Sunrise on the Mediterranean

by Suzanne Frank

  She shrugged. “My name is Waqi bat Urek, wife of Abda, the first cousin to the king. There is no problem.”

  Rehov Abda.—The street was named after him.

  I set down my piece of halva. This was ideal! I could stay with her while I tried to find a way to escape the city alone or a way to invade it with an army. Talk about betraying hospitality, Chloe. I sighed. “It would be too much trouble. I couldn’t take advantage of you.”

  She laughed, a rich, real sound. “I ask for your companionship, isha.—What is your name?”

  Don’t give your real name, Chloe, names have magic, I heard Cheftu say. “Takala.”

  “Takala, how pretty.”

  I smiled, feeling sick to my stomach. “Takala, I ask you to live with me not because of generosity. My time is close, I would like having a woman nearby, more than a slave.”

  “What of the women at the well?”

  She smiled sadly. “My people are Assyrian, despised here. However, in the tradition of both peoples, the woman of the household gets the water. It shows the honor of a home, a family.” She looked away. “Even unwelcome at the well, I would not so disgrace my family by sending an underling for water. It is not done. Also,” she said, looking up at me, “I worship Ishtar, goddess of childbirth, love, filial emotions. They worship Molekh.” Her tone was sharp. “I would not have such a woman at my childbirthing bed.”

  Ideological differences, I thought. Ach, the more the Middle East changed, the more it stayed the same. “B’seder. I will stay with you,” I said.

  Waqi smiled and clapped for slaves.

  “This is perfect, isha,” Yoav said, smiling in the darkness of the tent. “You have an excuse now, to stay.” He slapped my shoulder. “How long do you think it will take to get us in?”

  I’d conveniently forgotten to mention to him that the opening to the water well was basically nonexistent. Call it self-preservation. Waqi had about two more months to go, two months for me to plan, to buy time, to wait for Cheftu’s return. “About three months?”

  Yoav’s look was calculating. “The end of summer?”

  I shrugged. Sure, why not. “How will we contact you?”

  “Contact will blow my cover,” I said. “It will be a fragile thing, living with people all the time.”

  “Isha,” Yoav said, “we will stay in touch with you. You will not be out of our sight, ever.”

  I looked into his glass green eyes. How many cities had he sacked? How many people had he killed? “Why do you want this job?” I asked almost before I realized the words were coming out of my mouth.

  Even he looked startled. Then ruminative. “Dadua is my uncle,” he said slowly, “though I have more years than he.” He smiled at some remembrance. “Dadua was always a wiry, fiery-haired child, running wild, singing at the top of his lungs. He charmed the women in the harem almost from birth, he ran mental circles around his father’s cronies, he insulted his brothers with such cleverness that it was days before they realized it.” Yoav looked at me. “Dadua was the essence of life, the purest divine energy, like the Shekina powers of Yahwe.”

  “I thought Shekina was a goddess?”

  “Ach! The women have said so, but Yahwe, he is everything. Male and female, dark and light, joy and tears.” Yoav shrugged. “The women pull Yahwe’s powers over the night, over the body, and give these skills a name, Shekina. But the Shekina of Yahwe, the energy, the nishmat ha hayyim, can never be separated from its source.”

  “If you believe in nishmat ha hayyim, the divine breath, then how can you remove it from so many people? If life is sacred, how can you kill for a living?”

  “Because Dadua, to protect that part of him that is the Shekina glory of Yahwe, cannot.”

  “Dadua doesn’t kill?”

  Yoav laughed, throwing back his head. The lamplight flickered over the muscles in his throat and chest, muted the scars on his face. “Dadua has killed, no doubt. However, it pains him to do so. When he loses that pain, when killing is a job, then the glow of the Shekina will fade.” Yoav shook his head. “Y’srael would suffer, we would all lose something pure, something beautiful, if Dadua became as we are. Ordinary, touchable.”

  “So you take that blood on your hands and head?” “Ken,” he said. “Dadua is a man and a king, but to Yahwe he is the most precious of children. We who are Dadua’s family must protect that innocence. He doesn’t transgress as we do.”

