Deborah Calling

by Avraham Azrieli

  “A man of Ephraim, same as the prophet Joshua. That’s good.”

  “Why did you stay here?”

  “I had to stay,” the woman said. “It was the bargain I struck with the evil men of Edom.”

  “A bargain?”

  “They were going to send you, the prettiest of our maidens, to their great city as a sacrificial offering to their copper idol, Qoz, and take the rest of the girls as concubines. But our men had put up a good fight before they died, and there were more than fifty injured Edomite soldiers lined up on the ground with crushed bones and open wounds, bleeding and moaning. I agreed to treat their battle wounds on the condition that they release you and the other girls. It was a good bargain, because your childbearing days were ahead of you, and mine were over.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “One man can have a hundred babies in a year, but a woman can bear only one at a time. If we didn’t save our maidens, who would give birth to the next generation of Hebrews and fulfill Yahweh’s command?” The woman smacked her lips and poked Deborah’s side with a crooked finger. “Do you know which command I’m talking about?”

  “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”

  “Good girl.” She nodded. “I’m at peace now. You see, the Edomites swore to me by the greatness of their divine Qoz that they’d deliver our maidens safely to the Judah tribesmen in Arad, but I’ve always worried.”

  “You saved us,” Deborah said.

  “Yahweh saved you. I was only his instrument.” The old woman got up with great effort and shuffled to the door. She reached up to the cavity of the mezuzah, poked in with her crooked finger, and fished out the small scroll. She kissed it and gave it to Deborah.

  Deborah also kissed it.

  “Take it with you, Raquellah, and put it on the doorjamb of your home in the land of Ephraim. Yahweh will see it and protect you and the children you’ll bear in His honor.”

  “But you need it.” Deborah reached to replace the scroll in the cavity.

  “Not anymore.” The woman pushed her away. “Go now, before the men from Edom see you. Go!”

  Deborah collected her sword, replaced her helmet on her head, and left while the old woman shuffled back to the cushions, mumbling, “They’re safe. They’re safe. They’re safe.”

  Chapter 29

  Roasting pig gave off a smell that was sweeter than a roasting sheep, goat, or cow. Deborah found it at once tempting and repulsive. Sallan served the first cut to the effigy of Qoz and the second to Kassite. The Edomite men kept turning the pig over as they sliced off the outer layers of the meat, eating it with bread and cheese. Local men and other travelers came by to share in the food and wine.

  Deborah stayed away from the men, sitting in her secluded spot next to Rogez, and ate bread with olive oil.

  The men remained around the fire for a long time, eating, drinking, and singing Edomite songs. Deborah was tired, but sleep evaded her, not because of the noisy men, but because she couldn’t stop thinking of the old healer and the bargain she had made with the invading Edomites. Deborah found the mezuzah scroll in her pocket and put it in her sack. One day, she decided, the scroll would adorn the door to the house at Palm Homestead in memory of the woman who had sacrificed everything to save Raquellah and thereby give life to Deborah.

  Daunting questions began to pester Deborah: Was her rejection of womanhood a betrayal of the old healer’s sacrifice? Was her denunciation of childbearing a betrayal of her own mother’s resilience, suffering, and loss? One the one hand, Yahweh brought her to Tamar to learn how her mother had survived in order to fulfill the divine command to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” On the other hand, Yahweh had also given her father a dream, back in Palm Homestead, foretelling her future as His prophet. Which one was her True Calling—motherhood or prophecy? How could she reconcile the contradiction? How could she figure out what God really wanted her to do?

  Later that night, the Edomite men fell into a drunken stupor, and Deborah dozed off. At one point, Rogez shifted restlessly and snorted, and she sat up and looked around. The starry night was filled with sounds of crickets and frogs, rustling leaves, and snoring men, but she saw no one lurking nearby. The smell of roasting pig was still strong, though the fire had died down. Perhaps the smell had attracted a coyote or a fox that had disturbed her horse. Deborah covered her head with the blanket and slept fitfully for a while longer, but woke up in a fright when she felt Hashkem’s hands on her neck again. She threw off the blanket and inhaled deeply, but the terror of suffocation clung to her for a long while.

