Alabaster

by Chris Aslan

  Ishmael and Young Shimon clap and cheer him on, and soon the same villagers who were complaining a moment ago punctuate each statement with a cry of fury. Halfai raises his voice, spittle spraying upon Ishmael and Shimon like a blessing. “They dare to come here, on our own land, stealing from us, from our neighbours, our relatives!” I see one of the merchants who sells olive oil actually weep tears of rage and punch his fist in the air. “And what will we do about it?”

  Someone shouts, “Holy war! We must rise up!”

  This is greeted by excitement or alarm, depending on whether you’re a stupid young man or a wiser woman. Halfai sees that he has whipped us up into a frenzy and is in danger of losing control. “I will tell you what we will do about it,” he cries out. He pauses so that the crowd grows silent in anticipation. “Firstly, we will never forget. We will continue to support our young men who fight for our liberation and freedom. We will also take care of those who have been stolen from today. I call upon you all to give. Even the poorest of you must have a coin you can spare.”

  Young Shimon places a flat wicker bread basket in front of the chest, reaches into a pocket of his robe and pulls out three silver coins, dropping them ostentatiously into the basket. Ishmael does the same, and I glance over at Imma, who is nodding her approval. He is followed by Halfai, who ensures his gold coin flashes in the sun before he deposits it. I see stingy old Zechariah heading home saying he needs to fetch his coin, but we all know we won’t be seeing him again today.

  In our village, merchants are generally considered the richest and laziest, but who can refuse to come forward? The whole village is watching. Halfai calls representatives from each compound forward. I see Marta redden as her name is called, and she drops five copper coins into the tray. What is she going to live on now? I wonder, knowing she’s nowhere near finishing her latest carpet, and needs every coin to feed herself. I glower at Halfai. My sister must pay for his stupid mistake. I will bring Marta food from our table tonight. I don’t care if Ishmael beats me.

  Finally, everyone has given. Halfai announces that the spring will be impure for seven days and that all drinking water must be collected from the sheep spring. That man has clearly never attempted to carry a water jar, much less scramble up the treacherous path frequented only by sheep. If this had happened in summer when the spring dries up, I don’t know what we’d do. Halfai then announces that for the next seven days well water may be drawn for the purpose of watering our vegetable gardens. After that he will perform purification rituals over the well and the water will be fit to drink again. That’s another problem with Halfai: he thinks everything can be sorted out with a seven-day delay.

  For us, the seven days of quarantine merely allowed our lives to fall apart a little more slowly. Marta and I fasted for most of it. Nor were we alone. Each evening, Imma came and delivered well water and we talked together through the closed compound door. She’d try to encourage me by telling me of another villager who had joined in the fast for my father, or who was planning to give her dried fish or fresh figs to bring us, usually in cheap, hastily woven baskets which I soon learned not to offer to return.

  When she asked me how Father was, and I would say, “He values your prayers, keep praying!”, what I really meant was that Father had checked again that morning and the spot was still there and nothing had changed.

  The food brought to us by the village robbed Marta of the distraction food preparation might have brought her. Anyway, only Father and Eleazar were eating, so we actually had more than we needed. Instead, Marta busied herself at her loom. I even joined her one afternoon, but after my sixth or seventh mistake, as she worried loose one of my knots in the wrong colour while sighing and blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes, I got the message and left her alone.

  Eleazar also refused my help. He had taken to studying his letters with religious fervour and was determined to learn them by himself. When I asked what had motivated him, he looked up briefly and said, “I want to know the law. I want to know how to be clean.”

  I was left aimless. I prayed, although my mind wandered, partly due to hunger and partly because I wasn’t sure who I was praying to, except that I repeated over and over again, “Let him be well, let him be well.”

  You’d think I would have cherished a whole seven days of Father’s uninterrupted attention; that we would have sat together in the upper room talking and trying to keep each other’s spirits up. Instead, the disease lodged a barrier between us which neither of us could breach even if we wanted to. Father constantly worried about us coming too close to him or touching something he had come in contact with. I felt guilty at how angry I was that he wasn’t getting better – as if he somehow wasn’t trying hard enough.

