by Ann Burton
My father’s wheel occupied one corner of the courtyard, separated by screens woven of olive wood and goat hair rope. It was not a very large wheel, only six hands across, but it sat balanced perfectly on its stone axis and spun freely with the lightest of touches. Time and countless mounds of clay had worn the surface of the gray speckled stone disk to a satisfying smoothness.
Slaves, like women, were generally not permitted to make pots. In three days I might lose more than my personal freedom. I was no artisan like my brother, but working the clay pleased me. It made me feel that I was more than the one who cooked and cleaned and sold things.
Are these the last I shall ever make?
While I portioned out the clay, Rivai brought my father’s short stool and set it in place. He nudged the edge of the wheel, smearing some grease beneath to keep grit out of the axis seam, and took position behind it. Because turning the wheel meant he would be continually splattered by the clay and water it flung, he wore only an old ezor modestly wrapped around his hips.
“How long will this take?” he asked me. “I am weary.”
He was weary. I had been awake and working since before dawn, and had done more than he would in a week. I felt so tired my bones ached, and now the thought of eight maneh of gold ground like olive press stones atop my fatigue.
For a moment I was tempted to throw the clay at my brother’s head.
“As long as it takes.” I put on one of my father’s woolen work aprons to protect my khiton, dropped a portion of clay on the reed bat covering the top of the wheel, and dipped my hands in the rainwater.
Rivai sighed and bent to the wheel. Its edges were heavier than its center, so when it began to spin under his hands it continued revolving on its own for some time. In order for me to properly work the clay, all my brother had to do was give the moving wheel a push now and then to sustain an even rate of spinning.
Pain knotted beneath my breast. If only a heart could be so effortlessly sustained.
Fashioning pots was not as easy as it appeared. I had watched my father work at the wheel all my life, and time and again he had allowed me to work my own little pots. Those were the happiest times I could remember, when he sat me on his stool, my short legs dangling, and spun the wheel for me. He had always treated me as if I were a master potter.
“You have clever hands, my daughter,” he would say to me. “Ah, if only you were a boy.”
For all my play on the wheel as a child, my first serious attempts had been laughably lopsided. It took many months of practice in secret before I was able to make something worth selling, and yet another season before I was skilled enough to create reasonable duplicates of my father’s work.
From three mounds I worked utilitarian jars and lamps of sizes that I knew would sell well at market. These I made so often I could shape them with my eyes closed, leaving myself free to consider what to do about Rivai’s impossible debt.
Rivai was right. We could not pay such a debt, not unless Father sold us and all we had. Even if our parents were spared lives as slaves, they would have to beg in the street for food until the shamar finally ran them out of the town. Unprotected in the wilderness, they would starve or be killed by wild animals, marauders, or the elements.
I would die before I allowed that to happen.
“We could flee to Hebron,” my brother said, as if knowing my thoughts. “It is a city of refuge.”
Rivai knew so little of the law. I, on the other hand, had learned much about it from other merchants as well as from those who passed through the marketplace. Knowledge I wished that I did not have, not on this night.
“Cities like Hebron are only for those who kill by accident, if they can persuade the gatekeepers that they are truly innocent,” I told him. “Sanctuary is offered to protect a life, not a purse—or lack of one.”
He gave the wheel a halfhearted push. “You despise me, don’t you?”
I had often resented Rivai because my parents had indulged him so much, and because he had so much more freedom than I. I also secretly envied his carvings, which were much finer and more delicate than anything I could ever make. Even so, he was my brother.
“I do not always understand you, or the things you want,” I admitted, “but I could never hate you.”
“I wanted a good life, and the chance to make my art. Now I have probably ruined mine, and yours, and our parents’.” He regarded me with suddenly sad eyes. “You should hate me. You deserve better than this endless work, with the three of us hanging on you, like ugly pots which you shall never sell.”
