The Liberated Bride (40 page)

A
ND IN FACT
Mrs. Suissa stopped the car after a few blocks, switched off the motor, and began lamenting, as though to an old friend, about how hard and complicated her life was. Ever since her husband's tragic death, his parents had refused to leave her alone. Not that he had been an easy man himself. Yet his great love for her had atoned for his stubborn principles. He adored her so much that he had been almost afraid to touch her.

Rivlin stared down. The young woman, a bleached blond with deeply tanned legs whose polished toenails fidgeted on the stilled pedals of the car, had a sharp, strange fragrance. The street, seen through the windshield, was dusty and gray. Had he absconded or merely been newly impounded? Was this trip to Jerusalem a liberation or just an aggravation? On that wonderful night with the Arab messenger, he had been made to vanish as though by a magic trick. But here, in Jerusalem, without his glasses or his car, who would be his magician?

Perhaps, the young Mrs. Suissa was saying unhappily, the professor knew of some job for her. It could even be in Haifa. Anything to get her away from the siege she was under. Could he, as a gesture to her husband, find her part-time work as a typist or a secretary in his department, something temporary? She wasn't asking for much. As a terror victim, she received a stipend from the Ministry of Defense. She could come to Haifa without the children and rent a room there. Once she was settled, she would bring them. But first she had to have a foothold, a position at the university. She wanted Professor Rivlin, as an admirer or at least an appreciator of her husband, to take her under his wing.

The tears welled in her eyes at the thought of the man who had adored her to the point of trepidation. Carried away by her emotion, she laid a soft hand on the aging Orientalist's knee, asking not only for advice and direction, but also for comfort and warmth. She was certain that here in Jerusalem, fenced in by her husband's parents, she would never find another man.

Rivlin glanced at his watch, unable to make out the time. He nodded and asked the young widow about her own parents.

Her father had died long ago. She and her mother did not get along. Her husband's parents, on the other hand, had been nice, considerate people until his terrible death had turned them into evil little hedgehogs.

“Hedgehogs?”

Yes. Little, black, prickly things who had moved in with her to keep her children from being exposed to bad influences. Especially hers. They were worried she might give up religion. That was why they sniffed after her everywhere, the two hedgehogs. She flashed Rivlin a charmingly mischievous smile at the image that had occurred to her before her eyes filled with little tears again.

He didn't need his glasses to see what an ingenue she was. Laying his hand lightly on hers as it rested on the steering wheel, he wondered what kind of wing she was looking for. Was it for a medium through which to contact the ghost of her husband—the young prodigy who, according to the Tedeschis, had sought in an original way to revive the old Orientalism that studied not documents, speeches, protocols, and pronouncements but the literature whose intricate language revealed the secretive Arab soul?

And yet if, by her own admission, this same prodigy had been reduced to adoring her from a safe distance, what, besides frustration, confusion, and neglect, could be expected from her? The tremor of desire he had felt was already gone. He would, he promised, see what he could do to help her, not just for her husband's sake, but for her own. But on one condition. He looked her in the eye. She must take the children with her. Children must never be abandoned.

Calmed by this, she gave him a long look and started the car. But to his annoyance, instead of dropping him off by the entrance to
Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, she parked and got out with him, determined to join him on his visit to the emergency room. She wanted, she said, to say hello to Hannah Tedeschi and see how her husband was.

It took Rivlin a while, without his glasses in the bustle of the emergency room, to spot the illustrious polymath sitting on a little terrace in a thin smock, quietly staring at the Judean desert while awaiting the results of his tests.

“I come to Jerusalem especially to hear you lecture, Carlo, and look what you do to me!”

“But there's nothing wrong with me,” Tedeschi said. “This morning, on our way to the conference, Hannah decided that as long as we were on Mount Scopus, she might as well bring me in for a checkup. Since then we've been stuck here. But never mind, I'll soon be released. You haven't missed a thing. Your bed is already made. You'll sleep over, and tomorrow I'll give the lecture they canceled tonight. You should have brought Hagit.”

“Would you believe that I was asked to fill in for you tonight?”

Tedeschi was alarmed. “To talk about what?”

“About anything. I refused. You know me. I don't open my mouth without documentation.”

“And quite rightly.” Tedeschi regarded his old student fondly. “Never let these giddy conference organizers talk you into anything. So what if they have a hole in their program? It's not the end of the world. They can add another course to their dinner. But where are your glasses? Don't tell me you're wearing contacts.”

