The Liberated Bride

by A. B. Yehoshua

  Netur Kontar’s father, the renowned hunter of his childhood, was now an octogenarian. Yet several nights ago, Netur told the Christian dentist, the old man had gone hunting in the hills near Megiddo—where, in the moonlight, he spied a creature like none he had ever seen before. It had the height and shape of a large lamb and the head and claws of a cat, and it moved by alternating wriggles and skips. Its round, green eyes, wild and roving, were catlike and lamblike at once. Instead of cat’s whiskers it had heavy muttonchops that gleamed pink in the light of the moon.

  Surprisingly, the old hunter told his son, this strange mongrel made no attempt to flee. Curious and frisky, it let out a sound that was neither a meow, nor a purr, nor a bleat, but rather a hoarse groan, and approached the old Druze in a friendly manner, nuzzling him and sniffing at his clothes as if they were on the best of terms. Yet as the old Druze was wondering how best to trap the animal and bring it back to his village, it seemed to guess his intentions and sprang from his arms, scratching his forehead and disappearing on the bushy hillside.

  The old man was determined to pursue the matter. Although being clawed by an unidentified beast required medical treatment, he spent the next day secretly making a large rope net, with which he returned to the scene of the encounter the following night. He set out a bowl of milk and a chopped fish, sprinkled them with fresh alfalfa, and hid in the branches of a tree to see what would happen.

  It was only toward dawn, as he crouched in the tree half-asleep and half-shaking from cold, that the mongrel appeared again. This time it resembled neither a cat nor a lamb, but a cross between a goat and a German shepherd. It sniffed at the food, consumed it all, and glanced fearlessly at the old hunter as he slipped slowly down from his tree. This time, too, it let itself be petted and even turned over on its back, enabling him to see that it was sexless—neither male, female, nor in between. “Well, then,” Netur Kontar’s father thought, his desire to show the strange animal off to his friends and family growing stronger by the minute, “this is a pure miracle, a one-time creation of God’s that will never reproduce itself.” Yet as soon as he spread the large net he had brought, the animal gave a great leap and—before bounding off toward the valley of Jezreel—nearly tore out the eye of the old Druze who had planned to catch it.

  Even now, however, the old hunter refused to give up. Despite his eighty years, he set out in pursuit of the fleeing beast, at first on foot, and then, seeing that it was following the road to Afula, in his old pickup truck. Near Mount Gilboa, not far from the Jordan, the mongrel vanished from sight.

  “And then?” the dentist asked. He had listened with no sign of emotion while disinfecting and arranging his tools.

  And then a week went by. The old hunter’s wounds were treated by a doctor, who gave him anti-tetanus shots. Fearing to be made fun of by his family, he said nothing about the beast that had clawed him and waited for his son to come home from the army. He was prepared to tell his story to him alone.

  The dentist felt concern for the Druze officer still sitting in the revolving chair, his eyes red from lack of sleep. Not only had he just had a tooth pulled, he had lost a tracker earlier in the week. “With all due respect to your father’s wounds,” said the Christian dentist, who had heard his share of Druze tall tales in his life, “don’t you think he might have imagined it?”

  Netur Kontar frowned. He knew his father well. He had learned to hunt from him. They had spent long nights together in the mountains. Although he questioned the mysterious lambcat’s sexlessness, he didn’t doubt that the beast existed. His father, though possibly confused, was not making it up. He had been hunting since the days of the British Mandate and had seen every animal there was, and if he said at his age that he had found a brand-new one, he was to be taken at his word. Indeed, it was the duty of every hunter to bring the lamb-cat alive to the Nature Authority, or else to the University of Haifa or even the government in Jerusalem, since it was sure to be named for its discoverer, thus bringing scientific glory to the Kontars and the entire Druze community.

  “But where do you suggest looking for it?” the dentist asked gently. He was beginning to wonder whether his old friend was in his right mind.

  “On Mount Gilboa. That’s where it was last seen.”

  “But where on Gilboa? It’s a big mountain.”

