Джеймс Миченер - The Source

But still she did not speak, and just as Aaron in the aftermath of having raped her had misinterpreted her silence as acquiescence, so now the rabbi made the same mistake.

“It is written here,” he said reassuringly as he unfurled the Torah, “‘If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her. And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.’ It is not my command, Shimrith. It is the will of God.”

Not even then did she speak. As a powerful Jewish woman, intelligent beyond the average and capable in many untested directions, she began to find reassurance in her unexpected resolve, which she expressed only to herself by keeping her hands pressed tightly against her sides until her fingertips grew white with controlled fury, and in this insolent pose she stared back at the rabbi until that pusillanimous lawgiver left the room. At the door he mumbled, “We should all submit to God’s law with humbleness. I’ll arrange the wedding.” And he was gone.

Alone in the desolate room, with cold rain striking the roof while her husband’s murderer crouched on the other side of the wall, his ear pressed close to catch what the rabbi had been saying, Shimrith whispered to herself, “There will be no observance of the law. For if the law says that I must marry my husband’s murderer …” She did not finish the sentence, for she knew how impossible it would be for her to prove that Aaron was the murderer, and she foresaw that the rabbi could enlist a considerable pressure, forcing her finally to accept the red-stained master of the dye vats. As a Jewish widow with no living parents, what could she do? She now belonged legally to her brother-in-law, and the rabbi could command her to marry him even though he already had a wife. Even Byzantine soldiers were available to enforce such a decision, now that it had been formally delivered, and in the end there could be only tragedy unless she complied. But this she would not do; so while Aaron remained with his ear to the wall she slipped away and climbed to the roof, where she stood in the rain staring toward Ptolemais and wondering how to escape.

Now Abd Umar, servant of Muhammad, brought his camels and his horses out of the brooding forest trails to begin his transit of the Galilee swamp. As his animals approached that morass, rain fell and because of overhanging branches all riders were forced to dismount and lead their beasts along the bypass that skirted the northern edge of the swamp; and as the Arabs entered this unfamiliar world, where the sky was dark and the earth filled with crawling things, Abd Umar began to wonder whether this adventure was sensible.

As long as their wars had been conducted in the open desert, those gallant areas where vast stretches of sand allowed camels full range, Abd Umar had been confident in the Prophet’s destiny; even the conquest of Damascus had been within reason, for in that battle the Arabs had been able to ride their camels across traditional sand except for the final approaches to the city. The occupation of Tabariyyah had been largely the same: a free camel raid over the empty spaces east of the Jordan, then a swift drop to cultivated land and the occupation of the city. But with the attack on Makor came a new kind of warfare, the unpleasant ride through forested land, then this frightening march on foot to skirt the swamp, ending in a gallop on horseback down an established road. It was not the kind of warfare an Arab preferred, and Abd Umar would be content when it was finished and he could return to the clean and open desert.

He was thinking in this gloomy mood when the riderless horses began to whinny and then to panic. He ran back along the marshy path to where the beasts were shivering in fright, and he saw that they had come upon a large snake which one of them had chopped to death with his hoofs. The serpent lay writhing even after death, and Abd Umar shivered like his horses. Then his own beast, which he was trying to reassure, leaped aside and whinnied pitifully. Abd Umar, catching a flash of movement from the corner of his eye, turned swiftly to confront an enemy. It was a frog, and as the Arab chieftain watched, it leaped into the swampy water, leaving a green splash as it disappeared.

Abd Umar quietened his horses, then regained his position at the head of the file, leading his camel and listening to the huge beast’s soft, plopping feet as they sucked in and out of the mud. Now for the first time the Arab chieftain actually studied the formidable terrain through which he was passing: he saw the strange birds, the water rats, the reeds with feathery tips and the incredible herons, standing knee-deep in water like statues, waiting till the lumbering camels came upon them, then lifting themselves awkwardly into the air, where they flew in lazy circles as if climbing on evanescent circular stairs.

To a man from the desert it was terrifying, this swampland, and for a moment he had a wild desire to flee the place. He wanted to be with Abu Zeid on the heights, storming a town like Safat and putting the defenders to death in an orgy of fire and slaughter. Most of all, he longed for the desert, that vast clean empire of the soul. In the depths of the swamp he remembered the time when alone he had brought the remnants of a caravan back to Medina; his companions had lingered in Damascus. It was on this trip that he had accompanied the other caravan to the point where the road to Jerusalem cut off to the west, and after that separation he had traveled for nine consecutive days without seeing a man, an animal, or any sign of human cultivation. How notable that trip had been, traveling into the heart of the desert, where men felt the presence of God. With an effort he suppressed his insensible desire to be with Abu Zeid at the burning of Safat, but he could not control his instinctive hatred of this swamp and the forest that encroached upon it. He walked rapidly, hoping to quit the ominous area, but his camels could move no faster, for the swamp caught at their cumbersome feet, and Abd Umar thought impatiently: Camels may be fine for the desert, but here they accomplish nothing.

He was forced to lag behind with his animals, and this gave him opportunity to reflect upon the radical changes that had disrupted his life: For thirty years all I wanted was the two black ones. He referred to dates and water, the only requirement of the true desert rider, for with them and a good camel a man could exist almost indefinitely in the sands. Once he had lived with his men for nineteen days with only the two black ones, and at the end of the period, when other food was available, he ate a little but finished his meal with some black dates.

Black. He thought of his unknown mother and then of the sacred stone in the heart of Mecca—that small reddish rock sacred to the Prophet and referred to as the black rock. When Muhammad died, Abd Umar left on a pilgrimage to the Ka’bah and walked seven times around the solemn rock, whispering, “God of this Ka’bah, I bear witness that I have come in pilgrimage. Charge not, ‘You did not come to my Ka’bah, Abd Umar,’ for You see me now, a humble man walking in the shadow of Your rock. Forgive me. Forgive Ben Hadad the Jew. For I have made my pilgrimage, as You must see.” As he now recalled the ominous black rock, where God was present, he happened to see the black water of the swamp, and it was not like the sweet dark waters he had known; it was alien, and for a fragment of a second he entertained a partial vision of the future in which black and various other colors were mingled as Muhammad had once said they would be; but it was fugitive, and at this time he was not able to comprehend the message of this day.