Sarah Read online

  For the first time, Sarai heard a proud, combative tone in his voice, which he immediately tempered by admitting that he could not read or write words in clay like the lords of Ur, who knew many things he didn’t.

  Suddenly he held out his hand to Sarai. “Come and see.”

  He walked away from the fire. Stiff all over, Sarai hurried after him, vaguely worried she would lose him in the darkness, even though the moon was quite bright.

  He came to a halt on the crest of the dune. Before them, as if suspended between the darkness of the earth and the sky swarming with stars, hundreds of torches glowed in the night, forming the outline of a tiara. It was the ziggurat, whose immense staircase and platforms were lit up every night. But she had only ever seen it like that from the roof of her house, and never from such a distance. Only here was it possible to understand how perfectly it was designed, and how its scale was not human but divine.

  “You can cross the river,” Abram said, “you can walk far out into the plains, two, three days of walking, and you can still see it.”

  He turned to her and seized her face in his hands, which were soft and burning hot. Sarai shuddered, thinking he was going to kiss her, wondering if she was going to surrender or resist the mar.Tu’s impertinence. But all he did was slowly tip her face up toward the stars.

  “Look at the fires of heaven. They’re more amazing than the ziggurat. See how many there are, how far away! Do you believe a god lives in each one of them?”

  How could she answer that? She said nothing, and placed her lips on Abram’s wrist.

  He gave a mocking laugh. “Do you really think the daughter of a lord of Ur can leave the city and her father’s house without being found and punished?”

  It was as if he had poured cold water over her body. Her happiness vanished at a stroke, to be replaced by tears and anger. She ran down the side of the dune and went and huddled on the sheepskin, making an effort to swallow her sobs. When he knelt behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders, she wanted to get up and slap him. But instead, she leaned against him, gripping his arms and hugging them with all her might against her chest. So it was that they collapsed side by side, her face buried in the sheepskin, and lay motionless.

  “Forgive me,” Abram whispered in her ear. “I didn’t mean any harm by what I said. I wouldn’t want anyone to hurt you. If tomorrow you still want to run away, I’ll help you.”

  She wanted to ask why he would do that, but not a word passed her lips. It was enough that he was close to her, that she could inhale his strange smell, feel the heat of his body and his breath on the back of her neck. That was all that mattered.

  They lay there, not moving. Her tears ceased, but something else, something disturbing, took their place. Abram’s palms were pressed against her breasts. They suddenly seemed very hot to her, and so did the tips of her breasts. Against her buttocks, she could feel Abram’s penis swelling. There was a quivering in her belly that had nothing to do with fear or anger. She remembered the man who had almost become her husband grasping the penis of the sculpted bull on the nuptial platter. This was still her wedding day. Her wedding night. She wanted to reach out her hand and touch Abram’s penis. To turn to him and place her lips on his beautiful mouth.

  At that moment, Abram loosened his embrace and moved away from her, saying that they had to sleep. That she was going to need all her energy for tomorrow.

  He picked up the second skin to cover them, lay down flat on his back, and offered his outstretched arm as a pillow. She laid her head on it.

  “You smell good,” he whispered. “I’ve never smelled such a good scent on a girl before. I know I’ll always remember your smell. Your face, too—I’ll always remember your face.”

  It was as if these words took away the heat of her desire. A moment later, exhaustion overcame Sarai, and she fell asleep without knowing if she had really kissed Abram or if she had dreamed it.

  When she awoke, she was alone among the sheepskins, surrounded by soldiers with javelins and shields in their hands. Their leader kneeled before her and asked her if she was the daughter of Ichbi Sum-Usur, Lord of Ur.

  The Herb of Infertility

  Ichbi Sum-Usur’s anger lasted four moons. During all that time, nobody was allowed to speak Sarai’s name, to meet her gaze, to eat, laugh, or scent themselves in her company. She herself was not allowed to braid her hair, walk about without a veil over her head, paint her face with kohl and amber, or wear jewelry.

