Desired: The Untold Story of Samson and Delilah (Lost Loves of the Bible) (3 page)

AMARA

I was next in line, but I was not impatient. Everyone in Timnah shared ovens, usually five or six families to each one. Ovens were set in a clearing with the houses in a curve around them. It was convenient and reduced our work; someone was always baking bread in the morning before you awoke, so the oven was always hot. If you had to start a fire and place stones over it and wait for the stones to heat, you would have no bread for that day. Next to the oven was a fire pit with a roasting spit over the center. We all shared that, too, and we could roast an animal or heat water or milk over it. Sharing was not just a lesson in patience; division of labor was its own reward.

The sun was warm, and I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. Fall was almost here, ending my constant labors of tending the olive trees, airing out the house, and repairing any earthenware that was damaged in storage over the winter. Already this morning I had swept our home and gone out to collect animal dung and wood for the next winter’s fires. After I baked our bread for breakfast, I would need to go out to the fields and help with the harvest. We did not have much to do in our own little field, but Astra and I always managed to hire ourselves out to another family for a few hours. This pleased Mother and Father.

I allowed myself the luxury of a long stretch in the golden sun. All of spring, summer, and fall meant hard labor and browned faces. But fall brought the early rains and then winter, at last, that blessed end to our labor. I would have lazy mornings and afternoon naps, and my palms would slough these thick calluses.

“Amara!” Neo and Talos waved as they headed out to the fields, using the winding common road that ran between the clusters of homes.

I did not wave back. I turned my back and gritted my teeth. Talos and Neo were sweet friends when we were children, but none of us were children any longer. I did not want to be their friend now. They might become bold and ask for me in marriage. I wished I hadn’t told them so many secrets when I was a girl. Now they thought they knew me. They might imagine that gave them an advantage, an early claim, a clear right to possess me.

I refused to dwell on the darker side of fall, those long, lazy hours when men’s minds were free to wander. Most betrothals happened in the late fall, just in time to get a new laborer for the husband’s harvest. I would not be waving to anyone. Father needed me more than I needed a husband.

And yet, even with this fearful cloud pressing down, I could rejoice that the biggest labors were almost behind us. Astra and I had worked long hours this season to bring in a good harvest. Last year, the crops were plentiful; so this year, we had to work harder for less return. That was nature’s way: one year of plenty, one year of want.

“The earth reminds us not to forget her power,” Father said. “Hungry people are humbled people.”

I did not see the wisdom in that. Hunger makes people want to find a new god. Yet we worked on without grumbling. Labor, especially in the olive groves, was a delight. The olive trees of Timnah were four generations old or more; some had been planted nearly a thousand years ago. Our olive trees were like family elders—beautiful, gnarled, and wise. We groomed their branches in the morning, pulling each toward us, carefully plucking the olives and letting them fall gently onto the blanket spread beneath us. We groomed each tree as though she were a beautiful and frail grandmother, and we spoke to her, and each other, as we worked. I remembered an outrageous lie that Astra had repeated to me.

“The Hebrew we saw?” Astra had ventured to me not long ago.

“Yes?”

“Do you know what Talos told me?”

“I do not.” I inhaled the green scent of the olives and the crisp perfume of their leaves. Spying an olive with a crack, I plucked it and dropped it into a bucket around my neck. The broken olives would go to the goats.

“Talos said—and I am not making this up—that the Hebrews have a magical box they dance around and bring offerings to. It’s the source of their god’s power.”

“Mmmm.” Magic was commonplace. Charms and spells changed from tribe to tribe, but everyone had gods, and everyone had magic.

“And that is not all. When a male Hebrew baby is born, the parents must prove their devotion to their god.”

“Do they sacrifice it?”

“Worse!” Astra lowered her voice to avoid being overhead, although the nearest woman was a good distance away in another grove. “They cut off his third hand!”

I stopped. “Astra. You shouldn’t listen to lies like that. And Talos should not be speaking to you of such private matters.” Astra was destined to be a wife, not a sacred prostitute. She had to observe proper morals.

