“If you begin to bleed,” Majdal whispered from the stool beside the bed, “I’ll do my best not to stop it, but she will be watching.”
Maryam smiled up weakly at her friend as her contractions passed into another lull.
“You will do no such thing,” Nana snapped from beside the door. “You will not allow her to escape God’s punishment. My ears may be old, girl, but they still hear as well as yours.”
As Majdal renewed her silence, Maryam hoped for Nana to doze off again on her stool by the door. The inside of the one-room house was cool and dusty like the morning. It would turn warm before the day was out, even sheltered from the blazing sun. The northeast winds had arrived early this year, hot and withering like the winter, like a foreshadowing of her impending ordeal.
At least the walls of this one were intact, unlike so many of the abandoned houses Maryam had spent her confinement in since her condition had been discovered. The rainy season seemed so long ago, now, more than a just matter of months.
When Maryam and Majdal had renewed their girlhood friendship a few days earlier, Majdal had wondered aloud why Maryam had not sought her help earlier, before she’d begun to show. There were both herbs and drugs that could have changed her situation, solutions both natural and manmade. The herbs were easily gathered, passed from mother to daughter, midwife to midwife for well over a thousand years. The drugs she could have smuggled in from the enemy via Gaza then Cairo where she’d just finished her training. Getting caught with either would have meant Majdal would have shared Maryam’s fate. But that was unlikely. Border guards were easily bribed as long as they were ignorant of what she carried. Local men were oblivious that such solutions existed. And unlike them, women knew how to keep a secret when their lives depended on it.
But that had never been a possibility, Maryam had told her. This child was the gift of Jibril, peace be upon him. All that mattered was that he was born. His mother’s fate was inconsequential. Unlike her friend, Maryam seemed to accept this.
She lay on a simple bed, a rude, wooden frame strung with latticed rope supporting a thin, straw-stuffed mattress. Hardly comfortable but more than she had at home. The mattress had an acrid smell to it. Some of the chickens scratching across the floor had roosted on it before men had returned and disturbed their newfound home.
The packed dirt floor and sun-dried mud-brick walls emanated the earthier scent of goats and cattle. Since their enemies had been driven off, the elders had used the house to shelter animals from the undying winter wind and sun. A goat was tied to the foot of the bed, her surrogate for feeding the child once it was born, her family’s only contribution, other than Nana being her doula, her assistant to help her bear this tainted child.
In the center of the dusty floor stood the flat disc of a concrete fire-ring, blackened from use despite Majdal’s repeated scrubbings the past two days. A small stack of clean towels donated by the women of the clan stood beside a yellow plastic tub filled with freshly drawn and boiled water, covered by a kerchief to keep it free from the red dust that already sullied the cloth’s purer white.
The wind constantly blew in more dust from outside along with sounds and smells through the high, square window openings near the thatched roof and around the slats of the unusually well-constructed door. The scent of cattle greedy for the last of the rain-gorged grazing wafted in accompanied by their occasional impatient lows. Closer, she could hear the herdsmen, boys really, listening to a futbol match on the radio as they guarded the entrance, against who she was uncertain. No one was likely to come to her aid. Yusuf was dead, his execution coming just days after her pregnancy had been confirmed. Her father and brothers had disowned her. But the herdsmen and their weapons had been a constant presence since the elders had handed down her verdict. Perhaps they were afraid the enemy would intervene to create sympathy in the foreign press. Even along this remote frontier of the country, CNN had jackals disguised as sheep always sniffing around the carcass of a story.
Removing watchmen from the herds to serve as guards showed how seriously the elders had taken her crime. The men were on constant alert for raids by the former inhabitants of villages like Dawood lest her people be unable to consolidate the gains of the past several years. Once, both sides had coexisted in peace. Now farmers and herders exchanged gunfire on sight. There was no longer enough water for both. The enemy seemed unable to comprehend that this land had been given to her people by God, even when the elders made examples of places like Dawood. Here, the occupants must have fled; otherwise, the buildings would have been burned to the ground.
Now, Maryam could hear Nana’s soft snores from the three-legged stool by the door. Majdal quietly crept closer.
