I moved to where I could see into the dimly lighted room. I caught only a glimpse before it was filled with women. Avigail, white and crying, disheveled as before, like a bundle flung in the corner, the blood still dripping from her head.
The roaring protests of Shemayah were drowned out by the women. Isaac and Yaqim and Silent Hannah tried to get into the house but they couldn't get in. It was too filled with the women.
And it was the women who put the door back up on its pivots and closed it against us.
We went into our own courtyard, and James let go with words.
"Is he mad?" I demanded.
"Don't be such a fool," said my uncle Cleopas. "The bandit ripped off her veil."
"What is her veil?" demanded James. Isaac and Yaqim came to us crying. "What in the name of the Lord does it matter that he took her veil?"
"He's an old and stupid man," said Cleopas. "I don't defend him. I'm only answering you because it seems someone has to answer you."
"We saved her," Isaac said to his father, wiping at his tears.
James kissed his son's head and held him close. "You did well, all of you," he said. "Yaqim, you, and you," he pointed to the little boys who hovered in the street. "Come inside now."
It was a full hour before my mother came in with Aunt Esther and Aunt Salome.
Aunt Salome was furious.
"He's sent for the midwife."
"How can he do such a thing!" cried James. "The whole village saw this. Nothing happened. The man was forced to let her go."
My mother sat crying by the brazier.
There was shouting from the street, mostly the voices of women. Yaqim and Isaac ran out before anyone could stop them.
I didn't move.
Finally Old Bruria came in. "The midwife has come and gone," she said. "Let it be known to all this house and every house, and every lout and bully and no-count in this village who wants to know it, and fret about it, and gossip about it, the girl is unharmed."
"Well, that's hardly a surprise," said Aunt Esther. "And you left her alone with him?"
Old Bruria made a gesture as if to say she could do no more, and she went off to her room.
Silent Hannah who had seen everything got up quietly and slipped out the door.
I wanted to follow. I wanted to see whether or not Shemayah would let her in. But I didn't do this. Only my mother followed and came back moments later and nodded and so it was over for now.
At noon, Shemayah and his field hands rode out into the hills. Inside his house, his two maidservants remained with Avigail and with Silent Hannah, bolting the door behind him as he told them to do.
We knew he wouldn't find the bandits. We prayed he wouldn't find the bandits. He didn't know what to do against men armed with daggers and swords. And the ragged bunch he'd taken with him were only the older men and the weaker men, the men who hadn't gone off to Caesarea to take a stand.
Sometime during the early evening, Shemayah returned. We heard the noise of the horses, not a common sound in our street.
My mother and aunts went to his door and begged to see Avigail. He wouldn't answer.
All the next day no one came or went from the house of Shemayah. His field hands gathered, then wandered off without directions.
It was the same the following day.
Meanwhile, news came in every few hours from Caesarea.
And on the third day after the attack of the bandits, we had a long letter in Jason's hand, read out in the synagogue, that the crowd was peaceably assembled before the Governor's palace and would not be moved.
This gave comfort to the Rabbi and comfort to many of the rest of us. Though some simply wondered what the Governor would do if this crowd did not go away.
Neither Shemayah nor anyone from his house came to the assembly.
The next day, Shemayah went out to his fields at dawn. No one answered when the women knocked. Then Silent Hannah came out quietly in the afternoon.
She came into our house and told the women in gestures that Avigail lay on the floor. That Avigail took nothing to eat. That Avigail took nothing to drink. In a little while, she hurried back, fearful that Shemayah might have returned and found her gone, and she disappeared into the house and the bolt was again in place.
I didn't find these things out until I'd returned from work in Sepphoris. My mother told me what Silent Hannah had let them know.
The house was miserable.
Joseph and Bruria went together and knocked. They were truly our eldest, the ones no one should refuse. But Shemayah didn't answer them. And slowly Bruria helped Joseph back into the house.
Chapter Ten
THE NEXT MORNING we went to the Rabbi, all of us together, the women who'd been there at the creek, the children who'd been there, and James and I and others who'd seen it. Old Bruria came with us, and so did Joseph though it seemed harder than ever for him to make the journey up the hill. We asked for a meeting with the Rabbi and we all went to the synagogue together, and we closed the doors.
It was clean and quiet there. The morning sun had even made it a little warm. Joseph was seated on the bench. The Rabbi took his usual place in his chair to Joseph's right.
"It comes to this," I said, standing before the Rabbi. "Avigail, our kinswoman, was not harmed by this man. All here saw what happened; they saw her fight; they saw her relinquished. They saw her taken home. Now days have passed. Silent Hannah comes and goes but only Silent Hannah, and Silent Hannah says, as best she can, that Avigail neither eats nor drinks."
The Rabbi nodded. His shoulders were hunched under his robes. His eyes were filled with pity.
"Now we ask only this," I said, "that her cousins here, these women, be allowed to attend to her, to the cuts and scrapes she received when she was thrown to the ground. We ask that they be allowed to go in to her. To see that she takes what food and drink she should. Her father won't allow it. The servants are doddering old women. It was Avigail who cared for these servants. How can these servants now care for Avigail? Surely Avigail is frightened and crying, and suffering alone."
"I know all this," said the Rabbi sadly. "You know I know. And her father went off after the evildoers. He went riding out to soak his rusty sword in blood. And he wasn't the only one. They struck Cana, those bandits. No, they didn't steal a woman, just everything else they could grab. The King's soldiers will catch them. They've sent a cohort into the hills."
"Be that as it may," I said. "Our concern is for our kinswoman Avigail."
"Rabbi, you must make him let us in," said Old Bruria. "The girl needs tending. She might be losing her wits."