Enchantress: A Novel of Rav Hisda's Daughter (16 page)

P
esach with my family was sweet. This was the one time of year when all seven of my brothers were together, plus all their children and their sons’ children, and I luxuriated in the chance to relax and chat with my sisters-in-law. Pazi, married to my second-youngest brother, Tachlifa, was close to my age, and Rahel had taught me about incantation bowls and set me on my
charasheta
path. I felt comfortable confiding in them.

We were outside, weaving in a shaded area of the courtyard, Rahel on her big loom for linen, Pazi and I crafting silk ribbons. I told them everything except that Rava might have been in my room at Purim.

“You need to be more diffident,” Pazi declared. “Yes, you owe him a debt of gratitude, but that doesn’t mean you have to sit with him every evening, providing Baraitot at his command.”

“Stop walking with him on Shabbat,” Rahel said sternly.

“Don’t let it be so easy for him,” Pazi said. “Make him pursue you.”

I sighed and nodded. A student once asked Father why a man pursues a woman but she does not pursue him. He explained that it was analogous to one who has lost a possession. Who searches for whom? The owner searches for his lost item, not the other way around. Thus because Adam lost part of his body when Eve was created, a man seeks a woman as something he has lost.

“I beg to differ,” Mother declared. Startled by her interruption, I turned around to see her seated at her own loom behind me. I groaned inwardly when she continued, “From what Em tells me, Rava requires a direct approach.”

Oh no. Em had told Mother about me and Rava. I should have known, for they had been friends since before I was born, twenty-five years ago. Yet they appeared to have nothing in common. Mother was tall and elegant, her makeup never less than perfect. Her hair, surely with the help of walnut dye, was as dark as mine and perfectly coiffed. Em wore no makeup and was always pushing strands of gray out of her eyes.

But the biggest difference was that Em’s warmth invited shared confidences while Mother, to me at least, was too intimidating to approach. Now I was ashamed, not only of my deteriorating relationship with Rava, but that Mother had learned about it from Em instead of me.

“He’s the last man I would call shy,” Rahel said.

“I think you’re wrong about Rava manipulating her. He may be clever and bold when it comes to Torah study, but he is woefully ignorant about women.” Mother smiled at me. “Just like your father. You wouldn’t believe what I had to do to get his attention.”

Rahel, Pazi, and I clamored for details, but Mother smiled enigmatically. Everyone in our family knew that Father and Mother had wed when he was sixteen and she fourteen, but his stories always stressed how he had seen her dancing at a wedding and become determined to marry her. This was the first I’d heard that Mother had pursued him.

“But Father was a youth when you met him,” I said. “Surely his
yetzer hara
was so strong that attracting him would be easy.” At that age he and Mother would both have been impetuous and hot blooded.

“Attracting him was not the difficulty,” Mother admitted. “But like most youths that age, he was painfully shy. Since my family was wealthy and he was a poor orphan, he never imagined his proposal might be accepted.”

“Rava may be a poor orphan now,” Rahel said. “But he must realize that our family would welcome his proposal.”

Mother turned to me. “I doubt he has forgotten how you repudiated his previous proposal, Daughter. If I were you, I would make your interest clear.”

 • • • 

When it came time to return to Pumbedita, I was delighted to learn that Tachlifa, leaving on his regular spring business journey to the West, had arranged for us to travel on the same boat. Each time I saw my brother after a separation, I was struck by how much he looked like our father did when I was a child. Tachlifa’s hair was still black while Father’s was gray, but they had the same patrician nose and square jaw. Most important, they had the same kindly eyes. I looked forward to a lengthy and private conversation with Tachlifa as our ship sailed up the Euphrates. I needed to know more about the money he managed for me.

“Rava has mortgaged all his lands now, and I am certain he has no idea that his lenders are your agents,” my brother said, clearly proud of our successful subterfuge.

“Good,” I replied. “Grandfather would be pleased at how we’ve invested my legacy.”

“I hear that Rava needs additional funds to pay Choran’s
ketuba
.” His expression became serious. “Do you authorize me to purchase some of his properties outright for you?”

“I doubt that will be necessary. Rava’s father just died, so there is bound to be an inheritance.”

