by Ella Hansing
the hottest part of the day – when the herdsmen took their flocks out to hide in the shade of rockier terrain, and all the merchants drove their carts away to rest. The last to leave were always the housewives – collecting their food and wares to retreat indoors and tend their houses before their field-laboring husbands would return. Only the watchmen were left behind, leaning against the stone walls, withdrawn in the shaded part of the entryway at either side of the gate, watching in only partial interest as I made my way swiftly into the city. If I passed in the morning, when they were more wakeful, often they would call out to me or click their tongues, as if luring a small dog. I wasn’t afraid of them, though. They knew who I was well enough and wouldn’t bother or approach me – at least not during the bright hours of day.
Sometimes I entertained the illusion that I was a stranger – that I had no family therein Arrapha or business with anyone in the city. I was a nameless traveler passing through. Imagining this often comforted me when traveling through busy city crossings, or wide streets. If this failed, I would then try to convince myself I wasn’t nearly as noticeable as I felt. I reached inside my head covering to smooth back my dark hair. Already I felt my skin begin to itch.
Beyond the gates, most of the city pathways soon became narrow and crooked – some laid with stone, though most plain dirt – worn and trodden by countless feet and hooves. With all the house windows shuttered to block out heat, the inner streets easily became like a labyrinth. The district I lived in was perhaps the most crowded and stifling of all. We were as far from the central temple, where the wealthier resided, as you could get without setting up camp outside city walls. Buildings were more spread out in the higher districts, majestic and towering – up to three stories even. There were trees and running fountains, even in the drought. There were no plants in our district – only stone and mortar and powdery brown dirt that stained the hems of my skirts – which never fit properly since they were my mother’s old ones, adjusted only to fit my thin waist but not my height.
Instinctively my hand stretched out as I passed Hesba’s house, my fingers gliding faintly along the smooth western wall, eyes surveying the servants’ entry down a side alley – wishful. It was the modest, unassuming door I had always used when visiting the family. It had been a while since I’d last crossed over that threshold. I wanted to feel the life within those walls, seep up the aura of that inner space. Just from touching it I could picture the calm inside the home – envision Hesba, setting out floor mats, pulling the bread from over the fire, instructing the servants to take their break, see Phaena finish at her loom before taking her place around the dinner spread. Even from outside, the peace presiding over the house steadied the erratic flutter of my heart.
Onward my feet dragged me, my fingers having reached the end of the wall – onward toward the narrowing of the streets and steady decent of the houses, growing closer and closer together until they looked like mere heaps of stone, with random holes dug out for windows. Our house stood at a fork in the road – convenient, so that my mother could position herself in the shade of the doorway, while still seeing down multiple avenues – her stares having a lengthy reach. Slowly my hand set itself on the latch, my arm pushing the wooden door forward, lungs pausing a moment before inhaling the expensive aroma within of spices and myrrh. The scent of perfume hung heavily in the air, causing my toes to curl. There was surely no home on our street that smelled such as this. Moving into the dim-lit space, I weaved my way cautiously to my mother’s cushioned floor mat in the corner of our front room. Eyes tracing reluctantly up her pale, uncovered ankles to her round thighs, I skipping the tangled assortment of scarves she adorned her body with, rising above her towering neck, her angled chin and opening lips, to meet her dark eyes fully.
“Ishtah – my only daughter, my only treasure,” she cooed, extending one of her arms in greeting.
Though it was strange for her to welcome me thus, I took her hand lightly in mine – soon noticing her fingernails, which already painted had been meticulously set with tiny sand crystals from the desert. I quickly realized she had worked all day on them and perhaps sought a compliment. My own hand, in contrast to hers, was much darker – tanned by countless hours in the sun – almost the color of the dirt in the streets outside, which I’d been assured men found unattractive. I dropped her hand and went back to the open door, standing in it for a moment at seeing the sun begin to set. Across the street I could see into another home where a meal was being placed. I closed our door and barred it, turning to face my mother.
“Your hands are so lovely,” I breathed out, “Do you want your face to go unnoticed?”
