The Liberated Bride

by A. B. Yehoshua

  The cleverly creative festival director, however, was not in any hurry. First he wished to build up the suspense, setting the bar for the young poets with classical, but still bold and lively, verse. He would begin with some eighth-century poems by “the curly-headed one,” as he was known, the great Abu-Nawwas, followed by excerpts from the ninth-century poet Al-Hallaj. Both men were rebels and possibly not even true Arabs, for they were born in Persia and lived and wrote in Baghdad, where Abu-Nawwas ended his life in a dungeon and Al-Hallaj by losing his head. Their poems, Ibn-Zaidoun announced, ratcheting up the audience’s expectations, would be read by the great Palestinian poet, who need not fear their competition in tonight’s contest.

  The poet recited the classic verse in a voice rusty from tobacco smoke. Hebrew translations, prepared in advance, were then read aloud by Ibn-Zaidoun, who appeared to consider himself knowledgeable on the sacred language of the Jews.

  Uktubi In Katabti, Ya Maniyya

  When you write, my precious one, I pray you,

  Do so with an open heart and a frank spirit and your spit.

  Make many mistakes and erase them all

  With it. No fingers, please.

  Wet the page with the sweetness

  Of your lovely teeth.

  Each time I read a line you have corrected,

  I’ll lick it with my tongue,

  A kiss from afar,

  Leaving me giddy and dazed!

  Ya Sakiyyati

  O you who made me drink the bitter cup

  That made a pleasant life unbearable!

  Before I bore love’s yoke I was well thought of,

  And she, the one I love, dwelt in king’s chambers.

  Then some evil-wisher waylaid me with love,

  And heaped upon me shame and degradation.

  Her scent is of the musk of sea-dwellers.

  Her smile outshines the buds of chamomile.

  She laughs when friends bring gifts of fragrances.

  “Does perfume need perfume?” she asks.

  They say, “Why do you not adorn yourself?”

  She answers, “Any jewelry

  Would dull my luster.

  Did I not throw away my silver bangles

  To keep myself from blinding them?”

  Next, to assure the Israelis—who by now had blended invisibly into the packed audience—that they, too, had a role in the golden age of the Arabs, two poems were read about Jews, who in days of old had pandered to Muslims with forbidden pleasures.

  Ind al-Yahudiyya

  I went to Kutkebul laden with gold crowns,

  Eighty dinars saved by my hard work.

  In no time I had blown them like flies,

  And pledged a good silk shirt,

  A fancy robe, and my best suit

  To the Jewess who runs the tavern.

  No woman more modest, more gracious, more lovely!

  “My beauty,” I said to her, “come, be a sport,

  Give us a kiss and be done with it!”

  “But why,” she replied, “do you want a woman’s love

  When a boy,

  All dreamy-eyed and smooth as a gold coin,

  Is so much better?”

  She went and fetched a lissome lad,

  Bright as the moon, fresh-bottomed—

  But I, I left that place dead broke

  And down on my luck.

  And though, my shirt lost to her wine,

  She said in parting,

  “Now be well,”

  I tell you that I felt like hell.

  The Palestinians roared good-humoredly. The Israelis, prepared in the cause of peace to share the blame for a cunning Jewess who had lived twelve hundred years ago, tittered politely.

  Ibn-Zaidoun now put on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and read, to the delight of the audience, another poem about a Jew.

  Jitu Ma’a As’habi

  I came with my friends, both fine young men,

  To the tavern keeper at the hour of ten.

  You could tell by his dress he was no Muslim.

  Our intentions were good—I can’t say that of him.

  “Your religion,” we asked, “it’s Christianity?”

  He let loose a flood of profanity.

  Well, that’s a Jew: It’s love to your face

  And a knife in the back, anytime, anyplace.

  “And what,” we asked, “shall we call you, sir?”

  “Samuel,” he said. “Or else Abu-Amar.

  Not that I like having an Arab name.

  It certainly isn’t a claim to fame.

  Yet I prefer it all the same

  To longer ones that aren’t as plain.”

