The Liberated Bride

by A. B. Yehoshua

  “Le’min?” There was laughter. “‘Njanet? Ahsan shi ma-nihkish ishi, la tahdir u’la il-Jaza’ir, hata ma-yurkubhinish afkar min il-Shaitan, la-samahallah.”‡

  But the academic brain, its gray curls now tilted at a downward angle, had no interest in the future, only in the past.

  24.

  THE LEBANESE NUN now made her entrance. She was dressed, not in angelic white, but in a plain brown habit, in whose deep pockets she kept her hands. Young and slim, she wore simple sandals and a small silver cross that hung down on a long chain to her bosom, which looked ample beneath the heavy cloth that covered it. Her face was framed by a white clerical collar and a wimple, from which a few strands of hair had escaped. Pale and delicate, she peered tensely at the company that rose in her honor. It was not a face that asked to be patronized. The Orientalist, intrigued by the hush that greeted her, which brought the Abuna hurrying excitedly to her side, put down his fork and got to his feet, too.

  The nun hesitated at the sight of him. A slight bob of her head disclosed her concern that contact with a Jew, especially before a performance, might compromise the mission she had been sent on by her convent in Baalbek—namely, to spend the month of Ramadan in Jordan and the suffering Holy Land firming up the spirits of the diminishing faithful by means of the old Byzantine liturgy.

  Muslims, too, had come to hear the voice of Paradise dwelling within the nun’s habit. Not that a Muslim had any reason to be dissatisfied with life on earth, where Islam was doing well. Yet there were believers in Allah, worried that the Palestinian autonomy might end up as a stale fantasy rather than as a viable state, who preferred keeping one eye on the higher spheres. And since the Abuna did not wish to arouse unwanted religious tensions in broad daylight, he had invited the Muslim audience for a midnight concert because that could not be confused with an actual mass and—even more important—because the Lebanese’s fainting fits were best kept in the dark.

  As for the Jews, they had grabbed more than their share of the terrestrial Eden from the Arabs, the celestial one was not for them, and they were represented tonight by a surprise Orientalist. Naturally enough, therefore, the singing nun, now carefully sipping a beverage spiked with honey, averted her pretty eyes from a man who might cast an evil spell on her vocal cords.

  Might he? Yet even if it was the witching hour, Rivlin was feeling quite rational. Indeed, after an adventurous day spent chasing the chimerical spark of inspiration in the Land of Israel and Palestine without a loving but critical wife to set him bounds, he was considering demanding a retroactive research grant. And in any case, the real wizard, who was now entering the teacher’s room and asking Rivlin with fatherly solicitude how he was, was his sable-skinned driver, whose protean identities also numbered enamored cousin, faithful brother, many-armed messenger, swift kicker of fences, and multidirectional crosser of borders.

  Everyone knew Rashid and was in thrall to his enchantments. He, for his part, having eaten his fill of the childhood dishes cooked for him by his sister, was now ready for seconds from the Christians. “Il-kenisi ’am-tint’li, ya uhti,” he gently told the nun. “Aju min Kabatiyeh u’min Tubas, hatta fi sharkas min Dir el-Balad, tarkin en-nom min shanik, kulhom bistanu il-leili l’al-mt’a ’l-k’biri.”*

  The nun smiled wearily at the Arab from Israel who had room in his heart for everyone. She shut her eyes and shook her head back and forth like a baby lulling itself to sleep.

  “Inshallah . . .”* Her voice, heard by the Orientalist for the first time, had a striking spiritual presence. “Inshallah . . .”

  The diners began hurriedly rising from the table to find a place in the church. Taking his passenger aside, Rashid whispered:

  “Relax, Professor. You have a reserved seat. You’ll sit with the Abuna and the notables. The one thing you need to know,” he warned, “is that the church has no bathroom and this nun can sing nonstop for an hour or more. You don’t want to miss any of it, because she’s top-notch, and the aisles will be so packed that you’ll never get back in if you’ve gone out. So if you think you might have to . . . I suggest you take my advice . . . there’s a very clean bathroom right here . . .”

