League of Lilith, The: A thriller with soul

by Sugrue, Rosalie

  Kat’s shoulders slump. The Maori girl springs to her feet. “My land was stolen by the Pakeha. Are you saying God wanted this?” She is shaking with anger.

  “A good question,” soothes Sarai. “Life is never simple. I understand the rape of this country and mourn the injustices. Can you feel into the culture of the other? The missionaries came with high ideals and suffered great hardships. None of us can escape being people of our time. Nineteenth-century missionaries were ignorant of their own conditioning. Biblical exegesis was unknown to them. Their beliefs were simple but well intentioned. It was not the missionary who raped the land or its women. Those who study religion with sincerity realise its core is compassion. Danger comes most from those who have some religious knowledge and no commitment to a faith. Typically, European land merchants had sufficient religious conditioning to be subliminally convinced that land-grabbing was morally justified.”

  Jen observes Ms Serious twitching throughout Sarai’s answer. After a couple of false jerks her hand rockets skyward on Sarai’s final full stop. “Does the concept of the Promised Land have no meaning?”

  “We all need goals. We all endure the wilderness. A Promised Land is worth striving for in any context.” Sarai gathers her papers. “Read the handout ‘Biblical Exegesis’ before our next session, and the entire Book of Ruth.” A slightly mutinous murmur meets this directive. “No, no, it’s nothing like Genesis. Ruth is a medieval miniature contained in four chapters, a play of four acts, a read of four pages.”

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  The class shuffles out. Jen waits for Kat. “I need a caffeine fix. Do you know your way round the campus cafés?”

  “The Brasilia is good. I’m heading there myself.”

  Kat leads the way to the Students’ Association building. Jen is pleased to find the Brasilia a cut above her expectations, being fully licensed and offering a good range of salads, pastas, sandwiches and cakes.

  “It’s a lovely day. Let’s go outside,” says Jen.

  Sipping lattes under a sun umbrella with a green-grass view to the Avon invites relaxation. As they savour the coffee Jen notices not all the students are young and slender. In fact, they come in all shapes and she can see one who is decidedly pregnant.

  “So, Milfy,” grins Kat, “what brings you to uni?”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, but I would prefer Jen,” returns Jen easily. “Truth is I was bored being at home. Wilkin, my husband, wanted me to stop work and concentrate on getting pregnant. It hasn’t happened. How about you?”

  “I’m a part-time waitress. Thought I would extend the mind by trying something different. A couple of my flatmates are students, so here I am.” She pauses, Jen follows her gaze. “See the girl in the green t-shirt? She’s in our class. Neat tee!”

  “The girl who looks lost?”

  The girl in the apple-green t-shirt turns toward Kat and Jen, balancing a frothy cup, eyes scanning the tables.

  “I’m not perfect but parts of me are excellent,” Jen reads the white script, navigating her apple breasts. “She has a point.”

  “Two of them.”

  “We could ask her to join us.”

  “Hey, Excellent Parts, there’s a seat going here if you don’t mind sitting with us,” calls Kat.

  The girl gives a relieved smile, deposits her cup on the table, and perches on the wooden slats of the vacant chair.

  “Thanks. You two are in the Biblical Text and Women class, aren’t you? I’m Darlene.”

  Nods and name sharing follow. Jen passes her serviette to Darlene to sop up her saucer. “I don’t know why they make them so full.”

  “Better too much than too little,” supplies Kat. “Wasn’t Sarai on about abundance, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

  “What do you think of Sarai?” asks Darlene.

  “Weird but kinda cool,” responds Kat.

  “There’s something compelling about her,” says Jen. “She invited us to take tea with her after the first lecture. Strange, but nice of her.”

  “Really?” Darlene eyes them with interest. “I’ve had tea with her too. She invited me and Hana last week.”

  “Perhaps she invites everyone,” Kat wonders aloud.

  “I didn’t get that impression,” Darlene confides. “She told us some students hold interest beyond academia, a few interest her as special people.”