  “Well said, Abu Amar!” we chimed.

  “And now be a friend and break out the wine.”

  He looked us up and he looked us down,

  And he said, “I swear, if word gets out in this town,

  Because of you, that I sell booze,

  I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

  And with that he brought us a golden mead

  That knocked the three of us off our feet,

  So that what was meant to be a weekender

  Has lasted a month and we’re still on a bender!

  12.

  THE MOOD WAS growing mellow. Who could fail to be charmed by such comic proof of the pragmatic, hard-nosed collaboration of Jewish avarice and Muslim vice in the greatest Arab metropolis of the first millennium? And now, striding gracefully to the center of the stage, the Palestinian poet invited with a flourish the illustrious translatoress of Jahaliya poetry, Hannah Tedeschi, to demonstrate her talents in the name of the everlasting fraternity of two ancient languages. His request was simple. Dr. Tedeschi, he proposed, would stand by his side and render into simultaneous Hebrew some excerpts from the mystical tenth-century verse of Al-Hallaj, “the carder”—whose thirst for Allah was so great that it drove him out of his mind and made him decide that he himself was God, leaving the authorities no choice but to behead him publicly, burn his body, and scatter the ashes to dispel his delusion.

  The translatoress was caught off guard. She crimsoned, simpered with fright, and tried making herself small, while glaring at the Orientalist who had got her into this. But before Rivlin could come to the defense of his ex—fellow student, presented with an impossible task by the Palestinian poet, his wife surprised him by taking the opposite tack and urging the translatoress to agree.

  “But how,” Hannah protested, “can I just stand up and translate the fabulously subtle poetry of Hussein Ibn Mansur al-Hallaj? Any version I came up with could only be pitifully superficial.”

  Yet her even knowing the middle name of so ancient a Sufi poet only strengthened the judge’s opinion. “Give it a try,” she said. “What do you have to lose? No one will dare criticize you. Those in the audience who, like me, don’t know Arabic deserve to know what a poet lost his head for.”

  The flustered translatoress threw a desperate look at the sad-eyed Mr. Suissa, as if pleading with him to enlist the ghostly authority of his son on her behalf. But Rivlin, always swayed by any show of firmness on his wife’s part, now switched sides and took Hannah’s hand. “What do you care?” he said. “Don’t worry about subtlety. It might even end up in the jubilee volume.”

  It was a well-aimed shot. To a murmur of approval from the audience, which had been watching her trying to make up her mind, Hannah rose, wound her old woolen scarf around her neck, and gave her hand to the renowned exile, who gallantly led her to the center of the stage.

  The lights were dimmed still more, in honor of the martyred mystic. As the Palestinian poet read the first lines, the Jewish translatoress of Ignorance, her hair in need of dyeing and her shoes of new heels, shut her eyes and let Al-Hallaj’s cryptic but refined verse percolate through her.

  Sukutun thumma samtun thumma harsu

  Wa’ilmun thumma thumma wajdun thumma ramsu

  Wa’tinnun thumma narun thumma nurun

  Wa�
��bardum thumma zillun thumma shamsu

  Wa’haznun thumma shalun thumma fakrun

  Wa’nahrun thumma bahrun thumma yabsu

  Wa’sukrun thumma sahwun thumma shawkun

  Wa’kurbun thumma waslun thumma unsu

  Wa’kabdun thumma bastun thumma mahwun

  Wa’frakun thumma jam’un thumma tamsu.

  Hannah Tedeschi opened her eyes and loosened her scarf. Taking the book of poetry from the Palestinian, who stood, smiling, with a fresh cigarette in his hand, she rested it on her open palms, looked up at him and back at it, and softly but surely improvised a Hebrew translation of the beheaded poet’s ode.

  Quiet and then silence and then stillness,

  And knowledge and then ecstasy and then the grave.

  And clay and then fire and then light,

  And cold and then shade and then the sun.

  And rocks and then plains and then wilderness,

  And a river and then a sea and then the land.

