Sarah (6 page)

She laughed without waiting for Sarai to laugh. Her fingers worked with astonishing agility, forming one braid after another, while Sarai looked through the little window, watching night fall and thinking: I shall be here every evening, preparing food for my husband. Sleeping in the bed so that he can become a father. In just a few days. For years and years. Until I'm older than Sililli.

How was it possible?

However hard she tried, she could not form any image of these moments in her mind. It wasn't only that she had no idea what her bridegroom looked like. She couldn't see herself—skinny and flat-chested, as her aunts had commented—lying in this bed beside a man's big body. And not only beside him.

“Sililli, do you think he'll do that?” she asked. “Try straightaway to make me have children?”

Sililli grunted and stroked her cheek.

Sarai pushed her hand away. “It isn't possible, is it? Look at me: I'm only a child! How could I have children?”

Sililli broke off from her work, her cheeks as red as if she were standing in front of a fire. “Don't worry so much. He won't do it straightaway. He's probably only a big awkward lump. You'll have plenty of time.”

Sarai knew the intonations of Sililli's voice well enough to know that her words lacked conviction. “You're lying,” she said, though without spite.

“I'm not lying!” Sililli protested. “It's just that you never know exactly how things are going to turn out. But a man would be mad to sow his seed in a girl as young as you.”

“Unless a soothsayer advises him to hurry up and make children.”

To that, there could be no reply. They said nothing more while Sililli finished with her hair.

THE next day, as soon as there was sufficient light, the house filled with noise as the servants completed the preparations for the first of the seven banquets A bamboo dais had been erected in the big central courtyard, where the bride and bridegroom and their closest relatives would sit, looking down on the rest of the guests spread around the courtyard: women to the left, men to the right. Mats, carpets, cushions, and little wicker seats were put out for them, and low tables were set up, bearing arrangements of flower petals and branches of myrtle and bay, as well as goblets of water scented with orange and lemon. Cane canopies were stretched between the terraces so that the area where the banquet was to take place would remain cool even during the hottest part of the day.

The statues of the ancestors were carried from the temple and placed in an arcade leading to the men's courtyard. There the altars were carefully reconstructed, and made fragrant with food and scents. Ichbi Sum-Usur himself supervised the arrangement of the rare potted plants from Magan and Meluhha, and the placing, here and there in the courtyard, of kittens on leashes, doves in cages, and snakes in baskets to entertain and impress the guests.

Finally, dishes by the dozen were brought out, plates of cakes, baskets full of loaves of barley or wheat bread. Jars of wine and beer were opened.

When the sun was at its highest, Kiddin came to fetch Sarai. Sililli cried out when she saw him. His oiled and curled hair was held in place by a finely woven ribbon. A line of kohl emphasized the whiteness of his eyes. The ceremonial toga he wore, although it lacked the silver tassels, was at least as magnificent as his father's. He was as resplendent as a god, so much so that he could have been taken for the bridegroom.

He seized Sarai's hand and they crossed the women's courtyard. She heard the excited chuckles of the handmaids, who had stopped their work to wonder at the beauty of their young master.

Kiddin did not let go of his sister's hand until they reached the dais. She climbed it and sat down on a little sculpted seat, surrounded by her aunts.

Old Egime gave her a thorough inspection. But Sililli had done her work to perfection, and Egime could find no fault with it. Sarai's hair was so perfect, it could pass for a diadem held in place by silver clasps. Every fold of her tunic was at it should be. The woolen belt woven for the occasion emphasized the tininess of her waist. For this first banquet, the Presentation, she wore no makeup except for a fine layer of kaolin, which gave her face the pallor of a full moon. The lack of adornment, the delicacy of her features, and the slightness of her figure all made her look more strange than beautiful.

Sarai sat stiffly on her little seat, looking straight ahead of her, waiting for the sun to reach its zenith and the first guests to come through the double door of the palace.

There were more than a hundred of them. The whole of Ichbi Sum-Usur's large family had been invited. Some came from Eridu, from Larsa, and even Uruk. Ichbi Sum-Usur had obtained safe-conducts from King Shu-Sin so that they could travel to Ur. This favor was the finest gift the sovereign could give his faithful servant. Sarai's father was blushing with pride.

The guests advanced along the aisle between the tables, the seats, and the cushions, and crossed the courtyard to the dais. There, they each greeted Ichbi Sum-Usur and his eldest with many fine words and much laughter before plunging their hands into a bronze basin. The water in it was scented with a mixture of benzoin, amber, and myrtle. The guests sprinkled their faces and their bare shoulders and armpits, left or right depending on whether they were men or women. Next, a slave handed each of them a white cloth with yellow stripes with which they wiped themselves before draping it over their tunic.

Finally, the men separated from the women and took their places at table, their distance from the dais depending on their rank. None looked at Sarai, or paid her the least attention. The women, though, all passed before her. They did not so much salute her as look her up and down, reserving their lengthy comments on her appearance for later. The ceremony lasted two long hours. When they were all seated, Ichbi Sum-Usur and Kiddin went to the altar of the ancestors to make libations and prayers. Then Sarai's father returned to his guests and, opening his arms, welcomed everyone in a loud voice and declared that the gods in the heaven of Ur wanted them to quench their thirst and take their pleasure in honor of the thirst and the pleasure that his daughter Sarai would soon know, as a true
munus
.

