“ . . . and praised the work of your hands,” he assured her, his eyes praising her.
“Your praise warmsme.” Malah tossed her head, causing her head covering to slip off and her hair to spill out onto her robe.
“I am won over,” he said, his eyes consuming Malah. “You and your sisters will keep your flocks.”
Her arms were full of lambs, her head covering fell in folds around her shoulders,mantled by her hair. Boaz lifted her hair to tuck it back under the folds of the roughwool. The weight of her hair and the scent of Malah and the lambs envelopedhim.
Startled by intimacy, Boaz lifted one of the lambs as though it was what he meant to do all along. With rare embarrassment, he glanced at his niece to see if she had noticed the pulse of desire. With only the light of the emerging moon, he saw that her face was flushed.
Her eyes were large with something new. Suddenly aware that she was staring at her uncle, Malah lowered her eyes.
They stood silently. Then they both spoke at once, a little too loudly, covering awkwardness with a string of “excuse me,” “no, please,” “what were you saying?”
Malah quickly turned, and Boaz, just as quickly, pulled the gate open so they could set the lambs down. Speaking lightly of cheese and fleece, they walked back toward the tents. He held back the flap of Zelophechad’s tent to let her enter before returning to his own home. She pinned the flap shut from the inside, glad to be safe from whatever it was she had felt, yet wanting more.
FOLLOWING THAT EVENING, Malah would often excuse herself after the evening meal, explaining that she had business to discuss with Boaz. Malah and Boaz walked the inside perimeter of the ring of tents, talking about whatever happened to cross their minds, all but what stood foremost in each of their minds.
Hoglah and Tirzah accepted Malah’s excuse for being with Boaz. Milcah suspected something deeper. Noa and her mother knew it, as much as Malah herself.
“Hur ben Gaddi would have been a good choice,” Ada said to her departed husband in the middle of the night. “But this . . . this is better.”
Noa heard, and whispered, “Except, there is Seglit.”
BOAZ DECIDED HE needed a few well-spoken verses to set the seal on Malah’s desire. The music of words did not come to Boaz as they had to his brother. So he practiced, walking out in the night, speaking his words to the stars, hoping they were like a song.
Those who knew Boaz knew the fire that afflicted him. Gaddi ben Susi said to his son, Hur, “I’ve seen this with Boaz. It’s a woman, have no doubt.”
Nor did Gaddi doubt who the woman was. Life within the tribe did not allow many secrets. The situation suited Gaddi because he thought Malah a bit old for Hur. And he liked Noa’s looks. Gaddi’s one concern was Noa’s reputation for intelligence sharp as a knife. But he was sure his wife Tamar could teach Hur how to manage even a clever woman.
MALAH WAS THANKFUL her father’s name still held enough weight to give her social purchase with Manasseh’s ranking young women. As they lounged in the noonday heat gossiping, they talked about betrothals and bride-price gifts, who and how much. Malah could not yet talk about a betrothal but was desperate to add something of interest.
“You know my sister Noa, how clever she is. She talked about how we might inherit our father’s promised land. She said, ‘What if he dies.’ And then our father was killed.”
“No. Really?”
“Yes. She saw before it happened.”
The young women’s eyes grew wide, and Malah was pleased with the effect of her contribution. When the young women returned to their families, the rumor flew:
“Malah’s sister Noa prophesied their father’s death.”
“She is a witch.”
The poison Malah released as idle gossip circled around and reached into their home.
“They are saying I’m a witch.”
“Who is saying?” Malah asked.
“They are all saying it. They say I willed my own father’s death. How could they say that when I miss him so much?”
Milcah, seeing the pain in Noa’s face, tried to comfort her. “You know how some people talk. It’s just gossip.”
Malah, realizing what had happened, wished she could take back her words. But she could not admit she had caused the toxic rumor. She dismissed it. “Milcah’s right. The gossip will move on to something else.”
The slander had also tainted Malah, but the rumor did not dissipate. Outside of her sisters, Noa found herself isolated, except for Yoela.
