Deborah Rising

by Avraham Azrieli

  “No,” Tamar cried. “No! No! No!”

  The girl tried to pull her hand away, but Seesya held on to it. “No more praying,” he said. “Keep your eyes open.”

  She stared at him, her eyes large and green.

  “Look there, little witch.” He pointed at the Pit of Shame. “Watch your sister.”

  Still, she looked only at him.

  Blowing air in frustration, he put his big hand on top of her head, clasped it, and made it turn so that the girl looked at Tamar. “Good,” he said. “Watch and learn!”

  With that, he threw the first stone at Tamar.

  His aim was slightly off, and the rock passed beside Tamar’s head, giving her a glancing blow.

  The crowd sighed with disappointment.

  “Seesya of Ephraim,” Tamar shouted. “Son of Zifron! I curse you!”

  Seesya ran back to the pile of stones.

  “No more,” the priest said. “One stone for each man.”

  The oldest among the elders, his hand shaking badly, tossed a stone, which missed completely.

  “I curse you!” Tamar’s screeching voice tore through the air. “I curse you, Seesya! May Yahweh condemn you to the same fate as I suffer today!”

  The second elder bent slowly to pick up a stone.

  Seesya grabbed one and gave it to him. “Throw it already!”

  “I curse you,” Tamar yelled. “I curse the house of your father!”

  This time, the stone hit the ground near the Pit of Shame and bounced, striking her left cheek. Tamar yelled in pain but didn’t stop. “I curse the house of Zifron, that a great fire will consume your sinful house and burn all your wealth to ashes!”

  The third elder threw a rock, which went too far.

  “I curse the town of Emanuel and all of you who watch this injustice and don’t—”

  “Enough!” Seesya picked up a stone and pitched it with all his power. It struck Tamar on the forehead, making a sound like the breaking of a clay jar.

  At the circle around the Pit of Shame, the girl with the orange hair wailed, her voice shrill with sorrow.

  The crowd didn’t cheer Seesya’s perfect strike, which snuffed out Tamar’s cursing but not the fear it generated, for the curse of a dying person was known to be far more potent than even that of a wizard or a witch. And Tamar was clearly either dead or dying.

  The snug walls of the Pit of Shame supported her body in the upright position, but her head slumped to one side. Her eyes had closed, and blood oozed from her forehead.

  The spectators began to boo. A few men yelled, “One stone! One stone!”

  “Go on!” Judge Zifron stomped the platform. “Continue!”

  Seesya picked up a stone and handed it to the next elder, who dutifully tossed it, missing the target.

  The stoning continued as required by the law. Each of the elders cast a stone, followed by the men of Emanuel—anyone thirteen or older. Many of them managed to hit Tamar’s head, which gradually turned into bloody pulp. The spectators had recovered from the shock of Tamar’s curses and cheered every successful strike.

  The maidens remained seated around the Pit of Shame and watched the stoning as the law required them to do. They were all crying, except for the girl with the orange hair. After her initial heart-piercing wail, she shut her eyes and pressed her hands, fingers interwoven under her chin while her lips moved with words of prayer, as her sister had asked.

  A pause in the stoning made the crowd protest.

  The girl turned to look.

  At the head of the line stood a boy of about fourteen, dark-skinned, stout, and muscular. His white cap was too small for his thick mane of black curls, and his adolescent goatee was short and sparse.

  “Keep going,” Judge Zifron called from the platform. “Cast the stone.”

  The boy had a stone in his hand, but he wouldn’t throw it. “She’s already dead.”

  The judge chuckled. “What’s your name, boy?”

  “I am Barac, son of Abinoam.” He glanced at his father, who stood behind him.

  “Abinoam the blacksmith,” Judge Zifron said. “Better get your son to follow the law, or my son will make him.”

  Seesya leaned on his spear nonchalantly.

  Abinoam pointed at the Pit of Shame. “Cast the stone, Son. You must.”

  The crowd taunted him. “Throw it! Throw it!”

  “She’s dead, Father.” Barac’s dark eyes found the green eyes of the girl with the orange hair, and they looked at each other for a long moment.

