Judging Noa

by Strutin, Michel;

  “Soon I will be alone. Then I will be ready to join my husband.”

  WHEN HER SECOND child was newly walking, Noa became pregnant a third time but lost the child soon after she could feel its first movements. Hoping to soothe Noa, Hur spoke softly and kept their two little ones near. Tamar told Noa that most had lost one or more, and sent for Nechama to bring potions that would cleanse Noa’s womb and her heart.

  As the weeks passed, Noa recovered, but she roiled with inchoate needs.

  “I am a daughter. I am a wife. I am a mother. I do my jobs. I do not complain,” she told herself. “But something is missing.”

  She could not think of a soul to tell. Her mother would voice empty aphorisms. Tamar and Malah would dismiss her yearnings, each in their own way. Hur would try to fix the problem without understanding it. She could not burden Yoela, whose burdens were far worse.

  She was not even sure what was missing.

  “Am I selfish for wanting more?” she wondered. “And will we ever reach this promised land?”

  Aloud, she complained, “Why do you children always need something?”

  She needed to fill more than a slot in tribal society, but she did not comprehend her need to be Noa.

  THE DAY NOA was certain she was pregnant again, Yoela appeared at her door, swinging her skirts, pulling at the knot that bound up her hair.

  Yoela hugged her and laughed. “Another one on the way?”

  “Yoela, what wonderful thing has happened to give you life again?”

  Yoela loosed her hair, then kissed Ora’s head.

  Her brother looked up at Yoela and said, “Did you know I can make wind from my bottom.”

  “Oh,” Yoela said, “that is a good trick, Gaddi.”

  “You are you again. How?” Noa asked. “Barzel has softened?”

  “Barzel? Not him. No, I have determined to become master of my situation,” answered Yoela in a voice bright and brittle.

  “I know you will. Sit next to me as I master this loom,” said Noa, as she shoved her shuttle tight against the yarn.

  They sat and talked as the two children played until Gaddi pulled at Yoela’s skirt and demanded, “Tell us a story.” She gathered both children onto her lap and began, “Once there was a baby hedgehog whose prickles tickled him . . .”

  Too soon, Yoela finished the story, lifted Gaddi and Ora from her lap, and said, “Give me a hug, Noa, and I’ll be on my way.”

  They stood. Yoela lingered a moment, then left, calling back carelessly, “I love you, Noa.” While she walked, Yoela tucked her hair up and the sleeves of her robe slipped back. Noa saw purple bruises on her upper arms.

  Two days later, Noa looked up to see Malah approaching. Malah rarely came to her these days, so she tilted her head as if to ask “What brings you here?”

  “No one wanted to tell you. So it must be me. Yoela. They found her body . . .”

  Noa’s chest tightened, strangling her breath. Malah saw the anguish twisting her sister’s face. She did not know what to say, so stood before Noa, the space between them awkward and tense. Finally, Malah closed the gap and grasped Noa to her, breaking the seal of her pain.

  Noa collapsed against her sister, sobbing raggedly, her words muffled by Malah’s shoulder. “It is my fault. I did not stop her from going back to Barzel.”

  “It was not Barzel,” Malah whispered.

  “She was with me only the other day. I saw what Barzel does to her.”

  “It was not Barzel. It was Amalek, the evil ones.”

  “Amalek? What do you mean?”

  Malah looked down at her feet, used the great toe from one foot to brush off an invisible fleck of dirt from the other. She did not want to explain.

  “What do you mean, Amalek?”

  Malah bent her head and mumbled, “Parts of her, strewn on the desert.”

  “How do they know it is Yoela?”

  “They found her . . .”

  Malah could not bring herself to say “head” nor describe what Amalek had done to Yoela’s eyes, so said, “Her hair. No one has hair like hers.”

  Noa covered her eyes, trying to destroy the picture, then sank to the ground. Full of fear, her children ran to her, pressing themselves as closely as possible, Gaddi burrowing under his mother’s arm, Ora clinging to her skirt and frantically sucking her thumb. Malah removed her headclothand eased it beneath Noa’s face so she would not choke on the desert dust, then sat and stroked Noa’s hair until the sun cast purple shadows over the tents of Manasseh.

  NOA MOVED THROUGH her duties, stunned, tears leaking down her cheeks at odd moments. Gaddi offered his toy donkey, Ora held her hand. Nights were worse. Hur held her when she woke, terrified by her dreams.

  Her mother attended her. Tamar, too, but after a few days commented loudly to Hur as she left their tent, “She was not so gripped by the loss of your unborn child.”

  “How can you be so unfeeling?” he returned. But he felt as she did.

  Hur waxed and waned in his attempts to break through the shell Noa constructed. He wondered if he had died, would Noa grieve so much.

  Haddad had taken a second wife and, while visiting the Midianite’s tent, he listened to his friend boast. “They fight for my attention, each bringing better than the other.”

  As the men sat together, Haddad’s first wife brought them a platter of vegetables stuffed with roasted grains. The second, no more than a girl, shyly offered them barley beer and date cakes.

  “Tell me your secret?”

  “Secret? You need no advice from me. Is your woman lacking something you like?” Haddad asked, coloring his question with sly humor. “Maybe a second wife would open her eyes.”

  CHAPTER 22

  LEARNING TO LIVE

  THE TRIBES LEARNED to plant and to harvest, husbanding every drop of water, every seed, every tumid head of wheat and barley. They wasted nothing. The margin of error was as thin as the arm of a starving child. After the wheat and barley were cleaned, they poured it into tall jars. The sight filled their hearts, and they were as jealous of their hard-won grain as a pharaoh of his gold.

  When the days became short and the dark season was upon them, Noa bore her third child, a boy. A week later, Milcah bore her first, a girl they named Sarai. Hoglah’s first child was nearly a year and another on the way. Counting Malah’s daughter Rimon, Ada thanked Asherah for her garden of six grandchildren and congratulated herself for making such fruitful matches.

  Noa’s mood matched the season. She did her duties perfunctorily, feeding her newborn, sleeping by her husband’s side, carrying out the unending jobs of wife and mother. Her face showed nothing, not even the grief that still clung like cobwebs.

  Milcah, who bloomed with the birth of Sarai, suggested, “Why not return to the judges and pursue our claim for land?”

  “But we have so long to wait.”

  “Why not fill the wait with something you care about?”

  Noa looked at Milcah with new eyes.

  “It would gain justice for us,” Milcah urged.

  That evening she said to Hur, “I am finally ready to face the Judges of Hundreds. Boaz said he would secure my place. But that was before our three children. Would you support me, as you are the rightful head of Manasseh?”

  “Why did you wait until now? Now, when we all must wait?”

  “I was not ready,” was all Noa could say.

  “Yes, I will support you before Boaz. But that is all.”

  Boaz was not optimistic.

  “The Judges of Hundreds will not be easy. A plea that sets a precedent is difficult. Especially when this land of our fathers is merely a promise.

  “But the Judges of Fifties gave me the right to pursue . . .”

  “I will speak with the chief judge, Naftali ben Nun. But I have little hope. Even if he agrees, they do not meet often. It may take months.”

  He spoke with Naftali ben Nun, who grudgingly agreed only because Boaz’s name carried weight. He told Boaz the Judg
es of Hundreds would meet the day after the new moon, three days hence.

  “Send her then,” Ben Nun said.

  When Hur told Noa, she wailed, “Three days? I cannot prepare in three days.”

  “Just present what won the Judges of Fifties. And perhaps, ‘thank you, husband.’”

  “Forgive me. Yes, thank you. And, please, if you would play lead judge and hear my practice plea.”

  “A practice plea before a practice judge. A fair match. But I will not accompany you to the bet din. Remember, this is your petition. Not mine.”

  THREE DAYS LATER, Noa waited her turn. Because her claim was squeezed into the list late, Noa was one of the last to stand before the Judges of Hundreds in the cold of the waning day.

  Finally, she was called before the three judges, who sat under a tent awning. The judges at right and left were muffled in their cloaks. Naftali ben Nun sat in the middle, straight as a stake, folds of cloak hanging from angular shoulders. Her head tilted in submission, Noa raised her eyes and saw the face of a griffon vulture, big beaked and bony.

