One ewe nuzzled me, sensing I was awake.
Above me, a great groan reminded me that others had their own bad dreams. Mine did not matter.
I crept to the door. Pressing my ear against it to be sure, I heard nothing. I rested one hand flat against the wood and pulled gently with the other hand, easing the door open.
A huge sack sat on the ground.
I poked my head out like a turtle, looking this way and that. The street was empty and quiet; I could hear no noises from the other homes. Creeping out and crouching down, I opened the mouth of the sack. It rattled, a sound like a snake redoubling on itself, the rasp of scale on scale. I jumped back, holding my mouth to keep quiet.
The sack did not move. I kicked it with one foot, and the mouth tipped open, the contents cascading in a little clicking stream on the ground. It was grain. A sack of grain. Worth a week’s wages, at least, if the worker was a strong man!
I looked up and down the street again. Nothing stirred. I reached out to grab the sack and saw a dark shadow lift from the wall of the furthest house and slink away into the night. His scent carried on the night wind.
I knew then who had left it, but I did not know why. I did not know what men felt about these things, what laws they lived by. A woman’s life was not a man’s.
My ewes would be hungry in the morning. I had no right to starve them because of my foolishness. I dragged the bag inside and tucked it in the corner where I kept my weaving supplies.
After this gift of grain, my ewes began to get fat. At first, no one noticed but me. They were so fluffy that no one could tell where their wool ended and their bodies began. But one night my father stopped eating, his hand in mid-air, the bread dripping juices back into his bowl, and he stared at me as I led my ewes back inside and to their stall.
“They have gotten big,” he said.
I beamed, and trembled, afraid to say anything. I was worth more to him than ten sons.
“Should they be that big?” He was frowning. “They’re too big,” he said to my brothers, who glared at us all.
That night, I understood his alarm. As I slept, my hands drifted across the belly of my ewe, and something stirred beneath my hand. My heart quickened, and I pressed my palm against the belly. Something hard rubbed against it from the inside.
“Oh no!” I gasped.
I rolled over quickly and pressed my palm into the other ewe’s belly. Nothing. Nothing moved. “Thank you Dagon thank you Dagon thank you,” I whispered, resting my forehead on her side.
Then something kicked against me from inside her belly, too. I bit my lips to keep from screaming. Oh, no, I cried in my heart, oh no oh no oh no. My ewes were pregnant. Both of them. Both of them would deliver in winter. But they were too young to mate, I knew. Too young! How was it even possible? I thought I had been so careful watching over them. I napped sometimes when they grazed, I admit, but I did not worry about them mating. They were too young. No male should have been attracted to them for another full season.
It was my fault. My bones turned to ice from the coldest fear yet. I pressed my palm into my own belly. I forced all the breath out of my body, wanting to feel only my belly, wanting to know if disaster had come to me, too. I felt nothing.
I did not sleep the rest of the night. In the morning, when it was time to lead the ewes out and make water, I vomited against the side of the house.
I thought it was dread that had made me sick.
“Why are you in a hurry?” my brother called out this morning. “The damage is done! What can you save now?”
I ran out without my breakfast. I did not want to wait until my brothers were done eating, and see what crumbs they left me. The smell of their breakfast, and their fetid breath, was too much for me. The room seemed very small and filled with hot, penetrating stenches, and so I ran out to get away from them all, the boys and the smells. If indeed one could separate them.
I heard my brother’s coarse jest as I leaned over, just outside the door, trying very hard not to heave. I hated throwing up this yellow fluid every morning, and I worried very much that something was terribly wrong. I had no one to ask.
I set out to graze my ewes in the flat areas just below us to the east. If I walked long enough toward the sun, I could get them to a sweet, quiet place where the only men were tired old shepherds who wouldn’t bother me. I walked with heavy steps, feeling old myself today. Old and tired, as though I had lived many more than my fourteen winters.
