The Abyssinian Proof

35

A night bird called outside her window. Saba drifted in and out of dreams. In one, from the waist down, she had become the lion from the doorway. From the waist up, she was a woman with wings instead of arms, naked and ashamed. Without hands, she couldn’t cover herself. She felt increasingly frustrated and angry at her predicament and opened her mouth, only to find that instead of speech, what issued was a roar. People ran from her. She tossed under the quilt and threw it off, then awoke. She pulled the quilt back over her body and tried to settle. Her stomach had been restless all evening. Gudit and some of the servants had brought her mother’s body into the prayer house. She would be buried today in the little cemetery behind the Kariye Mosque.

Saba had had no appetite for dinner, so Gudit had brought her a dish of quince stewed in pomegranate juice. Even the clotted cream hadn’t cut the tartness of the pomegranate, however, and the quince had had an odd medicinal undertone. When Gudit wasn’t looking, Saba emptied her bowl back into the serving dish. She realized then for the first time that she was alone. It was a devastating moment. No one cared what she did now. All the people she had relied on were gone-Uncle Malik, her mother. Her brother was out and hadn’t returned, unaware that his mother was dead. Courtidis had been called to tend to the victims of an accident at a tannery outside the city walls and wouldn’t be back until the following day. After the shock of her mother’s revelations and Kamil’s rejection of them, she no longer felt she could call on him, even though she supposed she now had some claim on him as her brother. No, there was only Gudit.

Saba finally understood the root of Gudit’s power over her mother-she had mutilated more than Balkis’s body. She had weakened her spirit as well, and then turned herself into her mother’s only friend. Gudit’s attack in the hamam now made more sense. She needed to impress herself into the flesh and spirit of the next priestess. Saba pressed her face into her pillow and rocked back and forth under the quilt until she dozed off again.

It must be near morning, Saba thought, startled awake by the renewed flapping of the bird. She froze. There it was again. A creak. Her floors didn’t creak and her door was locked. She willed herself to pull the quilt slowly from her face and set her ears to listening. There it was again, from the direction of the wardrobe. Had a cat crept in during the day and nested in her folded robes? She raised her head. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw movement, a shadowy shape approaching her bed. Saba’s heart hammered and her limbs felt paralyzed.

She ran through the contents of her room quickly in her mind, but could think of no object that might serve as a weapon. She thought of using the quilt as a net to trap the person’s head. That might give her enough time to run to the door and unlock it. The key was old and unwieldy. Could she get out in time? If she screamed loudly, the servants in the quarters at the back of the house would surely hear, but they might be too late.

As the figure approached, Saba recognized the smell of bitter herbs that always accompanied Gudit.

“How dare you come in here,” she shouted. “Get out. Get out.”

She threw off the covers and tried to get up from the bed, but found herself pinned by the midwife’s powerful grip. Gudit tied Saba’s hands above her head to the wrought-iron headboard with a thin strip of cloth, stuffed a wad of cotton in her mouth, then slit her nightdress down the front with a knife.

The deep chill of fear settled in Saba’s spine. Remembering the knife, she ceased to struggle, afraid to move, but also afraid not to move. She fought her panic and willed herself to think. What did Gudit want? Was this how the ritual cutting was carried out, with force and stealth in the night? Was this why her mother had refused to talk about her initiation, because it was violent and humiliating? The thought of her mother at the mercy of this madwoman enraged Saba. Remembering that the wrought-iron edges of the headboard were sharp where the repeat design ended, she moved her bound wrists up and down, focused on finding one of the sharp edges.

Gudit lit a lamp and balanced it on the bed by Saba’s feet. Then she took hold of Saba’s left ankle and pulled it roughly aside. Her face was illuminated in patches as it disappeared between Saba’s legs. Saba felt her flesh being pinched together and then pulled painfully like dough. Shadows flew across the room like enormous winged creatures.

