“Of course not.” He moved closer to her, feeling pity. “On the contrary. Since his death, Hannah, you’re even more lovely.”
She flushed, hotly. “Don’t be silly. The things you say! I feel so lost…”
Her eyes filled with tears.
Yet not even her tears were an incentive to come to the morning session. Although one of the two Ottomanists managed to make it through the snow, he had to speak to empty seats. If not for Suissa senior, who — his fedora covered in plastic against the rain — turned up at the last minute as a gesture to his son’s admirers, there wouldn’t have been a dozen people in the hall. The dean of the liberal-arts school, an art historian who couldn’t have cared less about the Turks, delivered a few welcoming words, shut his eyes, and fell asleep, chin in hand, on the podium. Fortunately, the secretary of the Near Eastern Studies department, who had always been fond of Tedeschi and his witticisms, handed the dean a note summoning him to an imaginary meeting, thus sparing him further embarrassment.
Rivlin sat through the lecture with a sense of tedium. It didn’t help that the lecturer let himself be sidetracked from the complex subject of Turkish-Arab relations to a discussion of Kurdish nationalism and its “historic,” as opposed to merely “emotional,” roots.
“Be careful, children,” his mother would tell Rivlin and his sister on snowy days in Jerusalem, on which she had made them stay home. “Snow lulls the brain to sleep.” So that they might enjoy the snow anyway, she would send their father out to fetch a bowl of it, which they were allowed to play with, under her supervision, in the bathroom. Now, feeling his eyelids droop, he wondered whether she hadn’t been right. Others around him were yielding to the same effect. Although the lecturer, a delicate homosexual once labeled by Tedeschi “the True Turk,” was struggling valiantly, in the extra time provided by the absence of the second speaker, to return to his original theme, the Kurds, whose muddled identity was typical of the minorities of the Ottoman Empire, kept distracting him. Now and then, in a concession to the occasion, he mentioned some old idea or forgotten publication of Tedeschi’s. But the audience was too sleepy and too small for it to matter.
Rivlin, despite his sympathy for the Kurds, could barely keep awake. He went on repeating his mother’s words like a mantra. And indeed the snow soon stopped falling, and a first patch of blue gleamed through the windows. Slowly the sky grew calm and clear, just as he had predicted in the name of his ancestors. He nodded encouragingly at Hannah, as if to say, “See, things are looking up.” By evening, he was sure, there would be a full house.
The rear door of the auditorium opened. Rivlin turned around to see who was there. It was his trusty driver, the dybbuk.
10.
ALTHOUGH THE CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS had given the lecturers meal tickets for the cafeteria, Rivlin excused himself.
“I’ve been up since early morning, and all this snow has made me sleepy,” he told the disappointed translatoress. “I need some fresh air, not more academic chitchat. You’ll manage without me. I’ll give my ticket to Mr. Suissa.”
And going over to the bereaved father, he clasped his hand with his own two and said, “It’s wonderful to see you following in your son’s footsteps.” Suissa accepted the voucher gladly. “How is your daughter-in-law?” Rivlin asked. “She’s left Jerusalem and gone to look for work in Tel Aviv,” the father of the murdered scholar replied. “And the children?” “For the time being, they’re with us.” “I thought she and you were getting along better.” “I thought so, too,” Suissa said sadly. “But there’s nothing to be done about it. She’s a young woman in a hurry to live.” “How old is she?” Rivlin asked, blushing as if he had committed an indiscretion. “Twenty-five next spring.” “That’s all?” He had thought she was older. “With all she’s been through,” he said, “you wouldn’t think she would be hurrying anywhere.”
In the garden of the Hendels’ hotel, the snow lay fresh and virginal on the paths and formed frisky little snow cubs of the bushes. Rivlin walked ahead, with Rashid following carefully behind him. Stopping to inspect a fringe of ice gaily trimming the old gazebo, he yielded to temptation and mentioned the wedding. Only six years ago, he told his driver, they had all been standing here. And as if to make up for the disappointment of the Civil Administration Bureau, he related the story of the unexpected and difficult divorce.
“They were only married a year?” Rashid asked, a sardonic glint in his coal black eyes.
“To this day, I don’t understand what happened.”
“It must be painful for you to come back here.”
“It is. But real knowledge, Rashid, is born of pain.”
“And what do you know?”
“That’s just it. I can’t get an explanation from anyone. Not even from Fu’ad, who knew exactly what went on here.”
“Fu’ad?” Rashid read his mind. “Hada ma bihki k’tir. Hada arabi kadim, b’tist’hi k’tir.’”*
The Orientalist smiled. “B’tist’hi min sham eysh?”†
“B’tist’hi yehin el-yahud.”‡
“But why should anyone be offended?”
“There’s no reason. Bas ahyanan, b’kulu andna, el-yahud biz’alu min el-hakikah ili bifatshu aleiha b’nafsehum.”§
A few minutes later, the old-fashioned maître d’ was surprised to find the two uninvited Israelis in his dining room, standing in line among the Christian pilgrims at the buffet with large, empty plates in their hands.
“What are you doing here in all this snow?” he asked, startled to see them. “U’sayara ma t’zahlakatesh”?*
“Ahadna jeeb bit’harak min el-amam,” the Arab explained to the Arab, “u’safarna mitl ala zibdeh.”†
But though the Jerusalem snow was child’s play for the pious Christians from the American Midwest, it had blocked roads and canceled tours all over Israel, so that, as on Rivlin’s previous visit, the dining room was full up. Rather than wait for Fu’ad to apologize, he filled his plate and headed for the smoking lounge favored by Mr. Hendel, whose death now seemed to belong to the distant past.
“You see,” he said as Rashid sat down next him, “I’m still family despite my son’s divorce.”
The unexpected crush kept Fu’ad running back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room. Still, he found a few minutes to drop by the lounge and even to smoke a cigar, reminisce about the eventful trip to Ramallah, and ask about the scholar who had died.
“As a matter of fact,” Rivlin said, “I’m in Jerusalem on a snowy day like this is for a memorial conference in his honor.”
“Don’t tell me it’s already been a month!” the maître d’ marveled. It seemed to him just a few days. Sometimes, falling asleep at night, he still thought of the face he had covered with a sheet. “And how is the widow?” he asked. “What a poet!”
Rivlin clucked with sympathy. “She’s coming around slowly,” he said.
The maître d’ asked to be remembered to her. He could still hear her declaiming Al-Hallaj’s lines—My soul is his, his is mine. Who has heard of the body In which two souls combine? — as if they had been written in Hebrew. He was so moved by the great Sufi poet that he had even tried writing a few mystical poems of his own. But who had patience for such things? “Ya’ani, el-hawa ma bikdar yimsikha.”‡