  Rivlin thought of being led by Samaher up the narrow lane to her house on the night of her wedding. For a moment, his spirits flagged. He would have liked to go home, climb into bed, and pull a familiar blanket over him. But how was it possible, not only to miss the Song of Paradise, but to ask Rashid to drive him back to Haifa now? And on the other hand, was not this the test of Afifa’s promise that his driver would take him anywhere, anytime?

  The driver himself was engaged in gently pushing Rivlin into a bathroom that locked with a key. Unable to find the light switch, he made do with the unveiled moon, which illuminated a large bathtub whose claw-footed legs, like the Devil’s cast in lead, reminded him of his parents’ old-fashioned tub in Jerusalem.

  He felt dizzy. As though in a dream, he urinated silently and briefly, wet his face and hair with cold water from the tap, and leaned halfway through the open window, outside of which was hanging some freshly laundered underwear, to take a deep breath of the Palestinian countryside. The door handle rattled. Opening it to make way for the next in line, he saw the Lebanese singer standing in the dark corridor. He bowed his head in homage, feeling himself redden as he said:

  “Shaifi sayid’ti, hatta il-yahudi biddo yi’raf shu b’ghanu il-leili b’il-janeh.”*

  Laughing in her strong, sure voice, she dismissed, with a charming gesture, the Jew and Paradise equally.

  “Il-janeh . . . il-janeh . . . kulhon honi bi’Filastin b’balghu, majanin shwoy. Min hakalhon inno b’il-janeh ’am b’ghanu?”†

  The professor laughed, too. Emboldened by her friendly tone, he begged to differ. Why should there not be song in Paradise, he said, and inquired in what language she would be singing that night and whether it would be possible to obtain the words.

  The nun answered that she planned to sing the Easter Mass in Greek and Arabic.

  “Hasan jiddan,” he responded enthusiastically. “Ana ’l-an bash’ur b’il-mut’a abl-ma tiji alay.”‡

  Her pale face seemed to twitch in the moonlight, her remote glance turning to an ironic compassion. Extending a finger toward the Jew’s heart, she said in French, as though embarking with him for new territory:

  “Mais vous n’êtes pas trop fatigué, Monsieur?”§

  25.

  EVEN THOUGH, GIVEN the history of the previous twenty-four hours, he should have been not only tired but thoroughly wiped out, he did not doze off, even once, the way he did during Philharmonic concerts. Deeply moved, he sat beside the Abuna, listening intently while holding some creased pages that contained the Arabic program notes and the text of the Mass. His front-row seat, which offered no visual distractions, forced him to keep his eyes on the singer, who stood erect in her habit and sandals on a step near the altar, accompanied by four white-haired men. It wasn’t clear whether she had brought them from Beirut or assembled them locally.

  Her rich coloratura voice showed the influence of the Arab scale, its vibrato tendencies kept in check by a religious austerity. Though distilled in her to an abstract emotion, the soulfulness of Arab vocalism retained its erotic sweetness. Despite the monotony of the Byzantine chants, she gave their transitions a dramatic power, her strong, sure voice rising to stirring heights. The accompanists, standing behind her by a flickering candle, backed her with a steady, unobtrusive drone that reminded Rivlin of the hum of a generator or the rush of water past a boat. At times, as though yielding to the current, she let her voice drop and joined them, or at other times fell mute during the choir’s recitative. Then would come a moment of silence, while she considered what had been said before framing her reply.

  Rivlin made no attempt to comprehend the Greek. But the nun’s soft Arabic sent a shiver through him, as though an ancient matriarch were speaking to him. Under his breath, he translated the words to the chant for Holy Thursday.

  �
�Include me, O Son of God, in this mystic dinner with its holy bread. For I will not reveal your secret to the enemy, nor give you the kiss of Judas. Like the thief on the cross, O Lord, I beseech you to remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

  The spiritual uplift often noticeable in performing musicians shone redoubled in her face. Yet her singing was no more a religious rite than it was a concert to be greeted by applause. Halfway between prayer and art, it belonged to the domain of memory or of hope for an uncertain redemption.

  “Many of the Muslims have come to see her faint,” the Abuna whispered to Rivlin in English, perhaps to prevent those near them from understanding. “But she won’t tonight. She’s already told me.”

  Proud that so many believers in Allah had come to his church to pass the time between the post- and the prefast meals, he was also a bit apprehensive of them.

