Pearl in the Sand (3 page)

“Look, why should I give half my profits to a woman who’ll probably cheat me? If the intention behind this enterprise is to earn enough money to see us through the year, we can’t afford a dishonest partner.”

“Rahab, we don’t know how to … how to manage this affair,” her father said, banging his fist on the wobbly table.

The taste of bile rose in her throat. Ignoring it, she rasped, “Take me to Zedek the goldsmith. He’ll know what’s to be done.” Her father ran errands for Zedek now and again. He was a rich man, goldsmith to the king, and well connected among the aristocracy of Jericho. For the last six months, every time Zedek saw Rahab on the street, he stared at her with an intensity of desire that even she couldn’t mistake. She knew he didn’t want her for wife. He would have asked her father already. But she was willing to bet he would pay well for the other. And she intended to make him pay well. If she had to go through this horror, she would gain a little something besides her family’s bread for the drought year. She would free herself from her father. She loved him still, and her devotion to her family remained absolute. But she determined never to place herself under his protection again.

“What has Zedek got to do with it?” her mother asked.

Imri didn’t answer her. He dropped his eyes, mopped his head with the back of his hand, and said, “As you wish.”

Rahab snuck into the garden to weep in private.

“How much will it take to feed us for a year?” Rahab asked her father as they walked toward Zedek’s shop. Her legs shook with each step, but she refused to give in to the fear that strangled her from the inside out.

“Why?”

“Ask for that much. Plus a gold necklace, earrings, and bracelets for me.”

“Girl, you’re pretty, but not that pretty. No man in his right mind would pay that much for one night, not even for you.”

Was she attractive enough to tempt Zedek to part with his fat purse? She knew she’d been drawing men’s eyes for the past two years, since her body had blossomed and her hair had lost the wild wiriness of adolescence and settled into soft curling masses of deepest red and brown. Would she do for Zedek? “Not one night,” she replied absently. “Three months. He gets to have me while I’m still young and fresh … before anyone else …” Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t bear the thought of facing this thing one night at a time, with different men spinning in and out of her life. A steady lover might become tolerable with time.

“I’ll ask, but don’t expect him to accept.”

“It’s a good bargain. He’ll accept. Mind you, three months and not one day more.” Her father looked at her like he’d never seen her before. Perhaps he hadn’t. She hardly knew herself.

Zedek was a well-fed man with protruding front teeth. He dressed richly, ornamented with gold from his beard rings to the dainty bells on his woven shoes. When he saw Rahab and her father walk into his shop he came straight over, shoving the hireling aside. “Good day, Imri,” he said, staring at Rahab.

In his dark irises she could see the reflection of her own face—thin nose, full lips, large hazel eyes puffy from tears. She had washed her hair for this visit, and now it peeked from under its veil, an unruly mass of bright chestnut coils surrounding her face and cascading down her back. Recalling the reason behind that washing she blushed with shame and desperation—and held Zedek’s gaze.

Her father cleared his throat. “Can we speak with you, my lord? Privately?”

Zedek haggled hard, but Imri, to his credit, did not budge. Zedek stared at Rahab, fingers rubbing his lips, and threw out one last sum. When Imri shook his head, the goldsmith walked away. Rahab took her father’s hand and rose to go. He shot her an agonized look, but Rahab pulled hard and he stood. Zedek, perceiving their
determination, came back and accepted their offer. Rahab noticed that her father looked astonished. She schooled her features into a bland mask, covering her own surprise. Like her father, she could hardly believe that Zedek was willing to pay so much for her.

For three months, Zedek was her master. He liked that she knew nothing. He liked that for the first week she cried every time. He liked comforting her afterward, too. He wasn’t cruel to Rahab. He never beat or abused her. And if a disgust of herself and of him settled into her stomach, she never let him see it.

When the three months were over, Zedek gave Rahab a bag full of gold. He threw in a pair of anklets in addition to her original demand, and when she tallied the coins she found he had overpaid her as well. She assumed a mistake. “My lord,” she said, “you gave me too much.”

“My little Rahab refusing money?”

“I don’t cheat my customers.”

“Customers?” He rolled his eyes. “You’ve had but one. And you aren’t cheating me, girl. I’m giving it to you.”

Rahab bowed her thanks and clutched the money, half hoping that Zedek would ask her to stay longer. He was right. She hadn’t known any man but him. She didn’t care for his touch, but she would prefer being the consort of one man than the plaything of many. But Zedek showed no interest in continuing their association. Clearly he had had his fill of her.

She returned home and handed the bag of gold to her father. “From Zedek. Payment for three months.”

Her father peered inside the bag and gasped. “So much! I never thought he would give so much!”

“That’s the last of it. He’s finished with me. He doesn’t want me anymore.” Rahab blinked back the tears.

