Desired: The Untold Story of Samson and Delilah (Lost Loves of the Bible) (18 page)

Tanis did return. She brought fresh barley bread and figs and a skin of wine. She pulled the table close to my couch and set them down, then motioned for me to hand her the baby.

I held my daughter tighter. Tanis looked down, then drew a breath and looked at me, steady and with much concern.

“This is not good.”

“For me or the baby?” I would do what was best for the baby, if Tanis would tell me what to do.

“You are going to make a wound that cannot heal.”

I held my baby and did not reach for the food. Her words were riddles. I did not like riddles.

Tanis looked grieved, shaking her head. “Delilah, have I been good to you?”

“Yes.”

“I love you, like you were my own daughter, and I shouldn’t. Love makes life more painful.”

“Why do you say this to me?”

“I don’t want you to hurt anymore. I want you to have peace. Love is your enemy, Delilah. Do not love this child.”

“Get out.”

“But—”

“Get out!”

And she did, leaving as tears came to our eyes, both of us. She swung the door open to the temple beyond us, letting a cold draft in. I shivered and held my daughter closer. Some time passed before I felt the hunger in my belly and reached for a fig. I was so hungry.

I did not even taste the poison.

MOTHER

I watched as the women prepared Syvah’s body in her home. I had bought for them the round perfume jar and the spices, but I did not cross the threshold. I was no longer welcome in their circle. My son, the one I had so proudly proclaimed as their savior, had delivered no one, except his bride and her family unto death. The Philistines, angered now, were raising prices too, forcing some of our children to go hungry at night. All suspicions of Samson, no matter how dark, seemed to be confirmed by the rumors and hardships.

Which made his next move even more incomprehensible. My son, the man I no longer knew. The murderer, and now the judge.

The women washed Syvah’s naked, thin body with oil, wiping away the grime of this life. Then they washed her with water and anointed her with the perfume and spices. I had bought the best—myrrh, and aloe, and balsam. They wrapped her frail body in a linen shroud, and, placing her on a stretcher, they carried her to the tribe’s burial cave.

I walked behind them, each arm around one of her boys. Perhaps they should have been with the men, but they were heartbroken. They needed a mother as much I needed to be one. My hips were hurting as we climbed the rocky terrain to the cave. Inside, they laid her body, resting the perfume jar against it. One at a time, we entered the cave and said our good-byes to Syvah. The boys emerged, Kaleb’s red face crumpling into great sobs. Liam refused to cry. He scowled at the women and walked ahead of us all. Other women gave me dirty looks as I comforted Kaleb.

As if I would ruin them, too, just like I had ruined Samson. Samson, who now sat in a chair at the center of our little village, judging. He accepted cases of all kinds: injuries, stolen livestock, husbands who sought divorce from barren wives.

“How can he judge others?” I had asked Manoah. We were eating dinner alone in silence until that moment.

Manoah set his bowl down and wiped his mouth, fixing me with a stare. “He himself is not judging. He is saving them from the judgment of God.”

“He can’t even save himself.” I knew I sounded bitter.

Manoah went back to eating. “Still. His word is accepted.”

Of course it was. No one knew what he might do if angered.

Manoah grimaced, forcing a last bite down. His lips turned darker, a blue shade, when these pains hit. They hit more often these days. I pressed my lips together in fear, and he tried to clear his throat to swallow and wink. He wanted to be my hero, even if God had given me Samson, too.

I shook my head, bringing myself back to this moment’s fresh grief. Two boys needed me.

A messenger came running through the valley. His face was wide with fear as he ran. I had not seen Samson for days on end. My grief and my shame all turned to fear when I saw this panicked boy. Where was Samson? What had happened to him?

“Boy! What has happened?” I called.

He stopped, squinting up at us, glancing back at the direction of the village. He wanted to talk to the men. But I had money. I took a coin from my bag and held it up in the sun.

