A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

“Conceptually, not on paper. Are you awake enough to listen to a strange story?”

“Of course.”

He paced up and down by the bed, his excitement mounting as he described his night journey among the Arabs. Hagit, eyes half-shut, lay listening to every word. She did not appear to be overly perturbed by his story.

“So! I leave you alone for a couple of days and you run wild.”

He smiled, relieved by her making a joke of it. “I suppose I did…”

“Did you at least enjoy it?”

“Enjoy it? Not exactly. But it may have sparked some new thoughts.”

5.

REMOVING HIS GLASSES, he lay down beside her in the faint hope of making love. Not that he really wanted to, but they hadn’t done it for a while, and he didn’t want their bodies to grow rusty. Hagit, however, smiled wearily without responding. Although he did not feel greatly deprived, he made a point of wringing from her an acknowledgment of remissness.

They switched on the TV. Rivlin fell asleep watching a program. Awakening after midnight, he found Hagit’s side of the bed empty and went to look for her. She was sitting in his study, composing the outline of her dissent.

“You don’t think you can change one of their minds?”

She shook her head, sadly, not only because she took it hard when her opinion was not accepted, but because her dissent would not even be made public. He stroked her hair while glancing at the little card table on the terrace across the street. Some empty bottles of beer were still on it.

“She’s started to live it up, my mother’s ghost,” he said, telling Hagit about the man who had come to play cards.

“Are you jealous?”

“Jealous?” It never ceased to amaze him how quickly she saw through him. “What an idea! But it does make me realize how hard the last year with her was. There wasn’t a moment of good feeling or enjoyment.”

She sighed. “And you tried so hard to be a loving son. It’s sad when an old person feels wronged. That’s why I don’t want Granot to think I’ve abandoned him.”

“But he never would.”

“You’re wrong. I know him. He’s a noble man. That makes him highly sensitive. How could I not have seen the invitation?”

“You didn’t see it because your desk is such a mess. You should let your typist arrange it for you.”

“That’s not her job.”

“But she loves you. She’ll do anything for you.”

“Maybe. It’s still not her job. Why don’t we go together one Saturday and you help me?”

6.

THEY WERE THE only ones at the exhibition, which was being held in the gym of a community center. The direct light only emphasized how sadly out of place the little watercolors and oils were among the parallel bars and horses. Granot’s first, surprise exhibition had been held two years previously, four years after his stroke. Long the chief justice of the Haifa District Court, he had suffered a stroke a few months after his appointment to the high court in Jerusalem and had had to return to his native city. For two years he was incommunicado, then he began to speak in striking colors and compositions; this led to an exhibition for which his many friends, as well as the entire legal community of Haifa, had turned out. The present show, his second, was more modest. The mute painter seemed to be in decline. His paintings were smaller, the colors more somber, the shapes more abstract. The distorted figures looked as if they were covered by a green mold.

Hagit strode silently around the room, stopping by each painting as though it had a deep significance. Her husband, having passed through the room quickly, stood asking the guard at the door how many visitors had seen the show. The answer was, Not many. The guard handed Rivlin a sheet of paper with the titles and prices of the works.

He scanned it quickly. The prices seemed high for an amateur painter, even an ex-Supreme Court justice. He wondered how they had been determined. Yet knowing that his wife had her heart set on buying something — either to make up for the missed opening or to help her first patron and guide — he looked for a reasonably priced item that he could live with and even pretend to like.

He stood in front of a small watercolor while his wife circulated reverently among the paintings as though renewing an old dialogue with the man who had been her mentor even after her appointment to the district court. The watercolor was fairly cheap and not too gloomy, with some vague figures, little dogs or jackals, surrounding the thin, black silhouette of a woman. It could be hung one day in the room of an imaginative grandchild, and meanwhile he did not think it would bother him. Calling Hagit over, he informed her that, if they had to buy something, this was what he liked best. Everything else was too ugly and depressing.

“This?” she marveled. “These poor little children being dragged down to Hell by a black devil?”

“Children? What children?” He was mystified. “Those are puppies or jackals. And where do you see a devil? Why would Granot paint devils? It’s a woman walking her dogs.”

The judge took off her glasses and stepped closer to the painting. Her eyes were soft and sorrowful.

“Well, if that’s what you think and you like it, let’s buy it. I suppose you’ve checked the price.”

“Six hundred shekels.”

“Not too bad. Maybe we should buy two.”

“Are you out of your mind? Please, even one is too much. What are we, a social-work agency?”

“All right. Don’t be angry. Write down the number and we’ll pick it up when we visit him. Does it have a name?”

Rivlin consulted the sheet of paper.

“Yes. The Return of the Little Ones. ”

In their building, by the door to the elevator, stood a tall man with a black ponytail. For a moment, his heart pounding, Rivlin thought it was Galya’s new husband, come to ask them about her first marriage. But it was not the bird-faced man who had told him confidently in the garden of the hotel that he knew “everything.” It was a salesman, sent to demonstrate, “with no obligation,” the remarkable vacuum cleaner, which stood by his side like a faithful dog.

“But I specifically said you were to call first,” Rivlin protested. “You promised.”

The man with the ponytail looked crestfallen. He had been misled. He had come all the way from Tel Aviv on the understanding that he would be welcome. He spread imploring arms. He was asking for only half an hour of their time, with “no obligation at all.” They shouldn’t put it off another day, because the price of the vacuum cleaner kept rising.

“Yes, and I suppose you’re almost out of stock,” Rivlin taunted him. But it was already too late, because his wife had taken pity on the man and invited him up to their apartment.

Though polite, the salesman projected a quiet authority. Informing them that, despite his hippie-style ponytail, he was a reliable type, an ex-Border Guard officer, he proceeded to tell them about the appliance’s incredible success, not just in Israel, but throughout the Middle East. He had even sold a Kirby to a princess of the Hashemite royal house in Jordan. If they would kindly allow him to rearrange their living-room chairs, they could sit back and watch him demonstrate. The appliance, American-made, was called a vacuum cleaner only for lack of a better word. Its metallic gray showed that it was made from the same materials used in intercontinental missiles. Although this might sound like a stretch, it was true. He had documents to prove it. Take this hose, for example, which emptied the dirt into that container. You could crinkle it — crush it — crunch it with all your might, as he was doing now. Just look how it sprang back to its original shape, as only a noble metal could!