Desired: The Untold Story of Samson and Delilah (Lost Loves of the Bible) (13 page)

PART TWO

BRIDE OF DESIRE

DELILAH

Three Years Prior to Amara’s Story,

in the Philistine City of Ekron

The god of ice sent his sign.

By noon, the elders sat together at the city gates of Ekron, clucking their teeth.

Ice fell from the sky, a wonder not often seen in my village. Each elder sat wondering what dangers it foretold. The oldest among them, a white-haired man named Selanius, told them the story of a Hebrew god, one that sent a plague of ice on the Egyptians many generations ago. He proved to be a strange and troublesome god, Selanius said.

I squinted, looking up at the sky to see the face of this god. I could not find him. I finished my purchase—a bit of kohl for my mother—and hurried home to see what Father thought of it all.

“Why do you care?”

My brothers looked up from their bowls and snickered. I had three brothers, though since all wore the same crude expression around me, it seemed that I had only one brother who was in many places at once.

The ice god’s message would be lost on my family. I felt shame for them, speaking ill of strange and marvelous gods, as they crouched behind closed doors.

“I’ll bring in the sheep,” I offered.

No one answered. The steaming porridge Mother had ladled into their bowls must have been especially good. No bowl was set out for me, of course. When they slept tonight I would sneak down the ladder and roll each foot, ball to toe, quietly across the dust and straw. I could move with a cat’s silent grace. When I reached the pot, with my fingers I would sweep the edges and bottom, and in the darkness, eat.

When you only have a little, a little can be very good. Were I given a whole bowl of stew to eat, I told myself, I could not enjoy it. Everything tastes the same after the fourth bite. My way, the way of hunger, made the pleasure of each tiny taste almost unbearable. If I was not so hungry, food would not taste so good. In this way, I feel sorry for my family, who probably never tasted Mother’s cooking the way I do. Already, I have riches they knew nothing of. I know how to find treasures in the ashes of this life.

I watched them eat. I may eat in darkness, but I taste the food and they do not. I breathe deep and easy at night, with no eyes upon me, no hands brushing me out of the way, no lashes across my back for disrespect and laziness.

Then, after tasting the bowl, I always stay down here below and sleep, right with the animals. They nuzzle me while I rest, their beating hearts a familiar old story passed between them in the dark. As I slept nestled between my two ewes, they wove my heart, too, into their moon tale.

This is how these ewes came to be in my story, and I in theirs:

The city had been quiet for weeks after the pinch-faced Hebrews came. They always came into the city after their festival of sleeping in tents. Their god drove them out of their comfortable homes to sleep in tents and get bitten by sand spiders.

I did not understand their devotion.

But as always, they had arrived, stinking, tired, and irritable (mothers with young children most of all) and bought up everything we had, except the meats. Hebrews didn’t eat what we did. They said we eat unclean animals.

Have they ever seen a clean animal? Every animal is unclean.

They came into our city, Ekron, which is a lovely place as I see it. There is an upper city and a lower city, which does not refer to a direction, but the height of each part of the city. One end is noticeably higher than the other. I don’t think that is much advantage, unless you want to spy on pale old women bathing on their rooftops. The lower end of the city collects more rainwater and has more fertile gardens.

We lived in the upper end, which was why my father often took his whip out after us. He had to drive us all, he said, even the land. He had one enormous problem. Me. I was born a girl. Father wanted to collect great wealth, and my brothers wanted to inherit great wealth. A girl was a liability, a little thief that stole food from the boy’s mouths until the day she married and the father had to give away even more of what he had saved for his sons. Every penny he spent to keep her alive, and to finally get rid of her, all went to another man and another man’s family.

“Did you see the field I planted today?” my brother—as I said, it matters not which one since they are all the same snot-nosed soul—had asked as we waited for a Hebrew woman to count her coins. She was buying a sash I had woven.

“Yes.”

“You sit all day, weaving, while I labor in the sun. And while I am sweating and hungry, all I can think about is that we’re going to have to pay to get rid of you!”

“It’s a dowry. It’s not payment.”

“Shows what you know.”