I went to him. When I gave him the coin, he gave us his message. “The Philistines are raising an army against the Hebrews. The Hebrew named Samson burned their entire crop, the standing wheat and the crops still in the field. Then he slaughtered a great many of them! Now they have an army and are coming against us all!”

“Go,” I told him, motioning for him to run to the men. My stomach clenched in cold fear.

A woman stepped from the crowd and slapped my face, then spat at my feet. “You have done this to us! Your son has brought trouble to us all!”

They all stood, staring at me, their faces unforgiving and hard.

I took the boys and ran toward the village. Perhaps it was not all true. Perhaps the men would know more. They did not allow me to enter the home where they had gathered, but they welcomed the boys. I stood outside a window, pressing my hot face against the cool stone. My hips burned terribly, but I had no remedy. I had no remedy for anything.

The men did not speak in hushed tones, though they must have known I would listen. They spoke without restraint, without respect. And to think! Some of these men had flirted with me when we had been young together, in our green days, before I had accepted the proposal of my husband.

A tribal elder ended the council with a rap of his walking stick against the floor. “Raise, then, the tribe of Judah. We will bind Samson ourselves and deliver him to the Philistines. In this way, we may avoid their wrath. May God grant us our petition.”

“A judge of our people, turned over to our enemies?” Only one voice was raised in protest, and he was hissed into silence.

I turned my body, resting my whole face against the wall of the home. How had I gotten here? How had Samson, or my people, come to this? God wanted us to destroy the Philistines, and we had not. God had raised up Samson to deliver us from the Philistines, and now we would betray Samson into their arms? Samson would die a horrible, slow death, all so my people could live at peace with their enemies.

This was an abomination. God could not grant this petition, not if He was God.

DELILAH

I woke up slowly, the room smelling of blood. The couch was warm and wet, the blanket stuck to my legs. My mouth was dry and sour, and I rubbed my tongue against the roof of my mouth, trying to dislodge the strange bitterness. My body hurt, especially my hips and groin, like a bruise that went all the way into the bones. I tried to sit up but had no strength.

Falling back onto the couch, I remembered. I grasped at my chest and then, frantic, padded down the blanket, then the couch around me. I forced myself up with a cry of terror, looking around the room, trying to move off the couch. Had I rolled over on my baby? Where was she, if not under me?

Hannibal’s face came into focus as he leaned over me, taking me by the shoulders, pushing me back onto the bed. I heard screaming and wailing, like one mourning the dead, and suddenly Tanis was there, telling me to hush, telling me to sleep. I fought against them until it was of no use. My body flopped, lifeless, back onto the couch, and as I closed my eyes, I saw my spirit take shape above my body and float away.

I was not there, but I watched from a far place as they wrapped my chest tightly and bound my breasts down with wet linen strips that would dry later into a hard cast. I never saw my daughter again.

Tanis or Hannibal, or maybe both together, had taken my baby. As the poison wore off, I returned to my body, determined to find her. She was mine. Nothing Tanis said could keep me from loving her. I breathed through my mouth whenever a servant entered my room, the breaths coming so fast and hard that I collapsed twice on that same day. I had to force myself to stay calm, to get my strength back as fast as I could.

The next day, they sent a servant to feed me. The poison was almost gone. I could sit up and hold down a little bread. When I could walk, I was going to walk from this room and hold a knife at Hannibal’s throat and make him tell me where my baby was.

It was on that next, third day that Parisa sneaked into my room. My strength was returning; I could put my legs on the floor. I tried to stand, but the room spun. I sat on the edge of the couch, willing strength into my legs, fumbling with my fingers at the bindings across my chest, as Parisa entered.

She once had made me afraid, even shy. But I felt nothing for her now. I had only one thought.

She sat next to me, silent. I glanced over at her when several moments had passed this way.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“To see if you are well. You are not the first one to lose a child here.”

“Tell me where my daughter is.”

