Alabaster

by Chris Aslan

  “Seriously, Ishmael, just stop it,” I snapped, trying to crawl backwards.

  “You stop it,” he breathed, pinning my arms back above my head and then reaching down to pull up my tunic.

  “Argh! Please, just let me go.”

  Instead, he pressed his mouth onto mine. I struggled but he was stronger. I tried to pull my tunic back down and then gasped as he pushed something hard inside me.

  “Please stop,” I whimpered. But he didn’t. Stones jutted into my back and I looked around wildly to see if there was one I could grab and hit him with. Instead he loomed over me, his hair forming a tent around my face, locking me in.

  “Stop,” I groaned, and kept on saying it until, finally, he did.

  He collapsed on top of me. For a moment I thought he might be dead. His hands relaxed their grip on my wrists and his forehead rested on mine. Then he pulled himself off, suddenly modest, and turned his back on me while he wiped himself with his waistcloth. Now it was spotted with blood and something else. I pulled my tunic down, even if it was too late, and curled myself away from him, sobbing into my headscarf.

  “Oh, come on,” I heard him say, with a sigh of irritation. “Don’t tell me you didn’t want it.” I continued to weep. “Look, no one needs to know about this. I won’t tell anyone and I know you won’t.”

  I carried on weeping and then heard him swear and start rounding up his sheep. I kept my head buried in my headscarf as if I could actually hide inside it, waiting for the clank of bells to diminish. Still, I just lay there, curled up. I didn’t know what else to do.

  Eventually, I managed to sit up. Everything hurt down there, inside. I got to my feet and adjusted my tunic. I don’t know how the next few hours passed; I honestly can’t remember. What I do know is that before I went home, I bathed in the brook, washing my tunic and my headscarf, and then walked the donkey the long way around the village so that no one would ask me why I was wearing damp clothes.

  At home, Eleazar was mercifully absent. Marta looked up briefly from the pot of lentil stew she was stirring. “Are those clothes wet?” she said.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll change out of them now,” I said.

  Later that evening, Marta chided me gently for walking home in wet clothes, assuming that they were the reason I was feeling ill and not talking at all at supper, just wanting to go to bed.

  The next morning, I passed several people on my way up to the olive groves. I waited for them to stare at me in shock or in horror. Couldn’t they see that I was broken?

  “A woman’s honour is like the wings of a butterfly,” was another of Mother’s sayings. “Beautiful yet fragile, and without them she is but a worm.”

  Couldn’t everyone see that my wings had been ripped off?

  I didn’t tell anyone. I struggled on with the harvest, but froze every time I thought I heard the clang of a sheep bell. I left later and returned earlier. Each day my sack of harvested olives was lighter. I felt hollowed out, as if something had pecked away at my heart and my spirit until there was nothing left but a wretched, lonely numbness.

  Ishmael passed me a few days later. He grinned and it sickened me. When he saw my expression, his own became hard as well, and he simply continued as if he hadn’t seen me, throwing stones at his flock to keep them moving.

  The next time I saw Imma, she barely asked me how I was before making a joke about how she envied Ishmael’s long eyelashes, so wasted on a man.

  “Don’t talk to me about him,” I said, and walked away leaving her perplexed.

  My sister could sense that something wasn’t right. Although I determined to forget what had happened, I’d still wake up shaking, with Marta wiping my damp forehead and whispering comfort.

  Then came the time when Marta laid out rags for us to use during our monthly bleeding. I didn’t bleed. For a few days I convinced myself that it was just late and strapped the rags to me anyway. I started to feel nauseous in the mornings and Marta reluctantly joined me up in the grove, harvesting olives. My breasts felt sore, I needed to urinate more often, and still no blood. Finally I picked an evening when we were alone and told Marta what had happened. She listened without interruption, holding my hands. When I had finished, she embraced me and then rocked me gently, whispering, “My poor, poor Miri.”

  It was such a release to tell someone, even though the problem remained. “I must go to Aunt Shiphra,” she said. “We need help.”

