I was afraid to look into his face. Perhaps he was leering. Perhaps he thought by making this absurd transaction—trading a pretty bauble for a masterwork—I then would owe him the use of my body. But when Meryt jabbed me in the ribs to answer, I saw only kindness on the carpenter’s face.
“Bring the box to the garden door at the house of Nakht-re, scribe to the priests of Amun-Re,” Meryt said. “Bring it tomorrow.” She handed over the scarab.
“Tomorrow in the morning,” he said. And we left.
“Now that was a good transaction, girl,” said Meryt. “And that scarab was a lucky piece to buy you a treasure box and a husband, too.”
I shook my head at my friend and smiled as though she were babbling, but I did not say no. I said nothing at all. I was embarrassed and thrilled. I felt an unfamiliar tightness between my legs and my cheeks were flushed.
And yet, I did not fully understand my own heart, for this was nothing like what I felt when I first saw Shalem. No hot wind blew through Benia and into me. This feeling was much cooler and calmer. Even so, my heart beat faster and I knew my eyes were brighter than they had been earlier in the day.
Benia and I had exchanged a few words and brushed against each other’s fingers. And yet, I felt connected to this stranger. I had no doubt that he felt the same.
All the way home, my step beat out the rhythm of my wonder—“How can this be? How can this be?”
As we approached Nakht-re’s house, Meryt broke an unaccustomed silence and laughed, saying, “I’ll deliver your babies yet. By my count, you are not yet thirty years in this world. I’ll see grand-babies through you, daughter of my heart,” and she kissed me goodbye.
But once I walked into the garden all thoughts of Benia were banished. The house was in an uproar. Re-mose was back!
He had arrived soon after I had left. The servants had been sent to search for me, and since I never left the grounds without informing Re-nefer first, she had grown alarmed and even sent word to her friend Ruddedit. When my mother-in-law saw me enter the yard carrying a half-eaten cake from the market, she grew angry and turned on her heel without speaking. It was the cook who told me to hurry and see my son, who had come home to recover.
“Recover?” I asked her, suddenly cold with fear. “Has he been ill?”
“Oh, no,” she said with a broad grin. “He comes home to heal from the circumcision and to celebrate his manhood in high style. I’ll be working from dawn till midnight all this week,” she said and pinched my cheek.
I heard nothing past the word “circumcision.” My head rang and my heart pounded as I rushed into the great hall where Re-mose was arrayed on a litter near Nakht-re’s chair. He looked up at me and smiled easily, without a trace of pain in his face, which was now a different face altogether.
It had been nearly five years since he left me, and the little boy was now a young man. His hair, no longer shaved, had grown in thick and black. His arms showed muscle, his legs were no longer silky smooth, and his chest bespoke his father’s beauty. “Ma,” said the young man who was my son. “Oh Ma, you look well. Even better than I remembered.”
He was merely being polite. He was a prince of Egypt addressing the serving woman who had given him birth. It was just as I feared: we were strangers, and our lives would never permit us to become more than that. He motioned for me to come and sit beside him, and Nakht-re smiled his approval.
I asked if he suffered, and he waved the question away. “I have no pain,” he said. “They give you wine laced with the juice of poppies before they draw the knife, and afterward too,” he said. “But that all happened a week ago, and I am quite recovered. Now it is time to celebrate, and I am home for the banquet.
“But how are you, Ma?” he said. “I am told you are a famous midwife now, that you are the only one the great ladies of Thebes will trust when called to childbed.”
“I serve as I can,” I said quietly and turned his question aside, for what can a woman tell a man about babies and blood? “But you, son, tell me what you learned. Tell me of your years in school and of the friendships and honors you earned, for your uncle says you were the best of your fellows.”
A cloud passed over Re-mose’s face, and I recognized the little boy who burst into tears when he found a dead baby duck in the garden. But my son did not speak of the taunts of his schoolmates, nor recount for me the mocking cries that followed him everywhere during the first year of his studies: “Where is your father? You have no father.”