  “Throw it, Son.” Abinoam glanced around with an awkward smile. “You can’t hurt her anymore.”

  “It’s wrong, Father.”

  “It’s the law. You must.”

  “Coward,” someone shouted. “Stone the whore!”

  Tamar’s younger sister kept looking at Barac from the circle of maidens around the Pit of Shame.

  Seesya stepped forward and tapped Barac’s arm with the spear. “Do as you’re told, boy!”

  Barac pointed at Tamar’s bloody head, sticking out from the ground. “It’s a sin to desecrate the dead.”

  “A dead whore.” Seesya pointed his spear. “Cast the stone, or you’ll end up in the same place.”

  With a last glance at the girl with the orange hair, Barac dropped the stone back on the pile, which was half of what it had been when the stoning began. He turned and walked away.

  Seesya grimaced and tilted his arm back to hurl the spear at the boy’s back.

  “No!” Abinoam rushed forward and rammed Seesya, who stumbled and fell.

  The crowd groaned. No one had ever humiliated the eldest son of Judge Zifron and lived to talk about it.

  Seesya got up quickly, drew his sword, and rushed at Abinoam, who was already retreating, his hands held up in surrender. Barac turned and ran back to help his father. As Seesya raised his sword to strike Abinoam, Barac grabbed his arm and hung from it, causing him to miss. Seesya shouted in rage and used his free hand to punch the boy in the face, but Barac wouldn’t let go, and the sword dropped from Seesya’s hand.

  Abinoam pulled his son by the shirt and staggered backward as Seesya picked up his sword and lurched at his helpless prey, raising the sword for a deadly blow.

  “Don’t kill the blacksmith,” Judge Zifron yelled. “We need him.”

  Taking advantage of Seesya’s momentary hesitation, Abinoam and his son took flight.

  “We’ll punish them later,” the judge said. “Continue with the stoning.”

  Seesya sheathed his sword and returned to the pile of stones, where a line of men waited for their shot at Tamar. Her sister resumed praying while her eyes followed the fleeing blacksmith and his son until they were gone.

  Chapter 2

  As the sun descended to the western horizon, the soldiers pulled Tamar out of the Pit of Shame and carried her a short distance up the road to the Weeping Tree. They hung the corpse by the feet from a high branch where birds would pick at it until only dry bones remained.

  Judge Zifron and Seesya mounted their horses and rode through the gates into the town, followed by the judge’s younger sons, the priest, and the elders. Only then did the soldiers allow the crowd to leave. The people of Emanuel entered quickly before the gates were locked at sunset, whereas the rest of the people headed back to their villages and homesteads.

  The girl with the orange hair slipped away and ran. She avoided the main road and followed goat trails through the low hills and dry streams. The sun was gone, and the moon, which was nearly full, appeared over the horizon. Coyotes howled in the distance, and she watched the ground for snakes, but after her sister’s stoning, it was men she really feared.

  Nearly two hours later, a lone palm tree appeared, its summit outlined against the moonlit sky above a small house. She stopped at the edge of a field and knelt, peering into the night, panting hard. Her brown wool dress came down to her sandals, the sleeves all the way to her wrists, but she began to tremble. She stayed put, gazing intently, s
earching for any sign of life.

  The homestead was nestled in a valley, its fertile soil nourished by slow erosion from the gentle slopes. That soil was perfect, the girl knew, for growing wheat, barley, and flax. Up on the hillsides, the patches of arable soil supported apple, pear, pomegranate, and carob trees, while the rocky ledges sustained bountiful olive trees, their gnarled branches thick and ageless.

  Looking back at the house, the girl saw no glow from a fire in the stove, nor yellow flickering from an oil lamp. She sniffed the air but detected no smoke, only the mixed fragrances of the crops in the fields, the wildflowers behind the house, and the trees heavy with ripe fruit. These were the scents of her lost childhood.

  A sigh escaped her lips.

  The bushes nearby rustled, and a dry stick broke.

  She covered her mouth, paralyzed with fear.

