Ishtah - The Prostitute's Daughter
Page 18
couldn’t see it.
When the music began to fade I was surprised, sad even as the lights abruptly started to dim. Then the others stopped dancing in place and released each other’s hands. Glancing round to see what followed next, my eyes searched the crowd – both expectant and now fearful. Feeling my pulse start to race, my expression grew immediately flat – inwardly hopeful it was only in my imagination that the entire city were turning noiselessly to look on me.
Before any course of action or flight could be taken on my part, a tall woman wearing a lengthy veil broke through the crowds skirting the temple. The moment I saw her, my joints locked with terror, and I began to utter a prayer that she wouldn’t come for me. With eyes traced heavily in dark paint so that she looked more dead than alive, she searched the faces of the long line of dancers – taking only a moment before arriving to me. As if she could hear my very thoughts, she turned at once in my direction – cutting abruptly through a pair of girls just ahead of me. Wordless she took me by the wrist, yanking me out of place.
With every step we took, the familiar squeeze of humiliation began to suffocate my lungs – my feet dragging heavily across the pavement as all of Arrapha stared. Plunging us into the crowd, she pushed her way easily through – being taller than anyone else in sight. As soon as we’d exited the arena our pace increased rapidly – a wide birth forming around our steps, wider and wider the further we ventured.
For the briefest moment I frantically believed I might somehow be able to detach myself from her. In resisting her pull for only an instant, though, I relinquished my struggle. She held me fast with the strength of a man. In despair I stumbled after her authoritative walk. Was there nowhere I could hide from these sadistic women? Inwardly I knew it was time I accepted that I would always be found, no matter where I was or who I was with. If Arrapha were my prison, then these surely were my keepers – my capture and humiliation as inevitable as the eventual death of every living thing. Perhaps it was madder in the end, to run rather than stay? Watching the faces of those we passed, vacant and blurred, I came closer to acceptance of this reality than ever before – feet giving suddenly in, instead of dragging painfully behind.
As if my humiliation could reach no end, I was shocked to see Aeros standing a short ways ahead of us. The only one to step out from the sidelines, he ground himself firmly in our path – both arms lifting, as if to halt the woman leading me. Disheartened, I watched us glide straight though him – as if he weren’t there at all – his young face turning in wonder to watch us engulf ourselves in shadow. Helpless, I heard myself shout back at him. I couldn’t understand what I said – only my intent, which I knew was to send him away. There would be no salvation for me that night. What could he possibly do but make things worse for himself? Though I had no strength to resist or fight for myself, I could at least find the courage to convince him to leave. With every shred of hostility my voice could muster, I shrieked back at him from over my shoulder – casting him into the crowd that stared after us, setting the trail ablaze behind me so that none would dare follow. If I was going to die, either from my own slow, agonizing humiliation, or else at the hands of my captor, I would at least do so without an audience.
I had seen an actual madwoman once before when I was younger, at the outskirts of the city as I was trying to venture to the pool of water – as usual. I could remember her tangled hair, ripped clothes and wild eyes vividly. She would yell at anyone who came near her, frightening everyone away. I wondered now whether or not I would share in her fate. Why not, when already I was shrieking like a madwoman – purposefully casting back others before my downward spiral began. Perhaps such a manner of existence was the only way to truly isolate myself?
Unable to resist, I looked across my shoulder one last time. Far from the temple now, there was no way of telling how Aeros had reacted to my words. We were too quick in our departure for me to see much of anything. Behind us everything turned into a brilliant haze – melting together undiscernibly, like wax beneath a flame.
By the time we reached our final destination, night had oddly turned to day. For some reason or other, I wasn’t surprised to see we stood at the lonesome pool of water outside the city – our sandals a few mere feet from the edge. Glancing up at the majesty of the full Assyrian sun, now scorching my scalp where my hair was parted, I squinted uncomfortably. The stench was much greater than usual, the hum of insects drawn to the water now filling my ears. Normally my place of refuge – my place of stillness and quiet, the entire area instead now throbbed – as if giant veins were pulsing just beneath the ground. With the buzz of insects increasing, I wanted to scratch my arms and legs – I wanted to run into the rugged terrain beyond and never come back. Instead, I found I could barely move – a magnetism keeping me stationed closer to the water than I liked.