Satisfied, she pretended not to hear.
“Where have you been today?” she began, her voice becoming small – like a child’s. “I can’t braid my own hair, you know this, and we neither of us have eaten. Do you expect me to be festive and welcoming to my guest on an empty stomach? Now that you’re here come and begin my braids. When you’ve finished you can stack up the oven. We’ll warm some bread and set the wine here on the mats – I’ve already laid them out, since you’ve been out hiding again.”
Removing my sandals I turned slowly to face her. I had been waiting for her to speak of bread – waiting to give her a look I’d been planning all day.
“We’ve only one loaf left,” I stated hollowly, the muscles in my face holding perfectly still.
Having risen while she spoke, she approached me swiftly – taking my face in both her hands and drawing it close to hers.
I did not try to hide my discomfort. There had never been any point in disguise with her; she couldn’t tell when I considered something unpleasant, and seldom caught my derisiveness either.
“Ishtah,” she said lowly, “Feed it to me tonight. I must have strength for both of us. Our guest will have the wine and not miss it, and you, my daughter, shall have your fill tomorrow when he has gone – as we both shall for weeks and weeks after.”
Confident in her own words, she smiled and looked away, releasing my face.
Sensing it hopeless, I forced myself to stop searching her eyes – closing my own. My voice seemed to drown within my throat, the sparks igniting in my soul sputtering helplessly out in the density of perfume lingering between us in the air. Taking a seat behind her on her mat, my hands reached blindly to take up her long, tangled hair.
Braiding her thick tresses was a task similar to the production of a delicate tapestry. Smooth, long, and as black as the temple steps, her hair was the utmost jewel in a range of physical trappings she possessed. When let loose it fell almost to her thighs; she could draw it in folds across part of her face like a veil or tie it on top of her head like a towering crown. After it was braided or twisted there were an assortment of items to be woven in – ribbons, colored thread, small charms carved from wood or perhaps a piece of jewelry gifted her from a lover. Then there were the oils to make the hair shine and glint in the firelight. She could seldom afford to visit the bathhouses, but perfume kept her hair smelling renewed nightly – the most costly investment we made. I thought her hair most beautiful when left plain, but she was least happy in this state. Indecisive over which design to begin, I pulled it into a bunch at the back of her neck and went to prepare the bread before beginning.
In annoyance I found the oven had run cold since the morning, when I’d prepared our breakfast. She hadn’t bothered to feed it through the day. I surmised none of the chores had been finished either, let alone even begun. It took me a while to clean out the ashes, to strike up a flame and slowly feed it the remainder of dried refuse I had stowed behind our house. By the time I finished, my stomach was growling audibly. Knowing the order of events I must follow well, I ignored it. At any rate, I was accustomed to immense hunger followed by eventual feasting, and later again hunger. My body knew no degree of consistency. Ours was a life of overindulgence, followed often by sudden scarcity.
The bread had finished warming before I was done with my mother’s hair. Dis
tracted, I had built the fire too hot and it had become hard. She grumbled as she ate it, but hurried nonetheless because it would be rude to eat in front of a guest and offer him nothing. When she was done she had eaten it all – even the hard pieces. Through the cracks in the wooden shutters of our lonesome front window I could see that darkness had fallen. As soon as I had completed her hair to her satisfaction and tidied the room I turned to leave, as was my custom.
“Will you come down later?” she asked, distracted, hands moving to check my workmanship as she spoke. “Wear your veil – it’s so pretty. It makes your eyes shine and the men . . . they like what they can’t see – always what they can’t see.” Laughing a little, she leaned back on the cushioned mat her body occupied.
I examined her sideways in quiet scrutiny. She was not a slender woman to behold. She ate plenty when we had it, and didn’t toil in the fields or slave in the kitchen as most Assyrian women did, so she had grown round – her thighs thick, like the smooth tree posts supporting the roof over our heads, the skin on her upper arms pliable and soft to the touch. I could easily be smothered by her embrace if she were zealous