  “Ach! How can you say that? He’s an earthling!” The translations of some words were weird.

  “He is. But he doesn’t know lust, hatred, murder, in his flesh. He is like bronze that never tarnishes. For this purity, I will bathe in blood.” Yoav looked at me. “The land must be claimed, there is no doubt. Those of us who love him must do it, and count the lost lives against our own souls, not his.”

  I stared at him as silence gathered between us, looking into his clear green eyes. This was David’s henchman, and he had the purest motive I could imagine for wholesale slaughter. Did that make it better? Forgivable? I didn’t know, but I felt suddenly unworthy to judge. Had I ever loved someone that way? Even Cheftu? “I agree with Avgay’el,” I said quietly. “You do deserve to be Rosh Tsor.”

  He got to his feet, holding out his hand to me. I took it and he pulled me up. “Your husband is still in the desert,” he said. I suddenly realized how close we were standing, how his eyes had darkened, how warm the tent had become.

  I suddenly realized that my hand was still in his. I removed it. “Todah, I appreciate your telling me.”

  We stood in awkward silence. “Good. We’ll contact you, Klo-ee.”

  “Laylah tov, Yoav,” I said to his back.

  He turned around. “Lo, tonight begins the Sabbath. Shabat shalom.”

  CHAPTER 10

  MY CHANCE WAS TONIGHT. I’d kept careful count of the days since I’d met with Yoav. The day after the Sabbath was when the soldiers left the city open for four hours. That was my window of opportunity.

  The moon was full tonight, which would make for easy travel. I felt dishonest leaving Waqi, who really was a dear and deserved better. But if I stayed, I’d have to betray her, and Shamuz at the well, and Yorq, who sold me bread. These were real people, this wasn’t a game, it wasn’t a push-button war. I just didn’t have it in me to betray them.

  So I was sneaking out of town. My hobo pack was tied as I watched the streets from my room. There was a lot of activity tonight, lots of people with small lamps scurrying to and fro. Sadly I threw on my cloak and slipped down the stairs. The wind was blowing; it was a wonderful feeling, buoyant, free, as though it could sweep you up and set you anywhere in the world.

  I would have given most anything to have Cheftu’s hand in mine, to be enjoying this evening with him. After closing the door behind me, I made my way into the street, blending with the shadows, I hoped. As I walked I noticed dozens of bobbing lights, a steady river of them flowing down from the city’s dung gate. People were going into the valley? At night?

  That was weird. Most ancients rose with the sun and retired with its setting. Days were long and hard; they needed their rest. Not to mention there were usually a lot of fears about things going bump in the night. What was going on? We couldn’t all be fleeing the city.

  I exited the dung gate, stepping around the trash piles— since that was the reason it was called the dung gate—giddy. I was free! The wind blew my cloak back from my face, whipped my skirts around me, as I walked down the steep hill. Looking back, for I would never see Jerusalem again, I paused a moment: it seemed as though the city glowed with the points of a thousand fireflies; lamps in windows, torches affixed to the walls; braziers burning at the gates. The air was heavy with honeysuckle, roses, and herbs.

  I picked my way through the growing darkness, being careful of the rocky terrain. The night was mostly silent, and the dozens of lights I’d seen had apparently vanished. The deeper into the valley I got, the less the wind played with me, the more potent the flowers smelled. />
  As I bypassed the path that headed straight down, in favor of the road that led to Yerico, I heard what sounded like a shriek. I paused for a moment, then took the southerly trail. When I changed direction a stench hit me. It was a sickly, roasted type of smell. It blocked out the citrus, the honeysuckle, even the faint smell of evergreens from the hills.

  Fanning my face, I walked faster, rounding a corner. Then I saw the source of this odor.

  A fire burned at the bottom of a narrow ravine about fifty feet below me. A cluster of lamps—those missing people?— were grouped a few feet from it. What was up? A low hum, which sounded as if it were from Carmina Burana, rose up to me on the pathway.

  Curious, I walked down a ways, getting closer. My eyes were adjusting, moving from the darkness to the brilliance of the flame.

