by Ella Hansing
outside the house were my responsibility. I was the only one to go to the market to buy meat, to venture to the well to fetch our daily water, to throw our waste out just beyond the city walls, to go to the temple to make our sacrifices. I was even sent occasionally to carry my mother’s personal messages, which I disliked the most, as it involved coming face to face with others. In truth, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen my mother set foot beyond our front steps. She had many excuses for keeping herself dormant; her favorite was that she needed to shelter her pale skin from the merciless Assyrian sun, or that moving too much would make her too thin – which was thought unsightly by Assyrians. Other times she told me it was so that I could get the fresh air – since I was the younger one. Part of me suspected she was simply afraid, remembering the time so long ago on a street corner in our lowly market, when she had quarreled with two other prostitutes who were angry with her.
At the time of the incident I was very young – a small girl standing shyly behind her mother’s skirts, watching in horror as they pulled her long braids, trying to cut them with a knife. In the end she managed to save her hair, the source of her wealth and beauty, as she so often assured me, but only by taking flight. I was left behind – pushed to the side, hiding between two giant baskets of figs, choking back tears. I didn’t understand why anyone would hate her.
Hoisting our water jar upward I rested it on my hip evenly, hastening up the dirt road until it turned to pavement, where there I stopped to check my surroundings before proceeding into open market.
‘You’re so much quicker than me, and less noticeable,’ my mother had once assured me, woefully adding, ‘It’s my curse to be the way I am.’
‘So it is my gift that I am unnoticeable?’ I had questioned inwardly at seeing her pout.
Though aggravated at the time, I knew she was right; it was easier if I went out alone, because in contrast to her I really was invisible. My memories of accompanying her out into the streets, though few and far between, were each etched in my mind with the discomfort and permanency of a blade. Her arrival fetched attention from men and women alike, no matter the size of the crowd or volume of noise. Though covered, her bosom was large, though tied back, her hair was thick and long. Her walk was distinctive – towering and assertive, dividing a crowd with the authority of an arrow let loose from a bow. Her makeup rivaled the expensive plaster paintings on the temple walls in color and animation. She could be spotted from across the length of the entire market. Her jewelry – gifts from ardent worshipers, had a way of gleaming in the sunlight – like a signal calling out, drawing in. Her scent, the aroma of her perfume, enticed even the blind beggars on the outskirts of the market to follow her steps.
Accompanying her made my skin crawl – the thought of so many eyes upon us. I had often tried, to no avail, to reassure myself that no one took any notice of me – the young, skinny girl with cautious eyes walking in her shadow.
In turning a corner I halted briefly. To my disappointment I saw the market had already begun to grow crowded – women and servants picking through huge baskets of fruit, haggling over pieces of fabric with the merchants, yelling at loose children running through the open road. The smell of the market filled my nostrils – of spices from the vendors, of sweat from the workers, of blood from the butchers – the skinned animal carcasses swaying from metal hooks just ahead of me. Pulling my head covering even lower over my brow, until it nearly covered my vision, I swallowed drying and pushed myself forward.
Not only was the market swollen but so was the line for the well – what I feared most. A long line would mean standing out in the hot sun, in the open, for more time than I felt comfortable with. It would mean rubbing shoulders with other women – women who I perhaps least wanted to become familiar with, or to be familiar with me. According to my mother, most all women were hateful by nature – forever at odds with one another, they could never be trusted. Of course, there were really none that she interacted with ever, outside those counted among her lovers, and those types, she assured me, thought more like men than women. In her opinion, the housewives were the most abhorrent of all; she often referred to them as idle cows, conspiring from sun up till sundown. Perhaps her aversion to them was because she knew she was hated most by these – the ones with husbands and children to guard. With reluctance I slid into formation at the very back of the line, behind an older woman, careful to avoid making eye contact with anyone by focusing on my toes, peeking out dustily from the worn straps of my sandals.
