The Source

by James A. Michener

  Throughout Palestine, for the last two thousand years and regardless of who controlled the country, there had always been one occupation monopolized by Jews, the dyeing industry, and in Makor the dye vats that lay west of the basilica were owned by two brothers, Judah and Aaron, the older of whom had some years before married Shimrith, a stately, beautiful young woman whose father had traded by donkey with the markets of Ptolemais, while the younger brother had married a local farm girl, stodgy and hard-working. The marriage of Judah and Shimrith had been a productive one, for although they had no children they had established a loving, observant Jewish home from which they radiated what little enlightenment Makor knew in those bleak years. In fact, when Jews compared their fumbling rabbi with Judah, they often observed among themselves: “How much better off this town would be if Judah were our rabbi.”

  But this year his attention had to be focused elsewhere. With the fall of Damascus to the Arabs, stragglers began arriving in Makor with tales of Arab invincibility, and fear settled over the town. Trade with Damascus halted and a worrisome surplus of dyed goods began to accumulate, so that the brothers were faced with a difficult choice: close down the vats and throw their Jewish workers into starvation, or visit Ptolemais to see if more lengths of cloth could be pressed upon the merchants coming there from Venice and Genoa. Accordingly, in early November, Judah did what thousands of men from his little town had done in centuries past: he dressed in his best clothes, found himself a staff and set forth upon the journey to Ptolemais, which still seemed the most exciting and romantic settlement in the world; and it was while he was gone that his wife Shimrith became vaguely aware that her brother-in-law Aaron had begun to look upon her with unaccustomed interest, even though he had a wife of his own.

  The brothers had always lived together in a cluster of cramped buildings at the western edge of town: the dye vats stood in the middle, with the mean synagogue to the north and a home for two families to the south. Aaron and his large family kept to one half of the house, while Judah and Shimrith held the other. Often the two households ate together, so that Aaron had many opportunities to know Shimrith, who respected him as the gruff, powerful man he was, beardless and slope-shouldered from the heavy work at the dye vats. His big hands were usually stained with the signs of his occupation and he was careless of his general appearance, so that he was not the kind of person Shimrith would normally seek out, and now in her husband’s absence she began to fear him, for it was obvious that he had become obsessed with her.

  Whenever she was in sight he stared at her, lasciviously. Ignoring his own wife he tried to place himself so that Shimrith would have to pass close, and at each opportunity his red-stained hands reached for her legs. She avoided him when possible, but the proximity in which they lived made contact inescapable, and she grew to loathe his sudden, grabbing appearances from behind doors. One day he cornered her when his own wife was absent and was so disgusting in his behavior that Shimrith cried, “I shall tell Judah when he returns.”

  “Do so and I’ll kill him,” Aaron threatened, but Shimrith beat him about the face until he had to let her run panic-stricken to her own portion of the house.

  While she huddled there alone she heard the rising of the wind as a storm came in from the sea, bringing the reality of winter to the Galilee. That night there would be frost and on the higher mountains snow; farmers would hurry with their winter plowing and citizens of the town would don their warm clothes and cluster together about small fires, listening to the winds howling down the wadis. Makor, on its exposed height, was especially susceptible to these wintry storms, and pilgrims from Europe who had always imagined Jesus and Moses as living in the sweltering heat of the desert were often bewildered when they found the Galilee as cold as their homelands.

  For Shimrith it was a miserable, lonely period. During the bleak winters she had always loved being with her husband, in the warmth of his arms and safe in his protection. Now, alone, she felt afraid to leave her own cold rooms lest her brother-in-law molest her, and even when she heard the children playing and calling for her she kept to herself, praying for the swift return of her husband from Ptolemais. But the storms kept him in the port city, and the day came when Aaron felt free to make a direct attack upon her.

  He was impelled to do so by a curious logic with which he had convinced himself that she was hungry for his advances: Look at her! That big, wonderful woman with wide hips and me the only man in Makor strong enough to satisfy her. She’s alone and she must want me to come to her. One look at her smooth olive face tells me she wants to be loved, and her hands twitch nervously when I’m nearby. He honestly believed that he would be doing his sister-in-law a favor by approaching her, and this led to the conviction that she had, by sly glances, invited him to do so.

  Consequently, in the middle of a morning, when he should have been at the dye vats, he slipped out the rear of the workshop, scurried along the edge of town and darted into the back door of his home. Assuring himself that his wife was occupied with her children in the open area between their house and the basilica, he burst into Shimrith’s house, appearing before her suddenly, grabbing her and kissing her with much vigor.

  She tried to push him away, but with a skill that he must have practiced in imagination he pinioned her arms with his body, used one hand to cover her mouth and another to throw aside his loose-fitting robe, so that he stood naked and furious before her. He then proceeded to tear away her clothes, while she kicked and struggled vainly against his superior force. When he had her nearly nude he forced her to the floor, still keeping his hand over her mouth, and in a violent scene of tearing and brutality tried to force his massive way into her body.