  And drunkenness and then sobriety and then desire,

  And closeness and then touching and then rejoicing.

  And contraction and then expansion and then erasure,

  And parting and then union and then life.

  The translatoress glowed with a new radiance. To the applause of the audience, which did not need to understand the Hebrew to appreciate its music, she returned the book to the poet. He bowed ironically, exhaled a last puff of smoke, and chose another, shorter lyric:

  Wa’inna lissan al-ghaybi jalla an al-nutki

  Zahrta li’halki w’altabasta la’fityatin

  Patahu wa’dalu w’ahtajabat an el-halki

  Fa’tazaharu l’il-albab fi ’l-ghaybi taratan

  Wa’tawrann an al-absar taghurbi fi ’l-sharki.

  And again the book was handed with a smile to the translatoress, who threw back her head with such concentration that it almost flew off her shoulders like Al-Hallaj’s. She tossed off the five lines without batting an eyelash:

  The language of mystery far exceeds speech,

  Revealed to some, from others concealed.

  They wonder and wander and meanwhile you are gone,

  Sometimes sighted by hearts in the west,

  While lost to the sight of eyes in the east.

  Rivlin could not contain his admiration. Turning to his wife with a triumphant grin, he congratulated her for making Hannah accept the challenge.

  The Palestinian poet bowed a second time, took the book gently, leafed rapidly through it, and found another short and enigmatic poem:

  Fa’izza absartani absartahu

  Fa’izza absartahu absartana

  Ayaha al-sa’ilu an kissitna

  Law tarana lam tufarik baynena

  Ruhuhu ruhi wa’ruhi ruhuhu

  Min ra’a ruheyn halat badana?

  This time the translatoress was so sure of herself that she didn’t even look at the text. Leaving it with the poet, she answered him:

  When you see me, you see him,

  When you see him, you see us.

  You who would know of our love

  Could not tell us apart.

  My soul is his, his is mine.

  Who has heard of the body

  In which two souls combine?

  The poet’s esteem for the woman mounted. With an approving glance at her, he recited from memory:

  Muzijat ruhuka fi ruhi kama,

  Tumzaju al-hamratu b’al-ma’ al-zulal.

  Fa’izza masaka shai’un masani,

  Fa’izza anta ana fi kuk hal.

  Back with a smile came the Hebrew:

  Your soul stirred into mine:

  Into clear water—wine.

  Who touches you, touches me.

  I am you in one we.

  The poet bowed his head. The Hebrew he had learned in Israel as a boy, before he chose exile, was enough to tell him how perfect the translation was. Yet unable to resist putting the now eager translatoress to one last test, he declaimed:

  Jubilat ruhaka fi ruhi kama

  Yujbalu al-inbaru b’il-miski ’l-fatik.

  Fa’izza masaka shai’un masani

  Fa’izza anta anna la naftarik.

  Hannah Tedeschi replied at once:

  Thy soul merges with mine

  As with fragrant musk, amber.

  Touch mine and it’s thine.

  Thou art me forever.

  Rivlin, one of the few in the auditorium to appreciate what the translatoress had accomplished, lifted his curly head to regard with satisfaction the Arabs around him—among whom he was astonished to see, in the dark corner occupied by the musicians, a pale-faced, black-hatted yeshiva student, with earlocks and a beard, whose burning eyes were none other than Samaher’s.

  13.

  ONLY NOW WAS it apparent what an effort had been made by the festival’s organizers to reach out to their Jewish guests. They wanted the Israelis, whether peaceniks or poetry lovers, to feel at home in their hilly city—which, freed of the cruel yoke of occupation, extended to them a strictly cultural welcome on this chilly but brightly lit winter night.

  And so when Samaher had suggested producing for the half-liberated Palestinians a scene from The Dybbuk, “the Jewish Hamlet,” as she called it (although she might just as well have said “the Jewish Faust” or “the Jewish Tartuffe”), the idea met with the approval of Nazim Ibn-Zaidoun, the baby-faced director with eyes of steel. These now glittered as he directed the ushers to remove the table from the stage, hang a white lace curtain in its place, and dim the lights completely.