Re-mose did not speak of his loneliness, which grew as he proved himself the best of his class and the teacher took note of him and made him the favorite. He spoke only of his teacher, Kar, whom he loved and obeyed in all things, and who doted upon him.
Unlike other masters, he never beat his students or berated them for their mistakes. “He is the most noble man I ever met, apart from Uncle,” said Re-mose, taking Nakht-re’s hand in his. “I am home to celebrate not only my coming of age, but the great gift Kar has given me.
“My teacher asks that I accompany him south to Rush, where the trade in ebony and ivory has been revived, and where the vizier was caught embezzling from the king. The king himself has asked Kar to go and oversee the installation of a new overseer, and to take stock and report upon what he finds there.
“I will go to assist my teacher, and watch when he sits as judge and the people bring their disputes before him.” Re-mose paused so I would hear the importance of his next words. “I am instructed to learn the duties of a vizier. After this journey, my training will be complete and I will receive my own commission, and begin to earn honor for my family. My uncle is pleased, Mother. Are you pleased as well?”
The question was sincere, echoing with the longing of a boy who asks his mother to pronounce upon his achievement. “I am pleased, my son. You are a fine man who will do honor to this house. I wish you happiness, a kind wife, and many children. I am proud of you, and proud to be your mother.”
That was all I could say. Just as he did not tell me of the pain he suffered at school, I did not speak of how much I missed him, or how empty my heart had been, or how he had taken the light from my life when he left. I looked into his eyes, and he returned my gaze fondly. He patted my hand and lifted it to his lips. My heart beat to the twin drums of happiness and loneliness.
Two nights later, I watched Re-mose from across the room at the feast given in his honor. He sat beside Nakht-re and ate like a boy who has not been fed for a week. He drank of the wine and his eyes glittered with excitement. I drank wine, too, and stared at my son, wondering at the life he would live, amazed that he was a man already, only a few years younger than his father had been when I saw him for the first time, in his father’s house.
Poised on the edge of manhood, Re-mose was half a head taller than Nakht-re, clear-eyed, and straight as a tree. Re-nefer and I sat side by side for the first time in years and admired the man-child who had given us both a reason to live. My hand brushed hers and she did not withdraw from my touch but held my fingers in hers, and for a moment at least we shared our love for our son, and through him for the unnamed son and husband of Shechem.
A pretty serving girl raised her eyes to him, and he flirted back. I laughed to think of the baby whose bottom I had washed now warming to a woman. My face ached from smiling, and yet my sighs were so loud that Re-nefer once turned to ask if I was in any pain.
It was the finest banquet I had ever seen, with much of noble Thebes in attendance. The flowers shone in the light of one hundred lamps. The air was thick with the smells of rich food, fresh lotus, incense, and perfume. Laughter, fed by six kinds of beer and three varieties of wine, pealed through the room, and the dancers leaped and twirled until they glistened with sweat and panted on the floor.
A second troupe of musicians had been hired to supplement the local performers. This company sailed the river, stopping at temples and noble houses to play, but unlike the others, they refused to play with dancers on the floor, insisting that a
udiences attend to their songs, said to have magical qualities. The mysterious leader was a veiled lady. Blind like many masters of the harp, she was mistress of the sistrum, the hand-held bell-drum.
According to the gossip, the singer had escaped the jaws of Anu-bis and won a second life, but he had bitten off her face, which is why she wore the veil. The tale was told with a wink and a nudge, for Egyptians knew how a juicy story could be used to drum up business. Still, when the veiled singer was led into the room, an expectant hush fell and the tipsy crowd sat up.
She was dressed in white, covered head to toe in a gauzy stuff that floated in layers to the floor. Re-nefer leaned toward me and whispered, “She looks like a puff of smoke.”
Settled on a stool, she freed her hands from her garments to take up the instrument, and the hush released a soft gasp, for her hands were as white as her robes, unearthly pale, as though scarred by a terrible fire. She shook the sistrum four times and produced four entirely different sounds, which sobered the listeners, who quieted to attention.
