The Liberated Bride (11 page)

A
COUPLE THEIR
own age, an overdressed woman and a man with a goatee, entered the restaurant and recognized Ofra with cries of joy. “Look who's here! Are you back in Israel?”

Ofra squirmed, as if reluctant to admit that she knew them. However, once they had demonstrated a knowledge of her name and Yo'el's, and given proof that all four of them had recently been together at an Aztec ruin in Mexico, she abandoned the pretense.

“Just for a wedding. Yo'el is coming in a few days.”

Eager to reestablish a tie forged by a chance meeting far away, the couple asked to be introduced to the Rivlins.

“We were on this wonderful Geographic Society tour,” they explained, “when who did we run into on a godforsaken hacienda in Mexico but Ofra and Yo'el?”

They held out their hands in a show of friendship, hungry, so it seemed, for new relationships at home as well as abroad. Or so Rivlin construed their insistence on giving their names and occupations and asking for his and Hagit's.

Near Eastern studies made no impression. But a judge was something else.

“A justice of the peace?” they asked avidly.

Hagit chose to reply to the question with an indifferent exhalation of smoke.

“A district judge,” Rivlin answered for her.

“You don't say! We're thinking of suing a Jerusalem hospital for price-gouging. Maybe your wife could tell us what our chances are.”

Hagit's continued silence was a sign that her inner radar was blipping strongly.

Rivlin, with an embarrassed smile, tried thinking of how to cut the conversation short without offending anyone. Although he sensed the shudder that ran through his sister-in-law, who seemed to know what was coming next, he couldn't resist inquiring what the court case was about.

“You've probably guessed,” the man with the goatee said intimately to Ofra. “It was your husband who placed the call to Israel for us. Perhaps he even remembers and would like to testify on our behalf.”

“But what's it all about?” Rivlin asked, deliberately ignoring his wife's restraining hand.

There was no longer any stopping the couple from telling their story, which they related while standing between two tables and forcing the
waiters to detour around them. The husband was an accountant, the wife a teacher of music. With a mixture of cynical amusement and dense innocence, they told how, two days before they set out on a grand tour of Central America for which they had registered with friends and made a hefty down payment, the music teacher's octogenarian father had died in an old-age home. Because the week of bereavement would have caused them to miss their dream trip, they decided to postpone the funeral by freezing the deceased—a nonbeliever who would have raised no religious objections—in the hospital morgue. Nor was the reason they gave—namely, the need to give relatives abroad sufficient time to get organized—entirely imaginary, since the deceased's son, the music teacher's brother, had pressing business in Chicago and preferred a later date. “Enjoy your trip,” he'd told them. He was sure their dead father would not have wanted to spoil their plans. He would have all the time in the world to spend in the ground; meanwhile, the worms could dine on someone else.

Rivlin glanced at his wife. She had been served her dessert, a chocolate parfait topped with maraschino cherries, and was staring over it at the standing couple. The obvious repugnance they aroused in her having failed to head them off, she now confronted them directly, head up, eyes riveted to them, mouth slightly open in concentration.

At the hospital the couple had had good luck. The morgue pathologist, a slightly alcoholic Russian, agreed to accommodate the deceased in his freezer with no time limit or questions asked. He had an available drawer and was willing to charge a fair price.

“How much?” Rivlin asked curiously.

“Less than a hundred shekels a day, VAT included.”

“Not bad.”

And so the orphaned music teacher and her husband set out on their tour with their friends. Between one Mayan temple and the next, they planned the fine funeral they would have. Unfortunately, several days after their departure from Israel an inquisitive hospital official, an observant Jew, dropped in on the morgue and discovered that one of its occupants was overextending his stay. A fuss was made, the Russian pathologist was reprimanded, and a search began for the
next of kin. When these were discovered in Central America, they were encouraged to return at once—by a steep price hike.

“How much?” asked the professor, suddenly brimming with high spirits.

“Five hundred shekels a day, without VAT.”