Tachlifa nodded thoughtfully. “I must send a message to your agents, alerting them that he will soon have new land to mortgage.”

“What condition are his lands in?” I asked as we sailed past assorted fields. “He told me that Romans pillaged his vineyards last year.”

Tachlifa cleared his throat, so I knew he was going to be critical. “Few rabbis are like Father, both an outstanding judge and landowner. While Rava concentrates on Torah study, his properties lie neglected. I replaced several of his tenant farmers, and when a suitable steward became available at the slave market, I used some of your income to buy him.”

“What is his name? I hope he’s experienced.”

“Efra is an expert vintner. His previous owner apparently makes a living training slaves in this profession,” he said. “Efra reports that Rava’s vines are not as damaged as they appear and after a proper pruning should be more productive than ever.” Now he grinned at me. “That slave was expensive, but you can afford him.”

“Just as long as I have enough to lend Rava what he needs when he mortgages his father’s lands.”

“You have no idea how wealthy you are, do you, Dada?”

Ashamed of my ignorance, I shook my head. “You know I was never good at mathematics. I trust you and Mari to manage my property.” Administering household accounts was a wife’s responsibility, and it was embarrassing to be so incompetent at a skill most women took for granted.

“When I return at Rosh Hashana, we must go over your accounts. If you can understand Rava and Abaye’s legal arguments, you can learn to understand the mathematics of business. You are certainly smarter than many merchants I know.”

Eager to change the subject, I asked him, “Are Rava’s lands all vineyards?”

“For the most part, so it’s surprising he retains any tenant who is not an expert grape grower,” Tachlifa replied. “I saw no date groves or orchards.”

“I’ll have to get used to drinking wine.” Hopefully I’d be doing that as Rava’s wife, and not as his lender paid in jars of it.

 • • • 

Rava returned three weeks later, and though I knew deep down that Mother was right, it risked no embarrassment to follow Rahel and Pazi’s advice. Let Rava think he was losing me, and then he would pursue me. After all, he fought the Angel of Death for me only a year ago.

Thus passed six lonesome weeks during which Rava grew increasingly reclusive, and I made the decision to return to Sura at the end of Sivan. I could not leave without telling him good-bye, so I waited until he returned from another Shabbat in Machoza.

“Could you spare me a few moments before we dine?” I tried to hide my nervousness, but my throat was so tight I could barely speak. “I need to speak with you in private.”

“Of course.” He walked with me to the garden.

I wasted no time on preliminaries. “I am leaving tomorrow morning for Sura—”

His face blanched. “What? You’re giving up your studies with Em? But why? I thought you were doing so well.”

I couldn’t bear to look at him, so I examined his hands, which were clenched with anxiety. “I am only going home for a few months. But I want to beg your forgiveness now since I won’t see you again until after Yom Kippur.”

He relaxed his hands and sighed with relief, so I continued, paraphrasing the words of Joseph’s brothers in Egypt. “Forgive, I urge you, the offense and guilt of your sister who treated you so harshly.” When I saw that he recognized the Torah verse, I added words of my own. “Please forgive however I may have injured or offended you, for it was never my intent.”

Rava was silent for a long time, and it seemed he was struggling with how to respond. Finally he replied with words my father had taught: “Forgive me for I have sinned. I have made crooked that which was straight, and it did not benefit me.”

I desperately wanted to reach out to him, but instead I tried to put all my compassion into my voice. “No matter how you have sinned, I forgive you with all my heart.”

“I assure you that you have done nothing that requires my forgiveness, but if you need to hear me say it . . .”

I gazed into his eyes. “I do.”

“Then I forgive whatever you think you did that might have injured or offended me.” He seemed to be searching for something in my eyes.

I could hear Mother urging me to be direct and tell him how I felt, but I couldn’t do it. I broke our eye contact and replied, “Thank you. I pray that next year will be better.”

He sighed again. “As do I.”

 • • • 

After five summers in Sepphoris, I’d almost forgotten how hot it was in Sura during Tammuz compared to the Galilean hills. But the Jews’ mourning for Jerusalem’s destruction, beginning on the Seventeenth of Tammuz, was the same, except that the heat made it easier to fast. The intensity of mourning, which reached its depth on the Ninth of Av with a full day of elegies and dirges, mirrored my feelings about my horrible mistake in abandoning Rava after his father died, when he was at his most vulnerable.

