Sarah by Marek Halter

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.
    â€œThere 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.
    She saw his eyes move all over her, then return to her face.
    She saw his expression.
    She saw what he discovered and what he thought.
    A thin, graceless child. A girl without breasts or hips, with shaking hands, the bones of her wrists protruding. A little child with a ridiculous face under a layer of kaolin cracked like the soil at the end of summer. Not a woman with high cheekbones, full lips, and gentle eyes.
    She saw it in his eyes and the tension of his mouth as he relaxed his exertions and let the nuptial platter fall back into the hands of the slaves. And what she saw was not even disappointment. It was contempt. It was the expression of a man disgusted at the thought of the effort he would have to make even to look again at the woman who was going to be his wife.

    THE following day, two hours after daybreak, even more guests streamed into the courtyard. Even though the servants had removed the seats, there was still not enough room for everybody, and some were waiting patiently in the lane in front of the