Delilah

Chapter 17

Naomi’s voice faded for a minute and I heard her moving. She appeared like an apparition out of the darkness. She sat beside my pallet, facing me in the dark. While I could not see her expression, I could see her form. She reached out and picked up my hand and held it between her two wizened palms.

“If my intuition is correct, what I say may bring back unwanted specters from your past. If at any time the pain my words uncovers is more than you can bear, just squeeze my hand, and I will stop. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Naomi. I understand.”

“I was an only child. My mother named me Naomi because I was her joy. She played games with me. She taught me about Yahweh’s love. She pampered me. Then when I was eight, she became ill. The doctors could not name her sickness, but she began to lose weight. She lost her sunny disposition. She ceased to sing songs to me and tell me stories. After she had been confined to her bed for a long time, she became quarrelsome. She whined and complained and nagged my father. He began to stay away from the house in the evening. Then he started coming home drunk. Sometimes late at night, I would hear screams and curses from the room they shared. Then one night when I was twelve, he came home drunk, but instead of going to torture my mother, he came to my room. He told me I was a beautiful young woman. He told me I looked like my mother had before the sickness took her looks and her disposition. Finally he told me that I could make things easier for my mother by letting him sleep in my room so he did not have to disturb her. When I slid over against the wall, he climbed onto my sleeping couch. He put his arms around me and held me close. I was so starved for love that I snuggled up against him and fell asleep."

"At first that was all that happened. I was happy. I thought my father was showing me the love I had lost when my mother grew ill. Then one night, he put his hand under my dress and rubbed my belly. He said it would help me to fall asleep easier. After that his fondling became more personal. I was young. I did not know what he was doing was wrong, but somehow it did not feel right. One day when I was combing my mother’s hair, I asked her how a man shows love to a woman. I asked her if he touched her on her breasts and between the legs. My mother was shocked. She wanted to know if some man had been touching me in those places. I told her no, but that I had heard older girls talking and giggling. I guess she did not believe me. That night when my father came home, she called out to him. I heard her accuse him of corrupting his own daughter. I heard him call her things that made me shudder. Hateful words flew through the air for what seemed hours. Finally she told him that she needed me to sleep in her room because her health was failing. He laughed at her and slapped her. When he left her, he came to my room and raped me. After that, mama would try to get out of bed every day. She was always awake when my father came home. She tried to keep him away from me. She called a matchmaker and arranged a betrothal. I was married at the age of 13, but the exertion proved too much for my mother. She died the day after I wed.”

For a moment Naomi’s voice faltered. I reached up with my free hand and felt the tears on her face that matched the ones on my own. When I protested that she need not continue to relive the pain, she ignored me and persevered with her story. Somehow I sensed that the telling was as much a catharsis for her spirit as a balm for mine.

“What mama never knew was that I was pregnant by my father before my marriage. In preparation for my marriage, she told me the things I needed to know about sexuality. I learned enough to know that if my new husband suspected that my child was not his, he could divorce me. I did not want to be sent back to my drunken lecherous father."

"There were stories about an old woman who lived like a hermit. They said she could make potions that augmented or impaired fertility. I went to her and asked if she knew how to rid someone of an unwanted child. She examined me and determined that it was not too late. She gave me some foul-tasting, oily medicine. She told me to drink it in the morning. She said it would make the child come out of my womb in a flow of blood similar to my monthly curse. She said if I did not bleed and pass a mass within the day to come back. The medicine made me extremely ill, but it did not rid me of the child. Because I was so sick, my husband would not let me leave the house for some time. It was over a fortnight before I returned to the old woman’s hut. She said I was too far along for the medicine to work. She said the only way to rid myself of the child was for her to puncture my womb. When she did, water and blood ran out of me. Then a thin sack that contained something that looked like a worm with a big head came. She told me that I was free of the child. She gave me a gooey salve to put inside myself for several days. She told me I would bleed a little for several days. She instructed me to tell my husband that I was unclean and to find excuses not to engage in sex for a week after the curse would normally be gone. I did what she told me. My flesh seemed to heal, but my soul did not. I learned to live with sorrow. I do not know if the old woman damaged me or if guilt impaired my ability to conceive. From that day forward I was barren.”