Poisoned Honey

by Beatrice Gormley

  I felt sick. Susannah’s rumor was true—Eleazar had been thinking of divorcing me. So Chava had been civil to me only to keep me in ignorance while she plotted. My visits to the house where the Egyptian woman lived made it easy to cast suspicion on me.

  I felt small claws clutch my shoulder, and the invisible sparrow chirped, Yes, you could become a pitiable creature, like Yael. But you don’t have to let them do this to you. Remember, you have power.

  “Quiet!” I muttered. The sparrow said no more, for the time being.

  After my outburst, the household was ominously calm. Eleazar called me to serve the evening meal as usual. We ate on the rooftop, where the air was a little less steamy. Then we prepared for bed. Chava pretended to fluff up Eleazar’s mattress, but I saw her poking under it. “What’s this?” she asked loudly.

  “Well, what is it?” I asked even louder. I knew what she was looking for, and I knew it wasn’t there. I smiled as she drew out the packet of dried herbs and felt for the figurine— which, of course, lay shattered in a nearby alley. It was good to see her blink in disappointment and shoot me an angry glance.

  “Will you women never stop bickering?” Eleazar demanded. “I need my rest. In the morning, I’ll decide what’s to be done.”

  So all of us went to bed. I suppose I was worn out, because I had barely time to quiet myself and enter my secret garden before I fell asleep. As I drifted off, I seemed to see a group gathering around me, talking among themselves. This is our chance, I heard one say.

  Sometime later, I opened my eyes. Judging by the stars, it was the middle of the night. I edged off the bed, where Eleazar lay snoring. Chava, too, looked fast asleep on her couch.

  A plan was laid out in my mind, fully formed:

  If Eleazar were struck with a malady, he wouldn’t have the strength to divorce me.

  I knew a curse for bringing on illness. Ramla had explained it to me because it was close to the charm for healing, and you had to be careful not to mix up the two procedures.

  The curse was supposed to work best on a moonless night—like tonight.

  So I crept down the stairs from the rooftop to the courtyard. It seemed natural to hear a woman’s cultured voice speaking Greek (which, somehow, I understood perfectly) in my ear. First, you’ll need a doll.

  Lighting a little lamp with a coal from the hearth, I found a greasy rag. I rolled and tied it into a figure with a head, two arms, and two legs.

  I propped the rag figure on the bench where Eleazar usually sat to have his feet washed. I pronounced the curse: “Abrasax. Let the words of his mouth forsake him.”

  That was all I meant to say, but then the voice asked, What if Eleazar writes out his wishes? Chava couldn’t read them, but Elder Thomas could.

  My voice whispered on, “Abrasax. Let the strength of his right hand also forsake him.”

  The dirty rag figure pitched forward off the bench, as if an unseen finger had pushed it, and landed on one side. Drawing in my breath sharply, I put a hand to my mouth. What had I done?

  Quickly I picked up the rag, untied it, and tucked it into its corner by the oven. Then I hurried up the stairs. On the rooftop, nothing seemed different. Eleazar was snoring as loudly as before. Chava, too, was still asleep. Somewhere in the neighborhood, a rooster crowed.

  I waited for a moment, then unrolled a mat and lay down beside Eleazar’s bed. The woman’s voice that had directed me through the curse was silent. As far as I could tell, nothing had happened.

  “Father-in-law! What is it? Speak to me, dear Father-in-law! What’s the matter?”

  Chava’s cries woke me up from strange dreams. In the light of dawn, I saw Chava bending over Eleazar’s bed.

  My husband was making donkeylike noises. “Aa-ee. Eh-oh-a.” Waving one arm, he repeated the noises, louder, as if he expected Chava to understand him.

  I scrambled to my feet. At a gesture from Chava, I helped her raise Eleazar to a sitting position. His eyes rolled, and he kept trying to speak, but only donkey noises came out of his mouth. The right side of his face sagged, and his right arm—the one I was holding—hung limp.

  “Let him down gently! Bring water!” cried Chava. “Run, tell Hiram!”

