Sarah: A Novel Read online

  Without realizing it, she had sat up to get a better look at him. It was hard to see him clearly in the shade of the canopies. He was advancing slowly behind an older man, presumably his father. At first sight, he looked quite tall and moved with a self-confident gait.

  She opened her mouth, but felt suddenly as though her body had forgotten to breathe. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, and her hands were shaking. She hid them in the folds of her toga.

  The bridegroom’s father seemed to be taking pleasure in advancing with exasperating slowness. All the guests, both men and women, were saluting them respectfully as they passed. Sarai thought she heard a murmur of approval, but perhaps it was only the blood humming in her ears.

  And yet, as the two men approached, a joyful smile spread over her face. She could see him better now. He had a strong neck and broad shoulders on a slender body. His hair was thick and curly and gathered in a bun held in place by a silver clasp. He already had a beard; quite a bushy one, too. He was a man. The way he swung his arms, the confident way he moved: yes, a man. Not a child, not even a boy like Kiddin.

  Sarai heard the barely contained praises of her aunts as father and son presented themselves before the basin of scent. With measured gestures, the two men sprinkled their faces.

  She could see him quite clearly now. Straight eyebrows, a thin, hooked nose, mouth as distinct as a line between the curls of his beard, long lashes that almost veiled his eyes, calves and feet clearly visible below his linen toga with its threads of red and blue, solid ankles elegantly gripped by the leather straps of his sandals: Everything about him was noble. He was everything a man was supposed to be in the land of Sumer and Akkad.

  A hand gripped Sarai’s elbow, gripped it like a claw. She jumped, half turned, and received Egime’s drunken breath in her face.

  “There he is, your husband!” Egime whispered passionately. “Take a good look at him, child. And salute him as he deserves. He’s a king. I tell you that. All of us would beg him to lie with us!”

  Sarai really wanted to smile. She wanted her heart to beat with impatience, joy, and pleasure, not with fear. It did indeed seem that her father had found the noblest, strongest, handsomest of men for his beloved daughter!

  Ichbi Sum-Usur was now greeting the two men, and Kiddin was already making a fuss of his future brother. It was clear from the way he was smiling, laughing, bending his head, and exchanging his shawl with him how much he admired the newcomer, how much he wanted to please him.

  Yes, Kiddin wouldn’t have hesitated to marry the man!

  As Sarai watched him, doubt twisted in her stomach like a snake.

  She had been so busy staring at the man who was to be the master of her days and nights that she had not thought about the ritual platter that the bridegroom was supposed to offer the bride’s family. But now, four slaves were carrying it up onto the dais. There were shouts and applause. The guests were no longer holding back their admiration.

  The platter was the size of a man’s torso. It was made of precious wood from Zagros and covered in leather, bronze, and silver. In the middle, carved from the same piece of wood, stood a bull with golden horns, a silver muffle, and lapis lazuli eyes, a chest inlaid with ivory and ebony, and a huge, erect bronze penis.

  The cries of acclaim continued. Kiddin’s eyes gleamed with excitement.

  Sarai shuddered.

  Ichbi Sum-Usur stepped forward, said something out loud that Sarai did not understand, put his hand on the bull, and stroked its horns.

  Laughter swept through the courtyard. Sarai realized that her bridegroom was laughing, too. His mouth was open, revealing his white teeth. In a flash, she saw his face in her chamber, in her bed. Laughing like that, his mouth wide open above her. As if about to bite or tear.

  At that moment, the groom grasped the bull’s bronze penis with one hand. With the other, he dismissed his slaves with a peremptory gesture. As one of them appeared not to understand, he kicked him in the thigh and sent him tumbling head over heels off the dais, to further gales of laughter. With one arm, barely swaying under the weight of the platter, he brandished his offering above his head. The women let out shrill cries, and the men rose from their seats to cheer him.

  Egime, who had not let go of Sarai’s arm, yelped and squeezed it so tightly that Sarai in her turn cried out. From the chorus of singers a new chant arose.

