The Liberated Bride (6 page)

W
HICH WAS WHY
he felt an urge to leave the hospital and go to the place itself, the family hotel surrounded by pine trees at the southern end of the city. To cross the thick carpet of sighing pine needles, descend
the reddish stone stairs flanked by oleanders and laurels, catch the sudden glimpse of the blue nugget of Dead sea beyond the wilderness of the Judean desert, and knock on doors of the wing of the building where the family now sat in mourning: mother, sister, brother, and others he had got to know in that brief year—an aunt, an uncle, several cousins, and even, if she had not meanwhile died before her son, the dowager grandmother who was the establishment's first proprietress. On their infrequent visits to Jerusalem in the five years since the divorce, he had felt that his wife, without admitting it or perhaps even being conscious of it, had thwarted all his attempts to approach not only the hotel but even Talpiyot, the neighborhood in which it stood. Once, two years ago, while strolling on the promenade overlooking the old walled city from the south, he had suggested visiting the Talpiyot home, now a museum, of the author's. Y. Agnon. Hagit had refused. “Why risk running into someone who doesn't want to see you?” she had said, with characteristic bluntness. “What does that mean?” he shot back angrily. “That we're barred from Talpiyot forever?” “Not forever,” she'd answered, slipping an arm around him. “Just for now.” But now he was in Jerusalem with time on his hands and no one to judge him or tell him what to do, and with a valid reason to stop by the hotel of his former in-law, whose death had provided him, if not with the duty, at least with the right, to pay a call during the seven days of bereavement.

He debated whether to phone home again in the hope of finding Hagit or simply to tell her about it back in Haifa. By now, though, he was in Talpiyot, scouting the familiar surroundings. The pine wood, in which he had often played as a child, were the same, yet changed, as were the garden and the yard. He hadn't thought he would be so moved by them. All that had been rendered impossible by the divorce, it appeared, was still preserved in the sweetness of memory, sealed against being opened by a golden film of anticipated pain. How terribly easy it was for him to relive the unforgettable night of the wedding, so private and so public at once, just as was the garden with its catered events and the hidden home in which Galya, Ofer's bride, had grown up. It was this combination that so appealed to Rivlin—who, together with Hagit, was warmly treated as family whenever he was sighted by
the staff on the garden's paths. Already during their first meeting, when the marriage was a foregone conclusion, Galya's father had generously offered them the freedom of the grounds. Indeed, he told them, he had decided to expropriate the hotel from its customers not only for the wedding ceremony, but for three whole days of festivities. Moreover, by writing off the costs as a business expense, he would shift the groom's parents' share of the costs onto the income-tax authorities.

At first Rivlin tried turning down this unexpected perk. Mr. Hendel, however, stood firm. “Don't worry,” he said. “We'll find other things for you to pay for. I promise I won't lose on the transaction.” Rivlin and Hagit, he said, had an open invitation to stay at the hotel at his expense whenever there was a room available. A phone call to the desk clerk was all that was necessary, and there would be no social obligations attached.

Hagit was for resisting temptation. “We can afford to pay for our own hotel room,” she told him. Yet in the end she, too, gave in to their future in-laws' entreaties, and on their next visit to Jerusalem, which was to see the young couple's new apartment, a month before the wedding, they had spent the night at the hotel in a modest but tasteful room whose window looked out majestically on the desert and on the great salt sea in its folds. Needless to say, they stayed at the hotel again during the three hectic days of the celebration, when they were given a suite facing the Old City.

And yet in the course of the brief year between the wedding and the divorce, Hagit had managed, however politely and apologetically, to keep Galya's parents and their enticements at arm's length. In the end Rivlin feared being taken by them for a snobbish intellectual. And so, arranging to appear at a meeting of the Jerusalem Orientalists' society, he used the opportunity, much to Hagit's chagrin, to spend the night in his in-laws' hotel. There he had been showered with attention sufficient for both himself and his missing wife.

T
HE MANY DEATH
notices by the entrance and at the reception desk with its old lithographs of Palestinian landscapes, and arrows pointing the
way to the mourners' quarters, spelled out the demise of the family's privacy. Rivlin was reminded of the first question he had asked Galya's father on being introduced to him. How, he had wanted to know, could a family live a normal life in the middle of a hotel? In reply he received an exact description of Mr. Hendel's formula for separating the two spheres. As it was unnecessarily wasteful, in the proprietor's opinion, to keep them totally apart, and since he had at his disposal attractive rooms, a kitchen that had to stay operational, and a staff of chefs, waiters, and chambermaids without always enough to do, he had decided long ago to lodge his family in the hotel. However, he had made it clear from the start to his three children—especially to the youngest, the spoiled little girl who was to be Ofer's future bride—that their right to a life of luxury, with serviced rooms and daily meals chosen from a first-class menu, depended on their self-restraint, it being incumbent upon them to conceal the existence of their private lives from the guests, who needed to maintain the illusion that is cherished by each guest, even if paying for a single night alone: that the establishment is as exclusively devoted to his comfort as if he were its sole owner.