“Is it true you don’t remember what happened?” Majdal whispered, her eyes wide with awe and disbelief. She adjusted her hair behind her kerchief nervously as Maryam searched her eyes, as if looking for some spark of understanding from her childhood friend.
“No, I remember,” Maryam responded wearily, her eyes now sinking shut after the early hours of an difficult labor, drifting off into a memory of the last time she had been confronted by that question.
---
She stood before the elders, her belly just beginning to bulge beneath her dress. They sat on stools behind a broad board arranged on trestles as a table, its surface grainy and weatherworn just like the three judges perched behind it. They all wore stony masks lined with disapproval as they set themselves to weigh her actions against the strictures of God’s Law and its prescribed penalties. By now, they had spoken to all the other witnesses and had heard the result of her grandmother’s examination. It was unlikely anything she could say would soften their position. This wasn’t the first time a wayward daughter of Eve had stood before them. History taught her that best she could hope for was a flogging, the worst, death. Either sentence would be carried out without mercy or compassion. Hers was not a kingdom beholden to the good impressions of their mutually sworn enemies.
She kept her gaze upon the packed dirt floor, knowing that to make eye contact would be seen as a threat by men such as these, especially from a woman. Her hands were clasped before her gender in a gesture of modesty that could not disguise the slight swell beneath the thin, white muslin of her dress. She had stolen glances at the men when she’d first entered. Initially, she had recognized none of them. She’d heard rumors that they all came from villages farther east, in the direction of the capital but far from anything resembling its moderating influence. Here, remote officials turned a blind eye to local justice to encourage the gains her people had made against the enemy’s insurgency and their desire to break away with the land God had bestowed upon her people over a thousand years before. The men before her, like all the elders of her clan, saw such a break as unendurable apostasy, the penalty for which was also death.
On second glance, one was slightly familiar, the one in the center, an old man named Jaspar, the wizened headmaster of a boy’s school in Nyala, the school that one of her brothers had attended. To say it was a religious school was to say that the rainy season was wet, redundant. By foreign standards, all schools in her province, whether her people’s or the enemy’s, were fundamentally of the same nature.
“Maryam,” Jaspar said in voice gravelly with age, “you are accused before God’s tribunal of the crime of adultery. We have heard from witnesses who have testified to the circumstances of your sin. You stand before us as your only opportunity to speak before we pass judgement. What will you say in your defense?”
She kept her eyes down in silent thought. She wanted to beg for mercy that she knew would not be forthcoming. These were hard, isolated men scratching a living from a hard, isolated land. She longed to beg for the shelter of her mother’s arms, to retreat into the fortress of her father’s and brothers’ protection. It was too late for that. They had long since abandoned her. She wanted to cry, but knew her tears would only be seen a woman’s weakness or manipulation.
Instead, she felt something stir inside, something she hadn’t felt since she was a young girl, still allowed to run with the boys. A voice whispered deep inside, a voice she recognized each time she thought back to what had happened to her. A voice that embodied the bright figure that had replaced the darkness of that night. She dragged her gaze up to meet Jaspar’s eyes and in a clear, calm voice she couldn’t believe was her own, she said, “I have known no man, only an angel.”
The slightly less aged men to either side of Jaspar leaned in quickly, animatedly whispering into each of his ears before he waved them both away, never breaking eye contact. He scrutinized her, his eyes piercing her as though he could see straight through her modest dress and kerchief into her immortal soul, as though she stood naked before him as he tried to decide whether her words would leave her wanting.
“So you do not deny that you are with child?” he asked flatly as if he already knew the answer.
The voice inside suffused Maryam with certainty and confidence. In defiance uncharacteristic of women of her clan, she spread her arms wide to reveal her belly, surprising herself with her own actions. “How can I deny it? You have had my grandmother inspect me. We both know what she found.”
“You have heard it with your own ears, Jaspar,” said the gray-bearded man to Jaspar’s right, a recent arrival from across the narrow sea sent to teach the men of her clan the true ways of God. “The whore admits her guilt.”
“Belshazzar, let her speak,” Jaspar admonished. “It is her right before God. We are only the instruments of his divine justice.” Turning back to Maryam, he asked, “So you do not remember what happened in the city? Your sister, Isabeth, claims you were forced, though she could not produce the witnesses needed to uphold that allegation.”
