Sacrificeby Tala Bar |
Table of Contents Chapter 4, part 1 appears in this issue. |
Chapter 4: On the Balance
part 2 of 2
“Is that what you want, Eitan? To be the Lady’s consort and King of the Village?” the old man asked, the sound of his voice unfathomable.
“That is what I want,” the young man replied, not removing his eyes from Tamar.
“But that’s not enough,” Ya’el continued, “to become the Lady’s consort he has to be reborn to our Great Mother Asherat, to be one of the people of the Village.”
“Reborn!” All of a sudden the nomad Chief exploded in fury, as if he had been holding himself all that time, “that ungrateful youngster was born to his mother who nurtured him to become the fine man he is, only to be taken away by some strangers!”
The three villagers remained very quiet, keeping their peace. There was no fighting man among them, their only chance was by holding their own.
But there was no danger. Chief Ze’ev’s fury was clearly directed only toward his son. He made a sign to the others that he wanted to speak to him alone, and they moved away toward the center of camp; but he would not keep his voice down, and they were able to hear most of his words.
“What is it you want?” The nomad Chief roared, raging beyond anything the villagers had seen before; they noticed the tribe’s people were keeping at a distance from their fuming leader. “Have you forgotten your own people and customs, your mother, your father and Chief?”
Eitan, his pale cheeks glowing against the dark beard, answered very quietly, “I am not going to forget anyone. But she is my life, my soul, my destiny; I cannot live without her. I’ll follow her anywhere.”
“Follow a woman...” the contempt in the Chief’s voice was infinite. Eitan ignored it, as if talking more to himself than to his father.
“She is not just a woman, like one of our women, to be taken lightly. She is a queen, and I’ll be a king by her side.”
“Queen, king, indeed,” the Chief growled; he was clearly feeling helpless in a situation where a young woman had more power than he did. But by now his anger was spent, and he had always been a sensible man.
“If that’s what you want, I cannot argue with you. You were my favorite, but I have other sons. However, I am not the one to go and tell your mother about all this; she had put great hopes in your winning Amina in the contest and becoming chief after me, and it is up to you to tell her of her disappointment.”
A spell of silence fell over the camp, the quiet after a storm, and they saw Chief Ze’ev was being joined by some of the men and went to sit in the shade of some trees. Eitan approached Tamar and Amnon and spoke quietly to Tamar, eying Amnon on the slant.
“Would you like to visit my mother?” he said, pointing at the tent.
“I would like very much to meet your mother,” Tamar said, “I’ll just go and call Ya’el.” The old healer had gone to speak with some of the women who were sitting together, softening animal skins with flint tools.
“You will have to stay outside,” Eitan was saying apologetically to Amnon as the women came up to them; “no strange man can approach the women inside the tent.”
Amnon looked on silently as Eitan pushed the tent’s flap aside for Tamar and Ya’el to enter. He let them go right in, halting behind them, then presented the two women of his life to each other.
“Mother,” he said with great reverence, “this is Lady Tamar from the Village of the Three Moons; please, grant her the honor she deserves.” Then he turned to the girl from the Village. “Tamar, meet Atir, the Chief’s wife and my mother.”
He left then, dropping the flap behind him, leaving the women to face each other.
Ya’el scanned the inside of the tent with great interest. Its main richness was demonstrated in the heavy, varied animal skins covering the earthen floor; the women’s ornaments were made of bone and teeth of various animals, colored in shades the villagers had never seen before.
The Chief’s wife, a large, heavy-looking woman with a swollen face and small, sharp, black eyes, was sitting in the center in an imposing position, surrounded by her companions: women and girls of all ages. Some of them held small children on their laps, one was suckling a baby. For the first time the villagers were able to see their uncovered faces, secure as they were in the shelter of the tent. They all seemed to look alike in their dark complexion, black eyes and thick, black, curly hair. None of them rose in honor of the guests, and Tamar was impressed with Atir’s face, which expressed harsh haughtiness.
“Greetings,” Eitan’s mother said shortly, her voice as harsh as her countenance. Tamar bowed to her slightly.
A young woman, sitting by the side of Eitan’s mother, invited the two Village women to sit down. Tamar gazed at her, finding in her face a softer version of Eitan’s. Then she noticed Amina sitting opposite her, watching her with resentful eyes under half-closed lids. The girl was not pretty, her nose too big, her eyes too small, her face spotty; it was no wonder Eitan was not in a rush to win her hand. Neither Atir nor Amina spoke to Tamar or to Ya’el after the first greeting.
Having been served with refreshments made up of dried dates and slices of gazelle meat, Tamar presented the Chief’s wife with a gift, a small image of Asherat carved in sandstone.
“She is so wonderfully naked,” the woman exclaimed addressing her friends, as she slanted her eye at Tamar herself to make it doubtful whether she meant the statuette or the girl; the companions tittered and covered their faces with their dark palms, peeping from between fingers. Eitan’s mother only slightly bowed her head toward Tamar in recognition of her gift. Tamar turned away from her to the girl who had shown her kindness, and found she was indeed Eitan’s sister; she asked her a few questions about their life in the desert.
Ya’el started a conversation with the woman with the baby; unlike Village children, it was swathed in clothing hiding its sex. “How old is the child? Is it a boy or a girl?” asked the healer.
“He is just one moon cycle old,” the mother replied, adding in a tone of boasting, “he belongs to the Chief!”
“Belongs to the Chief?” Ya’el repeated politely, as if expecting an explanation.
“The Chief took me under his protection when Atir had stopped bearing children; now I do it in her place.” There was an obvious pride in her pose, and Ya’el saw the bitterness in the old woman’s glance.
