Rashi's Daughters, Book II: Miriam (5 page)

But when the courtyard’s roosters woke Sarah just before dawn, Miriam had still not returned. Leaving breakfast untouched, Sarah rushed to the laboring woman’s home. Once in the lying-in chamber, Sarah could see that Muriel was struggling to push the baby out.

“I don’t understand it,” Miriam whispered, her voice heavy with fatigue. “The baby is in the proper position but refuses to be born. I’ve tried pepper and agrimony, and some other herbs too, but none of them made any difference.”

Sarah examined Muriel while Miriam explained, “I massaged her belly, and I even reached inside to pull the baby out, but nothing helped.” Miriam was near tears. “I don’t know what else to do, and the poor woman has been pushing for hours.”

“The cord may be wrapped around the child, holding him back.” Sarah’s calm voice masked her concern.

Under Sarah’s guidance, Miriam reached up into Muriel’s womb, where, sure enough, she found the cord wrapped several times around the baby’s neck. Once this impediment was undone, the child was delivered easily. But the infant was dead, strangled by its umbilical cord.

Miriam’s hands shook as she delivered the placenta, and she blinked back tears of grief and shame. Sarah quickly whispered to her, “I know you didn’t want to disturb me, but you need to ask for assistance when it is warranted.”

“My baby, my poor baby,” Muriel sobbed.

Sarah patted the distraught mother’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”

Wishing she could be anywhere else, Miriam silently cleaned the baby’s body and wrapped it in clean linen. Sarah continued to comfort Muriel, never letting on that the outcome might have been different if she had been called earlier. But Miriam knew. Because of her incompetence, a child was dead.

As the sky began to lighten, the two midwives walked home in silence, Miriam wishing Aunt Sarah would chastise her further so she could apologize and be forgiven. The bells were ringing for Prime as Miriam wearily climbed the stairs to her bedroom, said her morning prayers, and got into bed. It was long after the bells were quiet when she finally cried herself to sleep.

 

Accompanying her husband and father to synagogue, Joheved knew nothing of Miriam’s travail, only that her sister had spent all night with Muriel. As she climbed the stairs to the women’s section, she could hear voices discussing the stillbirth, with several of them blaming Miriam. Conversation ceased abruptly when Joheved appeared, but she had heard enough.

Poor Miriam, this will be hard on her
. But stillbirths happen all the time; it’s not necessarily the midwife’s fault.

Joheved tried to keep her
kavanah
focused on her prayers, and when services were over, she left quickly to escape the gossip. But Salomon and Meir were deep in conversation with two strangers. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, reluctant to interrupt what was clearly a serious talk, but Meir motioned her to join them.

It was only as she got closer that she could see the tears in her father’s eyes, and when Salomon introduced the men as Benjamin’s brothers, Simeon and Ezra, she looked questioningly at Meir, who shook his head sadly. Joheved could think of only one reason for Benjamin’s brothers to travel to Troyes: two witnesses to verify a death.

Joheved clutched Meir’s hand. “It can’t be, not just before the wedding.” She turned from one brother to the other, but there was only painful silence. So she murmured, “
Baruch Dayan Emet
” (Blessed is the True Judge), the first words a Jew says when learning of a death.

Mon Dieu, Miriam will be devastated
. And if Benjamin’s death wasn’t bad enough, Miriam was now a childless widow, required by Jewish law to marry one of his brothers in order to produce a child to carry his name. But Simeon and Ezra were already married, forcing them to perform a special ritual,
halitzah
, before Miriam would be free to marry someone else.

“I don’t know what happened,” Meir whispered as they solemnly walked home. “Some sort of accident. Your father thought it best if they explained only once, with Miriam there.”

By the time they entered the kitchen, Joheved was nearly shaking in dread of her sister’s reaction. Rivka and Salomon, knowing this to be a parent’s burden, went upstairs to wake their daughter, and she soon arrived in the salon, bleary-eyed and terrified. With increasing horror, she listened to the men’s story.

“We’re sorry to bring such news,” Simeon began. He paused to sniff back tears. “Our brother Benjamin died nearly a month ago.” His chin began to quiver and he could say no more.

Ezra put his arm around Simeon’s shoulders, but before either of them could speak, Miriam let out a shriek.

“
Non!
Not just before the wedding.” Her body began to shake and she would have collapsed if her parents, standing on either side of her, had not reached out to support her. “How could this happen?” she demanded.

“It was late at night and our whole family had been working on the vintage for days without much rest.” Simeon hesitated and then added, “We don’t have as many Jews in Rheims to help us as you have in Troyes. Sometimes there’s only one person in a vat at a time.”

“Why are you telling me about winemaking? Tell me what happened to Benjamin.” Miriam was almost shouting.

Simeon stared helplessly at Ezra, who took a deep breath before speaking. “Benjamin insisted on treading grapes alone even when the
bouillage
was most vigorous. One night he remained in the vat too long, succumbed to the fumes, and drowned.”

Miriam’s family looked at each other in horror. Then, tears running down her cheeks, Miriam asked the question they were all thinking. “You mean to tell me that in a family of experienced vintners, nobody was aware of the danger, nobody watched out for him?”

“Of course we knew of the danger, and we know how to be careful. But Benjamin didn’t care about danger; he wanted to get the vintage finished as soon as possible.” Ezra sounded angry, his fists clenching and unclenching as he spoke. “We try to keep an eye on each other, but it was dark. I told him I was exhausted and we should get some sleep, but he said he wasn’t tired, that he’d work awhile longer. By the time we realized he hadn’t come to bed, it was too late.”

Miriam remembered the nights that Benjamin had spent alone in the forest with the honey tree and how he had attacked the robber rather than run away. “
Oui
, Benjamin never cared about danger.”

Salomon patted her arm. “We shouldn’t blame ourselves.” Miriam must not think that Benjamin’s hurry to return to Troyes had caused his carelessness any more than his brother should feel guilty for not being there to rescue him.

Simeon gave Salomon a grateful look. “It was a terrible accident.”

Rivka quietly directed their maidservant Anna to make a strong tisane for Miriam from chamomile and wormwood, and when the maidservant returned with the drink, Miriam was asking more questions.

“What day did Benjamin die? Who found him?”

“It’s enough that we know Benjamin is dead.” Rivka’s voice was both soothing and a warning. “We don’t need to hear the details.”

“But I need to know,” Miriam said.

“He died a few days after Selichot.” Simeon looked away from her. “Our father discovered his body just before dawn.”

“It was an evil day, Tuesday the twenty-fourth of Elul.” Ezra shuddered. The even numbers two and four were unlucky enough, and such a Tuesday, under the baleful influence of Mars, would have been particularly malevolent.

“Papa, do you think Benjamin suffered at the end?” Miriam asked, trying to recall what she had been doing on the twenty-fourth of Elul. Undoubtedly working on the vintage, but the days had all blurred together.

“
Non, ma fille
. He would have been unconscious already when he fell below the surface.”

“I can tell you that Benjamin’s final days were probably some of the happiest of his life. He was so looking forward to the wedding ...” Simeon trailed off as Miriam broke into renewed sobs.

They were all still sniffing and wiping their noses when Salomon motioned Meir to come closer. “A childless widow isn’t permitted to perform
halitzah
until it’s been three months since her husband’s death.”

Meir looked surprised. “But why? Miriam was widowed from
erusin
; we don’t suspect that she’s pregnant.”

“That’s the law,” Salomon replied.

Meir surveyed the two grieving men. “I hope it won’t be a hardship for one of them to return in two months.”

Rivka’s sedative tisane was working, so she and Joheved helped the increasingly drowsy Miriam stumble back up the stairs.

“There must be some mistake, Mama. Benjamin can’t be dead,” Miriam moaned. “When he went outside ... in the moonlight ... last year after Sukkot ended ... his shadow wasn’t headless ... he told me so.” She was so sleepy she could barely get the words out.

“
Ma fille
, I don’t know.” Rivka shook her head and sighed. The Book of Life was sealed on the last night of Sukkot, and for those whose moonlit shadows lacked heads, the coming year would be their last.