“I remember everything,” Maryam replied. Her voice came out strong and steady, as clear as water from a deep, stone-lined well, so unlike the quiet deference she had always shown her father and brothers, or the handful men she had dealt with in her clan. She was no longer certain that voice was her own. “God’s messenger came to me in a dream that night.”
“Perhaps she has a sickness,” said the man to Jaspar’s left. “Perhaps she struggled, and took a blow to the head.”
“Perhaps she is full of demons, Melkior” shot back Belshazzar, “and the angel she speaks of is one of God’s fallen. Or, perhaps, she is a witch.”
Maryam paid no attention to either of them. Her future, and that of her unborn child, lay in the hands of Jaspar, the one Jibril now stood silently behind, the only one of the three wise, old men anointed to decide her fate who seemed prepared to listen to her tale. She continued, “He showed me a vision of the future, showed me cradling my infant son. ‘To you this day, a child is born...’”
“You say you have known no man,” Belshazzar interrupted, “but how can this be if you are with child? Even your grandmother did not claim you remained a virgin when she testified after your inspection.”
“Jibril, peace be upon him, stands behind you now, beckoning you to recognize this miracle.” Maryam replied, her eyes smoldering as she turned toward her accuser.
“Silence!” Belshazzar commanded. “We will not tolerate your blasphemy any longer.”
“You say you remember…” Jaspar began.
“Without the proper witnesses,” Belshazzar interrupted again, “we must assume she gave consent. So the Law is written.”
“I can prove my virginity,” Maryam said, turning back to Jaspar, undaunted. She began to lift the hem of her dress as if compelled. The tribunal averted their eyes in horror.
“She is a sorceress,” Belshazzar screamed, throwing his forearm across his face.
“She attempts to cast a spell upon us by revealing the Serpent,” added Melkior, who completely turned away.
Jaspar said nothing, only scrutinizing the table as he motioned the guards to lead her out, her opportunity to speak at a premature end.
She was led outside and forced to stand in the village center even as the afternoon rain began to fall. The droplets felt like tears from heaven, cleansing her of the defiance she knew would weigh heavy against her fate. Soon, the guards were squatting under the eves of nearby houses, their assault rifles still in hand and lazily pointed in her direction in case she transformed outwardly into what they all feared she had become within. She was forced to squat in the mud and cover her head as best she could with her kerchief and her arms, as no one wanted her under their roofline, even outside, lest her demons find welcome in their homes.
After an interminable time in the chill that accompanied the rain soaking through her dress, she saw the head of the clan’s religious police signal the guards to bring her back inside. At the door, a young man with a truncheon-whip warned to her stay quiet or she would taste the sting of God’s justice early.
As she once again stood before the tribunal, this time soaked and dripping wet despite her best efforts, each of the men flanking Jaspar laid a palm-sized stone on the table without a glance in her direction. Neither would meet her eyes. With seeming reluctance, Jaspar lifted a stone from under the table.
“Maryam, betrothed of Yusuf,” Jaspar announced, “We find you guilty of the crime of adultery.” He set the smooth, river stone on the table with a resounding thunk of finality, like a heavy door suddenly and firmly shut.
Maryam felt as if one of her brothers had struck her in the abdomen and all the air wanted to rush out of her lungs. She wanted to scream, to wail, to lift her protests to heaven. Instead, an unseen hand clamped her throat and held it shut. When her knees began to crumble, she felt as if someone had stepped behind her and put their hands beneath her arms to help support her weight.
Jaspar continued. “Your sentence will be delayed until the child of your crime is born.”
Belshazzar then added with an evil smirk, “Dead or alive, blood is required to cleanse this baby of your mortal sin.”
---
When Maryam next awakened, morning had worn toward late afternoon. The contractions kept creeping closer now, embracing her like severe menstrual cramps that came and went in waves, each pushing more sweat out through her pores before she settled back into exhausted lulls where she faded out to nap. Each time the arms of labor encircled her, she was tempted to push even though Majdal had instructed her to resist the urge. It was not yet time, not yet productive other than to sap her reserve of strength, a reserve she would need once her water broke and the baby crowned. She smiled wanly thinking about the term Majdal used, and how her baby would wear a crown one day. So Jibril had told her.
