Source

by James A. Michener

  “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.

  Judah had been buried only two days when the rabbi came to the house of mourning to talk with Shimrith. Fortified by three scrolls of law he sat in the chair that Judah had used, folded his hands under his black beard and said unctuously, “Your husband died leaving no children. Is that not so?”

  Yes, she nodded.

  “You know our law. When a childless wife becomes a widow she must immediately marry her dead husband’s brother … to prolong his name in Israel.” There was a protracted silence during which Shimrith could hear cold rain dripping on the roof. “It is your duty,” the rabbi said, scarcely audible above the rain, whose constant fall seemed the symbol of duty.

  “I will not marry the man who killed my husband,” Shimrith said.

  “I could order you to be stoned. For bearing false witness.” The rabbi trembled, then added, “Shimrith, marry Aaron as the law commands. You will have children to honor Judah and this present ugliness will be forgotten.”

  She refused to speak. What the law was requiring of her was morally offensive and she would discuss it no further. Standing in silence before the rabbi she kept her hands pressed close against her sides, so that her woolen dress covered her trembling fingers. In this stubborn position she waited.

  The rabbi chose to ignore her temporary obstinacy, for he had learned in the past what a shock it was to young widows to be told that they must immediately marry their brothers-in-law, but this sensible rule had been evolved when Moses guided his Jews in the desert, where the continuation of the clan was more important than any personal consideration, and although under present conditions of settled life there might be doubts as to its continued necessity, it was still the law and therefore to be obeyed. “This obligation is put upon you by the Lord,” the rabbi mumbled. “For by your sacrifice the continuity of your husband is assured.” He hesitated, for his words were obviously making no impact on Shimrith.

  Shimrith refused to comment on this extraordinary verdict, and the rabbi saw that it was useless to argue further while she was still distraught by her husband’s death, so he left; but that afternoon he found that the Jews of Makor were beginning to separate into two groups. The first said, “Rabbi, you know very well that Aaron murdered his brother. Why do you insist that Shimrith marry him?” To these the ineffectual rabbi mumbled, “I could order you stoned for saying that.” The second group said, “The law requires a widow without children to marry her husband’s brother. Why do you allow her to dally?” And to these the rabbi said, “I do things in my own good time.” But even he could see that each day the rift widened as partisans became more convinced of their position.

  Finally, in late November, the rabbi marched to the house of the dyers with a scroll of law under his arm and delivered to Shimrith a stern judgment: “I order you to marry your brother Aaron this day.”

  Prepared for this moment, Shimrith chose to remain silent, determined never to obey this offensive order no matter if it meant expulsion or even stoning. She listened not to the rabbi but to the rain, and from its insistent fall she gained the courage she required to support her resolution. She felt the cold grayness of this November day seeping into her heart, making iron of what had once been blood. She would never marry her husband’s murderer, and the fence around the Torah could crash down upon her before she would yield.

  But still she did not speak, and just as Aaron in the aftermath of having raped her had misinterpreted her silence as acquiescence, so now the rabbi made the same mistake.

  “It is written here,” he said reassuringly as he unfurled the Torah, “‘If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her. And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.’ It is not my command, Shimrith. It is the will of God.”

  Not even then did she speak. As a powerful Jewish woman, intelligent beyond the average and capable in many untested directions, she began to find reassurance in her unexpected resolve, which she expressed only to herself by keeping her hands pressed tightly against her sides until her fingertips grew white with controlled fury, and in this insolent pose she stared back at the rabbi until that pusillanimous lawgiver left the room. At the door he mumbled, “We should all submit to God’s law with humbleness. I’ll arrange the wedding.” And he was gone.

  Alone in the desolate room, with cold rain striking the roof while her husband’s murderer crouched on the other side of the wall, his ear pressed close to catch what the rabbi had been saying, Shimrith whispered to herself, “There will be no observance of the law. For if the law says that I must marry my husband’s murderer …” She did not finish the sentence, for she knew how impossible it would be for her to prove that Aaron was the murderer, and she foresaw that the rabbi could enlist a considerable pressure, forcing her finally to accept the red-stained master of the dye vats. As a Jewish widow with no living parents, what could she do? She now belonged legally to her brother-in-law, and the rabbi could command her to marry him even though he already had a wife. Even Byzantine soldiers were available to enforce such a decision, now that it had been formally delivered, and in the end there could be only tragedy unless she complied. But this she would not do; so while Aaron remained with his ear to the wall she slipped away and climbed to the roof, where she stood in the rain staring toward Ptolemais and wondering how to escape.