  FIFTEEN

  A WIDOW AT LAST

  Eleazar’s cousin Thomas, the elder of the synagogue, came as soon as he heard the bad news. His silver-clasped belt was on crooked, and the silk tassels of his coat were tangled. I was surprised to see him distressed; I hadn’t thought he cared much about Eleazar.

  Now I was sure that this wise, pious, important man would know at once who was to blame. When his glance fell on me, I felt sick with fear. But Elder Thomas paid no further attention to me, except for a general nod of greeting to all us women. After questioning Hiram about what had happened, he climbed up to the roof, where his cousin lay in bed.

  Eleazar tried to speak, but Elder Thomas hurriedly hushed him. “Rest, cousin! Save your strength, and soon you’ll be hopping around again like old times, when we were boys playing by the lake.” He recited the prayer for the sick: “May the One who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, bless Eleazar bar Yohannes with healing….”

  As he left, Elder Thomas seemed more worried than before. He muttered to himself, “Shame on me, for letting the old man climb the hill in the heat! It was too much for him.” To Hiram, he pronounced, “I will send my physician.”

  I was frightened all over again when the physician, a learned Greek, arrived. Surely he would detect the signs of a curse on Eleazar. But the physician only questioned Hiram about Eleazar’s activities the day before. When Hiram told how his half brother had walked all the way to the top of the city in the heat, the physician shook his head gravely.

  Like Elder Thomas, he ignored us women, except to prescribe broth (“I knew that already,” muttered Chava) and absolute quiet for the stricken man. For now, Eleazar was not to be moved, so the serving man adjusted the awning on the rooftop to shade his bed. The Greek also advised Hiram to take his brother to the mineral springs at the Tiberias spa, when he was well enough to travel in a litter.

  After the physician left and Hiram went off on a matter of business, I wandered around the house in a daze. No one had any idea how powerful I was! Elder Thomas, the Greek physician, Hiram, even Chava, who’d accused me of witchcraft—none of them realized that I’d actually harnessed the forces of the unseen world! The idea made me giddy. I wanted to laugh out loud.

  All that day, Chava hardly left her father-in-law’s side. Hiram’s wife and the cousin tiptoed up to the roof, offering to help, but she waved them away. Chava sponged Eleazar’s forehead, adjusted his pillows, and lifted his head to spoon broth into the good corner of his mouth. Every once in a while, I climbed to the top of the stairs to observe them. My husband, struggling to move, reminded me of a crushed wasp flailing its legs.

  At first, my only thought was to reassure myself that Eleazar was still half-paralyzed, that he couldn’t declare himself divorced from me or write an order to that effect. As the day went on, though, I began to feel sorry for Chava. I’d thought she’d only fawned on “Father-in-law” and fussed over him to get his favor. But there was real tenderness in the way she touched Eleazar, stroking his limp right hand or wiping his chin.

  I began to wonder if I’d been hasty in casting the spell. Maybe Eleazar wouldn’t really have divorced me. Chava wanted him to, but he didn’t necessarily do what she wanted.

  After the midday rest, a rabbi from the synagogue arrived.

  He sat by the sick man’s bed for a long time, reciting psalms. Eleazar kept his eyes on the rabbi’s face and made noises as if trying to repeat the words.

  One verse in particular seemed to be aimed at me:

  Let them be put to shame and dishonor

  who seek after my life!

  Let them be turned back and confounded

  who devise evil against me!

  Let them be like chaff before the wind,

  with the angel o
f the Lord driving them on!

  Let their way be dark and slippery,

  with the angel of the Lord pursuing them!

  I couldn’t bear to listen any longer, and I went downstairs again. I devised evil against my husband, I thought. I am a wicked person, and surely I will be punished. Unless I made amends—yes, I could do that. I would cast a second spell, this time for healing instead of illness. But I’d have to wait until morning because now the western sky was pink with the sunset.

  Going back to Eleazar’s bedside, I urged Chava to let me tend Eleazar so that she could rest. She shook her head. Did she suspect me?

  I lay down on the far side of the roof, outside the light cast by the lamp at Eleazar’s bedside. Chava hummed a lullaby to the sick man, as if he were a baby. She spoke to him in a broken voice, between sobs. “Forgive me, Father-in-law. I brought this upon you. I meant to help … but I should not have brought in the unclean images. Forgive me.”

