Beloved Gomorrah

by Justine Saracen

  As for the lawsuit, she wouldn’t have considered it, but Bernard Allen had all but precluded it anyhow. By paying her hospital bill and providing a place to recover, he had eliminated any claim to damages she could make. And of course a week on a luxury yacht with one of the perpetrators, who happened to be a world-famous actress, rendered ridiculous any assertion of emotional distress.

  So there it was. Bernard had laid his trap well and Joanna could almost have congratulated him on his guile. No wonder he was a millionaire businessman; he knew how to make the law—and people—work for him.

  But the emotional trap was far worse. Every time she brushed her fingers across her lips, she remembered Kaia setting her on fire, then backing away and returning to her man. It was the cruelest kind of taunt, and she resolved to never fall for it again.

  Finally she roused herself from her bleak brooding enough to undress and take a shower. With the warm water flowing over her, she scrubbed herself roughly with the bar of soap, as if to wash the whole episode away. To hell with them, she thought. To hell with them both.

  *

  “Playtime’s over,” she muttered to herself as she unlocked the door to the workshop the next morning. “Time for the grown-ups to get back to work.” Ignoring the dull ache that persisted in her leg, she strode across the concrete floor to the drafting table and unrolled her drawings. She had a schedule now, and she would keep to it.

  The design she’d made was still distressingly vague. The fountain part was clear, and the fountain itself was ready for installation under water. But the figures that were to accompany it had no character. Two would be sitting and two standing, to create a pleasant little scene. But she had no narrative. Who would they be? What would be the message? It seemed frivolous to make them anonymous.

  She grimaced, hating her lack of inspiration. Time was running out and she had to start doing the casting, narrative or not. Well, she could start with one standing female figure. Nothing more archetypal at a fountain than a woman. And since Marion was done with her own sculptures, maybe she could be convinced to stand as model.

  She rolled up the drawings again and had just turned away from the workbench when Charlie appeared in the doorway. He stopped melodramatically, waving several sheets of paper over his head, then came inside.

  “Have I got something for you!” he exclaimed, all but dancing to her side.

  “Mmm? What?” His cheerfulness annoyed her.

  “Remember I told you I e-mailed photos of our tablets to Nigel Castor, in Ancient Middle Eastern Collections? Well, he’s just sent back the first transliteration.”

  “So? Out with it. What does it say? Please don’t tell me it’s a grocery list.” She pulled over one of the workshop benches and sat down.

  Charlie straddled the bench next to her and unfolded the typewritten printout. “Nope, not groceries. It’s cuneiform, all right, and the language is Akkadian. And you’re not going to believe this. It’s the story of Lot.”

  “Lot? You mean the one who escaped from Sodom?”

  “Yep, except in this case it’s Gomorrah. In fact, this whole account is different from what we all learned as kids. Even weirder, one of his daughters tells it. Here, have a look.”

  Joanna took the three-page fax from his hand and began to read.

  This is the testament of Aina, born of Gomorrah, the second daughter of Lot of the tribe of Abraham. I bear witness hereby to Sodom, which God smote for its iniquity, and to Gomorrah, which the Lord destroyed for reasons I know not.

  The city of Sodom was within sight on the horizon, half a day’s ride away from our own. Men who traveled there said it was very like Gomorrah. And yet, our father Lot and his father’s brother Abraham spoke oft of its corruption. And lo, one evening, upon an outcry, we climbed atop our house to see a terrible light glowing over Sodom in the distance. The city had gone ablaze just before dusk, and from our roof it seemed we could hear the screams carried on the wind across the plain.

  On the morrow, as the conflagration sank to ashes, the men of Gomorrah betook them to the ruins, and when they returned, they trembled, telling of the carnage. The people had burned in their houses or fallen in their blood in the streets. Women lay charred with their infants in their arms, the goats and lambs were slaughtered in their pens, the crops in the fields were scorched. Yet our father forbade us mourning the Sodomites, for the fire was God’s retribution for their sins and their worship of false idols.