“It’s true. Talos has never lied to us.”

“And how would Talos know? Has he ever seen a Hebrew naked?”

She frowned, considering that.

I laughed as I remembered her expression on that day. Sirena grabbed the flat wooden bread tool, resting it on what little was left of her lap. She scattered a handful of crushed barley across the surface and then pulled her dough from the crock at her feet, moving more from memory than sight, I guessed. Her belly was so big with child that I don’t think she could see anything below it.

Using one hand to push herself off the stone she sat on, and another to clutch the bread tool, Sirena stood to take her turn at the oven. Leaning forward, she slid the wood trowel into the oven and gave the handle a hard tug, dislodging the bread and causing it to roll onto the hot stone at the bottom of the oven. With great effort she carried herself back to her stone seat, and after she had lowered herself back down, she closed her eyes and sighed.

I smiled to myself, watching her. She was beautiful, especially now that she had filled out. Looking out at the horizon behind her, I let myself relax for a moment too. Morning’s white mist still clung to the gentle hills in the distance to the east, with only the green treetops visible. Breeze blew through the tall grasses in the fields around the houses, carrying whispers of crisp evergreens and the sharp tang of limestone. We heard donkeys snorting and oxen lowing as men harnessed them for work, driving them into the mist. A few pregnant animals stayed behind, growing fat, probably content to rest from the labors of the field. Everyone always tried to keep the male animals separate from the females to prevent the loss of a good working animal during this season, but nothing could prevent a female going into heat. Keeping the males separate was no guarantee of abstinence. More than once I had spied a wild-eyed male goat climbing a fence in the middle of the night.

Sirena’s bread smelled divine. I peeked in to see if it was done. Perhaps I could remove it for her and let her nap for a few more minutes. The crust was just turning gold at the edges, so I knew to wait. The only thing worse than no bread was half-baked bread that went bad within the day, leaving no leftovers for the night’s meal.

I could learn how other wives did their bread, what spices they added, how they got a crackling brown crust and still retained a soft dough center. Ovens were also where the younger girls like me learned to be wives. First they learned how to bake bread, which would keep their husbands alive. Then the wives told them of the art of keeping him alive for other reasons. I made a point to skip those conversations.

One wife, with a broad face and puffy eyes and hair that held absolutely no allure—all of her just plain and dark and lifeless—sighed as she took her cooling loaf from the resting stone and wrapped it in a cloth. She was tired, explaining to the other wives her morning. “He comes home, telling his master he must leave to take his meal. I’m telling you, he doesn’t want a meal.”

The other wives giggled. Last year I would not have understood. This year I do but wish I didn’t. Why did men think this way?

Her husband seemed very dirty to me. He was not a noble man, thinking of that in the middle of the day when he should have been working. Why she laughed, I did not know. I would not be a wife like her, and I would not marry a man like that. If my father heard conversations like this one, he would understand I had made a noble choice.

Astra’s cry brought me out of my thoughts with a start. She ran to me, her face pale and her eyes wide. I caught her in my arms, but she was breathless and doubled over with the effort of catching a good breath.

“Breathe, Astra!” I rubbed her back. “It’s all right. Whatever it is, you’re safe now.”

I scanned the path she had come from, the winding dirt road that led past other homes and out into the fields. Though nothing seemed to be following her, I saw the other women reaching for their butchering knives. Men working in the fields displaced plenty of vipers, which took revenge on our ankles when they could. And with no wall around our village, sometimes even a hungry lion or fox wandered into our houses. Mothers had to be very careful not to leave babies in baskets unattended. Their cries attracted attention from more than just other women. During harvest, Mother always insisted Astra and I carry knives with us.

Astra righted herself and swallowed hard before grabbing me by the arms.

“The Hebrew has returned.”

“What?”

“He has returned, and he brought two others with him. He was wandering through the houses, looking.”

She didn’t have to finish that thought. My hand flew to my mouth as the women shrugged and began putting their knives away. They decided there was no danger in a curious Hebrew wandering around our village.