  I should have been glad that Chava blamed herself for Eleazar’s seizure, but her guilt only made my guilt weigh more heavily on me. I wanted to get away from the sound of her voice. At the same time, I was afraid to enter my private garden.

  Finally, I couldn’t stand it. Only for a moment, I told myself. “Abrasax, I enter,” I whispered into the sleeping mat.

  As soon as I set foot in the hidden garden, the fear and guilt drained out of my heart. A woman stepped forward to greet me. Hail, Mariamne! I am Phomelei, your friend and guide. I recognized her voice, still speaking Greek; somehow, I understood her as if it were Aramaic.

  “You’re the one who helped me cast the spell on Eleazar,” I said. I liked her looks: fierce eyebrows and a strong nose, and red lips against white teeth.

  Phomelei acknowledged what I said with a modest nod of her head. But the honor goes to you, for choosing your own destiny! I knew you had the strength and courage to do it. She added, When you choose your own destiny, you can’t help choosing the destiny of others, too. That’s the way it is. She shrugged and smiled.

  I knew she meant that Eleazar had stood in the way of my destiny, so he had to be pushed aside. I shrugged and smiled back. Another voice, a smooth male voice, agreed with us: No one could be expected to bear such a miserable fate, married off to an old lizard!

  Arising the next morning, I found Chava asleep by Eleazar’s bed. She was kneeling on the floor with her head resting against his side, like a lamb nestled up to its mother. Eleazar was not sleeping, though. He lay on his back with eyes and mouth open. He was dead.

  My heart soared. I was a widow at last! I was free!

  I felt a breath tickle my neck, and a soft, slick voice whispered, Yes, he’s dead as a salted sardine! But careful—no one must find out. Take Aiandictor’s counsel: You must seem to be sad.

  Aiandictor? That was the same new male voice I’d heard the night before. Who was he?

  I am your counselor, came the answer in a voice as mellow as the first pressing of olive oil. My only wish is to serve you. Don’t you judge my counsel sound?

  Of course he was right. A wife couldn’t openly rejoice at her husband’s death, no matter how he’d treated her. I ripped the neck of my tunic in the traditional gesture of grief. At the sound, Chava raised her head, and I put on a serious face for her. “Husband’s daughter-in-law … he has departed to his ancestors.”

  Chava’s eyes flew wide open. Her next breath came out in a wail, cutting through the air, bringing everyone in our compound running.

  Since a person must be buried within a day after death, we women got to work. Hiram’s wife and cousin went to the market and bought spices while Chava and I washed Eleazar’s body. As I wiped Eleazar’s yellowed toenails, I thought, I will never have to wash these feet again. I felt a burst of triumph.

  While we anointed the body with spices mixed with oil and wrapped it in linen, Chava spoke in halting phrases about Eleazar’s thoughtfulness to her. For instance, one time he’d given her a pot of ointment, for rubbing on sore muscles, that he’d bought on his travels. He’d bought two pots of ointment, actually, but he let her have the one that had turned a bit rancid.

  I kept my head bowed over the cloth I was tearing into strips, relieved that no one expected me to talk. I was surprised at the tears in the others’ eyes, at their voices choked with feeling. I hadn’t thought Eleazar was especially kind to any of them, but they all managed to remember some miserly favor of his. It seemed that only I was glad he was dead.

  When the body was prepared, the men, led by Elder Thomas, lifted Eleazar onto a litter. They processed through the town, out the south gate, and into the cemetery to the family tomb. The women followed, wailing. The day was as hot as the previous day and the one before, and the sun glittered on the lake.

  As the procession passed my family’s tomb, the oily voice of Aiandictor spoke to me again. Think of your father; they’ll assume you’re grieving for your husband. So I pretended that this was my father’s funeral, the one I’d missed.

  At once, tears stung my eyes, and I began sobbing out loud. I felt alone, unprotected, and I missed my father as if he’d died only yesterday. I heard neighbors telling each other, “How she grieves for her old husband!”

  For the next week, a stream of people came through the house to offer condolences. My cousin Susannah, one of the first, knelt down beside me and took my hand. “Cousin Mari, what a terrible sorrow!” She lowered her voice, glancing over at the corner where Chava huddled, red-eyed, with her niece. “At least, for her.”

