The Abyssinian Proof

33

Balkis shivered under the covers despite her fever. Saba sat beside her and pressed her hand against her mother’s forehead. “You’re very hot, Mama,” she said worriedly. “Gudit is making you some apple and rosewater compote.”

“Gudit,” Balkis whispered. “Tell her.”

“Tell her what, Mama?” Gudit had found Balkis the day before lying on the divan and bleeding from a deep cut in her wrist. The midwife claimed her mother had tried to kill herself, but Saba didn’t believe her. She couldn’t imagine her mother, who had so much strength of will, turning her back on them just when they needed her. It must have been an accident. The top-heavy monstrance must have fallen onto the divan, and her mother must have reached up to ward it off and gouged herself. The cut itself wasn’t deep enough to be life-threatening and Saba could think of no other explanation. She had found the monstrance on the floor, one of its tines broken and bloody, the others bent. She had kicked it vengefully, then thrown it into the storeroom.

Saba sat for a moment, frowning, then sent for the old servant and told him to fetch Courtidis. Her mother was shaking uncontrollably and an unpleasant odor clung to her. Saba sent another servant to heat some water.

Balkis twisted back and forth on the divan and muttered, “Container of the unbearable, hail Mary, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear your message, I can’t…”

The servant arrived with the bowl of hot water, along with washcloths, a towel, and some gauze. Saba sent her away, then locked the door and made sure there were no drafts. She felt embarrassed at what she was about to do, for she had never seen her mother naked.

“I’m going to bathe you, Mama.” Her mother had quieted. She lay with her eyes closed, breathing erratically. Saba wondered if she had fallen asleep. She took the bandage off her mother’s wrist and carefully washed the torn flesh, then wrapped on fresh gauze, securing it with a strip of cloth. Next she lifted the quilt and laid it aside. The smell was stronger. She quickly peeled off her mother’s caftan and chemise. The fetid stench hit her like a blow and she jerked her head away.

When she turned back, she froze. Her mother’s body below the waist was a ruin. Balkis turned slightly and her legs opened enough for Saba to see that she had been horribly mutilated. Instead of the natural contours of a body, there was only a scar. It was infected and inflamed.

Saba was speechless. When her mother began to moan, Saba pulled herself together and focused on washing Balkis quickly so she wouldn’t catch a chill. She dipped the cloth in warm water and began her task, starting with her mother’s forehead and working down the sagging folds of gray skin until she came to her legs. Consumed equally by pity and disgust, Saba cleaned away the pus that seamed the scar.

She had just finished dressing Balkis in a clean chemise, when there was a peremptory knock at the door. Saba quickly covered her mother with a clean quilt and unlocked the door.

Gudit hurried in, carrying a dish with a lid. “The compote,” she explained. “The apples will break her fever. Why was the door locked?”

“She’s delirious.”

Gudit put the dish down and went to Balkis’s side. “Oh,” she said, surprised. “You’ve changed her clothes.”

“I washed her,” Saba said. Gudit knew. She was the one who usually helped her mother with her toilette. “I saw. What happened to her?”

Gudit gave her a sly look. “That’s not for you to know.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Saba shouted. “She’s my mother.”

“She’s the priestess,” Gudit responded in a haughty voice.

“In the name of Allah, what does that have to do with anything?”

When Gudit didn’t respond, Saba suddenly remembered what her mother had said about the priestess being celibate after initiation. What had been her exact words? That after her initiation, she would no longer want to have relations with her husband.

“Is this part of the initiation?” she asked, appalled at the thought.

Gudit turned her leathery face toward Saba and smiled.

It had to have been Gudit. She was the only one who knew how to do the special tattoo of ashes mixed with mother’s milk. She was the one who knew all the steps of the ritual. This squat, sour woman who had always seemed so devoted to her mother, who had taught Saba the Melisite prayers when she was a child, and under whose blue-tipped tattoo needle Saba had suffered for weeks-Saba was now seeing her with new eyes. She remembered with a chill Gudit’s attack in the hamam and the knife she had spied on the floor as she ran away.

