Apprentice

by Maggie Anton

  All that week Chama kept asking about his father, where he was and when he was coming home, which only increased my sorrow. It fell to Achti and his nurse to provide my son with what should have been a mother’s comfort. This was probably for the best. During shiva, I was too bereft to think about the future, but when Pazi and Tazi were taking their leave on that seventh day, the pained looks and lengthy embraces they gave me made me understand what I had forgotten.

  Unless I was willing to remain a widow in Ukva’s house until Chama grew up, I would have to leave him for Ukva and Achti to raise. Chama was Rami’s child, and as such he belonged to Rami’s family. I, now Rami’s widow, no longer did. The enormity of my loss threatened to crush me. First the beloved husband of my youth and now my firstborn, my son. Eventually I would have to give up the baby I carried, and then I would have nothing left of Rami at all. I was completely and utterly bereft.

  According to Jewish tradition, after shiva was over, the rest of sheloshim, the first thirty days of mourning, was supposed to be a period of lesser grief. The mourner could now bathe, launder his clothes, wear shoes and tefillin, and resume work and marital relations. I did none of those things, however, for I rarely left my bed. I could not bear living without Rami and Chama, yet that is what I was expected to do.

  I had lost track of the days when Achti entered my room and in a shaking voice announced that Mother had come for me.

  “No.” I began to cry. “I can’t leave.” But I knew I couldn’t stay either.

  “You’re not well,” Achti insisted. “We can’t take care of you here like Mother and Shayla can.”

  Then Mother and Achti were helping me up, and to my shame I found that I was too weak to walk more than a few steps. Achti had to call Zahra and another slave to carry me downstairs and help me into the litter that Mother had sent for me.

  “Please, let me give Chama one last hug,” I pleaded. But my son was napping, and I was only able to drop a quick kiss on his plump cheek before we were separated.

  Visions of my sweet little sleeping boy flooded my mind, and I wept all the way home. Mother stroked my hair and said such noncommittal things as “There, there” and “You mustn’t cry so hard, it’s not good for your baby.”

  Mother must have made special arrangements for my privacy, for despite the villa’s large number of inhabitants, no one met the litter except Shayla and my childhood nurse. Once inside, no one watched as I was helped upstairs to my old kiton, where a table with several steaming dishes was set up.

  With a disapproving face, Nurse stripped me of my torn mourner’s clothes. Then she bathed me with soft linens dipped in warm water, making a special effort on my matted hair. When I was dry, Nurse helped me into a clean linen gown, sat me down at the table, and proceeded to feed me as if I were a sick child. At bedtime she said nothing when I took out Rami’s tunic and cried myself to sleep holding it to my face and breathing in his scent.

  I thought of Chama constantly, imagining what he was doing and worrying about how terrible and frightening it must be for him to abruptly lose both mother and father. I was told that he needed time to become accustomed to his bewildering new situation, and that my visits would only inflict afresh the pain of separation. So I stayed away.

  Mother allowed me a week of relative solitude and then gently, but firmly, declared that I should join her and my sisters-in-law at synagogue on Shabbat. Having neither the will nor the strength to resist, I went with them. I mouthed the prayers along with the others, although I had no reason to believe that Heaven would look favorably on me.

  But when services were finished, I was surrounded by women whose gestures and words conveyed their empathy for my grief. For unlike my female relatives, whose years at Father’s villa had seldom been marred by death, most women at synagogue had lost husbands or children, and some had lost both. Their eyes told me that they knew my suffering, that I was not alone.

  I began attending synagogue daily, and before the week was out, an older woman named Alista asked if I could do her a favor, one that would also earn me some coins. As fate would have it, there were two funerals that afternoon, each of which was of such prominence that its procession necessitated more than the usual number of professional keening women.

  “You want me to cry as we accompany the corpse to the cemetery?” I asked in surprise.

  “You shouldn’t find it difficult,” Alista replied. “And you would be doing the deceased’s family a great service.”

  “What do I need to do?” Consoling the bereaved was a mitzvah, one of the few I could perform in my situation.