Parisa cocked her head at this. She reached up and rested a hand on my shoulder. I pulled away. She had the eyes of a snake.

She put her hands in her lap, and I felt the couch shake. Her shoulders rose up and down. She was crying.

“I should not be here,” she whimpered. “Tanis will be so angry with me.”

I grabbed Parisa by the shoulder, turning her to look at me. “Tell me where my daughter is!”

She pressed her lips together, tears streaming down her face. I still saw nothing in those eyes. Not even tears brought them to life.

“Answer me!”

“Tanis does not want you to know. She warned everyone not to tell. But we all have babies there.”

I stood, wobbling, grabbing her shoulders for balance. “Take me there. Now.”

She opened her mouth to protest, to give some other excuse, but I dug my fingers into her shoulders, trying to drive strength all the way down my legs. If I had to crawl I would get there.

She stood, slipping an arm around my waist for support, whispering in my ear. “Do not make a sound. I will show you.”

Something in her voice was cold, like her eyes. She had been waiting for me to gather my strength and stand; I did not know why.

We slipped from the room. She was as quiet as I. I did not know what life she had lived before this place, but I knew what sorts of things made girls learn to be silent when they walked.

Parisa led me from the room and into a hallway I did not recognize. We went up a stone staircase that had windows to the outside. The breeze was cool and fresh, giving me much strength. I had not smelled fresh air in several days. The world smelled sweet and green. I did not smell death, but I should have.

At the top of the stairs, a small wooden door stood closed. Parisa put a finger to her lips for silence, but a smile flickered in her eyes. Bumps rose along my arms.

She opened the door, and it creaked as its hinges turned. I saw blue spring sky and a bright light from the sun. The heat hit me, but I did not feel warm. Summer was so close.

Parisa, standing behind me, pointed down. We were on the roof of the temple. If I looked to my right, I could see the Philistine empire stretching before me, and the great wide sea was to my left. The roof had a huge flat expanse, with stands along three sides so a crowd could gather with a view of the front of the temple.

After taking it in, I did look down, as Parisa wanted. I squinted, unsure of what I was seeing, and she pressed her palm against my back, urging me to bend deeper, to look closer into the gutters. She wanted me to be sure.

My daughter was dead. All the daughters, all the sons, were strewn, dead, in the gutter. How many there were, I could not say.

I will not describe it further. You, too, would go mad with grief, as I did. I fell to my knees, screaming, and Parisa fled. I screamed and tore at my tunic until servants came and dragged me back down to the windowless room. It would be days before they stopped drugging me, and weeks before I could open my eyes without seeing all the bodies, all those secrets of this temple. I thought Dagon was a god of life, of harvest and plenty. He was nothing but death, and no one seemed to care.

How could that be? I understood now that men and women did things here together, things I did not want to do, but were they not happy as they did them? Did not the babies they made in those rooms bring them joy?

I hated these questions as I hated the images in my mind. I would beat my head against the wall until I left a red mark on the stones and a servant came with the wet rag that stank, the rag he forced into my mouth, and my neck burned and grew stiff, and my eyes closed again.

I scratched at my chest with my nails, long ragged red marks down my chest, opening my chest to the cold air of my chamber, whimpering my thanks for the blindness of pain, until the servant came again, with a new drug, one he poured in my mouth, and I, foolish, thought I was drowning and blessed him in my heart. But I woke again, a day later, an hour later, I did not know. Where was I? And what were we worshipping? Why did it end in death? In agony I passed my hours, until the blood dried between my legs and I no longer screamed in my sleep.

And yet, the strangest part of my tale is yet to be told, for soon a man would seek me out. He would love me though I had nothing to live for, and it was this last great love that would change the course of my life.

Though I was forgotten by my gods and broken by a hard life, I would soon hold the fate of two gods in my hands, both Dagon and the Hebrew god Yahweh. That is how it would seem to me. Only now I know the truth: Only one God lived, and He held my fate in His hands.

