The Liberated Bride (39 page)

W
ITH THE REMAINS
of his bifocals jammed hopelessly into his pocket, he hurried out of the courthouse and locked the gate behind him. Although he was angry enough to keep her locked up for a while, he was afraid she might hit the alarm button and make a scene. And so, returning the key to the guard, he asked him to open the gate for the judge, who still had work to do, in half an hour. The Russian took the key with a sigh of relief. He would be sure, he said, to get to the gate on time. “But you've got blood on your face, Mister,” he said. He brought Rivlin a small mirror in which the Orientalist saw a long, thin scratch on his forehead. As in his childhood fights with his sister, his first instinct was to run back and retaliate. Yet he no longer had the key, and the Russian was too curious about his cut. Forswearing immediate revenge, he walked to his car and drove carefully, through the quiet and blurry Sabbath streets, to his office at the university, the best place he could think of to abscond to. Barred even from reading
his mail without his glasses, he took his old key, opened the new department head's office, and sank irately into the large, comfortable armchair purchased during his tenure.

Yet after a while, his worry for the trapped judge got the better of him. Phoning her chambers and getting no answer, he tried her at home. Her “hello,” quiet and friendly as if nothing had happened, told him that—as usual—she had recovered surprisingly quickly. He hung up at once, knowing that a prolonged silence was his best weapon against someone for whom conversation was life itself.

She knew it was him, of course. Soon the stubborn ring of the telephone inside his closed office reached him from the other end of the corridor. Confident, however, that it would never occur to her that he had taken refuge in his old room, he relaxed and settled back in the armchair. The photographs of Akri's adorable grandchildren bothered him less without his glasses.

He sat silently for a few minutes. His naked eyes felt huge. It was the first time he could remember being unable to read or write. The freedom this gave him was both liberating and humiliating. Going over to the large window, he studied the reflection of his cut. Although superficial, it was a good one that would take time to heal. A powerful sense of lust, aroused by the unexpected wildness of the woman who had attacked him, vied with his ignominy and thirst for revenge. Oh yes, he thought. The punishment of silence will work best if I abscond for a while.

Before deciding which of his friends was most suitable for a Saturday morning visit, he phoned his old mentor to get some feedback on his latest scholarly thoughts. The sound of his voice was a cause for joy in Jerusalem. “Where have you been?” Hannah complained. “You only come to see us when Carlo is sick. As soon as he's well, we don't exist for you.”

“Carlo is well?” Rivlin teased. “I don't believe it. There must be some mistake.”

“Shhh!” Tedeschi chortled, joining in. “I'm not exactly well, but who has time to be sick when the Orientalists have latched onto my old Turks again? Ever since Stephen Jones and his gang at Oxford
started spreading their new theory that all the faults of the Arabs can be blamed on Ottoman rule, the whole world has been beating a path to my door. I'm the latest academic sensation. My old book, the one you were examined on, has been rediscovered, and since nobody has the patience to read it, everybody wants me to tell them what's in it. Believe me, Yochi, it's your luck up there in Haifa that you haven't been taken over yet by the new historians who are out to prove that every venal idiot and corrupt ruler in the Arab world was a victim of imperialism. I swear, they should be called the ancient historians, not the new ones. Why stop with the Ottomans? Why not blame it on the Byzantines or the Romans? Listening to them makes me sorrier than ever that you've let the Terror in Algeria hold up that book of yours. Stop being so obsessed by it. If you could come to Jerusalem tomorrow, I'd take you—for your sake, not mine—to hear a paper I'm giving at a political-science conference. You'd see I've become a new historian myself. In fact, you'd understand that your Algerians aren't killing each other off, God forbid, because they're nasty-tempered, but because the Turks oppressed them three hundred years ago. So why get worked up over it, my friend? . . . Ha! They're good for a laugh, these brand-new Orientalists. How I adore Stephen Jones, that imbecile of an Englishman at St. Antony's with his high table. High twaddle! O men of lovely Oxford! Stick your pipes up your arses and tell us more. . . .”

Rivlin burst into merry laughter. The old man hadn't sounded so youthfully wicked in ages.

“What time are you giving your paper?”

“At eight in the evening. Why? Is there any chance of your coming?”

“I would come just to hear you. I really do miss the two of you. But eight o'clock is too late for me. I've broken my glasses and can't drive at night.”

