Джеймс Миченер - The Source

In these midsummer days, when the quality of Makor’s harvest was being determined, Timna was led to review the principles by which she lived. She was now twenty-four years old and had come a stranger to Makor, so that some of its customs she could not comprehend, but she had never believed that life would have been much better in her home city of Akka. True, in Akka the god Melak would not have grabbed her first-born in his fiery arms, but other gods would have exacted other tribute, so she had few illusions; on balance, life in Makor was as good as it could have been in any of the neighboring communities. From time to time, however, she heard rumors in merchant circles of a much different manner of life in distant areas like Egypt and Mesopotamia. One year an Egyptian general, much harried and suspicious of everyone, had stopped in Makor, spending three days with the king, and he seemed a man who saw enormous distances beyond the confining walls of one town. On passing Urbaal’s house he had stopped out of natural curiosity to inspect the place, asking through his interpreter a series of intelligent questions. It was from this experience that Timna had first entertained the concept that beyond Makor there was another world and beyond it another, and she wondered what authority cruel Melak enjoyed in those worlds, or to what extent half-buried El could dominate those communities. Watching her husband report to the baals of his fields, one after the other—olive grove, olive press, oil vats, oil jugs, highway, beehives, wheat, barley—she deduced that these must be very puny gods indeed, no better really than extended men, and that if one god went down or were lost it could not matter much. Now, as she found herself pregnant again, she was delighted to think that her lost son would be replaced. But when she went in to give thanks to the new clay Astarte and saw that seductive body and the enticing smile, she felt a most serious contradiction: her pregnancy had coincided with the arrival of this winsome little goddess, and perhaps Astarte had been directly responsible; but on the other hand why should anyone assume that Astarte was any more powerful or extensive in her realm than the pitiful little baals that her husband worshiped were in theirs? It was a perplexing question, but on the day she told her husband that she was pregnant again Urbaal was so delighted that when he carried her into the god-room and placed her gently on his bed, crying, “I knew that Astarte would bring us children,” she stifled her skepticism and concurred, “Astarte did it.”

But as soon as she had made this surrender she had to look at her foolish husband and say to herself: He’s happy that I’m pregnant, but not because of me. And not because of my future son. But only because it proves his new Astarte is powerful. He thinks that she will give him the right to stay with Libamah. And thus was born the contempt that she could never thereafter stifle.

As the month of harvest approached, it was obvious that Astarte had blessed not only Urbaal and his wife, but the town as a whole. Herdsmen reported record growth amongst their cattle, weavers piled bolts of cloth on their shelves, and the wheat crop was plentiful. Urbaal, at the olive grove, had riches unmatched and was already supplying oil and honey to donkey caravans from Akka, where boats were putting in from Egypt and Tyre for the surpluses. The military threats from the north had subsided, as the god Melak had predicted, and there was bounty in the air.

In the regions around Makor there had developed a tradition that would later be observed in many nations: thanksgiving for such a year of fruitfulness; and as the harvest ended, music began to sound and people prepared themselves for the forthcoming celebrations. The men who might logically aspire to winning Libamah grew nervous as the priests came to review their year’s operations, and Urbaal heard with some dismay that Amalek had done wonders with his cattle. At home Urbaal grew irritable and Timna, satisfied with her pregnancy, looked at him with a gentle condescension. It seemed ridiculous to her that a man with two wives and adequate slaves should drive himself to nervous distraction over the prospect of spending some time with a girl who, after some months of serving as the chief attraction at the temple, would gradually subside into being one of the ordinary prostitutes who were served out in batches of three and four at the conclusion of celebrations, ending at last as an unwanted old woman given to slaves in hopes that an extra child or two might be lured from her womb. In no way did she resent Libamah; the girl was pretty and Timna could understand why a man might want her, but that Urbaal should take the matter seriously was disgusting. Furthermore, the wise wife could guess at the other apprehensions that must be tormenting her husband as the time for choosing Libamah’s mate approached: there had been a year when the man chosen had been so excited and nervous that he had made a pitiful spectacle of himself, throwing the whole ritual into confusion and bringing disgrace upon Makor, so that Astarte was annoyed and refused to make the ensuing crops bountiful. One night as Timna sat brooding in the courtyard, she heard her husband praying to Astarte that he might be the chosen one, then praying a second time that if he were chosen he might be equal to the task—for it would be ridiculous to celebrate a fertility rite in which fertility was obviously impossible.

All these matters the priests took into consideration as they approached the day on which to make their final selection of the year’s representative. Amalck and Urbaal were each strong men and each had proved himself by having numerous children. The fact that Timna was pregnant again aided Urbaal’s claims, but the unusual fecundity of Amalek’s cattle was equally impressive and the priests wavered between the two.

The climax of thanksgiving began with three days of feasting in which enormous banquets were provided by the temple priests, drawing upon stores of food accumulated by their slaves in the preceding year. Cattle were slaughtered and wine from temple jugs was liberally distributed. There was dancing and tumbling and juggling. Musicians played long into the night, and passing traders were encouraged to lay up their caravans and share in the celebration.

Then, on the fourth day, the entire town and its surroundings—something over a thousand people—congregated at the temple, where appetites were whetted by having one of the prettiest of the older temple prostitutes dance nude, after which she allowed herself to be led off into one of the chambers by a youth of sixteen who had been fortified with wine to prepare him for the ritual. There was other dancing of an erotic nature, adoration of both the male and female figure, and finally the presentation of the young priestess, Libamah, who was again ceremoniously undressed by the priests. A hush fell over the crowd, and the men who might be chosen leaned forward as the enchanting girl began her final dance of the year. It went far beyond what she had done before, and as she drew to a conclusion, any man in the audience would have been a capable partner; but the priests assembled and their leader cried, “Urbaal is the man!”

The farmer leaped onto the steps and stood with his feet apart, staring at Libamah, who turned to accept him while the priests quickly stripped away his clothing. He stood forth as a powerful man and the crowd cheered as he strode forward, gathered the young priestess in his arms and carried her into the hall of Astarte, where he would lie with her for seven days.

Timna, still grieving for her son, watched the performance dispassionately and muttered, “What folly! The fertility is in the soil. It is in me.” And while others celebrated she walked slowly homeward, seeing life in a new and painful clarity: with different gods her husband Urbaal would have been a different man; and she went into his god-room, looked with abhorrence at the four Astartes, and methodically smashed the first three along with their phallic companions. She then lifted the fourth goddess and would have smashed it, too, except that in the moment of doing so she was struck by the atavistic suspicion that perhaps this Astarte had indeed caused her present pregnancy and if destroyed might end it. She couldn’t be sure, so she took the figurine and the fragments to an empty spot along the wall, where she buried them deep in earth, ridiculing as she did so both the goddess and the man who had so disgustingly committed his life to her.