A. Yehoshua - The Liberated Bride

By the time she did, he had eaten and was sitting by the unopened newspaper, which lay on the table as a mute testimony to his wife’s crime. “I really am sorry,” she said, picking up the paper and glancing at it. “If I had known how much you depended on those glasses, I would have been more careful. But you need to realize how impossible you sometimes are. It isn’t what you do, it’s what you hide.”

“Please. Ofer is here. We agreed to a truce, so let’s keep it. Don’t be like the Arabs.”

“The Arabs? Where do they come in?”

“They’ve always been here. After so many years of living with me, it’s time you knew they’re part of my mental world.”

He went to switch on the electric kettle and take the toast from the toaster while she leafed rapidly through the paper as if looking for something. She found it, read it without comment, and put the paper aside.

“What were you looking at?”

“A notice that the verdict is today.”

“The verdict? Today?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m glad the damned thing is over.”

“What’s so damned about it?”

“It just is.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe all those mysterious closed-door sessions got on my nerves.”

“Why should they have mattered to you?”

“They just did.”

“I wish you’d cut out all those ‘justs.’ Try to explain yourself. Why did this particular trial, which you knew nothing about, get on your nerves? Don’t you have enough there already?”

“I do. But it did anyway. And I don’t like your being a minority who can’t convince the other judges.”

“It’s strange that you should need to feel I’m always in the right. Anyhow, the Supreme Court may rule that I was right on an appeal.”

“You’re that sure he didn’t do anything?”

“I don’t know what he did or didn’t do. And I’m sure that he’s a very shady type. But there simply isn’t enough evidence to convict him.”

“Forensic evidence.”

“Yes, forensic. Don’t make light of it.”

“But when did you manage to write your dissent?”

“The night you ran away to the Tedeschis. Didn’t you wonder why I never tried to get in touch with you?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

“It was so quiet without you that I had all the time in the world to concentrate and finish it in one sitting.”

“How did it come out?”

“It certainly convinced me.” Hagit bobbed her head charmingly and took another sip of coffee.

“Will your opinion be in tomorrow’s paper?”

“Only a few snippets. That’s all the censor will allow.”

“I’d like to read the full text.”

“You’d be bored by it. There are parts you wouldn’t follow. And I’d be in trouble if you blabbed about it afterward.”

“Why should I blab?” he replied angrily. “To whom? Forget it. What I want to know is, what happened with Ofer after I went to sleep?”

“He talked about Paris. He loves it more every day.”

“Did he say anything about a girlfriend?”

“No. I don’t think he has one.”

“So what will be?”

“There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Nothing? I don’t know about that. I suppose he criticized me.”

“A bit. It’s hard for him that you identify with him so much. He finds it a burden.”

“I identify with him? He said that?” For some reason, this gladdened him. “But why should that bother him? I wish someone would identify with me….”

“Don’t be so sure. It puts more spine in one to be opposed. And you think your identifying with him gives you the right to know things that he can’t or doesn’t want to talk about.”

“Why can’t he?”

“He just can’t. You have to respect that. He was as upset as I was that you took advantage of your condolence call to quiz Galya. I don’t want to say I told you so. But I did try to talk you out of going to that bereavement. All you did was complicate things.”

“I didn’t complicate anything. I wanted to understand.”

“But you didn’t.”

“At least I tried.”

“Look at the price, though.”

“What price? Didn’t you just say he said nice things about me?”

“Because he loves you.”

“He does?” Rivlin marveled, as though at something impossible. “Did he really say that?”

“He didn’t have to. I know it.”

31.

YET NOT EVEN LOVE, real or potential, could wake the Parisian from his Israeli sleep. He’s so used to sleeping by himself that he doesn’t even dream anyone might be waiting for him to wake up, Rivlin thought sorrowfully, and proceeded to cancel all his morning appointments. He was hoping for a relaxed conversation with his son, not only to put the tensions between them to rest, but also, with the help of his night at the hotel, to uncover some new lead. Meanwhile, sans glasses, computer, notes, or reference books, he sat in his study ruminating in a giant scrawl about the Algerian language problem.

… And so we have a situation in which different sectors of social activity, having no common language, remain totally distinct. Classical Arabic is the language of religion. French is used for economic, administrative, and scientific purposes. North African Arabic and Berber are spoken in the street and in the family. This is the great curse of Algerian identity. It’s not that such an identity does not exist, but that it is linguistically fragmented beyond any possibility of a synthesis. Thus French-speaking Algerians will say, “Ah, I completely fail to understand those Arab fundamentalists,” while Arabic-speaking Algerians think the French-speakers are neocolonialists in the service of France. No Arabic-speaker believes anyone can love Algeria in French, no Berber-speaker believes anyone can love it in Arabic, and no French-speaker believes any intellectual life at all is possible in Arabic. Each side sees the others as an alien, hostile force. Such an Algeria is an Algeria at war.

The current civil war in Algeria is more a war of languages fighting for cultural space than it is a war between religious and secular society. The fundamentalist Arab must oppose the written civilization of the West with the Koran because that is the only sacred text he knows. The real choice facing Algeria, therefore, is: French or the Koran.

The writing flowed easily, carrying him along almost blindly, so that he forgot to keep his letters large and was soon unable to read what he had written. Although this had the advantage of making corrections or revisions impossible, such writing could not prevent him from thinking of his sleeping son. He rose from his desk, descended a few steps of the duplex, and stood midway between its floors, listening for a sign of life. But it was not until noon that the sound of water in the bathroom told him that the visitor from Paris was up.

They sat facing each other in the kitchen over a breakfast that turned gradually into lunch. Rivlin felt his way cautiously, seeking to cross no forbidden lines. Both he and Ofer avoided mentioning their harsh phone conversation, and Rivlin, afraid Hagit might have carelessly told Ofer about his second visit to the hotel, said nothing about the first — that springtime condolence call that now, at the end of a tedious summer, seemed so distant. And while he would have liked dearly to tell the spurned husband how much the new proprietress missed him and how she had lauded his architectural judgment, he knew very well that an allusion to his third, underground visit would never be forgiven.

And so, turning to the future, he tried finding out from his son when he planned to return to Israel. The night security guard of the Jewish Agency, however, was too much in thrall to the past to have any patience for the future. Dressed in old gym shorts and a T-shirt, his face unshaven and his eyes swimming from unsatisfying slumber, he replied that he had no plans. To listen to him, Rivlin remarked, one might think he was an adolescent still needing to experience life, rather than a grown man of over thirty. Not at all, Ofer replied. There were many new developments in the field of kitchen and restaurant design, both practical and theoretical, with which he ought to acquaint himself before leaving Paris. Meanwhile, gastronome that he now was, he criticized the housekeeper’s pot roast, which he had eaten with relish in his benighted pre-Paris days.