The voices

As if it had grown with him, feeding on him like a foal in a mare’s belly, when it showed itself to him the next time, the second, the voice of God was louder and clearer, and it took place just after the episode at the well.

While all the others banqueted beneath the open sky, while old man Jacob sat proudly at the table and the still beautiful widow of Amithai stood behind to serve him, while all the others ate and laughed, some of them having grown tipsy and talking loudly, forgetting that a husband and father in the family had died not long before, Jonah ran away again, he fled towards the light of the stars and the waxing moon, farther than the last house in the village. Although the others had been toasting him as a hero, along with his uncle from far away, although they had tried to outdo each other in their praises of the two men who, acting as one, had saved the little girl from the bottom of the well, Jonah felt guilty and was gnawed by remorse. He couldn’t remember exactly, but he suspected that it was he himself who had left the lid of the well open, the lid he usually pushed back into place. And he wouldn’t have forgotten to do it if it hadn’t been for his uncle. On the other hand, if it hadn’t been for his uncle, maybe he would now have had the death of an innocent child and a distraught mother to feel guilty about. These bad thoughts pierced him from within and with every word of praise heaped upon him by the guests, with every shout of laughter, his burden grew. He wanted to cry out and beg their forgiveness, but the strong voice within him would not emerge. It pounded him in his guts. He’d been drinking wine, and at the lewd words of one of the men at the table, his member had stiffened in lust for a woman. I shouldn’t wonder if you yourself got married tomorrow or the day after, and it’s high time you knew about such things. Jonah was thinking of visiting Hannah. She lived near us, and although I was only little, even I knew that she had become Father’s paramour after Mother’s death or, who knows, even before that. Once, Grandfather told me the secret of how her name was the same when you read it from right to left, the way our nation reads, or left to right, the way other nations read. And he traced the letters with a stick for me in the dust. Hannah was beautiful and she was the only woman in Gat-­Hefer with blue eyes. She had been widowed at a young age, when some nameless disease snatched away her three small children and her husband within the space of just a few days. She wished she could have died with them, but the disease, which comes only unsummoned, passed her by. After a year of grief and mourning, she met an unknown widower, who stayed at her house on certain nights and he entered her with a skill such as her poor husband had never possessed. But as for him, he was able. After he left, she would lie there, a state of well-­being pervading her body, her soul at peace, as laden with fruit as a vineyard. After a few days, the stranger, her lover, told her that his name was Jonah. Nothing more. That he had a daughter, whose name was Esther, she discovered for herself. For a time, I hated her. It felt as if she were taking my father away from me. What a good thing that you’ve fallen asleep, my darling, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to tell you all this!

*

I was asleep, dreaming, but my heart kept watch. It is night and I am waiting for you, my love, in my sheer silk shirt, through which my body shows, soft and white. Come quickly, my dark love, come, let us grow drunk on love at midnight,