  We took this judgment in faith, ne’er imagining the same might befall Gomorrah, for our city was fair in our sight and pious. Its fountain offered welcome to all who wandered in, and this seemed a godly virtue. We gathered at the fountain upon the sunrise, that the women might fill their jugs and the foreign tradesmen might water their beasts. The goddess Anat stood protective o’er the spring, and never was a hard word spoken between ourselves and the strangers.

  But the righteous Lot was scornful of the many idols of Gomorrah and the elders of the city for their sufferance of them. Even more did he abhor that the people took those of their own sex as their beloved companions.

  He spoke menacingly of the Angels of God, for it was they whom God had sent to destroy Sodom and reveal His almighty power. Hearing this, I prayed each day for God to spare our city and watched each night in dread of his blazing hosts descending from the sky.

  Yet when the angels came to Gomorrah it was by foot. They stood before the city gate and cried out, “You are a transgressing people. You commit such immorality as no one who has preceded you in all the worlds.”

  The people were sore afraid, all but our father, who brought them in to sup with us. And in our house, they were as other men, with feet that need be washed. Their names were Yassib, Mesoch, and Gebreel, and though they had no blazing wings, the fire of God was in their eyes. Only Gebreel, who scarcely had a beard, spoke gently with our mother.

  And so it was not long before the elders of the city appeared before our house. They arrived with their wives or their favorite boys, and curious folk attended them, and all clamored for the strangers to come out and explain themselves.

  Lot barred his door to their entreaties, nor did the angels want to be thus confronted. But the crowd would not relent, so our father thrust us, his daughters, into their midst. To shame them, he called out that they should satisfy their lust upon us, who were maids that never knew a man.

  But the shame was upon us who were given unto them, though in truth, we came to no harm, for the crowd was all our neighbors and the women of the fountain. Two of the men grew angry at the insult and pounded on the door. And lo, when the door opened, Mesoch threw hot coals into their faces, scorching them, and proclaiming that Gomorrah would burn as well, as Sodom did for all its wickedness. Only the righteous Lot and his women would be spared.

  But the people did mock them, even as they withdrew, and it was their undoing.

  “Flee,” the angels said, and though it was night, we took the donkeys our father had packed with provender and fled into the hills. From there, we could see the fires breaking out, spots of light here and there, then ever more of them, until the entire city was aflame.

  We wept, embracing our mother, for Gomorrah was all the home we had known, and life had been good. Only our father drove us onward, into the hills as the angels had instructed him. But at the ridge that overlooked the burning city, our mother fell upon her knees and would not rise again. Lot pressed on, leaving her, and brought us to a cave where we found shelter.

  Lamenting, we made a fire against the chill and waited for Lot to fetch our mother back. After much time had passed, he returned, bringing dreadful report. God’s wrath was upon her for her disobedience, and He smote her. We cried out bitterly, for she was the best of mothers, but we dared not question. We were meek before God and before our father, who knew His will, and so lay down in the darkness and gave up our anguish in prayer and weeping.

  That night, I heard fearful moans in the dark but knew not what it was. I prayed to God
for protection and no harm befell me that night. But on the second night, my father came unto to me with force, pressing his hand upon my mouth. “Do not cry out, my daughter,” he whispered, and the smell of the fermented grape was on him. “It is God’s will that my line continue and your mother bore me no sons. Be still now and let God’s commandment be fulfilled that the kin of Abraham and Lot shall multiply.”

  I felt a sharp pain inside me, for I was a maid, and the touch of my father was repugnant. But though I wept the while I bore it, I was ever obedient.

  On the morrow, while my father slept, Astari drew me by the hand outside the cave. “If what our father has done to us is by God’s command, then God’s will is done. But I will not stay one day more under his authority, for his touch is loathsome to me.”