Joheved helped her sister undress. Maybe Benjamin had experienced a seminal emission on Yom Kippur; that too was an omen of death in the coming year. But she said instead, “May you be comforted among the mourners of Jerusalem.” At times like this the traditional words were best.

 

For the next two months, Salomon’s family tried to be sympathetic and patient with Miriam. When her daughter picked at her meals instead of eating, Rivka restrained herself from complaining about the wasted food. When Joheved found that little Isaac had managed to climb to the top of the staircase while her sister sat oblivious at the dining table below, she held her tongue and resolved not to leave Miriam responsible for her son in the future.

Salomon merely sighed when his bereaved daughter refused to drink any wine, protesting that it reminded her of Benjamin’s death. Even Rachel, who had the most cause for complaint because her sleep was interrupted several times a night by her bedmate’s sobbing, kept silent and reminded herself that the nights were so long this time of year that she still ought to get enough rest. They all hoped that Miriam’s melancholy would diminish after she performed
halitzah.

To Salomon’s relief, and Miriam’s dread, Ezra and Simeon returned on the appointed day. Since a
beit din
for
halitzah
required five judges, none of whom were related to the man or the woman, Meir went to fetch Isaac haParnas, his son Joseph, and three other leaders of the community, while Anna’s husband, Baruch, gathered a minyan of ten men to meet them at the synagogue. Miriam sat softly crying in her mother’s arms, while Benjamin’s brothers huddled on a bench, their hands twitching nervously. Ezra stood up immediately as all the men entered and the judges announced, “We have gathered at this place for
halitzah
.”

Under Salomon’s prompting, Isaac asked the two brothers if Benjamin had indeed died over three months ago, if they had witnessed his death, and if they were his only brothers. After each answered in the affirmative, Isaac stated that he personally could attest that Miriam was more than twelve years old and that Benjamin had been older than thirteen.

Then he asked Ezra, “Do you wish
halitzah
or to take the widow in levirate marriage?”

When Ezra replied, “
Halitzah
,” Joseph examined the brother’s black leather shoe and then asked him to put it on.

This was the signal for Miriam to begin the legal dialogue from the twenty-fifth chapter of Deuteronomy. She spoke the Hebrew words as if in a daze.

Ezra stood up and reiterated, “I cannot marry her.”

Now came the part Miriam dreaded. She crouched down and unlaced Ezra’s shoe, being careful to use only her right hand. She tried with some difficulty to gather a mouthful of saliva for the next step, but her mouth was dry from fasting all morning because Jewish law required that her saliva be her own, not from any food she’d eaten.

Finally she managed to pull off Ezra’s shoe, and once she’d done so, she spit on the ground in front of him and declared, “Thus shall be done to the man who refuses to build up his brother’s house.”

The men of the minyan proclaimed, “
Halutz annal
,” three times and it was done. Benjamin’s brothers had done their duty and freed his widow to remarry.

 

With
halitzah
behind her, Miriam’s family began to lose patience with the thin, grey ghost who was liable to start crying at any moment. The rest of Troyes was celebrating, making it difficult to move between their mournful house and the joyous streets. For after seven barren years, Philippe’s Queen Bertha had given birth to a baby girl. Regional pride was running high as the Champagnois gossiped about the virility, or rather the lack thereof, of the king, who was reputed to spend more time in his lover John’s bed than in the queen’s and who had barely managed to father a daughter in seven years of marriage.

In comparison, Count Thibault, who was twice the king’s age, had sired three healthy boys in the same time. Troyes buzzed with happy speculation at whether Thibault would be able to arrange a match between the new princess and one of his sons.

Conversation at Salomon’s table also turned to the topic of matrimony, adding to Miriam’s distress.

“The man I marry isn’t going to have any brothers.” Rachel took a large bite of apple flummery. “Then I won’t need to worry about
halitzah
.”

“Or you could marry someone who already has children,” Joheved said.

“Rachel, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Rivka said before turning to her sister. “It isn’t such a terrible thing for a widow to marry her brother-in-law. Sarah, you did.”