Deborah Rising

by Avraham Azrieli

  Vardit went to the window. “Come here. You must stand on one leg, look at the sky, and kiss her.”

  “Stand on one leg?” Deborah followed her to the window. “What is this? A Canaanite goddess?”

  “Womanhood Charm. She’s a collective mother that brings us good luck with our female challenges.”

  “She does,” said one of the other women while rocking a baby over her shoulder. “Everybody knows it.”

  Other women voiced their agreement.

  Deborah handed the figurine back. “I don’t want it.”

  Vardit refused to take it. “What do you have to lose?”

  Deborah hesitated.

  “Lift your left foot off the floor.” Vardit checked that Deborah was doing it. “Good. Now look up at the sky and kiss her head.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “I’m like your mother now, and she would have made you do it, too.”

  Deborah brought the Womanhood Charm near her lips but hesitated to kiss it.

  “Do you prefer a lot of bleeding and bad pains in your abdomen? Three quick kisses while you look at the sky, or it doesn’t work as well.”

  Deborah complied.

  “Wonderful. Keep your foot up and count in your head to twelve—the ideal number of children you should bear.”

  In her head, Deborah repeated the number zero twelve times.

  “You’ll see how well it works.” Vardit took the Womanhood Charm back and slipped it into her pocket. “Let’s concentrate on what’s important—your betrothal to my son.”

  “Your son scares me,” Deborah said.

  “We’re all scared of our husbands sometimes.”

  “Really?”

  “Why would I lie to you?” Vardit sighed. “You’re a woman now, and the women in this house tell each other everything. How else could we serve our husband as good wives?”

  Deborah nodded, though serving Seesya as a good wife was far from her mind.

  “My Seesya was born good and sweet, but he was raised to cause fear. Before he even walked properly, his father taught him to fight with little swords and short spears, told him to attack, attack, attack, took him hunting, and made him slaughter animals. Whenever a slave needed whipping, my husband would bring Seesya along and make him take part, egging him on until the boy drew blood with the whip.” Vardit lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “I wasn’t happy about it, but my husband said that every ruler needs a powerful heir to scare the people and keep them in line—especially our people, the stiff-necked Hebrews, who are prone to questioning and complaining about everything, right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “One day, my son will become the next Judge Zifron, but his dominion will be ten times greater than my husband’s. He’ll rule over the Samariah Hills, from Shiloh in the north to Ramah and Bethel in the south—all the land of Ephraim!”

  Deborah saw the spark of ambition in Vardit’s eyes and looked away.

  “And you’ll be his lucky wife!” Vardit added.

  Deborah picked up the bowl and stirred the oats. “If I live that long.”

  “Of course you’ll live. I promise you that everything will be all right.”

  “But—”

  “I figured out why my son was not pleased with your sister. I should have thought about it before she went to him. It’s the hair, you see.”

  Deborah put the spoon back in the bowl. “The hair?”

  “The color.” Vardit rubbed her hands. “Orange hair is not natural.”

  “But it is natural.”

  “On carrots, not on a girl’s head.”

  “My mother had the same—”

  “I don’t mean that it’s not real. I know you were born with it, but still, it’s very ugly.”

  “Ugly?”

  “Like your head is on fire. It’s unsettling.”

  Suddenly self-conscious, the girl covered her head with the hood of her robe.

  “Don’t worry,” Vardit said. “It’s easy to fix. A cup of dye, and you’ll be like a normal Hebrew girl with beautiful black hair. I’ll also powder your face to hide those dreadful freckles.”

  Deborah touched her cheek.

  “And you’ll keep your eyes down. I think that also unnerved him about your sister.”

  “Her eyes?”