  When the struggle reached its final stage she was afraid that she must faint, for she was barely able to breathe, but when she felt his body stabbing at her and his animal-like breath enveloping her she made a supreme effort to protect herself, kicking at him with her knees and scratching her nails across his face. This unexpected pain enraged the dyer, and with an uncontrollable blow of his fist he bruised her face and knocked her nearly unconscious. Unable to resist any further she fell back exhausted and in a kind of wintry haze felt him ravage her.

  When he was gone she whispered to herself, “God of Moses, what must I do?” and like many women who face this ultimate indignity she made a fatally wrong decision. Alone and bleeding on the floor she was so mortified by what had happened that she did not immediately cry out. During the rape she had tried to do so; she had done all that a woman could possibly do to defend herself, but her mouth had been smothered so that the cries she did utter were not heard. Now, when others were within hearing distance, she remained mute in terror and shame, and the hours passed, confirming her silence. A cold rain fell on the Galilee and winter was at hand.

  That night Aaron reported to the evening meal with scratches across his face, but glowing with an animal contentment. Satisfied that the silence of his sister-in-law proved her enjoyment of the morning tussle he smiled at her with open longing, and she was distraught when she realized the interpretation he was placing on her muted behavior. His daughter asked what had scratched his face, and he replied, leering at Shimrith, “A kitten with an olive face.”

  The next two days were marked with terror. Outside, the storm continued, with dark clouds riding in from the sea so that Ptolemais was hidden in darkness, while inside the house of the brothers Aaron stalked his sister-in-law as primitive hunters in this region had once stalked the lioness. Finally he trapped her near the kitchen, where with a grandiose gesture he opened his robe, revealing himself naked and hungry for her, confident that she too had been plotting for this moment, and he had so convinced himself that Shimrith loved him that he ignored her anguished retreat. Moving toward her he offered to repeat the game, but this time she was prepared. Producing from her dress a brass knife she stood ready to stab him if he touched her, and for a moment he was halted by this surprising development.

  Then, with
bewildering speed, he threw aside his robe completely, and with a deft feint toward her head caught her off guard, and with one hand wrested away the knife and with the other silenced her mouth before she could scream. It could have been a game, Aaron thought. It could have been that she had grabbed the weapon only so that she could be disarmed and overpowered, as if that were her pleasure, heightening her wild responses to the sexual act. Responding to her strange sense of play he struck her across the chin, and before she fainted undressed her and threw her upon the floor.

  Too late, too late she ran sobbing from her violated home to seek refuge with the rabbi, but when she entered his disheveled room and found him nesting behind a clutter of scrolls she had a premonition that she had come to the wrong man for help. Sitting with his pale hands folded beneath his beard he listened as she gave her account of Aaron’s behavior, and before he was willing to comment either yea or nay he rummaged among his scrolls until he found one to his liking, and after having consulted it, asked simply, “So Aaron raped you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many times?”

  “Twice.”

  “The first time?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “And you didn’t cry out?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “And later you told no one?”

  “I was too ashamed.”

  The rabbi tugged at his beard and asked a most significant question. “Where did the attack take place?”

  “At our house?”

  “By the synagogue?”

  “Yes.”

  The rabbi sat back and studied the distraught woman with what he thought was understanding. It was an old story, familiar to all judges, of the woman who had half eagerly, half hesitantly encouraged her lover, only to react with shame and humiliation some days after the experience. The Torah was filled with accounts of wild sexual behavior, for the patriarchs were men of lust and their women were worse, tricking and seducing and procuring. It had taken nearly a score of centuries to subdue the wilder impulses of the Jews, and rabbis had spent much effort trying to formulate logical codes, but of one thing they were certain: even the most circumspect woman could trap herself into seducing a man one day and charging him with rape the next. The essential test had always been, even in the Torah: “Had she cried out to protect herself at the first opportunity?” The Jewish moralists knew that when a woman did not make this normal and primitive response any subsequent behavior must be viewed with suspicion. The present case of Shimrith, wife of Judah, merely presented new proof of this old truism.

  “An evil thing has been committed,” the fumbling rabbi granted, “but it is not the evil that you charge against your brother-in-law. It is the evil you did in luring a man and then charging him with rape.”

  “Rabbi!” The stunned woman let her shoulders slump as if she had been clubbed across the back.

  “Yes,” the legalistic man continued, fumbling among his scrolls for a passage to fortify his judgment. “I have the words right here some place,” and finally he found what he wanted, the determinative passage in Deuteronomy: if “a man find her in the city and lie with her; then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city …” Putting aside the scroll he said gravely, “The Torah continues that if the supposed rape took place in the country, the woman shall not be stoned to death, for there perhaps she cried and no one heard. By your own confession, Shimrith, I could condemn you to death. For you enticed your brother’s husband in the city, and had you cried out even I could have heard you in the synagogue next door. You seduced your brother-in-law twice and now come complaining. This time I shall let you go, but keep away from Aaron, for whom you have conceived this lustful desire. And when your husband Judah returns from Ptolemais try to be a good wife to him.”

  Having delivered his judgment the rabbi rose amid the dusty jumble of his life, but Shimrith could not. She was stunned and unable to move. “If I go home,” she said, “Aaron will force me again.”

