by Chris Aslan
Later, as we trudged up the slope of the olive hill towards our grove, I was still unwilling to let the matter drop. “It’s not fair. I managed to learn letters much faster than him when I was his age. Even if I don’t understand the holy language much, why should he get to sit at Holy Halfai’s feet and not me?”
Father smiled. The donkey panted between us, heavily laden with two large, seeping water-skins strapped on either flank. Father adjusted one of the leather straps. “You shouldn’t call Halfai that,” he said. “It’s not respectful.”
“But why shouldn’t I study?”
“I didn’t make the rules,” said Father.
“Yes, but still…”
Father ran a hand over his brow and his face, drawing the sweat down his beard and then wiping his hand on his light robe, which was already clinging under his arms. I liked his smell because it was his, even if it was a little strong that day. My father was a master at speaking without words and this simple gesture managed to convey: “It is hot, we still have a way to go before we reach the grove, and there’s nothing I can do to change the situation. How will further fights help?”
We walked on without speaking, our panting blending with the donkey’s rasp against a background hum of cicadas. My hair was damp under my headscarf and I could feel rivulets of sweat beneath my tunic dribble all the way down my back and into the crevice of my buttocks. Although our house was at the top of the village, nearest the olive hills, our land was also furthest away and it was midday before we arrived there.
There was no obvious border, but we both knew exactly where our land started. I think olive trees are like clusters of women at a well. A stranger to our village would see only women in shabby robes, tunics and headscarves, water jars balanced on their heads or tucked into the crook of a shoulder. Me? I know each one of them. I know who has patched her robe well or badly, the gait and preferred carrying stance of each individual, the shape of each figure – even beneath their robes – and that’s before they even turn around and I can see their face. It’s the same with our trees. I may forget the ages of the oldest trees but I can tell you which prophets were alive when they were mere saplings. Each is different, whether a slim and graceful sapling or a squat, swarthy ancient. I know each bulge, each severed limb, the holes where owls roost, their twists and turns, which ones give the best olives. Each is like a woman from the village. They could all survive a whole summer of drought, except for the row of saplings Father planted last year up on the rocky bluff in front of the ravine. This was where we were heading.
As we passed the largest of the olive trees, I spotted what looked like a large pile of discarded rags under it.
“Someone’s left their old clothes here,” I said.
Father’s brow furrowed.
“Wait here with the donkey.” He handed me the rope and went nearer. The rag pile moved slightly and moaned.
The donkey sank down to the ground, exhausted. I knew we’d have a job getting him back up again. I dropped the rope, following behind Father.
“Are you hurt?” Father asked, bending down to the pile. There was another moan and I leaned over Father’s shoulder. We could tell from the ragged turban that this must be a man, but the end of it covered his face, so we couldn’t see anything more. Father lifted it and we both recoiled in horror.
He looked like a man made from the oldest of olive trees. Instead of skin, he was covered in brown, cracking and fissuring bark. His face bulged with growths in unexpected places, the largest above his left eye, swelling it shut and making it look as if that side of his face was made of wax and had melted. Where his nose should have been there was a stump out of which oozed something resembling sap.
I gagged but managed not to vomit.
“I’m sorry,” the olive man managed to whisper. It clearly took effort to speak, as if the insides of his throat had also turned to bark. He fixed his one remaining eye, milky blue with cataract, on Father. “Is this your land?”
Father swallowed, and when he spoke his voice was strained. “Yes, it is. You’re welcome to rest here.”
A raspy sound came from the man’s throat, which might even have been laughter. Whatever it was, it dissolved into a bout of weak coughing and he panted and rasped, trying to get more air.
“Mariam, what are you standing there for? Fetch our guest some water,” said Father. I hurried back to the donkey and untied the small leather skin filled with well water rather than water from the brook, and carried it over to Father. He cradled the man’s head, lifting it so that he could pour a trickle of water down the man’s throat. I recoiled at the foul, rotting stench coming from his mouth, but Father didn’t seem to notice.
