The Book of Longings(11)

“You have no say in the matter either,” Mother said, speaking to Yaltha’s back.

Both Father and Yaltha ignored her. “If it were left up to Ana,” he said, “she would never consent to a marriage with anyone.”

“He’s a widower; he has children already,” I said. “He’s repulsive to me. I would rather be a servant in his house than his wife. Please, Father, I beg you.”

Lavi, who’d been staring grimly into the basin of water, lifted his gaze, and I saw that his eyes swam with sorrow. Mother had an ally in Shipra—scheming Shipra—but I had Lavi. Father had bought him a year ago from a Roman legate who was glad to rid himself of a North African boy better suited to housework than military life. Lavi’s name meant lion, but I’d never heard the faintest roar in him, only a gentle need to please me. If I left to marry, he would lose his only friend.

Father assumed the air of a sovereign issuing a decree. “It is my duty to see that you marry well, Ana, and I will perform that duty with your consent or without it. It makes no difference. I would like your consent—things would go much smoother that way—but if you do not give it, it will not be difficult to convince a rabbi to preside over the betrothal contract without it.”

The finality in his tone and the hard set of his face abolished my last hope. I’d not known Father to be this cruel in the face of my pleas. He strode toward the study where he conducted business, pausing to look back at Mother. “Had you performed your duty better, she would be more compliant.”

I expected her to lash back, to remind him that he was the one who’d given in to my pleas for a tutor, who’d allowed me to make inks and purchase papyrus, who’d led me astray, and any other time she would have, but she restrained herself. Instead she turned her wrath on me.

Wrenching me by the arm, she summoned Shipra to grasp my other one and together they dragged me up the stairs.

Yaltha trailed us. “Hadar, release her!” A demand that did nothing but stir a mighty wind at Mother’s back.

I do not think my feet touched the floor as they whisked me along the balcony past the array of doors that opened to our various quarters—my parents’, then Judas’s, and finally my own. I was pushed inside.

Mother followed, instructing Shipra to remain outside and prevent Yaltha from entering. As the door banged shut, I heard my aunt shout a curse at Shipra in Greek. A beautiful one having to do with donkey dung.

I’d rarely seen Mother so lit with fury. She stomped about as she castigated me, flame-cheeked, puffing clouds from her nostrils. “You’ve disgraced me before your father, your aunt, and the servants. Your shame falls on me. You will remain confined here until you offer your consent to the betrothal.”

Beyond the door, Yaltha was now hurling slurs in Aramaic. “Bloated swine . . . putrid goat flesh . . . daughter of a jackal.”

“You shall never have my consent!” I spewed the words at Mother.

Her teeth sharpened in her mouth. “Do not mistake my meaning. As your father explained, he will make sure the contract is sanctioned by a rabbi without your permission—your wishes are irrelevant. But for my sake, you will at least appear to be a compliant daughter whether you are or not.”

As she started for the door, I felt the weight of her callousness, of being locked away in a future I didn’t know how to bear, and I struck out at her without thinking. “And what would Father say if he knew the lie you’ve been perpetuating all these years?”

She halted. “What lie?” But she knew what I referred to.

“I know you take herbs to keep you from becoming with child. I know about the linseed and resins.”

Mother said, “I see. And I suppose if I were to convince your father to abandon the betrothal, you would make sure this news did not reach his ears? Is that it?”

In all truth, such an ingenious thing had not occurred to me. I’d meant only to wound her as she’d wounded me. She’d come up with the threat herself and offered it to me as if on a platter, and I seized on it. I was fourteen, desperate. A betrothal to Nathaniel ben Hananiah was a form of death. It was life in a sepulchre. I would’ve done anything to be delivered.

“Yes,” I said, stunned by my fortune. “If you convince him, I’ll say nothing.”

She laughed. “Tell your father what you wish. It’s of no concern to me.”

“How can you say that?”

“Why should I care if you tell him what he already guesses?”

When Mother’s footsteps faded, I cracked the door to find her minion posted at the threshold, hunched on a low stool. There was no sign of Yaltha.

“Will you sleep here, too?” I asked Shipra, not disguising my anger.

She slammed the door shut.

Inside my room the silence became a searing aloneness. With a glance back at the door, I pulled my incantation bowl from beneath the bed and removed the cloth to expose the words of my prayer.

I heard wind scratching the sky, and the room dimmed as the clouds scattered. Sitting on the floor mat, I cradled the bowl against my belly for several moments, then turned it slowly, like stirring silt, and canted my prayer into the drab light. I sang it over and over until I was weary of begging God to return to me. The largeness in me (what a cruel jest that was!) would find no blessing, nor would my reed pens and inks. The words I wrote would not be read by unborn eyes. I would become the forgotten wife of a horrid little man lusting for a son.