“Ill? With what?”
“Never mind. Just don’t tell anyone. Not everything has to be public knowledge. That’s something we Jews need to learn. Life needs its little secrets. Just see to it that Samaher is warned. There’ll be no more postponements or excuses. Let her do what I’ve asked within a few weeks and she’ll get her grade. And please — let’s leave her mother, father, and grandmother out of this.”
26.
18.4.98
Ofer,
It would have been the right thing not to reply. Not only so as not to violate our “honorable silence,” as you call it, but also because a condolence letter with poisoned arrows in it doesn’t deserve a reply. You’ve forced me to violate, not only our silence, but the sacred vow of fidelity made to my husband, since I am concealing this letter from him.
And in the dark night of my sorrow, which knows no consolation, nothing but longing for a beloved man (and only a man), you still won’t give an inch. Again you allude to your unspeakable fantasies.
(To think I once loved you so much.)
Your father, with whom I genuinely sympathize, is still tormented by our failed marriage. He believes that you don’t understand what happened.
You?
You don’t understand?
I’ve conveyed your condolences to my mother. She thanks you. For some reason, she still grieves for you.
Please, don’t answer this letter. Let’s return to our old silence. It may not be so honorable anymore, but it’s just as important.
Galya
27.
RIGHT UP TO the day of the wedding, Ofra, fearful of being left alone with Yo’el’s family, tried persuading her sister and brother-in-law to join them. Yet having had the foresight to purchase two tickets for a biblical play in Tel Aviv that evening, Rivlin was not going to let even an exemption from gift-giving force him to attend a wedding he didn’t have to be at. Hagit’s efforts to sway him, born of sympathy for her sister’s plight, only led him to deliver a harangue. What did Ofra want of him? She spent her life traipsing around the world like a middle-aged princess, with no worries or family duties. It would not be so terrible if for once she had to meet her obligations unassisted. At most, he was prepared to drive her and Yo’el to the wedding. Perhaps even to drive them back, although this was already going too far.
Now, nearing Nature’s Corner, he found himself growing gloomier by the minute as his car followed the lanterns waved in the fading light by the young parking attendants whose job it was, before changing costumes and turning into waiters, to divert him from the highway onto a dirt approach road that looped through fields of crackling stubble. He stepped on the brakes as soon as he reached the parking lot — whence, pounded by music that would grow more savage as the night progressed, a stream of elegantly dressed guests flowed toward a green buckboard propped decoratively on its shaft as though on loan from an old Western, beyond which a bridal gown and bright glasses of wine glimmered through the branches of trees. This was as far as he went. Putting his foot down, he refused even to congratulate or greet the parents of the bride, fearing to encourage the illusion that he might stay. Although his sister-in-law, wearing the dress he had failed to talk her out of, delayed their parting as if still hoping to change his mind, he swung the car determinedly around, wove through a phalanx of arriving vehicles, and sped back to the highway and their biblical drama.
The audience entered slowly, advancing toward a stage in the round, on which they were invited to sit as though part of the performance. To heavy but clear-toned music, twelve young actors and actresses dressed in black took their places, microphones attached to them so that they might speak, or even whisper, the words of the ancient text naturally and from the right inner place.
28.
My heart is sore pained within me,
And the terrors of death are fallen on me.
Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me,
And horror hath overwhelmed me.
And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove!
For then would I fly away and be at rest.
Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness.
Selah.
ALTHOUGH RIVLIN HAD no idea how the play would develop or what was in store for them, the somber prologue from the Book of Psalms, cast into the black space of the auditorium, made him sit up. He smiled encouragingly at his wife. She nodded back, secretly pleased to have been rescued from a wedding that, even if it did not arouse her envy, was eminently forgoable.
Two actors began to recite? declaim? read? speak? act? passages from the story of the Creation. In the day the Lord God made the earth and the heavens…. The story of Cain and Abel… This is the book of the generations of Adam. The grand biblical language soared with contemporary freshness. Though hardly a sentence or word did not come from Scripture, the female director had taken liberties, rearranging and editing the text for the benefit of the spectators, who sat in the dark with quiet yet skeptical attention, slowly sipping old wine, its taste unfamiliar to many of them, from a new bottle.
And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos. And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.
And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan. And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters.
Emerging from a far corner, a solemn young actress enumerated the generations while crossing the stage in a long, slow diagonal, her floating gait trancelike. In the middle of her path several young men lay twisted on the floor, tormented by the venerable ages of the endlessly begetting ancients. Slowly, the tedious list of names and numbers, accompanied by a distant peal of bells, took on meaning and drama, perhaps because of the way the young actress enigmatically paused before each repetition of “… and daughters.”
Rivlin sought to catch his wife’s eye, to convey that he liked the performance so far and hoped it would continue to hold his interest. But Hagit’s gaze was riveted to the stage — to which he, too, turned intently back so as not to miss a movement or a word. He admired the director for seeking to breathe life into forgotten and unpoetic biblical texts that were tediously plain: dry laws, harsh commandments, blessings, warnings, curses, lists of clean and unclean animals — all backed by electronic music and made amusingly real by sprightly actors in striking costumes.
Now, as two shaven-headed actors leaned over a large table, discussing between them, with the cackling pedantry of old men, ancient sexual prohibitions both commonsensical and bizarre, a tall, striking actress with golden curls falling to her shoulders took out a small white handkerchef and alternately brandished and tore at it with dancelike, repetitive movements as though it were a flag of protest or surrender. With sorrowful irony she joined the exchange, reciting the mordant laws, intricate and outrageous, meted out by the biblical legislator to the virgin raped by a stranger in a city or a field: