Judging Noa

by Strutin, Michel;

  Yoela’s hair was her glory. With her hair bound up, the golden glow and her inner glow were gone. Although a covered head was the sign of a married woman, the convention was as loosely applied as the covering. Yoela’s binding was more that of a prisoner. At her son’s feast day, Noa had been too tired to notice. Now she stared, then cast her eyes elsewhere.

  Yoela saw Noa’s face and said, too softly for others to hear, “The man I am bound to does not want other men to see my hair. He says it tempts them.” She shrugged. “You can see Barzel’s property is safe.”

  “Has he bent, a bit?”

  “Him? No. I wish he would not just bend, but break.”

  Noa had never heard Yoela speak so violently.

  “I’m just complaining. I have no one to complain to, so it must be you. Sit by me. I promise I will stop. We have your pink-cheeked son to talk about.”

  “I have brought you a salve. Malah says it will help.”

  “Oh, I have learned to endure that part. Come. Sit.” Yoela patted a stack of goat-hair panels beside her.

  Noa eased herself onto the stack of sun-heated panels and felt its warmth spread through her. She lifted the knot of the sling over her head and laid Gaddi next to her. He flung out an arm, which she swaddled, and he settled back to sleep.

  Yoela reached over to push the cloth away from his face, then turned to Noa. “May I?”

  “Please.”

  She examined his face, his puckered suckling mouth, the rolled edges of his ears, opalescent as a seashell. Brushing aside a heartbeat of jealousy, Yoela relaxed, and they talked as they always had, until Yoela jumped up and pulled Noa’s hand.

  “Come, let me take you to the place I found.”

  Noa stood, gathered Gaddi, and offered him to Yoela, who cradled the baby as she headed toward hills aproned by tumbled rocks. Twisting through a break between the hills, she came to a sunny niche. On one side, a flat rock formed a lintel above a shallow, shady grotto.

  “Here is my place. Wait,” Yoela said, as she handed Gaddi back to Noa. She got down on hands and knees and, like a dog digging a hole, scooped sand from the desert floor toward the back of the grotto, then patted it in place to form a backrest for her friend.

  Noa told her the tale of Gaddi’s death and baby Gaddi’s birth. Yoela relayed the gossip of the clan of Zerach: the aunt whose big toe twitched when she lied to her husband; the cousin who thought he was bedding his wife’s twin sister and told her how much prettier she was, not recognizing it was, in fact, his own wife. Noa shared the gossip of Manasseh. They let their tales spin them away and laughed until their sides ached, then shushed each other when Gaddi stirred from the noise.

  Yoela unwrapped her head, shook out her hair, and lay back, luxuriating in the small freedom. Noa fingered a sunny lock, had a thought, unwrapped Gaddi, and laid the naked baby on the bed of Yoela’s soft curls. Startled, Gaddi blinked and grasped his mother’s offered finger. The fresh air stimulated him and he arced a golden stream of urine. Noa tried to catch Gaddi and his stream before it wetted Yoela, who struggled up, causing the arc to catch Noa full in the face.

  “Some mother. Serves you right.” Yoela laughed.

  “You can say a strange male lay in your hair,” Noa teased as she rewrapped her son.

  “Barzel would kill me.”

  Her face tightened at the thought that he might do it for a lot less.

  They were silent. Noa fussed with Gaddi, then said, “If you manage to have a son, it will change things. You’ll see. It will elevate and protect you.”

  At the smell of his mother, Gaddi turned his head toward Noa, his open mouth searching for food. She put her baby to her breast and said, “Tell me a story.”

  Yoela took a deep breath and began. “Long ago, Ba’al, the great god of thunder was creating thick, black clouds to hurl a storm upon the world.”

  “Like the One God at Sinai,” Noa interjected.

  “Silence! I am telling a story.”

  Gaddi, sucking himself to sleep, began sucking more vigorously at the sharp sound of Yoela’s voice.

  “At the end of his cloud-creating, Ba’al squeezed out one more small cloud. He herded the clouds and made them run across the sky, bawling and tumbling over one another like black sheep. The small cloud, the last one, could not keep up. She drifted to the southlands where the sun threatened to eat her.”

  The grotto was cool, but Noa’s legs stuck out, warmed by the sun. The contrast and Yoela’s voice lulled her.

  “Her father Ba’al lived in the great mountains to the north. The small cloud was alone. Burnt by the sun above, the cloud sought refuge among a cluster of peaks. Here she settled.

  “Hiding among cracks and crevices, the cloud gathered strength. Every morning she covered the small canyons with a veil of mist that allowed creatures to venture out and do their work until the sun drove her and them back until nightfall. One beetle drew her attention. Long-legged, like others of its kind, this black dancer-on-the-sand had grace and purpose. That is how the cloud saw it.

  “One morning, the beetle—call her Oza—saw a large shard of bark. She raised it above her head and struggled the heavy shard toward her kin, to build them a home.

  “The others saw her strength and were jealous. They knocked the bark from her, injuring one of her legs. Then they tore at the bark, each one trying to gain advantage until they shredded it into a hundred useless pieces.

  “When the sun reached the height of the heavens, draping its fiery robes over the earth, the beetles fled to their crevices. All but Oza, who lay broken as the bark. The sun played with the edges of her shell, burning it until it curled, crisping the delicate gossamer wings that lay beneath. Oza lay dying. The cloud summoned all her strength and hovered over Oza, covering her until shadows of dusk cooled the canyon. And Oza found the strength to crawl to safety.

  “The cloud had exposed herself in order to save a beetle. Now she was as fragile as . . . as . . . a baby’s breath. ‘Oh Father Ba’al,’ she cried, ‘save me. Give me back my strength, I beg you.’ But Ba’al was far away and did not hear. The cloud child withered until only a strand of mist curled near the base of a cave, a cave like this one.”

  Yoela’s voice rested.

  “This cannot be the end. It is sad. Far too sad. Go on, Yoela,” Noa demanded.

  Yoela quickly recast the ending on a rising note, but her heart was not in it. Noa sensed her sorrow. They lay looking up at the wedge of cloudless sky beyond the lintel, until Yoela said, “It is time to return.”

  She bound up her hair, and they left.

  With Gaddi tied to her side, Noa continued home, troubled by Yoela’s melancholy. She turned her mind to the forests and running waters her father had promised, now far in the future. Noa wondered whether she should ask Boaz for a place before the Judges of Hundreds, whether inheritance was still worth fighting for.

  Then, for a brief moment, she was washed free of her wonderings. With the memory of Yoela’s voice in her ears and the sweet smell of Gaddi at her side, she hoped God did not notice her momentary completeness.

  WEIGHTED BY THEIR terrible penance for the spies’ report, the people pegged their tents for permanence and laid out small plots for barley, wheat, lentils, and melons along the broad wadis that scored Kadesh Barnea. The men lashed blades to wood plows and drove their donkeys across the desert, carving troughs for irrigation.

  The women bent their heads to spinning and sewing, grinding grain and baking bread, and raising the generation who would enter the promised land.

  As barley and wheat grew, so grew Malah’s belly, which she paraded with pride, especially when she met with her group of wives, whose young children crawled over them and curled in their laps. She was the center of attention, each young mother vying to offer advice to Malah, wife of Manasseh’s headman.

  One evening, as Malah sat with Boaz at the tent door, a bondsman arrived with news of a stolen ram and the name of the thief. As the servant drew close, Malah breathed i
n a familiar scent. Her hidden place swelled, remembering her gown thrown back as her legs were parted. While Boaz gave the bondsman instructions, Malah looked straight at the man, and he at her. Boaz saw.

  The next day, Boaz sent a squad of servants to seize him and sell him to a passing caravan. Malah never saw the man again. She bore Boaz a fine, healthy child. Nechama, who guided the baby out, handed the tiny, red-cheeked child to her exhausted mother and saw Malah’s face darken with disappointment when she saw it was a girl.

  Malah quickly fixed her face, claiming, “One day my daughter will be the first among the women of Manasseh.”

  Remembering the pomegranate seeds Seglit spat out to emphasize Boaz’s impotence, she said, “We will call her . . . Rimon.”

  The women clapped their hands and laughed. And that is what she was called.

  SEASON CROWDED SEASON. It was a time of increase for the daughters of Zelophechad. Noa’s second pregnancy drove out all thoughts of promised land.