“Mariam, step back. Give our guest some space,” said Father, although I was already keeping my distance. It took time for the man to be sated, as he was only able to drink a little at a time. Eventually he waved his hand feebly and Father stopped.
“Thank you,” rasped the man. “I am sorry to have inconvenienced you.”
“Are you sick?” I asked, realizing how stupid the question was as soon as I asked it. “Father, I could run back to the village and call on Aunt Shiphra. She might have a balm or something.”
“No. There is no need. It is far too late for that.”
My eyes widened, and I tried to mouth silently to Father: “Is he a leper?” Father gave an almost imperceptible nod and then turned to the leper whose head he cradled.
“What is your name?”
“Name?” The leper seemed puzzled. “I have lost much but that was one of the first things to go. Names are for people.”
“Would you like some food? I apologize, we seem to have forgotten our manners,” said Father, and I turned to fetch some bread and cheese from the saddlebags.
The leper wheezed and shook his head. “It is too late for that, too,” he said. “I can’t eat any more.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Father asked, his voice catching with emotion.
“Do you sing?” asked the leper. “For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping.”
Father recognized the holy song and began it at the beginning, his voice deep and sorrowful.
I drew closer but Father shook his head and waved in the direction of the donkey. I walked back and listened as Father sang. Once he had finished one holy song, he began another, rocking the man’s head tenderly. He was interrupted briefly when the leper had another coughing fit and again when the donkey brayed because I was forcing him to his feet.
I dragged the donkey up to the ridge, keeping away from the ravine on the other side, and found some dried scrub for him to graze. Loosening the leg of one of the water-skins, made of an entire goat, I poured water into a small clay jar and then tied the skin shut and watered the nearest sapling.
I kept this up into the afternoon, and soon my tunic clung to me with spilled water and sweat. All the time I could hear Father’s voice drifting up. It was too hot to think and it was only when the last of the water had been poured onto the last sapling and I’d dragged the donkey under the shade of the nearest tree that I began to consider our predicament. I didn’t know much about the law but I knew that it was illegal to bring a leper into the village, and that we were now sullied and would need to wash ourselves completely before we could return home. I also knew that lepers were dangerous and that their disease was contagious. I wondered how long Father had been sitting beside this diseased man and whether he would be infected.
Fear clutched at my heart and I hurried back to the large tree, following Father’s voice. He had taken his linen shawl and tied it to the overhanging boughs to give further shade. The leper seemed to sleep. Father looked up and although his voice did not waver, I saw tears coursing down his cheeks. He sang until he had finished the last line of the holy song, and then he said quietly, “He is gone, Mariam. I think his last breath was during the song before this one.”
“Oh, Father,” I cried, and rushed towards him.
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br /> “No,” he said sharply. “Keep back.”
I stayed where I was as Father gently laid the head to rest on the earth and eased himself out from under it. “What do we do now?” I asked.
“We spoke,” he said. “In between the singing, there were things he needed to tell me.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Much was only for my ears. He knew that we could not leave his body on our land. Not with the sickness still within it.”
I looked up at the row of saplings. “Together we could drag him up to the ridge and then roll him into the ravine.”
“No, there must be a better way.”
“Like what? We won’t be allowed to bring the body into the village or to any of the tombs, and anyway, it’s too far and the donkey is exhausted.”
Father thought for a moment. “I don’t want you coming near the body or touching it,” he said. Untie the water-skins and we’ll see if between me and the donkey we can drag the body up to the ridge.”
As it turned out, under all those rags, the leper was so shrunk and desiccated that soon the donkey was dragging the corpse behind him, Father lifting the body where he could, as if worried at its discomfort. At the ridge we paused and Father sang prayers over the leper before he rolled him over and we watched the bundle of rags tumbling and bouncing down the ravine until it came to a halt behind one of the larger boulders.