  Then, in the midst of the din, he turned toward her and for the first time looked at her.

  She saw his eyes move all over her, then return to her face.

  She saw his expression.

  She saw what he discovered and what he thought.

  A thin, graceless child. A girl without breasts or hips, with shaking hands, the bones of her wrists protruding. A little child with a ridiculous face under a layer of kaolin cracked like the soil at the end of summer. Not a woman with high cheekbones, full lips, and gentle eyes.

  She saw it in his eyes and the tension of his mouth as he relaxed his exertions and let the nuptial platter fall back into the hands of the slaves. And what she saw was not even disappointment. It was contempt. It was the expression of a man disgusted at the thought of the effort he would have to make even to look again at the woman who was going to be his wife.

  THE following day, two hours after daybreak, even more guests streamed into the courtyard. Even though the servants had removed the seats, there was still not enough room for everybody, and some were waiting patiently in the lane in front of the house. The chants, the flutes, and the drums were almost smothered by the din of voices.

  At noon, the statues of Ichbi Sum-Usur’s ancestors were carried onto the dais and placed beside those of the bridegroom’s family. The nuptial platter was placed before them, and the bull disappeared under a mountain of flower petals and jewels and offerings of finely woven cloth. Silence fell when the two fathers, after throwing cedarwood shavings into the terra-cotta hearths, addressed their gods and their beloved ancestors in singsong voices.

  Some twenty slaves lifted a large bronze basin onto the dais, and young girls in white togas emptied into it jars of cedar and amber ointment diluted with the water of the Euphrates.

  Then the slaves unfolded a cane-and-wicker screen from one wall to the other, hiding the basin and the ancestors from the guests in the courtyard. Sarai was led by Egime to the end of the dais reserved for the women.

  She was wearing her nuptial toga, fringed with silver tassels and held in at the waist by a woven scarlet belt. Both her shoulders were bare. The area around her eyes was covered, from the brows to the cheekbones, with a thick layer of kohl, out of which her eyes shone like those of an animal surprised in the dark. Her lips had been smeared with a paste that made them seem fuller. Despite this, her aunts noticed how pale her cheeks were, as pale as if Sililli had not removed all the kaolin from the day before.

  Opposite her, on the other side of the dais, stood the groom and his father, surrounded by her father, Kiddin, and her uncles. They were all staring at her, but not only did the smoke from the herbs and the cedarwood blur their faces, Sarai was also doing her best not to look at the man who would soon share her bed.

  From the crowd of unseen guests on the other side of the screen came the sound of flutes. Sweet, tremulous music that wrapped itself tenderly around Sarai’s heart, rose through her chest, and calmed her like a caress. All the thoughts that had made her body feel so tight since morning vanished. The muscles of her shoulders and her stomach relaxed. She felt calm, sure of herself. Ready to do what had to be done.

  And now, it all began. And to her, it all seemed to happen at the same time.

  Behind the screen, the singers joined in with the flutes.

  When for the wild bull I have bathed,

  When with amber I have anointed my mouth . . .

  Ichbi Sum-Usur crossed the dais, the smoke from the cedarwood shavings swirling around him.

  When I have painted my eyes with kohl . . .

  With a jolt, Egime pushed Sa
rai toward her father, who led her into the heart of the smoke, facing the ancestors, and thanked them, congratulated them, while the singers, now accompanied by the voices of all the guests, took up the nuptial chant:

  When I have adorned myself for him,

  When my loins have been molded by his hands . . .

  Ichbi Sum-Usur seized the cords of her bridal belt and untied them. Then he pulled on the toga and slid it off her body until she was naked.

  When with milk and cream he has smoothed my thighs . . .

  His hand on the small of her back, he pushed her into the basin where the ointments had been poured. A slave girl handed him a wooden bowl, which he filled with scented water from the basin. He raised his hand high above Sarai, then poured the water over her chest. She bent her knees a little as the cold water ran over her belly and down as far as her thighs.

  The chant was becoming more and more fervent. She knew without seeing him that he was there, behind her. Him, the bridegroom. She saw her father pass the wooden bowl to him, and she thought her heart would burst.

