Desired: The Untold Story of Samson and Delilah (Lost Loves of the Bible) (7 page)

His cousins and the other young men from the village were making a bonfire. They all talked to each other with intensity, sharing their petty secrets and jokes.

I looked back at the horizon. The sun was sinking away, its last brilliant burst of orange illuminating the lingering clouds. The day had passed. Time had passed. All that remained now was deepest night and the long watch for dawn.

AMARA

Fall’s gentle sun did not last. Her gold empire evaporated into white clouds and morning mists. Winter was coming fast. We worked late into the night, every night, putting up the last of the harvest, pulling out the olives and grapes and wheat kernels that split during the walk home. We collected baskets of these to feed our goats and went out every morning to check their bedding. Some families let their goats sleep with them inside, on the lower floor, and the family kept their beds on a floor just above. We didn’t do that. Maybe it’s because we kept pigs sometimes too. Mother wanted a separate pen near the house, and we bartered space in it for extra food. Sirena kept two goats of her own in it, but Father made her keep her bucks with another family. He said he didn’t trust males. Our three goats were pregnant anyway; we knew by their swollen backsides and bulging bellies.

Like our goats, we were at the mercy of time now. We did not control our lives. The fields did. They determined when we worked and when we rested. And right now, we were working.

Already exhausted from harvesting in the warm weather, there was still more work ahead of us as it turned cold. We went out into the fields once more, readying them for the rainy season. We turned the dirt over and over, deepening and airing out the rows, working the fertilizer into the earth. Like most Philistines, we used a combination of manure and menstrual blood. Only at this moment did the blood of a woman’s moon cycle have good magic, as the ground cried out to be fertilized. Mother saved the soiled linens, and we worked them deep into the soil, knowing that what cries out for life to us would cry out for life for our crops. This same blood, if brought into the fields after they had been fertilized, brought death, a miscarriage. We had to sow this powerful magic while it favored us. If Mother noticed that she did not have so many rags to suggest Astra had gotten her cycle, she said nothing.

With our field prepared, we hired ourselves out to neighbors in our own village and the rest of the valley. How I loved this last, sweet labor! Seeding did not require me to bend over or lift a tool. All I needed was a basket around my neck for seed. I took off my sandals and stepped into the soft give of the soil, dipping my hand into the silky little seeds, scattering the seed along the rows. I walked slowly and breathed deeply, knowing the end of all our labors was at last here. The blessed rest of winter was coming, when Astra and I could lie under our blankets and tell stories, when Father would nod off to sleep after breakfast and Mother would pat him softly on the shoulder, letting him rest. The fire outside would feel delicious in its warmth, and we would only sweat if we wanted to, by getting close to the flames.

If there was a dark spot on the glorious white mists of winter, it was this: Word had spread through our village that Father and Mother had offered hospitality to Hebrews. Astra and I could endure the insults from other children, but Father had lost business. He had taken a large share of money from his sudden wealth and invested it in another load of rugs from a merchant, yet he had sold not even one.

He was silent at dinner most nights, and not just from exhaustion. Finally, last night after dinner, he had said what we were all thinking.

“That money was a curse. We were happier before we had it. Now we’ve lost both it and our contentment.”

“What can we do?” I asked.

“What should we do? Pretend it didn’t happen?” He sounded exasperated with me.

“You didn’t have to tell anyone that the Hebrew bought the rugs!” Astra came to my defense. Perhaps she felt guilty.

“You think I brought this trouble to our door? Are you so naive?” Father said.

I stood. Rain or not, I would spend my night on the roof.

He grabbed me by the wrist.

“Adon, no,” Mother scolded him.

He became a different man as I watched. The hard lines from all the lean years surfaced in his face as his eyes emptied of all compassion. “I work until I am half dead. I scrape and scavenge like a dog, rent out my wife and daughters to work the fields like they are oxen, and for all this, look at us. Look! Who had enough to eat tonight? Who wears a tunic without patches? Even the wineskins look better than we do, and they’ll get thrown out after one season!”

A cold, hard lump burned in my throat, an agony I struggled to soothe by taking soft, steady breaths. I could not bear to add to my father’s shame with tears of my own.

But Astra was already crying, her head bent toward her lap. She was too young to practice any kind of restraint. I wanted to reach out to her. She would think this was her fault. That was true, but I didn’t want her to suffer.

My father had not released me. He pulled on my wrist, getting my attention.

“Do you know who came to see me today?”