“People are no better than sheep, no matter how high their names. Try not to let it hurt,” Yoela urged.
“It’s unpleasant when people avoid you, but what is really painful is how much I miss my father. If I were a witch, I could wish him back.”
“I am not he, but I am here.” Yoela put her arms around Noa and let her cry.
Consumed by guilt, Malah went to work, drawing out the poison, first from the young women who started the rumor. She cajoled and chided, hoping she would not undo all the social investments she had made. Eventually, those who labeled Noa a witch reminded themselves how useful Noa’s cleverness could be, subtly blamed each other for rumor-mongering, and dropped by to ask Noa about cheese-making.
Noa guessed how the rumor started and sensed how hard Malah worked to correct what she had wrought. She also decided to use the opportunity to move forward on the path uppermost in her mind.
“Malah, I know how the word ‘witch’ came to poison me.”
“Why, I . . .”
“I am not going to make you pay as much pain as I’ve suffered. But you will do this for me: make sure Boaz puts me in front of the best set of judges he can find.”
“How can I promise . . . ?”
“You will do it. Because I am sure I can find ways to make your life miserable if you don’t.”
“Fine.” Malah bit off her response, relieved to be squared with her sister.
THE PATH MALAH and Boaz walked in the evening was leading to a formal bond. Boaz swore to her that Seglit had clouded his eyes and now he saw clearly. Still, Malah wanted to visit the competition.
“You mean you want to visit the Witch?”
“Tirzah! Don’t call her that,” barked Malah. “She’s just lonely because Boaz no longer favors her.”
“Malah,” their mother broke in. “You have such a generous soul and it has been too long since we have visited Seglit.”
“Mother, she lives near and we see her almost every day,” Noa protested, annoyed by her mother’s extravagant lack of logic.
Hoglah wondered, “Maybe we should warn her. There are six of us, and Seglit might need to prepare.”
“She does, after all, have a bondswoman,” Malah said.
Ada agreed it might be good to warn Seglit, so Hoglah was sent, spoke her piece quickly, and returned to say Seglit expected them soon.
They trooped over, Tirzah cranky about wasting part of the day on a social visit.
“Adam’s brother is going to show him how to haft a flinthead onto a spear. Where would you rather be,” she complained, as she dragged her feet, kicked at pebbles, and generally lagged behind over the short distance to Seglit’s.
Seglit’s compartment appeared more spacious and orderly than theirs, but Seglit and the bondswoman she had brought from her father’s home numbered two to their six. Sleeping mats were rolled neatly against the walls and cushions stuffed with blankets and clothing had been arranged around the leather serving mat. On the mat, a platter displayed barley cakes and wild carrots sweetened with date honey. Nested cups stood on the side. Seglit’s bondswoman asked if they would like to refresh themselves with buttermilk.
Malah sipped. “Mmmm.” Her look told Noa, “But not as refreshing as ours.”
Seglit sat, erect, the tan cushions setting off her small frame and soft, olive skin. Seglit’s femininity reminded Noa of a gazelle. Noa glanced at her sister and saw the sizing-up in Malah’s eyes. She was sure Seglit saw it, too.
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bsp; She wanted to say, “Don’t let her see that you want him so much.”
As Seglit extended her arm and held her palm open in welcome, her robe slipped back to reveal delicate wrists and fingers full of rings. She opened with cordial formalities, repeating her condolences on the loss of Zelophechad. Then she asked after their week. They asked after her week. They hoped their numbers did not strain her hospitality. She assured them it was her honor to offer them the best of her household.
As the pleasantries wound down, a leaden silence took hold briefly.
“Your barley cakes are full of flavor,” Ada offered, breaking the silence.
Seglit smiled, cautiously. Her trimmed eyebrows framed ebony eyes that remained dark and mute.
Tirzah leaned over Milcah and whispered loudly to her mother, “Momma, don’t you think I’d better go check that hurt lamb?”