“What did you expect?” Imri threw her a quick glance before returning his attention to the bag. “It’s a wonder he stayed with you as long as he did, Rahab. He’s a man of the world. He’s accustomed to the best.”

Meaning she was not the best
. Rahab slumped on a cushion. Her father’s words hammered home a truth she hadn’t dared admit to herself. Once a man really came to know her, he would not want her anymore. She must be undesirable or insufficient in some way. Her father knew it. Zedek knew it. Now she knew it. Suddenly she felt cold. She laid her head on her knees, wrapped her arms around her legs, and began to rock. Her father went into the next room to show her mother and brothers the gold. But for occasional gifts of wheat and oil from Zedek, their family would have starved by now. This gold would see them through the rest of the year and buy seed for the following year’s harvest.

Through the thin curtain separating the rooms she heard her parents’ muffled voices as they spoke. “Imri, what’s to become of her now?” her mother asked, her voice thin and reedy. “Can’t you persuade Zedek to keep her?”

“How am I supposed to manage that? He’s bored with her and that’s that.”

“What are we to do with her then? No one will marry her now.”

“You knew the answer to that from the first day, woman. She’ll have to make the best of it. We all will. Her looks will serve her well. There must still be men who want her. For a season anyway.”

Rahab curled deeper into herself and swallowed a moan. Without thinking, she took a fistful of the lavish silk of her dress in each hand, bunching the fabric the way a scared infant might cling to a blanket. She felt choked with fear as she thought about her future—about all the Zedeks that would walk in and out of her life. Her bed.

She mourned the dreams that would never be, the destiny she would never have. She mourned the choices lost to her. Finally, exhausted from crying and the strain of loss, she shut her eyes and lay on the cool floor. In the midst of her hopelessness a thought occurred to her. She did have one choice. Though she was reduced to selling her body for money, she could choose her own lovers. She could begin and end every liaison according to her own desire.
She had tasted rejection from Zedek and it was too bitter to swallow. This bitterness, at least, she would avoid. She would be master of her own heart. She would let no one in, and she would cast each one out before they realized, as Zedek had, that she was unlovable.

During the months Rahab had been under Zedek’s protection, she had met other influential men of his acquaintance. Several of them had hinted that when Zedek was finished, they would be happy to replace him.

Rahab chose carefully, and only one lover at a time. She was stinting in her acceptance of men. Her clients were few, but generous. Her unusual selectiveness enhanced her popularity among men of the higher classes. Each wanted to be chosen over the others. Rahab became the competition they sought to win.

“Rahab, you are the most beautiful woman in Jericho,” more than one man told her. “Even the king doesn’t have a woman in his household to compare to you,” they whispered in her ear.

Some days such words put a smile on her face, though it was a shallow joy that never lasted. In her heart she believed that any of those men who claimed her to be incomparable would tire of her inside of three months and discard her like bones after a feast.

Sometimes after being with a man, she would curl on her mattress and shake, unable to stop. There were days when she would kiss her lover good-bye, smile at him as though he were the center of her world, close the door and vomit. She hated what she did. But she did not stop. She believed she had no alternative. What else could she become after what she had been? Her life was locked into this destiny.

By the time Rahab was seventeen, she had enough silver to purchase an inn on the city wall. Leaving home came easier than she imagined. Two years of absent nights and shamed days had taught her to distance herself from her family. Her body followed where her
heart had long been. It’s not that she loved her family any less than before. Often in her little inn, she was lonely for them, but found that being with them only made her lonelier. So she increasingly gave her time to the demands of her inn.

Most innkeepers in Canaan were also harlots, so much so that the terms had become interchangeable. Rahab, however, separated her professions. Not everyone who stayed at her inn was welcome to her bed. She made certain that her inn gained a reputation for simple elegance and comfort. Decorating it with woven tapestries and rich carpets, she avoided the gaudy ornamentation common among other inns. The location helped. The wall remained an exclusive dwelling place in Jericho, and in spite of the inevitable diminutiveness of the residences and establishments built into it, they represented some of Jericho’s most desirable properties. By the time Rahab turned twenty-six, her inn was as popular as she herself, though like her body, it often remained empty. It was that very exclusivity which made it a sought-after destination.

T
he first time Rahab heard about Israel, she was entertaining. Sprawled under a carelessly flung linen sheet, she watched through half closed eyes as her lover, Jobab, paced about. His brow was so knotted it reminded her of a walnut shell. She could see he was agitated, but waited with patience until he was ready to speak. Men admired women who kept quiet at the right times. When he finally tired of striding about like a trapped lion, he spoke.

“Rahab, the Hebrews defeated King Sihon and his sons last night. The great king of the Amorites was routed by a band of nomads. Now all of Canaan is in danger.”