  “Proceed,” he ordered.

  Wrapped against the chill wind, she feared her words would be blown away and told herself to speak clearly. “But,” she reminded herself, “not too loudly.” Naftali ben Nun did not look like he would tolerate impertinence.

  Noa told of how she and her sisters wanted to perpetuate their father’s name and had no brothers to do so. Inheritance would extend his name through them and, she remembered to add, through their sons.

  “Your father, he who was Zelophechad?”

  “Yes, honorable judge.”

  “Zelophechad, the Sabbath-breaker.”

  Noa gasped. None but the Guardians of Truth had ever said a bad word about her father, in her hearing.

  “He was a good man, an honest man. If he breached any new law, he did so in ignorance.”

  “Ignorance is no defense,” the judge thundered.

  Noa shrank back, not sure what to say next. The judges on either side looked into the middle distance. Noa took a deep breath to calm herself and pointed her argument toward a common ancestor.

  “If we had been sons, we would have helped build the house of Israel—Jacob, our father. But we are daughters. Five dutiful daughters,” she said in a voice meant to be meek. “It is our desire to receive permission to help build our people, as any son would.”

  “Who put such ideas in your head? Your father, the Sabbath-breaker? It is not a woman’s place to build. It is a woman’s place to serve her husband.”

  Ben Nun’s voice was as unyielding as his face.

  Noa was about agree, but realized that no matter how agreeable she tried to be, ben Nun was her adversary. Heated by anger, her reasons came roaring out.

  “If women were more than a thing bought, a step above a slave, my beloved Yoela would be alive today. She served her husband and he served her: with the back of his hand, with a rod, with whatever came to hand until she was purple with bruises. Oh, how Barzel ben Zerach tore down his house by driving Yoela to her death. Where is the justice in that?”

  “Enough. You foolish girl.” Ben Nun’s voice was as cold as the day. “The house of Zerach is honorable beyond your knowing. And arguments about a land so far in the future are not worth my time. Promised land? ‘I would like this, oh judge.’ ‘I am due that.’ No more of promised land before the Judges of Hundreds. Not while I live.”

  Noa realized she had lost. Her eyes bore into him. She had nothing more to lose.

  “Justice,” she blazed, “cannot be found here.”

  Rigid with fury, she turned on her heel and strode home. As she left, she growled under her breath, “And may God count your days short, oh exalted judge.”

  Three weeks later, Naftali ben Nun fell over after a heavy meal, dead.

  Those who heard Noa as she left the bet din told others what she had said. A rumor grew that her curse caused the judge’s death. Some remembered she had predicted her father’s death.

  “There. She is a witch,” they said.

  And the rumor circulated again, quietly among the tents.

  WOMEN WHO HEARD the rumor avoided Noa, fearing the odor of witchery would taint them. Anger and frustration so curdled Noa that even her sisters gave her wide berth, all but Milcah, who feared Noa’s isolation compounded her misery. Despite Milcah’s attempts to engage her, Noa remained apart.

  When Noa learned that Barzel planned to marry again, she arose from her darkness, imagining a path toward justice paved by vengeance. She knew that one of Malah’s group would attend the wedding. Wedding guests brought food for newly married couples to eat during their days of seclusion, and Noa planned a special present for Barzel.

  Noa and Malah usually molded their cheeses in segments of hollow reeds. Tall as a fist and perfectly circular, their cheeses were a delight to the eye as well as the mouth. This time, Noa molded her cheese in the way of most women, simply tying it up in the cloth used to drain the whey. She mixed in chopped leaves of the saltbush to cover the toxic taste of henbane.

  The morning of Barzel’s second wedding, the winds began flirting with the skirts of the tents. Teasing gave way to tearing as the wind picked up. Gritty veils of yellow dust swirled like wraiths.

  Noa left her children in Milcah’s care and pushed through the hamsin winds to catch Malah’s friend on her way to the wedding. She depended that Barzel would be so filled with himself that he would enter the marriage booth, take his new wife, then consume Noa’s revenge, leaving none for the young woman who replaced Yoela.

