As the song began, the man returned the girl’s love, and they delighted in each other. But then the tale took a sorry turn and the lover spurned his lady, leaving her alone. She wept and prayed to the Golden Lady Hathor, but to no avail. The beloved would not take her back. The girl’s sorrow was endless and unbearable. The women wept openly, each remembering her youth. The men wiped their eyes, unashamed, recalling their earliest passion. Even the young ones sighed, feeling the pangs of losses yet to come.
There was a long silence after the song ended. The harpist picked out a quiet air, but the conversation ceased. No more cups were raised. Re-nefer stood and left the room without ceremony, and then, one by one, the rest of the company took their leave. The party ended quietly, and the hall emptied to the sounds of sighs and murmured thanks. The musicians packed up their instruments and led their leader away. Some of the servants slept on the floor, too exhausted to begin cleaning up until morning. The house was completely still. Dawn was some hours distant when I found my way to where the musicians slept. The veiled one leaned against a wall motionless. I thought she was sleeping as well, but she turned, her hands outstretched to discover who approached. I put my hands in hers, which were small and cool. “Werenro,” I said.
The sound of my accent startled her. “Canaan,” she said, in a bitter whisper. “That was my name in torment.”
“I was a child,” I said. “You were the messenger of Rebecca, my grandmother. You told us a story I never forgot. But you were murdered, Werenro. I was there with the Grandmother when they brought you back. I saw them bury your bones. Did you truly return from the dead?”
There was a long silence and her head fell forward beneath the veils. “Yes,” she said. And then, after a moment, “No. I did not escape. The truth is, I am dead.
“How strange to find a ghost of that time here in a great house by the river. Tell me,” she asked, “are you dead, too?” “Perhaps I am,” I answered, shuddering.
“Perhaps you are, for the living do not ask such questions, nor could they bear the pain of truth without the consolation of music. The dead understand.
“Do you know the face of death?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, remembering the doglike shadows that attend so many births, patient and eager at the same time.
“Ah,” she said, and without warning lifted the veil. Her lips were unharmed, but the rest of her face was torn and scarred. Her nose had been broken and ripped open, her cheeks were collapsed and seamed with deep scars, her eyes were milky stones. It seemed impossible that anyone could survive such destruction.
“I was leaving Tyre with a flagon of purple dye for her, for the Grandmother. It was dawn and the sky put all the tents of Mamre to shame. I was looking up when they came upon me. Three of them, Canaanite men like any others, filthy and stupid. They said nothing to me or to each other. They took my pouch and my basket and ripped them open, and then they turned on me.”
Werenro began to rock, back and forth, and her voice went flat. “The first one pushed me to the ground right in the middle of the road. The second one tore off my clothes. The third lifted his robe and fell upon me. He emptied himself into me, who had never laid with a man. And then he spit into my face.
“The second one took his turn, but he could not do the deed, and so he began to beat me, cursing me for causing his problem. He broke my nose and knocked several teeth from my mouth, and only when I was bleeding was he aroused enough to do what he wished.
“The third one turned me over and ripped me open from the backside. And laughed.” She stopped rocking and sat up straight, hearing that laughter still.
“I lay, facedown on the road, as the three of them stood over me. I thought they would kill me and end my torment.
“But it was not for them. ‘Why do you not cry out?’ cried the one who laughed. ‘Do you have no tongue? Or perhaps you are not really a woman at all, for you are not the color of woman. You are the color of a sick dog’s shit. I will hear you cry out, and we will see if you are a woman or a phantom.’
“And that is when they did to me what you can see. I need not speak of that.” Werenro lowered her veil and began to rock again.
“At the first sound of footsteps, they left me for dead,” she said. “A shepherd’s dog found me where I lay, followed by a boy, who cried out at the sight of me. I heard him retch and thought he would flee, but instead he covered me with his robe and brought his mother. She applied poultices to my face, and unguents to my body, and stroked my hands in pity, and kept me alive, and never asked me to explain.
“When it was certain that I would survive, she asked whether she should send word to Mamre, for she had recognized the tatters of my robe. But I said no.
“I was finished being a slave, finished with Rebecca’s arrogance, and finished with Canaan. My only desire was to come home and smell the river and the perfume of the lotus in the morning. I told her I wished to be dead in Mamre, and she made it so.
“She cut handfuls of my hair and wrapped it with my clothes and a few sheep’s bones inside my bag. She sent her son into town, where he found a merchant headed for Mamre, who brought the Grandmother news of my death.
“The Canaanite woman gave me a veil and a walking stick and led me to Tyre. She searched out a caravan headed for the land of the great river. They took me in exchange for one of her flock, and for the promise that I would entertain them with songs and stories. The traders brought me to On, where a sistrum found its way into my hands, and now I find myself here with you, with Canaan in my mouth again.” At this she turned her head away from me and spat. A snake slithered from the spot where her spittle fell, and I shivered in the cold blast of Werenro’s anger.
“I would curse the whole nation but for that Canaanite woman’s kindness. My eyes were put out, so I never saw her face, but I imagine it shining with light and beauty. Indeed, when I think of her, I see the face of the full moon.
“Perhaps she was atoning for some wrong she had done. Or perhaps she had once been abandoned and someone helped her escape. Or maybe no one had helped her when she was in need. She asked me nothing, not even my name. She saved me for no reason other than the goodness of her heart. H
er name was goodness itself, Tamar, the sustaining fruit,” said Werenro, and she began rocking again.
We sat together in the hour before dawn, silent for a long while. Finally, she spoke again, to answer a question I would never have thought to ask.
“I am not unhappy,” she said. “Nor am I content. There is nothing in my heart. I care for no one, and for nothing. I dream of dogs with bared teeth. I am dead. It is not so bad to be dead.”
The sighs and snores of the sleeping musicians interrupted her words. “Good souls,” she said of her companions, with tenderness. “We ask nothing of one another.
“But you,” said Werenro, “how did you come to speak the language of the river?”
Without hesitation, I told her everything. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and gave voice to my life. In all of my years, I had never before spoken so much or so long, and yet the words came effortlessly, as though this were something I had done many times before.