AMARA
“Samson has returned for you!” Astra was so excited, so eager to heal my heartbreak, that she bounced as she squealed the words. “He is coming! He has brought the clothes he owed the men! Come! Come!”
I rose from my pallet for the first time in three days, since the night Samson had left me. Splashing my face with water, I rubbed it dry with my tunic while Astra combed my hair. She was too quick, though, and I yelped when she hit a tangle.
“We must hurry!” She was nearly breathless.
I followed behind her, and saw other villagers coming out of their houses to see Samson’s return. All would be forgiven. He would know how loyal I was, how I had acted shrewdly. And he was a real man, a man of uncommon strength indeed, honoring this debt. There was no husband like mine, not ever.
Having no city gate, the elders met him at the end of the main traveling road. Samson walked alongside my donkey, which carried a heavy load of clothes. I smiled broadly.
The elders watched, with folded arms and haughty expressions, as Samson lifted the clothing and presented it at the feet of the elders.
Then he turned and walked away, leading the donkey back to the road.
“Wait!” I called out, running to the elders, trying to get through. “I am here!”
Samson did not turn back. I did not understand, but I had no chance to ask anyone what was happening. A great cry was growing behind me, curses raining down on Samson and all those of his household.
The stench made me wince. Turning to the elders, I saw them holding the clothes up in the morning light, crying out to Dagon for justice. The clothes were red, all of them, a dark dry red.
“Blood!” an elder screamed at me, shaking the garment at my face. “Blood on Philistine robes!”
I looked for Astra, but she was running back to the house, frightened, as the men closed around me in a circle.
“A curse on you and your father’s house! May you be barren all of your days!”
MOTHER
The almond trees have budded, a sign to our people that God is watching, to bring all His promises to fulfillment. Other mothers think it is safe to dream for their children, of what they might do, of how they might serve the Lord. I see these white flowers bursting open and they seem to me like burial shrouds, reminding me that my son’s destiny is found in a grave.
Thirty graves, a guarantee of wonders to come.
My people danced when Manoah whispered the story at our well. Their scowls of suspicion changed into admiration, even worship. Women who crossed the path to avoid Samson when they walked alone now pushed their daughters toward him with open smiles.
He stepped back, behind me, as we walked through the village. I walked faster, not acknowledging him. He wanted to be a child again. I did not want a child. Not anymore.
Baking bread the next morning, after the news had spread, Syvah hugged me in celebration. I noted her thin frame, how her bones were sharp under her robe, how her eyes were yellow and her breath smelled foul. Death was closer than anyone knew.
The fields were empty. Spring was coming, and soon we would be picking the barley, but for today, no one was in the fields. I walked, calling out, hissing, whistling, raising hands in supplication to the sky. The angel did not return. I sat, determined to wait.
Samson joined me. He walked tentatively at first, trying to get me to nod in approval, to welcome his company. I turned my face.
“Are you angry?” he asked, as if such a thing were incredible.
“Why would I be angry? Because you broke your holy vows? You drank wine, you touched dead bodies, you ate honey from a carcass and gave it to me and your father.”
He stood as his temper burst out. “How did you think deliverance would happen? Were you that naive?”
I stood up and slapped him, hard. Shock registered across his face, then a long, cold glare. He stepped closer, and I edged back.
His voice was low. “You thought only of yourself, of the glories for your name.”
As the crescent moon rose above me, I fell to the ground and wept. How had I lost him? How had my hopes for glory, for honor, withered so quickly into fear and confusion? Why did God hide His face, His will from me?
I wept until my stomach ached from the effort, until my eyes burned dry and I needed a deep drink of water to soften my raw throat. I stood and turned for home.
Passing a bonfire at the edge of our clearing, I saw Syvah’s sons and all the youth of our village eating and dancing and celebrating. I peered closer and saw Samson in the middle of it all, lifting a wine bowl to his lips, though it was forbidden to him. He drank with savagery, red wine flowing out the sides of his mouth, down his chest. I marked how everyone watched him, their strange savior, with pleasure, with curiosity. He did not hide his sneer, disgusted by their affection.
Samson sensed me out there in the night. He must have, for he left the group and walked to the fire’s edge, staring into the darkness, searching for me now. I knew he was blinded by the flames, and, taking advantage of his temporary weakness, I hobbled away in silence.
AMARA
Months had passed. Perhaps as many as six. I did not remember the first weeks, or count them, so great was my sorrow. This morning I was out in my fields, inspecting our harvest. My hair rose and fell slightly, and I looked up.
Flying low in the morning sky, raptors migrated to distant lands. They made no noise as they flew. Only the tussle of my hair gave them away. The almond trees had bloomed in a white explosion across our land, and I remembered how I had smelled the tender blossoms as I laid awake on my wedding night weeks ago, while my husband snored softly next to me. They had been a balm to my broken heart, spring’s promise that beauty would always find its way back.
