A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s creased. You can’t come down with me in that. And please shave, too.”

“I never shave this early.”

“Shave anyway. You can’t expect everyone to be familiar with your habits.”

He shaved, put on a fresh shirt, and took down her suitcase while she lingered to check her makeup, in an assertion of her feminine prerogative to be late. A sleek Corrections Authority van was waiting in the narrow street. The driver, dressed in a prison warder’s uniform, had switched on the revolving blue police light to proclaim the importance accorded by the state to its judicial institutions. The district court secretary, a tall, lanky man, greeted Rivlin and moved quickly to take the suitcase. Recognizing the Orientalist at once, Hagit’s two colleagues on the bench shook his hand. Soon she appeared, her eyes aglow with adventure, wearing an old cardigan salvaged at the last moment from the pile of cast-off clothes. Two young men, the prosecutor and the defense counsel, scrambled from the van to salute her and make the professor’s acquaintance.

His wife was now surrounded by a full-court press of five attentive men. Overhead, a first cloud was turning pink in the dawn light above the Carmel. Drunk from his sleepless, lovelorn night, Rivlin took his wife in his arms and kissed her before everyone. Then, suddenly relaxed and smiling, he turned to the travelers and declared, as if it were he who was dispatching them:

“It’s time you ended this damn trial.”

A head movement of the judge’s told him he had gone too far. Trying to make up for it, he said gallantly:

“And try to enjoy yourselves if you can….”

Only upon returning to the apartment, where he noticed that Hagit had taken the unusual step of washing the breakfast dishes, did he realize how guilty she had felt, not for leaving him, but for the moment of parting. At once he picked up the phone and dialed Ofer, the night guard sitting behind a heavy green security door in Paris. Although the switchboard of the Jewish Agency was shut down after work to prevent the off-hours from being whiled away on the phone, Ofer had an emergency line that could be used in a pinch. If he ever fell asleep while on duty, Rivlin told himself, it was better for him to be awakened by his father than by his boss.

He began the call by relating Hagit’s dawn departure, the feverish preparations for which had turned him into a night watchman like his son, although one who watched only himself. With a touch of irony he described the Corrections Authority van, into which an entire courtroom had fitted. Next he asked Ofer about the weather in Europe, his latest exam, and the date of the next one — and since the emergency line could not be used for long, he inquired casually before hanging up whether a reply had arrived from Jerusalem to his son’s condolence letter.

The voice at the other end was startled. “How did you know I sent Galya a letter?”

“I suppose you told me.”

“I couldn’t have, Abba. I never said a word to you.”

“Well, then I suppose I assumed that’s what you would do,” Rivlin said, trying to keep his presence of mind. “Don’t forget that she was once your wife.”

There was a heavy silence behind the green door, on the other side of which an early-morning Parisian breeze was perhaps already blowing. Then came the unexpected query:

“Have you told Ima?”

“Told her what?”

“What you’ve been hiding from her. That you told me about Hendel even though she asked you not to….”

“Not yet.”

“But why not, Abba?” Ofer’s laugh was cynically provocative. “It’s not like you to act behind her back. In the end you’ll have to pay for that.”

“Don’t worry about what I’ll have to pay for. And don’t romanticize your parents. We’re good friends, not Siamese twins. Your mother is a judge. It’s her job to put a line through the past by passing sentence. I’m a historian. For me the past is a gold mine of surprises and possibilities.”

“A gold mine?” Rivlin heard a note of scorn. “A dunghill is more like it.”

“Dunghills have their surprises too.” He spoke softly, the telephone pressed to his ear like a rifle tracking a bird. “So? Did you get an answer from Galya?”

“What does it matter to you?”

“It doesn’t. But I had the feeling she wanted you to know about her father’s death. The first thing she asked when I came to the hotel was, ‘Does Ofer know?’”

Silence. Then:

“She did? How strange.”

“Yes. In the garden. Don’t get me wrong, Ofer. I’m angry at her, too. But it pained me to see her in such grief. She was devastated, desperate for comfort. Even from you.”

“Devastated. The poor thing….” There was vindictiveness rather than compassion in those words. “Yes, that’s what she said in her letter.”

“So she answered you.” He had bagged the bird with a single, well-aimed shot.

“Yes. With a very sad note. And a nasty one.”

“Nasty?” He gave a start, excited to hear the same word that had been used by Galya to describe his son’s condolence note. Perhaps so much nastiness between a couple that hadn’t spoken for five years held out hope for new understanding. In a soft but authoritative voice, like that with which he had soothed his son when, cranky and troubled, he had been wakened as a child by bad dreams, Rivlin asked:

“Nasty? Why? What did she say?”

“Never mind.”

“But what? Explain yourself. You can’t just leave it like that. Why don’t you ask her what she wants?”

That did it. Ofer suddenly let loose with a bitter grievance that became a harsh tirade.

“That’s enough, Abba! There’s a limit. What do you want from me? What are you trying to do? You should listen to Ima. She knows better than you what is and isn’t possible. You think you can call up ghosts and control them. When will you realize there are things that you don’t have to understand? There are things I don’t understand myself. Have some faith in me…. No, no,” he continued when his father sought to apologize. “Please, don’t. I know what you’re going to say. Listen to me for once. Ima is right. It’s annoying how uptight you are. You’re always poking at things. Well, poke at your Arabs, not at me. And don’t be angry. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But you should talk to Ima. You’re wrong about her. She doesn’t want to put a line through anything. She wants boundaries. And that’s something you’re a world champion at crossing and getting others to cross. I’m not blaming you. But it’s amazing how naive you can be despite all your education and knowledge. And when you start being stubborn about your naïveté, you become impossible….

“No, don’t,” he went on, not letting his father reply. “Please. Don’t tell me you’re worried. Worry can be real and smothering anyway. I’ve told you a thousand times, but you won’t listen…. Yes, I have! More than a thousand! Get it into your head that I know exactly how and why my marriage broke up. I may not have been happy about it, I may not have come to terms with it, but I know why it happened. I do! Do you hear me? I do! And if I decided to spare you what I know and keep silent for five years, don’t think I’m going to start talking now….

“No, no…. You mustn’t be upset. You know that I love you, even if I’m angry. But it gets harder all the time, believe me. Maybe that’s because I’m like you…. No, listen. Don’t start in on that again. I have to hang up. It’s nearly morning, and there are things to be done before opening the office. We’re on an emergency phone. Take my word for it, none of this has been an emergency for quite some time….”