Cry of the Peacock: A Novel Read Free Page B

fruit of damnation will blossom in her house till eternity."
    He saw Esther tremble, and was pleased. He had dreamt of this day, prayed for it over a lifetime of longing and anticipation. For twenty years he had been chief rabbi of his ghetto. He had spoken every sermon, observed every holiday, performed every wedding and every burial, and all the time he had prayed for the chance—the moment when he would be called to judge, to control the fate of another, set down the law.
    "A woman's crimes go beyond individual harm," he screamed.
    "Sins against family and honor reap nothing but blasphemy and the harvest of all things damned. A single act will corrupt society to its roots. One person's betrayal will cause the downfall of an entire community."
    He paused. Sitting there before him, Esther the Soothsayer looked small—smaller than a child, smaller than the fairies that were born, in the tales of mad poets, of old women's sighs and the tears of virgin brides.
    He could have come out in Esther's defense, he knew. He could have asked Isaac for proof of Esther's infidelity, considered the possibility that the child was born prematurely. He could have done what the Book really preached— asked for indulgence, demanded forgiveness, forbidden vengeance. He could have saved Esther and her child. But to do this, he would have to forgo his one chance at immortality.
    “So the fate of one must be made into a lesson for all," he delivered the verdict.
    “The whore "—he pointed at Esther—“must not be put to death, for revenge is not the message of the Torah. She must be shamed instead, in public, so that all who know her will bear witness to her crime and learn the consequences of her betrayal. So that—" he stopped. The silence was deafening. “So that she may go on living, shamed and without honor, never daring to show her face, never able to hide it."
    Far away in his teahouse where he still saw Esther's shadow, Thick Pissing Isaac pressed his hands over his ears and cried like a child.
    When the rabbi had finished his sermon, David the Butcher's son came forward with his blade. He grabbed Esther's hair in his left hand, pulled it back so that her chin pointed upward and he could see the rapid pulse of the vein that ran up the side of her neck. He began to shave her hair.
    David the Butcher's son wished he had never accepted this task. He was a good butcher, quick and honest and cleaner than most. In his shop he could pluck five chickens at one time: He held their legs in between his fingers and slit their throats, plucked them so fast they would dash across the shop with their skin bare and their heads hanging over the side of their necks until the last drop of blood had rushed out of them and they fell to the ground. He could skin sheep faster than any man in the ghetto, clean out the intestines and the stomach before the water for the stew had begun to boil. But a woman's head he had never shaved before. As soon as he put the blade to Esther's head it became entangled, and he had to force it out, pulling her hair and in the process cutting her scalp. Blood dripped from every patch of skin he had managed to lay bare.
    He took an hour to shave Esther's head. Hair piled high on the ground around her feet. Blood licked her scalp, her face, her neck. With her hair gone, her eyes looked larger than usual. Her face was pale, thin—like a series of lines etched together into reality. David the Butcher's son looked at her then and knew he had sinned. For weeks after the punishment, every animal he slaughtered in his shop would have empty veins. He would bury them in the ground and take a loss: Kosher laws barred the Jews from eating an animal with no blood. Muslims would not buy meat from a Jew. David the Butcher stuffed the earth under his shop full of dead roosters and lamb, and he knew all along he was paying for his crime against the Soothsayer.
    He tied Esther's hands behind her back and raised her on her legs. He reached