When the nadir of Tisha B’Av gave way to increasing prayers of comfort and consolation, to culminate in the joyous renewal at Rosh Hashana and Sukkot, my spirits began to rise. I was inscribing amulets again, nearly all for children, nearly all of whom were currently healthy and wearing amulets. Early in my apprenticeship, I didn’t understand why mothers insisted on new amulets for Rosh Hashana when their offspring already had perfectly good ones.

Rahel, my teacher, had explained it. Obviously a child recovering from an illness needed a new amulet because it had lost power in fighting the demon who’d afflicted him. However, even children who appeared healthy required a new amulet periodically, for all amulets weakened over time. Indeed, the very fact that the child avoided sickness showed that his amulet had been protecting him, thus losing power each time it repelled a demon attack.

The New Year was an appropriate time to start afresh, and so the tradition of receiving new amulets at this season arose. In contrast to less expensive scribes, who prepared a stack of spells on papyri, leaving the client’s name to be filled in later, my amulets were written to order. Plus I needed to meet each child so I could picture him or her as I inscribed the protective incantation. Unlike ignorant or unscrupulous scribes, I only wrote amulets during propitious hours.

As the New Year approached, I had to admit that Mother had been right. Choran was highly unlikely to become pregnant after ten years of barrenness, so it was only a few weeks until Rava was obligated to divorce her. Then I would become the pursuer. Soon the man fate intended as my husband would be in my grasp.

So I was more than a bit relieved when a slave interrupted my amulet work to announce that a man, one of Father’s old students, was there to see me.

“Send him out to the garden,” I said, looking for a spot both shady and beautiful. “And bring us some refreshments.”

But my eager anticipation was shattered when I saw coming toward me not Rava, but Abaye. Even at a distance I could tell the difference, as Abaye no longer wore a married man’s turban. The calm that I intended to project evaporated as I ran toward him, for I could imagine no good reason for him to be here.

“Abaye, what are you doing here?” I burst out. “Has Em taken ill or had an accident?”

“No, no. Em is fine. But Rava—”

Ha-Elohim! Not Rava. “What has befallen Rava?” I couldn’t have hidden my distress even if I’d wanted to.

I thought I saw a twinkle in Abaye’s eye. “Nothing has befallen Rava. That is, he is just as melancholy and bereaved as he was at Pesach.” He hesitated before saying, “Rava sent me to you. He thinks that we, you and I, should be married.”

“What!” The world began to spin around me, and I could barely make it to a bench. Abaye, his face full of concern, forced a cup of beer into my hand. “What about Homa?” I said. “I thought you wanted to marry her.”

Abaye did not deny wanting to marry Homa but continued relating Rava’s advice. “As a
kohen
, I may not marry a divorced woman, and you are not only from a priestly family as well but you are the widow of one.”

“That is true,” I said without enthusiasm. Abaye’s priestly heritage would not prevent him from marrying Homa either.

“I have the means to support you in comfort, as your status demands, and I have proven that I could give you more children.

“That is also true,” I said slowly.

“In addition, you and Em get along very well, which is not usually the case between wife and mother-in-law.”

Something was odd. Abaye was making these entreaties with no passion whatsoever, as if he were presenting a case in court.

“While I’m sure being your wife would be pleasant, your priestly heritage is not entirely a benefit.” I tried to bring up Eli’s curse in a circumspect manner.

His faced paled, and I knew he had understood me. For it wasn’t merely that I would be untimely widowed again. Our sons would be also cursed with an early death.

“Rava was certain his arguments would convince you, yet I can see they have not.” Abaye looked at me with concern. “Are you discouraging me because you have a suitor here in Sura?”

“I have no suitors in Sura,” I protested. “And if Rava is so persuasive, let him make his arguments to me in person.”

This time there was definitely a twinkle in Abaye’s eye. “An excellent idea. I will insist that he do that very thing.”

“You will?” My heart leapt for joy as I realized that Abaye had been testing me, that he had hoped I’d refuse him.