Her mother gave her a look, and Tirzah sank back against her cushion.
“Speaking of lambs,” said Malah. “I’m sorry for borrowing so much of Boaz’s time. He’s been so helpful to us since father died.”
Seglit turned toward Malah, arching her elegant neck and shaking back her hair to show off silver earrings hanging like chimes from dainty ears. She rose, stepped toward Malah, then knelt before her. She clasped Malah’s large, work-worn hands in her own, looked down, then at Malah to make sure that both saw the difference.
“I do feel badly for you. Needing to negotiate marriages without a father, when time is passing,” she said in a honeyed voice, implying Malah’s age.
She swept her arm to take in the seated semicircle of Ada and her daughters, her tone changing to neutral.
“For all of you. If I can help . . .” She opened her palm again, and Noa noticed that Seglit looked wistful, as though she actually meant it.
The reception ended soon after and, on the way home, Tirzah pulled at Malah’s robe, examining the edge of her sleeve.
“She was giving you a strange look,” Tirzah said, “like she found sheep dung on your sleeve. But I don’t see any.”
Malah snorted and the others laughed.
“Tirzah, Tirzah.” Her mother sighed as her youngest daughter ran off to find Adam and his spear-making brother.
MALAH AND NOA sat side by side on rocks within the oval of tents, carefully easing their way back to each other. Noa opined that Seglit was wily and would throw down a thousand obstacles every day.
“If not Seglit, something else,” Malah answered. “No union is free from trouble.”
As they talked, a man rushed up to them. “Give me your earrings,” he demanded. “We will melt them all and raise an image of the god who will save us. You will be among those who are saved, if you give me your gold.” His face shone with the light of a believer.
Noa, annoyed at being interrupted, ran the man off.
He shouted back, “You won’t be saved. You’ll die here. Help yourselves.”
He disappeared beyond the wall of tents, but they heard him crying out to others, “Give me your gold. For the god!”
Noa tracked back to Seglit. “You would have to take orders from her. She is the first wife.”
“Not precisely. There was the one who died. Besides, Boaz is providing me with my own tent and bondswoman.”
To Noa that sounded like wishful thinking, but Malah continued, “ . . . and when Boaz presents his suit to mother, he will also present marriage possibilities for you. Of course, there are a number of eligible young men, now that those awful rumors have subsided. But Hur ben Gaddi still leads the list. For your hand, not mine. Think of it, we would both be so well married, and soon.”
Malah’s announcement staggered Noa.
“Married? Me?”
Noa had no thought to be married. She and Yoela had vowed they would not abandon each other for husbands.
“Hur—he is handsome, wealthy, accomplished . . .”
“I am not ready for marriage.”
“I know you will fall in love with Hur, as mother did with father. As I with Boaz.”
Noa feared for her love-besotted sister, and for herself. She feared that family would bind her in a union she did not want.
MOSES HAD NOT come down from the mountain and the tribes were anxious and restless. The Levites complained to Aaron, ‘Where is Moses? Why has he abandoned us?”
Aaron prayed every day that Moses would return. He had no answers, so the tribes held meetings to decide what do.
With Gamaliel’s backing,Gaddi ben Susi called a meeting in his tent, on a night hot and airless as the inside of a fist. The walls on the men’s side of Gaddi’s tent were pinned up. Still, the crowd sitting on his mats fanned themselves with fragments of palm and shards of camel hide, anything that produced a slight breeze. They sat in concentric circles, with Gaddi, Boaz, and other headmen at the center. Hanging oil lamps cast flickering shadows on the men. One held a sleepy boy in his lap.
Gaddi had barely finished thanking them for the privilege of hosting the meeting, when one growled, “What is it we are waiting for in the shadow of this mountain? Every roaming band knows where we are. They can pick us off, beginning at the edges . . . us.”
“If Moses still lived, he would be down from the mountain. Let’s be on our way.”
“I say we go back. At least the lands of the Great River bear water.”