  Hoglah, too, was pregnant. She, who expected nothing, was elated by her luck: first a husband, soon a child. Even sharing Bar-On’s tent no longer felt burdensome. Her sisters offered a thousand ways to avoid the old man’s cranky demands. She dutifully thanked them but was, in truth, grateful for his presence. His wheezing on the other side of the tent wall told her she was not alone. Except for spring sheep shearing, Asaf spent more time traveling the desert with small caravans than within the camp of Manasseh.

  He discovered that his knowledge of Egyptian ways and goods provided easy entrée to the peoples of the east. And he could make his words dance. He hawked wool and hides, beads and tools for seeds, figs, oil, whatever product looked like it might turn a profit. He had an eye for the gullible and for those who fancied they had the wits to win a gamble.

  When his need for a woman came upon him, he drew weak women like moths to the flames of his flattery, providing juicy moments of danger to women with dry lives. And he had a tale or trick for every item he sold. A phallus-shaped tool, whose base was carved with coupling gods of Egypt, brought children to childless women, he claimed, adding that only he knew how to make it work. Barren women fumbled off a bracelet, an earring, bits of worn wealth, desperate to trade for fertility. His smooth tool provided Asaf an opening. He left his seed in the tents of the foolish and, sometimes, his implement worked, bringing babies to the barren.

  He sold Hoglah’s salve of sheep grease and ground herbs to cure sores, strengthen limbs, and lessen the pain of arthritic joints. His sales songs were so convincing even he half-believed them. Hoglah did not know why the salve she made sold so well. She was simply happy to contribute to the household increase, thinking her salve as special as her sisters’ cheeses.

  Asaf gulled men with a deluge of words that flooded the minds of his listeners while his hands took advantage. This is how he had outwitted a man in a dice game, carrying off the hand mill that helped win Hoglah. The man heard that Asaf had used substitute dice, created for the purpose.

  On a later trip, Asaf sauntered into the same camp, not recognizing the hand mill’s former owner until the man was nearly upon him with a club. Asaf ran and hid until the next morning when he joined caravan companions headed south. Indignant at suffering such treatment, Asaf told himself that he traded fairly when it suited him. When truth was convenient, then truth was on his lips.

  Asaf aspired to trade in the most costly goods: frankincense and the Balm of Gilead that grew among springs along the Salt Sea. The Balm of Gilead healed wounds and hid the stink of sacrifice with its holy odor, but the powerful faction that controlled its trade blocked Asaf. In raw goods he could do no better than the thick, sticky asphalt that pitched up from the depths of the Salt Sea.

  “Pitch from the place of its birth,” he cajoled Egyptian embalmers, who used asphalt for mummification. “Preserve your dead with the best.”

  At home, he complained to Hoglah, “Who but a hard-working trader would trade in pitch?”

  She fussed sympathetically as she picked off pitch stuck to his robe. While Asaf was away, the hand mill that lured women to her tent kept her days from being lonely. Women brought wheat and barley, and Hoglah delighted in demonstrating how to stream the kernels into the hole at the top of the mill and grind out silky flour.

  Her sisters chided her for being so generous with her time, but her grindstone snared Hoglah a friend, a young woman as shy as she, who had tagged along with an older sister. The young woman had a crooked back, yet her family had managed to marry her off because her spirit was as sunny as her back was crooked. She and Hoglah often met to work side by side.

  Hoglah’s evenings and nights were lonely, and she pined for Asaf. His return brought color to her cheeks, her breath came fast, she fluttered around him, plumping pillows for his back, feeding him date cakes, setting bowls of cool water to wash his hands and feet. In the evening, Asaf regaled Hoglah with tales of his journey.

  “The peoples of the east, they all sing praises of your salve. ‘There is none like it,’ they say. A widow with a terrible canker—rubbed it in and . . . Ho! . . . she was cured.”

  Asaf did not say who had done the rubbing.

  Hoglah, puffed with pride, imagined people telling their neighbors, “Yes, it was made by the middle daughter, the one they call Hoglah.”