“But why go back to Haifa at night?” Hannah Tedeschi asked, thrilled by his unexpected declaration of longing. “You can sleep at our place. It will give us a chance to chat. If you'd like, I'll even let you look at a few new translations. And don't worry, Carlo's nightly coughing fits have stopped. . . .”

H
E ABSCONDED UNTIL
three o'clock. Then, returning in a sullen mood to the duplex, he found the kitchen clean, the dishes washed, and the pots of food cold on the stove. He couldn't tell if Hagit had eaten lunch or was waiting for him. Making it clear that he wasn't ready to end the hostilities, he stepped briskly into the bedroom, grabbed a blanket and a pillow without stopping to see whether she was sleeping or merely resting in their bed, and went to lock himself up in his study. Placing the remains of his broken glasses by the computer, where they resembled a surrealistic totem meant to ward off a premature reconciliation, he pulled out the convertible couch, took off his pants and shoes, and glanced instinctively across the street looking for the old woman, who had recently lost weight.

The expected knock was not long in coming. It was followed by an invitation, in a clear but severe voice, to come out and “talk it all over.” He didn't answer. Hands behind his head, he lay staring at the ceiling.

“Please. Don't sulk like a child.” The door handle rattled. “Open the door and let's talk like two grown-ups. Believe me, I'm just as mad as you are. But I promise to control myself and explain calmly why you deserved what happened this morning. Come on out and listen. Don't be such a coward . . .”

He turned to the wall and pulled the pillow over his ears, feeling how, despite his determination to keep silent, one more well-aimed sentence might draw his answering fire. Yet her voice reached him anyway.

“I'm sorry about the glasses, but not about hitting you. Not at all. Come on out and I'll explain.”

He shut his eyes tight.

“Don't play the martyr just because your glasses are bent a little. You'll have them straightened tomorrow. Meanwhile, you can find an old pair. Open the door and I'll help you to look for them. . . .”

He grinned, carefully gauging the scratch on his forehead. For sure! She, who always had to ask him where everything was, was going to find his old glasses. He burrowed deeper into his silence, surprised to feel it growing stronger.

“I really am sorry about the glasses, even though it's no tragedy, neither for you nor for the Middle East, if you don't write anything for a day. But believe me, you had that slap coming. It was a moral act. And if you open the door now, you'll get another one . . .”

As though bitten by a snake, he leaped to his feet with fists clenched, only to restrain himself at the last moment. He was pleased to note how, in spite of everything, his love and desire for this woman were unabated.

Still, if he was to avoid the new quarrel that a response would provoke, which could only lead to their making up before he wanted to, he had to fortify his defenses. And so, switching on his computer, he made it play music so loud that it not only drowned out the woman behind the door but brought the ghost across the street scurrying to her terrace, from which, gray and unkempt, she turned uncertain eyes for the first time in his direction.

He drew the white lace curtain to shut her out. It was the same curtain that, laundered for his sister-in-law's visit, had made him think of a bridal gown. He turned down the music and stretched out on the bed again, shutting the eyes that were excused from intellectual effort. A thought was running through his head.

It's true, went the thought, that my love for this woman has only grown greater with the years. Each day it's more unconditional than the day before. But if I don't sometimes put my foot down, how is our melancholy son, our flesh-and-blood image who has followed in our footsteps and learned from our love and gone beyond it, ever going to hate the woman who wrecked his marriage, or at least get over her instead of just missing her more and more? . . .

He switched off the music, covered himself with the blanket, and made himself rest for a while before emerging, careful to avoid any trap. None had been set. Hagit had stepped out, leaving him a note that she had gone to the hairdresser's and that he absolutely must wait for her to return, since there was an important new development they had to talk about.

Her lacerated husband, however, who was finding the world not only blurry but increasingly remote, did not want to listen to one more reprimand or scolding, no matter how subtle or sweetened by a
request for forgiveness. Putting on his sneakers, he scrawled in large, baleful letters:

“I've gone out for a couple of hours. Our plans for the movies tonight are off. I don't want to talk to you when I come back. Saying you're sorry won't help. I've just begun to fight.”

He was soon strolling along the beach in a southerly direction. A golden halo enveloped the ancient crusaders' castle at Atlit on its spit of land sticking into the sea. Peace talks were out of the question after a single skirmish. A resolute campaign of silence was called for. Having been punished for his lies and concealments with a slap and the breaking of his glasses, he was now entitled—no, obliged—to stalk the truth that haunted him and stood in the way of his son. Just let anyone try to stop him. They might as well try to stop a ghost. This much freedom his fight with his wife had gained for him.