  “It’s not as big as all that.”

  “It’s also a nature reserve on which hunting is forbidden.”

  At this the Druze officer turned livid. Forbidden? To whom? To an officer like himself who risked his life day after day for the State of Israel? You might think he was proposing to kill the animal and eat it in revenge for its having clawed his father. All he wanted was to further scientific knowledge of the country’s wildlife.

  The dentist feared his friend might burst out crying. He would think about it, he said. Meanwhile, he urged Netur Kontar to wash up, change his clothes, and lie down in a little side room of the clinic.

  The Druze officer took the dentist’s advice and was soon fast asleep. Going to the telephone, Marwan called his fellow hunter Anton, the lawyer in Nazareth, to ask for his opinion of the story. The lawyer tended to agree that it was all the old man’s fantasy, taken seriously by his son out of filial loyalty and mental exhaustion from his long service in Lebanon. Still, he, Anton, would be happy to hunt the lambcat together with them tomorrow night. “Don’t worry, Marwan,” he laughed loudly. “Even if we’re arrested for poaching, I’ll file such an appeal with the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, arguing that we can’t be convicted of hunting a nonexistent animal, that the judges will pee in their pants. So why not spend a night on Gilboa protected by an army officer? While we’re looking for Netur’s animal, we may bag a boar or a nice juicy gazelle. In Nazareth we say, ‘The Arab harvests the Druze’s dreams.’”

  16.

  AND THEN YOU KNEW it. Calamity burst from you like a dream become a reality, and though you leaped barefoot in the dark to head it off, it was too late. Its swift shadow passed through the room you had prepared and merged outside the window with the certainty awaiting it, gathering speed along roads of awakening light, rolling as all calamities do to a place you had never imagined. The lamb fled to the hunter who dreamed a dream.

  Now they all say, “Enough, stop blaming yourself! It was Fate. Only God knows the reason, and God will make good on it.” Idiots! Go explain to them that Right is stronger than Fate and mightier than God because it alone promises sweet Justice.

  It found you outside the Civil Administration building, hopelessly stuffing your jacket pocket with forms as though it were a garbage pail for hope. “Take me with you!” it cried. “Take me from this Jerusalem slush. Even the Jew, though you led him here through a blizzard, can only go tsk and mumble vague promises. Take me with you, Rashid! If not now, when? I’m light and I’m clear and I won’t weigh you down. Enough of the hypocrisy of colored forms—forms for the government, and forms for the army, and forms for tired bureaucrats and officers with their games. ‘Yes, by all means, bring your sister and her children, just make sure they’re dying of some illness’—as if any illness could be fatal enough. Take me with you, O Arab of Israel, O displaced citizen who has his rightful place!”

  And so you threw away the forms, and Right jumped into your arms like a lion cub, emboldening you so that you asked for your full pay, and the shocked Professor laughed but forked up. And that night, when you reached the village, even the horse sensed that Right was with you and backed away from the gate. Samaher and Afifa turned over in their sleep, hearing Right pass down the hallway, and Grandmother lay with open eyes by Grandfather and smelled it as if sniffing fresh vegetables. “Careful, Rashid, my love,” she thought. “Don’t do anything crazy with this Right you’ve brought home.” Yes, Grandmother. The Law blows up in the lawmaker’s brain, and Right stabs the hearts of the righteous. But what else can I do when it and I have embraced and there is no turning back?

  That night you began clearing out your room for
Ra’uda and her children. You felt sad giving up the place that had been yours since childhood, the solitary room of your hopes and dreams, of your books and self-abuse and love for the young cousin you protected. It was hard to empty out the drawers, collect the books, and fumigate the same mattress the Jew slept on. But when you took down the colored memos and the pictures, baring ugly patches on the faded walls, you realized that childhood had gone on long enough and love had grown too entangled. It was time, O wise one, to choose exile.