  The Jew turned cautiously around in his seat. How could he tell the Muslims from the Christians? Perhaps Rashid, standing in the aisle behind his somber sister, could enlighten him. But his driver merely flashed him a V sign, as if to say, Admit that I’ve kept my word.

  “But why won’t she?” Rivlin whispered, disappointed.

  “You embarrass her.”

  “Me?”

  “That’s a fact, Professor. She’s a real Lebanese, not a Palestinian refugee. She comes from way up in the mountains and isn’t used to crying or fainting in front of Jews.”

  The Abuna laid a hand on the Orientalist’s knee to comfort him, or perhaps to end their conversation, since the singer, who was looking straight at them, had a note of annoyance in her voice.

  Rivlin’s cheeks burned. It piqued him to think of the nun being embarrassed to faint in front of him. She was now singing about the sacrament of the washing of feet. Would she let him wash hers—which, glimpsed through the straps of her sandals, were carnally petite? Or would he first have to become a Christian?

  26.

  THE EXCITEMENT IN the church was building. The candle in its tall candelabrum had begun to sputter. As the ancient Byzantine chants quavered more and more with Arab grace notes, the mostly male audience swayed and joined the droning chorus. The little sailboat had entered stormy waters.

  The Abuna, his moon-shaped face bright with satisfaction, was unfazed. Removing his eyeglasses and rubbing his eyes, he let half a cross-eyed squint roam the throng of rhapsodic Muslims while the other half winked at the Christians. Although the upsurge of emotion threatened to swamp the church’s sanctity, frowning upon it too openly might strike the Muslim notables in the front row as Christian impudence. One of them, a bearded young imam, was staring at the Lebanese with burning eyes, as if plotting to steal her voice at the concert’s end.

  “T’safrani, ya ruhi, t’safrani, ya idisi ayuha il-batul. . . . ”*

  The murmur was Plato’s. Alarmed by the sharp tilt of the sacred toward the profane, he prayed for a dignified fainting fit that might calm the clamorous crowd and bring the evening to a peaceful end.

  The nun, however, showed no sign of swooning. Determined to stay conscious for the Jew, she confidently let her unclouded coloratura plunge to more masculine depths. A note of grief crept into the chant for Palm Sunday:

  “I inspect the bridal chamber, O Lord. But although it is adorned in glory, I have no garment with which to enter it. I beg you, lave the garment of my soul, enlighten me, save me.”

  Once more he felt a lump in his throat, as on the night of the biblical drama in Tel Aviv. Was he about to succumb, in this godforsaken church near Jenin, to the same strange need to cry that had overcome him while watching the thrice-repeated dance of Jephthah’s daughter? And there was no one here, not even Rashid, who could calm him with the wisdom of his wife.

  He lifted the program to his eyes to hide them. What was it that moved him almost to tears? There were no human conflicts or relationships here, only the bliss of an ancient Jew’s moonstruck disciples discovering he was gone from the grave. Yet the magical voice of the Lebanese nun soared with such power that he turned in wonder to the Abuna, who nodded with approval at the Jew’s damp eyes. It’s perfectly natural, Professor, he might have said had he been inclined to say anything at all. Cry, weep all you want. Such is the Song of Paradise. Sometimes it’s in Arabic, sometimes in Greek. Inshallah, the day will come when you Jews, too, if only you show some magnanimity, will sing it in Hebrew.

  But Rivlin did not want to look foolish in front of these nocturnal Arabs. This was not the opera house in Tel Aviv, after all, in whose great auditorium a tear could be concealed, but a simple village church, brightly lit to keep the Muslims from complaining that the Christians were stealing their souls in the darkness. Resolved to keep his tears to himself, he turned his glistening eyes to the nun, whose robe was girded by a rope belt. With a long, piercing cry she strove to subdue an audience that was increasingly confusing the Passion of God with the passion of Um Kulthoum. Rivlin feared that his night out in the Palestinian Authority was ending in another of his infatuations. He leafed through the program notes with their thumbnail biography.