  “Just come with me. Food will be provided.”

  Unsure what to expect, I followed Alista to a large home near Tabita’s. A considerable number of people had already gathered. We stood with several other women in plain dress, aloof from the crowd, and after two more joined us, we were escorted inside, where food and wine awaited. I ate little, but my companions consumed their meal with gusto.

  No sooner had they finished than a commotion in the courtyard signaled that the corpse was being carried out. Immediately the keeners took their place at its head and began to weep and wail with such sorrow that my tears began to flow along with theirs. I recalled Rami’s perfect smile and Chama’s chubby little limbs, and I winced from the knowledge that my unborn child would be taken from me as well. All the way to the cemetery I sobbed out the bitter grief that I’d felt unable to display at my father’s.

  Our job as professional mourners completed, we were thanked, handed a purse of coins, and sent on our way. But before we parted, I told Alista that she could depend on me whenever another keener was needed.

  I suspected that my family disapproved, but they did nothing to prevent me from assisting Alista. This was my secret vice, the way I could continue to bewail my own tragedy, to pour out the pain I felt whenever I thought of my husband and our son, both lost to me forever. Jewish Law said that mourning for anyone but one’s parents ended when sheloshim was complete, thirty days after the funeral. But I had found a sanctioned way to maintain my bereavement. As a professional keener, I could scream and howl as loudly as I wanted. Nobody would look at me askance. In truth, the more fuss I made, the better I performed my job and the more funerals I was hired for.

  The bad fortune that made amulet and kasa d’charasha patrons fearful of employing me had brought me a new vocation.

  But fate made this profession no more secure than my previous one. If it had been winter, I could have hidden my growing belly under a heavy cloak, but the thin linen tunics of summer made my pregnancy apparent to even a casual observer. When Tammuz was less than a week away, Alista informed me that it was not appropriate for a woman in my condition to appear at so public an event as a funeral.

  But I was not ready to put away my grief. Though it might cause me more pain than pleasure, on the morning of Tiragan I climbed a knoll overlooking the canal where Achti had taken us the year before. Ha-Elohim! Had it only been a year since Chama and I so innocently played in the water together?

  I craned my neck to observe the road, desperate for a glimpse of my son. I wasn’t sure they’d come this year; perhaps Achti would take them to a different canal. So many women and children, could I have missed them? No, there they were—Achti, Zahra, and the two boys. Chama had grown since I’d seen him, and through my tears I had to admit that he appeared happy, splashing Yehezkel in the shallows and running around waving the ribbons at his wrist. He ran easily now, no more wobbly toddler steps for him.

  Careful not to be seen, I watched and wept until it was time to eat. Then I descended and found Nurse waiting for me. On the way home, she gently scolded me for running off by myself, as I had done when I was a girl, but she never mentioned where I’d been or what I’d been doing there.

  When the festival of Tammuz arrived, Nurse accompanied me to Ezekiel’s tomb, where I joined the mob of sobbing, moaning women as they mourned the young shepherd’s untimely death. I spent the entire day there,
crying in empathy with the ancient goddess who’d lost her beloved as abruptly as I’d lost mine. Most women shook their heads sadly when they caught a glimpse of my pregnant silhouette, but a few burst into fresh tears of compassion. I wept without restraint, well aware that this was my last opportunity to display my grief so openly.

  And if the Heavenly Court denied me a miracle during childbirth because of this idolatry, so much the better.

  I continued to attend synagogue, and was shocked one Shabbat to see Achti and Ukva there, for their home was too far away to walk here on Shabbat. To my mingled relief and disappointment, they had not brought the boys with them.

  Achti hurried to embrace me. “We’ve bought a new residence nearby,” she said. Then she shuddered. “Ukva and I couldn’t bear to live in our old place any longer.”

  “How is Chama?” I fought to control my trembling voice.

  “It is as though Ukva was always his father,” she replied, oblivious to my pain. “Young children are so resilient.”

