Rashi's Daughters, Book II: Miriam (32 page)

“Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu,” Joheved kept repeating as Meir shared the details. Uncovering a hundred-year-old abandoned vineyard in Ramerupt was certainly unexpected, but what happened to Johanna in Troyes was a miracle.

“I admit it, your story wins.” She was still shaking her head in disbelief. She looked up with a seductive smile, “So what prize do I owe you?”

He laughed and gave her a quick kiss. “How about a cask of wine from our own vineyard?”

Before she could retort, they were interrupted by their eldest son yelling, “Papa, Papa,” as he ran toward them. Not to be outdone, young Samuel’s howls of hunger from the house sent Joheved hurrying inside. Ah, the joys of family life, Meir thought in amusement, as he imagined Joseph and Johanna, already grandparents, starting over with a newborn.

 

It was less than a month later, on a warm late Friday afternoon, that Meir was pacing Salomon’s courtyard, waiting for his wife and sons’ arrival for the Sabbath. As the sun sank lower in the sky, he was nearly ready to ride out and meet them when he heard Joheved outside the gate, wishing a good Sabbath to the merchant who had accompanied her. To his surprise, he could hear his parents adding their adieus.

“I’m sorry if we worried you.” Trying to hide her exasperation, Joheved handed Meir their sleeping infant son. She waited until her in-laws were out of hearing and added, “At the last moment your father decided that he wanted to celebrate Shavuot in Troyes, and your mother couldn’t dissuade him.”

Meir sighed. “So of course, you and the boys waited for them.” He was helping Samuel dismount when Salomon burst out the door and made a beeline for them.

“Isaac, you’re just in time.” With no apparent effort, Salomon hoisted his grandson onto his shoulders. “You can come with me to the stews, and then we’ll go to synagogue.”

“Do we still have time to stop at the bakery on the way, Grandpapa?” Despite Isaac’s attempt at secrecy, his whisper was quite audible. “Or did we get here too late?”

“Shh,” Salomon hushed him, as Meir and Joheved pretended to ignore their exchange.

Once the men left for services, Joheved got her chance to comment on Miriam’s pregnancy. “The baby has definitely dropped since last week. You look like you’re due any day.”

“Don’t say that. Judah would be terribly upset if his child’s birth caused the Sabbath to be desecrated.”

At least Miriam lived with the midwife, so nobody would be carrying anything outside on the Sabbath. Still, some forbidden work would be necessary if a baby was delivered that day. And of course, a boy born on Saturday would have to be circumcised the following Sabbath, necessitating more normally prohibited activity. But underlying these concerns was the fact that Jews believed just as firmly as their Notzrim neighbors that a child born under the influence of Saturn was particularly likely to suffer poverty, wounds, illness, or an untimely death.

“You’re wearing a knife on your belt,” Marona pointed out. During the days just prior to delivery, pregnant women were advised to keep a knife with them whenever they were alone, as protection against
mazikim
.

“It’s easier to wear one all the time than to keep taking it off and putting it back on,” Miriam said with a sigh.

“It’s also easier than having Mama remind you about it constantly,” Joheved said.

Suddenly Miriam clutched her belly.

Marona took her arm. “Is it the baby?”

“It’s only my stomach,” she reassured them. “All of a sudden I really need to use the privy.” She hurried in that direction, muttering, “I must have eaten too much strawberry preserves today.”

“Miriam—eating too much preserves.” Joheved scoffed, hoping that the baby was on its way. “Not very likely.”

 

When Miriam refused to attend the second day of Shavuot services because she was still experiencing bouts of diarrhea, Joheved reluctantly accepted that her sister was suffering from indigestion. But when they arrived home to set up the festival’s feast and learned that Miriam’s cramps were so severe that she couldn’t leave her room, Aunt Sarah decided to investigate.

Closely followed by Rivka, Marona, and Joheved, the midwife hurried to Miriam’s closed door. “How often have you been using the chamber pot?”

“I had to get up every few hours during the night. This morning it’s been more frequent.”

“Are you passing any blood?”

