The Liberated Bride (21 page)

G
HOSTS
? H
E LET
the word run through his racing mind. Perhaps. But this ghost was pregnant. The fact that he had got Galya to answer, however “nastily,” an equally “nasty” letter from his son took the sting out of Ofer's rebuke. He leafed through the morning paper, took off his clothes, and strode around the apartment while waiting for the Jacuzzi, installed as a prize for the ordeal of moving, to fill with foam that would consign the night to oblivion by caressing private parts never touched by others underwater. Once in the bath he shut his eyes and let its currents churn past him while imagining himself on the airplane with his wife. Soon he was swooning in the arms of the accursed slumber that had eluded his advances all night long. Here, of all places, water jetting all around him, his soul was at last trapped in its embrace . . .

It was thus that the coal-eyed messenger, arriving at the appointed hour, was required to demonstrate his faith by persisting in short, polite rings of the doorbell, reinforced at intervals by a thoughtfully civilized drumming of his knuckles in various rhythmic measures, to which the duplex responded with a stubborn silence. Indeed, had Rivlin surmised that the empty-handed Arab had come not to deliver but to fetch—and first and foremost, to fetch the Orientalist himself—he would never have risen in the end to throw out the love baby of sleep with the golden bathwater rippling in the early-morning light by running to the front door, dripping wet and blind, and petitioning abjectly from his side of it:

“Is that you, Rashid? You'll have to excuse me. I'm a bit woozy because my wife had to catch a plane this morning and I didn't sleep all night. Just leave Samaher's material behind the big flowerpot and tell her I'll get in touch.”

The Arab, however, had precious little material to leave. On the
contrary, since it was too immaterial to be left behind a flowerpot, he was prepared to wait for the professor to make up for lost sleep and to return that afternoon or evening. “It makes no difference,” he declared from his side of the door. “The day is shot anyway.”

Rivlin felt a new burst of anger at Samaher, who was now enlisting her entire family to make a fool of him. Yet before he could tell the messenger to go shoot himself along with the day, it occurred to him that Suissa's texts were still in Mansura. Slowly, the leaden crust on his eyes was dissolving. Rashid, he decreed, should return in an hour.

“Only an hour? Are you sure, Professor? You don't want to sleep more than that?”

“An hour will be fine. Don't make it any longer.”

An hour later, fully dressed and ready to cope, the slippers on his feet the only sign of his untimely abduction from the bosom of sleep, he sat in the living room looking irritably at the sable-skinned young man, who had refused all refreshment except for a glass of water, which had not touched his lips. On the table lay a Hebrew translation of a poem by a Berber from Oran, Hatib Abu el-Slah. Written in the early 1940s, it had been excellently translated by Samaher:

The world, sharp as a razor, / Slashes my cheeks. / Pursued by the law as though by a whale, / I amuse myself by making a paper star. / Fire worshipers gather around its light. / An Ethiope attendant fans me. / I rise on straws toward the windows, / Snuff out the honeymoon lamp, / And climb on the radiant beams of teeth / While incense ascends from me. / I sculpt an angel that is eaten like a raisin along the way, / Sit chewing on ice like a ball rolled off the playing field, / Travel on a reed, / And transport painted eggs, chicks, and kerosene. / In pants as short as an entry in a diary, / I jump to the stars through the glass panes of the observatory. / I unbutton my shirt, breathe the pure air, / And create a lion of stone / Infested by fleas and the secrets of the microcosm.

“Where is the Arabic?” he asked, surprised by the poem's playful tone.

This time too, however, there was only a translation.

“Tell me, Rashid, what's going on here? Is Samaher subjecting me
to Chinese water torture by dripping one poem at a time on me? And where are the stories?”