I wanted nothing more than to lie down in the soft green grass, with the morning sun warming my face and the cold winter air blowing against my cheeks, and sleep. I could sleep all day. If the shepherds were in a kind mood (and Dagon, please may it be so) they might leave me a bit of dried pork or fruit. Not all men were cruel. I seemed to have a special charm with the old ones, I noticed. They did not want to hurt me. They looked sad when they saw me, as if they saw something in me that I did not, and what they saw made them feel a great sorrow.
If I had the courage to ask, I would ask this: “What fault do you see that makes you sad?”
I had so many questions.
“Look how she swells.”
A man was gesturing to my ewes, as his wet lips parted as he grinned at me. My father threw his hands in the air. “What else could I expect? When a female is in heat, the men find her.”
Several men laughed, and I felt heat rising in my face, as if the conversation were not really about my ewes. I pulled at the side seams of my robe, trying to get it to fall straight to the floor. I did not want these men to see the outline of my body. I did not want them to know anything of me, not the length of my legs nor which places swelled like a grown woman’s body.
I wasn’t just getting breasts and hips, and quite suddenly, but I was also getting fat. My mother eyed me with distaste as I bathed now. I had to hurry to put on my robes and get out of the house. I had been leaving, leading my ewes out to graze, but Father was already out, talking with our neighbors near the upper well.
He was going to brag on me one day, the daughter who made him rich.
I realize I have not told you enough of Ekron. You know that part of it is raised, part of it is not, and that there are families, and men and women, and secrets, and we worship Dagon and have a market. But one principle attraction of our city was our prostitutes. Women were available for purchase on every corner, under every archway, in any booth. Not all men wanted to travel to Gaza or Ashdod, where the temples of Dagon stand and beautiful priestesses were available. To worship this way, with a beautiful priestess, costs much more, but my brothers whispered that the rulers of Ashdod and Gaza are more careful than other lords, making sure the girls do not cheat the customers and are always clean and sober. On the street here in Ekron, men took their chances but paid much less. For some, the gamble was worth the reward. Some men love their money more than their own flesh.
Everyone lived this way, and at peace, the elders said, until the Hebrews moved into our territories. They were always terribly uptight as a people. The wives hissed at the prostitutes who called out to their husbands, and the mothers swatted at the hands that wanted to reach out and touch the face of a child.
I wish the Hebrews weren’t so cold to those women. Hebrew women are always cold. Father hates them. I never thought much of it, except that this was the way of the Hebrews, but today I came to understand much of this problem.
After I tried to graze the ewes (and they refused, preferring to sleep, so eventually I led them home), I went to the market below us. As I wandered from booth to booth in the late afternoon, a beautiful woman watched me.
Each time I glanced up, her eyes were on me. I tucked my face down and smiled, wishing to show her that I was not a rude child, but neither did I have anything to say to her. Even at my age, all of fourteen winters, a girl could be shrewd and earn money. There was more than one way for women to prove their worth.
The beautiful stranger bought a handful of dried apricots and held them out to m
e. I pressed my lips together. They looked so good, and I was hungry, hungrier than I had ever been, a new kind of animal hunger.
She smiled and held them further out to me. I refused, my eyes wide. I didn’t have the money to buy them. She held them out to me, nodding. There was no reason I could think of for such kindness.
My animal hunger did not care.
I grabbed and ate them in a rush of need and intense satisfaction. My teeth were thick with the orange meat as I grinned at her. She laughed and motioned for me to step closer. And then she did the most remarkable thing.
She put her arm around me.
My body stiffened to feel a gentle touch. I concentrated on keeping my back straight and to keep looking straight ahead, but really, I wanted to sink into her motherly touch. There was more than one kind of animal hunger. Tenderness was a need as real as any food.
“Your name is Delilah, yes?”
I nodded.
“I am Tanis. Do you know who I am?”
I shook my head from side to side.
“I am not ashamed. You can look at me.”
