Sacrifice by Tala Bar

Table of Contents Chapter 2, part 1 appears in this issue.

Chapter 2: The Strangers
part 2

II

When the peace mission had returned to the Village from the nomads’ camp, Tamar heard Ya’el’s recount to the Lady Mother everything that had occurred there; for a more personal impression, though, the Water Maiden turned to her friend Re’ut. When evening came and the villagers gathered around the central fire, which served as a stove to cook the communal meal, as a light source in the dark nights, and as a social focus point for the people, the two friends sat at a confidential distance from the rest. They took part in gnawing on roasted nuts, birds and small animals, eggs hardened and roots softened in the hot embers, quenching their thirst with clear water from dried gourds used as jugs.

Tamar listened silently to her people talking, sharing gossip and repeating ancient tales and anecdotes from the Village’s lore. Re’ut nursed her current baby, a healthy rotund girl of about three months; a boy about two years old was leaning at her side in the manner of Raphael, from time to time attaching his mouth to the other breast.

The two young women were close in age but very different in appearance and disposition. Tamar, Water Maiden and destined to become Lady Mother, had an inner strength which was hardly evident in her willowy figure and golden halo; but with her sometimes sullen expression she could have easily posed for a statue of the Goddess in her warlike youth.

Re’ut, on the other hand, was the very image of the Goddess in her most fertile characteristic; the image of her thick thighs and heavy breasts hanging down to her full belly was frequently used by Yif’at as she modeled her little charm figurines in clay. Re’ut was able and ready to give birth every year instead of waiting two or three between births, as the custom was; she was, some thought, a miracle of nature, not having to cease suckling one baby when pregnant with another, because her milk flowed continually even then.

“Tell me!” Tamar said when they had finished eating, her quiet voice full of the kind of authority which made children, mothers, hunters and old people obey her command.

“I wish you had been there,” her friend said, sincerely, “you might have understood them better than I did.”

“Did they speak a different language?”

“No, it was very similar to ours. I could understand most of the words, but many times I wasn’t sure what they meant by them. You see,” she paused for a moment, “only the men talked.”

“What do you mean? Are there no women there?” Tamar wondered.

“There were some women about, doing various chores; but they did not sit with us, they did not take part in the conversation.”

Tamar reflected. “Who did you talk to, then?” This was hard to understand. Among village people it was generally accepted that women not only talked better, but also conducted themselves better when human relations were concerned.

“We were received, quite honorably I must say, by an elderly man who seemed the leader of his people. He was somewhat younger than Asaf, and seemed highly respected by the men around him; they were of all ages, some younger than him and some as old as he was, and they called him Chief Ze’ev. He sat on a mat at the entrance to the tent, and the others stood around him except one woman who sat beside him.”

“So you talked to her?”

“No, she did not open her mouth even once; only the men did the talking, and mostly the Chief.

“Didn’t you say you saw other women about?”

“Some of them were doing chores at some distance from us; but there were others hiding inside the tent.”

“Hiding? Why do you say that?”

“Because they were peeping at us from time to time, as if wanting to know what was going on, but were not allowed to take part in the discussion.”

“That sounds bizarre. Are you sure that’s how it was? Maybe they were ill or something?”

“How should I know? You must ask Ya’el or Asaf about it,”

Re’ut answered carelessly, as if the whole business was only vaguely interesting to her; she preferred to pay more attention to her children.

“What did they look like,” Tamar ventured on another avenue, remembering ‘her’ dark stranger with his black beard.

“You know, it’s really difficult to say,” Re’ut turned to her friend with renewed interest; “their faces were all covered — both men and women.”

“How, covered?”

“Well, the men all had beards. The Chief’s was gray, but the young men’s black; and the women had a kind of skin hanging from above their noses. You could see only their eyes, and I can tell you about those; they all looked black and fierce, rather frightening, I thought. Except...”

“Except what?”

“Never mind...” Her eyes turned to the child in her arms. The little brown girl was sucking hungrily, and the young woman’s face reflected her great pleasure, both physical and mental.

So, this was not a singular trait of ‘her’ man... Tamar looked at her friend, drawn for a moment to this sight of mother and child; while not actually envious, she reflected on her own decision not to have a child before her appointment as Lady Mother. It was an unusual decision, though not unheard of.

“Anyway,” Re’ut went on, “their bodies were also covered, from head to toe, with tanned skins of all sorts and colors; rather fantastic, I thought. Anyway, you couldn’t see at all what they really looked like underneath all that covering.”

Tamar fell silent, meditating about these strange, even wonderful things she had been hearing. Village people hardly ever covered their bodies or faces; they always walked about virtually naked, except the grass or palm leaves skirts some people wore to enhance their rank, or as simple decoration. The way the man with the black eyes was so wholly covered, then, was nothing unusual for him, she thought.