  “Green isn’t—”

  “Natural?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s in the past.” Vardit gestured as if she were throwing something over her shoulder. “Forget about what happened. It’s your wedding we must plan for. We’ll dye your hair and do your makeup before the ceremony next week. When Seesya sees you, the new look will surprise him, and surprise is the secret to pleasing a man.” She blushed, which made her look younger for a moment. “This is so exciting!”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course not. You’re too young to understand men. Trust me. With men, there are two ways it can go for a girl: either you excite your husband and please him, or you displease him and cease to be worthwhile.”

  “And my hair color—”

  “It’s the same as your sister’s, and we know that Seesya didn’t find her pleasing. You’re going to look completely different—as beautiful as any Hebrew girl of good Ephraim ancestry. There’s nothing like a dramatic change of appearance to entice a man, draw his interest, make his heart pound with excitement, and flood his body with passion.”

  Her face hot, the girl looked down.

  “I guarantee that Seesya will be pleased with you, not like your poor sister.”

  “Thank you,” Deborah managed to say. “I need to wash now.” In her haste to leave, she knocked over what was left of her bowl of oats.

  The courtyard was already busy with soldiers, slaves, and visitors who had come to bargain for Judge Zifron’s various goods, pay their taxes, or plead for his mercy—or for his harshness toward someone with whom they had quarreled. A few of them congregated around the firepit at the center of the courtyard.

  Deborah crossed the courtyard quickly and took the three steps up into the washroom, shutting the door behind her. Tears flowed down her cheeks. Vardit was right. None of the other Hebrew girls had orange hair and green eyes, not to mention pale skin with brown dots. Back at Palm Homestead, with their loving parents, the sisters had never realized how odd they looked. On the contrary, the resemblance to their mother was a source of pride and joy. Oh, how she missed her mother now! And her father! And Tamar! Why had Yahweh taken all three of them and left her alone in a house full of strangers and false gods?

  Despite her efforts to keep quiet, hard sobs burst out.

  After a few minutes, she calmed down. Someone else might want to use the washroom, and she was due at the basket factory soon. She wiped her face.

  The washroom was small, built against the outer wall of the side wing of the house. A round hole was cut in the wood planks of the floor, right above a waste pit. The floor was covered with a layer of straw. A barrel of water stood in one corner, and a bucket of lime powder in another corner. A small window in the wall above her head allowed odors to escape to the street outside the judge’s compound. She could hear vendors proclaiming their merchandise, women washing clothes and dishes at their front doors, and children squealing.

  After she relieved herself into the hole, Deborah stood over it and washed with cold water from the barrel, scrubbing the dried blood from her thighs until the skin turned raw. She checked her undergarments and the red robe but found no stains. The rag she had kept between her legs overnight was sullied with blood. She replaced it with a clean one.

  Fully dressed again, she scooped up a fistful of lime powder and tossed it through the hole into the waste pit. Before leaving, she made sure her father’s fire starters were still in her pocket.

  When Deborah exited the washroom, a group of soldiers were pulling their horses out of the stable and getting their equipment ready in the courtyard. She stood aside and watched. A moment later, Judge Zifron appeared, dre
ssed in his black coat with gold and silver embroidery. He held a leather tube that was customarily used to keep important scrolls. The people in the yard advanced toward him, some of them already pleading their case. The soldiers shoved everyone back.

  Seesya came out next, dressed in battle gear. A young slave in a sleeveless long shirt carried his spear, shield, and helmet. The judge handed Seesya the leather tube, whispered a few words in his ear, and went back inside.

  The soldiers mounted their horses and secured their spears and shields for the ride. Each horse carried a rolled-up straw mat and several waterskins. They were obviously planning to travel overnight.

  Seesya got on his horse and trotted up and down the line, inspecting the soldiers. When he was satisfied, he yelled, “Let’s go and collect some silver, boys!”

  Riding to the courtyard exit, Seesya noticed Deborah. He pointed at her with the tip of his spear and made a few rapid jabs in the air. The soldiers laughed as they followed him out to the street.