“Did she know?” Saba asked, guessing the answer. If the ritual had allowed it, her mother would have prepared her long ago. “Of course not.” She said, answering her own question. “No one would go along with it, would they, if they knew?”

“The women of this family have been purified for hundreds of years. No one has ever complained.”

That was so ludicrous that Saba had to laugh. “That we know of. That’s not counting the ones who were killed because they refused or who died of infections afterward. Have you taken a look at her?”

“What do you mean?” Gudit stroked Balkis’s forehead. “She’s been ill for a long time. Only Allah knows when it’s her time.”

“I’m not a doctor, but I know an infection when I see one. You never said a word about it. Constantine might have been able to do something. Instead, you let it fester.”

“That man thinks opium cures everything,” Gudit grumbled, propping Balkis’s head up on a pillow. “I’ve been treating it. The old ways are best.” She got up to ladle the apple compote into a bowl and sat beside Balkis with a spoon. “Eat some of this, dear.” Gudit’s hand shook and she spilled juice on the fresh sheets.

“Begging your pardon, may I enter?” Courtidis’s voice boomed through the doorway.

“Come in, Constantine.” Saba was relieved to see him. “Thank you for coming so quickly. Mother is delirious. She has an infection. I’m very worried about her.”

He walked in and put down his leather bag. He had taken off his shoes in the entry and Saba noticed his socks had holes in them. He faltered a moment when he saw Gudit sitting by Balkis and blocking his access. “Begging your pardon, I’ll just take a look at the patient, shall I?” he said meaningfully, approaching the divan.

Gudit didn’t budge.

“Get up, Gudit.” Saba said with surprising authority.

Gudit hesitated, but obeyed. She hovered at the edge of the room, looking on sullenly.

Saba regarded Courtidis’s back as he bent over her mother, soothing her as he looked into her eyes and mouth and palpated her neck and chest through the quilt. His low, calm voice talked on and on about nothing significant, like a chant. She could imagine her mother taking hold of this rope of words and hanging on.

She walked over and put her hand on his shoulder. He stopped moving for a moment, as if paralyzed.

“Thank you, Constantine,” she said softly into his ear.

Courtidis took a deep breath and continued what he was doing. His brief smile was quickly replaced by a frown.

“She’s had a low-grade fever for a long time,” he said. “There’s probably an infection, but she wouldn’t let me examine her, so I’ve just given her powders to bring her temperature down.” He hesitated. “This is something different.”

Saba squatted by his side. “What do you mean?” She wanted to tell him about the infection, but she was paralyzed by embarrassment and fear. She tried to think what her mother would want her to do.

“I don’t know. It’s a violent attack on her body. What happened today or yesterday? Did she eat something and become sick? Did something happen to her?”

“She seemed very fatigued, more than usual. She said her muscles hurt.” Saba tried to remember. “She’d never complained about that before…” She grasped the quilt. “And there’s a…”

Gudit broke in defensively, “I gave her boiled barley and camomile and willow extract. It brought the fever right down.”

“That may be, Gudit. You’re not wrong. But this is something much more serious. She’s burning up and her breathing is labored.” He lowered his voice. “She might, I beg your pardon, Saba…she might pass away.”

Saba froze at his words. “No, that can’t be. She was fine before. It’s just a fever.” She pulled back the quilt, revealing Balkis in her thin chemise. Saba was dismayed at the unpleasant odor rising from her mother’s body again, even though she had just washed it.

Gudit ran over and pulled the quilt back over Balkis. “You can’t,” she yelled at Saba. “It’s not proper.”

Saba tried to yank the quilt out of Gudit’s hands. When she wouldn’t let go, Saba slapped her across the face.

Gudit retreated across the room. Courtidis looked on in consternation.

“There’s an infection here,” Saba folded the quilt back again and pointed. “I’m sorry, Mama.” She cradled her mother’s head.

Courtidis lifted Balkis’s chemise. “Beg your…” He stared down at the circumcision scar, then looked at Saba. He followed her eyes to Gudit standing against the wall.

“There are lots of ways to kill someone,” he said softly, his eyes never leaving Gudit’s face, “but the slow ways are the most merciless.”

