Enchantress: A Novel of Rav Hisda's Daughter (14 page)

By the time the evening meal was finished, Dakya and Chatoi had long since disappeared into the bridal chamber. Many of the elders were saying their farewells, leaving their younger, more inebriated cohorts to celebrate. Gerbita and Kiomta pressed Em to stay, while she kept insisting she was too tired to remain a moment longer. They reluctantly gave in when Rava appeared and stood by her side, clearly waiting to be our escort.

Now Gerbita and Kiomta turned their efforts on me. But I had no intention of leaving. Everything had worked out wonderfully for my clients, and I wanted to celebrate with them.

“I will gladly stay longer,” I declared, glad also at the way Rava’s eyes narrowed in response.

“Don’t worry,” Gerbita encouraged me. “We will find some trustworthy men to escort you home no matter how late it is.”

Rava looked like he had just bitten into something sour. “Why don’t you ask one of them to see that Em gets home safely? I must stay to supervise Rav Yosef’s students and report their behavior to him.”

I gave him the sweetest smile I could as I returned to the dancing. I hoped he enjoyed supervising my behavior.

 • • • 

Every time I chatted with Chatoi at synagogue during the next two weeks, she was beaming with happiness. I heard no complaints about the absence of blood on her wedding night, but I knew better than most the subterfuges a newlywed couple could use to produce bloodstains on their bed linens.

Chatoi wasn’t the only one whose disposition had improved. When Rava returned from Machoza, he appeared the closest to being in a good mood since before Babata’s death.

Abaye saw it too, for he asked eagerly, “Have you some news from Machoza?”

Rava nodded. “My father has rallied.” He spoke softly so as not to provoke the Evil Eye. “I hope he will recover by Pesach.”

“Good. We will be able to celebrate Purim properly.”

Em, Homa, and I exchanged glances and grimaced. Usually rabbis and the
amei-ha’aretz
celebrated Jewish holidays separately and with differing rituals. The exception was Purim, when everyone in Babylonia went to hear the Megillah, the book of Esther, read in synagogue, where they cheered the triumph of Mordecai, Queen Esther’s heroic uncle, and jeered the downfall of Haman, the king’s evil adviser.

Despite the women’s displeasure, one Purim custom that men from both communities shared was a Purim feast where they became as intoxicated as possible. Rabbinic women had even greater reason to be displeased, however, for the scholars who so tightly restrained their behavior during the rest of the year were the very ones who reveled with utter abandon at Purim.

To celebrate Purim in addition to my recent
charasha
success, I had Leuton style my hair and anoint me with labdanum. Synagogue was crowded with celebrants, many of them men who had already consumed a good deal of wine. Several pointed at Homa and snickered, but I was gratified when my disapproving stare quieted them immediately. And again men followed me with admiring eyes, just as at the wedding.

Abaye and Rava shared our midday meal but were impatient to join the rest of Rav Yosef’s students for an afternoon and night of drunken carousing. As they left I heard Rava tell Abaye that he intended to drink until he couldn’t distinguish between “cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordecai.”

 • • • 

The weather was unseasonably warm for mid-Adar, so I left my shutters open to let in the cool night air. Lying in bed, I thought about the rabbis’ choice to lose control once a year. I had no doubt that Abaye would be a happy drunk. But I wondered about Rava. Would the wine make him maudlin or mean?

I was jolted awake some time later by a door slamming below, followed by unsteady footsteps on the stairs and occasional thuds against the walls. A quick glance out the window showed the full moon well past its height, so I judged that only a few hours remained until dawn. I lay down and sighed with relief. Abaye and Rava were home.

The jostling noises increased as the men reached the landing and then staggered on past my room. Next door, for Abaye had shared Rava’s room since Babata died, I heard someone land heavily on the bed with a grunt. Then there was silence; that is, except for Leuton’s snoring.

I felt a chill and was debating whether to close the shutters, when I sensed a presence in the doorway. I sat up and pulled on the linens to cover my breasts. As I stared at the approaching figure, he passed in front of the open window and was illuminated by the moonlight.

“Rava, you’re in the wrong room.” I tried to speak with authority. “Go back to bed.”

His words were slurred but perfectly intelligible. “I am going to bed. And I am not in the wrong room.”

EIGHT

I
watched in shock as Rava, one hand on the wall to steady himself, slowly approached. At first I was too stunned to move or speak, but then I realized that I didn’t dare let him reach me while I was in bed. Firmly repudiating the inner voice that told me to open my arms to him, I clasped the linens around my naked torso and scrambled in the opposite direction.

“You think you can entice me like that . . . wearing that perfume . . . without any consequences?” Rava might be drunk, but his words still made sense.

“What about the consequences of betrothing me this way?” My heart was pounding so hard I could scarcely speak, but I had to reason with him. “Rav Yosef will have you flogged when he hears that you betrothed me with sexual relations, and that will be after he dismisses you from his
beit din
. Your reputation will be ruined.” To say nothing of mine.

He had no reply to this, but at least he stopped to consider it. Emboldened, I continued: “Can’t you wait a few days to betroth me properly, with a contract and banquet, and both our fathers there to witness our marriage?”

“Marriage?” His voice was shaky. “In a few days?”

“Yes.” I didn’t need to pretend enthusiasm. “Our marriage.”

“You want to marry me?”

“I have wanted to marry you since I was a child.” Of course, it would take longer than a few days to arrange our marriage, but I was certain Rava would realize as much once he was sober. “But not like this, not in such a shameful way.” I knew how much he feared being shamed.

“You truly want to marry me? This isn’t some ruse?”