My fingers clenched, inadvertently ruining the rim of the bowl I was shaping. “You and Mother and Father are my life,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “You have never been my burdens. What I do is done out of love for you.”
“Love that you would rather give another. I’ve heard you in the courtyard at night, you know. You are too practical to believe the Adonai will actually send you a husband, and you do nothing to find one yourself. Still, you yearn and pray.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand why you waste yourself on us, Abigail.”
“Prayer, like hope, costs nothing.” I had never considered looking for a husband; it was not something a woman did. Besides, without a zebed, who would have me? “You cannot say that about your gambling and drinking.”
“You are right,” Rivai said, startling me. “I am nothing but a wastrel, am I not? Yet whatever happens to me, I shall have some good memories to warm me through the cold, hard years ahead. What will you have?”
I would have my self-respect. Like prayer and hope, it was noble. Only now it did not feel very substantial. “It is late. We can stop.” I took the lopsided bowl from the wheel and mixed it back into the remaining clay. “My thanks for your help.”
His eyes glittered as he slowly straightened. With tears or anger, I could not say. “I shall think of a way out of this, Abi.”
That was good, because I could not see one for the tears in my eyes.
After Rivai had gone to bed, I shelved the pots I had thrown so that they would dry overnight. In the morning I would put them, leathery hard, in the kiln for firing before I went to market. Since I could not tell my parents about Rivai’s debt, I would ask advice of Shomer, or perhaps Amri or Cetura. They were shrewd merchants as well as my friends. If anyone could help, they would.
As I shook out my bed mat, I ignored the voice inside me that told me over and over that there was no solution, no possible way to save Rivai or my family.
Because the night was humid and hot, I put my mat next to the wall beneath one of the windows. I was always too tired to stay awake, even on the hottest nights, but now I tossed and turned, unable to sink into the dark, blessed oblivion of sleep for several hours.
At last I slept and fell into a dream.
I found myself at our market booth. Beautiful pots painted with all the colors of the rainbow sat in neat rows, linked to each other by golden strings. They were lovelier than anything I had ever fashioned, and without thinking I reached out to touch the glossy surface of one blue and gray wine jug.
The m’khashepah appeared on the other side of the booth, a strange, red-purple samla covering her thin body, her white hair smooth and anointed with fragrant oil. She pointed at me. The hand that works the clay shapes the world.
My fingertips touched the wine jug and it shattered, releasing a puff of white smoke and, oddly, a familiar, cross-voiced complaint. For what the mason charges? I could build a new house.
I snatched my hand away and looked over at Amri’s stall. It was empty, like all the others.
Wife you shall soon be, the m’khashepah said as she walked around the booth. But whose?
Alarmed, I tried to gather my wares, but every pot I touched disintegrated, releasing different colors of smoke and other, beloved voices:
These figs are too green, child. You shall give yourself a sour belly if you eat them.
I shall have to spend some extra hours at the wheel
this night.
The dice were switched, and the last were weighted, I swear it.
The voices vanished, like the smoke, leaving me alone with the m’khashepah. The potsherds on the boards of the booth between us grew, the broken pieces multiplying and piling higher until I could only see her face, and she mine.
What will you do, Father’s Delight? How will you keep them whole and safe?
I cannot do anything, I told her. I am only a woman.
Only a woman. She seized the last remaining intact pot and crushed it between her hands. White smoke enveloped her, and once more I heard Shomer’s daughter say, Devash is Noisan’s only daughter, and she shall bring land and many sheep to her husband.
I woke up with a cry, but I was not on my sleeping mat. I was at the center of the house, standing in front of my father’s wheel. On the stone lay my striped head cloth, the one I never wore to market.
The head cloth of a young, unmarried betulah.
The m’khashepah’s voice echoed inside my head. When you doubt, go back to the wheel. Turn the wheel.
I picked up my head cloth and held it in my hands. Now that I understood what could be made, I but had to find the courage to gather what was needed, and steadiness to shape it.