  In his turn, the groom bent to fill the bowl, and his naked shoulder brushed against Sarai’s hip. She could smell the strong odor of the myrtle oil on his hair. The fingers that were going to touch her were reflected in the scented water.

  She leaped out of the basin. Dripping with water, she picked up her tunic from the ground and ran to the end of the dais where the women were. Egime was the only one to stand in her way. Sarai pushed her aside roughly. She heard cries, the noise of something falling. She ran through one room, then another. The chanting had stopped. She saw the astonished face of a handmaid. She kept running until she reached the garden. She knew which way to go: across the canals and basins. She could jump from one to the other, until she got to the streets of the city outside the walls of the palace.

  SHE went straight on, without any other aim than to get as far away as she could. The streets between the high brick walls were narrow and dark, sometimes just wide enough to let two or three people pass side by side, or an ass carrying a saddlepack. Under the astounded eyes of the passersby, she weaved quickly between the sacks and baskets of the street vendors.

  She was out of breath by the time she at last reached the great canal that ran alongside the outer wall of the royal city of Ur. Through a thousand branches, it distributed the water of the Euphrates to the temples, the royal palaces, and the dwellings of the lords. Flowing eventually into the river at the western and southern harbors, it encircled the noble city, making it an island, separating it and purifying it of the stains of the lower city, where the common people lived.

  Standing in the shade of a wall, Sarai looked at the crowd to see if among them were any servants or slaves her father might have sent out to find her. But there were none. They must have been taken so much by surprise that she was already a long way away before they set off in pursuit of her.

  Now she must get to one of the gates as quickly as possible. But she hesitated. Would the gods allow her to get through the outer wall?

  What a sight she must be! Her tasseled toga, thrown on in haste, was now in complete disarray; her eyes were still black with kohl, and the diadem of her hair had collapsed as she ran. She was sure the guards, who kept a close watch on everyone entering and leaving the noble city, would be just as surprised as the people she had passed so far.

  For a moment, she thought: What if I returned home? Sililli could help me slip into my chamber. She must be worried sick and crying her eyes out. She’ll be only too pleased to see me. Obviously there couldn’t be a wedding now. She was sure the noble bridegroom her father had chosen for her, humiliated and insulted by her escape, had already left. The house must be echoing to Ichbi Sum-Usur’s rage.

  No, she couldn’t go back. It was over. Ever since she had seen that man, her bridegroom, on the dais, her mind had been made up. Never again would she see Sililli, her sisters, her father, or even Kiddin, whom she would hardly miss. She had made her gesture in front of everyone, and now she was a girl without a family. All that mattered now was to get away from the soldiers, whose task, as evening fell, was to clear the streets of the noble city and make sure that everyone went home. She would find shelter for the night outside the walls. This wasn’t the moment to feel sorry for herself. On the contrary, she had to harden her heart and show how brave she was. Tomorrow she would have plenty of time to think, to think long and hard.

  Walking as naturally as she could, she retraced her steps and plunged into the red shade of an almost deserted alley. While she was running, she had noticed a dead-end street, almost blocked by a half-crumbled wall. Sarai found it now and edged her way in.

  Hidden from prying eyes, she undid her hair, then took out the horn needles around which Sililli had rolled her locks. It would have been preferable to untie the braids, but there was no time for that now, so she simply pushed them onto the back of her neck. With the bottom of her toga, she wiped the makeup off her lips and eyes. Then she undressed, tearing the hems of her tunic to take off the bridal tassels that still hung from it. Aware that she was doing something she could not reverse, she threw them away among the bricks.

  Sarai quickly turned the tunic inside out so that the coarser part of the material was on the outside, then wrapped herself in it and covered her head. She hoped the guards would think she was just a handmaid, noble, but not noble enough to attract their attention. With a newfound confidence, and even a touch of excitement, she climbed back out through the wall, walked back to the canal, and reached the north gate.

  But a moment later, that newfound confidence wavered.