  As I watched, people clustered around the fire. A lone individual approached, then handed an object to someone else. I squinted. The smoke, the stink that clogged my throat, the weird singing, were surreal.

  As I watched, the second person, the one who accepted the handoff, threw something into the fire. Something tiny. The first person was gone.

  Were they burning trash? It stank badly enough. I covered my nose, breathing through my mouth, as I watched. I joined the throng, trying to figure out why trash burning would draw such crowd. Beneath the singing I heard hysterical sobbing, begging, though the words were indistinct. As I drew closer, I saw the fire wasn’t in a cave, but rather in the belly of a large, ugly statue.

  Another person approached, handed the thrower something small. Something crying. A tiny thing.

  The hair on my arms stood on end.

  “No,” I gasped in English. “No!” I clapped my hand over my mouth, whether to keep from vomiting or shutting myself up didn’t matter. As I watched, another one went up into the flame. Two men held a woman back, a screaming woman. The wind shifted so that I heard her words: “ Lo! Not my baby! Not my precious lamb! Curse you! Lo, not my baby!”

  They sacrifice their babies, I heard Yoav say in my mind. I don’t know how the women endure it, Waqi’s words haunted me. If only my father had known— Omigod. This would happen to her?

  Trying not to draw attention to myself, I continued down the pathway, horrified and stumbling, unable to fathom what I had seen. Someone walked before me, thankfully empty-handed.

  A shrouded figure approached, handed the thrower a baby, then backed up as the murderer raised the child over its head, screaming to the heavens, then threw it in the fire!

  The person before me crumpled to its knees, repeating “lo” like a mantra. I was shell-shocked. Surely not, surely I was not seeing this. The images didn’t even compute, though the smell of immolation, which I had the sorrow to recognize, was choking me. Very real.

  I almost tripped on the woman in front of me. She squawked, and I looked down. She was trying to get to her feet but was too bulky to do so. “Waqi?” I whispered.

  She looked up, horrified. “You are one of them?”

  “Lo, lo,” I said quickly.

  More screaming, more pleading, behind me. I didn’t know what to do. Could I rush the priest? Waqi had to get out of here; I was leaving town … Oh, dear God.

  An infant’s scream rose to the heavens, submerged in the chanting of the people.

  “For your protection we give you blood. “To save ourselves, we feed you our flesh—” The song was horrible.

  I went to Waqi, helping her up. “Why are you here?” I whispered.

  “I had to see it, I had to know. I would rather take my own life than watch my baby die.” Her face crumpled, tear tracks gleaming in the light. “His first three wives didn’t survive the grief.”

  She was Abda’s fourth wife? “Let’s get you out of here,” I said. “You can leave him, tonight.”

  She shook her head. “My pains began this afternoon. My baby is coming.”

  There were not enough curse words in my vocabulary. All I could hear in my head was Prissy’s disclaimer from Gone with the Wind. “Is there a midwife? A wisewoman?” I asked her.

  “If she comes, they will know… . The only protection is to pretend I lost the child.”

  There were logistical nightmares with that, but it didn’t matter. “We’re going back to the city,” I said, pushing through the crowd, pulling her with me.

  “They’ll know, they’ll know,” she insisted.

  I put my nose to hers. “If you try to have the baby alone, you will die. So will it. If you call a midwife, have some assistance, maybe we can sneak you and the baby out of town, but at least there will be two of you.”

  “Where were you going?”

  “I was running away.”

  “From me?”

  “Lo, you have been nothing but goodness to me. I have—”

  “You aren’t merely a well woman, are you?” She was leaning on me, her fingers interlaced with mine. As the pains came she would grip my hand, but she gave no other sign of discomfort.

  “Lo,” I said. “I came to spy.”

  Her hand tightened on mine as she slowed her steps for a moment. Her breath was a little ragged when she spoke again. “For whom?”

  “The highlanders. They want your city.”

  She gasped, practically breaking my fingers. I felt her legs trembling next to mine as she fought to stay upright. I looked at the city that I’d thought I’d never see again. It was about fourteen light-years away.

  “Do the highlanders have children?” she asked, walking on.

  “By the hundreds,” I said, adjusting my grip around her middle in case she fell.