Taking care to keep my steps silent, I went to my parents’ room.
CHAPTER
5
It was no more proper for an unmarried woman to travel alone between towns than it was for her to sell at market, but there were ways around such restrictions. Amri traveled to Maon every week to barter for goods with the trader caravans, and I knew the next morning was his day to go.
Just before dawn I slipped out of the house and met Amri outside his small dwelling on the edge of the quarter, where he was hitching his mule to his cart.
“Abigail.” He seemed startled by my sudden appearance, until he saw the two-handled water jar at my hip. “I did not expect delivery today.” His head went down and then up. “Why are you dressed like that?”
Beneath my mantle I wore my mother’s best samla. Made of closely woven soft ivory wool with vivid blue and green stripes, it was the finest garment Chemda had ever worn, and smelled only faintly of the cedar chips she had sprinkled in its folds to repel insects. I had never dared to touch it before; last night I had boldly stolen it from my parents’ room while they slept.
“I have a favor to ask, Amri.”
I thought of telling him that a sick friend had summoned me to Maon, but I was dressed too finely. I also needed the spice merchant to help me find Nabal once we arrived. In the end, it was simplest to tell him the truth, so I did.
“I would be in your debt,” I added after relating the details of Rivai’s debt and my solution. “If you will do this for me, anything I have to give is yours.”
“I have enough pots, thank you, and your idiot brother should be whipped,” Amri snapped.
“Abigail?”
I saw Rivai walking toward us and wanted to groan. “Brother, you should be home, sleeping.”
My brother looked even worse than he had last night, his nose and mouth swollen and his eyes shot with tiny red veins. He moved carefully, too, as one did with an uncertain head or belly.
“I heard you leave.” He looked from me to Amri and frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“I have asked Amri to take me with him to trade with the caravans,” I told him. “I shall return this afternoon. Go home; Mother will be waking soon.”
“You have no pottery with you,” Rivai said. “Why are you wearing . . .” His expression darkened. “No, Abigail. I cannot permit you to do this.”
“I was wrong.” Amri folded his arms. “Your brother has some sense in his head.”
“I mean what I say, Sister,” Rivai said. “Our father will never allow it.”
“I have done nothing yet,” I reminded him, “nor is it likely I shall. But I must try.”
“Child, how can you mean to throw yourself onto the mercy of a stranger, one who may be a cheat and a swindler?” Amri regarded my brother. “This ungrateful whelp is not worth it.”
“He speaks the truth,” Rivai chimed in. “Look.”
He removed a small sack from his belt and opened it, revealing all the tiny carvings in bone and wood he had kept hoarded in his room. They were special to him, and I had only ever seen one or two.
“You see?” He closed the sack. “I shall go and sell these today at market.”
My brother had never wished to sell his carvings, so it was apparent that he felt as desperate as I. But even if Rivai sold everything he possessed for three times its worth, it would not be enough.
“Let me see those, boy.” When Rivai opened the sack again, the spice merchant inspected the collection of toggle pins, hair sticks, and ornaments. “They are pretty, but not worth more than one maneh of silver,” he said, confirming my suspicions.
Rivai’s eyes turned dull. “Then I shall go to the slavers. I am young, and strong.”
“Selling yourself will only bring thirty sheqels.” I looked at my feet, shod in my best sandals. “I must go to him.”
“And what if this Nabal agrees to your bargain? Do you think your brother will cease his drinking and gambling, and become a dutiful son?” Amri made it sound impossible.
I had not thought of that, and looked at Rivai. Tired and defeated, he was hanging his head. “If I can no longer live with our parents, will you care for them as I have, Brother?”
“Yes.” He lifted his head. “I swear to you, I shall. And I shall never drink or gamble again.” His eyes shifted to the horizon. “The sun will be up soon.”
“So will our parents.” I reached up and squeezed my brother’s shoulder. “Go now. Say nothing of this to them until I have returned.”