First the group played a light song of flutes and drums, then a lone trumpet produced a mournful melody that caused the ladies to sigh and the men to stroke their chins. An old children’s song made everyone in the room smile with the open faces they once wore as boys and girls.
There was indeed magic to this music, which could transform the blackest sorrow to the brightest joy. The guests clapped their hands high in the direction of the performers and raised their cups in gratitude at Nakht-re for the wonderful entertainment.
After the applause died down, the sistrum-player began to sing, accompanied by her own instrument and a single drum. It was a long song, with many refrains. The story it told was unremarkable: a tale of love found and lost—the oldest story in the world. The only story.
As the song began, the man returned the girl’s love, and they delighted in each other. But then the tale took a sorry turn and the lover spurned his lady, leaving her alone. She wept and prayed to the Golden Lady Hathor, but to no avail. The beloved would not take her back. The girl’s sorrow was endless and unbearable. The women wept openly, each remembering her youth. The men wiped their eyes, unashamed, recalling their earliest passion. Even the young ones sighed, feeling the pangs of losses yet to come.
There was a long silence after the song ended. The harpist picked out a quiet air, but the conversation ceased. No more cups were raised. Re-nefer stood and left the room without ceremony, and then, one by one, the rest of the company took their leave. The party ended quietly, and the hall emptied to the sounds of sighs and murmured thanks. The musicians packed up their instruments and led their leader away. Some of the servants slept on the floor, too exhausted to begin cleaning up until morning. The house was completely still. Dawn was some hours distant when I found my way to where the musicians slept. The veiled one leaned against a wall motionless. I thought she was sleeping as well, but she turned, her hands outstretched to discover who approached. I put my hands in hers, which were small and cool. “Werenro,” I said.
The sound of my accent startled her. “Canaan,” she said, in a bitter whisper. “That was my name in torment.”
“I was a child,” I said. “You were the messenger of Rebecca, my grandmother. You told us a story I never forgot. But you were murdered, Werenro. I was there with the Grandmother when they brought you back. I saw them bury your bones. Did you truly return from the dead?”
There was a long silence and her head fell forward beneath the veils. “Yes,” she said. And then, after a moment, “No. I did not escape. The truth is, I am dead.
“How strange to find a ghost of that time here in a great house by the river. Tell me,” she asked, “are you dead, too?” “Perhaps I am,” I answered, shuddering.
“Perhaps you are, for the living do not ask such questions, nor could they bear the pain of truth without the consolation of music. The dead understand.
“Do you know the face of death?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, remembering the doglike shadows that attend so many births, patient and eager at the same time.
“Ah,” she said, and without warning lifted the veil. Her lips were unharmed, but the rest of her face was torn and scarred. Her nose had been broken and ripped open, her cheeks were collapsed and seamed with deep scars, her eyes were milky stones. It seemed impossible that anyone could survive such destruction.
“I was leaving Tyre with a flagon of purple dye for her, for the Grandmother. It was dawn and the sky put all the tents of Mamre to shame. I was looking up when they came upon me. Three of them, Canaanite men like any others, filthy and stupid. They said nothing to me or to each other. They took my pouch and my basket and ripped them open, and then they turned on me.”
Werenro began to rock, back and forth, and her voice went flat. “The first one pushed me to the ground right in the middle of the road. The second one tore off my clothes. The third lifted his robe and fell upon me. He emptied himself into me, who had never laid with a man. And then he spit into my face.
“The second one took his turn, but he could not do the deed, and so he began to beat me, cursing me for causing his problem. He broke my nose and knocked several teeth from my mouth, and only when I was bleeding was he aroused enough to do what he wished.
“The third one turned me over and ripped me open from the backside. And laughed.” She stopped rocking and sat up straight, hearing that laughter still.
“I lay, facedown on the road, as the three of them stood over me. I thought they would kill me and end my torment.