The young man's sense of truth and justice was unshaken by Rivlin's sarcasm. With a candid look that demanded credence, he swore that his cousin had read everything marked by the murdered scholar and even filled a copybook with her notes and summations. It was just that, being bedridden, she found it difficult to write. Her handwriting was so bad and full of spelling mistakes, in Arabic as well as in Hebrew, that she was embarrassed to let her professor see it.

“But this poem is perfectly legible.”

“That's because I wrote it. The poems are easy. She learns the Arabic by heart, goes over it with her mother, puts it into Hebrew, learns that by heart too, and dictates it to me on Saturday when I have the day off.”

“But how long is this going to go on?” the sleepy Orientalist wanted to know. “Is she really pregnant?”

“So her mother keeps saying,” Rashid said again without indicating whether he believed it.

The messenger sat straight in his chair, the glass of water still untouched. He was, Rivlin thought, a devoted, sensitive young man. The coal black eyes were neither cunning, sardonic, nor obsequious.

“Well, what now?”

“Both Samaher and her mother think an oral exam would be best.”

“An oral exam?”

“Yes. She'll tell you what's in the stories, and you'll write it down for your research. Dictating them to me in Hebrew would take too long.”

“I've had quite enough of this,” the professor snapped, though not in genuine anger. “Samaher and her lovely mother have gone bonkers. They think they can make a soft touch like me rewrite the rules of the university.”

Rashid, solemn, said nothing. Like a sorrowful but obedient disciple, he crossed his arms and waited for the professor to think better of it.

“So when will she come to take these orals of hers?”

“But how can she come?” Rashid spread his arms in amazement. “The doctor won't even let her go to the bathroom. That's why her mother wants you to come to us . . . to the village. . . .”

“
I
should drive to the village?”

“Of course not. I'll drive you. I'll bring you back, too. Whenever you like. It could even be now. That's what Samaher's mother says.”

Why did Rashid keep bringing her into this? Did he suspect him of having a crush on the attractive woman who had cried in his office?

Rivlin glanced at the translated poem. Could so sophisticated a piece of free verse have been written in the Algeria of the 1940s, or was this a hoax concocted for his benefit in Samaher's Galilee village? In either case, he had to retrieve the photocopies of Suissa's texts before they disintegrated between the sheets of her bed . . . unless, that is, the promised spark of inspiration depended on direct contact with the rare originals returned to Jerusalem.

And yet the dawn parting from his wife, without even a definite reunion to look forward to, coming on top of a sleepless night that weighed on him like a sick, heavy cat on his shoulders, had turned him into such a passive, malleable, and perhaps even seducible creature that, instead of terminating his special arrangement with Samaher and demanding the material back, he sat drowsily contemplating her jet-colored intercessor, whose noble and refined manner reminded him of his younger son's. Although sensing the professor's bewilderment, Rashid did not avert his glance. Willing to put up with a reprimand but not a refusal, he cocked a guileless head. One might have thought, from the way he kept his gentle eyes on the Orientalist while awaiting a reply, that he had all of Araby behind him. He did not even turn to look when a key scraped in the door and the housekeeper, in tight jeans and high heels, made her bored appearance.

W
AS AGREEING TO
his Arab driver's suggestion to take along a blanket and two small pillows an early warning of the depth of the seduction? For although Rivlin protested that he never slept in cars, Rashid insisted on making a bed of the backseat for the comfort of the Jewish professor, who would travel “just like in an ambulance.”

Before turning onto the Northern Highway, the minibus entered a gas station on a side road. The station's name appeared only in Arabic,
the pennants decorating it were colored an Islamic green, and each driver was given a copper tray with Turkish coffee and a piece of baklava instead of the usual mudslinging Hebrew newspaper. Rashid handed these to his passenger. It was the holiday of Ramadan, and besides, he never felt hungry before evening.

“You're right, it's Ramadan,” Rivlin said, remembering that it was the month in which Muslims fasted by day and ate at night. “I would never have come today if I had realized that.”

“But why not, Professor? Why should Ramadan bother you? It's a time when guests are especially welcome.”