Rivai caught me in a tight embrace before he trudged away.
I had tried to sound brave, but I did not feel it. Indeed, I had to fight the urge to call him back.
“I shall see that he keeps that vow,” Amri told me as he took the smallest pack from his cart. “Come inside, child. You will need more than that maiden’s garb to make this scheme of yours work.”
I followed Amri into his dwelling, which despite the rainwater damage to one wall, was larger and better built than my parents’ house. Intricately woven reed mats covered the floor, while bunches of drying flowers and herbs hung from a wooden rack above my head. Stacks of filled baskets occupied each corner, except where part of the damaged wall had crumbled.
“You see?” Amri gestured toward the wood planks covering one large, irregular hole in the wall. “Three sacks of millet the mason demands of me, and he works as a snail runs.”
If only I had such troubles, I thought sadly. “Better grain than gold, my friend.”
The spice merchant cleared his throat. “I complain too much.” He placed the sack on his table and began sorting through it.
The spicy aromas of Amri’s wares filled the room, particularly around another, narrow wooden table with an assortment of small querns and grinding stones. It was where he did his work, I saw, noting the traces of seeds and stalks on the saddle-shaped surface of the querns, and the jugs of oil and other liquids sitting to one side. There were also flat clay squares covered with triangular marks that I did not recognize at first.
“You can read and write?” I asked, astonished. I could not, nor could anyone in my family. Hardly anyone could but town scribes and high priests. Rivai had always wished to learn, but there was no money for a tutor or schooling.
“My father was a healer; he wished me to be the same and so taught me before he discovered the sight of blood made me ill. Here.” Amri handed me a small goatskin vial, tightly bound with cord at the opening, and pointed to an open doorway. “Go in there and work this into the skin of your hands and face.”
I loosened the cord and sniffed. The creamy-looking liquid inside smelled of herbs and flowers, and something I couldn’t identify. “What is this?”
“An old family recipe. Ru
b it in well.” He walked to the entry door. “I shall return shortly.”
Amri left before I could ask where he was going, and for a moment I feared he intended to go to speak to my father about my intention. There was a small but shameful part of me that almost wished he would. But through the front window, I saw him walk in the opposite direction of my parents’ home. Wherever he was headed, it was not to expose me to my family.
I went into the small room, which was simply furnished as a bedchamber, and carefully applied the soft liquid to my face. The smell of the stuff was sweet and pungent, like a costly perfume, but it was too thin to be a proper ointment. It felt wonderful on my skin, however, and when I touched my cheek it seemed smoother and softer. I was startled to see that the rough, dry skin on my hands and fingers disappeared, too. It must have been a beauty lotion, like those used by wealthy women to keep their skin young and supple.
I had never been able to afford such a thing. When my skin became unbearably dry, I made do with a little goat’s milk mixed with olive oil.
Amri had meant to help, but the fact was that I was not very young, or supple, or at all a wealthy woman. No beauty lotion in the world could change that, or make Nabal of Maon believe that.
What if I go all the way to Maon for nothing? My hands trembled as I adjusted the folds of my head cloth. What if Nabal summons the shamar and has us driven out?
In the wall above the sleeping mat on the floor, a section of brick had been chipped out to create a recess. There Amri had placed a small oil lamp, a libation saucer, and a polished bronze disk with edge notches that suggested the sun. Although idolatry was forbidden, such small shrines were common among Hebrews and gave comfort during the long dark hours of the night. The lamp’s steady flame made the bronze gleam.
I knelt before it and bowed my head. “Adonai, since the days of Abraham, You have protected me and my people. You removed Egypt’s yoke from our shoulders and brought us to this, the Promised Land. I beg You guide me now, so that I shall not lose my way, or my family.” My throat hurt and my eyes stung. “What happens to me is not important. If You will only protect and deliver them, I shall gladly sing Your praises for all the days of my life.”