  Now Abd Umar, servant of Muhammad, brought his camels and his horses out of the brooding forest trails to begin his transit of the Galilee swamp. As his animals approached that morass, rain fell and because of overhanging branches all riders were forced to dismount and lead their beasts along the bypass that
skirted the northern edge of the swamp; and as the Arabs entered this unfamiliar world, where the sky was dark and the earth filled with crawling things, Abd Umar began to wonder whether this adventure was sensible.

  As long as their wars had been conducted in the open desert, those gallant areas where vast stretches of sand allowed camels full range, Abd Umar had been confident in the Prophet’s destiny; even the conquest of Damascus had been within reason, for in that battle the Arabs had been able to ride their camels across traditional sand except for the final approaches to the city. The occupation of Tabariyyah had been largely the same: a free camel raid over the empty spaces east of the Jordan, then a swift drop to cultivated land and the occupation of the city. But with the attack on Makor came a new kind of warfare, the unpleasant ride through forested land, then this frightening march on foot to skirt the swamp, ending in a gallop on horseback down an established road. It was not the kind of warfare an Arab preferred, and Abd Umar would be content when it was finished and he could return to the clean and open desert.

  He was thinking in this gloomy mood when the riderless horses began to whinny and then to panic. He ran back along the marshy path to where the beasts were shivering in fright, and he saw that they had come upon a large snake which one of them had chopped to death with his hoofs. The serpent lay writhing even after death, and Abd Umar shivered like his horses. Then his own beast, which he was trying to reassure, leaped aside and whinnied pitifully. Abd Umar, catching a flash of movement from the corner of his eye, turned swiftly to confront an enemy. It was a frog, and as the Arab chieftain watched, it leaped into the swampy water, leaving a green splash as it disappeared.

  Abd Umar quietened his horses, then regained his position at the head of the file, leading his camel and listening to the huge beast’s soft, plopping feet as they sucked in and out of the mud. Now for the first time the Arab chieftain actually studied the formidable terrain through which he was passing: he saw the strange birds, the water rats, the reeds with feathery tips and the incredible herons, standing knee-deep in water like statues, waiting till the lumbering camels came upon them, then lifting themselves awkwardly into the air, where they flew in lazy circles as if climbing on evanescent circular stairs.

  To a man from the desert it was terrifying, this swampland, and for a moment he had a wild desire to flee the place. He wanted to be with Abu Zeid on the heights, storming a town like Safat and putting the defenders to death in an orgy of fire and slaughter. Most of all, he longed for the desert, that vast clean empire of the soul. In the depths of the swamp he remembered the time when alone he had brought the remnants of a caravan back to Medina; his companions had lingered in Damascus. It was on this trip that he had accompanied the other caravan to the point where the road to Jerusalem cut off to the west, and after that separation he had traveled for nine consecutive days without seeing a man, an animal, or any sign of human cultivation. How notable that trip had been, traveling into the heart of the desert, where men felt the presence of God. With an effort he suppressed his insensible desire to be with Abu Zeid at the burning of Safat, but he could not control his instinctive hatred of this swamp and the forest that encroached upon it. He walked rapidly, hoping to quit the ominous area, but his camels could move no faster, for the swamp caught at their cumbersome feet, and Abd Umar thought impatiently: Camels may be fine for the desert, but here they accomplish nothing.

  He was forced to lag behind with his animals, and this gave him opportunity to reflect upon the radical changes that had disrupted his life: For thirty years all I wanted was the two black ones. He referred to dates and water, the only requirement of the true desert rider, for with them and a good camel a man could exist almost indefinitely in the sands. Once he had lived with his men for nineteen days with only the two black ones, and at the end of the period, when other food was available, he ate a little but finished his meal with some black dates.

  Black. He thought of his unknown mother and then of the sacred stone in the heart of Mecca—that small reddish rock sacred to the Prophet and referred to as the black rock. When Muhammad died, Abd Umar left on a pilgrimage to the Ka’bah and walked seven times around the solemn rock, whispering, “God of this Ka’bah, I bear witness that I have come in pilgrimage. Charge not, ‘You did not come to my Ka’bah, Abd Umar,’ for You see me now, a humble man walking in the shadow of Your rock. Forgive me. Forgive Ben Hadad the Jew. For I have made my pilgrimage, as You must see.” As he now recalled the ominous black rock, where God was present, he happened to see the black water of the swamp, and it was not like the sweet dark waters he had known; it was alien, and for a fragment of a second he entertained a partial vision of the future in which black and various other colors were mingled as Muhammad had once said they would be; but it was fugitive, and at this time he was not able to comprehend the message of this day.

