Free The Liberated Bride by A. B. Yehoshua Page B

sensing that Rivlin, who wanted only to cut short the conversation, felt hurt, he had ended on an optimistic note.
    â€œYou needn’t torment yourself. In a year or two it will all be forgotten.
Why worry about it? They’re young. Their life is still ahead of them. Each of them will find someone else.”
22.
    A ND IN FACT , he had no cause for complaint. The optimist willing to wait for the truth to emerge in time could not possibly understand the sufferer driven in the depths of him to breathe it into life all at once. It gave him a feeling of pleasure, therefore, when Tehila, who took after her father physically as well as in a business sense, now hurried after him along the garden path to beg him to wait for Galya. She was sure to arrive any minute. He couldn’t allow himself to miss her after coming so far to see her.
    â€œBut I’m the last person she would want to be consoled by.”
    â€œHow can you say that? Even after the separation, she always spoke of you in the friendliest tones when you were mentioned. She was in awe of your wife. I think she must have been afraid of her.”
    â€œAfraid of Hagit?” The thought amused him. “Why not of me?”
    Tehila leaned smilingly toward him. “How could anyone be afraid of you? She had warm feelings for you. More than warm. If you ask me, she loved you.”
    â€œShe did?” Rivlin felt a tremor. “Come on! The way she broke off all ties with us was heartless. It was totally out of the blue. She never bothered to explain anything.”
    â€œI’m sure she meant well. She just didn’t want to cause you more pain. I want you to know that if, God forbid—God forbid!—it were your wife to whom something had happened . . .” Tehila crimsoned. “If it had been the opposite, God forbid . . . your wife or someone close to you . . . she would have gone straight to see you, just as you have come to see her.”
    He weighed her words and nodded in gratitude, as if the return call paid by his son’s ex-wife on the Carmel had already taken place. Affectionately, he reached out to touch her shoulder. She had inherited not only her father’s hard, bony face but also his lanky, aristocratic frame.
    â€œWell then, I give in. But only for a few minutes.”
    â€œWhy don’t you rest while you’re waiting? You can even stretch out
in this gazebo. How do you like the changes we’ve made? The place is a lot pleasanter now. I’ll bring Galya as soon as she arrives. In the meantime, Fu’ad will be at your service.”
23.
    E VEN THOUGH HE had no wish to cause his wife, who would soon be speaking to his sister, the slightest concern, he decided not to phone her. The longer he could put off the accounting she was sure to demand of him, the better. Meanwhile, over an emptied coffee cup and the last crumbs of his cake, he pondered the encounter awaiting him. The bougainvillea flowering on the old gazebo, which had changed its location but not its charm, and the Jerusalem air freshening toward evening gave him new hope that it still might be possible to redress, if only in small measure, the consequences of the parting five years ago. There were still two hours before his sister-in-law landed, and in any case, she was a woman who took her time and divided her luggage into many small pieces that never arrived on the conveyor belt all at once. Keeping on the safe side, he had at least an hour to get to the airport.
    It was twenty after five when Tehila returned with Galya. With them was Galya’s new husband, a tall fellow with a short ponytail. One glance at Galya was enough to make Rivlin understand why Tehila had insisted that he wait, for he could see at once that her mourning was of a different and more passionate nature.
    She was dressed in black, like her mother, and still wearing her ritually torn funeral blouse. He couldn’t tell whether it was the thinning