I shook my head. Astra looked up in alarm.

“Manoah, the father of Samson.”

Astra jumped up. “I did it! It’s my fault. I will apologize to him if he will listen.”

Father looked at her as if she was a fool.

“Girls, go up to the roof,” my mother said. “Leave me alone with your father.”

“No. It is done. She should know about our arrangement.”

What had gone on between him and Manoah? What could they have arranged? They were Hebrews. Any pact was an admission of both our poverty and our ambition. We were Philistines, superior in technology, learning, and power. These poor Hebrews worshipped a god that had promised them a land he could not deliver. Whatever Father had promised to them, it was a better deal than they had ever gotten from their own god.

Father didn’t even take a breath or try to prepare me. His eyes looked at me without seeing me, as if his soul had evaporated during the dinner.

“Samson wants you.”

“For what?”

“A bride.”

Astra fell down, crumpling to the floor in shock. Mother jumped up to tend to her.

Father picked his teeth with the long nail of his little finger, as he looked at the far wall, his chin trembling.

“Please tell me this is a joke.” I barely had enough breath to be heard.

“What did you expect me to do?” He looked at me, his brows tightly knotted together, deep lines of anger springing up on his forehead.

Mother helped Astra to sit upright, holding her, before screaming at Father again. “A Hebrew! You pledged my daughter to a Hebrew!”

“Name me one Philistine who wants her.” Father’s voice was cold.

Mother opened her mouth then closed it, her nostrils flaring. She slammed her hand on the table, palm flat, making the bowls jump and clatter. The noise made my heart jump, and I burst into tears. Father was a good man, but a poor one. He had only done what he had to do. I was going to become the bride of the man-beast of the Hebrews, the freak who made everyone stop and gasp in horror. The thought of the Hebrew man-beast reaching for me under the stars on his own roof, while his parents slept in the house below us, made me sick.

“How much did you get for me?”

Astra stopped crying, her eager expression showing me that she was hungrier than she even admitted. Even Mother leaned closer in, anxious to hear a good number.

“Four pieces of silver.”

Mother’s hand flew to her heart. I ground my teeth as the good number burned into my heart. My price was better than I could have imagined.

Oh, Dagon.

MOTHER

Samson and I passed the Sabbath together in peace. We remained in our beds later than we usually did, and when we rose, I made him a big breakfast of his favorite foods. We ate curds and honey and bread in our cool, quiet house. We could hear birds alight on the roof and sing as the sun rose.

I didn’t want Manoah to return. It was a sin to think it, but I did more than allow the thought to pass. I prayed it. I prayed that time would stop, that God would stop His relentless push toward a new day and allow me this one day, this peace, forever.

Samson dipped a piece of bread in oil and handed it to me. “You’re not eating enough. You’re too thin.”

Only he had noticed.

I accepted his gift and ate. The oil spread in my mouth, and strength flooded into my bones again. I swallowed and closed my eyes in relief.

“Here. Eat again.” Samson was holding out another piece of bread dripping with the green oil of our olives.

“You’re still growing. You eat it.”

“No. It’s for you.”

I accepted it and ate. He had soaked it; I could not open my mouth quickly. He had set a clever trap.

Samson settled back and watched me. “I have to do this. I can’t explain why.”

I nodded.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. My path was chosen for me, before I was even born. You have told me that all of my life. And this marriage, it is part of that path. I am sure of it.”

I looked down at my hands with their spots from sun and age, and deep crevices across the knuckles. My life was fading, and Samson’s was beginning its long, glorious burn.

“I have lost many friends because of the prophecy.”

Samson nodded in acknowledgment. “I have never had any friends to lose.”

“Do you hate me? Do you wish I had turned the angel away, or run from him?”

Samson reached across the distance between us and took my hands in his. His hands were warm. I had not realized how cold I was.

A tear slid down my face. I was like a cold, trembling child. Samson was indeed strong. He leaned toward me.

“Do you ever wish you had been made the deliverer of our people, instead of me?” he asked.

I laughed, a deep chuckle from my belly. “You know what I would do? I would start in Ashkelon and work my way to Gaza. I would smash the temples of Dagon into rubble and destroy every altar that had ever held a sacrifice made to him. I would deliver anyone who had ever suffered from this idol.”

“Why do you hate the Philistines’ god so much?”

“You’re too young.”

“Mother.”

I rubbed my forehead awhile before answering. “Philistines believe a man teaches the gods how to act. If you pray to Dagon, you must show him how to answer you, or he will not know. And what do men pray for more than anything else in this world?”