I stole a little glance. She was beautiful, even in the winter’s late afternoon shadows.
“I am Tanis, a priestess from the temple in Ashdod.”
I nodded in acknowledgement.
“Delilah, who has lain with you? Who has fathered your child?”
“I do not have a baby!” I even raised my empty arms, letting my robes fall back, to prove my point. She took hold of one hand and pressed it into my stomach. Though I looked around for help, everyone was ignoring us.
“What are you doing?”
“You have a baby in here.”
I felt something move under my hand. I cried out and pushed her away, pushed her arm away from me. She must have done magic on me. A man glared at us both, and she swept one arm back around my shoulder, leading me to a quiet, empty booth.
“You did not know?” she asked.
Tears were filling my eyes.
“Delilah, how could you not know? Has not your mother told you these things?”
I stared at the ground.
“I was going to ask you what made you so bold, walking around the market like this. But now I know. You aren’t bold. You’re ignorant. And Delilah, you are in great danger, my dear.”
“Why? From who?”
“An unmarried girl who is with child can be stoned to death. You are of no worth to your father, Delilah. He cannot marry you off, not for a good price. No man will want you now.”
“What do I do?”
“Find the father and insist he marry you at once.”
“I do not know who the father is.”
Her eyebrows rose, and I could tell this answer displeased her. I did not know why. I decided to tell her everything. And I did.
“I never saw his face, not really. Just a certain scent that I remember,” I finished. “He did leave me some grain for my sheep. I think it was him. Was I wrong to take it? Am I in trouble?”
She pulled me in and kissed the top of my head. I trembled from the effort of holding myself in, keeping myself from bursting into tears and curling into her lap. We sat there like that for some time, her soft, painted hand stroking my plain, unbraided hair. She smelled of myrrh and incense, of cinnamon perfume and cedar. For that moment, I wished she could have been my mother. I think she did too, for she was not eager to release me.
“Delilah, would you like to come and live with me at the temple?”
“As your daughter?”
She sighed. “No. A servant. Of sorts. You have known a man, so you can work.”
My mind led me to where her words pointed. I stood, smoothing down my robes. “I could never … I don’t mean to be rude, or harsh. You’re very kind. But I do not want to be a prostitute, even in Dagon’s temple.”
“I am a priestess, not a prostitute!”
“I am sorry.”
“There may be no other way for you. Not if you want to live.”
“You’re wrong. I own two ewes. They have the softest wool you have ever touched, a fine hand, thick and full and like cream. I will use their wool to make the softest fabrics. Plus they are due to have babies soon.”
“In winter?”
“It will be fine. I will take good care of them. And I will earn money, lots of it. My father will be pleased to keep me.”
“I am sure you are right.” She sounded sad.
“I will earn a lot of money. And money changes a man’s heart.”
“Yes, it does. But it can also make people do bad things, Delilah. Mean things.”
“You do not know my father. He will rejoice when he sees how much money I make for him.”
I turned to leave, but she called out softly to me, one finger rubbing her chin.
“Delilah, how much does your father expect to earn from the ewes?”
I stopped. I had not put a number to my dream before. I calculated, biting my lip as I held up fingers. “I think each lamb will bring in a drachma. And another three for the wool, come spring.”
She smiled, although there was no happiness in her eyes. “Five drachmas. Go on, then. And may Dagon bless your plans.”
When I returned home, everyone had eaten and climbed up the ladder to bed. My eyes adjusting to the darkness, I saw with dismay that my ewes had discovered the hidden sack. They were stuffing their faces down inside it, jaws chomping furiously.
I was overcome by hunger too, and stepped quietly to the pot left near the low table. Sticking my hand in, I was unexpectedly blessed. It was full! I scooped out a handful of porridge and smeared it into my mouth, then proceeded to sit down on my rump and pull the pot right between my legs, hunching over it and eating with snorts and swallows like a great ox. I heard something above and looked up to see my mother peering down on me. When she caught my eye, her face withdrew into the darkness above again.