  I didn’t want anyone else to know, but I knew she was right, and my protest was half-hearted. When they returned, Aunt Shiphra had already been given the general gist. “Come here, my peach.” She hugged me fiercely, and then felt my belly and prodded my breasts, standing back to look at me. “You can’t tell yet. You’re young and you favour baggy tunics,” she said. “At least we have a little time.”

  Then she made me go over the story again, quizzing me over every shameful detail. “Well, you clearly did not consent and this is a case of rape. Ishmael could be stoned for this.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “Not really,” she sighed wearily. “The news will spread and the whole village will be dishonoured. His family will protest and say that you encouraged him or even seduced him, so there will always be doubt cast upon your honour. They might even sway popular opinion enough to have you cast out or stoned. If you think being a leper’s daughter is bad, this will be worse.”

  “What can we do?” said Marta.

  Aunt Shiphra rocked on her haunches, thinking. “Let me speak with Shoshanna,” she said, finally. “Perhaps there is a way to work this out.”

  “How can this ever work out? He raped me. He put this curse inside me.”

  “Hush, Miri; that’s no way to speak of the blessing of new birth,” said Shiphra. “You wait here. I’ll go and see her now.”

  She left, and returned quicker than we had expected. Shoshanna, wide-eyed and anxious, was with her.

  “I thought it would be better that we talk here, in private,” said Shiphra.

  “And what of these girls?” Shoshanna pointed at us.

  “This girl is why I asked you here,” Shiphra nodded at me. “Your son raped her.” Shoshanna listened in shocked silence as Shiphra told her what had happened.

  “This cannot be true,” Shoshanna said finally. “My son is a religious man. He would never do such a thing. The girl is lying.”

  “I swear on the life of my sister that it is true,” I said.

  Shoshanna tutted dismissively. “A girl who loses her reputation will swear by anything.”

  “She will swear before Halfai and before the elders,” said Shiphra slowly. This elicited a quiet gasp from Shoshanna.

  “That is a dangerous move to make; they could both be taken out and stoned,” she countered.

  “A woman who has been robbed of her honour has nothing left to risk.”

  “I must talk with my son, and hear what he has to say.”

  She left and we waited. Marta boiled water for mint tea.

  “She didn’t scream,” said Shoshanna triumphantly, striding back in.

  “Who would have heard me?” I said. “We were alone in the olive grove.”

  “And why were you alone? Surely you knew what people would say? You seduced my son. Come on, admit it.”

  “I told him to stop. I fought him. It was rape.”

  “No. You told him that you had already lost your reputation, as a leper’s daughter. What more invitation does a man need?”

  “You twist my words!” I shouted. “I will go to Halfai right now and see Ishmael stoned.” I looked to Aunt Shiphra and Marta for support. Aunt Shiphra gently shook her head.

  “Sit down, Shoshanna,” said Shiphra curtly, nodding towards the place of least honour nearest the compound door. “Let’s get down to business.”

  As they haggled over the bride price and the bridal contract, I wandered over to Marta, unnoticed.

  “Say nothing about the jar,” I whispered. I had told her of it after Father had left. Sh
e glanced at Mother’s chest, where we now stored it. “After all, he’s taken enough from me already.”

  Finally it was agreed that they would pay for the wedding celebrations, but that we would contribute our one remaining sheep that had been a lamb when Father sold the others. Ishmael was already shepherding it for us, so that part was easy. Aunt Shiphra drove Shoshanna hard when it came to the dowry.

  “You must provide the dowry – all of it,” she said emphatically.

  “But this is not the custom. People will talk,” said Shoshanna. “They might suspect something.”

  “Then buy it in secret. You will include a chest, a gold nose-ring – and don’t think you can cheat me when it comes to gold – seven new tunics, a new robe, and two new headscarves, a bridal sheet, and the usual number of new mattresses and bedding for a married couple.”

  “But we aren’t prepared! I have my daughter’s dowry to save for.”

  “Maybe the son you raised should have thought about that before he raped my niece,” was Shiphra’s testy reply.

  I almost smiled. Aunt Shiphra was good, and Marta had been right to ask for her help. Even Aunt Shiphra accepted that we must pay the bride price ourselves. It was supposed to be fifty large silver coins but, after further haggling, became ownership of the other two remaining sheep in their care, which would belong to Ishmael if he ever divorced me.

