A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

“The exam? What exam?”

“The oral exam for Samaher’s final grade….”

But the Orientalist, well aware how Arab guile was concealed behind the innocence of the desert, was quick to squelch, even at the risk of his newly won popularity, the illusion of a final grade.

“I’m not giving Samaher any exam. She knows as well as I do that she’s still a long way from a final grade. I came here today to hear the oral summaries that she can’t write. And to take back the material.”

The messenger gasped. “You’re taking back the material?” So that was why the professor had agreed so easily to come to the village.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

It was an awkward situation. Rivlin turned to his student, who, though she hadn’t missed a course of his in five years, lay staring at him as though she had never seen him before.

“You can still finish your assignment,” he said to her. “Rashid can photocopy a new set for you. The poems you’ve translated aren’t bad at all. In fact, you’ve done a good job. In a minute we’ll see what you’ve done with the stories.”

There was a ripple of relief that the professor was not proposing to reject Samaher’s term paper. Fearfully, the young girl returned again to place a jug of cold water and an infusion of herbs in front of Rivlin. “Even the greatest saints,” Afifa assured him, “have been known to drink during the fast.” A small boy, dressed in a fez and a festive holiday robe, entered proudly bearing a narghile, which Samaher’s grandmother had ordered as an antidote for the Jew’s hunger. The growing acceptance of his determination to observe the fast caused Rivlin to fear that he might have to leave the village in the end on an empty stomach.

Meanwhile, Samaher, greatly cheered by his compliment, dismissed not only the women, but her cousin as well. Before shutting the door behind him, Rashid pulled down the colored blind on the window, leaving the teacher and his student pleasantly bathed in a golden Galilean gloom.

9.

“DO YOU HAVE enough light, Professor?”

“That remains to be seen.”

He leaned back in his armchair and smiled at his student, who removed her hairnet and shook her hair out with a brisk, free movement. Above her bed was a picture of an ancient dignitary, a patriarch belted with a dagger. How, he wondered, had she managed to lure him, first to her wedding, and now into her bedroom?

“Well?” He could not resist taking a dig at all the lies. “This pregnancy of yours — is it definite?”

“Almost…” The answer was diplomatic.

“How are you feeling?” he asked in a fatherly tone.

“Better.” A tear shone in her eye.

“Then let’s begin.” He took some of the herbs, crushed them between his fingers, and inhaled their scent. “First, where are the originals of the poems you’ve translated? I don’t doubt you’ve done a faithful job, but I have to check whether the Arabic is quite so modern.”

“But why shouldn’t it be, Professor? Do you think we’re always going to remain… primitive?”

“What a word to use, Samaher!” Her forwardness startled him. “Who said anything about primitive? I merely wanted to see the originals.”

“They’re in the binders on the table. I’ll call Rashid and tell him to find them.”

“That can wait. By the way, I like your cousin. He’s a fine fellow and very devoted to you. How come someone like him isn’t married?”

Samaher shrugged. “He hasn’t found a wife.” In an irritable whisper she added, “He doesn’t want one. What can I do about it? Nothing.”

“You’re quite right,” the Jewish professor admitted. “There’s nothing you can do. Let’s move on. You say that you’ve read two stories…”

“Two? A lot more than that.”

“You mentioned two in your note to me: a realistic one about a feud between village clans, and one that’s more like a folktale.”

“A parable.”

“Of a political nature.”

“In my opinion.”

“Let’s start with that. Do you remember where you summarized it in your notebook, or do we have to call Rashid?”

She was insulted. “Why Rashid? Of course I remember.”

She leafed through some pages and found it.

The story had appeared in a mimeographed periodical, a quarterly or biannual named Katarna, * put out with French backing in the 1940s by the Railway and Post Office Workers Union of Algeria. Besides information on the postal and railway services and their development, the volume included articles, stories, and poems written by union members. In January 1942, one Ibrahim Ibn Bakhir, a ticket clerk at the Sidi Bal-Abbas station, published a tale titled “ El-Tifl el-Faransi el-Murafrif. ”

“‘The Floating French Baby’?” Rivlin translated doubtfully.

“That’s correct. It’s one of the stories you marked, Professor.”

Forbearing to point out that most of the markings were Suissa’s, he sat back in his chair.

The Tale of the Floating French Baby

In a small village near Sidi Bal-Abbas lived a hardworking farmer named Yusuf with his wife, Ayisha. Although the two were good, fine-looking people who loved each other greatly, they had no children. “I’m afraid,” Yusuf said to Ayisha, “that I’ll have to take another wife to bear me children.” “That,” Ayisha replied, “is only natural. But to prevent my life from being consumed by jealousy, let me first travel through the countryside. Perhaps I can find an abandoned orphan to be mine.” “You’re right, my beloved wife,” the farmer said. “Go look for an abandoned child. Just make sure you return to me. Although by then I will have taken a second wife, my love for you is assured until your dying day.”

The farmer’s wife decided that the best place to look for an abandoned child was a railway station. People in stations are always in a hurry and often forget suitcases, bags, and even babies. So as to remove all suspicion from herself, and escape being molested because of her beauty, Ayisha cut her hair short, dyed it white, and stuck a beard on her face. Then she sewed herself a short cloak, found a big walking stick, and began wandering from station to station, disguised as a Sufi holy man, in search of an abandoned child.

At first all went well. The old Sufi was treated with respect, and no one suspected a thing. After a while, however, attracted by the Sufi’s bare legs, which were unusually smooth and shapely, people began to follow him and seek his blessing. Afraid of being given away by her soft voice, Ayisha stopped talking and only smiled. But this only increased the number of her devotees, who accompanied her from station to station.

Meanwhile the train management, seeing that the silent Sufi had increased the number of passengers, gave him a free lifetime ticket.

“How very strange,” Rivlin chuckled. “You can see the author was a ticket clerk.”

Yet how was Ayisha, now surrounded day and night by loyal disciples who expected her to work wonders, supposed to find an abandoned baby to comfort her for the many children that her husband’s second wife would bear? And so one night, hatching a plan, she talked. In a thick, slow voice like an old man’s, she told her disciples that she was planning to work a wonder such as no one had ever seen. She would make a little baby too small to stand on its feet float outside the window of a train. Yet who would agree to volunteer their offspring for such a risky miracle? She had to find an orphaned or abandoned child with no mother. If her disciples would bring her such an infant, she would do the rest.

Several days went by, and then Ayisha’s disciples kidnapped a baby. It wasn’t an orphan, however. It was French, because only the French leave their babies lying in baby carriages. It was far easier to steal an infant from a Christian pram than from the shoulder sling of a Muslim mother.