  She walked over to the firepit and dumped the soiled rag into the flames. Keeping her head down, she avoided people’s eyes. Her red robe was impossible to miss, and people lowered their voices when they saw her. She couldn’t hear the hushed words they were saying to each other, but she could guess: “There goes the orphan girl, the whore’s sister. Has she also whored with another man? Will she also be stoned to death at the Pit of Shame?”

  Their whispering became like a loud buzz in her head. Deborah pressed her hands to her ears and ran into the basket factory.

  Chapter 6

  When Deborah entered the basket factory, all conversations ceased, and everyone stared at her. After what felt like an eternity, the foreman, Sallan, pointed at the dipping tub, which was Deborah’s usual workstation. She hurried over.

  Everyone resumed working, but she felt their eyes on her back.

  The basket factory was adjacent to the women’s quarters, sharing a wall with a door that allowed the women to pass through directly and avoid having to go out to the courtyard and walk among the leering men. The proximity was also useful for nursing mothers, who could hear when their babies cried.

  The front of the factory, facing the courtyard, was lined with stone pillars. Straw mats hung between the pillars, which supported the ceiling and the second floor above their heads. More than sixty workers toiled in the factory. Judge Zifron’s wives, concubines, and unmarried daughters preferred to work here, as the labor involved was easier than at the flour mill. The rest of the workers were female slaves. Like male slaves, the women wore sleeveless long shirts made of coarse wool and no shoes or sandals, but they were allowed to grow their hair, which they covered with a scarf. The only men allowed in the basket factory were the foreman and his two boy-servants, who occasionally came down from the foreman’s private quarters upstairs.

  Sallan was an Edomite slave who claimed to have been a free man before Moabite marauders abducted him many years earlier and sold him into slavery. Now well over fifty years old, Sallan ruled the factory with an iron fist, and his light-blue eyes missed nothing.

  Unlike other slaves, he wore a fine coat with sleeves down to his wrists, and good leather boots that helped with his heavy limping. His hair was white with remnants of red, growing long over his ears. He had the ruddy complexion and stocky figure of a gluttonous eater. His arms were thick and coated with golden fuzz, but his cheeks were smooth from daily shaving. His hands were large and meaty, yet nimble, manipulating the straw strands with ease. Deborah had heard the women say that Judge Zifron treated Sallan well because profits from the basket factory had soared under his management, filling the judge’s coffers with silver coins.

  The factory was divided into sections. Along one wall were rolls of hay, brought in after the wheat had been thrashed and winnowed to separate the kernels from the stalks. The rolls were stacked high and arranged by freshness, with the older, drier lots in front.

  Deborah and five other girls unfurled rolls of hay and separated out single stalks of straw. They plucked any remaining whiskers, careful not to break the delicate stalks, and dipped each one in a tub filled with Reinforcing Liquid, which Sallan mixed once a week with his boy-servants. He did it at night, after everyone else had gone to sleep. No one, not even the judge himself, knew the secret formula for the Reinforcing Liquid, which Sallan kept in his head. According to him, it strengthened the straw stalks and in turn made the baskets produced at Judge Zifron’s factory stronger and sturdier than all other competitors.

  After dipping each stalk in the Reinforcing Liquid, Deborah and her fellow workers placed the stalks on one of several long tables in straight, parallel lines for braiding. Young slave girls, aged five to ten, sat at the tables shoulder to shoulder and braided three stalks each into a tight strand. Their small fingers were ideal for this work, which required dexterity and nimbleness. Besides, adult hands were too strong for working with the individual stalks, which were moist from the Reinforcing Liquid and thus prone to tearing. If torn, stalks were useless for anything but stuffing pillows and starting fires.

  The slave girls draped the braided strands over a grid of ropes for drying overnight. Once dry, the braids were strong, yet as thin and as flexible as a single strand and easy to use in weaving the baskets.

