Pearl in the Sand (32 page)

Salmone found himself staring at her with open delight. His overt interest was observed, and there were several suppressed grins and meaningful looks directed his way.

He cleared his throat and rose. “It’s growing late.” He was glad that he had insisted on a short betrothal. This was going to be a tortured three months. Turning to Rahab, he gave the traditional promise. “I go to prepare a place for you. I will return again unto you.”

M
iriam, Izzie, and Abigail accompanied Rahab as she went for her
mikvah
bath on the morning of her wedding. The Jordan had calmed its swells, and though cold, presented several safe bathing spots. The women picked a secluded location and spread their things on the banks of the river.

No sooner did Rahab wade in than her teeth began to chatter. She took a deep breath before dipping her head under water. She was certain her lips were blue by the time she emerged. “It’s like ice in here!”

Izzie sat down on the bank and dipped her toes in the water. “Don’t worry. Your bridegroom will warm you up tonight.” Everyone giggled except for Rahab who threw her sister a quelling glance. There was no one with whom she could share her increasing sense of tension about the upcoming evening. Who would comprehend a Canaanite
zonah
being nervous on her wedding night? She barely understood it herself. She only knew that Izzie’s silly jokes fingered a fear that went too deep to examine.

The women did not linger at the ritual immersion of
mikvah
since the water was too frigid. As soon as they had washed and
spoken the words of blessing, they scrambled out of the waters and put on clean clothes. Then they accompanied Rahab to her parents’ tent in order to prepare her for the wedding feast.

For her wedding, Rahab had decided to borrow an exquisite robe belonging to Izzie, woven from pale blue linen. Back in their tent, Izzie drew out the dress, and Rahab gasped. Sometime in the past few weeks, Izzie had managed secretly to embroider the hem and neckline with tiny white blossoms.

“This is yours to keep,” Izzie said with a warm smile.

Miriam, who had apparently been party to the conspiracy, presented Rahab with a belt made of a long row of silver blossoms.

“I set this belt aside for your wedding present the day Salmone told me he had decided to marry you. When Izzie saw it, she conspired to decorate your wedding dress to match.”

In spite of her years of wearing ornate silks and gold baubles, Rahab had never felt so beautifully attired. Hugging Miriam and Izzie, she whispered, “I could not imagine lovelier wedding garments. I shall never forget your generosity.”

“We did it because we love you,” Miriam said. “You know, it is a pity to hide such a beautiful bride under this
badecken
. But in Israel, brides must be covered by an opaque veil.”

“I welcome it. The thought of hundreds of people staring at me for hours makes me want to run away. But before you put it on, I need one last thing.” She fetched the earrings Salmone had given her and put them on. Shaking her head to make the pearls dangle she said, “Now I’m ready.”

Imri, Joa, Karem, and Gerazim supported the poles of Rahab’s bridal canopy as she made her way toward Salmone’s tent. Hanani and Ezra who had come to fetch her with a shout of “Behold, the bridegroom comes” led the way. Halfway, Salmone met them and stepped inside the canopy beside Rahab.

He squeezed her hand. Rahab whose nerves were growing closer to the shattering point with every step, let her hand lie in his, but did not squeeze back.

“I would say you look beautiful. But I can’t see anything. I’m surprised you haven’t tripped and fallen on your face. How can you see your way under there?”

Rahab realized that Salmone was doing his best to distract and soothe her. He wasn’t succeeding. His very closeness made her more nervous. She did not want him to notice her tension, however. More than anyone on earth, she loved this man. And she wanted to make him happy. She forced herself to sound normal as she responded. “I’m following the smell of Hanani’s washing oil. I think he used all he had in honor of our wedding.”

Salmone pressed her hand again. “Do you see those lights twinkling ahead?”

“Yes.”

“That’s an aisle lined with torches on either side. At the end of that aisle, Joshua and Caleb are waiting to pronounce the marriage blessings over us.”

“Good.”

“I shall remove your veil then.”

“Perfect.”

“You’re not speaking very much tonight. I’m starting to wonder if your father is pulling a switch on me the way Laban did to Jacob. You’re not Izzie under there, are you?”

“No. Gerazim had a few objections to that plan. You’re definitely stuck with Rahab.”

“She’s the one I want.”

Perspiration covered Rahab’s forehead under the
badecken
. Her nerves were stretched thin.
What am I doing? This is crazy. It can never work
. Was it too late to start running the other way? She thought of what it would do to Salmone, Salmone whom she loved with her whole strength. How could she humiliate him like that? And yet what if she married him and let him down?

Her thoughts were such a jumble that she barely noticed they had arrived in front of Caleb and Joshua. Wedding guests filled every nook and cranny of available space. Joshua began the seven blessings, and Caleb followed. Rahab heard snatches here and there.
To honor, support, and maintain her in truth …I bless their union … That they may be fruitful …

A faintness began to cloy at Rahab’s senses. The blessings ended and hands led her in a circle around Salmone three times. She moved, feeling disconnected from the proceedings, from Salmone, from herself. Panic covered her like congealed oil. Then she came to a halt, and Salmone lifted the opaque
badecken
from her head and dropped it to the floor. She blinked at him, and he bent to take her mouth in a kiss, at once chaste and full of promise. A small quiver of reassurance passed through her and, leaning into him, she told herself everything would be well.

