The Book of Rachael by Leslie Cannold

Author:Leslie Cannold [Cannold, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: azw
Tags: FIC042030, FIC000000, FIC040000
ISBN: 9781921834233
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2011-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

The days that followed are like a dark, tangled skein of wool. A knot that, however much I pick and peer and card, reveals only scattered images, sudden flashes of light and sound. Papa’s massive form hastily wrapped in linen and tethered to the mule like a sack of wheat; Judah’s sleep-fogged face lit by the flicker of a single torch as we journeyed, knowing ourselves in a race against heat and time, through the night. The sound of Papa’s name on Joshua’s lips—demand, plea, prayer. Until, worn by grief, my brother pulled back within himself and spoke no more. Then, as we made our final ascent to Nazareth, the mournful notes of the herald’s horn warning the village of death at our door.

Mama was there as we reached the plateau. She barrelled through the gates with veil askew, hurling herself at Papa’s swaddled corpse, dragging it, still partly bound and tethered, to the dust. His name from her lips like a severed vein pumping blood: Yosef! Yosef! Yosef! Until at last she could keen no more and curled instead atop his mountainous, dirt-streaked form to mew like a kitten: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? What have I done? What have I done?’

How could I not have known how much she truly loved him?

The rites of death bound and swaddled us, allowing clarity—the gift of faith and purpose—to illuminate the dark despair. Mama and I washed Papa’s lifeless form, then wrapped him in sheet after sheet of linen gummed with aloes and myrrh. Joshua looked on, heaving silent sobs as he sheltered beneath the protective arm Judah slung across his shoulders. My brothers heaved Papa’s body to their shoulders and paraded him, first to the square, then through the gates to Deadman’s Hill, while my eldest brother mumbled prayers and the keening women writhed and moaned and the earth made wide its throat for Papa to begin his forever rest in Sheol. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. May peace and life be upon all Israel. And so we say Amen.

Then we must sit at home for seven days on wooden planks and mourn, our bodies draped in sackcloth, brows smeared with ashes. Respite was granted just once on the third day and again on the last for Joshua—the head of the family now—to purify us from the pollution of death by sprinkling all corners of the house with water mixed with the ashes of a red, unblemished cow. All of us bent to the task of mourning, none more earnestly than Mama, surrounded day and night by the wives of the elders who took it in turns to witness her agony and place morsels of bread soaked in egg in her mouth.

I also had tasks to perform. Prayers I must chant, sacred oils of regret and penance—myrrh and spikenard—to touch to my brow. I performed each of these rituals dutifully, in the precise manner commanded of women for generations. But my thoughts were with Judah.

When

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