“It doesn’t feel right,” said Father quietly.
“You sang for him, Father, in his last hour,” I said.
“At least his suffering has ended,” Father muttered. He picked up the ropes and led the donkey back to the large olive tree so we could collect the empty water-skins.
“What should we do with his staff and his bell and his bag?” I asked. They still lay in a bundle under the olive tree.
“Don’t touch anything,” said Father, stretching into the branches to untie his linen cloak. “It is all sullied.”
He picked up the bell and the staff and the bag and nimbly climbed back up to the ridge, where I saw him throw them into the ravine. This gave just enough time for the thought I had been batting away like a persistent mosquito to land and settle: Father, if it’s sullied, then why are you touching it, and what if you catch this disease? My stomach felt queasy and I found myself rubbing my hands against my sweat-soaked tunic as if that would clean them.
When Father came back he was holding something in his hands. Even though he motioned that I should keep my distance from him, I could see that it was some kind of container made of something much finer, more delicate and intricate than anything of clay or of anything I had ever seen before, even in our house of prayer.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” said Father. “He said that it was a gift for me, a token of gratitude.”
“Can I hold it?” I was mesmerised by the swirling patterns of the alabaster, so polished and gleaming it looked more like gold than stone.
“No. It must be cleansed first.” Father slipped it into the saddlebag and we turned towards the village. We hadn’t eaten midday meal, but Father said that we must leave the bread and cheese behind for the birds, as it might have been tainted by the sickness.
“Thank you for your help with the saplings,” he added after a while. “You did the work of a grown man today.”
I beamed, because hearing my father’s approval was perhaps as precious to me as whatever our bulging saddlebag contained.
“Father,” I said as we neared the village, “could we have caught leprosy from the man?”
Father smiled tightly. “If God wills it, but I doubt it. You didn’t even come into contact with him.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “But you did. Why didn’t you just leave him? It’s not worth the risk, and anyway, we broke the law. You should never have touched him.”
Father stopped in his tracks, tugging on the donkey as he did so. “Mariam, look at me. If God allowed this man – not just a leper, but a man – in need to rest on our land, to be our guest, then we have broken no law by treating him with hospitality and kindness. Do you understand me? That is how I’ve raised you.”
I couldn’t help it; I started to cry. “But Father, what if I ever lost you?” I blubbed.
Father was about to embrace me but then remembered to keep his distance. “Come now, Mariam, let’s have no more of that talk. When we get back to the village, you can go home and collect fresh clothes and soap, and I’ll take the donkey straight down to the brook and meet you there. We’ll soon be clean again.”
I sniffed and wiped my nose on my sleeve.
“Let’s say nothing of this to Marta or Eleazar,” said Father. “They’ll only worry.”
“But how will we explain about the jar?”
“We know nothing about the jar ourselves. When we do, we can tell them.”
Back at the house, Marta looked hot and fractious and failed to notice my inability to look her in the eye. “It’s not enough,” I said, as she carefully cut a small nub off our block of olive soap.
“It’s plenty, Miri. You’re not the one who has to make it.”
I explained that we were unclean. “We’ll have to wash our clothes too. There was a dead body, and we had to move it and throw it into the ravine.”
Marta made a face. “What was it? A jackal?”
“Something like that,” I said, and turned before she could ask me anything else. The sun was slanted and golden by the time I set out for the brook near the bottom of the village with two sets of clean clothes. I overtook one of the shepherd boys whom my best friend, Imma, had nominated as the best-looking boy in our village.
“Hey, Ishmael, are you going to the brook?” I asked. He nodded. “Could I give you this for my father?”
I passed him soap and clothing, and as we neared the brook I walked towards the tall reeds where women can wash in seclusion. Ishmael spotted our donkey grazing beside the brook in the men’s area and headed there.