  Two shadows appeared. One was shorter than the other, with curly hair that glistened in the moonlight. “Deborah? Is that you?”

  “Barac?”

  He hurried to her. “I knew you’d come here!”

  “I had to,” she said, her voice breaking.

  “I’m sorry about your sister.”

  She struggled not to weep, and he stepped forward, as if to hug her.

  “Watch it, Son.” Abinoam put his arm between them. “What’s this familiarity?”

  “Nothing, Father.” The boy stepped back, his face glowing in the dark. “We only talk on the street, that’s all.”

  “Keep your voice down.” Abinoam glanced around. “You’ve caused enough trouble already.”

  “Your son helped me a few times.” Deborah spoke softly, leaning close enough to notice the smoky smell of the blacksmith shop on their clothes. “With the haystacks, carrying them uphill to the basket factory—”

  “You’re not children anymore,” Abinoam admonished.

  She went to the doorway and peeked into the house. The main room had a brick stove in the center and enough floor space for people and livestock to spend the night. The thatched roof was mostly gone, letting in the moonlight.

  Probing the doorjamb with her hand, about two-thirds of the way up her fingers found the small depression in the wood. It was empty. The sacred mezuzah scroll was gone. Its absence wasn’t unexpected in an abandoned house, but she felt a pang of loss. Out of habit, she kissed the tips of her fingers before entering.

  Deborah sat down on the dirt floor near the stone stove. Her former home was now cold and lonesome.

  Abinoam put down the sack he’d been carrying. The clinking indicated it contained his tools.

  Barac walked around the large room, touching the broken table, the clay shards of bowls and jars, and what was left of a straw mattress in the corner. “What happened to your parents?”

  She couldn’t speak.

  “They were killed last summer,” Abinoam said. “Judge Zifron’s son and his soldiers were chasing after some bandits in the area and found her parents’ bodies in the field.”

  Kicking the soil with the toe of his sandal, Barac asked, “Who were the bandits?”

  “Canaanite marauders, most likely,” Abinoam said. “They were never caught.”

  Deborah cried softly.

  Abinoam crouched next to her. “Don’t cry, girl. You should be proud. Your father was a faithful man, God-fearing like his ancestors, who had received this good plot when the prophet Joshua divided the land between the tribes. He died defending it.”

  “Palm Homestead,” she said, sniffling. “That’s what Father called it.”

  “Why?” Barac asked, sitting down beside her. “There’s only one palm tree outside.”

  “It’s a special tree. I used to play with Tamar under it while our father finished his work in the fields and orchards.” She paused, remembering. “At sunset, we’d see the lamps light up inside and peek through the windows to watch our mother prepare dinner. And now they’re dead, and I’ll never see them again.” She broke down again, crying.

  “You can see her in your memories,” Barac said.

  Deborah looked at him.

  “My mother died when I was a baby,” he explained, “before I could know her and remember how she looked.”

  His father took a deep breath, exhaling loudly.

  “Your mother,” Barac continued. “What was her name?”

  “Raquellah.” Deborah wiped her face on the sleeve of her dress. The fabric was coarse like the skin on the palms of her mother’s hands. “She did everything—cleaning, cooking, helping Father in the fields—but she never got tired.”

  “They came to town once,” Abinoam remembered. “Picked up tools at my shop. Your mother was tall and beautiful, like a queen, with large green eyes.”

  “And long, wavy hair,” Deborah said. “She would let it loose when there were no strangers around.”

  “Was it orange,” Barac asked, “like yours?”

  His father looked at him but said nothing.

  “Yes,” she said. “Mother came from the Judah tribe. Her family died when Edomite raiders attacked their village, which was called Tamar. She somehow made it to Shiloh, and it happened to be the fifteenth day of the month of Av.”

  “Ah, the Tu B’Av festival,” Abinoam said. “It’s the only time Hebrew girls are allowed to dance in view of men, once a year, at the vineyards in Shiloh—the Dance of the Maidens.”

  “She joined in,” Deborah said. “My father saw her and chose her to be his wife. When my sister was born, Father named her for Mother’s lost birthplace, Tamar. I came a year later—on the fifteenth of Av, the second anniversary of their meeting.”

