Take This Cup (2 page)

Lamsa bowed slightly as Sarah’s mother hurried off to fetch refreshment.

“The dust of Eden remains on our mountains.” Lamsa laid out his wares on the fabric table to show samples of this year’s wool and fine, thick fleeces from his flocks in the North beyond Babylon. “And the glory of Adonai remains in our high mountain pastures. My sheep drink in the memory of it from the waters, and even the grass they graze translates the vision of Adam into this . . .” He swept his hand proudly over the wool.

Boaz ran his fingers over the miracle produced by Lamsa’s flock and closed his eyes in pleasure at the quality. “Nothing like this wool anywhere.”

Lamsa added, “Ah, brother, you should taste the meat of my lambs. Nothing has such flavor. I dream of it when I am away.”

“You must be hungry! Where is that woman?” Then Boaz called to Rebekah, “Wife, where are you? Hurry! Bring the wine and cheese and bread for Lamsa.”

Rebekah bustled in with a tray of food and a jug of wine. “I must go prepare a feast for you, Lamsa. So many years since we have served you! Our daughter, Sarah, will help me. She is a good cook. Sarah?”

Sarah tried to maintain her smile but was well aware her mother had already mentally discarded the word
widower
and substituted the phrase
potential
husband
for
lame, too-tall Sarah, twenty-three-year-old spinster daughter.

Rebekah motioned to Sarah, and the thump of the loom fell silent. She stepped from her chair and towered over the room.

“This,” Boaz said, smiling, “is our daughter Sarah. She was a child when last you were here.”

Lamsa did not say, “My, how you’ve grown,” but Sarah saw the thought in his expression.

Sarah stepped forward and curtsied. “Cousin Lamsa, I know you by the beauty of the wool I weave, sir.”

Lamsa kissed her on both cheeks. “Cousin Sarah, you play the loom as if it were David’s harp.” He gestured at her father’s wares. “And here is the poetry and the melody and the music of your effort.”

It was a kind thing for him to say, and a true thing as well. Sarah bowed her head slightly, then left with her mother so Boaz and Lamsa could conduct business.

Sarah limped after her mother through the curtain into the back room of the shop. Rebekah lingered to eavesdrop. Sarah, disgusted, waited, hands on hips. The voices of the two men drifted to her.

“It’s a long way for you to travel, Lamsa.”

“I wanted to see you. I remembered you have five beautiful daughters.”

“Yes. Yes. The four oldest are married with families of their own now. They weave for me in their homes.”

“Sarah is a skilled weaver,” Lamsa remarked.

Sarah wanted to cover her ears. Her mother was almost vibrating as she panted and wrung her hands at the curtain.

“Mother,” Sarah hissed. “Come on. Please! We have to go to the Street of the Butchers before they close.” Sarah plucked at her mother’s sleeve.

Rebekah came to her senses as Sarah tugged her out the back door of the shop into the late afternoon air. “We must have the butcher prepare a haunch of lamb for us,” Rebekah decided.

“Not lamb, Mother. You heard what Lamsa said about his lamb. Anything but his own will be sawdust in his mouth.”

“Oh, Sarah, you are so clever. Such a clever girl! Why you have never married . . .”

They trudged up the alley toward the open corridor leading to where butcher shops lined the street known as “Shambles.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Mother. The man is not looking for a wife!”

“He most certainly is!” Rebekah would not be swayed.

“He’s not looking for me.”

Rebekah glanced up at Sarah. “And why not you? Why, I ask?”

“And I am not looking for a husband. Not one who lives a thousand miles away.”

Rebekah pinched her cheek. “Look at you. Pretty girl. Pretty green eyes. Your eyes are your best feature. What’s wrong with you? Such a place he lives. A rich man. Eden . . .”

“I’m no Eve. What’s for dinner?”

Rebekah was drawn back to the problem of inferior lamb. “Beef,” she declared.

“The best pieces will be gone by now.”

“Fish.”

“Too late in the day. No fresh fish.”

“Then what?”

