Enchantress: A Novel of Rav Hisda's Daughter (5 page)

I had just replied “Amen” when there was a clatter of small feet on the stairs. I looked up to see a little girl halt abruptly at the sight of me, a stranger.

Immediately her nursemaid came into view. “Don’t be shy, Elisheva,” the slave encouraged her. Elisheva looked to be about the age my daughter would have been if she were still alive. I gulped. With her dark braids and big eyes, Abaye’s daughter couldn’t help but remind me of Yehudit.

“Elisheva has my permission to be as shy as she likes,” I said gently. “Once she gets used to me living here, we can be friends.” At least I hoped we would be.

Elisheva remained rooted to her spot until Em came down and led her to the table. Slow, weighty treads on the stairs announced Abaye and, leaning heavily on his arm, his very pregnant wife.

“Babata,” he said to her, “this is Hisdadukh, Mother’s new student.” Abaye gestured toward me.

If not for her full breasts and belly, I might have taken Babata for a child.

“What cases will we be judging today?” Rava asked Abaye once they were seated.

“A divorce, a widow’s maintenance, and some property disputes,” Abaye replied.

“I am confident Rav Yosef will have something to teach about each of them.”

 • • • 

After Rava and Abaye left for court, Em asked if I wanted to attend synagogue.

“I am happy to accompany you,” I equivocated, “but just as willing to pray here if that is your custom.”

She took a handful of raisins and stirred them into her porridge. “Walking is not as easy for me as it used to be, but I still prefer to pray with a congregation. So I go on the days when they read Torah. You, however, should go as often as you like.”

“Today would be fine,” I said. “If anyone at synagogue needs an amulet, second hour on Fourth Day will be a propitious time for writing them.”

“Not sooner?”

“Today’s date is inauspicious. And of course, amulets and
kasa d’charasha
are never inscribed on Third Day—” I stopped in alarm. Had I just insulted Em by suggesting she didn’t know something so elementary as Third Day being ruled by Samael, the Angel of Death?

“Except for curses,” Em finished my sentence.

I knew exactly when curse bowls were to be written, but that was not what I had intended to say. I had only seen one curse bowl prepared and had no intention of inscribing any myself.

“While the second hour on Fourth Day is particularly auspicious, the date makes the entire day favorable.” I downed my cup of beer and held it up for a slave to refill. “There are at most seven days a month like that.”

“I gave up writing amulets years ago,” Em muttered. “You must tell me about the best times in advance so we can be sure you utilize them fully.”

“I will.” Rava had told me that Em was famous for her healing potions and spells, but it was only now that I realized she didn’t inscribe her incantations. So everything she’d be teaching me would be new.

“We’ll see who needs your services at synagogue.” She finished the last of her porridge and lifted an arm for a slave to help her up. “We should make ready to leave soon.”

TWO

L
euton and one of Em’s slaves at our sides, we turned left onto the narrow street. The brick and plaster walls rose high above us, providing welcome shade. Em’s neighborhood was a prosperous one. A good distance lay between one residence’s gate and the next, and the streets were relatively free of garbage. Each entrance had some distinctive mark painted on it, and I took note that Em’s was a crescent moon. Some doors bore Hebrew letters, including one near the corner with a green samekh, the same sign Father used as his seal.

We turned right and continued two more blocks before entering an open gate. Several women were chatting in the courtyard, and we followed them into what was obviously the synagogue. The ark rested against the western wall, while a table for reading Torah stood near the room’s only window. There were plenty of women but only nine men—not enough to make a quorum for the service to begin.

No sooner did I decide to seat myself on a cushion in front of Em’s customary bench than four men entered together, and an older man began the Call to Worship, forcing me to stand again. More people wandered in, and by the time the Torah was removed from the ark the room was full. I observed the congregation discreetly and noticed one young woman, her exposed dark curls proclaiming her unmarried status, sitting alone near the far wall.

She was no beauty, and her clothes were similar to the other women’s, yet every man’s eye had followed her when she sought her seat. I couldn’t describe it, but there was something sensuous about the way she moved, how her breasts swayed provocatively beneath her tunic. I had the impression that she didn’t do it deliberately, yet several men leered openly, and many women scowled in disapproval.

When services were finished, Em and I were surrounded by women who wanted to meet me, and before we left I had made three appointments to inscribe amulets on Fourth Day. I couldn’t help but note that no one talked to the young woman, who exited under the same sort of scrutiny as when she’d entered.

On court days Rava and Abaye ate their midday meal with Rav Yosef, so I took advantage of their absence to ask about the mystery woman.

Em responded immediately. “Her name is Homa, and she’s the daughter of Rav Issi. After she was widowed, she returned to Pumbedita to live with her brother.”

Babata’s eyes widened. “They say she’s a
katlanit
.”

I turned to Em and raised an eyebrow questioningly.

She nodded. “Rechava was Homa’s first husband, and Rav Yitzhak her second. She had two sons and a daughter with Rechava, but the boys went to live with his family.”

“How terrible.” Homa’s circumstances nearly brought me to tears. I’d almost died from the grief of Rami dying and having to give up our son to his brother. I couldn’t imagine how Homa had managed, suffering the agony of widowhood twice.

“Did she really kill both men?” Babata asked. “I heard that Rav Yitzhak was already old when he married her.”

“Husbands of a
katlanit
die from using the bed with her,” Em said. “So an old husband is in greater danger.”

Em evidently noticed my dismay. “This is Hisdadukh’s first day with us. We should speak of more pleasant subjects.”

“How are Mahadukh and her son doing?” Babata asked, reaching for another piece of bread.