Maryam’s renewed groans reawakened Nana on her stool. She trundled over, striking Majdal out of the way with her walking stick before peering under Maryam’s skirt.
“Get up,” Nana commanded, emphasizing each word with the tip of her stick. “Enough of your laying around like a Western princess. It is time you got to work to bring this child out.”
“Her water has not yet broken,” complained Majdal, who had also dozed through the latest lull.
“That doesn’t matter,” Nana countered. “I’ve been doing this since before you were born, girl. I can see when mother and child are ready, even if you and she cannot. Now get her up.”
As Majdal levered Maryam to her feet, Nana poked encouragement with her walking stick. Together, they guided her toward the blackened fire-ring in the center of the house.
“Squat down.” Nana whacked Maryam lightly across the shoulders this time. “Don’t hold back girl. That child of sin is coming out. He will be purified in your blood even if I have to force the herbs down your throat to coax him from your womb.”
The concrete patch was rough as Maryam shifted her callused feet. Closer to the floor, she could smell the dust. Majdal once again peered under her skirt. Cramps increased to pain as the arms embracing her transformed into iron bands encircling her abdomen.
“Your ordeal is almost over, Maryam” Majdal encouraged. “When you feel the next contraction, I want you to push.”
Maryam did as she was told, focusing on the child rather than the fate that awaited her after it was born. With each contraction and subsequent push she felt a painful stretching inseparable from a powerful burning, both accompanied by a ringing in her ears. As the severity of sensation subsided momentarily and she began to catch her breath, she sank to her knees and leaned back until she was balanced on her hands.
“Stop your screaming, girl,” Nana admonished with a flourish of her stick. “You deserve all the pain God has given you. Accept it as your punishment.”
“It is best to grunt rather than scream,” Majdal said quietly. “You will find it better controls the pain. Remember to breathe. That, too, will help.”
Until that moment, Maryam hadn’t realized the sound in her ears was her own voice. She gritted her teeth, desperately trying to continue breathing as the bands across her belly tightened and she bore down with them again.
“The head is emerging,” Majdal said, squatting before Maryam’s splayed legs, occasionally lifting her head from behind the screen of her skirt. “The child remains inside the caul. That is why your water never broke. An omen of good luck, Maryam.”
“Better luck for the infant than its mother,” Nana observed. “This child wants to remain untainted by its mother’s flesh. It shrinks to avoid the touch of her corruption.”
“One more big push and the worst will be over,” Majdal said, positioning her hands to support the emerging babe.
Maryam felt lightheaded and exhausted, her arms and legs, now coated in a sheen of sweat, ready to collapse beneath her weight. Suddenly, she felt even lighter, as if a pair of unseen hands once again supported her. The pain subsided at their touch, replaced by detached calm and determination.
“One more small push and the shoulders will be out,” Majdal said. “That’s it. Just a little more. Ok, I have him,”
Maryam sighed with relief commingled with exhaustion.
Majdal carefully tore away the caul, setting it nearly intact on the concrete. “Welcome your son to the world, Maryam. Your baby is a boy.” The infant gulped for air and let out a hearty wail as Majdal pinched his pale cheeks between her strong, dark fingers.
“I know,” Maryam said, panting as she collapsed to the concrete. “God’s messenger told me it would be so. Yusuf will be so proud.”
“Yusuf was killed months ago, Maryam,” Majdal reminded her gently, wiping the worst of the blood and fluid from the infant with a towel dipped in the water of the yellow tub.
“That’s too bad,” Maryam murmured. “Yusuf was innocent.”
“Your depravity knows no end,” Nana spat. “That lie cost Yusuf his life. He was no more innocent than you. You have both brought nothing but shame and disgrace to your families. It is time for this community to set that right with God.”
“First, she needs to expel the afterbirth, Nana,” Majdal chided. “You know by law the birth is not complete until then.”
“You will tend to that. I will inform the men to prepare.” Nana scurried outside, reminding Majdal of an old, three-legged dog searching for village scraps in the way she tottered with her walking stick. That Maryam’s own blood should be impatient for what came next. Majdal shook her head.