MOTHER

Three thousand men went out to find Samson. Manoah was not with them. He had left the meeting pale and shaken, going home and staying inside.

“Go,” he had whispered to me, his voice cracked and hoarse.

“I’ve never traveled anywhere without you!”

Manoah just shook his head, a tear rolling down his cheek.

The men walked for two days, and I rode my donkey behind them, keeping my distance. On the second night, we had arrived at the sharp, cold place of Etam, where rocks grew more than trees or anything green. It was a place you could not farm, could not build upon, and most of all, it was a place you did not want to fight in. The rocks that stacked one upon the other, higher and higher, leading into cold dark caves—these rocks had no soft places, no safe place to fall.

“Samson!” the village elder called out, raising his walking stick, as if he were Moses and doing some great thing. I spat behind my palm, so no one would see me.

From the dark mouth of a cave, my son emerged. He was thinner and looked tired. I ducked behind a rock to watch. I could not shame Samson. If he saw me, he would feel shame. But perhaps, if I was not here, he would rise up in his strength and become the man I wanted him to be.

“What do you want from me?” Samson called back, his hands on his hips. He was still a big man, an imposing bird of prey above us.

“What have you done to us? Are we not your brothers, your family, your tribe?”

Samson turned to go back in his cave. Good boy. These men were not brothers or family. Not to my son.

“Stop! You know the Philistines rule over us! Now you’ve stirred them up! A thousand of them march, even now, toward our people.”

Samson shrugged, his back to them.

The elder slammed his stick against the ground. The echo ricocheted through the rocks.

Samson turned. “As they did to me, I did to them.”

The men grumbled and shook their heads. His answer did not please them.

“My son,” the elder began.

I made fists with my hands when he used those words. When Manoah recovered, he would be angry at this arrogance.

“My son, come down. Don’t make this worse for your family, or for us. We have come here to bind you and deliver you to the Philistine army. As you can see, there is no escape. We are three thousand strong.”

Samson watched them without fear. Then, slowly, he raised one finger, one small concession. “Swear to me you will not try to kill me.”

“He is afraid.” The men were talking.

“He should be.”

The men murmured and snickered. How they had hungered for this moment all their lives, their chance to wound their healer, to crush their savior! But I saw the truth, even if they did not. Samson was going to spare them. He wanted an oath, so that he would not have to rise against his own people and spill their blood too. I loved my son. He gave me hope, and my heart revived.

The elder spoke. “We will not harm you. We vow only to tie you up and deliver you. Any man who dares to strike you will be cut off from our people.”

The warning sent a chill through the men. I saw their backs stiffen and hands drop to their sides. Samson was not worth dying for.

All I wanted right then was to be gone, with Samson, to be back at home with Manoah and a full meal and stories and jokes. I wanted peace. I wanted a type of death, a hiding from all that we were called to do. I wanted my son and nothing else.

Ropes were passed up to the front, new ropes from a sparrow-wort shrub, a shrub that thrived in the desert, the one spot of life where there was little else. Samson hopped from stone ledge to ledge, descending with grace and speed like a gazelle. He smiled broadly as the men tied him under the watchful eye of the elder.

My son was a captive. They led him east to the hill country. We stopped in Lehi about two hours later. I stayed in the back, unwilling to be seen, covering my head, but not my face, with my shawl. He had not seen me.

My son, bound in ropes like an animal, was going to be delivered to the Philistines. They would surely kill him. Surrounded by three thousand Hebrew men and facing one thousand Philistines, what could I do but pray?

I prayed with such ferocity that I was sure would rend the heavens open. Every muscle, every bone, ached with the urgency of calling upon my God, my great and mighty God. This was the moment to act. This was the doom only He could save us from.

And do you know what God did? The mighty God who parted seas and sent plagues and struck down traitors where they stood?

Nothing.

Nothing at all.