  Deborah was relieved to see first light over the horizon. Everyone was still asleep. Keeping quiet to avoid disturbing the men, she led Rogez downhill to the stream and tied him to a tree. No one was around at this early hour. She entered the fresh, cool water wearing only her undergarments. It was quiet and peaceful, and she stayed in the slow-moving water until the sun shimmered through the trees.

  Sitting on a rock to dry, Deborah watched the water and thought about the odd chain of events that had started in Tamara with the old healer saving the beautiful Raquellah from being sent to Edom as a sacrificial offering to Qoz, making it possible for Raquellah to realize her dream of going to Shiloh to dance in the vineyards, marry a good Hebrew man, and bear Hebrew children—two girls, the younger of which was now back here among the ruins of Tamar on her way to Edom. Was Yahweh playing a game to amuse Himself?

  Behind her, the horse shifted about and made noises as he’d done during the night.

  “Enough, Rogez,” she said. “Give me a little peace.”

  The stream water was as clear as air, and she saw little fish dart between rocks. They were too small to eat, but she wondered whether larger fish might be found. After a night of smelling the roasted pig, the idea of throwing fresh fish on hot embers made her salivate.

  A branch broke behind her.

  Deborah jumped away just as a hand tried to grab her. She turned and saw Antippet, dressed only in undergarments, his hands still reaching forward over the large rock she had been sitting on, which now separated them. His reddish hair was messy, and he stank of roast pig and wine.

  Rogez whinnied and pulled on the reins, shaking the tree.

  She stepped backward to the water’s edge. “What are you doing?”

  He grinned, bypassed the rock, and slowly advanced toward her. Behind him, Patrees and the other men came down the hillside, also in their undergarments.

  Deborah tried to step downstream along the bank, but two of the men circled around to block her way, and two others did the same in the upstream direction. She considered crossing to the other side, but wasn’t sure how quickly she could get there before they caught up with her.

  Antippet took another step.

  “Stop right there!” Deborah’s voice came out with an anxious edge, which even she could hear. “Leave me alone!”

  Her distress bolstered their confidence. They kept coming, and Rogez whinnied louder, struggling to get free.

  Antippet reached within two steps of her. “We won’t hurt you,” he said.

  “What do you want?”

  A few of the men laughed.

  “Not much.” Antippet reached forward with his hands, his eyes falling to her chest, where the wet undergarment stuck to the contours of her breasts. “To touch you.”

  Rogez neighed and stomped the ground. The other horses, tied at the campsite up the hill, whinnied in response.

  Deborah knew she had to distract them long enough to reach her horse.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll trade with you.”

  Antippet’s eyes lit up, and Patrees made a funny sound, something between a snigger and a sigh.

  She pointed at her chest. “You can touch my breasts.”

  Antippet stared, mesmerized.

  “And I’ll touch your eyes.” Deborah lunged forward, both hands striking like venomous snakes, index fingers drawn like fangs, and poked him in both eyes, w
hich felt like raw eggs.

  He screamed and fell back, colliding with Patrees, and the two of them tumbled to the ground. Deborah stepped on them and sprinted to Rogez. The other Edomite men were momentarily stunned, enough for her to grab the belt, which hung from the saddle horn, unsheathe Seesya’s sword, and turn to face them, her back to the horse.

  Six men confronted her while Patrees dragged the howling Antippet to the water and rinsed the blood from his face. The men picked up sticks and tree branches. Their mouths were slightly open, and their gazes focused on her chest as if they were under a spell. Deborah gripped the silver hilt with two hands and swung the heavy blade from side to side to keep them away. One of the men tried to get through when the sword pointed the other way, and she swung it around, making him jump back. The others laughed. They spread in a wide semicircle and crept closer while her arms grew tired.

  Patrees left Antippet moaning at the water’s edge and came back, his face twisted in fury. “You blinded him! I’ll kill you!”

  The sound of rolling rocks made them all turn to look. It was Kassite, making his way slowly down the slope.