  “After Sukkot I’ll be buying a tutor for him and Yehezkel,” Ukva said proudly. “Time for them to start learning Torah.”

  “I’d like to come and visit.” I tried not to sound as desperate as I felt.

  I shrank back as Achti and Ukva exchanged concerned glances, but I couldn’t control my tears when Ukva said firmly, “I think it’s best for Chama not to be confused about who his mother is until he’s fully adjusted to his new life.” In other words, I wasn’t to see my son until he’d forgotten all about me.

  Achti put her arm around my shoulders. “Chama’s happiness must be our paramount concern. I’m sure you don’t want him getting upset whenever you come and then leave again.” Maybe she was trying to reassure me, but her words only made me feel guilty and selfish.

  On the way home I had an epiphany. According to the Mishna, a widow who was still nursing her husband’s child could not be forced to give the infant up. I had suckled Chama for over two years, so surely I could take even longer before I weaned his sibling.

  As the New Year grew closer, Father taught from Tractates Rosh Hashana and Yoma. My baby was due sometime in Tishrei, and with little energy to do much else, I decided to listen to his lectures, albeit from a vantage point where I couldn’t be seen.

  “It was taught in the name of Rabbi Yohanan,” Father began. “Three books are opened on Rosh Hashana: one for the totally evil, one for the totally righteous, and one for average people. The righteous are immediately inscribed and sealed for life, the evildoers immediately inscribed and sealed for death.”

  He paused to let the seriousness of his words sink in. “Judgment on everyone else is suspended from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur. If they merit it, they are inscribed for life, and if not, they are inscribed for death.”

  I gritted my teeth as Abba bar Joseph added, “A Baraita from Rabbi Yishmael teaches that the world is judged three times during the year: for grain on Pesach, for fruits on Shavuot, for rain on Sukkot. A man is judged on Rosh Hashana and his decree is sealed on Yom Kippur.” Abba always had something to say, and with his deep voice, it always sounded serious.

  The discussion continued with questions about what merit caused a man to be inscribed for life. Torah study and doing mitzvot were the obvious answers, but that did not satisfy the students. For Rami had excelled at both, yet his life had been cut short.

  Even the start of labor could not have made me leave now. I strained to hear as my husband’s previous companions speculated on why he’d died such an untimely death.

  My brother Nachman had the kindest explanation. “Perhaps Rami was originally fated to die earlier, but because of his merit, the Heavenly Court granted him the extra years to fulfill the mitzvah of procreation.”

  Several students, citing Rav, blamed Rami’s death on the Evil Eye, brought about by someone who envied him.

  In the silence that followed, attention must have focused on Abba, because he vehemently asserted, “Rami bar Chama died because he shamed Rav Menashia by not including him among the scholars worthy of leading the grace said after meals.”

  I gulped in astonishment at his accusation. I had never heard of this Rav Menashia, and I was sure that Rami had never mentioned him.

  One of Father’s students was also skeptical. “You mean Rami thought Rav Menashia was an ignoramus?”

  Abba was forced to elaborate. “Rami thought Rav Menashia had not studied enough Torah, but Rami was wrong because he did not investigate sufficiently.” His low, resonant voice made this sound convincing.

  My blood was boiling with outrage. It was bad enough that Abba had insulted my husband when he was alive. Now he had the audacity to malign Rami in the grave.

  “So perhaps it was a Rabbi’s snake that bit him, which has no cure,” Abaye said. “As it is written: He who breaches a fence will be bitten by a snake.”

  “That’s what happened after Rav’s death,” Zeira said. “In Rav’s honor, bells were prohibited at weddings for one year. So when someone did bring bells to a wedding, a snake bit him and he died.”

  Father adroitly steered the discussion back to the original Mishna, and there was no more talk of a Rabbi’s snakes. Only the pain in my hand made me realize how tightly I was clenching my fist. If Rami had died from the bite of a Rabbi’s snake, I had no doubt who’d sent it.