  “That’s a nice coincidence,” Barac said. “Did he name you Deborah for the honeybee?”

  “I also thought so, but one Sabbath, when I was about ten, Father sat with me under the palm tree.” She looked up through the broken roof at the canopy of the palm tree, visible in the moonlight. “He told me the real reason he had named me Deborah.”

  Barac and his father listened eagerly.

  “The night before I was born, Yahweh came to my father in his sleep and gave him two pieces of news—one bad, one good. The bad news was that this child—me—would be his last. Mother would bear him no more children.”

  “Poor man.” Abinoam shook his head. “No sons to inherit his land and continue his name.”

  “And the good news?” Barac asked.

  “Yahweh told him this: ‘Your child will deliver my message to the Hebrews.’ And in his sleep, my father saw a great crowd gathered around Palm Homestead, multitudes of Hebrew men and women on the surrounding slopes, watching me as I sat under the palm tree and delivered Yahweh’s message. That’s why he named me Deborah—a shortened combination of two words: Deeboor and Yahweh.”

  They nodded, impressed. The two Hebrew words stood for: Speech and God.

  “That’s why my father started calling the old palm tree Deborah’s Palm.”

  As if in acknowledgment, the palm tree rustled high above—not in a scary way, but softly, swaying with the breeze. She got up, ran outside, and threw her arms around the trunk of Deborah’s Palm, her cheek pressed against its rough texture. She wept for her father and mother, for the happy days that would never return, and for Tamar’s bloody corpse that would remain hanging by the roadside until her bones dried up and crumbled in the wind. And she cried for herself, knowing that from this day on she would always be alone in the world.

  When Deborah calmed down, her cheeks were wet, but her throat was dry. Motioning Barac and his father to follow her, she walked to the water cistern. Even at night, it was easy to find the round wall made of stone blocks, the top about as high as a man’s waist. The old bucket was gone, replaced by a wooden frame on top, with a handle fixed to a crossbar that had a rope attached in the middle. The rest of the rope was down in the deep hole.

  Abinoam patted the top of the circular wall and said reverently, “So this is the famous cistern of Palm Homestead!”

  “Who built it?” Barac asked.
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  “The Egyptians did, generations ago, long before they left Canaan. It’s the only remaining cistern in the Samariah Hills.”

  “It looks like a regular well.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” Abinoam said. “A well can go dry, because it’s just a vertical tunnel into an underground pond. A cistern is much more. There’s a huge reservoir under us, bigger than Judge Zifron’s house.” He stomped with his foot. “And it’s full of water.”

  Barac glanced inside the hole, which was deep and dark. “How did they build such a thing?”

  “With many slaves,” Abinoam said. “No one knows exactly how they did it, but I assume there was an existing spring or an underground stream here. They must have worked for a long time to dig the reservoir underground and plaster it to keep water from seeping into the belly of the earth.”

  Deborah turned the handle. The rope tightened as it looped around the crossbar, and sounds of splashing water echoed from below. The handle resisted her with growing force, but she kept turning it with both hands until a bucket came up. Barac helped her place the bucket on the top of the circular wall.

  Abinoam drank first, then Barac and Deborah. The water was cold and sweet, and she felt grateful. The above-ground streams in the Samariah Hills had been dry for many weeks, the narrow crevices resembling wrinkles on an old man’s face, yet the ancient cistern provided without hesitation, quenching her thirst as it had always done.

  Stepping away from the cistern, Deborah stumbled in the dark and almost fell. Peering at the ground, she saw a narrow canal. It was dug recently and stood out with the pale color of the exposed bedrock under the topsoil. She stood in the canal. It was as wide as her side-by-side sandals and about as deep as her ankles.

  “They’re not wasting any time.” Abinoam followed the canal for a dozen steps and pointed. In the moonlight, the pale canal meandered away. “It’s well built, nice and even. Soon they’ll be able to deliver water from the cistern to other fields, maybe even all the way to Emanuel.”

  “They?” Barac caught up with his father. “Who?”