  Sililli, who was still her handmaid, had to observe all these prohibitions to the letter, and was also given orders to watch Sarai night and day.

  “If that girl leaves this house again without my permission,” Ichbi Sum-Usur told her, “you will die. I’ll hang you by the feet, open your belly, and put scorpions inside.”

  Sarai found there was a good side to these punishments. They meant she did not have to bear her aunts’ pitying or furious looks, or the innuendo-laden chatter of her sisters or the handmaids.

  What she did have to bear for a whole week was Sililli’s constant whining and sniffling, morning, noon, and night, her tearful prayers to almighty Inanna for forgiveness.

  Sarai also had to attend a sacrifice of seven ewes, watched by her ancestors and all the members of the family. She had to perform a thousand ablutions in the temple, washing and purifying herself over and over again.

  Sililli and Egime plied her endlessly with questions. They wanted to know what she had done during her flight, what demons had assailed her during her solitary night on the riverbank. After all, it must have been demons who had urged her to leave the nuptial bath as her bridegroom was about to anoint her with scents.

  Sarai replied calmly, as many times as they wanted to hear it, that no demon had ever approached her, either here in the house, or there by the river.

  “I was lost and alone.”

  She said nothing about Abram.

  Neither Sililli nor Egime believed a word of what she said. Sarai did not have to meet their gaze to realize that. Their sighs and grimaces were eloquent enough. Egime next decided to check her niece’s virginity. Cold with anger, Sarai lay down on her bed and parted her legs.

  While her aunt screwed up her furrowed face to examine the evidence, Sarai thought about the desire she had felt for Abram during their night on the riverbank. She thought about his palms cupping her breasts and his penis growing hard against the small of her back. At such a humiliating moment, the thought was like a soothing caress. In the most secret parts of her heart and mind, she thanked Abram for having been wise enough to resist her innocence.

  When they were done, she faced the two women, forcing them to lower their eyes. “From now on,” she said, in an icy tone fully the equal of her father’s, “I shan’t answer any more of your questions. Nobody’s allowed to speak Sarai’s name in this house. Well, Sarai won’t open her mouth either to gratify your stupidity.”

  But the two women’s suspicions were not allayed. To safeguard what could still be safeguarded, they hung a large number of amulets on the door of Sarai’s bedchamber, on the wooden parts of her bed, and even around her neck.

  And the days passed.

  Sililli’s tears ceased. Everyone learned to live with Sarai as if she were only half there. They sometimes even told jokes in her presence, and pretended not to see her smile.

  Sarai herself grew quite used to this life, because it allowed her to be alone with her thoughts. In her mind, she summoned Abram to her side. As in a waking dream, she could hear his voice and smell his mar.Tu smell. Often at night, before she drifted into sleep, she would sing silently to him, to Abram, the words she would never have agreed to sing to the man who had wanted to become her husband.

  She had matured enough in the past few weeks, though, not to have any illusions about these imagined joys. With every day that passed, she became more aware of how quite extraordinary and ephemeral her encounter with the young mar.Tu had been. A few questions still remained: Why wasn’t Abram bes
ide her when the soldiers had woken her? Had he been bidding her farewell without her realizing it when he told her he would always remember her face? Was he still thinking about her, or did he think it was better to forget this girl from the royal city, a girl he should never have met? A girl from whom he could expect nothing, for never, as far back as any inhabitant of Ur could remember, had an Amorite barbarian dared to lay his hand on the daughter of a lord of Ur, unless it was to rape her?

  Sometimes, after night fell, she would escape Sililli’s vigilance, walk to the upper part of the garden, and stand for a long time looking at the torches illuminating the ziggurat. Perhaps, she thought, at that very moment Abram was on the riverbank, lying among the reeds, a basket full of frogs and crayfish beside him, also looking at the fiery diadem of the staircase of heaven. Perhaps at that very moment he was thinking about her.

  One night, when a melancholy mist hung over Ur, heralding the rainy season, and Sarai had just returned from one of these walks, Sililli finally revealed to Sarai what was really troubling her.

