Sarah by Marek Halter Page B

offerings to Nintu, but the blood still would not flow. Two moons would pass, perhaps three.
    Long enough for her father to postpone the bridegroom’s arrival, perhaps even to renounce the idea of offering his daughter to anyone at all.
    Long enough for the
mar.Tu
Abram to return.
    That night, taking advantage of Sililli’s brief absence, Sarai quickly hid the five packets of the herb of infertility under her bed. Then she stood before the red silhouette of the goddess Nintu at the foot of her bed, opened her arms and the palms of her hands, and turned her face up to heaven. Without her lips moving, without anyone hearing her, she implored Nintu’s mercy.
    O Nintu, patroness of childbirth, you who received the brick of childbearing from the hands of almighty Enki, you who hold the scissors of the birth cord,
    Consider your daughter Sarai, be patient with her,
    Look down on my weakness,
    Look at the blood that is in my heart:
    It is cold for the husband I have not chosen.
    The herb of infertility is like a cloud in the sky,
    It does not long stop the sun from shining.
    O Nintu, forgive Sarai, daughter of Ichbi Sum-Usur.

    IT was toward morning, while she was fast asleep, that hell entered Sarai’s belly.
    She saw it first in her dream. Dancing flames penetrated her body like a man. She tried to ward them off, but her hands went right through the fire without lessening it. She saw her own body become red and swollen, while the
kassaptu
’s face creased with pleasure and she shouted in a loud voice: “You see, now it’s true: You are an opened woman.” Sarai’s body cracked open, her entrails split and burned. She saw them fall to the ground, black and shriveled. She twisted in pain. Her belly, like an emptied gourd, made her weep and cry out. The cries became her name and woke her.
    â€œSarai! Sarai! Why are you shouting like that?”
    Sililli was leaning over her, holding her hands, her face distorted with fear in the dim light of the oil lamp.
    â€œAre you sick?” Sililli was asking. “Where does it hurt?”
    Sarai could not answer. The fire in her belly was sucking the air from her lungs. She could hardly breathe.
    â€œIt’s only a nightmare,” Sililli said, imploringly. “You must wake up.”
    The fire made her limbs ice cold. She could feel them becoming hard and brittle. She opened her mouth wide, trying desperately to breathe. Sililli seized Sarai around the waist and supported her back, which was arching as if it would break. Suddenly, everything inside her became soft, dusty, like something rotten reduced to ashes. The air finally entered her lungs, sweeping away the ash and what remained of the fire. She saw blackness coming. An immense, welcoming darkness. She was happy to vanish into it.
    She did not hear Sililli’s screams, which woke the whole of Ichbi Sum-Usur’s household.

    UNTIL daybreak, they thought she was dead.
    Sililli filled the women’s courtyard with weeping. Ichbi Sum-Usur ordered all the fires to be extinguished. Shutting himself away in the temple of the house, he prostrated himself before the statues of his ancestors with a fervor that astonished his eldest son. Kiddin watched the tears streaming down his father’s cheeks with a mixture of disappointment and disgust. When he saw him lie down on the floor and empty a goblet of cold ashes over his noble head, the thought occurred to him that the gods were infinitely wise: They had taken his sister from the world. A sister incapable of abiding by the laws and duties of women. An ill-fated sister who attracted demons but could still melt the heart of an overfond father. Had she lived a few more years, he and his father would both have become the laughingstocks of Ur.
    Just before dawn, Egime let out a cry.
    â€œSarai’s alive! She’s alive, she’s breathing!”
    She repeated it until Ichbi Sum-Usur rushed to the women’s quarters and a stunned