He examined Balkis, then gently tucked the quilt around her.

“What is it?” Saba asked desperately. “Is that what’s making her ill?”

“Possibly, if it’s infected her blood or if there’s something wrong internally.” He startled Saba by pounding his fist on a chest of drawers. “Why didn’t you tell me about this? If I had caught it earlier…”

“I didn’t know myself until today,” Saba whispered. “Mama never told me. But if it’s an infection, surely there’s something you can do. Even now.”

“Saba, I’m sorry, but my skills fail me here. I know of no powders or techniques that can bring down such a high fever and bring order back to her heart and lungs. But I can tell you that whatever it is, it couldn’t just be the infection of her lower parts, since that appears to have happened some time ago.” He glared at Gudit. “Her condition is much worse than the last time I saw her.”

“She can’t die, Constantine,” Saba begged. “Please don’t let her die.” What else could she have done to help her? Saba asked herself. Her mother had never countenanced interference from her family. At least she had let Constantine treat her. Could he save her now? He must.

“This must have been brought on by something. Think.”

Saba struggled to focus. She went to the storage room and brought out the monstrance. “She cut herself on this.” She held up the discolored gold tine.

Courtidis took it. “Show me the wound.”

Saba pulled her mother’s arm from beneath the quilt and pushed back her sleeve, revealing the bandage. Courtidis examined and cleaned the wound, then instructed Saba on how to care for it and bind it properly. Saba was glad to follow orders as it allowed her mind to go numb.

He took the tine over to the window. “This is dirty,” he observed.

“That’s Mama’s blood.”

“No, I mean there’s older dirt underneath, see?” He pointed to the sheath of granular black material beneath the streaks of fresh blood. “Do you know what that is, Gudit?”

Gudit’s face was gray. “Her mother’s blood. She never let me clean it.”

Courtidis waved the tine in the air. “Come on, Gudit. Let’s have it all at once. Why was Balkis’s mother’s blood on here?” Saba noticed the authority in his tone, so different from his usual shy manner.

“She scratched herself.”

“And?” Courtidis said with elaborately mimed patience. Saba could see he was sweating.

“Well, she died a day later. A red line crept up her arm and then she was gone. I never saw anything like it.” Gudit stepped back toward the door. “Do you think there’s some kind of bug on there that gets under people’s skin? It was seventeen years ago.”

“An insect? Was she stung?” Saba asked.

“Sounds like blood poisoning.” Courtidis studied the tine again. “This might have been contaminated with something. It would explain her rapid decline.”

“You mean it was on there for seventeen years and then poisoned Mama?”

“Nature has a thousand ways of betraying us. I wish I knew.”

He took a small vial from his bag. Seeing the compote, he poured a small amount of the yellow syrup into a glass, then added the contents of the vial.

Saba watched his every move, as if by sheer will she could infuse his hands with the power to heal her mother.

“I beg your pardon, but I don’t know what else I can do,” he admitted. “This will relax her.” He felt Balkis’s forehead and shook his head. Suddenly he dropped the glass.

Balkis had started to choke. Her face turned bright red and her tongue swelled, blocking her throat. Her eyes protruded with the effort to get air.

Courtidis lifted her head and turned it to open her airway while a frightened Saba held on to her mother’s shoulders. Finally, in desperation, he pushed his finger into her mouth to depress her tongue, but nothing helped. Saba watched in anguish as her mother’s body bucked beneath her hands.

Finally, the violent writhing ceased and Balkis’s arms fell away. Saba kept her arms around her mother as if the connection through her own body could somehow fool death. She felt an intense bitterness toward the midwife, blaming her for keeping her mother’s condition secret for so long, for putting her mother’s life in danger. Gudit had killed her mother. Saba turned her head, but there was no one in the room besides Courtidis.

“Mama,” she said in a thick voice, “don’t go. I need to talk to you.” She began to sob.

Courtidis put his arm around her. They sat like that for a long time. When Saba finally stood, she had made a decision about Courtidis. She needed him now, for many reasons.

She went to find Amida.