Джеймс Миченер - The Source

Urbaal interpreted this devious reply as meaning that Amalek now had the four stolen goddesses working for him. “I suppose you know how to keep Astarte happy?” Urbaal asked in clumsy strategy.

“I wish I did. Then at new year maybe I’d win the tall one.”

To Urbaal the words were infuriating, and he tried to think of something effective to reply, but he was muted. He turned, still with his hands behind his back, and stalked off. “I see you found the stones,” Amalek said as he led his cattle away.

For Urbaal the day was ruined, and on his way back to the zigzag gate he launched the series of tragic dislocations that were to mark the last months of that year: he forgot to salute the baal of his olive grove. All he could visualize was the herdsman Amalek, who had stolen the Astartes. The man’s own words condemned him, and what was especially infuriating, he was bold enough to joke about the matter, as if he knew that Urbaal had lost his power. Gloomily he carried the stones to his god-room, but his three new Astartes gave no sign that they appreciated his thoughtfulness. His mouth had an ashen taste, proving that things had gone savagely wrong, and his mood was not improved when he walked to the temple area, lounging idly in hopes of seeing Libamah. She did not appear, but toward dusk Heth the Hittite closed his shop and came to speak with Urbaal. With his natural shrewdness the merchant could easily guess why Urbaal lingered there, and said, “Forget her, Urbaal. In the months ahead we’ll all enjoy that one.”

The farmer was outraged, morally shocked, and he would have struck Heth were he not forced to acknowledge that what the Hittite said was true: once Libamah had been used to sanctify the harvest, her uniqueness was spent and she would be quickly offered at the lesser feasts. When the new year came at the beginning of the planting season she would be brought forth again, and by the next autumn she would be available at monthly festivals while some new girl occupied premier place at the harvest. “A year from now you can have her any time you want,” Heth said. “Just knock on the temple door.” The Hittite’s insinuating laugh agitated Urbaal and in growing darkness he left the holy place but did not go home. By a narrow alley he made his way to the house of Amalek, where he stood in shadows trying to guess where his stolen goddesses might be. What galled him was the vision of Amalek’s using the stolen Astartes against him, and he constructed several ways whereby he might break into the enemy house and recover them. At the moment none of the plans seemed feasible, so he went home, mean in spirit and hungry for Libamah.

It was more than a week before he saw her again, but when he did the effect was more powerful than before: with stately grace she walked across the temple steps and when she saw him ogling her from the monoliths she gave him a casual glance which cut him like a copper arrow-point, for he convinced himself that she had tried to send him the signal: “How will you rescue me?” He wanted to cry, “I’ll save you, Libamah.” But all he could do was stare at her as she disappeared.

The following days speeded his deterioration. He began to lose his sense of continuity; ignoring the fact that now his olive trees required attention, he stopped going down to the grove. He searched no more for the dead trees in which fall honey rested, and his wheat fields by the white oaks could wait. He spent his time alternately brooding over the wrong Amalek had done him and longing for the slave girl, and inescapably the two preoccupations began to blend, so that he could not keep his mind focused on either. One night when there was no moon he found a dark cloth and tied it over his face, slipping out of his house with the intention of harming Amalek—how, he did not know. He stayed all night in the street waiting for a practical idea but none came, and with the dawn he stuffed the cloth inside his shirt and went to the temple to study ways whereby he might break through its portals and rescue Libamah. Again he could devise nothing.

A minor festival for Baal-of-the-Storm arrived, and Libamah was brought forth to dance, keeping her eyes downcast as she had been coached, but twice she happened to look in the general direction of Urbaal and again he was satisfied that she was signaling him. At the conclusion of her erotic performance, when Urbaal was burning with desire for her, she retired and the priests threw out the four old prostitutes, nominating him for one of them. The idea was repugnant and he refused to move forward, but Timna, who appreciated what was happening, whispered, “If you misbehave they will kill you,” and he simulated eagerness in going to the steps. But when he was alone with his substitute priestess he could do nothing, not even visualize her as a woman, though she stood naked before him, and this behavior the disappointed prostitute reported to the priests, who became suspicious; they compared this performance with his earlier reaction to Libamah and shrewdly guessed what was in his mind.

Now, lost in a hopeless mania, he devised a clever trick for killing Amalek. He would meet him on the street and drive a spear through his chest. Escape afterward? He had no time to bother about such details. Punishment if caught? All he could see was the laughing face of Amalek and the sudden fear that would take possession when Urbaal leaped at him. In his god-room he practiced the fatal leap many times, then heard Timna standing beside him in her nightclothes: “Husband, evil days have overtaken you. Can I help?”

Unable to determine exactly who she was, he looked at her stately form and half remembered the joy they had shared when she had first become pregnant with the son who had been burned. He saw those fires of death and drew back. Then he recalled that he had loved Timna in those placid days as now he loved Libamah, but in a deeper, more mature manner. He saw Timna as the smiling Astarte of life and his brain became confused. She was in the way and he pushed her from his room.

Knowing that she was needed, she stubbornly returned and said, “Urbaal, if you continue in this madness your groves will diminish. Forget the prostitute. Forget Amalek.”

Gripping her by the arm he asked fiercely, “How do you know my fears?”

“The night you were planning to kill Amalek …”

“How do you know that?”

“Urbaal,” she confessed gently, “I stayed near you in the street, watching for hours to help you.”

He pushed her away as if she were a spy. “Who has told you these things?”

Patiently she explained, “It’s you who tell everyone. Don’t you suppose the priests already know? At the festival if I hadn’t urged you …”

He felt a strangling rage. On the one hand he wanted to rush out and kill Amalek wherever he stood, and on the other he wanted to surrender to Timna’s quiet consolation. He wanted to rescue Libamah—no matter how many priests protected her—and yet he wanted to recapture the simplicity he had known with Timna. In the darkness, broken only by the flickering light that came from a clay lamp burning oil from his olives, he looked with surrender toward the dignified woman who had come to him from the strangeness of Akka. He knew her now as his loving wife, quiet and understanding, with more wisdom than the ordinary woman, and he was not surprised that she had been the one to fathom his secrets. He allowed her to sit on his bed and the strangling insanity subsided. For the first time in many weeks he prayed to Astarte, but as he did so, Timna said, “Forget the goddesses, Urbaal. They have no power over a man like you.”

He did not argue. The idea was strange and repugnant, but on this weary night he did not wish to debate, so she continued unhindered, “Forget your hatred of Amalek. He didn’t steal your goddesses. It was an ordinary thief, of that I’m sure.” He leaned forward, wanting to believe her words, for he had long known Amalek to be an honest husbandman.