  “Master!” Patrees ran over and took Kassite’s arm to support him. “She hurt Antippet’s eyes!”

  Kassite walked to the water, leaned over Antippet, whose howling had reduced to moaning, and made him remove his hands from his face.

  Sighing, Kassite shook his head. “Very bad,” he said.

  “You’re speaking!” Patrees clapped. “Master is speaking again!”

  Kassite looked at Deborah, his gray eyes cold. “Did you do this to Antippet?”

  “He attacked me,” she said. “I was only defending myself.”

  Rogez neighed and pulled on the reins.

  Kassite turned to Patrees. “Is it true?”

  “Yes,” Patrees said. “We want to have her.”

  “What is not yours,” Kassite said, “you cannot have.”

  “She’s a Hebrew woman, and this is Edom. We have the right to take her.”

  The other men voiced their agreement while Antippet moaned by the water.

  “Master,” Patrees pleaded, “she’s only a woman.”

  “This is Borah!” Kassite raised his voice, pointing at her. “We are free only because of Borah! We are alive only because of Borah!”

  “But Borah is a woman—”

  Kassite slapped Patrees across the face.

  Everyone froze. Even Rogez stood still.

  “You brought shame on me,” Kassite said.

  Patrees fell to his knees and cried, “Master, I’m sorry.”

  “I am not your master anymore. All of you—leave me!”

  They looked at him in shock, unable to comprehend. He had been the source of order and food, of life itself, for as long as they could remember.

  Collapsing on the wet ground by the stream, Antippet sobbed like a little boy.

  “Master, no!” Patrees kissed the old man’s boots. “Forgive us, please!”

  The other men dropped the sticks and tree branches, their faces pale and fearful.

  “Go back to the camp,” Kassite said. “Get dressed, take your horses, and leave.”

  “Master—”

  “Go!”

  Their heads low, the Edomite men climbed the hillside, Patrees leading Antippet by the arm.

  Kassite stepped to the water’s edge and watched the stream in silence. Deborah strapped on the belt, sheathed the sword, and patted her agitated horse.

  After a long while, Kassite took Deborah’s arm, and they started up the slope slowly, Rogez following behind.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I should have taken steps to prevent this from happening.”

  “Now you understand why I don’t want to be a woman anymore.”

  He chuckled. “A man’s life is not exactly a walk in the Garden of Eden, either.”

  The return of his humor gave Deborah new hope. The Elixirist was back, and by standing up for her against the Edomite men, he had shown where his priorities rested. In a few more days, they would reach Bozra, where he would obtain the needed ingredients and mix the third dose of the Male Elixir for her.

  At the campsite, the men and their horses were gone, leaving only Sallan and his boy-servants.

  “They left in a hurry,” Sallan said. “With not as much as a word. How did Antippet injure his eyes?”

  Deborah gestured at Kassite. “He can tell you.”

  Sallan turned to Kassite. “Can you?”

  “I can,” Kassite said.

  “You’re talking!”

  “I was angry, and the words came back, just like that.” Kassite clicked his fingers.

  “Ah!” Sallan rushed over and hugged him. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “Yes, you predicted it,” Kassite said. “The innate human abilities of hearing and speaking always come back.”

  Sallan laughed, beaming with joy. “I knew it was going to be easier this time!”

  They hugged and kissed on both cheeks.

  “This time?” Deborah looked from one to the other. “It’s happened before?”

  They stepped back and glanced at each other, their smiles fading.

  “Wait a minute,” Deborah said, trying to grasp the tail of an elusive thread of memory. “I’ve heard this term: ‘innate human abilities.’ When did I hear it?”

  Neither of them responded.

  “The story you told me,” she said to Sallan, “about the guard who helped the Elixirist.” She turned to Kassite. “The guard who helped you escape—he was deaf and mute, right?”

  Kassite grunted as he sat down with his back to the tree trunk.

  “I remember now,” she said to Sallan. “In Emanuel, when I asked you if the story about the Elixirist was true, you confirmed it. You said that the Elixirist had turned the women of Edom into men, and they’d formed an army and succeeded in scaring away the Egyptian attackers. But the people’s adoration of the Elixirist upset King Esau, who had him locked up and invented an official story about an Egyptian abduction.”