  You spent the day painting and plastering. And in the evening, when all came to see, the village informer came too, for who knew what juicy bit of information the police might pay for? But Right was stronger than all payment, and even the old informer could only say “Well done” and depart. Your old enemy alone, Samaher’s husband, was gloomy and nervous and refused to believe that anything had changed. “O husband of my beloved cousin,” you should have said to him, “are you not glad the jinni is leaving?” But he knew that the return of Ra’uda and her children would only strengthen your foothold in this house, even though you had moved to the far end of the village.

  Was it he, in desperation, who informed on you that night?

  Yes, Calamity burst from you like a dream become a reality, and though you leaped barefoot in the dark to head it off, it was too late. Its swift shadow passed through the room you had prepared and merged outside the window with the certainty awaiting it. Over the hills, in the awakening light, it rolled as all calamities do to a place you had never imagined. O rash Rashid, how could you deliver the boy into the hands of poachers?”

  It was afternoon when you arrived in Zababdeh. The winter sun was mild. As on the night of Paradise, you crossed the fields and—noticed only by Calamity, which followed you—kicked down a section of fence. You suspected nothing, happy to see the children in the churchyard looking so nice in their clean clothes, dream-Israelis about to become real ones. Ra’uda was wearing the Jewish judge’s hand-me-downs in honor of her return. You gave her sick old Christian husband a package of your old clothes, too, and some books to pass the time with when his children were gone, and you went to say good-bye to the Abuna, who showered you with twice as many blessings as usual because he sensed that Calamity was on its way. After that you went for a last meal in the basement. The Christian sat silently at the head of the table, eating his soup from his army mess tin in a mood of great fear, as if Calamity were directly overhead. You alone were not frightened or confused. You were as pleased with yourself as if Right and you were now bedfellows.

  At three that afternoon you folded the backseats of the minibus, loaded the bundles and kitchenware, and hid the children among them. Ra’uda sat up front with the baby. Ismail and Rasheed put on their big glasses, so that whoever had seen them in the Jewish state would recognize them. Their father gave them some farewell gifts, and they parted with a few words. It had clouded over and begun to drizzle, and you were in a hurry to get back to Israel before dark. The Palestinian police in Kabatiyeh and Jenin knew you were on your way. “Good luck,” they said to your sister. “We too will return some day.” But cutting across the field, you saw a new checkpoint that hadn’t been there before and two soldiers waiting for something, perhaps for you—and you panicked. In fact, you did the worst possible thing. You stopped the car and turned around. And Calamity thought: if one checkpoint with two soldiers can make this Israeli Arab turn and run, how much Right can he have?

  The report of the vehicle that had turned back spread like an ink stain. More and more checkpoints went up. You headed east toward Mount Gilboa and reached it at twilight, hoping to find an unguarded path, only to run into a roadblock there too. And yet Calamity was still preventable. The three soldiers, all middle-aged reservists, had no idea what to look for. They checked the bundles and suitcases, searched for explosives and drugs, and lined the children up in a row and demanded to know the history of each. You kept calm. The children, you explained quietly, were all little Israelis who had been visiting their cousins in the Palestinian Authority with their mother. Now they missed their village in the Galilee, which was why it was wrong to detain them, because they were hungry and wanted their Israeli supper.

  The dark Arab’s light manner did not entirely assuage the Jews, who failed to grasp what so many ID-less little children were doing at the foot of Mount Gilboa at dusk on a winter day. And yet their commander, a sergeant in his forties whose hair was streaked with gray, was not looking for problems. He had a family of his own, which was sitting down to its supper now, too, and he felt sorry for the children, especially for the black baby sleeping in the arms of its curiously well-dressed mother. He was ready to turn a blind eye—but only one. He would let them all through except for the two older boys, the ones with the funny glasses, who would have to wait for their ID’s.

  And then, Rashid, you made your second mistake. You should have noticed the fear in little Rasheed’s coal black eyes and insisted, “Hold on there, my fellow citizens. I have too much Right on my side to compromise. I’m not going anywhere without the two boys. Their grandmother is waiting for them too.”

