Had the elections of 1991, held during a conflict between a brutal, disorganized army and furious fundamentalists, led to a new outbreak of atavism? Were its new, self-fantasized amins taking back the power they had lost one hundred years before? Were the vicious bands formed by them none other than the old jama’at, sallying forth once more to judge and punish at night?
1.
ONCE THE MERRY émigrés, having filled their suitcases with the Israeli pharmaceuticals they always took back with them, were gone, Rivlin wondered whether his fears of their visit had not been exaggerated. It had passed slowly, yet in a tender Chekhovian ambience, full of mellow conversations over glasses of tea on the large terrace, and in leisurely walks on the beach. Although being exiled from his study to the university had not unstuck his blocked book, perhaps some wisdom had rubbed off on it from all the computers humming on the top floors of the tower overlooking the Galilee — from which his own computer, having sat quietly for two weeks, had been carried home again wrapped in soft towels. As he watched it light up against the background of his mother’s ghost playing solitaire on her terrace, the breeze teasing the Carmel seemed to whisper, “Be of good cheer! Steady at the keyboard!” To bolster his and the computer’s spirits, he made the words “Be of Good Cheer!” float across his display screen.
Meanwhile, a letter had arrived from Samaher. Written for some reason in Arabic, it informed him in a patronizing tone — as if she were doing her favorite professor a favor by accepting his offer to help her salvage the semester — that she had begun the new project assigned her. Indeed, she appeared to be enjoying it, for the stories and poems brought to her by her cousin, she wrote, were so interesting that she was actually “wild” about them. (Samaher wrote “wild” in Hebrew, as if Arabic lacked a word to express the cuddly Israeli concept of wildness.) For the first time, she was discovering the grandeur of the Arab nation that stretched from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, and the pride she felt in it. She had already translated two love poems and would soon finish summarizing two stories. One of these was realistic, the other, a naively sentimental (although, in her opinion, highly political) bit of folklore. If allowed by the doctor — for she was happy to inform Rivlin that she was pregnant and temporarily restricted to her bed — she would bring everything to the university when it was ready.
“Damn!” Rivlin swore under his breath. “What made me get involved with her? All I’ve done is given her a new batch of excuses.” Worse yet, he no longer possessed Yosef Suissa’s original collection, which had been returned to Jerusalem at the urgent request of the murdered scholar’s father, who wished to see for himself what in the Arab soul had so intrigued his beloved son. Not that Rivlin had any illusions that Suissa’s texts might rescue his own book. Still, now that they had been brought to his attention, he felt obliged to deal with them. It was even with a feeling of relief that he turned to them, as they gave his marooned project an immediate direction that it lacked.
He telephoned Samaher to reprimand her, only to be told by Afifa, who sounded alarmed by his angry demand to be sent at once whatever was finished, that her daughter was bedridden. Two days later, Rashid brought him two short love poems translated into a fluent Hebrew. The first went:
Who has seen her in the morning, When her brow opens like a flower, / Restful with dew and lilies, / Roses, violets, / Flowers, and the nests of ruins? / Who has seen the dawn of her glory? / Who has seen her nightclothes, / Woven among mulberries, / On which hang two berries, / And half a berry again, / Two kingdoms of silk / And half a kingdom? / Matchless among unmatched women, / Who can see her hips / And stay sober? / O follow the curve/ And the slide of them / To a different star! / They are a way-point of the future, / A journey from death / To life. There they stand and lament / The ruins of the Arabs, / The desert of the Arabs.
The hypnotic, coal black eyes of the messenger stared intently at the baffled professor, who failed to fathom the swift transition from the curves of an unmarried woman awakening in the morning to the ruins of lamenting Arabs.
“Where is the Arabic original?” he asked.
The messenger had brought the translation alone.
The second poem was written by the same poet, Farouk el-Janabi, and was about the same mystery figure:
How stunning is night’s color in her eyes! / In them she hides a note from her lover, / And a cool ring with which to cheat Time. / How stunning is night’s color in her eyes! / She paints a tattered flag, / A black cloak, / For those turned back / By the gates of her glory. / She paints the night / So that none are seen by none. / O unmatched woman…. / How beauteous is her misfortune!
“What about the stories?” Rivlin asked disappointedly.
“Samaher is still working on them,” her cousin said. “She spends all her time in bed. It’s easier for her to do short poems. But don’t you worry, Professor. She’ll have it all in good time.”
“Can she really be pregnant so soon?” he asked incredulously.
“That’s what her mother says,” was the noncommittal answer.
2.
MEANWHILE, THERE WAS a new development in the closed-door trial. A key witness for the prosecution, who, fearing for his life, had fled to an Asian republic of the former Soviet Union, had now agreed after concerted pressure to testify, but only on condition that the court, in whose closed doors he had no faith, hear him in a place of his own choosing outside of Israel. At first, a single judge had seemed sufficient. But the defense, worried that the testimony might be highly damaging, had insisted that all three judges attend. This meant Hagit too.
“The court agreed without knowing where it’s going?”
“That was the condition. But there’s no need to worry. We’ll be told the exact location as soon as we get to Vienna. And the Israeli embassy will know where we are.”
“But suppose I were to abscond like that?”
“I’d be annoyed,” Hagit admitted with an unflappable smile. “But that’s only because you could always take me with you. I can’t take you. But why should you care? Won’t it be nice to be rid of me for a while?”
“Not like this.”
“Then like what?”
“I’d need a more thorough break from you.”
Taken aback, she laughed and went to kiss him.
“Don’t imagine it’s going to be all fun and games. This is a working trip.”
Yet she did not seem put out by the prospect of it. Her mood was one of excitement. Besides the adventure itself, there was the prospect of new evidence deciding a case that had dragged on inconclusively for months. And surrounded by male colleagues, she would surely be getting at least as much attention as could be provided by a single husband.
Rivlin felt an anxious sadness, coupled with an unfamiliar aggressiveness. Their impending separation, though short, was a rare event, and his wife’s forensic talents, marshaled to convince him that it was a blessing in disguise that might revive his powers of concentration, did not reassure him. He grumbled not only about the fancy restaurants and good meals she would enjoy without him and the new places he would not get to see with her, but about the chronic disorder she always left behind. This was why he insisted, on the eve of her departure, on her keeping an old promise, made earlier in the year and repeated before her sister’s visit, to go through the clothing in her closet and throw out what wasn’t needed. It was time they gave their stuffy life an airing.