  Instead, he plunged ahead hoping that soon his contingent would break out of the swampy land, and as the trees—those menacing emblems of this strange land—crept down upon him he promised himself one thing: If we conquer this land I shall certainly cut down these trees. A man needs open space. And again he longed for the desert where a man could see ahead of him and behind. “There are only two trees in this world worth keeping,” he muttered to himself. “Olives and date palms.” He was oppressed by the trees, and when birds exploded out of them, frightening his horses and startling his men, he saw yet another reason for getting rid of them. “I want to sleep tonight where there are no trees,” he instructed his lieutenant when they stopped to rest the camels. Those lumbering beasts, having drunk that morning in Tabariyyah, looked upon the swamp water with disdain, but the horses tasted of it, drawing back in fear when frogs jumped past them.

  “La ilaha ilia Allah” Abd Umar repeated softly to himself as he resumed his transit of the swamp. “There is no God but Allah.” It was a rubric of Muhammad’s which fascinated men, its poetry matching its philosophy, and it summed up all that Abd Umar now believed. As he wandered along the last portion of the distracting swamp he repeated the formula automatically, “La ilaha ilia Allah,” satisfied that it would protect him from the dangers of the forest, and it was in this kind of hypnosis, thinking of things permanent, that he led his men around a final bend in the path to a spot where the dark waters ended and where there were no more snakes or frogs; and as he saw firm land opening before him, and the approaches to Makor, his mind at last apprehended in solid form the vague intimations that had been formulating in the swamp.

  Like most of the early followers of Muhammad, Abd Umar had begun by interpreting the Prophet’s religion as no more than a personal experience undergone by Muhammad—no one could stand near this charismatic general, this servant of God, without acknowledging his leadership—but there had been much speculation as to what would happen when he died; and Abd Umar had been among those who had expected the movement to collapse. He would never forget that mournful day on which the Prophet had actually died: he had wept like a child, for his world had come to an end, but old Abu Bakr had come from the death tent bringing the words that made continued life possible: “Those of you who worshiped Muhammad must know that he is dead like any man, but those of you who worshiped God know that He lives forever.” And it was this continuity of God that had given Arabs like Abd Umar the power to go forward.

  “I shall never return to the desert,” he whispered to himself as he left the swamp. “Today we shall conquer Makor and, in a little while, Akka, and there I will take a boat and sail to islands and to kingdoms … I, who have never seen the sea.” And he visualized in general terms the magnitude of the venture upon which he was engaged: the extension of Arabia’s religion throughout the world. If he was saying farewell to the mysterious swamp which terrified his camels and horses, he was likewise saying farewell to the desert, where his camels and horses had roamed hopefully toward endless horizons.

  “Those deserts I shall see no more,” he said, accepting the finality of God’s decision. “La ila
ha ilia Allah,” he intoned, for if there was but one God, and if He directed all, it was best to accept His dictates. If God led a half-Negro slave through the dangerous swamps and trees, He had the right to say where that slave should go next.

  Will I ever see my wives again? Abd Umar wondered, visualizing those women who had always remained with his children in Medina. Like Muhammad he had married a Negro woman from Ethiopia and she was his beloved, but he also protected the daughter of Sulayman and the sister of Khaled Yezd the warrior. Would they, in some mysterious manner, be able to follow him across the seas, running to him in some unknown city, with bare feet and children clinging to their skirts?

  The Damascus road lay just ahead and scouts were shouting from their newly mounted camels that all was well. Makor must lie beyond that hill, the one covered with trees. The forced march through the swamp had succeeded, and the battle, if there was to be one, would be engaged in a few minutes. “La ilaha ilia Allah” Abd Umar muttered, climbing aboard his own camel and checking the horses. But as he entered upon that most ancient of roads upon which the invaders of this region had always traveled, he found its solid footing reassuring, and only briefly did he reflect upon his discovery that the years ahead were to be remote and battle-filled and lonely: When we take the town I’d like to find a good slave girl … or perhaps a young widow. He added this afterthought because Muhammad himself had taken eleven wives, and ten of them had been widows, and few men in Arabia had known a happier domestic life than the Prophet.

  Within the doomed precincts of Makor the pagans waited, and even the dullest realized that for them the coming of Islam could signify only the end of one world and the beginning of a new. Who were these pagans who had resisted the pressure of Judaism and the proselytizing zed of Christians like Father Eusebius? Some had joined the fire worship of the Persians when the latter swept through Palestine some twenty years before, holding it briefly as part of their empire. Others, slaves imported from the upper reaches of the Nile, remained faithful to their river god Serapis, and a sturdy few, whose ancestors could be traced back to the cave men who had sprung from this rocky mound, remained faithful to Baal.