I imagined kissing him as proof, but prudence overruled passion. “Why do you think I am still unmarried after all this time? I am waiting for you.”

He closed the distance between us, and I could smell the wine on his breath. “Swear it,” he demanded.

“Gladly,” I replied. “Bring me a Torah scroll in the morning, and I will swear in front of you, Abaye, any
beit din
you like, that I want to marry you and agree to marry you.”

Rava looked confused and suspicious, as if there must be a flaw in my argument but he couldn’t find it. “Very well,” he said finally. “I will wait until morning.”

But he made no move to leave. I stood there for what seemed like eternity, trembling and clutching the linens to me, listening to his ragged breathing. Just as I decided I would not stop him if he reached out for me, he turned and backed away.

Even then I didn’t lie down until I heard him stumble into bed next door. And the sky was just starting to lighten when I finally became calm enough for sleep to overtake me.

 • • • 

When I woke, it was long past dawn. I saw only females in the
traklin
, so I assumed Rava and Abaye were still sleeping off the night’s revelry. Leuton nonchalantly served me a bowl of porridge. If she’d overheard anything untoward in our room, she was being as discreet as ever. I was too nervous to eat more than a few bites, and the slightest noise overhead made me glance at the stairs.

That is, until Em gazed at me shrewdly and said, “If you think you’ve misplaced anything, it might be better to check now rather than to sit here worrying.”

I shook my head and resolved to keep my eyes away from the stairway until I heard men’s voices. I ate slowly, and eventually there came the unmistakable scuffling sound of footsteps.

I half-rose from my seat to greet Rava, but he ignored my presence and beckoned to a kitchen slave. “Hurry now,
ispargus
for your master and me. Then leave the entire jug.”

He and Abaye made quick work of their first two cups and were pouring out more of the hangover remedy when Em asked, “Did you have a pleasant evening? I hope Rav Yosef’s students didn’t cause too much trouble.”

Abaye grimaced and held his head in his hands. “Considering my headache, I must have had an excellent evening. As for the students, I have no idea how they behaved or if I even arrived at Rav Yosef’s. The last thing I recall is dining here.”

He turned to Rava for help, but Rava shrugged. “I remember even less.” My heart plummeted when he said, “I recall nothing between reading the Megillah and waking up this morning.”

No! I wanted to scream. You came to my room last night. I told you I wanted to marry you. You can’t have forgotten.

I stumbled outside as my tears began to fall, and by the time I reached the well I was sobbing. Maybe Rava didn’t remember anything because there wasn’t anything to remember. Maybe it had been a dream.

Soon Em’s warm arm was around me. “What’s the matter, dear?”

I didn’t dare tell her about the previous night, especially if I had dreamed it. “It was this time last year that my daughter died. How I miss her.” I hadn’t lied to Em. I did miss Yehudit.

Em’s chin began to quiver. “Yes, losing a child is a terrible blow.” When she spoke again, her voice was businesslike. “Don’t you usually become
dashtana
when the moon begins to wane?”

I blew my nose in the dirt and nodded. “I should start bleeding any day now.”

“I thought so. Many women get melancholy then.” She gave me a hug. “That is what I told Rava when he asked about you.”

I sniffed back my tears. At least Rava had noticed my distress.

“I know I said that I didn’t want you to prepare any potions yourself for a year, but, considering the situation, I’ve changed my mind.” She held up a basket of date pits.

“What situation?” How astute of Em to use curiosity to help dispel my sadness.

“Soon the merchants will start arriving home for Pesach, and while many wives are eager to conceive another child, some are not.” Em’s tone passed no judgment on these women. “They will come to me for
kos ikarin
, which I supply to them
.
”

I had heard of
kos ikarin
, “cup of roots,” which was also called
kos akarin
, “cup of sterility.” But I didn’t know anyone who admitted to using it.

“You want me to make it?” I could feel my excitement rising. “It must be a simple recipe, then.”

“It is a difficult, and dangerous, procedure.” She dumped the date pits into a jar of water before leading me to the garden. “But it is best done in the spring, and it may be that next year you will be pregnant or trying to become so.”

“What do you mean dangerous?” Our goats ate date pits all the time, and it didn’t harm them or make them sterile.

“The client is endangered if it is not prepared correctly. Too weak and she will conceive and bear a deformed child, too strong and she herself will die.” There was warning in Em’s tone. “But preparing the potion is also dangerous, as the way to ascertain its potency is by taste.”

“By taste?” What was I getting into?

“Next week, when you’re
dashtana,
it will have no effect,” she reassured me. “Being long past childbearing, I am immune.”

“So
kos ikarin
merely prevents pregnancy temporarily?”

“If used judiciously, yes. But some women wish to become sterile permanently. It is a risk they take.”

We stopped in front of a raised bed filled with scraggly bushes. If it weren’t that they were the only plants growing there, I would have thought them weeds. I’d never seen them in my family’s herb garden.

“This is the important ingredient, not the date pits.”

I bent down and sniffed, but the leaves had no odor. “What is it?”

“It has no common name and apothecaries don’t sell it.” She looked at me sternly. “The fewer people who know of this, the better.”

 • • • 

Em started my instruction on the day my bleeding began. First I learned that although the plant in Em’s garden was the source of the roots in “cup of roots,” we would not unearth them yet. The roots for this potion had been dug up last year.

“The roots need to be harvested when they are at their plumpest, just before the east wind starts blowing.” She opened a small jar to expose a piece of shriveled root inside. “Then I cut them up and store them in closed containers so they dry out slowly, thus concentrating their strength.”

“But each root will be different,” I protested.

Em beamed at my comment. “Exactly. That is why we mix them all together into one uniform batch.”