“We cannot go back,” Gaddi insisted. “We must go forward. To the land of our fathers, the hill country to the east. Where olives drop from the trees like rain. Where grapes grow as big as my thumb.” He cocked his thumb to show them.
“Land of our fathers,” a clansman spat out. “We have heard about this land from our fathers. But I heard from a man who heard from a Midian trader—giants live in the high country.”
“Giants?” asked his neighbor, just as Gaddi’s youngest children tumbled noisily into the men’s tent.
“Have you no respect, you wild animals,” Tamar, their mother, hissed from the edge. She set her tray down, yanked them back, and shooed them to the women’s side. Then Tamar passed in a tray loaded with a pot of tea and small cups.
“Yes, giants!” the man repeated loudly, in case anyone had not heard him.
“Moses has been gone three phases of the moon. How much longer will we wait?”
The men of Manasseh were not alone. People feared the Amalekites would amass a large force and kill them. They heard rumors of babies stolen in the night, wives snatched for slaves. Tribe leaders decided to air their concerns to Aaron.
“What we need,” demanded one, “is a god who will show us favor, who will assure us that we will live. We want a god of vigor—Apis, the bull. Not a god living in a cloud who we don’t know and who knows nothing of us.”
CHAPTER 5
THE GOLDEN CALF
“I WANT TO go. I really do want to go,” Tirzah pleaded.
“No you don’t, Tirzah,” said Milcah. “You don’t even know what it’s about. You just want to go because anything that sounds like you shouldn’t do it is exactly what you want to do. You are staying here with me. Anyway, I would be scared to stay here by myself.”
“What? Mother’s here. And Boaz is nearby. What are you talking about?”
“Mother’s nearly asleep, and Boaz is probably with the Witch.”
“Oh, all right,” conceded Tirzah. “I’ll stay and make sure the Shadow People don’t come and eat you up.” To the three stepping past the tent door she demanded, “But you have to tell us everything that happens. Promise?”
“Promise.”
The day before, Noa and Malah learned that the man who called for their gold was part of a cult that had formed. Tonight the cult would be performing a ceremony for Apis, the bull god.
“I heard there will be wild dance and who knows what else,” said their friend, Bat-Sheva.
“We must see,” said Malah, and the others agreed.
The three sisters exited casually, as if to take a stroll, then quickly stepped over a set of guy-ropes where they met Yoel
a and Bat-Sheva. From there, the five made their way past the tents of the tribes of Efraim and Benjamin, past the central Tent of Meeting, past the tents of Judah on their way toward the base of the mountain.
When they reached the lower slopes, they hid themselves among boulders so they could look down on the apron of land at the base of the mountain where the ceremony was set to occur.
Fire pits lined a broad avenue that led from the foot of the mountain to a large wooden platform. A stone altar, horned on each corner, stood on the platform. Near the altar, a pedestal rose and atop the pedestal stood Apis, a young bull, its golden skin made from the people’s armbands and earrings, glinting in the rays of the dying sun.
People fixed fires in the pits, lavishing precious wood on this ceremony so that Apis, Egypt’s god of fertility, rampant and ready to seed the world, would save them and give them life.
When the night quickened and the fires blazed, the cultic assemblage emerged between boulders at the base of the mountain. At the head walked a woman whose hair was twisted up into horns. Behind her came a line of seven priests wearing long, loose robes, advancing between the lines of people and fire, thrumming hand drums with each slow step. On either side of each priest, priestesses shook rattles made of painted gourds and pebbles, rough copies of the sacred sistrums used by Egyptian priestesses. As they passed, the women touched the rattles to the outstretched hands of the people, ensuring them long life.
Moving to the insistent beat of rattle and drum, the priests and priestesses advanced toward the altar. She with the horned hair and the lead priest stood, facing each other, next to the low platform.
Hidden among the rocks, the young women held their breaths, awed and excited by this exoticceremony. They watched as two of the priests laid the platform with foliage. All the while, drums and rattles sounded.
Judging Noa Page 4