  “She’s wacky,” declares Kat.

  “I think she’s a bit special.”

  Jen detects a slight rise of colour in Darlene’s flawless complexion.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Sarai sits in her study considering her list of students. Surely she hasn’t been misled. Her mind flicks to the morning of the first lecture, to the bedroom she considers hers when she sleeps over at Pauline’s. The pictures in the dream had been hazy, but the voice crystal-clear: Be at peace, the one you were promised will be with you today. Startled to sitting with eyes wide open there was nothing to see, only red numbers glowing 3:15 on the bedside clock. She had gone back to sleep immediately but the words were dancing in her mind when she woke to the smell of bacon frying. Leaving for work she had hugged Pauline affectionately, even said, “Best sleep I’ve had in months.”

  She returns to the list. It has to be one of these, but which? Scanning the names Sarai visualises each student in turn … too serious, too shallow, too narrow, too keen to please, male, too much baggage, lacks interest, lacks insight, lacks care, male, lacks inner strength … 15 crosses and two question marks, one beside a name added in biro.

  Sarai feels weary. Age is slowing her down, but age is nothing compared to weight of responsibility. If she fails to find the one … she shudders at the fear too horrific to form into words.

  The gift of knowing has no substance without wisdom. “Where are you, Wisdom?” she mutters aloud. Calm yourself, she orders silently, and selects a St John’s Wort and berries blend from her selection of herbal teas. Soothed by its warmth and flavour she feels the urge to write. Writing is release and comfort. Belief is a process. Recording the process could be helpful.

  Sarai takes a blank sheet of A4 and considers. Her eyes twinkle. “Why not!” she addresses the page. Taking up her purple fountain pen she letters, The Sarai Version of the Bible. Beneath the heading she adds First Testament. Words rise from the depths of her soul and flow across the page.

  A Psalm of Sarai — Ode to Sophia

  I am Wisdom, as old as time and as fresh as tomorrow.

  I rippled the waters when the earth was without form.

  I am the inseparable feminine aspect of the Creator …

  Kat skims through the handout from last Tuesday’s lecture over a late breakfast coffee. Sarai portrays Rahab as an intelligent survivor, who played the system and won. Sarai had no condemnation for Rahab’s choice of profession but said there is always more to a story than is on a printed page.

  Kat reflects on Sarai’s spoken words. She said prostitution is seldom a free choice, there are usually driving factors, and floated the possibility of Rahab having had a child out of wedlock and therefore not being marriageable. At the end of the printed notes Sarai says, “Let your imaginations fill in the gaps.” Kat supposes rape was a likely possibility for Rahab and her parents stood by her, not easy in those times, she presumes, and surmises that as her parents aged Rahab supported them in the only way she could.

  Suddenly she recalls that Sarai also said if a prostitute isn’t damaged before she plies her trade she will be before it ends. The words come back to Kat with the force of a slap. These are judgemental words. Sarai is wrong about prostitutes! She, herself, chose the profession because she wanted the money, as simple as that. She has ambition, wants to see the world, could never do it on waitressing wages, and certainly not in a recession climate. She is good at what she does and gives quality service. No sordid wham-bam for this ma’am. Hers is not a damaged-person choice. Hers is an intelligent choice, a choice made by a winner, not a survivor. You are a survivor though,
rises an unwanted little voice from the buried past …

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Kat lived in a house-bus when she was small. The existence was weighted more to deprivation than the freedom side of hippy life. Sometimes they travelled to fairs and art markets but mostly they parked behind an abandoned country hall in the wop-wops south of Ross. The space was shared by two or three other mobile dwellings, housing an itinerant mix of painters, potters, wood turners, needle-workers and jewellery makers. They saw themselves as an artist’s commune and used the old hall as a studio.

  The house-bus was also home to her two half-brothers and their father George. Kat had no memories of her biological father. “He was a free spirit,” her mother told her when she’d asked. “He didn’t deceive me: I knew from the beginning he wasn’t the marrying kind. We loved each other. Of course I expected to change him. Never fall into that trap, Kat. You can’t change anyone other than yourself.”