“
Non
. I’m not passing much of anything anymore. It’s mostly just cramps now.” Hearing the women whispering among themselves outside her door, Miriam gasped and asked the question whose answer was suddenly obvious, “Do you think the baby is coming?”

“I’d say it’s a strong possibility,” Aunt Sarah replied with a smile. “I’d like to examine you to make sure.”

“But I’m hardly in any pain,” Miriam protested when her labor was confirmed.

“Shh.” Rivka looked around nervously. “Don’t tempt the Evil Eye.”

Aunt Sarah sprang into action. “Rivka, first go downstairs and get two pots of water boiling. I’ll want to make an artemisia tisane in one, and we’ll keep the other in reserve in case she needs an infusion of ragwort and columbine seeds to speed the birth. Then you can bring back Salomon’s tefillin.”

“I’ll find the birth amulet that Judah got me at the Cold Fair,” Miriam said. Rivka had been upset that they’d bought one so early in pregnancy, but Judah insisted that the best scribes were in Troyes only during the fairs. Waiting for the Hot Fair would obviously be too late.

“Can I run and get Judah?” Rachel was getting excited. She had immediately followed the other women upstairs.

“You get the chalk I keep in the pantry and start protecting this room. Do you remember what to do?”

“
Oui
, Aunt Sarah.” Though it was almost four years since she chalked Joheved’s room for Isaac’s birth, Rachel remembered clearly. “First I draw a circle around the bed, and then I write ‘Sanvi, Sansanvi, and Semanelaf, Adam and Eve, barring Lillit’ on the door.” She eyed the expensive wall hangings hesitantly before asking, “Should I chalk the walls as well?”

“Just do the one near the window,” Miriam said, also reluctant to mar the fine fabric.

“May I get my tefillin too?” Rachel asked. She was proud of the black ritual boxes and straps that her father had bought her shortly after her twelfth birthday. “I’m not sure Mama will think to get them.”

“Why don’t you finish with the chalk first?” Sarah replied. When Rachel was gone, she addressed Miriam and Joheved, “I may not be as critical as my sister, but I don’t condone you girls using tefillin either. Still, I admit it doesn’t seem to have done you any harm and all three of you have managed to contract excellent marriages.”

Sarah put her arm around Joheved’s shoulders and walked her toward the stairs. “You can go to the synagogue and get the men. Have one of them bring back a Torah scroll.” Sarah paused, unsure what to do with Meir’s mother. “Marona, you can start loosening Miriam’s hair—make sure she’s not alone for a moment. I’ll get my midwife supplies.”

“Miriam,” she called back from the landing. “You might as well put on some of Judah’s clothes now.”

Miriam hopped out of bed and rummaged through the bedside chest. “Shall we play chess?” She pulled out a man’s chemise, then two sets of tefillin, before finally unearthing a chessboard. “Here’s part of the wedding present you gave me. Now, where are all the pieces?”

“You’re not in much pain, are you?”

“Actually not.” Miriam shook her head in disbelief. “It’s just that every so often I feel like I really, really need to go to the privy. But nothing comes out. It’s so strange.”

Miriam played chess with Marona while Rachel carefully applied the chalk. It wasn’t long before the courtyard below was filled with loud, excited voices. To Miriam’s frustration, Rivka refused to let her unshutter the window and look.

“Over a dozen men from the congregation came back with Judah,” Joheved reported. “It started when a couple of students insisted on supporting him, so then their fathers felt obligated to join them, and their uncles as well. The next thing you know, their wives, not about to let the holiday feasts they’d prepared go to waste, announced that they were coming and that there had better be tables ready to hold all the food they were bringing.”

Over the next hour, an increasing number of women dropped off dishes in Sarah’s kitchen and then made their way upstairs to visit with Miriam, reassuring themselves that the new midwife was doing well. From the salon, an anxious Judah watched the steady stream of women callers with envy until Rachel took pity on him and brought him up to see her. But the sight of his wife, hair undone and wearing only one of his old chemises, calmly playing chess amidst a roomful of chattering companions, sent him backing out of the door immediately.