The sleepless night, coupled with the infusion of morning slumber, had left him fuzzy-headed. He emptied the coffee cup, catching sight, as he threw back his head to drain the last drops, of the university tower in Haifa, a thin needle on the horizon.

“Still, Rashid,” he said, “tell me the truth. I need to know it before we reach the village. What's wrong with Samaher? Is she depressed?”

Samaher's cousin put his head in his hands, as if to think the matter through.

“Sometimes. But sometimes she's happy and even sings songs.”

He took out a pocketknife and strode to a field behind the gas station. Finding a bush with blue flowers among the dry brambles, he deftly cut a few fresh branches and made a bouquet of them.

“You can give this to Samaher's grandmother,” he said, with a twinkle. “We Arabs never give flowers. That's why we're always so glad to get them.”

The village lay silent, struck by a withering noon light. The minibus climbed a small hill and parked between the wrecks of two fifties pickup trucks, near which red Arab chickens of an obsolete stock were pecking at the ground. Rivlin, his head aching, stopped by a large, dusty fig tree, trying to remember something.

“Yes, the wedding was here,” Rashid said with a hint of melancholy. There was no telling whether his doleful tone had to do with the event itself or with its being over so soon. “We put all the Jewish guests by this tree. Your wife sat over there. She laughed all evening. We even talked about it afterward, how a woman could be a judge and laugh so much.”

“But these old trucks weren't here then, were they?”

“They were, but we covered them with a tarpaulin. We spread olive branches on it and put the D.J. and his equipment on top of them.”

Here was the narrow lane down which Samaher's wedding dress had rustled as she resolutely transferred her illness to her grandmother. In broad daylight it was a short, simple path. The black horse rubbing its head against the bars of the front gate was familiar, too.

Rashid stroked the animal's unbridled neck. Gently gripping its intelligent head, he gave it an odd, quick kiss. Samaher's mother opened the door of the large stone house. Either because of the holiday, or to distance herself from the Jewish professor who had acceded rather too quickly to her request, she was wearing a traditional peasant dress. Soon the sturdy, silent grandfather, his bald head no longer hidden by a kaffiyeh, was summoned to the scene too. Giving the Orientalist what looked like a Turkish salute, he unscoldingly led the friendly horse to its stable, as though it were a slow-witted but likable child.

By now, several women had congregated by the front door along with Afifa and the grandmother. Some young and some old, they greeted the visitor respectfully.

“
Allah yehursak.”
^*

“
Barak li'lah fik, ya mu'alim
.”
^†

“
Kadis!
”
^‡

“
Low kunt ba'aref ino 'l-yom Ramadan,
” Rivlin replied, “ma
kuntish bawafe' bilmarra aaji el-yom la'indikon.
”
^§

“But why not, Professor? Why let Ramadan stop you?” Afifa scolded him in a friendly Hebrew. “You're not a Muslim, and Muhammad didn't make the fast for you. And even if you were, it's a free country. . . .”

Samaher's grandmother sniffed the flowers Rashid gave her. Kissing her eldest grandson's hands, she blessed him for bringing “Samaher's important teacher.” No one, it seemed, had really expected him to come.

H
E WAS LED
to a spacious bedroom, in which stood a black lacquered chest, a closet, a large table, several smaller ones, and some chairs. Half-lying and half-leaning on pillows in a big bed, his student of many years looked pale and thin. Her hair was gathered in a net and traces of red polish from the wedding were still on her fingernails and toenails, which stuck out from beneath the blanket. He gave her a suspicious, pitying look. Expecting a child, he told himself, as though he had lately become an expert on false pregnancies, she was not. It looked more like a case of depression.

“You really came.” She blushed and smiled wanly. “Thank you. Thank you, Professor, for coming to our village.”