“A chicken,” Sarah answered. “We’ll have the butcher slaughter a chicken. Fresh enough.”

Rebekah snapped her fingers. “You’re so smart, daughter. Yes, you can make that . . . that . . . wonderful dish your father enjoys so much.”

And so the chicken was slaughtered, plucked, and roasted as Lamsa hurried to the public baths and returned in time for a sumptuous meal prepared by Sarah. Wine flowed. The best wine. Lots of it.

Lamsa reclined happily and patted his belly. “There are wild pheasant in the hills. Practically pick them up without a snare. But my boys do love to hunt. Imagine pheasant cooked like this.”

Rebekah simpered, “Sarah can cook anything. Can’t you, Sarah? Tell him your secret.”

“Garlic,” Sarah replied without elaboration.

Lamsa nodded slowly. “Ah, yes. Garlic. We have garlic. And rosemary and thyme grow wild on our hills.” He pressed his fingers together and formed a tent shape. “Two mountain ranges border our grazing lands like this. Climbing and climbing to impossible heights. The snowfall on the peaks never fully melts. On the lower slopes it melts into ten thousand waterfalls and is the source of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Eden. You see? And at the very north of the mountain ranges, where my fingers meet, is Ararat, a volcano with two great peaks, where
Noah and his ark came to rest. Noah opened the door of the ark and out they came . . . all the animals. So our mountains and valleys abound with wildlife.”

Sarah questioned, “And your flock grazes on the wild spices? Perhaps that is why your lamb is superior in taste to any other.” She meant this as a joke.

Lamsa continued to nod as he considered such profound wisdom. “That must be it. Such a clever girl. That has to be it.”

Sarah smiled slightly. “It could be nothing else.”

“All fruit trees grow wild there. Except orange trees. But every spice grows wild. And asparagus. Just stroll out of your door. Vegetables . . . all kinds . . . wild.”

Sarah replied too pleasantly, “A miracle. And so the lamb is seasoned before it is cooked, and vegetables are perfectly ripe and ready on the hillside. A woman has no need to go to the souk . . .”

Lamsa broke his bread and placed a piece on Sarah’s plate. “We are never without variety, and every day is beautiful. My town is called Amadiya. It is built of stone and is as old as Jerusalem, they say. Abraham would have known it. Built on a high plateau that overlooks river valleys. Beautiful. A fortress. A safe place for our wives and children. Only one way up. A steep staircase cut in the side of the mountain. Protection for our families from raiders while we shepherds move our flocks from meadow to meadow.”

Sarah considered her lame foot and wondered if there were more steps leading to Amadiya than there were in Jerusalem. “But what if the women and families wish to go with their husbands?” she asked.

Lamsa replied, “Then they come. And live in tents among the flocks. Seven or eight months of the year is a long time to
stay alone in a stone house in the village. Many families come along with the men. All work together. Children. Women. But only if they do not wish to stay in a fine stone house in the village.” He smiled. “It is pleasant. If Father Abraham would come upon us, he would not know how many centuries had passed. The descendants of Noah’s wild deer often follow our flocks as we move from pasture to pasture. They drink with the sheep in the dry season. It is written, ‘As a deer pants for water, so my heart longs for you, O, Lord.’ ”
¹

“I have heard something like that.” Sarah drizzled honey on her morsel.

“Perhaps it is not the exact quote. But I know the truth of it.”

Rebekah, as if fearing that Lamsa would catch on to Sarah’s amusement, suddenly interrupted, “Come now, daughter, finish your meal. Lamsa and your father have things to discuss. Business.”

The women cleared the table.

Rebekah heated water for washing. “Sarah,” she chided, “he is a good man.”

Sarah lifted a brow. “He’s had too much wine and talks too much.”

“Your father knows how to conduct business.”

“Business! Do you think I don’t know . . .” Sarah exhaled heavily. “Mother, I am content to be who I am and wish to remain where I am. Amadiya! How many steps up the face of a mountain to reach the village? Stop plotting. Not one more word!” Sarah warned.

