girl’s juiciness, and smeared the bed with drops of chicken blood—I did not have to play a part. I wept, just as that innocent girl might have wept, and my tears incited him. His lust seemed to feed on the idea of my helpless despair and his own power over me, and when he took me it was with the hard hands of a stranger. Wife or no, I felt defiled. When he fell off me into a drunken sleep, I got up to creep away. The moon had risen by then. As I opened the door, he raised his head and stared at me. I was sure, in that moment, that my deception would be plain to him. I was afraid. But he was still drunk of course, and half asleep, and gave no sign that he recognized me. But neither did he call me back. In the morning, he sent for the maid and dismissed her, blaming her, unfairly, as the cause of his sin. He came to me, begging me to return to him. I did. I longed for my home and to be once again a proper mother to my sons. But between Yishai and me, much had been ravaged, and even though I assured him he was forgiven, when he lay with me, he was no longer able to perform as a man. By then, truly, I did not care. My affections had been so trammeled, I no longer hungered for bodily love from him. But it became a problem soon enough, when I could not hide the fact that I was with child. This was in the fifth month since he had lain with me unknowingly. He, of course, bereft of any other explanation, believed that the child I carried was begotten adulterously during our separation. I could not tell him the truth for fear of what price he might exact, in his humiliation, on the maid. Not even when he tried to beat it out of me.”
I looked up. Her eyes met mine, steady now.
“Oh, yes. He stooped to that. Only once, when he was drunk. But the fact that it happened at all only confirmed my fears of what he might be capable of, and so I sealed my mouth and kept the secret. That is how the baby—my last child—was, in the eyes of his father, a mamzer .”
She seemed to gag on the word, and no wonder. That word, whose roots dig down into rot, corruption, defect, the unwelcome other, the despised alien.
“The child I called David—Beloved—was, as Yishai thought, an outcast from the congregation of Israel unto the tenth generation, according to the law of Moshe. Contrary to our law, and, I must say, contrary to his own nature, Yishai did not speak his mind on this to anyone. He should, of course, have gone to the gathering at the gate where he sat with his fellow elders, and disowned us both—me and the child I carried. I do not know if he held his peace out of some lingering regard for me, as the mother of his other sons, or to protect himself lest I, accused, accuse him in my turn. In any case, to the world, we appeared like many another family where regard has waned between a man and wife, and a father takes a set against a particular one of his children for reasons that are his own and of no public concern. I deluded myself that things would change. In the best of times, men have little regard for infants, no matter how comely. But when the child begins to walk and speak, to look like them in gesture or feature, ofttimes their hearts soften and their interest swells. I have seen this, with Yishai and many other men. And David was a beautiful child, of the sort that draws eyes. He was forward, too, in walking and in speaking, a lively child with a curious nature and a sweet temperament. But all these blessings just seemed to goad Yishai all the more. It did not help that David, of all my children, favored me, without any one feature of Yishai’s plain in his face. If the child ran to him, he would push him away or answer his gesture with a cuff of the hand. Soon enough, David learned better than to try for his father’s notice, and would keep out of Yishai’s way.”
I could not restrain myself. It seemed impossible to me that a mother would keep a secret that proved so costly to her son. So I put it to her directly:
I looked up. Her eyes met mine, steady now.
“Oh, yes. He stooped to that. Only once, when he was drunk. But the fact that it happened at all only confirmed my fears of what he might be capable of, and so I sealed my mouth and kept the secret. That is how the baby—my last child—was, in the eyes of his father, a mamzer .”
She seemed to gag on the word, and no wonder. That word, whose roots dig down into rot, corruption, defect, the unwelcome other, the despised alien.
“The child I called David—Beloved—was, as Yishai thought, an outcast from the congregation of Israel unto the tenth generation, according to the law of Moshe. Contrary to our law, and, I must say, contrary to his own nature, Yishai did not speak his mind on this to anyone. He should, of course, have gone to the gathering at the gate where he sat with his fellow elders, and disowned us both—me and the child I carried. I do not know if he held his peace out of some lingering regard for me, as the mother of his other sons, or to protect himself lest I, accused, accuse him in my turn. In any case, to the world, we appeared like many another family where regard has waned between a man and wife, and a father takes a set against a particular one of his children for reasons that are his own and of no public concern. I deluded myself that things would change. In the best of times, men have little regard for infants, no matter how comely. But when the child begins to walk and speak, to look like them in gesture or feature, ofttimes their hearts soften and their interest swells. I have seen this, with Yishai and many other men. And David was a beautiful child, of the sort that draws eyes. He was forward, too, in walking and in speaking, a lively child with a curious nature and a sweet temperament. But all these blessings just seemed to goad Yishai all the more. It did not help that David, of all my children, favored me, without any one feature of Yishai’s plain in his face. If the child ran to him, he would push him away or answer his gesture with a cuff of the hand. Soon enough, David learned better than to try for his father’s notice, and would keep out of Yishai’s way.”
I could not restrain myself. It seemed impossible to me that a mother would keep a secret that proved so costly to her son. So I put it to her directly:
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