I dawdled to watch him for a moment. He flexed his shoulder with confidence, shrugging off his clothes, and then looked in my direction as he reached down to slip off his linen waist cloth, as if he knew he had an audience. I ducked away, blushing, and heard the splash as he plunged into the brook.
I stepped out of my sweat-sodden clothes and squatted amongst the reeds, checking over my body for any of the tell-tale white marks that would indicate leprosy, even though I knew it took time before the disease showed itself. I could hear Ishmael and Father talking together. To stop myself thinking about the shepherd, I imagined the jar which Father would carefully remove from the saddlebag and scrub once Ishmael had left. Even back then, I somehow knew that it would change our lives forever, although if I had known what the future held, I would have taken the jar and smashed it against the rocks into a thousand pieces.
Chapter Two
We walk down the street; three mourning women. Our hair and headscarves are grey, covered in flecks of soot and ash, our throats sore from wailing, our eyes puffy from weeping, and our cheeks still red where we’ve been slapping ourselves.
“Wait,” wheezes a voice from behind us as our plump neighbour, Ide, catches up. She limps from her club foot and always seems out of breath. “Have you seen Crazy Mariam?” There are several Mariams in our village, but only one was born crazy. “She managed to get out of their house while Cyria was at the funeral. Cyria checked the street and with the neighbours but no one has seen her.”
“How many times has this happened?” Rivka sighs in disgust. “When will that woman learn to lock her daughter up if she has to go out? Do you remember the time they found her naked by the well, wanting to jump in?”
“Rivka!” says Shoshanna, and Rivka rolls her eyes but says no more. “No, we haven’t seen her. Poor Cyria.”
“May God have mercy,” Ide says, tutting her tongue. “Well, we may as well walk back together.” What she really means is that she’d like to discuss the funeral and enjoy a good gossip with my
mother-in-law. I doubt Crazy Mariam or her mother will get much of a mention, as all the possible sins Cyria could have committed to be cursed with a crazed daughter have been discussed to the point that even these women are bored. I sometimes wonder whether it has ever occurred to Ide that her gossiping friends might be discussing the sins of her own mother for birthing a cripple.
“Poor Marta,” Shoshanna shakes her head mournfully. This isn’t my Marta she’s talking about; it’s old Marta, Yakob’s wife, who was struck fatally by a falling beam during the earthquake last night.
“Do you remember what a beauty she was when we were young girls?” says Ide, and they both smile. “She could walk to the well with her water jug on her shoulder wearing a faded old robe, but when those hips swayed, half the men in the village petitioned their mothers for a match. Hah!”
“It will be hard for old Yakob. Marta always thought he’d be the first to go,” said Shoshanna. “Thank God she was the only fatality last night.”
“Did the earthquake reach the city?” asks Rivka, which I have to admit is a good question. Although our village is small and conservative, it only takes half a day by donkey to reach our cosmopolitan, walled capital. I’ve never been, but I’ve heard about it from my cousin Lukas. I expect their huge stone buildings barely creaked, but what do I know? Rivka’s question is ignored. More important for the two neighbours is the correct apportioning of blame for Marta’s death last night.
“I wonder why she was singled out. Was there something she did that none of us knew about?” says Ide.
“I’m sure that hers was not a wandering eye, at least not in old age,” says Shoshanna, and they both savour the possibility that in her hip-swaying days this might not have been the case.
“Did you notice anything unusual about her?” says Ide, and they begin a tedious inventory of potential sin.
“Of course, it could be that God wishes to punish Yakob by smiting his wife,” Rivka adds, bored with the conversation. “Or perhaps it was one of Marta’s children who sinned?”
This opens several potential new lines of enquiry, but by now we’ve reached home. Ide is clearly waiting for an invitation to join us. Shoshanna is about to ask her in, when Rivka interrupts, saying, “I’m exhausted; first the earthquake and all that clearing up, and then the funeral. I’m sure you must be tired, too, Aunt Ide.”