My brothers did well that day, as did I. They sold the Hebrews plenty of roasted grains to eat as snacks, plus honey for strength for their walk home. I was not allowed in the fields or gardens, as a girl with soft hands brought a better bride price. I obeyed in every instruction my father gave me in this regard, hoping he would weigh the coins in his mind and realize perhaps he could profit from me someday too.

So I worked with a loom and kept my skin smooth and pale. I brushed my hair every night and rubbed a finger over my teeth after eating. I did what I could for my looks, and I worked to sell the Hebrew women enough sashes to buy my father’s love. My hope came in the form of two ewe lambs, with fleece like you’ve never seen or felt. Their fleece was so dense and smooth, like running your hand through cream. I had spied the young ewes for sale at the market. Every day I had prayed that Dagon would keep them for me, and he did. I paid for the ewes and walked them home, head high.

“More mouths to feed,” Father grumbled when he saw them. I do not think he really meant it.

“Pigs offer nothing but meat,” I said, keeping my eyes on the floor. “Once you eat them, you’re done. But with this wool, think how much I can charge for my clothing.”

A sheep can give wool throughout its life, plus lambs, and you can eat lambs or sell them.

“I’m not going to feed them. I can barely afford food for you.”

I had thought of my entire plan. I was ready.

“I don’t need you to.” I ducked so he wouldn’t hit me, thinking I meant disrespect. I spoke faster. “You can have all the money they earn. I will do all the work, and you will have all the money.”

His face did not remain angry, so I knew I had won. Brother, however, glared at me. All of them.

One night about a week later, as I slept between my two ewes, I heard someone clumsy stumbling through the darkness inside the home. Moonlight blinded me for a moment, and I squinted to shield my eyes. What I saw was my brother opening the downstairs door to sneak out. He turned and walked toward my sheep and gave one a good kick.

I sat up and yelled. “What are you doing?”

“Shut up down there!” my father yelled down.

“You’re going to lose,” my brother hissed.

“What are you talking about?”

“You can’t be anything other than what you are.”

He turned and sneaked away, out into the night. He had money to spend from market. At night, very different wares were offered.

I sat back down between my sheep, stroking their soft fleece, whispering little encouragements. It was almost winter, and the nights were getting cold. I stared at the door, the moonlight searing through the edges and cracks. No sheep would live through a dark winter night out there.

As if Dagon himself agreed, a cat of some kind screamed in the night air.

“May my brother be eaten tonight for kicking my ewe,” I prayed silently.

I would make my father rich. He would love me and praise me. What did any man value more than money? I ran a finger through my silken black hair and wondered.

I fed my lambs whatever grains I could steal—and yes, I stole often. Every night, I slid between the moonlit cracks of the door, slipped across shadowed streets, sneaked into homes, and felt in the dark for barrels of grain. I held a hollow palm up in the darkness and filled it with the cool smooth stones of life, the emptiness of my life erased. I moved with ease as sweat beaded along my neck and forehead. No one ever heard me, and no one knew. Silence was my gift. My legs were no more than feathers sweeping across the dirt floors.

My ewes were hungry all the time, bleating when I returned before dawn. I fed them fast to keep them quiet. I did not know why a ewe would demand more and more food. During the day, I led them out into the low hills above us, but there was not much good grazing left before the harsh rains of winter. Sometimes, they slept instead. Sometimes, I did too.

I had to steal from more houses, and steal more than what fit in my palms. If only my father had offered to buy grain.

But of course I still had my sashes and my loom, and one afternoon as I fought to say awake, a god took my side in the battle. (I do not know which one.) I saw in my mind how a sash could be made into a bag, and yet still look like a sash. I could steal much more. I set to work at once to make it.

“It is good to see you work with vigor,” my mother commented.

She rarely said anything to me or anyone else, which is why I have not mentioned her before. She hid behind her hair and did not make friends with other women. Or me.

That night, as everyone slept, I once again slipped out the door. How fast my heart beat to see my sister the moon again! How blessed the darkness that holds all our secrets! I was not the only one with a shadow life. I heard others on some nights, caught sight of their robes as they disappeared into other houses, or the house of Sehna, our harlot. I even made a game now of watching in the market to see who yawned most in the afternoon. I began to suspect the most startling citizens—men and women alike—of living shadow lives.