Without warning, the prostitute tightened her grip around my wrist, managing easily to drag me the remainder of the distance between us and the pool. There was no sound as we splashed straight into the murky water – flies scattering as we broke the surface. In terror I fought to pull myself back onto dry ground, never suspecting her intention was to take us in – such a notion unthinkable to me. Though I’d gazed for countless hours over the years at the water, I’d never once made contact with it – never able to guess with any degree of confidence how deep it really was. Perhaps I still believed, like a child, that there was no bottom – that if one ventured out too far one would sink into nothingness.
The prostitute didn’t stop until we reached the center of the pool, despite my flailing and splashing – my clothes so heavily soaked that they began to weigh me down. In a moment of stillness, fighting to catch my breath, I was astonished to find us standing only knee-deep. This revelation did manage to quiet my panic for moment – the mystery of the pool seemingly ended as my feet slid relatively grounded into place at what surely was the deepest point of the water. Then she released my wrist – the indentions of her nails left vividly on my skin. For a second I stood alone, our eyes met unblinking as we faced one another – then I began to sink. Making no movement to help, she watched, withdrawn, as my struggle began.
Unable to swim, I grasped her waist in immediate desperation – my terror fully reinstated. Footing dropping abruptly out from beneath me, water flooded me – gathering above my shoulders like sand and closing round my neck. Reaching out my arm, I was just able to reach the end of her veil – imagining for an instant I could use it like a rope and pull myself to safety. Instead, my yanking the fabric merely pulled it loose from her face. In silence my eyes rose to look on the painted face of my mother – her expression lifeless as she looked down on me, her colored lips sealed shut. Sand poured into my gaping mouth, clogging my throat as I searched her vacant features. My voice was drowned out before it could even begin, my vision blackening as the sound of coughing filled my ears, my mind pulsing with sudden life. Eyelids resistant to opening, my body rolled blindly over – striking my head against something sharp.
When at last I woke there were flies on my face. It had become the next day – with the sun sitting directly overhead. I immediately felt broke from head to toe in trying to lift myself, batting my eyes blankly at the sky. In managing to slowly lift myself, nothing but rocky terrain stretching for miles from the foot of Arrapha met my gaze – an acute sense of vacancy filling me as I straightening my back. From the north a hot, solitary breeze peeled loose hair away from my cheek. Looking momentarily toward the sun, I quickly bowed my head in submission to its brilliance. In a flood, my memories of last night rushed to greet my consciousness – like a faithful dog, eagerly joining its master outside his door. As if walking across a bed of thistles, I recoiled – face distorting as the barbed hooks pierced the soles of my feet.
Though my dreams often disturbed me, in that moment I surmised they might better than facing the severity my wakefulness. Already the scuffle of last night flashed across my mind in fragmented pieces – me praying on bended knees in the temple, Aero
s waiting at the steps, the breath of the prostitute on my skin, her nails scratching my cheek, the smashing of the jars, the spectators gathered round. So agonizing were these memories that I considered for a moment simply rising and walking out into the oblivion of Assyria – out into the hot, desolate terrain to never return. I supposed that if I walked all day and night for two days I could make it to the capital, Assur. Or perhaps not – perhaps I would die within a few hours.
In standing I became dizzy, reaching for a nearby boulder to steady myself. In bitterness I conceded I wouldn’t make it out in the desert without water for more than a day – not when I was parched already and had had nothing to eat since yesterday. Lowering my gaze I sunk my teeth into my lower lip, questioning how I could possibly return to Arrapha. How could I walk down those streets again after what happened? Surely this was Ashur punishing me – I had no business in his temple last night, no business walking in the open alongside reputable people as if it would go unnoticed. There was no one to blame but myself, and no one else standing with me besides. I