncle. At the last minute, however, he yielded his turn to a friend, a romantic soul with an urgent need to talk a girlfriend out of leaving him. Not knowing when he might get another pass, Tsakhi asked his parents to bring Yo’el and Ofra to the base that evening.

And so once again they drove the winding roads of the Galilee. While the two sisters sat in back recollecting childhood trips, Rivlin patiently questioned his brother-in-law about developments in the Third World. Although these were enough to drive anyone to despair, he thought a knowledge of them might help him to understand his own tortured Algeria.

Early for their rendezvous on Mt. Canaan, they stopped for a bite at the same restaurant in which they had met the two corpse freezers. But Yo’el did not seem upset when told the story, perhaps because his travels in impoverished lands had inured him to the fate of corpses.

It was getting dark when they reached the double gate of the intelligence base and parked in its improvised picnic grounds, now ominously deserted. Rivlin opened two director’s chairs for the women and took the émigré, who had never lost his love of the Israeli landscape, along the fragrant goat path running up the mountain. A full moon risen in the east bathed the mountains in a generous light that enabled them to keep an eye on their wives below, sitting near the gate. Confident that they would spy Tsakhi when he appeared, they walked on in the brightening night.

A large lizard scurried across their path.

“Watch out nothing bites you,” Rivlin warned his lanky brother-in-law, who was still wearing his biblical sandals.

“After all the times I’ve been bitten in Africa and Asia, what do you think the Middle East can do to me?”

Rivlin felt a wave of warmth for the man.

“I’m afraid you don’t take us very seriously.”

“I do. But you’re all terribly spoiled. You think all the tears in the world belong to you. As if there weren’t a big, suffering universe all around you.”

The Orientalist lowered himself onto the same large rock that he had sat on ten days before and cast a glance at the two sisters below, who were looking lonely and abandoned. He was about to shout something encouraging down to them when his wife, catching sight of him and Yo’el, waved first.

The silence around them was profound. Little animals, satisfied that the invaders meant no harm, resumed their hidden munching. Yo’el looked around and breathed deeply, taking in the approach of the Israeli night. It occurred to Rivlin that he and Hagit hadn’t made love in a week, nor could they possibly do so until their two guests departed. It was remarkable how, as the years went by, his desire for his wife grew stronger, as if their psychological intimacy only increased their physical passion.