by Ella Hansing
streets, in symbol of the wealth of Arrapha. As I watched I could sense my body tugging me away. Even at so young an age I was able to discern differences between myself and others. I could see the mothers and fathers waving to the children as they marched – see them beaming, hear them clapping along with the rhythm of the tambourines. I was the smallest person in the crowd lining the street. I had been sent out to go and fetch water – our heavy jar pressed between my hands. I hadn’t been told there would be a festival. Since the hours of day seldom concerned our sort I rarely knew when anything in the city was occurring. Only when nightfall crept over Arrapha did our house link arms with the pulse of the streets outside.
Swallowing, I could taste my seclusion at the back of my throat. I felt like murky water being poured into a bowl of expensive oil – unable to mix. Though disconnected, I knew many things about many households not my own. Perhaps that was why as a child I was looked on with distrust and uncertainty by women much older. As I grew, I realized they were afraid, not only of what I unknowingly brought with me, but of what my presence in their midst might already indicate. It wouldn’t take me long to learn that, though alone, the shadow of my mother hovered behind my walk wherever I went, visible to anyone looking my way.
Tonight the colors my mind replayed were vibrant enough to blind – the sensation of a child brushing into me as they passed, the sprinkle of grain falling on my head, running down my cheeks, so tangible that it caused me to stir in my sleep. With the procession already nearing its end, the crowd began to thin as it made its way on the heels of the parade toward the central temple. Standing immovable, I watched darkness increase as the torches moved away, imagining the small glow lit inside my chest dimming along with the light.
Before I could turn fully to walk away, I felt someone pull my jar from my hands. Looking back I saw it was a young boy, just my height, carrying a few stocks of wheat in one hand and yanking the jar from me impatiently with the other. It was the brother of a young girl I was friends with. He looked silly, being so far behind the procession, perhaps coming in late from the fields. Wordless I released the jar, at which he replaced it with the wheat stocks in his hand, leading me up the road by the wrist at a sprint.
Frightened by where we were headed, my heart began to beat fast. Seeing the parade just ahead, I closed my eyes and held my breath – as if diving headlong into the sea. When I dared look again he had released me. We were walking at a normal pace at the end of the procession, surrounded by the others. In surprise I heard my voice singing along with the children, I felt my feet marching in rhythm – a smile cracking across my stiff face. With only a little encouragement I had managed to join with the rest of the city in its’ sacred thanks to the gods. In a crowd of so many I felt confident no one could possibly be staring at me – singling me out. A moment longer and I could feel myself lift the wheat stocks above my head, waving them like a banner in the breeze. Overhead the stars guided us to our finish in the arena of the central temple, where there the priests would make the offerings. At the applause of the spectators we took clustered turns in laying our wheat stocks at the foot of the temple.
At the end of the event I grew afraid once more, lost in the crowd – jostled out of the way. The glow began to fade – the faces around me began to haze over. It must have been too long ago for me to remember the entire event, as I was unable to dream up an ending even. Afterward my thoughts drifted to and fro, my body turning this way and that. I still felt slight happiness, though – my mind basking in the afterglow of the procession long after I had departed.
2. Constant Companion
Later on as I slept I began to feel empty, like a loaf of bread hollowed out on the inside. Eventually I became so light that I noticed myself begin to lift from the roof, rising toward the night sky with eyes still closed, gliding gently over the city – my loose hair streaming far below, much longer than usual, as it grazed the tops of the roofs I traveled over.
The serenity I felt must have lasted only a few moments before my eyes opened abruptly, and I realizing I was actually falling. Body tensing, my left hand flew to reach the opposite side of the open roof hatch. I was in just enough time to keep myself from plummeting downward into the kitchen. Heart racing, I watched my hair dangle eerily below – left arm straining to hold me in place. In my weariness and distraction last night, I had dozed off too close to the ladder opening again.