The barley harvest was almost over by now. Soon we would begin harvesting the wheat, our greatest and most profitable crop. Spring gave me fresh courage every day. I rubbed my belly, wishing it to be full, wishing for curses to be broken and life to come to me at last. I had earned it, had I not?
Pero, my husband, was eighty years old, and the most senior of the townsmen. He had slept through my first wedding, content to stay home. I do not know if he even believed the tale, that a Hebrew man had claimed me first.
I wrapped my shawl around my shoulders. The winds, especially early in the day, could still be chilly. A stinging breeze blew past me, making me wrinkle my nose in curiosity. My husband stopped moving, lifting his nose to the air. He looked at the horizon behind me and cried out.
Smoke was in the air, too much smoke to be an oven or even a roasting fire. Something was burning that should not be. I ran to my husband to help him to safety. He had to get out of the fields, but he swatted me with his stick, urging me back.
“Go and see!” he wheezed. “See what is burning!”
I lifted my tunic and ran, grateful at that moment that Dagon had not heard my prayers and had not made my belly swell with child. My feet were quick down the narrow dirt path between fields, a steady flat pathway through the valley. As I ran I heard shouting and the screams of women and a horrid high pitched yelping.
Something hit me in the shins, and I fell forward, catching myself with my palms. Rolling onto my hips, I looked for what it was but could see only cinders and ashes floating in the air, like butterflies carried by a little breeze. The cinders were everywhere. I watched as one fell on a stalk of ripe, dry wheat, making a black circle that began to grow white, and then white turned to red and burst into flame.
A pair of foxes tore through the wheat at my left, torches bumping along the ground behind them, the flames burning too close to their tails. Their eyes were wide in terror as I instinctively reached for them, to comfort or save or stop. It was too late. They charged around me, into the wheat. The flames followed. I stood up, raising up on my toes, and saw smoke rising from fields in every direction.
If we lost our crops now, we lost our food for the year and our seeds for the next. The frail people would not survive the winter, and the strong would not survive the second year.
The flames closed off the path behind me, as flames began to take the fields on either side of me. I did not return to my husband. I ran to my family.
I did not question the goodness of the gods that this was the only path left open to me.
Father and Mother were at their table, crying. Nothing could be done. It was all going to be destroyed within a few hours: the grain, the olives, the vineyards. Their food would burn, and there would be no work in the fields.
“They did not want to watch,” Astra whispered, hugging me when I came in. I nodded.
“Pour them both a bowl of wine.”
“We must save it!”
“Pour it. They need it right now.”
I unwrapped my shawl and sat beside Father, saying nothing. He lifted his hand and placed it over mine. Mother placed hers on top too. Astra began pouring the wine, setting out an extra bowl for me. I shook my head no. I would not be a burden to them, not anymore.
We sat in silence for a great while, vaguely aware that the screams outside our door had turned to quiet moans.
“The fire must be dying down,” Astra whispered. I would have answered, but a heavy thunderclap shook our front door. Footsteps on our roof made Astra scream, and we all looked up in confusion. Something was dragged across the roof and dropped, making the walls shake all around us. Dust swirled through the air as Father and Mother jumped up. Father ran to the front door and Mother to the roof stairs. Both tried to open their doors but could not. Mother began beating at the door at the top of the stairs.
“Open this! What is happening?”
Father yanked against the door with all his might, but it did not move. Men’s voices from outside cursed us. The walls shook, threatening to collapse as he pulled on the door. Astra screamed and grabbed his tunic, trying to stop him. I stood at the table, a hand over my mouth. I alone knew what was happening. I alone knew why. I had done this. I had killed us all.
Terror boiled in my stomach as footsteps landed on our roof again, running away this time.
The flames took hold of the roof first, little burning embers falling down all around us, singeing my soft bare shoulder, stinging my scalp. Astra clung to me next, screaming, her little hands trembling violently. I threw my arms around her, shielding her face in my bosom, screaming for her to close her eyes. There was to be no escape.
The village men waited outside. If the flames did not kill us, they would. I did not want to leave her for them. I would choose the death that would rob them of any chance of pleasure. Better to feel pain now, better to die in pain, my dear sister, and die alone, than to let them have us.
Father slumped facedown on the floor, rocking and keening prayers to Dagon. “Why?” he moaned. “I offered Astra to him. She is so much prettier!”
My mother pounded his back, screaming. She wanted him to get up, to save us. This was not how her family would end, how her daughters would die—barren, betrayed, burned to death by the same villagers that helped raise us.
I clutched Astra and lifted my face to the flames above. I had done this. I had lit this fire. I had chosen to betray my husband, to save my family, and for that, they would all die.
The smoke grew thick, rolling in through cracks in the walls and gaping holes the fire made in our roof. A red cinder fell from the ceiling into our jar of oil, which was still full to the brim from the wealth Samson had brought us. The clay jar exploded into flame, and the heat began to roast us alive as the flames dropped to the floor and ate our home.
I coughed, my lungs filling with the smoke. There was no more air, and there is nothing more of my tale to be told.
What was done, was done.