  Kat wondered if her mother had changed. Had she been a different person living with her father than living with George? She didn’t think her mother was happy living with George. Well, some of the time she was happy, like after a final firing produced a good haul of glazed pots. The adults of the commune all got very happy after a good market day and partied late into the night. Lots of smoking, drinking, kissing and cuddling went on then, but much of the time her mother seemed sad.

  “Soon after you were born your father moved out, said he wasn’t ready to be a father. I couldn’t manage on my own, Kat,” the mother told the eight-year-old, who had wondered why George was in their lives. “George has talent. He’s more than just a potter and wood-turner, he is an artist. He can’t help having an artistic temperament.” Kat repeated her mother’s words over and over in her head, trying to make sense of why George hated her so. What her mother saw as artistic temperament Kat experienced as continual put-downs. The boys were four and five years younger than Kat. There were other small children and babies in the commune but Kat was the eldest child and the only one required by law to attend school. Kat had little time to herself after the school bus dropped her off. House-bus life centred around wood — wood for the stove, wood for the outside copper, wood for the barbecue, wood for the furnace. Kat had been expected to stack wood as long as she could remember, and never did it well enough to suit George. “Useless girl!” he would shout at her. “Can’t you do anything neatly?” If she took extra care, George would bellow, “That load should have been stacked hours ago.”

  After she turned nine she was expected to cut kindling for the stove. There was a small axe for this task. Her mother called it a tomahawk and had showed her how to use it. Pretending to be an Indian squaw didn’t help much. The tool was a weapon capable of slicing fingers. “Call that kindling? You’re hopeless.” Often as not George would pick up a fat stick and give her a whack around the legs.

  When their parents were busy Kat had to mind her half-brothers. The boys liked to float boats made from sticks in the dam nearby. One day Robert decided to walk the length of a partly-submerged fallen tree and slipped. Kat had to jump in and pull him out. They arrived home with two of them soaked and Richard still snivelling, convinced his brother had nearly drowned. It was all cuddles and concern for the boys. “Get to the woodshed,” ordered George, when Kat had changed into dry clothes.

  She had never seen him so angry. He unbuckled his belt. Kat rubbed her hands against her thighs in readiness. She had often felt his belt on her hands. He said it was the way children were punished when he went to school. Today’s children had become bad without discipline. “My boy could have drowned because of your carelessness, you useless, useless, girl.” Thwack the leather went round her legs. “You’re not supposed to take them that far.” Thwack, across her bum. “Feeding and clothing another man’s child is bad enough without it being a useless girl.” He swung the belt wildly, hitting arms, ribs, thighs. Why didn’t her mother stop him? Where was she? “Crying for your mother won’t do any good. I’ve told her you’re to be punished. She knows who’s the boss round here.”

  Kat stayed crying in the woodshed for a long time. Her mother didn’t come and comfort her. Her mother didn’t call her in for tea. Kat sought comfort from the box of treasures she kept hidden in the woodshed, safe from the wrecking fingers of small boys. She usually felt happy fingering the rough edges of a piece of greenstone she had found herself. She liked to think it was worth a lot of money and one day would make her rich. Today it felt like any old stone. She fumbled through felt-pens, notebook, and chalk. Nothing offered solace, not the embroidered handkerchief, small mirror and makeup oddments her mother had given her, nor the real-bone knucklebones, hand-crafted yoyo, wooden spinning top or any of the other bits and pieces given to her by members of the commune. She scrabbled around until her fingers closed on a small velvet bag. Out of the bag slid a set of rosary beads, a gift from her grandmother. She looked at the sad figure on the crucifix.