  Sallan nodded and sighed.

  “You were jailed,” she said, turning to Kassite. “Deep inside a mountain with no human contact, except for a guard, who was deaf and mute, but you cured him.” Deborah closed her eyes, trying to remember. “Sallan told me: ‘Cure is a big word. Let’s just say that he helped the guard rediscover those innate human abilities of hearing and speaking. It was an easier task than turning all those women into men before a battle.’ That’s what Sallan said!”

  “Easier?” Kassite chuckled. “It was not easy at all, was it?”

  Sallan shook his head. “Three years of daily sessions, but in the end, we succeeded, and you were able to carry a conversation as well as any man.”

  Both of them became teary.

  “I don’t understand,” she said to Sallan. “Were you locked up with him?” She turned to Kassite. “And I’ve noticed, ever since I met you, that you hear better when you look at my lips. At night, you can barely hear anything. Were you also deaf like the guard?”

  Kassite put his hand to the side of his head. “What?”

  Sallan laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” Deborah said. “What’s going on here? Tell me the truth for a change.”

  Kassite took off his hat and used it to fan himself. “My hearing was very poor from birth. At the isolated homestead in the desert hills, where my family scooped up copper from a small mine, no one bothered to teach me how to use what little hearing I did have. As a result, I grew up mute. One day, when I returned from a week of herding our sheep in the hills, I found my family dead—must have been the red fever. I buried them and remained on the land, a lonely, deaf and mute young man, until the king’s guards brought a prisoner for me to watch.”

  Deborah was stunned. “You were the guard?”

  “And a good student,” Kassite said, “who was lucky to have an excellent teacher.”

  Turning to Sallan, Deborah pointed at him. “The Elixirist—it�
�s you?”

  He nodded and smiled. “At long last, you found the man you’ve been looking for. Congratulations!”

  Deborah swayed, almost losing her balance. A rapid series of images flashed through her mind from her harrowing quest to find the Elixirist: the nighttime escape from Emanuel and the lonely trek on the dark road north, Seesya’s chase and Zariz’s deadly arrows, the slave warden in Shiloh and the wedding procession, Seesya’s violent attempts to possess her in bed and the taste of bloody chunks of flesh from the waterskin, Seesya’s nighttime attack and the journey with the lepers, the abusive guards in Aphek and the backbreaking slave labor in the tannery, and worst of all the vicious flogging under the Weeping Tree and the travesty of a trial before hundreds of hateful men—all those horrible experiences could have been avoided had Sallan told her the truth, that he was the Elixirist!

  As if this weren’t bad enough, a worse realization hit her. If Kassite wasn’t the Elixirist, then the two doses of the Male Elixir he had given her had been nothing more than nauseating, rotten junk!

  “You cheated me!” Rage exploded inside her, and she screamed, “Liar!”

  Lunging at Sallan, her hands clenched, Deborah drummed him with her fists until the two boy-servants pulled her back.

  She tore out of their hands and ran from the campsite, down the slope, and plunged into the stream, facedown, hoping to drown. Everything had been for nothing—the fear, the loneliness, the suffering, and the blood she’d spilled—all for nothing!

  Deborah kept her head underwater, her mouth open, trying to inhale the water, but her body refused to do it. She crawled out of the stream, her muscles limp, curled up on the warm sand, and wept.

  Chapter 30

  Deborah woke up and found a pig licking her face. She pushed the animal away and sat up. The stream gurgled beside to her, masking the noise from the campsites up the slope. Judging by the position of the sun, she had slept for a while. Her body felt refreshed, but her mind filled with despair. What was she supposed to do now? Continue on the journey with the two crooked old Edomites? That would be a waste of time. Go back to Emanuel and submit to Seesya? That would mean death, or a servile life even worse than death. Return to Ein Gedi and accept Ramrod’s offer of marriage? The idea of living with him on his relatives’ small plot near Bethel, washing his dirty clothes and bearing his skinny children, made her sick. What else could she do?