  Her present tucked within her robe, Noa waited until Malah’s friend and her family emerged from their tent, heads bent against wind, parents holding toddlers, grandparents clutching the hands of older children, fearful the winds would carry the young ones off.

  “A moment, please,” Noa asked as she walked quickly alongside. “Please, take this present for the couple when they are in their marriage booth.”

  “But,” said Malah’s friend, recognizing Noa’s face through the swirling grit, “I thought you were a friend of . . . eh . . . Barzel’s wife who died. Forgive me, I cannot remember her name.”

  “Yes, I was,” Noa replied. “Surely Barzel is marrying to ease his loneliness. Please, take my present for them. No need to say who it is from. It would only bring sadness to his eyes, remembering she who died.”

  She thrust the wrapped cheese toward the woman, not seeing that she clutched a child within her robes.

  “Please, give it to my sister.” She tipped her head toward the young woman next to her. “Her arms are free. We must hurry. The wind . . .”

  They had reached the large wedding canopy whose palm fronds the wind was flinging off like chaff from a winnowing basket. Ben Zerach’s women were gathering foods and wedding accessories and hurriedly moving them into a nearby tent.

  Malah’s friend and her family entered the tent, as Noa looked on. Once they were within, Noa left. Inside the crowded tent, the sister saw a mat full of foods for the guests and laid the cheese among them.

  Noa lay awake that night, tossed between the terrible thing she had done and the anticipation of hearing of Barzel’s death.

  The next day the camp of Manasseh learned that a plague had struck the wedding. One moment guests were enjoying breads and cheeses, melons and date wine as winds lashed the tent walls. The next, they were falling against each other, gagging and gasping. Earlier, Barzel had rudely left the guests in order to take his bride right away. Neither bride nor groom was among the people affected.

  When Malah told Noa that a plague had struck the guests at Barzel’s wedding, Noa’s face became chalky as death.

  “And, Barzel,” Noa asked, “was he among them?”

  “No.”

  “How many dead?” Noa asked, her voice as drained as her face.

  “What is the matter with you? You look terrible.”

  Noa waved Malah on. “Please, tell me.”

  “Many are sick, but none are
dead . . . yet. Perhaps God struck them ill for disobeying this new law that says we cannot eat milk and meat together. Barzel’s clan, they gorge like animals. Even my friend says so. And they dance like those who worship Moloch. Likely the plague is God’s work. That is what they are all saying.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that is it,” said Noa, her voice faint with fear.

  Malah squinted at Noa, searching to detect what drove her sister’s strangeness.

  Later, Noa searched as well. She could not believe what she had done. And she had acted not in fury, but with deliberation. Worse, still, Barzel lived. She dreaded her terrible deed would become her and imagined a descent so steep that she would end like their addled cousin who sat and rocked all day, tied to a tent pole so she would not wander into the desert.

  Although none had died, Noa feared she could not hide what she had done from the God that saw all. Noa vowed she would never hurt another soul. Deep in the night, when she thought Hur was asleep, Noa rose, huddled within her robe, and sat in a corner, facing away from their bed and their children.

  She whispered, “Please cleanse me and let me live again. Pray separate my husband from all evil I have caused.”

  Night after night, she pleaded with God. Hur heard Noa’s pleas and wondered if the rumors of her witchery were true. He loved Noa. She was a dutiful wife and a fair mother, but he feared she had gone from miserable to half-mad. He remembered what Haddad said. Hur wanted what his friend had.

  He went to his mother’s tent and, before he could voice his dilemma, Tamar said, “You must take another wife.”

  “And put Noa aside? For the sake of rumors?”

  “No. Simply take another wife. Whatever Noa did or did not do, rumors leave an ugly stain. Cleanse away the stain by taking a second wife. It cost me something to bring these rumors to rest. I have had to make promises to keep some from making trouble and others for challenging your judgment in not putting Noa aside. Your justice-chasing wife is causing you an injustice.”

  Tamar took her son’s hands in hers and said, more softly, “Noa has wits and courage. When you are sole leader and these rumors are long gone, she will be a fitting mate, just as I am. But even I knew to bend to my husband.”