But Rivlin had family commitments. Even without them, he would not have been inclined to spend a second long evening with Akri, much less join him in a sick call as if they were equals, either academically or in their relationship with a revered teacher.
Now, however, standing by the window of his little office at the university, which was to be his sole work space for the next ten days, his back to the reinstalled computer on whose screen was not yet flickering the problematic book he had been struggling with for the past year, his glance drifted longingly from the plaza at the foot of the tower to the grayish folds of the mountains of the Galilee where last night’s Arab wedding had died out toward morning, and he wondered whether Ephraim Akri might be right. Perhaps this time Hannah Tedeschi’s distress call was genuine, more even than she suspected. If he set out for Jerusalem immediately, he would be able to warn the old professor and his wife that one too many make-believe departures from this world might result in a real one, and still manage to get to the airport on time.
Certainly, he was in no mood to switch on the computer in his little office and view his crabbed work, which lacked a core, a justification, and any apparent relationship to the panoramic view outside. Telephoning the district court, he left a message for Judge Rivlin, who was in closed chambers, telling her that he was leaving early for Jerusalem before going to the airport and that there would be nowhere to contact him during her noon recess. He knew this would displease her, not so much because she would fear his coming late to the airport or think he was taking Hannah Tedeschi too seriously, as because she liked to be privy to all his whims. If he was going to play hooky from work while she sat in a black robe weighing the fateful dramas of the awe-stricken actors in her courtroom, she at least wanted to know about it.
He stopped by the departmental office on his way to see if there was any mail for him. There was nothing, however, except a polite reminder to pay his share of Samaher’s wedding gift. He settled the debt and consumed the last squashed piece of baklava, glancing idly through Akri’s now open door to his desk, at which, undistracted by his departmental chores, the department head sat peacefully immersed in his scholarship. Asking a secretary to check the plane’s final arrival time, he went to inform Akri that, feeling real alarm for the spuriously ill Tedeschi, he had decided to prod him into consciousness by setting out for Jerusalem at once. “That way, Ephraim,” he remarked, “he’ll be ready with a bibliographical favor to ask of you when you turn up there tonight.”
Akri smiled faintly, the deep flush of his dark face disclosing the umbrage he took. Now that he had tenure, he had nothing to fear from a senior colleague. And yet two promotions from assistant to full professor still lay between them, too great a distance for him not to be stung by Rivlin’s sarcasm.
12.
“YOU’RE RIGHT ABOUT one thing.” Rivlin paced freely around the new department head’s office while trying to decide whom Akri resembled more, his blond or his dark grandson. “That harangue of yours needs to be challenged. I’m sure we’ll have a chance to debate it sometime soon. For the moment, I’d just like to inquire whether you don’t think it was tactless, perhaps even — you’ll forgive my saying so — imprudent, to lecture Arabs at an Arab wedding on your theory of… what is it that you call it? Your Theory of Arab Failure? An Orientalist’s Theory of Despair? Yes, your Theory of Despair. I might ask whose despair, though — ours or theirs?”
“Everyone’s…” Feeling his colleague’s hostility, Akri braced for a confrontation.
“Well, you should realize that not everyone understands what it is that you’ve despaired of.” Rivlin stared at the photographs on Akri’s computer, bitterness welling inside him not only at the grandfather, but at the grandsons too. “You don’t have to give me your whole speech again. I’ve already heard it: your despair is pure, intrinsic, theoretical, with no tendentious political content or ideological agenda. But if I, who have some knowledge of your ideas and your articles, have difficulty discerning their purity of intent, what can you expect of others? The students at the wedding weren’t all from our department, you know. Those who were are accustomed to your baroque style and have their semiallegorical, semihumorous way of interpreting it. But there were students from elsewhere as well. Why provoke and confuse them at an idyllic village wedding?”
“But that’s precisely the place for it!” Akri declared with unexpected tenacity. “On their own turf, where they feel most at home, surrounded by their favorite foods, totally connected to themselves and to their land. It’s only there that you stand a chance of getting them to admit the truth. You know me well. You know I don’t look down on the Arabs. I only want to call their attention to a fundamental flaw in their conception of freedom that has spelled tragedy and disaster for them. What did I do wrong last night? I livened up a wedding party with an intellectual discussion in a perfectly civilized way. Didn’t our rabbis say that a table without words of wisdom is no better than a pagan altar?”
“Words of wisdom?” Rivlin looked at Akri as if he thought the usually quiet department head had gone mad. “Whose wisdom? You demolished their past, you defamed their ancestors, you attacked their honor, you enumerated their every weakness, you told them they have no future. Do you really think they’re a merrily self-flagellating band of masochists like us Jews?”
“No one is a masochist.” Akri retained his composure. “I was being objective. I was speaking respectfully and with the best of intentions. Precisely because there were so many young people there, engineers and science majors and future intellectuals, I said to myself, here’s a chance to give them a different perspective on their own history — and in their own language, a rich, fluent Arabic such as they love. If we’re ever going to learn to get along with them, going to their weddings and making small talk while eating barbecued lamb won’t be enough. We have to reach out and touch the truth, even if it hurts. Even if it may be futile.”
“You don’t say!” Rivlin glanced at his watch. “Well, in the first place, the truth is not so simple. And second, you don’t flaunt it at a wedding, not even in fancy Arabic.”
This time the hurt flashed from the lenses of Akri’s metal-framed glasses. Rivlin patted his shoulder.
“Look, now isn’t the time for it. I have to get going. We’ll postpone the discussion — but not for long. I’ll be your next-door neighbor for the next few weeks. My sister-in-law is arriving in Israel today, and my wife has kicked me out of my study. Tomorrow or the day after we’ll have a nice, quiet chat. Not about your truth, or about my truth, but about truth in general.”
13.
ALTHOUGH HIS SISTER-IN-LAW’S flight was scheduled to land in five hours, there was still, the secretary told him, no arrival time — a first indication of a possible delay. This made it possible for him to drive to Jerusalem with his mind at rest. Indeed, after leaving his car in the hospital parking lot, he detoured to the cafeteria for a bite to eat before taking the large elevator to the third floor. Not that he was hungry. However, he feared that his encounter with his old teacher’s illness might spoil his appetite for later.