“Money.”

“Yes. And money comes from what?”

“Trade.”

“And what are they trading? Think, Samson.”

“Lumber. Jewels. Wheat, wine, olives.”

“They are trading God’s gifts. They grow rich and do not bless Him.”

Here, I had to pause for a deep breath. To explain such things made the food in my stomach pitch and roll. I wiped my forehead before continuing.

“And there is more. The greatest gift of our God, this one they destroy. The next time you go to a festival, look in the gutters outside the temple of Dagon, and tell me what you see. I did it once, as a child. I have never forgotten the sight.” I narrowed my eyes, willing him to ask me what I had seen. “When we claim that land, we will have to build a lot of graves.”

Samson stood up, needing more distance between us.

Manoah opened the door. Samson and I looked at him but did not speak, the weight of our words holding us back from him.

Manoah frowned, looking between us. “Well, it is done. You have a Philistine bride.”

Samson glanced at me. I was careful to keep my face still, to say nothing with my eyes. I would not give my blessing.

My son walked out of the house, slamming the door behind him as he went.

AMARA

Samson was coming. He would bring his parents but no one else for the marriage. As was the Hebrew custom, he would throw a feast for seven days. I could invite anyone I chose. For seven days, he would entertain and feed my guests, but it was on the evening of the first day that I would go up on the roof and become his wife.

We said nothing of the marriage to anyone in the city. Sirena noticed the deep wells under my eyes, the dark circles from mourning all through the night. I told her nothing. Talos and Neo asked Astra many questions, but she fled like a doe back to my side, and we glared at them until they shrugged and walked away. The gossips would find out the news soon enough anyway. They always did.

At night, though none of us had brought home much from the harvest, we did not count the grapes or weigh the wheat. We knew that our family would survive the coming year, not because of the harvest, but because I would belong to a Hebrew.

On one of these last sorrowful nights, when we had extinguished all but one oil lamp, we all remained on our pallets in silence. Golden light flickered against the walls in the darkness, making shadows leap and dance all around us. Astra must have trimmed this wick; she knew just how to angle her cuts to make the flame dance for hours.

Father spoke, and I listened. His deep soft voice joined the leaping shadows, until in the shadows I saw the tale he told spring to life.

“I have learned the tale of Samson and his people. Let me tell you of the man you will marry and the tribe you will join. Learn their ways, daughter. Become as one and live. Forget us and prosper. I could ask no more for my daughter.

“Twenty years ago, this man Samson was born under a strange star, and his tale is a strange one. A spirit appeared to his mother one day as she worked in her fields, and the woman conversed with the spirit freely. The spirit foretold of the child and extracted promises from the woman. She would be the one to guard his magic.

“This woman, you should know, is a Danite, the warrior tribe of the Hebrews. Though the Hebrews have twelve tribes, although they all look alike, we know them to have very different temperaments and to make very different neighbors. The Danites are born serpents. This was their blessing, pronounced by their forefather Jacob, a man known for stealing his own blessing. Jacob pronounced that the tribe of Dan would be a tribe of serpents, horned snakes resting on the path of their enemies.

“Forget us, daughter. You will dwell with serpents. Be as happy as you can. Once you leave, never return.”

“Why?” It was Astra who spoke. “Why does he want her? He won’t get any land with her.”

I was too numb from pain to take offense. I knew my beauty was not a logical answer.

Father sighed. “There is more to this tale, a strange turn. That fierce serpent, the tribe of Dan, refuses to strike. They were gifted the land of the Canaanites by their god and by their forefather Moses, yet they refused the gift. Why do they watch us, that serpent in the road, and not strike?”

A terrible silence dwelled with us as we contemplated his question.

Philistines had been always been anxious to strike, dealing a savage blow once to the fierce Hittites, burning their capitol and slaughtering their women and children. We devoured them so completely that even the pharaoh of Egypt, Ramses the Third, was awakened. He came after us with six-spoked chariots that glided across all the sand and rocks between us as if on air. And while it is true that we could not overcome him and lay claim to Egypt, we did not consider our prize to be a small one. We settled here along the Mediterranean, eating fish for our supper and watching the sun set over distant empires that traveled to us, begging for iron and knowledge.

Knowledge was our crown, and skill gave us a throne that none could take from us.

