at the sight of my betrothal dress in a crumpled pile on the floor. That she didn’t chastise me should have forewarned me something awful was coming.
“Dearest Ana,” she said. Her voice dripped nectar. That, too, was an ominous sign. “Nathaniel’s sister, Zopher, is here to see you.”
“No one told me of a visit.”
“I thought it better to surprise you. You will treat her with deference, won’t you?”
The hairs on my neck debated whether to stand up. “Why would I not?”
“She has come to inspect you for afflictions of the skin and other blemishes. You shouldn’t worry, she’ll be quick about it.”
I didn’t know such an indignity was possible.
“It’s only to satisfy the contract,” Mother went on. “Nathaniel must be given a guarantee by one of his own relatives that your body meets the terms he set forth.”
Blindness, lameness, afflictions of skin, infertility, lack of modesty, disobedience, or other repulsions.
She eyed me with circumspection, waiting for my reaction. Insults caught in my throat. Obscenities I couldn’t have dreamed of until Yaltha. I swallowed them. I could not risk losing my freedom to walk in the hills.
“As you wish,” I said.
She didn’t look entirely convinced. “You will submit gracefully?”
I nodded.
To inspect me as if I were donkey teeth! If I’d known of this, I could’ve given myself a brilliant red rash using gopher pitch. I could’ve washed my hair with garlic and onion juice. I could’ve presented her with any number of repulsions.
The woman greeted me kindly, but without smiling. She was small like her brother, with the same pouched eyes and vinegary face. I’d hoped Mother might leave us, but she posted herself beside my bed.
“Remove your clothing,” Zopher said.
I hesitated, then drew my tunic over my head and stood before them in my undergarment. Zopher lifted my arms, bending close to study my skin as if it was some inscrutable piece of writing. She examined my face and neck, my knees and ankles, behind my ears and between my toes.
“Now your undergarment,” she said.
I looked at her, then at Mother. “Please, I cannot.”
“Remove it,” Mother said. The nectar had been sucked from her voice.
I stood naked before them, sick with humiliation while Zopher walked a circle around me, scrutinizing my backside, my breasts, the patch between my legs. Mother looked away; she at least did me that small courtesy.
I bore my stare into the woman. I wish you dead. I wish your brother dead.
“What is this?” Zopher inquired, pointing at the black dot of a mole on my nipple. It had been all but forgotten to me, but I wanted to bend and kiss it, this magnificent imperfection. “I believe it to be leprosy,” I told her.
Her hand snapped back.
“It’s no such thing,” Mother cried. “It’s nothing at all.” She looked at me. A dagger flew out of her eyes.
I hurried to ameliorate her. “Forgive me. I was trying to soothe my unease over my nakedness, that’s all.”
“Dress yourself,” Zopher said. “I will report to my brother that your body is acceptable.”
Mother’s sigh was like a squall of wind.
* * *
? ? ?
DARK CAME AND THE MOON did not appear. I lay down, but without sleep. I revisited all the things Yaltha had said about her marriage, how she’d rid herself of Ruebel, and I felt hope leak back into me. Making certain to hear the plow of Father’s snores behind his door, I slipped down the stairs to his study, where I pilfered a pen, a vial of ink, and one of the small clay tablets he used for mundane correspondence. Tucking them into my sleeve, I hurried back to my room and closed the door.
Yaltha had asked God to take Ruebel’s life if he must as the just price for his cruelty, and he’d deserved his fate, but I wouldn’t go so far as that. Death curses were common in Galilee, so prevalent it was a miracle the population had not died off entirely, but I didn’t