  “What can we do?” I asked, for I feared the wilderness more than my father’s force. I could not bear another trial after so much had happened. But then God showed His hand again, for Gebreel, the fairest of our angels, appeared and bade us leave our father. He pointed toward a break between the distant hills and said, “Go thither to Zoar, for there are men of your tribe. Ask for the family of Bessem, and they will take you in.”

  He helped us pack the donkeys with provender for the journey and gave his blessings. Smoke still rose from the ashes of Gomorrah as we set off eastward toward Zoar under this new guidance.

  The house of Bessem did take us unto them as the angel prophesied, and within the month we were betrothed. We dared not speak of our condition, for we were certain no one would believe us, and when our sons Moab and Ammon were early born, our husbands beat us and threatened to abandon us. But Lot himself came to Zoar, honored as the one righteous man of Sodom and Gomorrah. He told his half-true tale, and though he cast it as our assault upon him, he declared it to be God’s will and purpose, and so we were forgiven.

  But surely this is not justice, for if the planting of the father’s seed upon his daughters was by God’s design, then there is no shame in telling the truth of it. And if there is shame, then wherefore is it from God? Let him who reads this solve the puzzle and proclaim the truth of it for all the world to know.

  Joanna dropped the fax to her lap and glanced up at Charlie, stunned. “This is authentic?”

  “Assuming the tablets are authentic. But why wouldn’t they be real? It’s not the sort of thing that people want to fake.”

  Perplexed, she perused the transliteration once again. “Do you realize what we’ve got? This is equivalent to the Dead Sea Scrolls. No, they’re even more important because the Dead Sea Scrolls simply give earlier versions of most of the Old Testament books, plus a few new texts. None of them actually contradict the stories the way this one does.” She held up the pages.

  Charlie shrugged. “Maybe it’s a parody or something.”

  “This doesn’t sound like a parody, and people who wrote cuneiform tablets did not usually engage in comedy. That didn’t arise until fifth-century Greeks, with Aristophanes and his ilk. Plus, this is written in first person. I don’t know of any instances in archaic literature of people inventing tales about themselves. It sounds to me more like a cry for justice. Do we have anything more to go on?”

  “Nigel faxed me several pages of background explanation.” He pulled them out of another pocket. “You can read them here. Or would you like me to summarize them?”

  “Please summarize. I’ll read the details later tonight. For now, I just want to know how he can be sure he’s got it right. The date, for example. Where does it fall, and how does he know?”

  “Well, for starters he can figure it out from the choices and variety of cuneiform characters. According to Nigel, the language emerged in Sumer around 3,000 BC as pictographs. These became simplified and increased to about four hundred in the Late Bronze Age, when it was adapted for many languages: Akkadian, Elamite, Hittite, and a bunch of others.”

  “So how does he figure out which one he’s dealing with?” Ancient languages were well outside Joanna’s expertise.

  “Well, he said it was Akkadian, and who am I to question it? It was the dominant literary language of the Fertile Crescent, and Akkadian cuneiform had a unique combination of phonetic symbols and syllabic signs. Anyhow, it disappeared as writing around the second century CE.”

  Joanna squinted as she did the quick calculation. “So our tablet is at least two thousand years old.”

  “Judging by the content, I’d say easily twice that age.”

  She shook her head. “That leaves me speechless.”

  “Nothing leaves you speechless, my dear. But it is exciting.”

  Joanna stared into the distance, calling up other questions. “If it’s Akkadian, where does he propose it comes from? How big a territory are we talking about?”

  Charlie shrugged. “He doesn’t say, and I don’t think he can make any better guess than we can. Assuming a shipwreck, the tablets had to be brought on board somewhere on the other side of the Red Sea. I’d say from anywhere between the Dead Sea to the eastern shores of the Red Sea. I’d be more concerned with making sure it’s not a fake.”

