A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

Although the new bifocals would not be ready for several days, Rivlin turned down, in the spirit of the warpath, the offer of a temporary pair. This did not prevent him, however, from going to his office at the university to hunt for an old pair there. Yet the drawers of his desk were bare, and in his old office he was told by Ephraim Akri that there were no extra glasses there either. The new department head did, however, have a reserve pair of his own, which he offered to lend Rivlin in the event that the two Orientalists were similarly myopic. But the assistant professor’s steel-rimmed spectacles only made the world even fuzzier. Content to renew his exemption from reading and writing, which left him only the option of conversation, he thanked his junior colleague, sank into his old armchair, and related the latest exploits of the Jerusalem polymath. If Tedeschi was joining the Turkish wing of the new historians, who blamed the present on the heroes of the past, he must indeed be physically and intellectually resurrected. Actually, Rivlin said, he was giving a paper tonight in Jerusalem. Should the assistant professor wish to drive this evening to the capital, he would find in the full professor, who was setting out by bus that afternoon, a willing passenger and debating partner for the trip home.

Although Akri was not inclined to absolve anyone in the Middle East of blame for anything, the temptation of having Rivlin to argue with all the way from Jerusalem to Haifa, perhaps even to win over to his side, was great. He therefore promised to do his best to attend the lecture, even though he rejected its conclusions a priori.

A lecture by Tedeschi was hardly a reason to travel to Jerusalem, let alone to sleep away from home. But before his inevitable reconciliation with his wife, Rivlin wished to intensify his silence and abscond more seriously — something best done in a far but familiar place where he could let others do the talking. What did he have to lose? He returned home, emptied his briefcase of its books and notes, replaced them with his toilet articles, some underwear, and a pair of pajamas, and left a new, dryly factual note on the table.

He had not taken a long bus ride in ages. Unable to read or even sleep, he let old and new thoughts run through his mind and arrived worn-out and glum, early that afternoon, at the political-science conference on Mount Scopus. He was greeted with warmth and raised eyebrows. Tedeschi, he was told, had been taken that morning to the emergency room. It was not at all clear whether he would be reading his paper.

“Back to the emergency room?” Rivlin exclaimed, with genuine sorrow. “And I came to Jerusalem especially to hear him! What’s got into him? I can’t believe the old fox is scared of political scientists.”

The political scientists smiled at the barb. “You see,” one of them said, “as bland and superficial as we’re thought to be, we, too, can be scary. But I know we don’t frighten you, Professor Rivlin. And if the old man isn’t released in time, you surely won’t let his audience down — not when you, his heir apparent, are with us and can take his place…”

Surprised and even stirred to be so matter-of-factly referred to in such terms, Rivlin nevertheless turned down the offer.

“Take his place? How? With what? Besides, my glasses are broken.”

“Who needs glasses to speak? Do your usual thing. Tell us what you know and what you feel.”

Now he was offended. “What do my feelings have to do with it? Is that what you take me for — an understudy with a gift of the gab?”

“Perish the thought! But anyone familiar with your publications knows that you keep busy in the kitchen even when you’re not serving a meal. The smells of cooking tantalize us all….”

“Tantalizing smells aren’t scholarship. Precision and documentation are.”

“But who cares about documents any more?” the political scientists protested. “Don’t be an old fogy. People want provocative challenges, paradoxes. We’ve made a special effort to include your Middle East in the program tonight so as not to be accused of dealing in magnificent theories while leaving the mess on the ground to you. Honestly, Rivlin, if Tedeschi stays in the hospital, we’ll be left with a bad hole in our after-dinner program.”

“I’ll think about it,” he murmured. “But that’s not a promise, so don’t count on me.”

He entered the auditorium, in which a rising young star from the University of the Negev was juggling some highly abstract and cerebral notions in order to arrive at some quite simple and self-evident conclusions. In the row ahead of him he noticed a small, middle-aged man in an old gray fedora busily taking notes. Stepping up to him after the lecture, Rivlin tapped him cautiously on the shoulder.

“Mr. Suissa?”

“Oh, Professor Rivlin. You’re here too.”

“But what are you doing here?”

“What am I doing? As always, listening and learning. What did you think of the lecture? Pretty deep, eh?”

“I hope you received the material I returned to you.”

“Everything arrived in good shape. It’s back on my son’s desk.”

“But why keep it on his desk? Give it to the National Library. There are things there that are too valuable to be lost.”

“Why should anything be lost?” Suissa said. “Every word collected by my son of blessed memory is sacred to me. I’m taking good care of it. God willing, I hope to carry on with his work.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’ve been studying the material he left behind, trying to understand what such a brilliant man — may God avenge his blood — was looking for. Have you noticed, Professor, that, besides all the journalism, those old Arabic newspapers of his have stories and poems, too?”

Rivlin smiled. “I didn’t know you knew Arabic.”

“I don’t know it well, but I get the gist of it. I can make myself understood, too. I go slowly when I read and use good dictionaries. Just sitting at his desk makes me feel his inspiration and guidance. I use his computer too. Sometimes I even write on it….”

“What sort of things?” Rivlin asked, with an anxious smile, as if the man in the gray fedora were about to steal his thunder.

“I type his old notes and manuscripts. I try to imagine where his thoughts were taking him.”

“Interesting. Very interesting. Could you send some of it to me?”

“Right now it’s all in the computer, Professor.”

“Don’t you have a printer?”

“It’s old and doesn’t work very well. Eventually, God willing…”

“Listen. Why don’t I come to your place and read it on-screen?”

“It would be an honor and a pleasure, Professor. Anytime.”

“How about now?” The idea of plugging into another ghost took the Orientalist’s fancy. “Your place isn’t far from here.”

“But what about the next lecture? Don’t you want to hear it?”

“Your interpretation of your son’s ideas, Mr. Suissa, means more to me than any lecture.”

Startled by the compliment, the man took off his hat, wiped his bald head, and declared:

“All right, Professor. Let’s go. I’m with you.”

The little apartment on the edge of the desert had been further colonized by the dead scholar’s parents. The behavior of the widow and her two orphans, worrisomely anarchistic on his previous visit, now seemed deadly serious. The same little boy who had run affectionately to greet him stood somberly to the side, a dark skullcap on his head. Seeing Rivlin bend down to his baby brother crawling on the floor, he leaped to the infant’s defense and sank his teeth into the visitor.

“It’s nothing,” Rivlin laughed, rubbing the bite. “Please, Mr. Suissa. Let the boy be.”