  On the last night of the quarantine, Father removed his tunic and I peered at his back, holding the lamp as close as he’d allow me to get. There was no change.

  “Miri, we need to talk,” he said calmly.

  “Father, there’s still tonight. We’re all praying for a miracle. Let’s not waste our time making plans until we have to.”

  “That time has come,” he said. “Perhaps the Lord will prevail at the last hour, but we must still make plans.”

  “Should I call Marta?”

  He shook his head. “I want you to know that I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t.” I felt pain in my chest and my eyes blurred with tears.

  “I should have been more careful with the man. I shouldn’t have gone so close to him or touched him. I should have thought about my children and what it would be like for them to be orphans.”

  “Stop, Father; you don’t need to do this.”

  “Do be patient with Eleazar. I know he can be difficult, but he needs you. Be strong for Marta. Let her care for you. She needs that. Use the jar to find yourselves loving husbands, and start new lives for yourselves. Promise me?”

  I said nothing, and just nodded.

  “And the jar. Is it safe?”

  “I buried it.”

  “Good. I’m trying to remember the cleansing laws. They may have to break every pot in the house.”

  “Father…” I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. “I don’t think we can do this. How can we cope without you?” Tears began to roll and Father made to embrace me and then stopped himself.

  “I will visit,” said Father. “As long as I stay outside the village and approach from the main road where I can be seen, I can visit. How could I ever be parted from you? I would die of a broken heart. How could I live without seeing you, the light of my eyes?” His voice broke with emotion. I sat, huddled. “Seeing you will keep me alive.”

  The next morning Father climbed down the ladder and informed us that the mark was still present. “Marta, I will need my travelling tunic, and a blanket and light sleeping mattress – nothing too big to carry – and some provisions.” Marta nodded and wept silently as she prepared Father’s request.

  Then Halfai and Heras arrived with the elders. It was the same routine as the week before. Father and Eleazar faced the tree while Marta and I stripped. Heras supervised us and then examined us. She left and Halfai entered, and Eleazar and Father were next. Father didn’t have to strip this time; he simply removed his tunic and stood there in his waist cloth. I was facing the apricot tree but heard the collective intake of breath and knew that Halfai and the elders had seen the white mark.

  Once they were dressed again, Halfai opened the doors to our compound. A growing throng of villagers had collected outside and some of the boys were on the shoulders of their friends, staring over the mud-brick wall.

  Halfai intoned the sentence, and Father tore his tunic as instructed. A basket spilling ash was placed on the ground before him and Father took a handful and scattered it over his head. A bell was placed in front of him with instructions to ring it wherever he went, to warn others of his presence, and he was instructed to tie a cloth over his mouth, lest his breath infect those around him.

  “We will all accomp
any you as you make your final journey from our village,” said Halfai. The crowd outside parted, careful to avoid touching the village leper, as Father stumbled outside.

  “Keep your distance,” shouted a voice at one of the youngsters who jostled too close to Father. The women from our street began to wail and keen as if Father was dead. A group of youths pushed their way through the crowd. They were Eleazar’s friends, faces tear-stained. Eleazar froze for a moment, staring back at them. Then he turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, up towards the olive groves. The elders looked at Halfai questioningly, but he simply shook his head as if to say, “Let the boy go.”

  As Father watched his son abandon him, his face scrunched up and then he began to wail, beating his chest with his fist.

  Marta and I dropped the sack we had prepared for Father to take into exile, and ran to him, but hands held us back.

  “Let go!” Marta cried. I heard someone shrieking and then realized that it was me. I was being held by Elisheba, a woman from the other side of the village who had been friends with Mother. I tried to elbow her, but she drew me into a vice-like embrace, weeping but whispering soothing noises in my ear as Father began to walk forward.