  Aunt Shiphra, as a woman, couldn’t legally represent me, so it fell to Father’s cousin, Yoezer, to speak to Halfai with Ishmael and have the marriage contract drawn up. I heard from Uncle Yoezer what a pious man Ishmael was and how he’d told Halfai that this was an act of charity, bestowing mercy on a leper’s daughter. It was a clever move by Ishmael to gain Halfai’s approval, given that Halfai himself must have known that somewhere else in his compound, his own daughter sobbed, heartbroken.

  Imma only spoke to me once after the contract had been signed. “I will never forgive you for this theft,” she hissed quietly, making sure no one else was listening. “You are dead to me, Mariam, dead.”

  I longed to explain what had happened and to tell her of her own lucky escape, but how could I? Her father could have me stoned, and who would believe the testimony of a girl?

  It was left to Marta and Cousin Mara to hold up my side of the wedding canopy on the day Ishmael and his friends came for me. Ishmael, to my further amazement and disgust, entered into the spirit of the wedding, enjoying being the centre of attention instead of burning with shame. I was grateful for the full veil that hid my tear-stained face from the curious stares of others and meant that no one could see my expression whenever I was told what a charitable husband God had provided.

  During the week leading up to the wedding, Shoshanna had made sure that everyone knew that she supported the religious zeal of her son and this act of piety, and made a great show of welcoming me as her new daughter into their compound. My dowry chest had been delivered two nights before, waking Marta up. It contained seven tunics which we suspected were not new. We decided not to mention this slight to Aunt Shiphra, who came the following morning with a needle and a smoothed twig. She pushed the twig up one nostril and then pierced my nose with the heated needle, pushing the nose-ring through as Marta and Mara held on to my arms and I squirmed in agony.

  My greatest worry was the wedding sheet which would be displayed the following day as proof of my virginity.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Aunt Shiphra had said. “It’s been taken care of.”

  Late that night, Ishmael led me into the inner room, which had been prepared for us, with the marital straw mattress in the centre of the floor, covered in the white linen wedding sheet. Ishmael tried to remove my veil but I wouldn’t let him, even if he removed my tunic. When he entered me I still gasped in pain, but it wasn’t as bad as the first time. I glanced over to the doorway, where Shoshanna was watching dutifully to ensure everything was done correctly. When Ishmael had finished and was still sprawled on top of me, he fumbled under the mattress and found a knife she had left there for him. Shifting me to the side, he drew it down his inner thigh and blood welled, then he lay on top of the sheet for a moment, allowing it to soak in. The door closed and we were left alone.

  “See, I bled for you,” he said, smiling as if this had made everything right. “We got away with it,” he added, before yawning, rolling over, and falling asleep. I just lay as still as possible, filled with a desperate sense of hopelessness.

  Chapter Seven

  The last time I saw Eleazar and Yokkan was through the weave of my veil at my wedding. Marta called for me the following morning, just as Shoshanna was hanging up the stained wedding sheet for all to see. We climbed up onto the roof of the house, which had a low wall around it, giving us a little privacy. Marta was distraught.

  I listened with disbelief that turned to rage as she explained that Eleazar and Yokkan had run away. My brother’s selfishness was breathtaking. It seemed to be a special knack of his to abandon those who loved him most at their hour of greatest need. How was Marta supposed to live in the compound alone, without a man? What would people say? It would be a disreputable and lonely existence. I would never have agreed to the marriage, whatever the consequences, if I’d known Marta would be left without family. I cursed him loudly, but that just elicited a fresh bout of sobbing from Marta.

  Who would finish harvesting the olives? None of them had been brined. Who would protect the honour of our compound? Of course, my brother – that dog – had given no thought to any of these questions, or if he had, they hadn’t stopped his stupid fantasies of martyrdom and holy war. Furiously, I prayed under my breath that he would suffer a painful and premature death.