But this is not their tale. Not yet.

That night, I crept into a home with many barrels. They would not miss what I stole. I was a kind thief, careful never to burden any one family. That’s what I promised myself and the god who watched over me. I thought my kindness would be rewarded.

I eased the wooden door open over the dirt floor only a few inches, as I turned myself sideways and slid like a moonbeam between the cracks into the home. I unwound my sash in the darkness and glided to the barrels, dipping a hand in and filling my sash. The sash could hold more, so I dipped my hand in again. Moonlight flooded around me, and I turned, trying not to cry out. A man with a shadow life had returned to his home and caught me.

I could barely see his face in the darkness. He stood there a moment, then walked to me, taking me by the hand and leading me out. He led me down the street and into an enclosed garden, where fruit trees hid all from view. Just before he turned to face me, I closed my eyes.

He did speak, of course. I shouldn’t leave that out, or you’ll wonder why I did not run or scream. He reminded me of the punishment for thieves. (My hands would be cut off.) He reminded me that he saw my face clearly, knew who I belonged to. He could demand restitution from my father, besides my hands. So I surrendered underneath the fruit trees, their bare branches hanging low.

I thought about those branches as I walked home afterward. I thought of nothing else, to keep myself from screaming. I forced my mind away from the blood smearing across my inner thighs, away from the strange taste of his mouth, away from the terror of being known. I thought of the branches. The fruit was gone. They were bent and brought low. But nothing should have stopped them from rising back up and finding the sun. Nothing but memory stood in their way.

I ground my teeth together.

That is why I can tell you so much and fly away from it all so freely. The earth has lessons to teach us all, if we but listen.

The sun began slipping away sooner every day, off to her own secrets. Winds caught women by the ankles, making them shiver and press their legs together as they sat at their booths in the market. Fish and pork had been salted and pressed, set aside for later sales and meals when women were too tired to prepare them fresh. The last of the fruits had been eaten or hung from the beams in homes to dry. Grapes were crushed, and each wife had set about making her own wine, boasting to her neighbors that her grapes had been blessed by Dagon, that her wine was the secret to long life and good teeth.

As I lay awake in the darkness one night, I heard heavy footfalls, the thump of something hitting the dirt outside our door, and fast, scuffling steps away into the darkness. I lay still between my ewes for the longest time, not knowing what to do. Everyone above me slept.

One ewe nuzzled me, sensing I was awake.

Above me, a great groan reminded me that others had their own bad dreams. Mine did not matter.

I crept to the door. Pressing my ear against it to be sure, I heard nothing. I rested one hand flat against the wood and pulled gently with the other hand, easing the door open.

A huge sack sat on the ground.

I poked my head out like a turtle, looking this way and that. The street was empty and quiet; I could hear no noises from the other homes. Creeping out and crouching down, I opened the mouth of the sack. It rattled, a sound like a snake redoubling on itself, the rasp of scale on scale. I jumped back, holding my mouth to keep quiet.

The sack did not move. I kicked it with one foot, and the mouth tipped open, the contents cascading in a little clicking stream on the ground. It was grain. A sack of grain. Worth a week’s wages, at least, if the worker was a strong man!

I looked up and down the street again. Nothing stirred. I reached out to grab the sack and saw a dark shadow lift from the wall of the furthest house and slink away into the night. His scent carried on the night wind.

I knew then who had left it, but I did not know why. I did not know what men felt about these things, what laws they lived by. A woman’s life was not a man’s.

My ewes would be hungry in the morning. I had no right to starve them because of my foolishness. I dragged the bag inside and tucked it in the corner where I kept my weaving supplies.

After this gift of grain, my ewes began to get fat. At first, no one noticed but me. They were so fluffy that no one could tell where their wool ended and their bodies began. But one night my father stopped eating, his hand in mid-air, the bread dripping juices back into his bowl, and he stared at me as I led my ewes back inside and to their stall.