  “If it’s a fake, it’s not a modern one. No one’s going to learn Akkadian just to create a counterfeit and then drop it into the sea hoping someone will find it. And an ancient fraud, well, why would anyone bother? I’m not an antiquities scholar, but I’ve never heard of myth parody, least of all one told in the first person. If this account is authentic, we have to not only rethink the story of Sodom and Gomorrah but to acknowledge that it was real. Nasty and real.”

  Charlie chortled. “It’s going to piss off a lot of rabbis.”

  “It won’t be just rabbis. Christians and Muslims refer to Sodom and Gomorrah too. It’s the biblical basis for condemning homosexuals. Lot’s a kinsman of Abraham, and he is called righteous, so no one’s going to like finding out he was a rapist. Especially of his own daughters.”

  “Disgusting, isn’t it?” Charlie grew somber. “I’ve got a daughter. She’s grown up now, but just the thought of any man doing that to his child makes me want to puke. If I was in the same room as someone like that, I swear, I’d break his teeth.”

  Joanna appreciated his vehemence. “I bet you were a good father, Charlie. I can just see you waiting up at night till your daughter got home from a date. Poor girl.”

  “Well, I tried to be subtle in cases like that, but hell, what good is a man if he can’t do right by his children.”

  “The problem with fathers is that they’re men, and parenting gets all mixed up with pride and honor. You know, it’s all about the son’s toughness and the daughter’s chastity. It seems to me the best kinds of fathers are the ones who act like mothers, who love you no matter what. Given that, my father gets high marks. He had a drinking problem too, but it just made him amusing, until he drowned in a drunken accident, like I’ve already told you. No pride or honor there.”

  “Well, it sounds like your father was doing his best, so you can’t compare him with Lot, who was simply a creepy bastard.”

  “I’m curious now to see what the other transliterations say, not to mention all the tablets that are still down there,” Joanna said. “Maybe there are more creepy bastards.”

  Charlie stood up from the bench, folded his fax, and slapped the ubiquitous concrete powder from his jeans. “If they’re from the same period, we could have some serious biblical revisions.” His face suddenly brightened. “This discovery could make us famous.”

  Joanna ran her fingertip along the still-sensitive scar on the side of her head. “Let’s hope it’s ‘good’ famous, and not the kind they burn at the stake.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “What the hell did you two get up to while I was gone?” Bernard came from the galley with his second beer.

  Kaia looked through the salon windows toward the darkening sea. “We didn’t ‘get up’ to anything. I just took care of her, like you ordered me to do. We became friends. I found her much more interesting than I expected. And attractive.�
��

  “So it seemed. Listen, you can’t go doing things like that. It’s one thing to have the queer boys admiring you, but lip-locking with dykes, no matter how attractive they are, that’s out of the question. The tabloids would eat it up, and the only roles I could get for you would be prison wardens and gym teachers. I don’t want to see her around this boat again, you hear?”

  Kaia didn’t reply, just leaned against the salon doors, her mind in turmoil. Bernard stepped into the silence. “Look, you’ve got to trust me on this. You’re the talent, but I know the business. I picked us both up off the street and got us into the big time, and I can’t have you second-guessing me. I’ve made your career. Christ, I’ve made you fucking rich.”

  “Yes, you have. I appreciate that your connections in New York and Hollywood got my career off the ground, and I’ve always gone along with the roles you found for me. I think I can do better than play vampy stereotypes, but you’re right. They paid for all this.” She glanced up at the ceiling of the salon. “But this religious propaganda is a bridge too far.”

  “I don’t get what you’re so up in arms about. What’s wrong with a religious movie? You don’t believe in God?”

  “What I believe is beside the point. It’s going to be an awful movie. People will associate me with fundamentalist propaganda. I just don’t like the message.”

  “Okay, so it’s a little bit over the top and it’s not Shakespeare. But what’s wrong with that? It’s going to bring in large audiences. And what bothers you about the message anyhow? It’s just about obedience. It wouldn’t hurt you to learn a little of that.”