They cleaned up the rest of the dishes in silence.

Immediately afterward, Sarah retreated to her bedchamber on the rooftop. Storm clouds gathered, and the half-moon shone through the silver vapor. She had been in bed an hour when Boaz and Rebekah rapped softly at her door.

“Enter.”

Rebekah’s expression was wistful, hopeful, as she blinked at Sarah. Boaz’s lower lip protruded as it did when he was negotiating a sale.

“Daughter, are you asleep?” Rebekah whispered hoarsely.

“Not now.” Sarah sat up.

“Good.” Boaz pulled up a stool and, sucking his teeth, sat down slowly. “The chicken tonight was . . .”

“Just a chicken, Father.”

“Lamsa enjoyed it very much.” Rebekah leapt in too quickly.

Sarah did not reply at first, but a sense of dread filled her. “Father? What have you done?”

Her parents exchanged a guilty glance. Boaz cleared his throat. “You’re no spring chicken.”

“Not slaughtered and plucked quite yet, you mean, Father? Not stewed or roasted?” Sarah covered her face with her hands. “Just tell me.”

“It’s good news, really.” Rebekah stroked her back. “He . . . Lamsa . . . likes you.”

Sarah sighed. “Mother, everyone here likes me. I have only friends here. I have sisters and nephews and nieces who like me. Who love me. Strangers stop to watch me weave. They like me. I love my work.”

Boaz cleared his throat. He smelled of too much wine. “Here’s the bargain. Lamsa came here looking for a wife. Here. I mean, to this house. My house. He remembered that I had five daughters. He is looking for a wife, you see, from Jerusalem. He is not finished having children, and he wants a wife from Jerusalem, which will add stature and authority to his descendants, since his people did not return from exile when the captivity ended. He came looking . . . for you.”

“No, Father! Not for me. I am the leftover daughter. The only one of five who is unmarried.”

“That may be, but that made his choice easier.”

“His choice?” Tears welled in Sarah’s eyes.

Rebekah glanced nervously at Boaz. “Yes. He is a good man. A rich man.”

“He lives eight months in a tent with sheep,” Sarah protested. “Is this what you want for me?”

“Here is the bargain,” Boaz reasoned. “His choice of my five daughters is you. No matter that your sisters are married. Lamsa chooses you. He came here for you. But he says . . .”

Silence hung in the air like a large spider suspended from a web. Sarah looked from Rebekah to Boaz, then back again. “What?”

Boaz continued cautiously. “Lamsa says he will not force you to marry him. Will not force you to leave your family and go back to Gan Eden unless you are certain you want to go.”

Sarah blurted, “Then it’s settled. The answer is no!”

Rebekah clasped her hand. “Sarah, your last chance . . .”

“No, Mother.”

Boaz drew himself up. His eyes simmered in anger. “He is a fair man. He says you should pray on the matter and ask the Lord if there is some way you might be happy. That is what Lamsa says, and I command you to pray!”

Tears spilled. “What about my work?”

Boaz’s chin lifted slightly. “Lamsa will take your loom to Amadiya. You will weave there. Your fabric, your prayer shawls, will be returned here to be sold in Jerusalem. I could not lose my most skilled weaver. For Lamsa, it is less raw wool to be caravanned. Thus, more economical.”

“What about my limp? The mountains? Walking?”

“He says you may have your own donkey to ride. I would have nothing but the best for my daughter. He is a wealthy herdsman.”

Sarah could not utter another word. All the details for a marriage contract had been worked out.

So,
she pondered,
this
is
how
marriage
happens.
A
distant
relative
in
need
of
a
woman
walks
through
the
door,
and
a
bargain
is
struck. With the one caveat, I must agree.
“All right, Father, Mother. I will consider his . . . business arrangement.”

“And pray?” Rebekah clasped her hands in a desperate pantomime of prayer.

“Yes, Mother. I will pray. I promise. I will.”

The two scuttled like crabs out of her room and closed the door.

Sarah rose and leaned her chin against her hand on the windowsill. Male voices drifted up.