Джеймс Миченер - The Source

At that moment they were heading through the worst part of the swamp, and at the mention of Geula’s name Rimmon made an ugly face, which angered his mother and she berated him: “Geula may not be beautiful, but she knows virtue, and it is not proper to make faces at a girl of marked devotion.” Rimmon stopped this argument by saying, “I was making faces at the water snake that slipped from the rock,” and his mother grew silent and moved closer to him, for the nearness of a poisonous snake was frightening when she knew that her son had been singled out for some austere purpose.

When they cleared the swamp and climbed to higher ground they saw ahead of them the broken walls of Makor, and each compared that poor town with the grandeur of Jerusalem, and they saw for themselves what a miserable place it was; the invading armies had destroyed so much. Where eight hundred people had lived inside the walls in comfortable houses during King David’s time, fewer than five hundred now lived in near-poverty. The rich fields outside, which had supported nine hundred farmers, had now only a hundred peasants who never knew when the next marauder would burn their crops and carry them off to slavery. These were dreadful years in Galilee, during which Makor sustained the smallest population of its long history, but Gomer suspected that evil of greater magnitude lay ahead. It must have been for this reason that Yahweh had spoken to her in the tunnel, charging her with the task of preparing her son for the trials that faced the Hebrews, and now, as she returned to the town which had brought her such little happiness, she clutched his hand and headed for the main gate, unaware that the test would fall not upon him but on her.

Against his mother’s wishes Rimmon married Mikal, and against Gomer’s own wishes she soon had to confess what a pleasing girl the governor’s daughter was: laughing and beautiful, Mikal quickly proved that she was going to make Rimmon an excellent wife; she brought him a dowry larger than he could have expected and she prevailed upon her father to let him run the olive grove, not as foreman but as co-owner. She moved into the bleak house by the postern gate, sewed the necessary clothes, and then gave testimony of her love for Rimmon that no governor’s daughter was required to give. One morning as Gomer lifted the water jug onto her head preparatory to the long descent and longer walk through the dark tunnel, Mikal took down the jug and said, “From now on I shall fetch the water.”

The tired old woman looked down at the bright face, so hopeful in the morning light and so satisfied with the child that was growing near her heart, and Gomer said, “Today you have brought me rubies,” and she bent down and for the first time kissed her daughter and continued, “The only remaining thing I can do for my son is going to the well.” She carried the jug herself, but each morning young Mikal would watch for the moment when her mother started for the well, and she would lift the jug and say, “Now I shall fetch the water,” and each morning old Gomer would refuse the offer, but her heart was overcome that her daughter had again volunteered.

Then came the days of terror. Out of the south, eastward of Megiddo, appeared the great army of the Pharaoh Necho, with men by the thousands and chariots whose dust obscured the sun, with generals in pleated tunics and foot soldiers burdened with spears. Fanning out swiftly in all directions the army occupied crossroads and villages and even walled towns.

“We are going north to crush Babylon forever,” the armed emissaries told Governor Jeremoth, “and from Makor we require two hundred men and their supplies. By sunset tonight.”

A cry of protest went up from the town, and when Jeremoth was reluctant to identify which men must go, the Egyptians did the job for him. Throwing a cordon about the town they first marched off everyone living outside the walls. When Jeremoth protested that these were the farmers who fed the town, the Egyptian general shouted up at him, “When you begin to starve, your women will find the fields. You have five daughters. You’ll eat.”

They then searched the houses and picked every man who looked as if he could walk a hundred miles. At Gomer’s they grabbed Rimmon as a prize Soldier and told him on the spot that he was to be a captain of the Hebrews, and before he could say good-bye to his mother or his wife they had him outside the walls, where they began immediately to give him orders. He started to protest that he would not lead his Hebrews against the Babylonians, but he did not finish. An Egyptian soldier—not even an officer—struck him across the neck with a war mace and he fell unconscious to the ground.

From the wall his mother saw her son fall and she thought he was killed. Like an ordinary woman struck with terror she wanted to whimper softly, but an outside power took possession of her throat and from the walls she pointed with a long right arm and an extended forefinger. Her hair blew in the evening wind and her figure seemed to increase in its gaunt height, losing its stoop, and from her throat came for the first time a voice of extraordinary power, echoing across the town and into the hearts of the Egyptian invaders:

“O men of Egypt! Too long have you tormented the children of Yahweh, too long. You march north to battle which hyenas and vultures will long celebrate as they tear at your bones. You proud generals in pleated tunics, at the great battle your eyes will be put out and you will spend your years in darkness, toiling for the Babylonians. You insolent charioteers in armor, your horses shall drag you through cinders, and rocks of the field will clutch at your brains. You priests who accompany the mighty force to give it sanction, how you will dream of Thebes and Memphis”—if Gomer could have heard her words she would have been perplexed, for she knew nothing of Thebes or Memphis—“how you will dream of Egypt when you toil in the slave pits of Babylon. And you, Pharaoh Necho, ride north with your banners flying and the wheels of your chariot churning dust. But you ride in vain, for Egypt is lost.”

Her words shattered in the air like spears striking rock, and an Egyptian captain, seeing their effect on his troops, shouted, “Silence that foolish woman,” so that Governor Jeremoth himself ran to her and shook her; and when she regained her senses she saw that Rimmon was not dead but had risen and was doing as the Egyptians wished, and thus the army moved northward, picking up whole towns and nations as it went, preparing itself for the day when it must face the Babylonians. As an ordinary woman Gomer watched her son disappear, then sought the consolation of her daughter Mikal, and they joined the other bereft women along the wall, looking eastward to where eddies of dust marked the latest desolation to visit Makor.

… THE TELL

In the kibbutz mess hall Cullinane was always amused, when the subject of women arose, to see how vigorously his Jewish friends argued that in their religion women were treated as equals. One night before Vered left for Chicago she had said, “No religion in the world treats women with more regard than Judaism,” and Eliav added, “Our religion reveres them.”

“If there ever was a case of protesting too much,” Cullinane said, “this is it.”

“What do you mean?” Vered snapped.

“I can only judge by four things,” the Irishman said defensively. “What the Torah says. What the Talmud says. What I see. And what I hear.”

“What have you seen?” Vered asked.

“I’ve been going to synagogues a good deal,” Cullinane replied, “and in the new ones, if women want to attend they have to sit in a balcony behind a curtain. At older ones, like the Vodzher Rebbe’s, there’s no place for them at all.”