Ever since the start of the drought, the task of fetching water had become increasingly trying – the lines growing to twice their usual size. It was as if every woman in the city were trying to gage the volume of the well – up to three times a day – drawing water just to be sure it was still there. More than once I questioned whether or not they were secretly stocking it up behind closed doors, and whether or not I was the only one ignorantly enough to refrain. Arrapha had a total of four districts, ours being the lowest – both in wealth and elevation. Our district used to have two wells, but despite being in the lowest point of the city where water should naturally drain, one of them had recently dried out – now boarded over and left vacant. I knew this, most likely, to be the cause of the doubled lines. Swallowing impatiently, I gathered just enough courage to lean out from my place to check how far I had till the end. Aggravated, I watched a pair of modest young girls at the front of the line, most likely sisters, struggle to hoist the taut ropes. In addition to the long wait, under the hot sun, when it finally became your turn, it took tremendous effort to hoist the water from so far below. If you were too young or too old it could be almost impossible to manage.
A good ways ahead in the line, a woman motioning caught my attention. Reluctant, I stepped out of place a little further to see Hesba smiling broadly and waving her hand at me, motioning for me to come and join her. Lips sealing stiffly I clasped my water jar tight, wishing she would stop waving. With both palms beginning to sweat, I swiftly passed the eight or so persons in front of me and slid wordless into formation beside her – hot glares of annoyance searing my thinly clothed back. Arching my shoulders, I tried my best to dispel the burning sensation.
Though she wasn’t alone, I kept my gaze centered safely on Hesba’s warm eyes. Standing close at her side, her daughter Phaena, also holding a water jar, regarded me in familiarity with a brief nod. At seeing her, I instinctively straightened my posture, making the immense effort to lift my chin from my chest, where it seemed stuck. Though we were the same age, Phaena had somehow managed to become taller than I – or perhaps I merely slouched too much when I was around her. Over time, her beauty had undeniably grown, surpassing many. Her arms were so much lighter in color than mine, her hands less coarse and clothes less worn. Her hair had grown so long since we were young; she always fastened it in such elegant, simple ways – unlike the gaudy style I was used to seeing on my mother. Phaena possessed a sort of guiltless beauty that had always fascinated me; it shared no part in the heavy jewelry, thick oils, the colorful scarves and paints that I had grown up around. Shifting weight, I moved my jar from one hip to the other in attempts to make myself comfortable – careful not to stare at her, since I knew she didn’t like it. She did have one thing in common with my mother. Similar to my mother, Phaena drank regularly from the cup of vanity – her own particular brew. I could see it easily as she glanced sideways at me, her nose facing safely ahead toward the next person in line. It was that small glint in the recess of her eyes – a low glint – the awareness of one’s beauty, one’s control over the feelings, the attraction or attention of others.
Phaena and I had played together often as children – hiding in the market from Hesba after stealing olives from her kitchen. In those days we always longed to be together, to stay the night side by side – always finding ways to meet and play in the market. They were some of my happiest times. When we played in her home it was as if I were her sister, even staying to eat meals with the family w
hen it became dark outside. A warm glow had always filled my chest, sitting cross-legged beside Phaena and her mother, filling my stomach until it was satisfied amid my childhood inhibition. Afterward Phaena and I would lie out on the roof. We would laugh and whisper about the men we wanted to marry someday. We took no notice of the city surrounding us, no consideration for time, status, or circumstance. I felt none of the pressure I would later feel – my consciousness and unease standing in the midst of their quiet home. And Phaena hadn’t become vain yet.
I knew she was uncomfortable being so close to me outdoors, now that we were older. I could sense her check now and then to see who might be looking at us – checking to see if anyone recognized me, or if anyone was looking questioningly at her. She was tolerant of my presence perhaps only for her mother’s sake. Perhaps wishfully, I had hoped that some small part of her silence was for the sake of our childhood friendship, but over the past few months I knew this couldn’t be the case. With womanhood nearly upon us, I doubted she took the past into consideration much at