“Let’s get you back to the bed,” Majdal said, cradling the boy, now completely wrapped in another, cleaner towel, his cord to his mother tied and cleanly cut. “Put your hand on my shoulder. I can bear as much weight as you need me to.”
“Nana will be angry if we spoil the bed,” Maryam said in the voice of a little girl still desperate not to disappoint an elder. “The blood will make it no longer usable for the animals.”
“Let her be angry,” Majdal replied with a quick glare toward the door.
Like two drunken men after a long night celebrating an African Nations Cup victory, they lurched Maryam to her feet and stumbled her toward the bed, all without jostling the child too much. Once Maryam was arranged comfortably, Majdal asked, “Would you like to hold him?”
“In a moment.” Maryam began tearing at the stitches of waistline of her skirt, like a woman again possessed, until she extracted something from behind the fold of cloth, cupping it like a talisman in her hand. Only then did she accept the infant, who curled between her arm and breast. The boy burbled contentedly.
“What will you name him?” Majdal asked.
“I would call him Isa,” Maryam replied, gently brushing a finger against his cheek. Instinctively, he turned his head to follow his mother’s touch, hoping it would lead to his first meal.
Maryam turned her weak smile up to Majdal. “Who will care for him when I am… gone?” she asked, choking on the last word. “Don’t let Nana or any of the elders raise him. They will persecute him or worse. They are jealous and fearful. Jibril has shown me, peace be upon him.”
“Isabeth has agreed to take him,” Majdal said in a comforting tone, smiling down at the boy, stroking his halo of fine hair.
“That will be good.” Maryam smiled approvingly, taking Majdal’s hand. “A gift from me to my older sister since she can have none of her own.” Maryam then gripped Majdal’s hand tighter, drawing her closer to whisper in her ear. “Tell Isabeth that God’s messenger commands that she and Zakariyya flee with him to Cairo. Make them promise not to return until it’s safe for him again. Show them the way, my friend.”
Maryam clutched Majdal’s hand with surprising strength, refusing to release it until she swore by God and all they held holy that she would make it so. As Maryam held her hand tight, Majdal could feel the cool, flat object pressed between their palms. Looking down at her hand once it was freed, Majdal found she held a small, gold coin, easily a year’s wages for a woodcarver like Zakariyya. She could only stare at it in amazement, wondering where Maryam had stumbled upon such a rich gift to provide her son on his birthing day.
Soon, the placenta also left Maryam’s body. By then, a fair amount of blood had soaked into the mattress and Maryam’s once white skirt, half a liter at most. Nothing unusual. Unfortunately, not enough that she would die or lose consciousness, Majdal thought. But she would remain woozy, which would be best for the ordeal that remained.
Mother and baby dosed in the afternoon air that had cooled to merely warm. At the foot of the bed, the goat, unnaturally calm throughout, bleated and strained at its short lead, hungry to explore the possibilities it smelled beyond reach in either the placenta or the caul still laying on the concrete ring.
Majdal quickly removed her kerchief, knowing none of the men would notice her indiscretion in the chaotic scene to follow. Delicately, she removed the placenta and what remained of the umbilical from the bed, placing it on the linen square, then moved to the fire-ring. She had just set the caul beside it, both of which had already begun to shrivel in the warm, dry air of early winter, and folded up the cloth when Nana returned.
“What have you done?” Nana demanded from the doorway, staring at the blood soaking through Maryam’s skirt into the bed, her exclamation startling both mother and child awake. “I cannot bring her out like this. She is unclean. The elders will be appalled.”
Majdal took the opportunity to slip the gold coin inside the kerchief and quickly roll the small, bundle inside her waistband. If the package was discovered, she would be accused of witchcraft and likely reap Maryam’s exact penalty. The blood from her kerchief blended with the rest already staining the front of her blouse and skirt. Bringing forth life was a messy business.
“Perhaps you will have to delay,” Majdal remarked. “The baby should be allowed to feed from its mother at least once before it is given away. So our customs say.”
“Nonsense,” Nana snapped. “The less that child knows of its mother, the better.”
