A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

The gate creaked. Slowly, laboriously, it was opened by a boy of about ten, who must have been waiting for them all evening. He threw his arms around Rashid and clung to him tightly while a second child leapfrogged over him to embrace his beloved uncle and a third, materializing from nowhere, shouted something and pushed his brothers aside before a quickly crawling black baby could reach them across the white flagstones of the courtyard. There being nothing left of her uncle to grab hold of, the baby clutched at Rivlin, who was peering through the open door of the church, past rows of empty pews, at a crucified Jesus made of light-colored wood — a rugged, thoughtful, rather likable young man hanging from a cross behind a handsome altar decorated with fresh branches and lit by a reddish light. Now a plump priest wearing a cassock and eyeglasses appeared. This was the Abuna, who came hurrying out of the church in the moonlight that shone through a gap between two Samarian hills. Using one hand to free the Jew of the infant clinging to his feet, he offered him a hearty handshake with the other, while babbling in English as if he had just met an old friend.

“We’ve been in touch with Mansura and know everything about you, Professor. How wonderful that a Jew should come to our church at the end of a fast day during Ramadan! I assure you, you haven’t come in vain. Our prayers have been answered, and Sister Suheyr feels well enough to sing a mass for us tonight. You’ll see for yourself, sir: it’s not to a church in Zababdeh that you’ve come, but to Paradise. And not just to Paradise, but to Paradise on a night when an angel is giving a concert.”

22.

PRIOR TO ENTERING Paradise, however, it was necessary to pass through the purgatory of a basement apartment at the rear of the church, which consisted of two rooms and a kitchen. In the innermost room, beside a crib, lay the sick Christian husband. The outer room had a low table, set for a meal and surrounded by cushions on the floor. While the two older boys continued to grip their Israeli uncle to keep him from escaping, the younger one, having no Arab to take hold of, lifted the baby onto his shoulders and bashfully reached for the hand of the Jew so as to lead him to his dark-skinned mother — who, on this night of dreams within dreams, proved to be none other than the woman Rivlin had seen in the album.

She looked taller and more robust than in her photographs. Overcome by emotion, she buried her face in her hands, hiding her tears from the younger brother freshly arrived from the place of her nativity. Rashid gave his sister a staunch, comforting hug and deftly slipped, like a reverse pickpocket, several bills of money into the unprotesting pocket of her gown.

“ Bikafi, Ra’uda. Mish ajeina lahon minshan d’mu’eik. Kaman jibtilak deif m’him k’thir. Bikafi tibki, ahsan yuhrub min hon. Ana jit aakol andik. U’ana ju’an k’thir, u’izza b’tittahri, b’yohod il-deif abuna. Leish il-buka, ya uhti? Hada ’id, hata il-yahudi hada sam min shana l-yom. ” *

She looked at the guest with wonder. Getting hold of herself, she wiped the tears from her hypnotic, coal black eyes and apologized in Hebrew:

“Forgive me — and welcome. How can I not feel sad when I know you’re coming from Mansura? How can I not cry? My whole family is there, my grandfather and my grandmother and everyone. And Israel, it won’t even let me visit her, because it’s afraid my children will come too…. Maybe you know someone….”

“ Bikafi, bikafi !” her brother interrupted. “ Mish bidna nirja lal’awal.” †

“But how come your sister knows Hebrew?” Rivlin asked.

“Why shouldn’t she? She lived in Israel until she was married at the age of fifteen. She even went to high school there. Tell the professor, Ra’uda, what you learned in Hebrew class.”

“The poems of Bialik.”

“You see? She studied Hebrew poetry. And she practices speaking so that she can convince the authorities she’s Israeli and should be allowed to return. When there were Israeli soldiers in the village, she used to talk to them all the time. She would translate their orders for the Abuna.”

“They should have stayed,” Rashid’s sister said despairingly.

“Don’t even say it! They might hear you and come back,” Rashid joked, urging his sister to serve the soup before the Abuna came and snatched them away as guests for his dinner.

“But I’m not hungry,” Rivlin protested.

“You have to eat something,” Rashid said softly. “It’s for her honor. You’ll shame her by not tasting anything.”

“Don’t be bashful,” the woman told Rivlin, returning from the kitchen with some serving dishes. The three boys were already tucked in at the table with big spoons in their hands. Even the black baby, wearing a little apron, was standing at one end of the low table, watching her mother ladle out red lentil soup from a large pot. Speedy Rashid, having already washed up and changed his shirt, attacked the soup as voraciously as if he had come all the way from Mansura for it.

The sick Christian husband now appeared from the back room, too. A pale, gangling man with long hair, an unshaven face, watery blue eyes, and hands marked by sores, he shook a weary head as he took his seat and produced from his pajama top a shiny mess kit, left behind by the Israeli army, that he handed to his wife to be filled. Tasting a spoonful of the soup, he made a nauseated face and inquired of his jet-colored brother-in-law if their visitor was the dreamed-of Jew who would return Ra’uda to her family in Israel.

23.

AND NOW THE Abuna descended to the basement to thank Rashid for the gifts sent by the Christians of Israel. He was especially touched by the Galilean piglet, which, shorn of its bristles and tail, was about to be put in the oven. Yet he was unhappy, the Abuna was, to find the Orientalist in the basement, staring at a bowl of soup, when up above in the teachers’ room all was ready for a feast that was to be attended by Socrates and Plato, two seminarians thus nicknamed because they had studied in Athens.

“Who could object to being called Socrates even in jest?” the Abuna asked, spreading his arms with a cross-eyed twinkle. Taking the baby’s spoon, he tasted the soup and praised it highly, a necessary preliminary to receiving permission from the lady of the house to spirit away her Jewish visitor.

The Abuna left with Rivlin in tow. On their way, to demonstrate that the midnight oil was burned on Ramadan in Zababdeh too, they made a moonlit side trip to a classroom. There, seated at small desks, was a group of female students, who immediately straightened up and veiled themselves. The Abuna patted their heads and showed their notebooks to Rivlin, who was asked to approve the penmanship of these poor Muslim girls from a village near Nablus. They had been sent to the Christian school after Abuna promised to display no crosses or icons — he had these replaced with colorful posters extolling the universal virtues in English and in Arabic.

Next, the Abuna lit a pocket flashlight and led Rivlin down a corridor filled with scaffolding, to show him his dream: a new wing of the school, unfortunately still unfinished because “We Greek Orthodox are stingy, like you Jews, but also poor.” From there he took him to the roof and proudly pointed out a valley below, spectral in the light of the moon. “It’s the Vale of Issachar,” he said. “Zababdeh is the Issachar of your Torah.”

Rivlin nodded in agreement while stealing a glance at his watch. It was eleven-thirty.

Where are you now, my beloved wife? Did your cotravelers take good care of you today? Have you made your peace with your hotel room, or are you still huddled beside an unopened suitcase, yearning for your bed and the man you think is in it? And yet, light of my life, I am not. I, too, have been condemned to spend this night in a strange land, though nearer to home than you. Our unslept-in apartment must be wondering what to say, should anyone come looking for the addled Orientalist now dutifully following the flashlight of a stout and jolly Christian priest.