“That's pretty stiff.”

“Disgraceful. Criminal. Unjustifiable,” complained the man with the goatee. “Pure vengeance. And when we got home and demanded the original price, that little religious bastard, with all his talk about the dignity of the dead, wouldn't let us bury my wife's father until we forked up the extra cash.”

“How was the funeral?”

“Grand! My brother-in-law came with his whole family. Lots of cousins and friends were there, too. We told them the whole story. After all, we're enlightened, rational people. Well, what do you think?” the man asked the judge, whose spoon was suspended in midair. “If you tried the case, would we stand a chance?”

“A very good one,” Hagit pronounced.

“You don't say!” The two were thrilled.

“Of going to jail.”

“To jail?” They were dumbfounded. “But why?”

“For excessive enlightenment.”

They crimsoned and laughed.

“We're onto you!”

Hagit did not take her eyes off them.

“You're so enlightened that you're a public danger.”

No one spoke.

As usual, Rivlin found himself full of admiration for his wife. Yet when he turned amusedly to Ofra, he was surprised to see a frightened look on her face. Anyone capable of freezing his own father-in-law, she no doubt thought, might do even worse things in the middle of a restaurant on a peaceful Sabbath in the Galilee.

“Well,” the man said, a sly smile above his goatee, “it's a good thing there are courts of appeals.”

“For sure,” the judge agreed. “They'd not only acquit you, they'd declare you national heroes.”

She lifted a cherry from her parfait with two careful fingers. The situation was now decidedly awkward. With a brisk farewell, the couple retreated to a table. Rivlin was about to swear at them when the judge, extricating her spoon from the chocolate parfait, silenced him by passing him her dish.

“Have some, it's very good,” she urged him gently. Yet when he handed it back to her after two spoonfuls, she waved it off, her appetite gone, and stared at it as if it were the corpse of the music teacher's father.

“But why make
me
eat it?” Rivlin protested.

“Because you're paying for it. It's a shame to leave it. Cheer up and have another spoonful, my love. It's not like you to be so squeamish.”

L
ATE THAT
S
ATURDAY
night, after many long conversations, endless rounds of tea and snacks, numerous phone calls to near and distant cousins, and a visit from a friend who dropped by “for a minute” and didn't leave, Ofra went downstairs to shower and Rivlin summoned his wife to the bedroom, shut the door, and declared:

“Before you and your sister become any more symbiotic, I want to know what your plans are and where I fit into them.”

“Fit in?” wondered the tired woman stretched out on her bed. “How do you mean?”

“You heard me. What are your plans, and where do I fit in?”

But there were no new plans, Hagit said, only old ones. On Tuesday they had a concert. On Thursday the two sisters were going to the movies. And on Saturday they were all driving to Jerusalem to visit their aunt in her geriatric institution, whence they would proceed to the airport to pick up Yo'el.

“And apart from that? What more do I have to do for your sister?”

“What do you have to do? Nothing. Be patient and kind.”

“That's what I have been.”

“Until this afternoon. You were snappish and sarcastic with her when we returned from the Galilee.”

“How can you say that?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“I don't like a whole day to go by without a chance to talk to you in private.”

“To talk about what?”

“There's always something.”

“But why didn't you use the time to nap this afternoon? We made sure the house was quiet.”

“I tried. I can't fall asleep without you.”

“Read something. A story. A novel.”

“I can't. Life is too turbulent.”

“Life is too turbulent? That trip to Jerusalem did you in.”

“It wasn't the trip. It was your reaction to it. Your hostility.”

“I hardly said a word. There was nothing to upset you.”

“It just wasn't like you, a strange notion like hiding Hendel's death from Ofer.”

“I wish you'd stop poking around in dead ashes.”

“If they're dead, what do you care?”

“It takes one live spark to start a new fire.”

“What kind of fire?”

“It's been five years. The divorce is final. Galya is remarried. You knew she was pregnant when you hugged her.”