  But you didn’t. You were rattled and started to squirm, afraid the sergeant would open his blind eye too, and you turned tail and headed for the village of Arabuna to find a place for the two boys for the night. Bolts of lightning sliced the air, and you heard a boom of thunder and thought, “I have to hurry,” and you knocked on the door of the first house. The old woman who opened it looked as ancient and used as a ghost from Turkish times. And then you made your third mistake. Instead of saying, “Sorry, I’ve come to the wrong house,” you appointed her temporary grandmother in charge of the two returnees. You even gave her twenty shekels for milk and eggs and told the Dybbuk’s two candle bearers to wait for you, making the younger one promise to obey the older and the older one swear to look after the younger, so that Grandmother Ghost, who had by now awakened Grandfather Ghost to help her, would not be annoyed with them.

  And now, sitting day and night by the boy’s bed, you wonder how Calamity took over that night and Right stabbed you in the back. Because Rasheed freaked when you didn’t come back. He didn’t even take off his funny glasses, because he was sure you would return in a minute to bring him to Israel. He must have thought you loved him best of all because his name was just like yours. And you did, because he was the most darling. But when the two old folks gave him his supper, he began to cry and scream at the old lady that he didn’t want to be left behind in Palestine. And even then she might have calmed him if only Ismail, a moody child in the best of times, hadn’t slapped him and made him cry even harder for his mother. And at night, when they were all asleep with the windows shut and the door locked, he wriggled through a transom in the bathroom. Although at first he meant to wait for his uncle, he was lured on by the lights of Israel in the distance. He was sure that once he reached them, no one would ask him for any ID. He didn’t know that Fate prowled on the mountain, disguised as the hunter whose gun would fill out the forms you had thrown away.

  17.

  ’CAUSE WHY NOT TRY? The lights are bright and near and I can reach them. Why be afraid of the soldiers if my mother was born there and can speak their language? The village is called Mansura. We were there twice. Grandmother gave us candies and told us to come back. What made Mamma leave? She shouldn’t have done it for Babba. He’s sick. Let him die in Jenin, where he was born.

  But why does this path keep going up? I thought it was just a little mountain. Now I see it’s a big one. And there’s nothing on it. I should have slept in that old witch’s house. But I made a mistake and I can’t go back.

  THE DRUZE OFFICER SLEPT all day and all night in his friend’s dental clinic, woozy from the painkillers he took for his pulled tooth. At dawn he arose, amazed and contentedly refreshed by his long slumber. He phoned headquarters to make sure his leave had not been canceled, went to his jeep, which was stocked with six battle rations, two canteens of fresh milk mixed with grated cheese
, and a carton of stale bread, and took out a military map of Mount Gilboa. Spreading it on the floor of the clinic, he studied it carefully. Then he picked out a route and some good spots for hunters’ blinds, committed them to his photographic memory, and folded and put away the map. The dentist, none of his patients protesting, called off his appointments for the next day; the lawyer postponed all his meetings, giving each client a different excuse; and the two Christian hunters sat down to clean and oil their guns in preparation for the Druze extravaganza.

  A light rain was falling in the glare of their headlights as they set out. They stopped in a field, to pick some alfalfa for the lamb half of the lambcat, and arrived at evening, fully armed and bundled in their windbreakers, at Netur Kontar’s father’s house. There, over a cozy supper, the old hunter described what he had seen. The main thing, he warned, was to catch the animal alive. This was important not only for science, but also for tourism, especially if—though the task seemed impossible—the sexless lambcat could be made to propagate.

  It was nine o’clock when the three hunters returned to their jeep and set out for Mount Gilboa. Parking by a spring chosen by the Druze officer, they spread the alfalfa on a rock, poured the milk and cheese into a bowl, and added a fish head given them by Netur’s mother, who knew nothing of the strange beast that had frolicked with her husband. The Druze positioned his two friends and climbed a tree that looked down on the bait. In the next few hours the bait drew partridges, conies, and even a wary young fox, who left nothing for the lambcat. The rain beat down harder.