He came to a halt, his helpless eyes scanning the fuzzy sea. It was not only a father's right to investigate his offspring's suffering, it was his duty, he thought, turning back northward toward the lights on the Carmel. Youngsters, wet from the sea, walked on the sand. You'll see, Rivlin whispered to his beloved. I have the strength and the patience to search on in the dark. There will be no surrender.

He came home in high spirits to find her barefoot on the couch, conversing with her sister beyond the sea. Smiling at him brightly, she signaled him to wait so that they might discuss the new development. But however clear it was that in the long run his love for her would compel him to submit to her judicial logic, this was all the more reason to abscond a while longer while their war of silence went on.

He went to his study and locked the door. From behind it came first anger, then supplication. He knew he was scandalously jeopardizing something old and precious—and since his heart would never stop loving or desiring her, he chose to imagine that the revolving chair by his desk was a wheelchair and that, right arm rigid, leg limp, paralyzed torso twisted to one side, he was, like the former Supreme Court justice who loved her, too, the victim of a stroke.

Yet at midnight, on his way to the bathroom, discovering her wide-awake in her alcove by the library, in which she was working on her dissent without looking up at him, he realized that she, too, was now
at war. He shivered. Yet it was too late to retreat. Without a word he returned to his study and crawled into bed, this time without locking the door.

I
N THE MORNING
, he carefully laid the broken pieces of his bifocals on the optician's counter while inventing a story about their flying off his face and being run over by a car as he sprinted to cross a street against the light.

“By a minimum of two cars, I would say,” the old optician remarked skeptically. Without asking permission, he swept the remnants of the tall tale into the trash. Testing Rivlin's eyes before ordering new lenses, he discovered that the Orientalist's vision, both near and far, had deteriorated.

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.”

But it was too late. The little grandfather was already chasing his grandson furiously around the room. Catching up with him by the bathroom door, he hit him hard. The boy threw down his skullcap and spit on it before vanishing into the bathroom without a word.

They went to the bedroom. With an almost religious reverence, the bereaved father conjured up the dead scholar's thoughts on the green screen of the old computer. Unfortunately, Rivlin apologized, he did not have his glasses. But if Mr. Suissa would remove his hat, which was hiding the screen, the Orientalist would try to follow while listening to a summary such as he was used to hearing from Samaher.

There was a touching innocence in the attempt of the North African—born Suissa senior, an uneducated and academically inexperienced official in the municipal waterworks department, to read the forever silenced mind of his dead son, which he believed he could fathom by virtue of his own paternity. He had ignored, Rivlin gathered, everything in the dead scholar's texts having to do with tribal and class conflict, French colonialism, and debates about Algerian identity, in order to concentrate—culling his evidence from the stories and poems alone—on popular attitudes toward Allah, the God of the desert who had come to curb the savagery and ignorance of its inhabitants.

The Orientalist, his senses piqued by the widow's clothes, which were scattered on the double bed beside the computer, was amazed to see how intense were the religious preoccupations of the stories that Samaher had read for their social content alone. He felt a sudden affection for this man, a religious Jew himself, who, no doubt unconsciously, was seeking to overcome his craving for vengeance by exploring the divinity in the Arab soul.

“Actually, Mr. Suissa,” the Orientalist said, “I think you may be onto something. The strong religious underpinnings everywhere, even at the time of the secular Algerian revolution . . . it fits in well with my own line of thought.”

He felt a touch as light as a caress.

The young widow, wearing a flowery dress, had come home. Overjoyed to find the professor there, she invited him to dine with them. Rivlin, however, begged off. He had come to Jerusalem not to work on her husband's material but to hear a lecture by an old and beloved mentor who had paid a visit to the emergency room that morning with no knowledge of when he would leave. As fascinating as he found her father-in-law's research, he had to be off. But he would surely come again soon.

Mr. Suissa, greatly cheered by Rivlin's interest, switched off the computer, put on his fedora, and offered to drive Rivlin to the hospital. Yet the young widow, chagrined by her visitor's hasty departure, insisted on driving him herself. Rudely pushing away the son who clung to her, pleading to come with them, she escorted Rivlin out of the apartment in the manner of someone who had long wanted to be alone with him.