  First upon the dark stage, lit only by a few beams of wet moonlight shining through the window opened by Fu’ad, were two timid, dark-haired boys carrying candles that made their shadows flicker on the curtain. Rivlin could have sworn they were Ra’uda’s sons. Soon they were joined by a serious-looking young man. This was the brilliant Rabbi Azriel, who stood between the candles staring silently at the audience with Samaher’s bright eyes. Rivlin held his breath as the rabbi summoned the possessed bride:

  “Leah, the daughter of Sender, you may enter the room.”

  But the bride refused to enter. The voice of the dybbuk possessing her, Rashid’s, called from the wings:

  “I won’t! I don’t want to!”

  And a woman echoed the words in Arabic:

  “La urid ad’hul, la urid!”

  Rabbi Azriel, played by Rivlin’s M.A. student with surprising aplomb, was unfazed. Turning to the wings, he said with quiet firmness:

  “Maiden! I command you to enter this room!”

  The figure of the bride grew slowly visible in the darkness. It was Ra’uda, still wearing the judge’s old clothes, over which a long bridal veil hung past her shoulders. She stood behind the white curtain, waiting for the haunt to speak from her throat. Rashid appeared, white-bearded and wrapped in shrouds, for he was a ghost. He walked with a cane, its handle the doll-like head of a woman, illustrating his obsession for the Palestinian audience. Rivlin was startled to see that this doll had the features of his cousin Samaher.

  “Sit, maiden!” Samaher commanded sternly.

  The doll did not want to. The dybbuk said:

  “Leave me alone. I won’t.”

  And Ra’uda, behind the white curtain, echoed in Arabic:

  “Utrekuni. La urid.”

  Samaher: Dybbuk! I command you to tell me who you are.

  Rashid: Rabbi of Miropol, you know who I am. But no one else may know my name.

  (Repeated by Ra’uda in Arabic.)

  Samaher: I command you again. Tell me who you are.

  The little doll squirmed in Rashid’s hand.

  Rashid: I am a seeker of new paths.

  “Alathina yufatshuna an subul jedida,” said the echo.

  Samaher was displeased by this answer. She stroked her little beard and rebuked the dybbuk severely:

  “Only those who stray seek new paths. The just walk the path of righteousness.”

  Rashid: It is too narrow.

 
Samaher: Why have you possessed the body of this maiden?

  Rashid: I am her mate.

  Ra’uda: Ana zowjuha.

  Samaher: Our Torah forbids the dead to haunt the living.

  Rashid: I am not dead.

  Ra’uda: Ana lastu maitan.

  Samaher would have none of it. “You have departed to another world—and there you must remain till the great ram’s horn is sounded. I command you to leave the body of this maiden and return to your resting place!”

  Rashid: [Softly] O Tzaddik of Miropol! I know how great you and your power are. I know that angels and seraphs do your bidding. But I will not. [Bitterly] I have nowhere to go, nowhere to rest in this world, apart from where I am now. Everywhere the jaws of Hell await me, and legions of devils and demons would devour me. I will not leave this woman! I cannot!

  And Ra’uda repeated, trembling bitterly in her bridal veil:

  “La astati’u ’l-huruj.”

  Samaher turned to face the audience, sprightly in her black jacket and pants with her glued-on beard and earlocks. “O holy congregation!” she addressed it. “Do you grant me the authority to drive out the dybbuk in your name?”

  “Drive out the dybbuk in our name!” the two candle-holding brothers cried, the bigger one in Hebrew and the little one in Arabic:

  “Utrud al-jinni!”

  Solemnly, Samaher stepped up to the doll held by Rashid and admonished it:

  “In the name of this congregation and all the saints, I, Azriel the son of Hadassah, command you, O dybbuk, to leave at once the body of the maiden Leah, the daughter of Hannah, and to injure neither her nor anyone in departing. If you do not obey me, I will war against you with bans and excommunications. But if you do, I will find you a penance and drive away the devils surrounding you.”