  The outer wall of Ur, more than a thousand years old, was as thick as fifty men and as high as a hundred. In all the kingdom of Shu-Sin, son of Shlugi, only Nippur had such formidable ramparts. There were gates at the four cardinal points, gates reinforced with bronze, so heavy they needed fifty men with oxen to move them. Now that Sarai was quite near, she could see the guards walking up and down, keeping a watchful eye on everyone entering or leaving. They wore helmets and leather-lined capes and carried lances.

  But the gods decided to make things easier for her. A noisy procession approached, on its way back to the lower city from one of the great temples, the temple of Sin or of Ea. There were musicians at the head of the procession, followed by men bearing flower-bedecked litters on which statuettes of their ancestors sat enthroned, and young priestesses, dressed in the simple toga of the lesser temples, without belts and without jewelry in their hair, carrying perfume burners from which arose the acid smoke of reeds and bidurhu gum. Bringing up the rear, a crowd of people pushed and shoved. Sarai slipped easily into the crowd, unobserved except by a young girl her own age, who looked somewhat surprised to see Sarai fall into step beside her.

  The procession crossed the wooden bridge over the canal. The guards were at their places on either side of the gate. Sarai held her breath as she plunged into the cool darkness. It was so thick, they seemed to be walking through a tunnel. Nobody shouted, nobody called out after her.

  There were gardens on the other side, and an old wall with zigzagging steps cut into it. Suddenly, the vast lower city came into view. Hundreds of tangled streets stretched for dozens of ùs into the distance. The whole bend in the river was covered with roofs.

  Once outside the walls of the royal city, the procession was less orderly. Young boys left the line, squabbling among themselves. On either side, bystanders song, danced, and clapped their hands in time to the music. Some gathered around the litters and flung petals and bowls of perfume or beer at the statuettes. Shouts and laughter drowned the chanting. Sarai took advantage of the confusion to turn into the first street she came to.

  SHE kept on walking, recognizing nothing around her. The houses here were nothing but overlapping cubes, with single-leaf wooden doors or sometimes just curtains over the entrance, and walls covered with white cob.

  There were many people on the streets, common people wearing tunics or loincloths, wit
h wicker sandals on their feet, their calves gray with dust. They chatted, laughed, called to one another. Some carried baskets or sacks, goaded asses, pushed carts loaded with rushes or watermelons. A few people, both women and men, looked at Sarai in surprise, but with no real curiosity. For her, everything was strange and astonishing.

  In the whole of her young life, she had left the royal city a mere half dozen times, crossing the river in a boat with her father, heading west to the great temples of Eridu. But the lower city, the northern city, was somewhere the lords never went. They felt nothing but contempt and distrust toward it. The handmaids told stories about how at night the streets swarmed with black-skinned demons, animals with more than one body, fierce jaws, and claws, and other horrors straight out of the caves of the underworld.

  The men and women of the lower city were the subjects of the Lords of Ur, but never saw their faces. Whenever Ichbi Sum-Usur needed craftsmen or merchants from among them, he would ask his scribes, his foremen or his regents to find them.

  Sarai just had to look around her to realize that she would find neither help nor shelter. Who would welcome a girl from the royal city, a runaway, moreover, without fearing the wrath of the lords? It wouldn’t stay secret for long, because there were no secrets in the lower city. People spent as much time on the streets as they did inside their own homes. The doors of the houses were usually left open, and the inner courtyards could be seen by anyone passing by. The streets and alleys were cluttered with children, geese, dogs, and even pigs, and strewn with refuse. But nobody seemed to mind. They all went about their business, their mouths wide open, bustling unconcerned about the stalls where everything was bought and sold: food, rope, fabrics, sacks of grain, even asses. All around was the smell of rotting vegetables, of meat and fish exposed to the heat, mingled with the stench of excrement—the excrement of asses and children—not yet absorbed by the dusty ground. A stench so suffocating that Sarai had to hold her veil over her mouth to breathe. She was the only one doing so, but everyone was too busy to pay her any attention.