  My pregnancy was too advanced for me to attend Rosh Hashana services, especially at a synagogue so crowded and far away as the prophet Ezekiel’s. The second day of the holiday, I was feeling so uncomfortable that I was thankful I’d turned down Pazi’s offer to go in a litter with her and Tazi. Despite the many delicacies that Cook prepared for the evening meal that ended the holiday’s festivities, I couldn’t bring myself to eat. When the sun set, I excused myself and went to bed.

  But it was impossible to find a position comfortable enough to sleep. Sitting wasn’t much better, so I walked upstairs to the roof, where at least it would be cooler. With no moon in the sky, even the dimmest stars would be easy to see. I found the constellation of Tishrei, the Scales, and was trying to make out the rest of the zodiac, when I was seized with a spasm of pain in my belly.

  Despite my single experience, I recognized the sensation as the beginning of labor, and clutching my abdomen I headed for the stairs. The contractions interfered with my progress, but I managed to return to my kiton and wake Nurse without falling. I lay down and shut my eyes, and tried not to cringe when I felt another pain coming.

  Sometime later Nurse held the lamp while Mother and Shayla helped me down the hall to the lying-in chamber. Father, Nachman, and Mari stood at the doorway, chanting psalms.

  This time I knew the agony, already approaching unbearable, would only continue to intensify. I made no effort to stifle my screams. They, and this torture, would end either when the child was born or when I died in the process.

  “Just a little longer.” Shayla tried to comfort me. “This baby is coming even faster than your first.”

  But I would not be comforted. Each contraction forced a new shriek of anguish from my throat. Yet just when it seemed that the pain couldn’t possibly get worse, it did.

  “Take my life, Samael, I beg you,” I whimpered as I entreated the Angel of Death. “End my suffering and reunite me with my husband.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  But the angel Samael ignored my pleas. I began to shake uncontrollably, until, finally, I felt the urge to push. Moments later my bones were both crushing and being crushed as the head came through. Then it was over. A second push for the body, followed by another for the afterbirth, and the pain was already beginning to recede from my memory.

  “Thank Heaven.” Mother sighed heavily. “It’s a girl.”

  The good news was passed to the men outside, and I could hear their relieved voices.

  “My screams must have made them think I really was going to die,” I said as Nurse wiped away the sweat that had drenched my body.

  Shayla shook her head. “Plenty of women scream like
that when they’re in labor.” Then she handed me my daughter and smiled. “Nothing like giving birth the day after Rosh Hashana to make everyone pleased with a girl.”

  The baby suckled at my breast for some time before I realized why everyone was so pleased. If the child had been a boy, he would have needed to be circumcised in eight days, on Yom Kippur.

  It was two weeks later, while the rest of my family was at synagogue for the second day of Sukkot, when I noticed that something was bothering Nurse. She tensed every time someone walked past my kiton, and she kept looking toward the door with dread rather than mere curiosity.

  When she stopped abruptly in the middle of changing the baby’s swaddling to listen as someone came up the stairs, I could not restrain myself.

  “What are you so nervous about? Are you expecting some bad news and don’t want to tell me?”

  Nurse handed me Yehudit, which was what I’d decided to name my daughter, and began to pace the room. “The new tutor, Jacob, the boy Master Hisda bought when Master Ukva acquired one for your son…” She took a deep breath. “Well, nobody has seen him since the night before last.”

  “Maybe a snake bit him?” Naturally that was my first thought. “Have the grounds been searched for his body?”

  Nurse shook her head. “He’s run away.”

  I looked at her in astonishment. None of Father’s slaves had ever run away. “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what the others are saying,” she replied a bit too hurriedly.

  “Did he confide in you?” I asked. Nurse was the older, comforting type that encouraged these disclosures.

  “No, not at all.” Her eyes were wide with fright. “I knew he was unhappy, but I thought nothing of it. I mean, it’s normal for a new slave to need time to adjust.”

  I realized that my curiosity was frightening her, and for good reason. Father would be furious when he found out, which would likely be as soon as the family returned to eat. He’d be determined to find the slave and bring him back, which meant that Timonus could use any means to force our slaves to divulge what they knew.