  “You’ve told us there was no demon with you the night you spent alone by the river. But the guards who found you said you were sleeping on new sheepskins next to a big fire that had burned out. There were also traces of food. Not to mention something we ourselves noticed: When you ran away you were wearing a fine tunic, and when you came back you had a dress on, such a coarse dress I’m sure it was never woven in Ur. Even a slave girl in this house would have refused it!”

  It was not exactly an interrogation, but it was clear that it grieved Sililli not to know the truth. Listening to her, Sarai realized that keeping her secret to herself grieved her, too. So, in a voice so low that Sililli had to take her in her arms and put her ear up against her mouth to hear, she told Sililli everything. She told her about Abram: his beauty, his kindness, his smooth brown skin, his smell. And his promise not to forget her face.

  By the time she had finished, Sililli’s cheeks were bathed in tears. The handmaid finally drew apart from her and shook her head. “A mar.Tu!” she whispered. “A mar.Tu! A mar.Tu! . . .”

  They said nothing more until Sililli clasped Sarai to her ample chest, clasped her so hard, it was as if she wanted her to disappear into it.

  “Forget him, forget him or he’ll bring you more misfortune than you can imagine! Forget him as if he were a demon, my Sarai!”

  They both realized immediately that Sililli had done something wrong: She had spoken Sarai’s name. They laughed through their tears.

  “My Sarai!” Sililli repeated, carried away with emotion. “Your father vowed to have me eaten by scorpions if I disobeyed him. But I love you, and I know you need me to help you forget this mar.Tu. Promise me we’ll never talk about him again.”

  ONE morning, when Lady Moon was still visible, full and round, in the dawn sky, the blood once again flowed between Sarai’s thighs. For the second time, she entered the chamber of blood. Egime was there, making sure that the aunts and the handmaids observed Ichbi Sum-Usur’s wishes to the letter. For seven days, they took care not to share a bath with her, to keep their distance when she helped with the weaving, and only to address her indirectly.

  In addition, to impress on her the kind of punishments that awaited rebellious women, they told stories about the sad fates of those who had flouted the laws of the gods, as well as their fathers, and their husbands, of women who had profaned their duties as wives, either swallowing herbs of infertility in order not to bear children, or bearing children after giving a welcome between their thighs to men who should never have laid a hand on them, sometimes foreigners, or even demons. In truth, the madness of lustful women knew no bounds; it was like an icy, burning wind blowing straight from hell.

  “Yes,” Egime said, “we women can be our own worst enemies, if we’re not careful. The worst time of all is when we’re young and we can’t tell the difference between good dreams and bad dreams, the ones that make our hearts beat and our private parts go all wet and carry us off to Ereshkigal’s lair as surely as an Elamite soldier rapes and kills. Ea is great, for he has given us fathers and husbands to protect us from ourselves.”

  Sarai would listen in silence, giving nothing away.

  What Egime and the others did not know was that at night, when everyone was asleep in the thick darkness of the chamber of blood, Sarai did not dream. No, the thoughts that came to her, the images that floated in the darkness, were not cunning illusions but very real memories: She thought about Abram’s lips, the lips she had not had the courage to kiss.

  She thought about the kiss she had neither given nor received. Both of them had remained pure. Her father may have had good reason to be furious, but Sarai had in no way offended the gods, and they had no reason to be angry. She felt it.

  She felt it deep in her stomach as she made offerings to Nintu, Midwife of the World.

  She felt it deep in her chest as she prayed to almighty Inanna.

  Sometimes she thought there could well exist other punishments from the gods quite different than those imagined by the women of the house. This pain, for example, which tormented her more and more every day, this awareness that she had not felt the soft lips of the mar.Tu Abram on her own lips. A gentle, almost soothing pain, which had to be kept secret. Wasn’t that a punishment, too?

  When she emerged from the chamber of blood and they saw her wandering sadly and submissively through the house and the garden, everyone thought that the daughter of Ichbi Sum-Usur was on the road to repentance.

