Free No Lasting Burial by Stant Litore Page A

.”
    “You
will call me Bat Eleazar. You have no right to my name.” She tried to pull away
but he held her. Her eyes went dark with fury. She was shaking, though she
didn’t know it.“I will wall my door against you and starve first.” Her
voice rose in pitch. The panic was not so much that he would touch her, but
that he would take from her the memories of Yonah and of her life here, in this
house. The thought of sleeping beneath his roof was almost worse than the
thought of sleeping in his arms. She drew back into the shadow beneath the arch
leading to the atrium. From his basket by the olive press, her infant began to
cry.
    “Please
go,” Rahel said.
    Zebadyah
glanced in the direction of the cries, and seeing the hard purpose in his face,
Rahel went white. “This is your brother’s son,” she pleaded, her voice low and
intense.
    Zebadyah
turned his face back to her. The gentleness was gone from him and his eyes had
become hard as small stones. “Ezra cast even the wives, the heathen wives, over
the wall,” he said quietly. “What is unclean, what isn’t whole—we must cast
that out of our homes, out of our hearts.”
    Zebadyah
thrust her to the side firmly and made to step by her, but she caught at his
arm and threw her small body back between him and the atrium and her son.
    His
face darkened. “Step aside, woman,” he growled.
    “Get
out!” she cried. “Get away from my son!”
    He
struck her.
    Her
vision white, she felt the wall against her back. Her head rang. She dug her
fingers against the wall, desperate to stay upright. Panic in her heart like
cattle breaking through long grass, trampling it, crushing everything in their
way. Yonah had never, never struck her.
    Her
vision cleared.
    Zebadyah
stood silent, hesitating, as if startled by his own violence.
    The
baby’s cries broke her panic. She screamed and leapt at him, but the priest
caught her wrists and held her as she kicked at him, still with that look of
dawning horror on his face.
    “ What is going on?”
    A young man’s shout.
    The
priest had left the outer door open. Shimon stood there, his face full of
thunder—looking suddenly very like his father. Yakob, the priest’s son, stood
beside him on the doorstep, his face shocked.
    “Shimon!” Rahel cried, almost faint with relief.
    Zebadyah
released her quickly, as though his hands burned. He looked at his son and
nephew, and his face darkened slowly with shame. “Bar Yonah,” he said, his
voice a little hoarse, “I need to make sure your family is provided for.”
    Shimon’s
eyes were cold. They took everything in: the screaming baby in the atrium, the
bruise developing over Rahel’s cheekbone, the priest’s slightly hunched stance.
“They will be,” he said quietly. “Your son and I have reached an agreement. I
am taking my father’s boat out tonight, to fish where he cannot. Yakob will
help me, for a while.” He glanced at Rahel. “I’ll be able to feed us, mother. I
am sure of it.”
    For
a moment, no one moved. Rahel drew in a sobbing breath, looked at her son
carefully, and at Yakob. She saw in their eyes that Shimon had known she would
not accept the protection of Yakob’s father. Shimon had known this. He
had done this—taken on this responsibility—for her, and to honor his father.
Knowing what it meant. Shimon’s bar ‘onshin had come and gone; in announcing
his intent to feed the house of his father, he claimed that house and all
within it. What was to be done with his brother, what was to be done with his
father’s widow—this was all up to him now, and to no other. Rahel’s breast
warmed with pride and gratitude. Shimon was his father’s son. He was her son.
    Rahel
straightened, smoothed down her garments, grateful none of them were torn. She
wanted to touch her face where it hurt and burned, but she did not. Her hands
were shaking, and she clutched her skirt until they were still. She stood with
dignity, and though her voice quivered, it was not