“
Sad'uni,”
^*
he said, addressing not only Afifa and the grandmother, who had followed him into the room, but the women outside in the hallway, “I've been teaching at the university for thirty years, and this is my first house call.
Bil sitta ow marid.
”
^†

“
Tiwafakt bil'aml es-saleh.
”
^‡

“
Allah yibarek fik.
”
^§

Meanwhile, the sable-skinned impresario was arranging the stage by plumping up the squashed pillow behind his cousin, bending down to retrieve a pair of slippers from beneath the bed, throwing some wrinkled napkins into a wastepaper basket, and handing the grandmother two dirty glasses. Turning to Samaher's medicines, with which he seemed familiar, he restored some order to them before pulling out two notebooks and pens from the lacquered chest. All this was done deftly and knowledgeably, in a code composed of short, swift sentences, as if he alone knew the desires of the recent bride.

“How's the new husband?” Rivlin asked cautiously, putting the question to no one in particular.

“Working hard for his father.”

“What at?”

“He's a building contractor.”

Rashid now placed Suissa's texts in their colored binders on the large table. At least, Rivlin thought with relief, he could take them back to Haifa with him.

The messenger was not yet done. Moving a large armchair close to the bed, he placed a small table next to it and spread this with an embroidered cloth just as a girl entered the room with a knife and fork.

“
Min fadleku, la.
”
^*
The guest returned the silverware to the hands of the frightened girl. “Don't serve me any meals now. We have plenty of time. And what's this about food, anyway?
N'situ Ramadan?
”
^†

“
Shu Ramadan? Kif faj'a nat lak Ramadan?”
^‡
The women laughed, amused by how easy the Jew thought it was to become a Muslim. “You have your Yom Kippur, Professor. What's Ramadan to you?
Er-ruz matbuh, u'lahm el-haruf ala 'lnar.
”
^§

The Orientalist stuck to his guns. He was not eating now. He had already told Rashid. His wife had flown abroad early in the morning, as a result of which he hadn't slept all night. If he ate now, he would need to sleep, which was not the purpose of his visit.

But why shouldn't he sleep? The women took to the notion enthusiastically. “In fact, why don't you do it the other way around, Professor, and sleep first? If your wife is out of the country, you're in no hurry to get home. Have a light snack, and we'll give you a nice, quiet room to lie down in. That way you'll be fresh for the exam.”

“The exam? What exam?”

“The oral exam for Samaher's final grade. . . .”

But the Orientalist, well aware how Arab guile was concealed behind the innocence of the desert, was quick to squelch, even at the risk of his newly won popularity, the illusion of a final grade.

“I'm not giving Samaher any exam. She knows as well as I do that she's still a long way from a final grade. I came here today to hear the oral summaries that she can't write. And to take back the material.”

The messenger gasped. “You're taking back the material?” So that was why the professor had agreed so easily to come to the village.

“Why shouldn't I?”

It was an awkward situation. Rivlin turned to his student, who, though she hadn't missed a course of his in five years, lay staring at him as though she had never seen him before.

“You can still finish your assignment,” he said to her. “Rashid can photocopy a new set for you. The poems you've translated aren't bad at all. In fact, you've done a good job. In a minute we'll see what you've done with the stories.”

There was a ripple of relief that the professor was not proposing to reject Samaher's term paper. Fearfully, the young girl returned again to place a jug of cold water and an infusion of herbs in front of Rivlin. “Even the greatest saints,” Afifa assured him, “have been known to drink during the fast.” A small boy, dressed in a fez and a festive holiday robe, entered proudly bearing a narghile, which Samaher's grandmother had ordered as an antidote for the Jew's hunger. The growing acceptance of his determination to observe the fast caused Rivlin to fear that he might have to leave the village in the end on an empty stomach.

Meanwhile, Samaher, greatly cheered by his compliment, dismissed not only the women, but her cousin as well. Before shutting the door behind him, Rashid pulled down the colored blind on the window, leaving the teacher and his student pleasantly bathed in a golden Galilean gloom.