  “They beat you too when you hadn’t been bad. Your mother couldn’t stop them. But you are magic, you came alive again and you help people. Please, dear Jesus, help me. Tell me what I should do?” She held the first bead and tried to think what the words were you were supposed to say. Something about hailstones and Mary’s fruit? She couldn’t remember. So she just felt each bead in turn. They had a nice feel, a holy, magic feel. Was she imagining it? The crucifix was shining, glowing. It seemed as if the tiny Jesus was talking to her. “Katrina.” He knew her name! “I love you,” he said. As Kat continued caressing the beads she thought of her grandma. Her grandma knew the proper words to say. Her grandma loved her. An idea took root. Run away, go to Grandma’s. Kat kissed the little Jesus man, put him and his beads back in the velvet bag, and slipped them into her pocket. She looked sadly at her other treasures and added the greenstone and the handkerchief to her pocket. “Your mother will worry,” the voice came again, “leave a note.” Kat tore a page out of her notebook, wrote I HAVE GONE TO GRANDMAS in red felt pen. She put it in the nail-box and left it on the chopping block. A couple of hours later a sore and hungry grandchild arrived at a little wooden house in the heart of Ross. Kat never returned to the house-bus.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  6 — Ruth

  Tuesday, 10 March

  “Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land … So begins of the Book of Ruth.”

  Kat slides in beside Jen. “Got held up,” she mutters.

  “In ancient Hebrew literature, ‘There was a famine in the land’ equates to our ‘Once upon a time’ — a phrase that indicates a story will follow. ‘There was a famine in the land’ was a way of moving a character from where they were to somewhere else, the humdrum of ordinary life being no basis for a good story. ‘There was a famine in the land’ catches attention. The situation requires resolution, and thus a plot is born.”

  Jen wants to think on this but can’t because Kat is whispering again. “Excellent Parts has a prime seat today.”

  Jen notes Darlene scribbling notes in the centre of the front row, and wonders if today’s blue t-shirt bears a logo. She also wonders just how excellent the girl’s parts are. It is so effortlessly easy for the young.

  “This is a story of three strong women making decisions for themselves. Sixty-five percent of the Book of Ruth is dialogue. With speech being, as it is, in the present tense, the action is pulled into the now. This increases the liveliness of the characters. In a time when women who could not claim a father or husband disappeared, here is a remarkable story of strong women, decision makers, women taking charge of their own destiny. It is likely that this story was originally told to women by women. It is the one Bible book in Scripture that may have been developed by women.” Sarai moves to the whiteboard, marker poised. “What are the ways this story can be read?”

  “A love story,” ventures Ms Serious.

  “Why?” asks Sarai.

  “Verses from Ruth are often read at weddings.” Philippa Tombs�
�� father is a member of the University Council. Philippa takes her studies seriously.

  “As history,” volunteers the guy who isn’t Steve. “It is set in a defined time, when the Judges ruled the land.”

  “Loyalty and generosity,” pipes up Darlene. “Ruth was loyal. Boaz was generous.”

  Sarai’s direct gaze bores into the Maori student. “Miss Tainui?”

  “Survival — marginalised women struggling against the odds.”

  “Quite so. Any other suggestions?”

  The class remains still. Sarai returns to the lectern.

  “Ruth is an exceptional book in many ways and not least in that it is the only book in the Old Testament without a word of condemnation for anyone. Beginning with a famine the text moves from the barrenness of Moab, its barren land and its barren women, to the renewed fertility of Bethlehem, a good harvest, marriage, and the fertility of a son. The first intended audience would have been shocked to hear of a Hebrew couple moving from Bethlehem to Moab, and worse, allowing their sons to marry Moabite women. The tribe of Moab originated from incest.

  “Naomi is widowed — and justly so, in the minds of the listeners. With few options, like the prodigal, she decides to return home. Her daughters-in-law start to go with her but she reminds them they have mothers of their own and the possibility of remarriage. The women weep, kiss and cling. Orpah obeys Naomi’s wish and returns to her mother’s house. Ruth utters a speech of undying loyalty, to which Naomi has no response.” Sarai considers the faces before her. “The text implies they walked on in silence. What possible reason could there be?”