Tedeschi’s eyelids flickered with humorous anticipation. Having listened with enjoyment to his wife’s account of his sufferings, he was now ready for the ironies of his loyal student, his first teaching assistant, whom he had sent to establish a new department of Near Eastern studies in Haifa before the two of them could get on each other’s nerves — get in each other’s way — in Jerusalem. With a wave of his hand he signaled his wife to remove his oxygen mask, so that he might converse with this visitor he was fond of — who, however, was more alarmed than ever by the old man’s voice, weak and unrecognizably groping.
“How is Her Honor?” Tedeschi managed to whisper before choking almost at once. It was his way of conveying, Rivlin thought, that he would have liked a visit from Hagit, too. At heart, the old man esteemed her more than he did the husband now bending compassionately over him.
Thirty-three years had gone by since the winter evening on which Rivlin, then writing his master’s dissertation, had brought an aspiring law student doing her army service to his professor’s home. He was already considering marriage and remembered exactly what she wore that night — a black pleated skirt, which made her look fuller than she was, beneath a soft red woolen sweater. Although Hagit hardly spoke and seemed ill at ease in the presence of the great scholar, Rivlin, by now familiar with Tedeschi’s overbearing manner, noticed the sweet but ironic smile with which she regarded him. The great scholar, for his part, struck by some force in the young woman, kept trying to impress her with his wit. When, in a display of interest that was considered good manners in those days, she rose and went to the professor’s large bookcase to inspect its contents, Tedeschi enthusiastically wagged his head behind her back and winked singularly to tell his pupil that he had made a good choice and should not let her get away.
Years later, when relations between the two men were sometimes strained by mutual accusations of academic betrayal, criticism, and neglect, their memories of this evening, on which the older man gave his fateful and sage nod of approval to the younger one, were still able to reconcile them. Besides being Rivlin’s doctoral adviser, Tedeschi had also been partly his matchmaker.
Now, as the conversation continued to proceed along medical lines, including the results of Tedeschi’s latest blood and urine tests, Hannah Tedeschi removed the plimsolls from her husband’s feet to show Rivlin that, far from having just another attack of asthma, the famous Orientalist was suffering from a new and aggressive form of inner rot. Rivlin, unable to bear the sight of the chipped, yellowing nails on the old man’s toes, reached for the volume of Bedouin love poems.
“I see you’re working on a new book of translations,” he said, in an attempt to change the subject to more intellectual matters. Hannah, annoyed to have her case history interrupted, sent him a sharp glance.
“I read the five translations that recently appeared in 2000. They’re not only incredibly faithful, they’re true poems in their own right, works of art. It’s unbelievable how perfectly you captured the two aspects, the comic and the chilling, of Al-Hajaji’s great opening salutation. I’ve recited your rendition to my students several times in order to make them see that, one thousand four hundred years ago, the despotism of an Arab tyrant could also be delicately ironic.”
He positioned himself in the center of the room and recited:
“I, a man of much renown, still aspire upward. When I strip off my turban you shall know who I am….
“O inhabitants of Al-Kufa! I see heads ripe for plucking. I, their master, see the blood between the turban and the beard….”
“As though I see the blood….” The translator corrected him gently.
“Of course. As though. What a marvelous version of the line, Waka’ani anzaru ila al-dimai’ bayna ’l’amami w’al-laha. You’ve done a great thing, Hannah. We’ll never forgive you if you go adventure-hunting again in Tierra del Fuego instead of giving us more ancient Arab poetry in such wonderful translations. Who else could do it so well?”
Standing in the middle of a hospital room with her husband’s plimsoll in her hand, kept from finishing her stirring account of his maladies, the translator, though her work had already been acclaimed in a weekly literary supplement, was unprepared for such kudos from a full professor. Granted, Rivlin’s field was history, not poetry, but he was a connoisseur of the latter, too. The bitter resentment on Hannah’s face yielded to a look of surprise. She seemed not to know what to make of Rivlin’s sudden panegyric. The bright flush in the sick man’s face, however, left no room to doubt that he took pleasure in the compliments lavished on his wife. He broke into a cough that grew steadily more violent.
15.
WHETHER TO CALM her husband or merely keep him from talking, Hannah hurried to replace the oxygen mask.
Tedeschi shut his eyes painfully, his cough burbling out in a fresh supply of oxygen. Unbuttoning his pajama top, he bared a chest that rose and fell like a bellows.
“Where,” sighed the translator, “am I to find the peace and quiet to translate love or battle poems? You know that Carlo’s jubilee volume is supposed to be coming out soon. All the material is ready except for the article you promised.”
Rivlin scratched his head. “Yes. That article. I can’t seem to finish it….”
Tedeschi’s eyelids fluttered again. Choking or not, he wanted to hear his ex-student explain why it was so difficult to finish an article.
“We’ve just moved to a new apartment in a new building. The whole transition, not to mention the actual construction, has been brutal. Hagit can’t take time off from her trials, and the whole burden has fallen on me. I’ve actually become stupider this past year. My brain has shrunk. I’ve lost my concentration. And the Arabs have driven me to despair. How can you write with any sympathy about the Algerian freedom fighters of the nineteen forties and fifties when you see the terrible carnage going on there now? It’s insane, the terror they’ve let loose.”
“But what do you care if they’re murdering each other now?” Hannah Tedeschi rebuked him. “You’re writing about the past. And who says you have to love Arabs to write about them? You promised us an article. Don’t you see the state Carlo’s in? We can’t put out a jubilee volume in his honor without the participation of his best-known student. Think of how it would look….”
Rivlin smiled uncomfortably. “Most successful student” or simply “best student” would have made him happier. He did not always like having his name linked to that of the Jerusalem scholar, whose recent work was rather weak. He glanced at his watch again. It was time to leave for the airport. Relieved that he had eaten before being exposed to Tedeschi’s feet, he laid his arm on the old man’s shoulder in farewell. “It’s all psychological,” he almost reiterated, feeling impelled to repeat his diagnosis. But he caught himself in time.
“You can expect another visit tonight. A ritual one. Ephraim Akri wishes to do his religious duty. And Hagit and I may come together on Saturday.”
Tedeschi looked agitated, as if unwilling to part so soon.
“What is it?” asked his ex-student with genuine concern. The old professor did not reply. His face was angry and tense. Fearful of another spasm, he kept on his oxygen mask and pointed, with an arm connected to an IV drip, to the empty bed by the door.