A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

The veteran scholar quickly jotted down a few chapter headings, added references to historical events, documents, and specific Algerian officers and battalions in the French army, and followed this with a short bibliography. It would all have to be documented later.

His reinvigorated mind at rest, he folded the paper, deposited it in his pocket, switched off the lamp, and turned the chair back into a cot in the moonlight. His only regret was not having thanked the Lebanese nun for her wonderful performance. His infatuation with a woman he would never meet again kept him from falling into a deep sleep despite his tiredness. He drowsed fitfully, the vast night around him penetrating his slumber with the noise of an automobile, the sounds of shots, laughter, someone cursing. And then quiet, and the distant whinny of a horse…

The dawn was debating whether to awake the Holy Land when he was roused by a low murmur from the teachers’ room. It was a woman’s voice, telling a story that would never end. Time to get up, fold the hairy blanket, primp the pillow, smooth and button his clothes, and — still shivering from the morning cold — knock softly on the door to bid the nun an appreciative farewell.

But lying in wait for him in the teachers’ room was Ra’uda, who had eluded her brother. To his relief, she did not throw herself at his feet or bang her head on the floor. She simply went on setting the table for his breakfast — which would, she hoped, fortify his resolve to bring her back, with or without her children, to her village in the Galilee. Listening to her troubles was the nun, woken by her in her anguish. The wondrous Lebanese, putting religious duty before an artist’s right to a morning’s sleep, had hurried from behind the partition wrapped in a blanket and now sat at the table, a small, solitary figure with big, bright eyes, listening to the homesick Muslim — who, removing a towel from a saucepan it had been keeping warm, ladled out a dish of piglet-scented rice and beans. Wordlessly, without resorting to the Hebrew of Bialik, her soft eyes coaxed him to taste her food. Rivlin thanked her and sat down, spoon in hand, across from the nun. In a French perfected from Algerian colonial documents, he carefully said:

“Mademoiselle, I hereby confirm the opportunity to express my gratitude for your marvelous voice. Never before have I looked forward to Paradise, having always feared that, without my body, my soul would be thoroughly bored. Yet if there is singing like yours there, I am willing to reconsider. I only hope it is not too late.”

Her smile slight but sincere, she said in her strong, sure voice:

“ Cher monsieur, il n’est jamais trop tard pour embrasser la vrai religion.’ ” *

He laughed awkwardly and asked where her next concert would be held. Nowhere, she said. She was leaving for Jordan that evening and would return to her convent the following day. Yet next autumn, inshallah, she hoped to be in Ramallah for a Palestinian music-and-poetry festival. And she turned to say good morning to the Israeli Arab driver, who had come to announce the start of a new day.

30.

THE GUESTS PARTED with the Abuna, who, still in his colorful night-clothes, was jollier than ever after a few hours of sleep. Ra’uda, still brooding over the ignominy of her fate, seized Rivlin’s hand and made him swear in the name of Allah to do all he could to regain her ID. IDs, her brother assured her, pressing her warmly to his heart, would not be needed when peace came at last. “Let’s go, Professor Rivlin,” he said. “We have to get a move on.”

They boarded the minibus, in the back of which, beside the blanket and the pillow, now clucked three hens; strapped on their safety belts; and carefully placed the photocopied material from Jerusalem, which had spent the night in the vehicle, on the seat between them.

A morning mist was lifting over the Vale of Issachar. The road grew more distinct, twisting between olive groves and fragrant fields. Rashid, taking advantage of his Israeli license plate, skirted Kabatiyeh on Jewish bypass roads, along which the checkpoints were few. A few kilometers before Jenin they were surrounded by Palestinian policemen, who prodded seven workers, hiding from the morning chill in a ditch by the road, to climb aboard.

“ Weyn Issam? ” *Rashid asked, demanding to know why one seat was empty.

Worker number eight, it appeared, having been up all night partying, had failed to wake in time.

Loath to lose the income from the empty place, Rashid offered it to the commander of the police force, a middle-aged sergeant. The sergeant accepted with alacrity. He slipped the magazine from his Kalachnikov, took off his belt with its military pouches, and handed them to his second-in-command. Then he removed his army shirt, put it on again inside out, stuck his green policeman’s beret in his back pocket, wrapped his head in a kaffiyeh someone handed him, and thus completed his transformation into a Palestinian laborer looking for a day’s work in Israel.

They continued northward on a new, wide, empty road toward a group of Israeli settlements. Their handsome villas, topped by cockscombs of red tiles, had names the Haifaite had never heard of. All around them the world was sweetly quiet, as if no one had ever fought a war in it. The reservists from Jerusalem manning the checkpoint on the Green Line were too busy having breakfast to bother stopping an Israeli car heading home, even if it was full of Arabs.

It was six o’clock. Good old Mount Gilboa was in its usual place, and the faithful sprinklers of the Valley of Jezreel hummed in their yellow fields, filling Rivlin’s heart with an old love for his native land. All the tension seeped out of him. At Megido Junction his head fell back, and he did not jerk it back up until the French Carmel. As no driver could leave a dazed passenger standing in front of his house, Rashid came with him in the slow-moving elevator, carrying the photocopied texts.

The little space capsule carried them upward. In its mirror Rivlin noted a growth of beard that had not been there the day before. He felt compelled to return to an old question. Was Samaher really pregnant?

Unexpectedly, her cousin did not reply with his usual shrug. “Maybe not,” he whispered, looking down at the floor of the elevator.

“But why does her mother keep her in bed?”

“Because she sometimes imagines or does foolish things.”

“Like what?”

“Like… like thinking she’s a horse.”

He flushed hotly, the coal black eyes sad with regret. The elevator door opened. Rivlin’s key was in the lock when Rashid said:

“Really, Professor Rivlin, you mustn’t be angry. She really does love you. From her first class with you. Only you.”

He handed the binders to Rivlin and turned despairingly to go.

This time the Orientalist did not scold him or make light of his ailing student’s love. Rather, he asked Rashid to come to the bedroom and handed him two bags of his wife’s old clothes for the Abuna. Hagit’s red shoes he stuck into a drawer. Who in Zababdeh would wear them?

Rashid did not look surprised. There seemed to be no way of surprising him. Perhaps, Rivlin thought, he could read minds. In any case, they would see each other again soon, because there were more poems and stories to be brought from Samaher.

Picking up the phone to check the voice mail, Rivlin noticed through the open door of the kitchen that the bored housekeeper, defying his instructions not to cook, had left several containers covered with cellophane on the marble counter.

There were no messages. In the wondrous day that had passed, he had been needed by no one.

31.

Dear Galya,

I’d like an answer to a simple question. Has your father’s death, in your opinion, freed me from my vow (or promise) to tell no one what I saw (or, if you insist, fantasized)?