“That will be the day!”

“And who is the young lady you've brought with you? Do I know her?”

“You should.” Rivlin introduced Mrs. Suissa, who had been standing quietly by.

The old scholar jumped to his bare feet and embraced the young widow warmly, his white chest showing through the hospital smock. “So it's you!” he said delightedly. “Just yesterday I read another article of your husband's. For the first time I fully appreciated the depths he was exploring. I stand behind every word my wife has said about him.
His loss was not just yours, but Orientalism's. Wait and see. The Arabs will yet mourn for him, too.”

T
HE YOUNG WOMAN
perked up. She looked radiantly at Rivlin, as though asking him whether she should add the Jerusalem polymath's wing to his own.

Just then the white curtain on the window was moved cautiously aside. It was swarthy-headed Ephraim Akri, peering in to ascertain whether he had found the right patient. “What an idiot I am!” Rivlin apologized. “I talked you into coming to Jerusalem and forgot to tell you that Carlo has canceled his appearance in favor of a one-night stand in the emergency room.”

“I haven't canceled a thing,” the old scholar protested, thrilled to have yet another Orientalist come from afar to pay his respects. “Don't be nasty, Yochanan. You have no right to judge me until you know what it's like to be throttled to death at night by your own breathing.”

“Enough of that! Leave the man alone.” The rebuke was Hannah Tedeschi's. She had just arrived, waving the results of her husband's tests and his release form.

Although many years had passed since Ephraim Akri's days as a teaching assistant in Jerusalem, he remained nervous and obsequious in the presence of his old teacher—who, for his part, had nothing but admiration for the religious department head's elegantly polished Arabic. Now, sure that the keys to his promotion lay more in Jerusalem than in Haifa, Akri asked to see the test results. Using the doctor's royal “we,” he pronounced with relief:

“Thank God! We're on the borderline of danger, but not over it.”

An ironic smile crossed the round, childlike face of the released patient as he rose to dress. When he spoke to Akri, who was now searching for his old teacher's pants and shoes, it was tenderly. “It would be a pity, Ephraim, seeing you've come all the way from Haifa, if you missed the lecture tomorrow. Even if you don't agree with my conclusions, you'll enjoy hearing how I reach them. And don't worry
about a place to sleep, because we'll put you next to Rivlin. You can hold a midnight departmental meeting.”

Rivlin took Hannah aside.

“That's fine with me. By all means take Akri home with you. He'll drive you in his car. I'm going into town to do some walking and thinking. You needn't worry about me. If I'm not back by ten, lock the door and go to sleep. I'll either have thrown in the towel and gone back to my courthouse in Haifa or found somewhere else to sleep in Jerusalem. If I stay and Carlo doesn't do an encore in the emergency room tomorrow, I'll be at the lecture, listening to every word.”

And before she could argue or protest, he took his stiff old classmate, the translatoress of the Age of Ignorance, in his arms, gave her a hug and a kiss on each cheek, and bade her a conspiratorial adieu.

He made his way quickly past nurses and medical instruments, certain he could tell the healthy from the sick and locate the exit even without his bifocals. In his haste, he failed to notice the young widow, loath to be abandoned by her protector, running after him.

“Let me drive you,” she implored.

“I'll take the bus. Your children are waiting for you.” It came out sounding like a reprimand. “Just tell me what bus to take.”

“Screw the goddamn bus!” she swore. “Who needs it?”

He felt her anger melting his resistance. “But I'm going to the other end of town,” he said.

“Fine. I'll drive you.”

Strapped into his seatbelt beside her, he let her talk while they crossed the city from north to south. Anxious to leave her before reaching the hotel, he pointed to the corner of a small street halfway up the rise to Talpiyot and said, “This is where I get off. Thanks a million.”

Yet she wouldn't part with him. “Why on the corner? Tell me the house number. I'll bring you to the door.”

“It's a short street,” he demurred. “The number doesn't matter. I'm going to the old Agnon house. They've made it into a museum.”

“A museum?” She grabbed at the opportunity. “Why don't I have a look at it?”

Without waiting for an answer, she turned into the street, parked by the gray old building with its small, barred windows, and got out
to investigate. The museum, it appeared, was closed for the day. “Where to now?” she asked, as if she had become, like Rashid, his personal chauffeur. He gave her a hard look.