“I never hugged her. I put my hand on her shoulder. And I never said she was definitely pregnant. . . .”

“It doesn't matter. If she's not, she will be. What do you want? For Ofer to be burned all over again?”

“For him to catch on. To understand.”

“There's nothing to understand. Some things just have to be accepted. Even your Algeria, which you've spent years studying and writing about, keeps surprising both itself and you to the point of writer's block. Why can't a young woman surprise herself and break up her marriage?”

He said nothing. The bathroom door opened below. Their guest had finished her shower. Hagit listened alertly, seeking to determine whether her sister might need an extra towel or anything else.

“So what about tomorrow?”

“What about it?”

“Do you need me in the morning, or do I have a free day?”

“Of course you do. I'd just be grateful if you dropped Ofra off at Pesi's boutique in the mall on your way to the university, so that she can try on some clothes. It opens at nine-thirty. I'll be late for court if I take her myself.”

“I was thinking of leaving earlier.”

“When is your class?”

“At noon.”

“Then you're in no hurry. She has to find something nice for the wedding. All that traveling has made her neglect herself. Yo'el has forgotten how to dress, too.”

“All right.”

“She'll try on a few things and then show me what she likes.”

“All right.”

“There's a little café next to the boutique. You can have something to drink and read the paper there.”

“Are you trying to tell me I'm supposed to bring her back here?”

“Of course. How else would she get back?”

“What do you mean, how else? By bus.”

“Two buses.”

“So two buses.”

“With all those clothes from the boutique.”

“How heavy can they be?”

“Ofra isn't taking any buses. I can't ask her to do that.”

“She's traveled all over the world, she's crossed whole continents—and she can't take a bus in her own country?”

“All over the world she has Yo'el. He looks after her. Here I'm responsible.”

“For what?”

“Her pleasure and well-being.”

“But what's wrong with a bus? Just because I've arranged your life for the past thirty years to keep you away from public transportation, do you think having to take a bus is a tragedy?”

“It's not a tragedy. But no sister of mine who is here on a short visit will be made to get on and off buses with packages. If you can't wait half an hour, then don't. I'll adjourn the trial, take a taxi, and bring her home myself.”

“I surrender. I'll bring baby home. But only on the condition that she doesn't have to decide what clothes to buy. You'll help her make up her mind. Because if she has to do it by herself, I really will miss my class.”

“You're an optimist. If she had to make up her own mind, you'd miss the rest of your life. But don't panic. She doesn't want to. She'll pick out a few things, and we'll decide here. You'll help, too. Why shouldn't your opinion count?”

“Forget my opinion,” Rivlin said, with a modest grin. “Let her blame you, not me, for making her buy what she doesn't want or not letting her buy what she does want.”

“She won't blame you if you don't pressure her, my dear. She's not your wife. Just be helpful.”

“By the way, I tried phoning Ofer an hour ago. There was no answer. I left him a message on his voice mail.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing special. Nothing.”

3.4.98

Galya,

Yesterday my father left a message on my voice mail that your father died unexpectedly a few days ago. He said he was at the bereavement and that you asked him whether I knew and how I had reacted. He also said he was telling me against the better judgment of my mother, who thought it pointless to involve me.

Of course, she was right. We haven't exchanged a word since we broke up, and it's best that way. Not that your father's death isn't a serious matter, but it, too, should have been spared me.

That's why I debated whether to break the vow of silence that both of us have kept honorably until now. But since I realize how terrible all this must be for your mother, I thought I would (should?) let her know that, despite our divorce and my estrangement from your family, I understand what she's going through and wish to express my sympathy.

She's a woman I always liked. (And who liked me, if I'm not mistaken.)

I won't say anything about your father. He's gone now. Quite apart from the horrible things he did, it's frightening to hear about such a sudden death. At least (or so I understand) he didn't suffer. And so if you, too, Galya, need a word of sympathy (or however you call it) from me, here it is.

Although only on the condition that you don't write back.

Ofer