  This posed a new problem and the rabbi sat down, searching his folios until he found a section of the Talmud covering this eventuality, which he summarized for the supplicant: “If a woman be faced with rape, against her virtue and against her will, it were better that she should die.” Smiling at her in a kind of greenish compassion he said gently, “You had the knife, didn’t you? You knew the law, didn’t you? Confess, Shimrith. You did tempt him, didn’t you? You were gratified, in a womanly sort of way?” He hesitated, then asked, “Was it perhaps because you knew that Aaron could have children and Judah not?”

  She drew back from the ugly man, realizing at last how gravely she had compromised herself by having remained silent. She had an excuse. Silence had been forced upon her by physical choking and by mental confusion, but that it was silence she had to admit. At the door of the rabbi’s cluttered room she looked back with dismay. She had come to him with perhaps the gravest problem a woman could present to a spiritual guide and had received no consoling response. She fled the place, not appreciating the fact that the pettifogging rabbi had given her the sagest advice on this matter of rape that the world had so far evolved, and one that would never be superseded. If women did not entice timid men by every subtle trick used by birds and beasts, how would the human race be perpetuated? And if men did not force their way upon timid women, within the rules of decency, how would the hesitant female ever find a partner? In this animal-like swamp of human passion the most careful rules had to be drawn, and once drawn, observed. Rape had been scientifically described in the Talmud, and no woman who had entertained her husband’s brother once, waited two days, entertained him again, and had then decided to cry “Violation” could claim protection under that careful description.

  That night the cold rains continued, and at dawn the next morning Shimrith, aching with confusion and shame, climbed to the roof of her house, where she studied with longing the distant church towers of Ptolemais, and as she watched them change their shapes and colors when the wintry sun played upon them she prayed that her husband would return that day to rescue her. If he did not she would walk to Ptolemais to find him, for she was abused in spirit and could find no consolation.

  As if in response to her prayer, Judah did leave Ptolemais late that afternoon, hoping to reach Makor at dusk, but halfway home a most heavy storm whipped across the flatlands leading from the shore and he was required to take refuge in a sheep shed, where he spent more than an hour talking with the shepherds, and this meant that he reached Makor after dusk, but Shimrith, still watching from the roof, saw him coming and ran through the rain to find solace in his arms. While they were still outside the town she told him of the wretched events and he stopped in the roadway like a man with a heavy burden to question her as to what had happened.

  “Where was Aaron’s wife?”

  “Outside, playing with her children.”

  “Was there no one in the synagogue?”

  “There might have been.”

  “Why didn’t you cry out?”

  “I was stunned. I was ashamed.”

  Standing in the dark rain Judah considered this carefully. It was the same evidence that Shimrith had presented to the rabbi, but this time it was listened to with compassion. Judah remembered how shy his stately wife had always been, how modest in her appraisal of her own beauty. He knew her extraordinary honesty, even about little matters, and he believed her, yet he felt obliged to be fair to his younger brother. “Did you entice him in any way?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Satisfied with his wife’s account, Judah put his arm about her and kissed her. “On you there is no sin,” he said consolingly. “Your body has been insulted but not your spirit. If you have the courage to come to me and to tell me these things, you have the courage to accept their consequences.” He kissed her again and said with his mouth smothered in her dark hair, “I love you with all my heart, Shimr
ith, and while I was absent in Ptolemais I longed for you each moment. Now go back to our house and wait.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He pushed her toward the winding road leading up to Makor, then started toward the olive grove, but she followed him, tugging at his arm and demanding, “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know!” he cried in anguish. “It’s no small thing.” He stalked alone into the olive grove, trying to find an honorable solution to this situation, and while his frightened wife returned to her cold home, he pondered the various facts that confronted him, and possibly in his compassion he found the solution he sought, but if so he explained it to no one, for as he walked beneath the ancient trees strong hands reached out and strangled him.

  It was never known who murdered Judah the dye master. Some held that the shepherds with whom he had taken refuge had trailed him through the dusk, striking him down when darkness fell, but this made little sense, for he had not been robbed. Others argued that ruffians set loose from Tverya after the capture of that city by the Arabs had done the job, but Shimrith knew otherwise, for early on the morning of the murder, while she was still on the roof praying, she had looked down into the streets of Makor and had watched as the rabbi came quietly to the dye vats, where he had taken Aaron aside to upbraid him. If the rabbi had treated her harshly as a vacillating woman, he spoke in even stronger terms with Aaron, who had abused his brother, lusting after his wife while the brother was absent. Although she could not hear the voices of the two men she could deduce with fair accuracy the fact that the rabbi had told Aaron of her formal complaint, and she could see her brother-in-law’s strong hands clasping and unclasping in rage.

  All that day she had succeeded in hiding from him, lest he take vengeance against her, and toward evening she was gratified when she saw him leave the house. Later, when men came shouting that Judah lay murdered on the road, she looked at Aaron’s feet and they were muddy, smeared with the dark earth of the Damascus road. There had been one awful moment when she had stared at his sandals, and when he caught her doing so, she had screamed. He knew. She felt sure that he knew she had screamed not because of her husband’s death but because of the dark mud which proved him to be the murderer.