“But it was not for them. ‘Why do you not cry out?’ cried the one who laughed. ‘Do you have no tongue? Or perhaps you are not really a woman at all, for you are not the color of woman. You are the color of a sick dog’s shit. I will hear you cry out, and we will see if you are a woman or a phantom.’
“And that is when they did to me what you can see. I need not speak of that.” Werenro lowered her veil and began to rock again.
“At the first sound of footsteps, they left me for dead,” she said. “A shepherd’s dog found me where I lay, followed by a boy, who cried out at the sight of me. I heard him retch and thought he would flee, but instead he covered me with his robe and brought his mother. She applied poultices to my face, and unguents to my body, and stroked my hands in pity, and kept me alive, and never asked me to explain.
“When it was certain that I would survive, she asked whether she should send word to Mamre, for she had recognized the tatters of my robe. But I said no.
“I was finished being a slave, finished with Rebecca’s arrogance, and finished with Canaan. My only desire was to come home and smell the river and the perfume of the lotus in the morning. I told her I wished to be dead in Mamre, and she made it so.
“She cut handfuls of my hair and wrapped it with my clothes and a few sheep’s bones inside my bag. She sent her son into town, where he found a merchant headed for Mamre, who brought the Grandmother news of my death.
“The Canaanite woman gave me a veil and a walking stick and led me to Tyre. She searched out a caravan headed for the land of the great river. They took me in exchange for one of her flock, and for the promise that I would entertain them with songs and stories. The traders brought me to On, where a sistrum found its way into my hands, and now I find myself here with you, with Canaan in my mouth again.” At this she turned her head away from me and spat. A snake slithered from the spot where her spittle fell, and I shivered in the cold blast of Werenro’s anger.
“I would curse the whole nation but for that Canaanite woman’s kindness. My eyes were put out, so I never saw her face, but I imagine it shining with light and beauty. Indeed, when I think of her, I see the face of the full moon.
“Perhaps she was atoning for some wrong she had done. Or perhaps she had once been abandoned and someone helped her escape. Or maybe no one had helped her when she was in need. She asked me nothing, not even my name. She saved me for no reason other than the goodness of her heart. H
er name was goodness itself, Tamar, the sustaining fruit,” said Werenro, and she began rocking again.
We sat together in the hour before dawn, silent for a long while. Finally, she spoke again, to answer a question I would never have thought to ask.
“I am not unhappy,” she said. “Nor am I content. There is nothing in my heart. I care for no one, and for nothing. I dream of dogs with bared teeth. I am dead. It is not so bad to be dead.”
The sighs and snores of the sleeping musicians interrupted her words. “Good souls,” she said of her companions, with tenderness. “We ask nothing of one another.
“But you,” said Werenro, “how did you come to speak the language of the river?”
Without hesitation, I told her everything. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and gave voice to my life. In all of my years, I had never before spoken so much or so long, and yet the words came effortlessly, as though this were something I had done many times before.
I surprised myself, remembering Tabea, remembering Ruti, remembering my coming of age in the red tent. I spoke of Shalem and our passionate lovemaking without blushing. I spoke of our betrayal and his murder. I told her about Re-nefer’s bargain with me, and Meryt’s care for me, and I spoke of my son with pride and love.
It was not difficult. Indeed, it was as though I had been parched and there was cool water in my mouth. I said “Shalem” and my breath was clean after years of being foul and bitter. I called my son “Bar-Shalem,” and an old tightness in my chest eased.
I recited the names of my mothers, and knew with total certainty that they were dead. I leaned my face into Werenro’s shoulder and soaked her robe in memory of Leah and Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah.
Through it all, Werenro nodded and sighed and held my hand. When at last I was quiet she said, “You are not dead.” Her voice betrayed a little sorrow. “You are not like me. Your grief shines from your heart. The flame of love is strong. Your story is not finished, Dinah,” she said, in the accents of my mothers. Not “Den-ner” the foreign midwife, but “Dinah,” a daughter beloved of four mothers.