People cheered and pressed in for noisy congratulations. Perhaps sensing his bride’s crumbling composure, Salmone pulled her into his arms for a reassuring hug. “Let’s inaugurate the feast. Then we can slip away and be alone for a few minutes. I have something to tell you.”

Rahab just followed Salmone. She put her foot where he put his, smiled when he smiled, lifted her cup when he lifted his. She tasted a morsel of food and feared she might be sick. Then Salmone pulled her behind him out of the midst of the conclave of activity and somehow managed to lead them to a secluded spot.

Without preamble he turned to her. “What is it? You are shaking. What’s wrong?”

Rahab didn’t know how to respond since she herself wasn’t quite sure of the root of her reactions. “I think I’m afraid that I will disappoint you and you will regret this,” she confessed.

He pulled her into a tight embrace. “That won’t happen.” He drew back from her, keeping his hands on her arms, like a bridge linking them. “Rahab, I should have said this to you earlier. But it has been so busy the last three months, and we were hardly left
alone. I want you to know something. Your past is dead to me. It’s dead between us. Never speak of it. Never allude to it. It is gone and over with. I never want to be reminded of it. I know you for who you are now. That other Rahab doesn’t exist. We will build our lives on today and we’ll bury the past.”

A dusty taste filled Rahab’s mouth. She understood that this speech was intended to make her feel better. More accepted. Her new husband was trying to reassure her. Only his words were having the opposite effect. How was she supposed to kill her past? How was she supposed to shield him from any reminders of it? What if she did or said something that would unintentionally awaken a memory of that time? Instead of making her feel steady and safe, Salmone’s reassurance catapulted her into profound angst.

Unaware that his speech had caused his bride greater misery, he enfolded her in a lighthearted embrace. “We need to go back to the feast or the people will wonder. We’ll have seven uninterrupted days in the bridal bower to talk about everything. Right now, though, if we don’t go back swiftly, we’ll be the target of every bawdy joke in Judah for a month.”

Rahab nodded, unable to speak.

To the bride, the wedding feast seemed a nightmare. More than anything she wished to retire somewhere quiet and think through the ramifications of Salmone’s declaration. But there was no solitude to be had on this night of all nights. Her every smile was a lie, her every word a misdirection. She acted that which she could not feel. She only felt capable of fear this night—fear of failing her husband’s demands and desires. Fear of being, in the end, discarded by the very person whose acceptance had given her a new hope and future.

As bad as the feast was, going to the bridal bower was worse. Here, her marriage would be consummated. Here, she would be a virtual prisoner for seven days and nights with her bridegroom. Here, she would have to keep the past from entering her marriage bed and defiling it. How was she supposed to contrive that?

Salmone’s own tent had been set up as the bridal chamber.
Miriam had decorated it with care for the occasion before leaving to spend two months at her friend Elizabeth’s tent. How desperately Rahab wished for her sister-in-law’s presence. But only the bride and groom were allowed in the bower.

Finally alone, Salmone cupped her face and lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her with a passion he had banked in the previous months. “My beautiful Rahab,” he murmured, his voice low. Always, she had felt a melting kind of belonging in his arms. His kisses had been the most exquisite physical experience she had ever known. But on this night his words rang in her head, too well remembered.
I never want to be reminded of it
, he had said of her past. Well, if she kissed him back passionately, wouldn’t that remind him? If she were responsive, wouldn’t he wonder where she had learned to do this or that? She had harbored a dread from the early days of their engagement that she didn’t deserve him. Eventually, he would wake up to the fact of her inadequacies. He would grow disappointed, disenchanted. His proclamation tonight confirmed every one of these suspicions. In the intimacy of his bed he would see reflected the faces of her past sins, and he would hate her for them.

With every new thought, Rahab grew more paralyzed with fear. She turned to stone in Salmone’s arms. He seemed puzzled by her coldness. At first, he construed it as leftover wedding jitters. He spoke comforting words. His caresses were tender and soothing. He laid her on a mattress jauntily covered in pink and white petals and kissed her over and over. Rahab grew more frozen with every touch. The more he tried to call a response out of her, the more she shut down.

Finally Salmone withdrew. “Is something wrong?” His voice had no edge of vexation, only puzzlement and concern.

His kindness seeped under her skin. She may not be able to let herself feel passion for him, but if she lay there like a corpse, surely that would not please him either. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t explain her feelings, not without wrenching the past right into bed with them. “A little apprehensive only. Don’t stop.”

He didn’t move. She reached out to him and drew him back down to her. Forcing her body to grow as pliant as the creeping tension allowed, she did her best to give him the message that she wanted this. In a way she did. She wanted to give him everything he asked for. But she was too bound up in wounds and fears to be able to receive anything from him. The chains of her bondage and his incomprehension were wrapped too tightly around them for the consummation of their marriage to be anything but disappointing to both. When it was long over, Rahab wept herself silently to sleep next to her dry-eyed and wakeful bridegroom.