Sarah by Marek Halter Read Free Book Online

Sarai be a good, fertile, and faithful wife? This is not about your choice, but about your daughter, Ichbi Sum-Usur. Your ancestor says: I want nothing to do with this wedding.”
    A heavy silence ensued. Sarai’s heart was pounding. Beside her, Kiddin was clenching his fists nervously.
    â€œMust I refuse my daughter to the man who wants her for his wife?” her father asked. “I don’t understand.”
    â€œNo. Two livers and two ancestors are sufficient. The oracle is still valid. However, as you are a good client, I shall tell you this for free, and I shan’t write it down on the tablet. Your great-grandfather says this. Your daughter pleases Ishtar. She can be a wife without a husband. She is the kind of woman who provokes violent acts. That can be disastrous as well as glorious. The gods will decide her fate: queen or slave. However, for the sake of your family as well as that of the man who is taking her as a wife: Let her get children without delay.”

    â€œQUEEN or slave!” Sarai said.
    â€œBut also fertile and faithful, that’s the most important thing,” Sililli said approvingly, seemingly unconcerned by what she had heard. “Your father must be relieved! I’m certainly relieved. And you see, I told you the truth. He couldn’t possibly change his mind.”
    Sarai refrained from answering. They were in her new bedchamber, and Sililli was carefully washing her hair, anointing it with an oily scent, and gathering it into dozens of braids.
    â€œTomorrow,” Sililli went on, “you will be a queen. That, too, I know. As well as any
barù
.”
    Her long ram’s horn comb in her hand, she bent down to judge the straightness of the part she had just traced in Sarai’s hair.
    â€œDo you think the
barùs
always tell the truth?” Sarai asked, after a moment’s silence.
    Sililli took her time before replying. “They sometimes make mistakes. Sometimes, too, the gods change their minds. But when a soothsayer is sure he’s right, he writes it down on a tablet. What he doesn’t write down should only be listened to with one ear. I, too, can tell your future by looking right in your eyes. Especially as I know them by heart. Queen of a good husband, with beautiful children. I see nothing but good.”
    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.
    â€œSililli, 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.
    â€œI’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