  The only glimmer of good to emerge from this situation was that the village gossips now had something far more interesting to discuss than suspicion over a hastily arranged and poorly matched wedding. Shoshanna’s neighbours, who came to help clear up the compound and the upper guest room, speculated whether the boys had joined the nationalists, the zealots, the fundamentalists, or the insurgents. These groups were all largely the same, fighting against Western rule, but no one doubted that holy war was their aim. Some of the neighbours blamed Halfai for radicalizing them, and others pinched my cheeks and congratulated me for being sister to a holy warrior.

  Later that day, after the relatives and neighbours had left, Ishmael slept and the house was quiet. I went to put on my headscarf and one of my supposedly new tunics. “Where do you think you’re going?” Shoshanna snapped.

  “I have to go and see my sister and Aunt Shiphra,” I said. “They must be devastated about the boys leaving.”

  “And you didn’t think to request permission from me?” she asked.

  In reality, I hadn’t. I’d grown so used to my own freedom, it hadn’t occurred to me that now that I was paid for, I was also owned.

  “Sit. This is your family now,” said Shoshanna.

  “But –”

  “I said sit!” she barked. So I sat. “Now listen to me, girl.” She glanced at the closed door to the inner room where Ishmael slept. “This mess was not my making. I didn’t choose this. I did not choose you. I don’t know who was to blame for what went on up in the grove, but I do know that it wasn’t me. You think I want someone like you living in my house, under my roof? You will do everything I say and if you don’t, I will make sure my son beats you until you do. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “Now, get out of my sight,” she said, and I looked around the cramped compound and wondered where I was supposed to go. “No, make yourself useful,” she added, pinching the bridge of her nose as if she had a headache. “Make some mint and sage tea.”

  Over the next few days, Ishmael looked for excuses to get his mother and sister out of the compound. Then he’d lead me into the inner room and he’d take me noisily and hungrily, often more than once. I felt ashamed every time, and asked him to keep the inner door closed.

  “But then I won’t be able to see what I’
m doing,” he grinned. I grew used to seeing him naked and aroused, but any desire for him I might have once felt had withered. Each time he approached me I could taste bile in my throat and felt sick to my stomach.

  Most mornings began with me squatting over the hole in the unclean place, vomiting. This meant that Rivka was dispatched to fetch the water, something she clearly resented even more than my general presence in the compound. She knew the real reason Ishmael had married me, and had been sworn to secrecy about my pregnancy, which we would only announce a month after the wedding.

  On days I was well, I collected water. I almost collided with Imma once. True to her word, she gazed through me as if I was invisible. I felt utterly alone. I started to think that the child growing inside me might not be such a bad thing after all. At least I would have someone to love.

  Ishmael rarely paid me much attention except when he was on top of me. But sometimes, afterwards, he would rub my belly and speak to it.

  “How’s my boy?” he would whisper. “Will you be as strong and handsome as your father? When can I start teaching you how to use a sling?”

  I wasn’t happy, but life wasn’t unbearable. My heart ached for Marta. She tried visiting once or twice, but Shoshanna made it clear that she was not welcome. We met occasionally at the well. Marta had aged dramatically. She’d lost weight and her skin looked grey and lifeless.

  “I’m praying for Father and El,” she said to me one evening, after we had embraced near the well. “They are both still alive. I can feel it in my body.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said, thinking more of Father than Eleazar.

  “I know it,” she said, with a crazed certainty that just made me worry for her more.

  I saw little of Aunt Shiphra, who usually sent Mara to fetch water. Whenever I saw my cousin we would always ask if the other had heard news, but there was none. The boys had simply disappeared.

  Towards the end of my first month of marriage, Shoshanna was preparing to tell our neighbour, Ide, about my pregnancy – thus informing the entire village – when I started to bleed. Shoshanna called for Auntie Shiphra, who boiled me a special tea and said that I must rest, but still the bleeding continued and then the cramps started. They got worse during the night, and finally I stumbled out, moaning and clutching my belly, to the unclean place. I squatted over the hole, feeling an urgency to pass water, but the trickle had the metallic smell of blood. Then there was a sudden gush and I felt something tearing away from inside me. I cried in pain, clutching my belly. Then a further gush and something slipped and snagged and tore out of me, making a dull splash as it fell into the pit below. I knew that I had lost my baby.