  Friends of Father walked behind him, weeping, and throwing ash over their heads and tearing at their tunics. Most of them were wearing their best tunics, and this honour they showed my father hurt like the twist of a knife. For a moment, I saw Auntie Shiphra and Marta clinging to each other, buoyed up by our neighbours, all of them keening and throwing ash over themselves and slapping their faces, and then with the jostling they were lost from view.

  The whole village followed Father to the well and then out of the village, past the brook to the main road that led to the capital. Halfai was weeping as he laid a large pouch of coins on the ground before Father. “This is a collection from all of us. I wish I could embrace you. You will be missed,” he said. I could see only the back of Father’s shoulders, which were shaking. “The colony is two days’ walk south. Follow the dried riverbed.”

  “Let me through!” I screamed. “Let me through!” Elisheba released me and I pushed forward. “I’m going with him,” I declared wildly, wiping away snot with the back of my hand. “You can’t stop me. He needs someone to take care of him.”

  “Please, don’t do this,” Father whispered, backing away.

  “I don’t care about the disease. I would rather die with you,” I said, stepping forward.

  “No,” Father stumbled back, looking at me pleadingly. “Miri, don’t do this. Don’t make me throw stones at my own daughter. I will if I have to.”

  “Please, Father,” I sobbed. “Let me come with you. Don’t leave me here.” Elisheba came up behind me and took me in her arms.

  “I have her, Shimon,” Elisheba called out.

  “Please, take care of my children,” Father said, addressing the village.

  I heard Marta begin to scream. I had never heard her raise her voice like that before. Elisheba loosened her grip and I pushed through the crowd to her. We clung to one another, weeping and shrieking as Father turned, hoisted a bulging cloth sack onto his back, and trudged off alone into the wilderness.

  Heras and the other elder wives waited patiently as Marta and I huddled sobbing beside the road as the rest of the village returned to their usual activities. Two of the women left and returned later with our donkey (which Halfai had minded during our quarantine) and three other donkeys, all laden with bundles.

  “Come,” said Heras, gently but firmly. “It’s time for the cleansing.”

  We were led, numb and stumbling, down to the brook. Eleazar was already there with Cousin Yokkan and another of his friends who held up a sheet to screen him from us. We could see Eleazar’s freshly shaven head above the sheet and the silhouette of Halfai flicking something at him. Eleazar then walked down to the water and bathed behind the sheet.

  We waited as he scrubbed alone and had dressed in a new tunic behind the sheet, and then he was led off. One of the elder women stationed herself near the path to keep men away. The others, including Imma, unloaded the donkeys and began unwrapping cloth bundles of carpets, bedding, tunics, robes and headscarves. These were all tipped into the brook, letting the current wash through them before they were to be tackled with soap.

  “Whatever we found in the upper room where your father stayed has been burnt,” said one of the women. That included one of Mother’s best carpets. Heras pulled out a sharpening stone and a set of shears and began sharpening them, telling us to strip as two women shielded us with the sheet. Everything we wore was thrown into the brook.

  Marta’s beautiful curls soon lay in heaps on the ground, ruffled by the evening breeze. Mine followed. Heras took out a sharp knife and a bowl of heated water and began to shave our eyebrows and then all of our body hair, finishing by shaving our scalps.

  The absence of eyebrows left us expressionless, which probably mirrored the numbness we felt. We were both shivering from cold, exhaustion, and lack of food. Suddenly Marta’s body was splattered with blood and then mine was too. It was still warm.

  Heras continued to flick us with blood from a small bowl with a sprig of hyssop wrapped with scarlet wool, whispering prayers over us as she did so. I hadn’t noticed the two doves. One had just been beheaded, the other struggled in Imma’s hands. When Heras had finished with us, she also flicked the live dove with blood.

  “Pass it to the girls,” she said, and the bird tried to beat her wings against us. “Now, release the bird to freedom.”