“Do you know the reason for this covering?” she asked, not expecting a proper answer.

Re’ut just shrugged her rounded, soft shoulders. Again, Tamar could only ask others, wiser than herself. Tamar let it go, thinking instead of the women sitting inside the tent, while the men conducted the conversation with strangers. The situation simply did not sound credible. She was young, had very little experience in customs others than the ones used in the Village. In the society she had lived in all her life, women were the active force of life while the men acted more as helping aids and support; any other arrangement seemed to her odd, perhaps even dangerous.

“Go on,” she commanded.

“You know,” Re’ut was wondering aloud, “being all black, they all looked the same, not so varied as our people are; and looking so different! Bonier, and quite stiff in their pose, not rounded and agile like us.”

“Like the man I saw by the stream...” Tamar whispered, mentioning him for the first time.

“You saw one of them by the sacred stream? But that’s sacrilege!” Re’ut was so agitated by the notion, that her abrupt movements caused the baby’s lips to slip off the nipple for a moment. The child screamed, and her mother pushed her breast back into her mouth.

“Never mind, I drove him away,” Tamar evidently did not want to discuss the matter; the mere mention of that moment strangely quickened her pulse. “But tell me,” glancing at her friend, “wasn’t there anyone you liked among them?” Re’ut was not a woman who would let slip a chance for a new acquaintance if she found him attractive enough; Tamar, remembering her friend’s earlier slip, noticed now that far-looking gaze in her soft, brown eyes, which for the moment were not turned toward her children.

Those eyes darkened now at Tamar’s words. “It was not so easy to distinguish between them,” she seemed apologetic, “only by their height, and the look in their eyes...”

“And you saw someone who was taller than the others...”

“They are not especially tall, more solid like; but one of them was almost as tall as Eyal, with wide shoulders, and his beard had a kind of golden highlights to it; but more than anything else it was his eyes. They looked more dark brown than black, and so pleasant like... not so fierce as the others’.” Tamar knew by her description that it could not be the man she had seen by the sacred spring.

“Yes, well, I hope you will have a chance to meet him properly,” Tamar sighed, not certain whether she was wishing it for her friend or for herself...

“To be sure,” Re’ut said; “you must remember what Healer Ya’el told the Lady Mother, that she had invited them in her name for a festive meal, to make a permanent covenant between our two peoples.”

They were silent for a while, and Tamar pondered about the difference between peoples she was discovering for the first time in her life. There were first of all the physical differences; the dwellers of the Village of the Three Faces of the Moon, and those of the other villages in the neighborhood, were typified by the various shades of brown skin and hair, from light honey to dark russet, and different degrees of mixture of green and blue tints in their brown eyes. It was a great contrast to what she herself had seen, and she was hearing from her friend, about the uniform black color of the nomads’ hair and eyes, and the sallow shade of their skin.

Tamar felt there must have been some significance to those differences, but she had no way of knowing what it stemmed from, whether the promiscuous ways of village women or the close guarding of desert women by their men.

The child on Re’ut’s arms had fallen asleep, and the mother laid her on her crossed legs, by the side of the sleeping boy. The fire flickered low, and some of the villagers were arranging comfortable sleeping places by its side; it was close to the end of summer but not yet autumn, and many still preferred sleeping outside rather than breathing the stifling air inside the house.

“Tell me,” Tamar returned to her main interest, “how was the conversation conducted?”

“Heavily,” said Re’ut, lightly swaying her children. “Sage Asaf talked first, greeting the nomads in the Lady’s name and inviting them to stay in the area as long as they needed. Then the Chief talked, but it was difficult for me to understand him. I was not standing really close to him, and he talked into his beard. I hope Asaf and Eyal understood him better.”

“Did the Healer talk?”

“Ya’el had left us after the initial greetings, asking to talk to the women. I felt she simply did not want to converse with the men, and I think maybe they also did not want to discuss things with her. They told her to go into the tent, and I don’t know what went on inside.”

“And then?”

“Then Eyal talked. He had brought a gift and gave it to the old man — a stone bowl with a bone spoon, carved by Yefet. Then the old man hinted to one of the young men standing there to talk to Eyal, in his place, like. He looked like all the others, but he was rather arrogant in his behavior, as if he was somebody special.”

Tamar kept silent. Re’ut turned to her children and her face assumed a dreamy expression, as if her whole being had sank deep into her offsprings’.

“It’s time to go in to sleep,” Tamar said at last, rising; “I think it’s too cold for the kids outside.” She picked up the sleeping boy, and they walked comfortably toward the women’s house. The warmth inside compensated for the stuffiness after the fresh, chilly air outside. But for a long time Tamar stayed awake, speculating over the news she had just heard.

To be continued...

Copyright © 2005 by Tala Bar