  “Sister Suheir Sharuan was born in Dir el-Amhar, Lebanon. She has degrees in religion and musicology, with a specialization in Oriental and Occidental song, from St. Joseph’s University in Beirut and the Université de Saint-Esprit in France. For the past ten years she has studied Byzantine and Gregorian chant in Lebanon and Athens and has performed with choral accompaniment in the Church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre in Paris. A member of the Basilite Order, she spends summers on evangelical missions to the Christian communities of Jordan and Palestine.”

  27.

  GET A GRIP on yourself. You’re not the only one awake on this long night. So is your eldest son, studying for another pointless exam behind his heavy green door. So, perhaps, is your youngest son, patrolling his mountain fastness to make sure that the signs of war and peace are read correctly. Even your wife—who knows?—may be tossing and turning. You have nothing to complain about. The spark of inspiration, though still not trapped, is flickering closer, and you have heard the Arabs’ Song of Paradise and even passed the test of their acceptance—no small achievement for a pedantic Jewish Orientalist.

  And now, in the courtyard of the little church, you are surrounded not only by the Abuna and his flock, but by young Muslims who, having heard the music of the Christians, wish to know what the Jews have to say. Why draw boundaries in the first place, they want to know, if the peace they bring is an illusion?

  As you try to reassure them, you are approached by Rashid’s sister. Before you know it she is on her knees, begging you in Bialik’s Hebrew to use your Jewish influence to help her retrieve her ID card so that she can return to her native village.

  “Bas ma’a l-ulad, mish bidunhum,”* her brother warns her, struggling to pull her to her feet.

  But the dark woman strikes her head despairingly and insists:

  “Even without them!”

  “Abadan la!” Her brother loses his patience. “Kif b’tihki, ya majnuna. Bifsadu aleiki!”*

  He yanks her up violently, then regrets losing his temper, embraces her, and compassionately leads her back to her basement at the rear of the church.

  The soft, autonomous Palestinian moon vanishes in nebulous folds. A fresh night breeze cools the blood warmed by Paradise. The door is locked on the darkened church. In the parking lot reclaimed by the murky night, Christians and Muslims crowd around the nun, whose bell-like voice has not a trace of faintness. You, too, would like to thank her for a moving experience, but you don’t wish to be pushy, a Jewish stranger deep in a long-destroyed kingdom of vanished Israelite tribes. And so while you wait for Rashid to return, you wander off to a fence with a view of the Vale of Issachar. A lone car heads down a dirt road toward a Bedouin encampment, beside which two tall horses graze in profound tranquillity.

  The old anxiety has you in its clutches.

  Stop! Give it up, you stubborn fool.

  Whether he knows or not, understands or not,
is stuck or not, protests or not—let him be. Leave him alone. It isn’t you who will release him from the net of lost love he is thrashing in.

  Yes, Hagit. You knew better than I did.

  Set him free even in your thoughts.

  See how far I’ve come tonight to free you, Ofer.

  Will you laugh at this story of your father’s?

  Are we, too, knowingly or not, to blame for the breakup of your marriage?

  Five years. What are you protecting yourself from, my son? The disgrace? The humiliation? The error? The betrayal? Look around you. It’s a vulgar, shameless striptease of a world that can’t wait to confess what never happened even in fantasy.

  And you won’t give an inch.

  Stop! Let him be. . . .

  For the thousandth time. . . .

  How often did you have to be told? He’s his own person. Let him live his own life. Set him free.

  Give it up.

  You too, Galya. You too, O bride of pain. Set him free, lost bride. . . .

  There. It’s done. I swear by the stars above. No more imaginary illnesses. No more visits to the hotel. No more inquiries, questions, lies. But you, too, my son, for the love of God, stop being so sad and depressed. I don’t want you, wild and wretched, in my dreams anymore.

  28.

  RETURNING TO THE basement, Rivlin was surprised to find the metal door locked. Rashid had vanished into thin air.

  He hurried back to the courtyard of the church. It was empty. The Abuna and the nun were gone. Two sole figures, young men with long hair, remained by the gate. They supposed the Israeli Arab must have gone to see the skit about the Jewish kibblelist.

  “About who?”

  “The kibblelist. Rabbi Whatsis, that holy man of yours who wears a fez. The one without teeth who’s always laughing. Here in the village, we like to laugh with him.”