Before I could ask who they were, Em replied, “Mother and baby are recovering well.” She turned to me and added, “You should come along when I visit them this afternoon to check the boy’s circumcision. Mahadukh will probably want an amulet for him, and you can get the information you need without her having to leave home.”

 • • • 

Once on the street, Em almost immediately asked, “What would you say if I told you that Babata is only seven months pregnant?”

My jaw dropped. “But she’s so big.”

“A large baby is dangerous for a small woman,” she said. “But even so, I would not try to make Babata deliver early.”

“You can do that?”

“I have certain herbs and potions that can bring on contractions, but only when it’s clear that the pregnancy should not continue.”

“Why not have her deliver early?”

“That has its dangers too. Babata and has been married to Abaye for three years now. She’s lost two pregnancies already, and I don’t want to jeopardize this one.”

“So she’s not Elisheva’s mother.”

Em slowed at an open gate and beckoned me to follow her. “Elisheva had just been weaned when her mother died. Babata is the only mother the girl knows.”

As we walked through the courtyard and toward the rear apartments, a girl detached herself from a group of playing children and ran ahead of us. When she reached one of the open doors, she yelled, “Mother, the healer and another woman are here.”

Though I could see two slaves busy in the kitchen, we were met by the matron herself. “You are here in good time,” she said. “I just nursed the baby and was about to change his swaddling.”

Em introduced me to Mahadukh, whose status as a new mother was confirmed by the damp spots where breast milk had stained her tunic. Em motioned me to watch while she removed the boy’s swaddling and then carefully pulled back his
haluk
, the cylindrical bandage used to protect a circumcision.

She was promptly rewarded with a strong stream of urine, which she expertly blocked with swaddling. She grinned at Mahadukh. “Excellent. He is healing well.”

Then Em turned to me. “If an infant does not urinate, we fan him vigorously until he does,” she advised, as she anointed the wound with a salve of cumin in olive oil. “The
haluk
’s seam should be on the outside, lest a thread stick to the skin and injure his member.”

I nodded in agreement, for I was quite unable to speak. It was all I could do to keep from crying as I was overcome with a longing for a little boy of my own. My son, Chama, was almost ten. How many more years would I have to wait until there was a newborn in my arms again, suckling at my breasts?

Once I had suppressed my emotions, I asked Mahadukh if she wanted me to inscribe an amulet for the boy.

She eyed me warily. “What kind of amulet?”

“The usual for babies,” I said. “Protection from
shaydim
,
ruchim
, and the Evil Eye.”

“Hisdadukh is an expert amulet scribe,” Em assured her, “whose amulets may be worn on Shabbat.”

“Hisdadukh?” Mahadukh evidently hadn’t heard of my father.

“Rav Hisda heads the
beit din
in Sura, where his family has lived for generations,” Em replied. When my potential client looked unimpressed, she added, “He is a
kohen
, and his wife the exilarch’s first cousin.”

That seemed to satisfy Mahadukh, for now she wanted to talk business. “If it’s not too expensive.”

I had no idea what people in Pumbedita usually paid for amulets of this kind, but Em did. She named a price that seemed excessive to me, but Mahadukh nodded and told me her son’s name was Ardoi.

Assuming a leather case would be sufficient, I told her, “I should have it for you before Shabbat.”

Mahadukh politely offered us refreshments, and Em just as politely declined.

On our walk back, Em provided me with a litany of advice for dealing with a newborn’s health, and I knew my training had begun. “If an infant cannot breathe adequately, his mother’s placenta should be rubbed over him until he breathes easily. And if he cannot suck because his lips are cold, a pan of coals should be held near his nose. Then he will suck.”

She stopped to dislodge a rock from her sandal before continuing her lecture. “If a baby boy is too red, his blood has not yet been absorbed, and we must wait to circumcise him until it has been. If he is green, that means he is deficient in blood, so his circumcision must wait until he is full blooded.”

I nodded in excitement, for I had learned a Baraita about that. “In the West they taught that Rabbi Natan knew a woman whose two sons had died after circumcision. When she brought him the third son, he saw that the boy was too red. So he told her to wait until the baby’s blood was absorbed, which she did, and he lived,” I said. “Another woman whose two sons had died after circumcision came to Rabbi Natan, and he saw that the third boy was green, with no covenant blood in him. He told her to wait until the baby was full blooded, and after they circumcised him, the boy lived.”

“Speaking of family defects,” Em said, deftly changing the subject, “people in Pumbedita consider a person’s genealogy of the highest importance. Those with pure ancestry not only insist that their children marry into similar families, but some won’t even socialize with those who don’t have the appropriate background.”

“Is that why Mahadukh seemed diffident until you told her Father was a priest and Mother related to the exilarch?”

Em smiled that I had understood her so quickly. “Yes. Here poor folks from pure families consider themselves superior to wealthy ones whose ancestors are suspected of being converts or freed slaves.” Her voice lowered in disapproval. “Or are merely unable to prove their lineage to their neighbors’ satisfaction.”

“But that is unfair to Rava,” I protested. In Sura people were judged on their knowledge, not their pedigree.

“The rabbis here may recognize his brilliance, but I’m sorry to say that many Pumbeditans will see Rava as just another presumptuous mongrel from Machoza.”

And he didn’t care if he proved them right. For the first time, I had an appreciation of what motivated Rava’s arrogance.

 • • • 

When Abaye and Rava returned for the evening meal, I shared the Barai ta about Rabbi Natan. Rava showed only enough interest to recite it with Abaye until they’d memorized it, but Abaye complimented me and asked if I’d learned any others about pregnancy and fetal development.