“Then I guess the men will just have to confront the stain of their decision early,” Majdal observed.
Nana only glared before her eyes darted around the room as though she had been stricken by a seizure until they rested on the yellow tub. “Remove the child,” she commanded peevishly.
Majdal retrieved the boy from Maryam, both of whom began to wail at their sudden separation. Majdal retreated across the room, sheltering the baby with her arms as she pressed her back against the wall, fearful that Nana might flail out indiscriminately with her stick and strike them both.
Instead, Nana bent down and grasped the basin full of water and flung it onto Maryam’s waist. The bright red blood on Maryam’s skirt quickly faded to pink as the water rushed through her clothing and the mattress, streaming onto the floor. Maryam started to sit up from the shock of the water, but stopped as the pain of movement caught up with the still aching wounds testifying to her son’s birth. All her breath escaped her in a gasp. She was completely awake and alert again.
“Now I can fetch the guards,” Nana said with a nod of satisfaction as the tub slipped from her aging fingers and thumped hollowly as it bounced across the floor. “Stay out of the way, girl,” she snarled at Majdal. “Your part in this is done.”
As the reality of her impending punishment soaked in, Maryam clutched her arms around her chest and began to keen a high and eerie note, shivering in the stagnant air as the full knowledge of what would come next settled over her like a shroud.
A moment later, two guards poked their heads inside. They had no eyes for Majdal, the baby or any of the scattered signs of the birthing process, focusing exclusively on Maryam, and then, only on her face. They strode toward the bed, their AK’s rattling against their sides, and roughly pulled her up, half dragging her toward the door even as her feet halfheartedly tried to keep pace. The goat bleated and shied, trying to escape as one of the guards kicked the yellow tub aside but only managed to wrap itself tighter around the rough-hewn bedpost as the remaining chickens scattered. Before she departed, Maryam peered over her shoulder, and mouthed the words: Isa. You promised. Then she disappeared into the bright afternoon sunlight. Framed by the doorway, it seemed to radiate from her like a golden aura, once again armoring her against her fate.
Majdal remained with her back against the wall, slowly sinking to the floor, at first gasping for breath in the wake of the sudden violence of her friend’s departure, then sobbing quietly for fear that any sound would draw unwanted attention back to her and the child. Through the high windows and still open door, she could hear the commotion as the men of the clan gathered. She could almost hear the women shuffling their feet in the background, not allowed to voice their grief as their mourning might be seen as sympathy for the damned. She imagined the sharp clink of river stones settling one against another as boys set them into piles after carrying them from the wadi. Majdal tried to ignore all that, focusing instead on the last of the water dripping from the mattress into the shallow pool below, bloody drops plopping softly to the thirsty earth like the tears rivuleting down her cheeks and dripping off her chin.
Calmer now as the noise outside receded, Majdal retrieved a tiny, glass vial from the pocket of her skirt. It was filled with oil bought just yesterday from a perfumer in a village market. She unscrewed the black plastic cap, daubing some fragrant oil on one finger. It smelled sweet and fresh, masking the sharp, metallic scent of blood that had settled through the room. Even the goat had slunk into a subdued silence, leaning against the bed for support and comfort, staring at her dolefully. She would have to milk it soon to provide a surrogate for the boy’s missing mother.
But first the oil, infused with nudar and the balm of Gilead, in the manner of the old ways, the only gift she had to offer.
“Isa, he is named,” she said, anointing the infant’s forehead with a drop of oil.
The baby quieted at her touch and smiled up angelically. She became lost to all but his expression, the bloody aftermath in the room receding behind his eyes. His smile reminded her that he, at least, was still alive. She knew she needed to slip out while the village was still distracted by Maryam’s sacrifice and meet Isabeth and Zakariyya so they could all escape to safety. But she was unwilling to move, unwilling to risk hearing the barbaric sound of her friend’s execution. Instead, she cherished the warmth of this new life held tightly to her chest even as another life slipped away outside, cherished the sound stillness interrupted only by his beating heart before the chaos of flight began.
Just beneath Majdal’s hearing in the distance beyond her sanctuary, Maryam grunted as the first stones struck as if she were once again in labor.
© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III