  I nodded; Chava was pitiable. The compound belonged to Hiram now, so Hiram’s wife was the new woman of the house. Chava wasn’t an important mourner, and most of the visitors greeted her last, even after Eleazar’s widowed cousin.

  “It must be bitter for Chava to be a poor relative in the house where Eleazar let her be mistress,” I said. “But I suppose she doesn’t have any place else to go.”

  “And you?” asked Susannah. “I suppose you’ll return to your own family?” It was a reasonable question, since normally a young widow returns to her birth family until she remarries.

  But at the very thought, I began shaking with rage. Return to those people, who had fed me poisoned honey to make me marry a loathsome old man? Susannah drew back, frightened, and I realized my face must have shown my feelings. I managed to turn the snarl coming out of my throat into a coughing fit.

  “You know,” I explained quickly, “I never got along with my brother, and now he’s master of that house. But I don’t want to stay here, either.” I nodded toward Hiram’s wife, who wore a look of satisfaction under her mournful expression. “She offered to let Chava and me share their old apartment.”

  Susannah made a face of horror. “No! You didn’t marry Chava, thank the Lord! Mari … I’ve been thinking: You could live with us! We have extra space, now that Ramla’s gone. Silas agrees.”

  Phomelei’s amused voice spoke: You see how it goes, when you use the power that’s yours? Whatever you want, it falls into your hand like a ripe fig.

  “I’d be so grateful, cousin!” Aware of the room full of solemn mourners, I tried to keep the excitement out of my voice. “You know, I have some money of my own—my bride-gift. I would pay rent.”

  “Then it’s settled. Kanarit will be so happy!”

  I wasn’t sure it was settled, though, as far as Alexandros and the rest of my family were concerned. They arrived not long afterward—all, that is, except my grandmother. “Safta is too feeble to leave the house, but she sends her love,” said my mother. I nodded, although I suspected, with a pang, that it was my grandmother’s mind that was too feeble for visiting.

  When I told them I planned to live with Susannah, Imma’s brows drew together. “Think how it will look,” she protested, “a young woman living alone. People will talk.”

  “I won’t be alone,” I argued. “I’ll be in Silas’s compound, under his protection.”

  Alexandros was also frowning. “To be frank, I doubt that I could approve
of such an arrangement.”

  “You don’t have the right to tell me what to do,” I said. “I am no longer a member of your household.” Immediately Aiandictor warned me, Don’t defy him! If Alexandros objects, Silas might feel reluctant to take you in.

  Indeed, I saw at once what a mistake I’d made. Imma, Sarah, and Chloe were all watching, expecting my brother to show that he was in charge. Alexandros drew himself up. In his most pompous tone, he said, “Perhaps my father-in-law should be consulted about this matter.” He nodded across the room, where Elder Thomas was talking to Hiram.

  As Aiandictor poured smooth words into my ear, I repeated them to Alexandros. “Brother, I apologize. I know you are weighed down by all your responsibilities: the family, the sardine business, your important role in the synagogue. But there’s no need for you to feel responsible for me any longer; you have done your duty by me. You chose a husband for me, and you gave me a generous bride-gift.”

  I said all this without a trace of sarcasm. As I spoke, Alexandros’s offended expression faded. I went on, “I don’t wish to crowd you and your growing family.” I gestured toward Sarah, who blushed and put a hand on her belly. “How much better for me to move into Silas’s empty apartment!”

  Alexandros gave his young wife a satisfied glance. He nodded. “Perhaps. I’ll have a word with Silas.”

  After the visitors had left, I was convulsed with giggles.

  Did Alexandros really think he was so important? Did he not even remember that my mother had had to talk him into giving me a decent bride-gift? I noticed Chava staring at me, and I pretended to sob into a corner of my shawl. But in the back of my mind, it was chuckles and snickers.

  When the thirty days of mourning for Eleazar had passed, I moved to Silas’s compound. That Sabbath eve, I held the baby for my cousin while she lighted the Sabbath lamps. I sat with Susannah’s household as Silas blessed the bread and broke it, and little Kanarit beamed at me.