The Hebrews came to us before every harvest, asking us to sharpen their harvest tools. They used to come to us with their killing blades, held flat on their palms, asking us to sharpen them too. How could they make war against us if we were the ones who made their weapons work? Every year we sharpened fewer blades and more tools. The Danite warriors became craftsmen. Perhaps it was their real destiny; their god had asked their tribe to build an ark for him, to carry his belongings in. They said he traveled with stone tablets inscribed with his laws and a branch from an almond tree.

I giggled. What a strange god.

We were not fools. We watched their eyes when they walked among us. We watched them working out in their minds the layout of our cities, the location of our storehouses. We forbade them from watching how we sharpened their tools and blades. We watched them, as they waited in the open road for us.

“The Danites will attack us someday. The serpent will lift her head and strike,” Father said.

In the leaping flames, I saw a vision of that terrible, coming day. Astra threw a blanket over her face in dread.

“That is why, daughter, when you leave this house, you must forget us. You will become the mother to a brood of vipers who will rise up and strike us. If you do not remember us, your heart will be spared much grief.” Father’s voice sounded so cold.

I rose up, my face illuminated in the flickering light. “I will never forget you! How can you tell me such a tale and ask such a thing? What evil have you brought upon me?”

Father sat up to face me. The shadows played under his face, the soft glow of his gentle eyes turning to stone as I watched. Mother must have sensed the change, for she, too, sat up, resting a hand on his arm.

Father stood and fumbled in the darkness for his sword, a short blade that he wore only in times of urgent threat. He opened the door to the night. As moonlight flooded in, Astra gasped at the image of Father with a knife to his throat. Mother leaped from her bed and took the knife away, whispering comforting words. She looked at me, accusations in her eyes, and my thin robe left me very cold.

I stood in my house, thankful for the mercy of rain. The air was lifting, growing colder and lighter, and the heavy rains could at last break through the clouds and pour down on us. The heavy rains meant that the women did not linger when baking their bread. We covered our faces in the rain and scurried between house and oven, house and pen, house and refuse dump.

Several weeks had passed, and I knew everyone had heard of my shame. Who can know how such secrets escape? But they do. Secrets are not safe in Timnah. Sirena wept as she baked her bread then fled from me. Talos and Neo looked stricken every time they saw me. I was marrying another race, which was bad enough, but to marry a freak? The shame would never lift.

Astra opened the door and pranced outside, making her way to me, lifting her tunic to keep it clean.

My heart rose.

Astra sat beside me, nudging me over with her bottom. She dug her toes into the sand next to mine and shivered. Her tunic was old and thin. I put my arm around her, holding her close.

“Are you scared?” she asked at last.

“Yes. And no. What must be done, must be done. I will get through it.”

“You sound very brave.”

“I do not feel brave. If I love Father at all, if I have love for any of you, I will obey and go.”

“And you will forget us.”

“Oh, no, Astra. No. I cannot forget you.”

She began to cry. “I will never see you again,” she said. “It isn’t fair! Don’t go. Father will find a way to earn more money.”

I pressed Astra’s head into the crook of my neck. Releasing a deep sigh, I tried to breathe through the pain in my chest. The agony of waiting for the wedding only gave my mind time to think fearful thoughts. I groaned and looked away to the hills just beyond us. What I saw made me swallow a cold, giant stone. It tumbled down into my stomach, sinking, sucking all the air out of my body.

“What is it?” Astra gasped, righting herself. She looked at my face then turned her head around to look at the hills. She saw it too and raced back to the house. She did not mean to leave me there alone, I knew.

A donkey picked his way down the hill, carrying Samson’s mother. Beside it walked Samson and his father.

Today was my wedding day.

Astra and I crept up to the roof. Samson and his parents were outside in the courtyard. Everyone from our little village was here, the men gawking, the women clucking their teeth.

Astra and I clutched arms as we watched Samson’s mother for a clue as to my days. Samson would have my nights, which was for me the stuff of feverish, shameful nightmares, but this wrinkled old crone would rule my days. I would bake her bread, empty her toilet pot, wash her tunic, wipe her mouth.… If I lived a year it would be a gift from Dagon. Or a curse.

My attention was drawn back to Samson. Closer now, he announced he would teach the boys of my village how to hypnotize a bird. Samson caught one of our fowl by her feet and swung the poor squawking thing round and round over his head, then placed her gently on the ground. He took a step back, and the confused bird followed. Wherever he stepped, she followed, mesmerized by the confusion he had caused.

My face burned hot as I watched the coarse gestures that accompanied the demonstration. I was to be his little bird, no doubt.