“Judah, it’s all right,” Miriam called out. “You can come in.” Her guests quickly found excuses to withdraw, leaving only Joheved and Rachel in the room with him and Miriam.

“Where’s Sarah?” Judah’s voice rose in agitation. “And shouldn’t your mother be here?”
How can these women just sit here and chitchat while my wife is in danger?

“Judah, I’m perfectly fine.” Miriam walked over and took his hand. “Mama and Aunt Sarah are in the courtyard making sure the meal is set up properly. Don’t worry. They’ll be back when they’re needed.”

This might have reassured Judah, except that while she was still holding his hand, Miriam suddenly felt the phantom urge to defecate, and she couldn’t help but grasp him strongly until the feeling passed. Judah blanched and leaned against the bed.

“Rachel, could you go down to the kitchen and bring Judah a big cup of artemisia tisane?” Miriam helped her unsteady husband sit down. “His nerves need calming more than mine do.”

A
s the afternoon progressed, Miriam’s spasms came steadily closer together, and with each one her need to defecate grew stronger. The crowd in the courtyard was growing larger and more festive. A trio of itinerant musicians, stopping in Troyes on their way to the Mai Faire de Provins, had learned of the gathering and offered their services in return for lodging.

Judah’s students wavered between concern and amusement as their pious teacher’s concentration failed again and again. At first he helped them review the Talmud tractate the scholars would be studying when the Hot Fair started, only to lapse into frequent silences once Sarah disappeared upstairs.

Finally, when Rivka rushed into the kitchen and began yelling for the servants to hurry and prepare the herbal infusions that Sarah wanted, he began reciting the biblical passage from the sixth chapter of Exodus that Jews pray when faced with danger.

These verses contained four of the Holy One’s magical names, the Hebrew words for “I will free you,” “I will deliver you,” “I will redeem you,” and “I will take you.” The text was considered one of the most powerful protective incantations.

Upstairs, after Miriam’s water broke and her need to push grew unbearable, Sarah tried to reassure her. “I know you think you’re going to mess yourself. But believe me, you are going to push out a baby, not some giant piece of merde.” As Sarah anticipated, the crude word drew giggles from her patient and lowered the tension in the room.

Once settled on the birthing stool, Miriam found that, though unable to dispel the feeling that she was indeed going to move her bowels, her need to push was too compelling to resist.

When Joheved saw the intense concentration on her sister’s face, she began her first recitation of Psalm 20. Miriam gave a brief smile of appreciation, a smile that quickly turned into a grimace. Since Talmudic times, a difficult confinement had been eased by nine recitations of this prayer. And because the laboring woman had to be able to hear the verses, they were said by another of her gender standing close by.

By her sister’s fifth recitation, Miriam was grunting heavily and quite red in the face. She desperately wanted to rest, but her body refused to let her. Yet, terrible as the compulsion was to continuously push with all her might, she knew that she was not suffering the kind of agony she had so often seen as a midwife.

Finally during the eighth recitation, as Joheved was saying, “Rally and gather strength,” Miriam felt as though she was indeed passing the most giant piece of merde imaginable. She closed her eyes, giving herself over to forcing the huge thing out of her, until suddenly she realized that Joheved had stopped praying and a baby was crying.

“It’s a boy!” female voices cried out. “Mazel tov!”

Rivka and Sarah were hugging each other, a small bundle clasped between them, as were Joheved and Marona. Rachel dashed out the door, eager to share the news with the anxious men downstairs. Miriam saw all this dimly, so overwhelming was the feeling of weariness, the relief at the cessation of her body’s demand to keep pushing. She allowed herself to be cleansed and carried back to bed, where her son, washed and swaddled, was placed in her arms.

Exultant at the absence of any need to use the privy, she made the traditional parent’s blessing at the birth of a son, “
Baruch ata Adonai
... Who is good and does good.” The musicians below broke into raucous song, and then the door opened.

“What a
yom tov
this has been.” Salomon was beaming with pleasure as he led his reluctant son-in-law into the lying-in chamber. He’d expected Meir to give him grandsons, but it surprised him that Judah, who seemed far more inhibited, had managed to father a son as well.