  The weeks passed. Twice more, Sarai went into the chamber of blood. Egime was less distant this time, and even though her young aunts still refused to meet her gaze, they had no hesitation in chatting with her as they used to, and even complimented her on how well she carded and spun wool.

  Having been patient for all these moons, Sililli could no longer conceal her joy. Sarai had not only changed, she had also obeyed her to the letter: Since that night she had confessed, she had never again spoken about the mar.Tu.

  “Your father is pleased with you,” Sililli said suddenly one day, when the rain was falling like a flood and everyone was indoors. “He’s been observing you for days. I can see from his face that he’s no longer angry. I’m sure he’ll soon forgive you.”

  Sarai nodded her head slightly to acknowledge that she had heard. But it was some time before she spoke.

  “Do you think my father is planning to find me another husband?” she asked, in a level voice.

  In the dim light of the rain-darkened day, Sililli’s smile was more luminous than a rainbow. “We all want what’s best for you!”

  THIS time, Sarai was much better prepared. She wore the kind of toga that was worn to visit the great temples, had an offering basket full of flowers, and wore her hair arranged in the style of a handmaid. She had left nothing to chance. Around her neck hung a little woven bag containing three shekels’ worth of brass and silver rings, in case she had to bribe the guards. She would do it if she had to. She felt as strong and determined as a soldier facing the raised lances of the enemy lines.

  She had left her bedchamber before dawn, while Sililli was still asleep, and waited in the garden until the light of day allowed her to cross the irrigation basins. Sure of the way, she headed for the outer wall. The streets were almost empty. It was no longer raining, but the city still smelled of damp dust and the brick walls were darker than usual. The guards had just opened the gates of the royal city, and the first carts laden with food were coming through the entrance.

  The soldiers watched her as she approached. She saw at once that they took her for what she had hoped they would: a handmaid from a good house in the lower city, returning from the temples after spending the night there and carrying a basket of sacred flowers. Their eyes still swollen from their long watch, they seemed quite happy to see a pretty girl so early in the morning and answered her smile with a friendly salute.

  Once in the lower city, Sarai walked quickly. She lost her way once or twice, but it
did not matter. All she had to do was walk to the river.

  When she arrived at the reedy lagoon, she had the impression it was at the same place where she had met Abram. It had the same wretched, half-ruined houses, the same patches of sandy ground, some fallow, some planted with melons and fragrant herbs. Nevertheless, she had to go upstream for ùs before she came in sight of the tents of the mar.Tu. The tents were low and round, barely higher than the reeds, which meant that the wind slid over their curved roofs. There were hundreds of them, made of thick brown or beige canvas, some as vast as real houses, others arranged lengthwise around enclosures of bulrushes containing the small livestock.

  At the sight of this huge encampment, already alive with half-naked children and women in long robes, Sarai halted, her heart pounding. If the gods disapproved of what she was doing, now was the time for their anger to strike her.

  She walking along the sandy path that led into the encampment. She had hardly reached the first tents when the women broke off from their work and the children from their games. Blushing with embarrassment, Sarai hoped to be greeted by smiles, but none came. The women gathered in silence in the middle of the path. The children approached her. Eyes bright with curiosity, they pressed around her, examining her hair, her belt, her basket—which she had quite forgotten to empty of its flowers. Was this the first time they had seen an inhabitant of the royal city?

  Mustering her courage, Sarai greeted them respectfully, in her most neutral tone, invoked the protection of almighty Ea on all of them, and asked the way to the tents of the clan of Terah, the idol maker who produced statues of ancestors.

  The women appeared not to understand. Sarai was afraid she had not pronounced the name of Abram’s father correctly. “Terah, Terah . . .” she repeated, trying to find the right intonations. The oldest of the women said a few words in the mar.Tu language. Two other women answered her, shaking their heads. The old woman looked at Sarai again, her pale gray eyes surprised but benevolent.