It was, thus, astonishing to see this inviolable rule rudely shattered by the death of the man who had decreed but could no longer defend it. Plastered over the entrance, the lobby, and the door to the dining room were sorrowfully worded death notices in English and in Hebrew, as if all at once the family had decided to tear down the curtain hiding it and permit—no, compel—the guests to share its unexpected grief.

It was 3:20
P.M.
His sister-in-law's flight would not land before seven. Rivlin had time to spare. Resisting the printed invitations to the bereavement, he decided to wait until four and let the mourners enjoy their afternoon nap.

He wouldn't have minded a nap himself. The day was turning out to be longer and more tiring than he had anticipated. He went over to an armchair in the lobby and swiveled it around to face the garden—the same garden full of flowers, lit by a pure Jerusalem noonday sky, that he remembered from his anxious childhood. Had it been this rich with color the last time he saw it, or had it been enlarged and transformed over the past five years with new flowerbeds and shrubs? His eyes followed a path that led to the lawn. On that lawn, close to
midnight, the bride, her veil and bridal train discarded, had enticed him to dance with her. Thrilled, he had moved cautiously but freely to the music. He had not danced since his student days, he explained to Galya's family, because his wife, afraid, perhaps, that she might blur her judicial boundaries, would not go along with it. This made Galya turn to Hagit and demand that she join them. Most of the wedding guests had gone home. Only close family and friends remained, and Hagit yielded and danced, first with him and the bride and then with their two sons. Though shy and hesitant, she was graceful. He had felt a deep surge of happiness. It was as if his son's marriage, more than any book or article he had written or could write, were his life's great achievement.

Now, although he had made up his mind to pay his respects, he lingered in the armchair, to give Hagit time to return home, unpack the treats she had bought, and set the table. It wasn't that he needed to ask permission for something he knew would seem pointless to her, but simply that he wished to be aboveboard. The last twenty-four hours had been full of good deeds: first his attendance at the Arab wedding, then his visit to his old professor, and now this condolence call on a family to which he no longer belonged.

He sat regarding the flowers and the light on the lawn, his fond memories of the wedding mixed with thoughts of the failure that had followed and the death that had just taken place. Actually, a great deal had changed in the last five years. Evidently, the hotel had done well. The little knoll that had been part of the desert beyond the hotel grounds was now annexed to the garden, and the old dance floor, with its grapevine-trellised gazebo that had served as the wedding canopy, had been replaced by a new swimming pool and a small amphitheater. Even five years ago the term “family hotel” had struck him as overly modest. Now it seemed more like a boast: that amid so much luxury an intimate touch could still be preserved.

Rivlin let himself be drawn into the garden, as if he were in search of the vanished gazebo. In fact, it had not vanished at all. Rather, it had been thoughtfully moved to higher ground, its ancient foliage of grape leaves replaced by bright bougainvillea. Beneath it they had stood that night, all six of them: the groom, the bride, and two sets of
parents. He walked warily toward it. New spotlights were hidden in the bushes. He shut his eyes and remembered the long-ago twilight in which he, the father of the groom, had felt like a newlywed himself. And why not? There, by his son's side, he had pledged anew his troth to his wife and forged a new blood-tie to a young bride he hardly knew. Now he strode to the spot on which Ofer had stood and where he had reached out instinctively, midway through the ceremony, for his mother's hand. Humiliation and anger mingled with the sweetness of the memory.

H
E LOVED HIS
wife's way of answering the telephone. Her soft, cultivated “Hello” was alive and attentive. There was nothing remote or fuzzy about it. And now it also tingled with the expectation of hearing a sister's voice. Hence her angry gasp of disappointment when she heard that the flight was late.

“Why didn't you call me before?”

“You weren't home. I tried you at court, but you were gone.”

“Where are you now?”

“In Jerusalem.”

“Still in Jerusalem? What are you doing there? Are you with Tedeschi in the hospital?”

“No. I left.”

“How is he?”

“It's a more serious attack than usual. You should see him. He's red as a beet.”

“Is he really unconscious?”

“I'd say half-conscious.”

“Which half?”

“He has difficulty talking. But he listens. He can follow.”

“But what was so urgent about seeing him? You're always complaining that you have no time for work. Why look for still more things to do?”

“As long as I was going to the airport, I thought I'd make the gesture. I had a hunch the flight would be late.”

“What kind of hunch?”

“At eleven o'clock there was still no arrival time on the recorded announcement at the airport.”

“But if you thought the flight would be late, you should have waited for me. I would have gone with you. You know how upsetting it is for me not to be there.”

“I never imagined the delay would be for four whole hours. I thought it would be a small one.”