  But Asaf was on to the next incident. “ . . . then I showed the man how much the beads weighed. I had three strands of different weights. I put one on a scale and showed him how much that weighed, then two together and a different weight, then the first again, with a third and yet another weight, telling him numbers faster than the gods can throw lightning across the sky. ‘Wait, wait,’ he pleaded to catch up . . . ‘Another weight you want,’ I teased, and threw yet another number at him.”

  As Asaf told the story, he juggled imaginary beads from hand to hand, dancing from one leg to another, then portraying the fuddled buyer until Hoglah laughed out loud.

  When Bar-On grumbled from the other side of the tent wall, Asaf continued his animated tale softly, but added a pantomime of pinched-face Bar-On. Hoglah’s silent laughter reddened her face and made her sides ache with merriment. At moments like this, Asaf truly did love her. She was his best, most grateful audience.

  Hoglah’s sisters saw what sort of man Hoglah had married and hoped they saw nothing worse of him.

  “What if Asaf does not return from one of his trips?” Noa supposed.

  Noa and Malah were kneading dough in their bread troughs. Ora, Noa’s new baby girl, lay swaddled beside her. As they dug fists into the dough, they kept an eye on Gaddi and Rimon, who pushed toy donkeys that Hur’s younger brother had carved.

  “Hoglah would be free to remarry and free from Bar-On . . . if we could find someone to take her,” said Malah. “What if she remarried, and Asaf returned? Hoglah with two husbands.”

  They laughed at the thought.

  “And what if Asaf does not return and Hoglah does not remarry?” said Malah, suddenly serious. “She and her child would have nothing. They might become enslaved to Bar-On. Or worse, he could sell them.”

  “That will not happen. Land—not love—is what drew Asaf to her. He will wait for the land. There. I’ve said it.”

  “And what of our claim to land you were so hot to pursue? Boaz is no youth. What if I am widowed, as seems likely while we wait to enter this much-promised land? What will Rimon get? If you are going to do something, do it.”

  “Yes. I will. But first let me feed my daughter,” Noa said, putting baby to breast, feeling her life seep away in small increments.

  MILCAH MARRIED THE man chosen for her and buried what was left of her dreams of Oholiav. The family found a man from Manasseh. Dor bore none of the age or authority of Boaz, none of the youth or courage of Hur. He expected little in life but hard work. He was colorless as a sun-bleached noon, neither blessed nor bad, an average man.

  Before Milcah’s marriage, Hoglah determined to dispense the wisdom of a married woman to a maiden, and f
ound Milcah and Tirzah with the flocks in a sunny hollow.

  “Milcah,” she began, her voice deepened with gravitas. “There is something you should know.”

  Hoglah looked down at her own child-swollen belly to signify her womanly knowledge. Then she looked at Tirzah.

  “Run to that kid wandering at the edge of the flock,” Hoglah ordered. “It is in danger.”

  “What are you talking about?” Tirzah shot back. “I’m with these flocks every day. No danger.”

  Milcah sighed quietly, and said to Tirzah, “Go, please your sister.”

  She knew what was coming and had heard it already from Rina, a far better source.

  “To have relations with your husband is a wonderful thing. He wants it. And you will want it, in time. It is like . . .” She struggled for a description. “It is like the moment before you sneeze. You feel something coming. You cannot stop it. And when it comes, it takes you over and feels good.”

  Tirzah, who had hidden to hear Hoglah, called out, “Do you wipe your nose when it’s over?”

  “You . . . evil child.” Hoglah scooped up gravel and flung it in Tirzah’s direction. “What do you know about anything?”

  Tirzah, who knew more than she should, danced out of the way. Milcah laid quieting hands on her sister’s shoulders.

  “Tirzah is like a sneeze herself. She can’t help it.” Taken by Hoglah’s deflated face, Milcah continued, “Now I know what to expect. You explained it so well.”

  Hoglah brightened. “Yes. I knew you would appreciate it.” She scowled at Tirzah.

  But Tirzah had her. For the next few weeks, she burst out, “Ah-CHEW!” when she passed Hoglah, then crinkled with glee as she ran from her sister’s rage.

  Milcah married Dor when snow dusted the peaks surrounding Kadesh Barnea. The third of three sons, he had little to offer besides hard work. Too poor to provide a tent, Dor and Milcah moved into Zelophechad’s chamber. Ada now shared the other side of the tent only with Tirzah.