Waking on the rooftop was seldom a pleasant experience, today being no different. The Assyrian sun always sprung from hiding so vigorous and abrupt – anxious to scorch the earth and all its inhabitants. Often it would burn my skin long before I had a chance to wake – melting my eyelids shut like wax and numbing my mind with its heat. At least the air was fresher up high, out in the open, rather than down in the crowded dark and incense of our home. Quivering with the tension of my pose, I blinked to bring my gaze into focus on the dirt ground below.
Pushing myself safely upright with one giant heave, I took my first look for the day out across the lower city. On the roof next door our elderly neighbor was already stringing her wash out across a line. Wordless she eyed me, her face too wrinkled for me to discern her expression before she turned quickly to move down her ladder out of sight. Raising both my hands I combed back my hair from my face with my fingers. Though she had never spoken to me, I had never sensed malice or revulsion in her quiet looks; she was perhaps the only neighbor I didn’t mind.
Stretching my stiff legs, I reached for my head scarf, tucking my hair neatly from sight – sensing how frightening I probably looked, sun-burned, hungry, and sore. Already I could feel anxiety set upon me as I tried to estimate the time, knowing I would need to go and fetch us water soon. It was much later in the day to set out for the district well than I preferred. A sick feeling rested in the pit of my stomach as I took hold of the ladder and carefully lowered myself into the kitchen, resting my feet lightly on our dirt floor. Deciding it best not to prolong my outing, I reached straight for one of our tall water jars stashed beside the oven – the one that wasn’t cracked yet, and made my way to the front of the house as silent as I could manage.
The front of the house was in its custom disarray, with the mats tossed in a heap and our finer belongings – the animal fleeces and cushions, thrown out across the floor. The wine had been finished – the jar and cups knocked to the side, and the rest of the oil burnt up. Gravely I made my way forward, careful not to trip and wake my mother, who I knew would be sound asleep behind her screen in the corner of the room.
The sound of someone moving near the front door brought me my second fright of the morning. Rigid in alarm, I spied an unusually tall man lurking in the entryway – his feet sliding listless into a pair of leather sandals as his hand reached for the latch on the door. As he turned to survey me I froze, his thick, lengthy beard grazing his broad shoulder as he looked my way.
I was embarrassed at once at seeing him – for his sake. It wasn’t a place many would enjoy being found – though in looking, I realized his face didn’t seem as flustered as was typical of my mother’s guests when caught standing in her door. Instead, he lifted his finger to his lips and motioned me to be silent, nodding toward the screen behind which my mother slept. Without hurry, he finished adjusting his sandals, opened the door, and in a moment was gone.
I dared breathe only after the door had been closed, my shoulders dropping and limbs loosening. He must have thought I was a servant. Shaking myself gently I followed his steps to the door and set my hand on the latch, pausing to be sure he had journeyed a good distance from our house before heading outside. I was aggravated to have been seen. Since I was young I had learned that being noticed never resulted in good things for me. Now there was one more person out there in the city that had seen my face – one more person that might recognize me later on in the labyrinth of gossip, ridicule, and heat that Arrapha was. I wanted nothing but to be ground into dirt – to blend in so well that I could be walked over.
With one
hand I managed to tug my head covering more appropriately into place, musing for a moment how much handsomer this suitor had seemed in comparison to my mother’s usual trappings – with an angular build, an enticing aroma, a beard as black as charcoal, and assertive eyes. He was wealthy also. I could tell by his robe and sandals. A wealthy caller always made me hopeful concerning our profits. I wondered if he might be the man who’d been visiting her off and on for a while now – the one who always made her smile while I was trying to paint her face, the one who lifted her spirits and brightened her mood so well for me throughout the entire day before his arrival. For his arrival at our door I had at least one reason to give thanks to the gods. In dismal reserve I pushed my way out into the blinding sunlight.
Limited by this point in the day, time became increasingly important to me. It was always safest to be done with my errands earlier rather than later. Though often sleeping late, like my mother, the other prostitutes in our district would wake up before too long – needing water and food. My best chance at missing them was to finish ahead of them. All the errands