A CHORUS of a dozen young women sang tirelessly at the foot of the dais, dancers twirled between the guests and the tables, musicians beat drums and blew into flutes. All of them seemed impervious to the heat, although the canopies that protected the guests from the burning sun also trapped the air inside the courtyard. There was not a breath of wind to displace the powerful odors of scents and food. Sarai found it impossible to eat, and she had already drunk as much as she could. The kaolin on her cheeks and forehead grew heavier as it absorbed her sweat. She felt suffocated.

Next to her, her aunts, like the rest of the guests, were consuming large amounts of beer, honeyed wine, and food. Fanning themselves with wicker fans, they chattered and guffawed at the tops of their voices. On the men's side, it was the same. In fact, nobody was paying the slightest attention to the endless chants, whose words seemed all too obviously intended for Sarai alone.

Abruptly, the chants stopped. The dancers froze, and the slaves put down the jars. Ichbi Sum-Usur dismissed his court with an abrupt gesture. Only the music of the drums and flutes continued to ring out as all eyes turned to the entrance.

Sarai saw him as soon as he entered the courtyard.

Him, the man who wanted her as his wife.

Without realizing it, she had sat up to get a better look at him. It was hard to see him clearly in the shade of the canopies. He was advancing slowly behind an older man, presumably his father. At first sight, he looked quite tall and moved with a self-confident gait.

She opened her mouth, but felt suddenly as though her body had forgotten to breathe. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, and her hands were shaking. She hid them in the folds of her toga.

The bridegroom's father seemed to be taking pleasure in advancing with exasperating slowness. All the guests, both men and women, were saluting them respectfully as they passed. Sarai thought she heard a murmur of approval, but perhaps it was only the blood humming in her ears.

And yet, as the two men approached, a joyful smile spread over her face. She could see him better now. He had a strong neck and broad shoulders on a slender body. His hair was thick and curly and gathered in a bun held in place by a silver clasp. He already had a beard; quite a bushy one, too. He was a man. The way he swung his arms, the confident way he moved: yes, a man. Not a child, not even a boy like Kiddin.

Sarai heard the barely contained praises of her aunts as father and son presented themselves before the basin of scent. With measured gestures, the two men sprinkled their faces.

She could see him quite clearly now. Straight eyebrows, a thin, hooked nose, mouth as distinct as a line between the curls of his beard, long lashes that almost veiled his eyes, calves and feet clearly visible below his linen toga with its threads of red and blue, solid ankles elegantly gripped by the leather straps of his sandals: Everything about him was noble. He was everything a man was supposed to be in the land of Sumer and Akkad.

A hand gripped Sarai's elbow, gripped it like a claw. She jumped, half turned, and received Egime's drunken breath in her face.

“There he is, your husband!” Egime whispered passionately. “Take a good look at him, child. And salute him as he deserves. He's a king. I tell you that. All of us would beg him to lie with us!”

Sarai really wanted to smile. She wanted her heart to beat with impatience, joy, and pleasure, not with fear. It did indeed seem that her father had found the noblest, strongest, handsomest of men for his beloved daughter!

Ichbi Sum-Usur was now greeting the two men, and Kiddin was already making a fuss of his future brother. It was clear from the way he was smiling, laughing, bending his head, and exchanging his shawl with him how much he admired the newcomer, how much he wanted to please him.

Yes, Kiddin wouldn't have hesitated to marry the man!

As Sarai watched him, doubt twisted in her stomach like a snake.

She had been so busy staring at the man who was to be the master of her days and nights that she had not thought about the ritual platter that the bridegroom was supposed to offer the bride's family. But now, four slaves were carrying it up onto the dais. There were shouts and applause. The guests were no longer holding back their admiration.

The platter was the size of a man's torso. It was made of precious wood from Zagros and covered in leather, bronze, and silver. In the middle, carved from the same piece of wood, stood a bull with golden horns, a silver muffle, and lapis lazuli eyes, a chest inlaid with ivory and ebony, and a huge, erect bronze penis.

The cries of acclaim continued. Kiddin's eyes gleamed with excitement.

Sarai shuddered.

Ichbi Sum-Usur stepped forward, said something out loud that Sarai did not understand, put his hand on the bull, and stroked its horns.

Laughter swept through the courtyard. Sarai realized that her bridegroom was laughing, too. His mouth was open, revealing his white teeth. In a flash, she saw his face in her chamber, in her bed. Laughing like that, his mouth wide open above her. As if about to bite or tear.

At that moment, the groom grasped the bull's bronze penis with one hand. With the other, he dismissed his slaves with a peremptory gesture. As one of them appeared not to understand, he kicked him in the thigh and sent him tumbling head over heels off the dais, to further gales of laughter. With one arm, barely swaying under the weight of the platter, he brandished his offering above his head. The women let out shrill cries, and the men rose from their seats to cheer him.

Egime, who had not let go of Sarai's arm, yelped and squeezed it so tightly that Sarai in her turn cried out. From the chorus of singers a new chant arose.

Then, in the midst of the din, he turned toward her and for the first time looked at her.