A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

Yo’el sat chewing on the stem of a plant. Now was the time, Rivlin decided, to talk about the facts of married life. If the two sisters were at all alike in their makeup, some pointers might be gained from it.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you,” he said, broaching the topic. “It’s a small thing… you needn’t answer if you don’t want to…”

“Answer what?”

“Just don’t get annoyed.”

“But what is it?” The longer Rivlin’s prologue, the more bewildered Yo’el became.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you… just don’t get annoyed… it’s an odd question, I know… but do you and Ofra… ever shower or bathe together… I mean would she agree… because Hagit, you see…”

“But what makes you ask?” Yo’el gave him a puzzled smile. “I’ve never tried. How could I? You know Ofra. Half an hour in the shower is her minimum. My maximum is five minutes.”

An armed soldier emerged from the hidden entrance to the base.

“That must be Tsakhi,” Rivlin said, cutting the conversation short even though he knew it wasn’t his son. And indeed, back in the parking lot, they saw it was the blond, baby-faced sergeant. He had been sent to inform the visitors that something had come up to prevent the young officer from leaving his post. There was no point in waiting.

“But what happened?” Rivlin asked, disappointed.

“There’s a problem with some instrument.”

“What instrument?”

The sergeant gave him a forbearing smile.

“Tell him to come for just a few minutes,” Rivlin tried cajoling the messenger. “Just to say hello. His uncle has come especially to see him. He’s leaving the country in a few days.”

“He knows that,” the sergeant replied calmly. “Don’t think he doesn’t feel bad that…”

Rivlin interrupted him brusquely. “Go tell him anyway.”

“Forget it,” Hagit said. “If he can’t come, he can’t come. Take his word for it.”

The sergeant nodded in approval at her common sense.

25.

AT THE UNIVERSITY the next day, in the narrow hallway of the twenty-third floor, he found the messenger from Samaher. Sturdily built, sable-skinned, Rashid was eagerly awaiting his mission. Rivlin placed a pile of North African journals and newspapers in his arms and sent him to the library to photocopy the excerpts marked by the murdered Jerusalemite, plus some additional passages checked by himself.

Three hours later the Arab returned, with two thick binders of photocopies, red for the poems and green for the stories. Each entry had been indexed by author, with the date and place of publication in red ink. The originals, too, had been reorganized and were now arranged chronologically. Explanatory flags in Hebrew and Arabic, written in a clear, curling hand, were attached to them.

“About these stains, Professor…” Rashid pointed to the yellow flecks on the newspapers. “I didn’t make them….”

“Of course not.”

Rivlin revealed the awful truth.

Rashid cursed the suicide bomber roundly. “That’s life,” he said.

Rivlin was taking a liking to the young man. “Tell me,” he asked him confidentially, “what really is the matter with Samaher?”

“ Ya’ani, she has moods. It’s her nerves. She’s feeling low. But she’ll get over it. She’s strong. And smart as a whip. Believe me, I tell everyone: Just wait, in a few years you’ll see Samaher in the Knesset.”

“The Knesset?”

“Yes. Someone like her belongs there.”

“Because she’s so depressed?”

Rashid laughed.

“Because it’s so depressing.”

His handsome eyes, the color of coal, had a hypnotic warmth.

“But really, what’s the matter with her?” This time his tone was sterner. “What’s going on?”

“She’s tired. Exhausted. And her husband is the nervous type. He has no patience for her.”

“She should have married you,” Rivlin blurted unthinkingly. “You seem patient enough.”

“Me?” The blood rushed to Rashid’s face, as if a leak had sprung inside him. He gave a start. “Why not?” he laughed. “Her father would never have agreed, though….”

“Because you’re cousins?”

“Because I’m dark. Too dark for his taste.”

The Orientalist asked the affable young Arab about himself. For two years, Rashid said, he had been a university student too, in the electrical-engineering department of the Haifa Technion. Then he left. Engineering didn’t interest him, nor did he believe he could find work in the field. He had bought a minibus and made good money transporting passengers. Perhaps next year he would audit a few classes.

Rivlin handed him a sheet of paper and dictated the demands he was making of his ailing student.

One: A precise but literary translation of all the poems into Hebrew.

Two: A Hebrew summary of all the stories.

Three: A list of motifs common to both.

That was all. It was pitifully little for an M.A. seminar paper. Yet what else could he do? He was beginning to feel sorry for Samaher. And there was all the more reason for her to hurry, because he was tired and ill himself and no one else in the department would put up with her shenanigans.

“Ill? With what?”

“Never mind. Just don’t tell anyone. Not everything has to be public knowledge. That’s something we Jews need to learn. Life needs its little secrets. Just see to it that Samaher is warned. There’ll be no more postponements or excuses. Let her do what I’ve asked within a few weeks and she’ll get her grade. And please — let’s leave her mother, father, and grandmother out of this.”

26.

18.4.98

Ofer,

It would have been the right thing not to reply. Not only so as not to violate our “honorable silence,” as you call it, but also because a condolence letter with poisoned arrows in it doesn’t deserve a reply. You’ve forced me to violate, not only our silence, but the sacred vow of fidelity made to my husband, since I am concealing this letter from him.

And in the dark night of my sorrow, which knows no consolation, nothing but longing for a beloved man (and only a man), you still won’t give an inch. Again you allude to your unspeakable fantasies.

(To think I once loved you so much.)

Your father, with whom I genuinely sympathize, is still tormented by our failed marriage. He believes that you don’t understand what happened.

You?

You don’t understand?

I’ve conveyed your condolences to my mother. She thanks you. For some reason, she still grieves for you.

Please, don’t answer this letter. Let’s return to our old silence. It may not be so honorable anymore, but it’s just as important.

Galya

27.

RIGHT UP TO the day of the wedding, Ofra, fearful of being left alone with Yo’el’s family, tried persuading her sister and brother-in-law to join them. Yet having had the foresight to purchase two tickets for a biblical play in Tel Aviv that evening, Rivlin was not going to let even an exemption from gift-giving force him to attend a wedding he didn’t have to be at. Hagit’s efforts to sway him, born of sympathy for her sister’s plight, only led him to deliver a harangue. What did Ofra want of him? She spent her life traipsing around the world like a middle-aged princess, with no worries or family duties. It would not be so terrible if for once she had to meet her obligations unassisted. At most, he was prepared to drive her and Yo’el to the wedding. Perhaps even to drive them back, although this was already going too far.

Now, nearing Nature’s Corner, he found himself growing gloomier by the minute as his car followed the lanterns waved in the fading light by the young parking attendants whose job it was, before changing costumes and turning into waiters, to divert him from the highway onto a dirt approach road that looped through fields of crackling stubble. He stepped on the brakes as soon as he reached the parking lot — whence, pounded by music that would grow more savage as the night progressed, a stream of elegantly dressed guests flowed toward a green buckboard propped decoratively on its shaft as though on loan from an old Western, beyond which a bridal gown and bright glasses of wine glimmered through the branches of trees. This was as far as he went. Putting his foot down, he refused even to congratulate or greet the parents of the bride, fearing to encourage the illusion that he might stay. Although his sister-in-law, wearing the dress he had failed to talk her out of, delayed their parting as if still hoping to change his mind, he swung the car determinedly around, wove through a phalanx of arriving vehicles, and sped back to the highway and their biblical drama.