“Nowhere. I have a meeting right here. Now go home and stop worrying about me.”

Overcoming her curiosity to know whom he was meeting in such an unlikely place, she nevertheless insisted on a peek at the Nobel Prize winner's backyard. The gate was open. Quickly she disappeared down a narrow path that led past garbage cans and tanks of cooking gas to a hedge of dusty bushes. A restless woman, Rivlin thought. How had her husband ever managed to concentrate? After a few minutes passed and she did not return, he went worriedly to look for her.

The small yard was empty. A large, rough concrete wall, covered with water pipes, blocked one end of it. Apart from a few patches of old, melancholy grass, the ground was paved with plain, cracked floor tiles. Suissa's widow was seated on a low fence, smoking a cigarette that wreathed her in sad blue smoke. He gave her a friendly nod but kept his distance. Without his glasses, she looked none too distinct. He inquired if she knew who Agnon was.

“Of course. Who doesn't?”

Cautiously he asked, “Have you ever read anything of his?”

She exhaled a large, perfect smoke ring that floated slowly in his direction. Yes. She had read something or other. Everyone had to in school.

“What story?” he persisted, as though quizzing a student. “What was it called?”

“You're asking me to remember now?” she replied, bemused. Since her husband's death, she had forgotten more important things than Agnon's stories. Her husband had liked Agnon. He had read him a lot. He had once even told her he saw a connection between some of his stories and Arab folklore.

“Agnon and the Arabs?” Rivlin chuckled, struck by the dead scholar's boldness. “But how can that be?”

She was sure her husband had talked about it. Agnon and the Arabs. The Arabs were always on his mind.

A mixed-up woman, too, Rivlin thought, still careful not to come
too close to her. Her husband must also have been a little around the bend. But now, as if his homeless status were written all over him, she turned the tables and questioned him. Suppose the person he was supposed to meet didn't show up? Where would he go? Where would he eat and sleep? Dr. Hannah Tedeschi had enough on her hands without him.

Rivlin sought to reassure her. “Don't worry. No man is ever at his wit's end in the city he grew up in.”

She took a last, deep drag of smoke and ground out her cigarette with the heel of a flimsy shoe. Her earrings tinkled as she stepped toward him, her glance challenging.

“Just tell me one more thing before I go, Professor. But honestly. Do you agree with Professor Tedeschi and his wife that my husband was a genius? Was his death really anyone's loss but mine?”

The shadow of a distant cloud, floating eastward toward the desert, darkened the Orientalist's face as he explained that although his own field was Near Eastern history rather than literature or philology, he thought Suissa had been a serious and original scholar.

“Maybe too original for his own good,” she remarked bitterly, surprising Rivlin with the insight.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “But why ask me? Trust Hannah Tedeschi. She's a very well-read and critical person. It's hard to get her to say a good word about anyone. If she calls your husband a genius, believe her.”

Despairingly, without removing his hand from her shoulder, she opened the top button of her dress. Above the ivory crevice of her breasts was the tattoo of a face, no larger than a large coin.

She followed his glance, her mouth childishly open in a half-contrite, half-provocative smile.

“I'm confused by everything I hear about him. I'm so upset that I wasn't nicer to him that I took a picture of him and had it tattooed over my heart. You'd think his parents would have been happy that I wanted to remember him on my own body. But no, they hit the ceiling. And my little boy is mad at me, too.”

The Orientalist bent to examine the tattoo, which touched the swelling outline of a hidden breast. It was strange and frightening.
When he was done, Mrs. Suissa calmly rebuttoned her dress and restated her original appeal:

“That's why I'm asking you and others to think of me. Use your influence. Because even if you didn't know him, you're benefiting from his material. Please, get me out of this goddamned city. If you're afraid that I'll be a nuisance in Haifa, find work for me at some college up north. I don't care if it's in the boondocks. First I'll go by myself. Then I'll bring the kids. Don't worry about it. I'll never find a man with those hedgehogs hanging around.”

Was this, Rivlin wondered, the place he had wanted to abscond to? The ugly backyard of an author for whom the world's beauty existed only in language and human relationships? Confident that he was old and reputable enough to behave like his old mentor, who had embraced with the naturalness of a father this confused woman blown out of orbit by the bomb that killed her husband, he felt her slender body relax as he promised to do his best. Even had she meant to invite him to a different adventure, she kept within bounds and did nothing more to tempt him.