If only they had known.

I pulled Astra away from the oven, off to the side. The women resumed their baking and gossip. Astra and I were still young enough that our own intrigues were of no interest to them. They assumed us to still be children since we were unmarried, and children were capable of nothing interesting, nothing that could cause any great calamity in their own lives.

“What are we going to do?” I asked. Astra always had a better idea of what should be done. She could see a problem from all sides, whereas I only saw it from mine.

“He is looking for something, but I couldn’t tell what it was.”

I had never told her about the scarf. Father still wore it as a sash around his tunic, and by now, it was nothing to me but a sash. I offered a suggestion.

“We could run into the fields. Come back at dusk.”

“No. The men will ask too many questions if we don’t have jobs. Besides, if we don’t know why he is here, we don’t know where he will go. I think we should hide inside the house. He would never enter our house.”

“We can’t get out of our work.”

“Do you trust me?”

I nodded.

“Come with me.”

“But wait—do you think he is still angry? About being hit in the head? He might demand money.” Both Philistine law and Hebrew law required payment for bodily injuries. Father could lose what little he had. Then he would have to accept the first offer of a bride price, not the best. What had we done that night? I chastised myself. We might have just arranged to sell ourselves to the lowest bidders.

Astra shook her head. “He didn’t look angry. He looked like”—she twisted her mouth as she sought the right word—“he looked like he was searching for something.”

We had no real market, not like Ashkelon or his own cities in the Judean Hills, but sometimes we did have unique treasures. Perhaps he was here for a treasure.

“We will hope that is all it is,” I said, grabbing her hand. I turned to the wives. “My little sister is not feeling well. If one of you will bake my bread for me today, I will bake yours tomorrow. Or you can wait and save the favor until you need to claim it.” Sirena opened her eyes and agreed at once. I was offering her the chance to stay in bed tomorrow morning.

“Thank you, and may Dagon bless your child,” I said with a grateful nod.

Astra led me from the clearing to behind the houses. On the far end, there was a spot of privacy where we could create mischief without being seen from any other house. That did not mean we were able to create mischief for long, though. Someone was always coming in from the fields or carrying food and drink back out to the fields.

Pulling me closer, Astra took out her knife and, in a blink, stabbed me in the finger. I squealed, but she grabbed my finger and squeezed without mercy, making the blood bubble up. Opening her palm, she squeezed the drops into a red pool in the center of her hand. I jerked my hand back and stuck my finger in my mouth, glaring at her. She didn’t pay me any attention as she lifted her tunic and smeared the blood on her thighs.

“I’ll tell Mother my cycles have started. She’ll let me stay inside today.”

Of course she would. No one wanted a menstruating girl in the fields during harvest. The wheat might be ruined. Astra was safe, but I wasn’t.

“What about me?”

“I need you, of course. Your cycles have already begun. I’ll say you will show me what to do. Mother can continue her work. She’ll be pleased to have you stay with me.”

I wondered what Astra would do next month and instinctively took a step away from her. She wouldn’t get any more fingers from me for this.

As if reading my mind, she poked me in the stomach and laughed. “Don’t look so grim. It’s the best plan we have.”

Astra grabbed me by my other hand, and we ran toward our house, my heart beating wildly. Thankfully, our house was close. I did not have the fortitude to run far with my heart racing ahead like this. We jumped inside and shut the door, and then collapsed into giggles. We were little girls again, playing tricks on the other children or taking part in some silly prank. But uneasiness sneaked in with us. This Hebrew was no child, and hiding from him was not a childish trick. We didn’t know what he wanted, but he did have a claim against us. If he had not forgotten or forgiven his injury, he had a right to Father’s money.

Mother came down the steps at the back of the house, returning from the roof. She carried our heavy wool blankets, taking them below to hang them out for a beating. Astra ran toward her at once and scooped the blankets from her arms. Of course she would do that, I grimaced, before the idea had even entered my head that Mother needed help. And yet, wasn’t it Astra’s quick thinking that was responsible for us hiding like criminals at the moment?