I wondered if she had done this kindness for me, and why. There was no time to consider this mystery, however, because my fatter ewe stirred and stood. She had a panicked look on her face and glanced about, as if deciding on a direction to flee. I jumped up and tried to hold out my hands to her, as if to quiet her, but she gnashed her teeth at me. My calm and dear friend was overcome with something I did not understand, and she began wandering around, her head butting anything that stood in her way. I glanced above, praying she didn’t awaken anyone. As she trotted past me, I saw that her backside was distended and red, and I began to panic, too. Something was wrong, with her or maybe the lamb she carried, but I did not know what it could be.
My father muttered something above us. If he came down that ladder, we’d both get a beating. I did what I could, which was to open the door and let her out into the night, and I followed, closing the door softly behind. Instantly I regretted my haste, as the night wind had turned cold and sharp, cutting through my robe, even cutting through my thin legs to pierce my bones. I followed my ewe as she trotted in circles and began bleating. Something froze against my cheeks and I looked up at the sky, expecting to see ice, but there was none. I was crying, the tears freezing against my cheeks.
My ewe flopped to one side and bleated, and I stroked her head, praying. “Please Dagon. I don’t know what to do. If you are there (forgive me for my doubts!) please help me. If you are there, bless my ewe and me.”
She grew very still, almost as if she was dead, but her breath clouding out around her muzzle told me she was alive. A sack pushed through on her backside, and my mouth fell open. There were two legs hanging down toward the ground. Two perfect, white legs. I scooted around to her backside and witnessed such a miracle as I will never forget. Following the two perfect legs came a perfect white head, followed by the whole lamb. As she gasped again, she pushed the whole lamb out and I scooped the baby into my arms. There were fluids all around, pooling out from the mother’s backside, covering us all. Steam rose into the air, and we were enveloped in its white cloud under the silver moon. I hunched over, trying to keep the b
aby warm, my heart beating wildly with awe. My ewe had given birth!
That was the last moment of peace I would ever know.
The mother stood and trotted away, looking frightened by what she had just brought into the world—startled by its perfection, its miraculous entrance on a dark night in this cold world.
I did not know what to do. Shivering myself, I rubbed the lamb clean of the fluids, seeing the steam rising all around it, stealing the heat of its body. I chased the ewe, offering her lamb to her like I was holding out a loaf of bread at market. She had a wild look in her eye and refused to let me come near. But I knew this: she had enough fleece and enough fat, to last for several hours out here. The lamb could not survive this world without warmth. It had moments to live perhaps, though I could not be sure. I ran back into the home with it, nestling the newborn against the other sleeping ewe. The newborn bleated for milk.
I thought hard of our home, of what was in it, what I could use. I thought of nothing. I had to get the mother in here, nursing, or the newborn would still die. Bile was so high in my throat I could taste it. I wished I had not eaten so much. My first full meal became a curse for me now.
I decided to apply more force to the situation. I ran out into the night, to find the ewe and drag her back. Clouds rolled over the moon, making the way difficult. Stones cut into my bare feet, and I twisted my ankles against rocks as I ran, looking behind shrubs, running further from home, calling softly. I did not want to call a wolf or lion, only my poor scared ewe. I looked for more than an hour, I think. Maybe more.
A bleat came to me on the wind. I grew completely still, opening my ears, willing my whole body to do nothing but listen. Then I turned to my right, and walked in that direction. Parting a pair of low bushes, I saw her. She was on her side, her eyes wide and white, like two perfect moons. Her mouth hung open, her tongue hanging out, touching the ground, covered in sticks and dirt. She did not pull it back into her mouth. I think she recognized me. I don’t know. It could have just been her eyes widening as she died.
Desired: The Untold Story of Samson and Delilah (Lost Loves of the Bible) Page 13