  “I wish they would invade,” she said. “I would give them our city.” Her grip tightened, but her pace didn’t break.

  “Why do they have this practice?” The smell of charred flesh was in my nostrils; I could no longer smell the roses even though we were approaching the city.

  “Protection. Every child that is given to Molekh becomes another of the demonic guard the city has. That is why the city has never been invaded.” She dropped to her knees, whimpering.

  I looked around us; we were at the edge of the garbage dump—not the place to have a child. “Come along, Waqi, only a little farther.” Was there a guard around? Someone to carry her? While she caught her breath I searched the walls, the dump, the trees beside us. “Help us,” I called out. “Please, someone?”

  Waqi shrieked, silencing herself almost immediately. I was on my knees beside her. “What is it? Worse pain?”

  “My water,” she said. “It broke.”

  I stood up, looking around. Nothing moved, not a sound. Smoke from the valley was clouding the night sky. Switching to the dialect that I’d heard Yoav use on occasion, I spoke loudly, my voice carrying. “You say you watch me. I need your help. For the love of Yahwe, assist us!”

  Was it only my imagination, the sense of eyes on me? No response. I knelt beside her. “Put your arm around me,” I said. “I’ll carry you.”

  Draping her left arm over my shoulder, I stood up. She was tiny, but she was also pregnant and half-unconscious from the pain. We were halfway through the dump when he stepped out into the pathway: the soldier from Mamre, the one who had followed me through the city streets before my first meeting with Yoav. I didn’t even know his name. Without a word, he picked her up.

  “Waqi,” I said, still holding her hand. “What shall we say to the guards?” The Mamre soldier didn’t look Jebusi; maybe Pelesti?

  “No guards tonight,” she whispered. “It is the night of Molekh’s moon. They, they—” She screamed again.

  “Isha,” he said to her. “Press your face into my cloak, b’seder?”

  Waqi turned into his chest. “Lead quickly,” he said. “She can no longer hold her legs together. The babe is almost here.”

  We burst through the door of the Rehov Abda house. The Assyrian took one look at the situation and led us to Waqi’s chambers, invoking Ishtar all the way. The soldier laid her on the pallet, looking at me. I star
ed back. “No midwife?” he said.

  “The baby will be sacrificed,” I said. Waqi was soaking wet, so the Assyrian—whose name was Uru—and I stripped her and bathed her skin, then covered her in blankets. Her thighs were smeared with blood. I felt ill—what could we do? The soldier had his back to us while he worked something in his hands.

  Waqi screamed as we put another cover on her. Uru rushed to her side, speaking to her in a tongue I didn’t know. “Where do I go to find a midwife?” I asked them. “It’s the only chance.”

  The soldier turned around, aiming his spectral blue gaze at her. “I’ve delivered sheep, cows, donkeys. I can deliver this child, save it from this bloodthirsty god.”

  I looked at Waqi, who was lying sweat soaked and quiet. “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Zorak ben Dani’el.”

  Waqi closed her eyes, balling the sheets in her hands. She should be breathing a certain way. I’d seen that on TV, but I didn’t know how. The contraction passed, and she spoke to him. “Deliver me.”

  Zorak turned into a commander. We were running with clean linens, hot water, wine, an iron knife, lamps, all orderly placed in her room. He wrapped his side curls tightly around his ears and washed his hands in wine. Labor lasted forever, but she was tough. She screamed only rarely; mostly she caressed her stomach and smiled in between the agony.

  Periodically Zorak would pray, then look between her legs and tell her they had more time. The night was utterly black, the moon behind a cloud, when he announced it was time.

  Bricks were brought in, and Waqi was walked from the pallet to crouch on the bricks. I was assigned her left side, a slave girl her right hand, and Uru stood behind her, rubbing her neck and down her spine with scented oils. Zorak sat in front of her, massaging the insides of her thighs and her belly, speaking to her in a low, calming voice, staring up into her eyes.

  Waqi never looked away from him. When the pains came, she kept her eyes open, locked in his gaze as we held her upright and watched the mass of her belly undulate. Uru sang softly, strange words to a sweet melody.