“You could have waited to find out. What made you rush off to Jerusalem? Since when is Tedeschi so urgent? You keep saying his problems are psychological, and suddenly you're in a panic over him.”

“In the first place, psychological problems deserve attention too. And second, Hannah's telephone call yesterday worried me. Sometimes people just go and die on you.”

“Not Tedeschi. You can count on him. And even if you had nothing better to do, you could have waited for me. Or at least let me know. I would have come with you. I care about Tedeschi too. I'm shut up in a dark courtroom with all kinds of shady characters and you're gallivanting around the world.”

“What kind of gallivanting? I went to the hospital.”

“Hospitals can be fun, too. You might have waited. It was another of your premature ejaculations. . . .”

“Are you out of your mind? What kind of way is that to talk?
Me
. . . ?”

“I didn't mean it like that. I was talking about life. About living. You know how I love going places and seeing things.”

“Nothing will be gone tomorrow. What have I done? It's not my fault the flight was delayed. It inconvenienced me too.”

“But what are you doing now? You still have three hours left. Go to Raya's. You can rest there until the plane lands. Does your back still hurt?”

“My back?”

“This morning you said you had a backache.”

“It's gone.”

“You should rest at Raya's anyway. You can lie down there. I just spoke to her fifteen minutes ago. Start out now. We rose early today.
You're not a young boy anymore. You can't just keep going. Take a nap. By the way, it was nice of you to wash the curtain.”

“Especially since it wasn't dirty.”

“Nothing is ever dirty, in your opinion. But what counts is that you washed it. Start out now. Raya is expecting you. I'll phone in an hour.”

“Wait. Listen. Something's come up. Listen to this. Her father died.”

“Whose father?”

“Yehuda.”

“Yehuda who?”

“Hendel.”

“Yehuda Hendel died? When?”

“A few days ago.”

“Who told you?”

“Carlo. Hendel was in the bed next to him. He had a stroke one night. He was gone in a matter of hours. . . .”

“But why should Carlo have mentioned him?”

“He remembered him from Ofer's wedding.”

“From six years ago? He sounds pretty conscious to me. How old was Hendel?”

“He must have been about my age. Maybe half a year older.”

“How terrible. When did you say it happened?”

“Three days ago. Believe me, at our age you have to read the obituaries every day. If I hadn't gone to see Tedeschi, I'd never have heard about it.”

“In the end we hear about everything.”

“The question is what you do with what you hear. By my reckoning, they're still sitting shiva at the hotel. As long as I'm in Jerusalem, I might as well pay them a little condolence call.”

“Forget it. Why get involved? Send them a letter. You write such lovely condolence notes. That way they'll have a permanent record.”

“A letter isn't enough. This calls for something more personal. They must be devastated. Just think of Galya's mother, of how dependent she was on him.”

“That's why it's better to write and not barge in on them. They won't understand what you're doing there after five years of being out
of touch. And it will look strange for you to turn up by yourself, without me. . . .”

“What's there to understand? It's a condolence call. I can tell them the truth. I happened to be in Jerusalem, and you were in court.”

“Listen. Do me a favor. Don't go. You're overdoing it. They're not friends of ours, and they're no longer relatives either. You're getting involved for no good reason. What's got into you? I thought you were angry at them.”

“I was angry at her, not at him. He never wronged me.”

“But he's dead. If you go there now, it's to see her.”

“Hagit, sometimes we have to extend ourselves. She was our daughter-in-law. You can't erase the past.”

“No one is erasing anything. Write them a nice letter. You're the last person she needs to see now. What can you do for her?”

“I don't have to do anything. I only have to say how I feel. If I died, wouldn't you appreciate her coming from Jerusalem to see you?”

“You know I can't stand your fantasies about dying. That was your family's favorite occupation, imagining how you'd all die and mourn for each other. In my family, death wasn't talked about.”

“Like sex.”

“Maybe. Not that it ever kept anyone from having children or dying. Listen to me. Forget about it. Go to your sister's, and we'll write them a letter together. Suppose you hadn't gone to Jerusalem and happened to hear that he was dead?”

“But I'm in Jerusalem. I'm even in Talpiyot. Right next door to their hotel.”

“You are? What are you doing there?”

“I must have secret longings for the place.”

“Longings for what? I thought you wanted to relax. Wasn't that Arab wedding enough for you?”

“Definitely. It was tediously long. That lamb is still sitting in my stomach. It was probably that wedding that made me long for Ofer's. Listen, Hagit. There's no point in arguing. I'm here, and it's my to duty drop in on them.”

The judge paused to assess her husband's intentions and reevaluate the battlefield before answering.

“All right. But remember. Condolence calls are short and sweet. You don't want to hold up the line behind you. Don't overstay your visit.”

“Why should I overstay it? I'll say a few words and leave.”

“And remember to give them my condolences too. And to explain that you did all you could to keep me from coming with you.”