  We let go of the dove and it flew off. “Now bathe,” said Heras, and gave us both a piece of spiced soap.

  We scrubbed ourselves and it did feel good to be clean, even though by now our teeth were chattering.

  “These new tunics are a gift,” said Heras softly, as we emerged from the water. “And there are also new headscarves. They will hide your baldness and your shame.”

  Our clothes and bedding were still being washed as we were escorted back into the village. “Your home is being cleansed,” Heras explained as she led us to Aunt Shiphra’s compound. Inside, Mara – Yokkan’s older sister – squatted over a pot by the hearth preparing lentil stew and puffing flatbread on a hot stone nestled in the embers.

  We refused to eat but Mara insisted we try a ladleful each. The soup warmed through my body, and in the end I ate two bowlfuls.

  After we finished, Auntie Shiphra, still red-eyed from weeping, pulled us to her ample frame. She rocked us for a few moments and then led us into the inner room. Eleazar was already asleep, his back to us. I lay down, and within moments I fell into an exhausted sleep.

  Chapter Five

  If I make it to the spring in one piece, it will be a miracle. This rocky sheep path was a challenging climb before, but after six days of constant use – with women skidding and slipping in the mud and spilling their jars – it is truly treacherous. I hold my empty jar with my right hand, nestled into the crook of my right shoulder, leaving my left hand free to balance or grab on to boulders. The thyme and mint which grows along the path sides is doing well with all this extra watering, and the path is too populated by women for any sheep to graze it. At my feet are the shattered pieces from a jar that was dropped.

  I stop to let some other women pass with their jars full. They place their free hands in mine as I help them down this steep part. This makes me feel happy, because right now they are only focused on getting home without breaking anything and think nothing of touching a leper’s daughter.

  The spring itself is heaving with women. Some wait impatiently, staring angrily at the trickle which takes so long to fill just one jar. Others have settled themselves on the large rocks around, leaving their jars in a queue beside the spring. I put my jar at the end of the line. Elisheba, the older woman who was kind to me on the day my father was banished, is sitting with some of her neighbours, and beckons me over.

  “Come, sit with us,” she says. I notice a nervous exchange between two of the neig
hbours, who shuffle up the rock, allowing me more space than I actually need. These older ladies can sit with their legs sprawled in whatever position feels most comfortable, but I am careful to sit with my legs together. “And all this fuss because your husband and the other zealots didn’t like the way a woman dressed,” she says with a rueful chuckle. I redden and keep my gaze lowered. “Of course, I’m not blaming you, child. Look, men are like merchants, buying up rules as if they had all the money in the world, then it’s we women who are the camels and have to carry the load for them.” The neighbours chuckled.

  The women talk easily with each other, occasionally pointing with their chins at the queue of jars. As the youngest I move our jars forward. I don’t say much, but it feels so good to be included. Conversation inevitably moves towards matchmaking.

  “He’s a hard-working boy, even if he’s a little on the short side,” the first neighbour says, referring to her nephew. “And he has a thing for your sister-in-law,” she adds, nodding at me.

  “Rivka?”

  “How many sisters-in-law do you have?” says Elisheba, and the others laugh. “Well?” she says. “You live with her. What do you think? She’s always seemed a little stuck-up to me.”

  “My sister-in-law has been bred for royalty,” I say, with a shy smirk. “She is never troubled with domestic duties and is merely required to wait until the king hears word of her.”

  The women slap their thighs and cackle. I can’t help grinning myself. Usually I’d be careful with a comment like this – you never know when it will come back and bite you – but in the easy presence of these women, I forget about caution for a moment.

  “The ‘princess’, that’s what we’ll call her,” says the aunt. “I’ll tell that nephew of mine to start learning to cook and fetch water!”

  I worry that I shouldn’t have said anything, but then we’re called because their jars have reached the front of the queue. “Please, let me fill them for you,” I say, and they don’t argue. I help hoist a brimming jar onto each shoulder.