“Is it not possible to have a child without the protection of a man?” Tamar asked.
“It is possible, of course. But isn’t it better if a man wants to grant his protection to you and your children? Especially, if he is the Chief of his tribe?” There was some defiance in her clear voice, and the villagers wondered.
“We never look for the protection of a man,” Ya’el said in a strong tone of voice.
“But you, girl, must need the protection of a man,” Atir surprised Tamar by turning suddenly to her, “as pretty as you are!” Her vicious eyes openly scanned Tamar’s half-naked body, and the contempt in her voice was unmistakable.
“The whole village,” declared Ya’el, “is soon going to be under Tamar’s own protection, as the embodiment of the Goddess, under whose sole protection we all live and thrive.”
These words seemed to have silenced even the Chief’s wife, and the Village women soon rose to go.
Outside, Eitan was still waiting for them in the company of Amnon; Tamar was happy to see her brother relenting, talking amicably to the man she wanted as her lover. It was not enmity between these two men she wished for, and a friendly competition.
“We’ll see you again, then,” were Ya’el’s parting words to Eitan, before he turned to enter the tent. They assumed he was going to see his mother, but had no way of knowing what were the words between them going to be.
III
Atir had shooed out the women with their children before Eitan felt they could talk.
“My mother,” he said in a low voice when they were alone, “I want to part from you in peace; my bride is calling for me and I must go to her.”
“Bride!” she spat out the words, full of scorn; “whoever heard of a man going to his wife’s place!”
“I must! She will not come here, and I can’t live without her.”
“And what about us? What about the family who raised you with love and compassion? What about me, your mother who had given you life, the breath in your mouth?”
“I always loved and respected you when I was a child, my Mother; but I am a man now, I need a woman, and she is the one I love; she is the one I want. If she wants me in her village, I must go to her.”
“She wants you? That shameless naked hussy! How can you?” Atir had raised her voice, and some heads peeped in to look at the commotion. She waved her hand at them and they disappeared, but that same wave acted to emphasize her words. “I vow she is not even a virgin!” she was shouting now, “and after all the care we have taken to guard Amina’s virginity for you!”
“What do I care for Amina’s virginity? What good is virginity to me when I want the whole woman?”
“I knew it! The minute I saw her nakedness I knew it! That snake!”
Her hand grasped a poisonous oleander branch and she used it to draw circles in the dust, muttering incantations, her black eyes flashing with raging sparks.
“What are you doing, Mother,” he was upset by this practice of hers, today more than ever.
“I am cursing that sorceress who had bewitched my son and his father,” she growled, grinding her teeth.
Eitan felt a pinch in his heart. She was his mother, and he was bound to love and respect her; but she had very little motherly love in her.
“If you only knew her! She is more like a goddess than a witch, and I simply love her.”
“Love! Goddess! That serpent has stolen my son’s heart and turned his father’s head!”
“I wish you wouldn’t use such expressions! She is going to be my wife!”
“Wife! I hear you are going to be reborn in their tribe! You are a traitor, giving your heart to a whore! She will be a snake in your bosom, she will suck your brain, and she will blacken your spirit! Let Yahu burn her with his scorching sands!”
“Don’t curse, Mother, I implore you.” He stretched his hand to touch her; “please, bless me in peace before I leave.”
“There is no blessing, no peace...” she dropped the stick and crumbled to the floor, her face buried in the earth, the only sound heard was her weeping.
“Don’t cry, Mother,” he bent and caught her shaking shoulders in his arms, “I am going to be happy with my choice.”
“You are going to be happy!” she mumbled, “but what about us, who will protect the tribe from our enemies when you are gone?”
“What enemies?” He did not want to think of the nomad tribe. “Everything will be fine, you will see, all will be well with you and with me...”
She led him and he followed,
Her smooth palm in his dark hairy hand.
Around them Arcadia blossomed,
Flowers glowed and bird’s chirps above, fluttering like butterflies.
His intoxicated heart stormed, tears veiled his eyes.
A misty veil lay around, cool air wrapped him warmly.
The sky lay low, pushing the earth down.
They travelled downward, toward the bottom of the earth.
Birds shrieked sharply, threateningly piercing his brain.
She held his hand, she was his sole source of comfort.
On and on they went, the mist clearing. Arcadia was gone.
Eternal cliffs soared black, out of their crevices
Monsters stretched their necks, their twisted heads
Their cleft tongues and their gleaming eyes shrieking silently.
The road, harsh and strewn with rocks, went down... down...
She led him to the darkness of the earth
And he followed, their palms quivering in each other.
Chill gripped him, her hand the sole source of warmth.
Everywhere darkness, fire flickering among the cliffs.
Screams, groans and cries of pain, strange creatures
Stretching sharp claws, tearing at their clothes, at
Their flesh. Ghosts floating around, emanating pale,
Lifeless light, passing by, barely touching there
Bristling hair. They stepped in mire and pitch and he
Closed his eyes, held fast to her hand whose bones
Threatened to break...Behind closed lids light penetrated. They went toward the
Light. A round, white face like the moon glowed before him.
Round eyes as blue as sky and water, red lips open blessing.
Golden hair waving, flowing, emitting
Golden light.They advanced toward the image, closer, closer, not
Stopping. It filled the world, wrapped them in its warm
Glow. The light filled his heart, filled him with Tamar,
The three of them — Eitan, Tamar and Asherat — combined into one Body.
They opened to the light, felt the
Blessing encompassing all, like a ripe fruit on the point
Of bursting to scatter its juice and seeds around...To be continued...
Copyright © 2005 by Tala Bar