  The middle of the factory was taken up by three large, round tables where several dozen skilled women labored under Sallan’s close supervision. Deborah had watched them furtively for months while doing her own work. She longed to leave the mundane, repetitive task at the dipping tub and learn to weave the strands into baskets. It fascinated her to see how all beginnings looked the same, but each final product was different.

  Baskets were made for specific uses, each type distinct in shape, size, and strength. The most popular products were simple baskets that farmers bought for carrying lightweight produce, such as fruit and vegetables, some with curved bottoms that facilitated carrying on the head. Larger baskets with looped handles were made for stonemasons and builders to lug construction materials. Tall baskets with lids were popular for storing dates and wheat for extended periods of time. Some of these baskets had straps that allowed them to be hung from a tree or a ceiling out of reach for mice and moles.

  The weaving patterns were simple, aimed to keep costs down while maximizing utility and strength. There were no decorations or colors, except for the insertion of black-dyed strands into the weaving to form a short horizontal line over a longer vertical line, resembling a tent peg, which stood for zayin, the first Hebrew letter in the name Zifron. It was a unique decorative design that represented the exceptional strength and superior durability of the baskets produced by the ruler of Emanuel.

  In the corner of the factory was a structure of wood and ropes that Sallan had built and improved over the years to produce straw mats—a process more mechanical than basket weaving, which could be done only by hand. Operating the apparatus required more muscle than skill and was done by the strongest female slaves, whose exposed arms were as thick and as muscular as men’s arms.

  Deborah worked quickly, her hands doing the tasks in the right order by habit. She picked each stalk of straw, plucked off any whiskers carefully, dipped it in the Reinforcing Liquid, placed it flat on the long table in front of one of the braiding girls, and went back for another stalk. The monotony of the work calmed her down and freed her mind to enter a dreamy state, allowing her thoughts to wander back to happier days with her family at Palm Homestead.

  Work continued for as long as sunlight was available. Bread and milk were brought in at midday and consumed without interrupting the work. As darkness began to descend, Sallan clapped his hands to signal the end of the workday.

  Judge Zifron’s wives, concubines, and daughters went through the door into the women’s quarters, where they would soon prepare dinner and put the children down for the night. The slaves went out to the courtyard and then to the back of the compound, where they were locked up for the night in the slave quarters. Sallan, though
a slave, lived with his two boy-servants in rooms above the factory.

  None of the women had ever been upstairs, but they heard Judge Zifron complain often about the various luxuries that Sallan requested and received, including fine clothing and linen, various furnishings, a well-stocked kitchen with its own cooking stove, and even a private washroom.

  This day, as Deborah left her workstation, she wished she could ask Sallan about the Elixirist, but she didn’t dare look at him, let alone question him over a casual conversation he’d had with the blacksmith’s son.

  As she was walking to the door, her head down, she heard Sallan clear his throat. She looked up, and he curled his finger at her.

  His servants were coming down the staircase from the second floor. They were about her age, with light, smooth faces. Their reddish hair was a shade lighter than hers and cut very short. Sallan signaled them to wait. They stood on the stairs, watching quietly.

  “You’ll work here tomorrow, girl.” He pointed to one of the round tables in the middle of the factory.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re about to become the wife of my master’s son. It’s unwise for me to keep you doing a slave’s work.” Sallan collected a handful of strands, tied them together, and handed her the bundle. “Ask one of the women to teach you the basic weave.”

  She turned to leave.

  “Shame about your sister,” he said.

  Pausing, she unconsciously touched her hair.

  “The good lady Vardit asked me for a cup of black dye. She thinks it’ll save you.” He fluffed his long hair over his ears. “My master’s wife is foolish. In my country, kings and their offspring have hair the color of orange, like yours. It is a sign of strength and nobility, not something to hide with dye.”

  Deborah wanted to tell him that this wasn’t his country, but kept quiet.

  “What’s wrong? Lost your tongue?”

  She swallowed hard, trying to remember what Vardit had said. “If I’m more pleasing to Seesya, it will give me power over him.”