Saba kicked her free leg upward and connected with Gudit’s face. The knife bit into her thigh and she felt something wet flowing down her leg. Gudit’s grip on Saba’s ankle weakened for just a moment and Saba took the opportunity to twist her lower body away, her hands still bound to the headboard. She heard a rending sound as the strip of cloth tore on the rough iron edges.

But Gudit had regained her balance and, kneeling over Saba, pressed the knife to her breast. “Slut,” she hissed. “Just like your mother.”

With one free hand Saba reached for the quilt and with the other pushed hard at Gudit, knocking her backward. She pulled the quilt over herself to guard against the blade and rolled backward, trying to get away from Gudit.

A moment later, the midwife had pinned the quilt around Saba, trapping her against the wall.

“What are you doing, Gudit? Is this how the priestess is initiated?” Saba was surprised at how calm her voice sounded.

“You’ll find out.”

“Why do it like this? Why not properly, in the prayer hall?”

“Of course that would be better, but as you can see, I don’t have assistants anymore, not like in your grandmother’s day. Everyone respected me then. I am the left hand of the Melisites.”

“You could train assistants,” Saba suggested, squirming inside the cocoon, looking for a way out. “You have important skills. People want to learn from you.”

Gudit knelt on the bed holding the quilt shut with both hands, the knife resting on the mattress beside her.

“You’d never have been chosen to be priestess in the old days. People obeyed the rules then. It was a partnership. I was the left hand, the priestess was the right hand.”

“It can still be like that,” Saba said, putting as much feeling into her voice as she could muster.

Gudit lifted one hand from the quilt and stroked Saba’s tangled hair back from her forehead. “Maybe. But first you must become pure.”

Pushing her feet against the wall for momentum, Saba launched herself toward Gudit and rolled on top of the knife. She freed her arms and tried to throw the quilt over Gudit’s head, but Gudit had found the knife again and sliced the quilt in half, emerging from it like a snake hatching from its egg. She lunged for Saba’s legs and gripped her ankle once more. With her free leg, Saba kicked the lamp hard. It fell to the ground, the light went out, and the acrid smell of oil filled the air.

Blinded, Gudit paused, and at that moment Saba pushed her backward off the bed. She saw the gleam of the blade as it fell onto the carpet and lunged for it. Gudit grabbed her wrist, but Saba refused to let go of the knife. They struggled on the floor in the dark, each pushing the blade close to the other, the midwife’s powerful grip trying but unable to force Saba’s wrist backward.

“Kill me and you’ll have no priestess at all,” Saba whispered hoarsely. “All you’ll have is Amida.”

The balance shifted for just a moment and Saba’s hand jolted forward. Gudit uttered a piercing cry and scrambled to her feet. Saba could hear her harsh sobbing, then it was gone. Entirely gone.

She tried to stand, but her legs were shaking too hard. Saba realized she still held the knife. Her hand was wet and sticky.

Finally, she managed to get to her feet. Footsteps sounded outside. The servants.

Someone knocked and tried the door. “Is everything alright?”

“Just a moment,” she croaked.

She lit the lamp again and almost dropped it. Her hands and the knife were covered with blood. The room was empty.

“A nightmare,” she called through the door. “I’m fine now. Go back to sleep.”

Saba followed the trail of blood across the carpet. Bloody palm prints were strewn across the wall like roses on English wallpaper. Saba pressed her hands between the prints, adding the pattern of her own smaller ones. The wall gave and a panel tilted inward. Beyond she saw ancient stone stairs descending into the ground. She knew where they would lead.

Putting her shoulder to the heavy wardrobe, she pushed it in front of the panel, surprised at her own strength. Then she stripped off the remnants of her nightdress. Her inner thighs were streaked with blood. The cuts weren’t deep, but they hurt. She reached into the wardrobe, put on a fresh nightdress, then sank to the floor, her arms around her knees, her back to the wardrobe. A gray light washed the room.

After a few minutes, she got up, wrapped herself in a robe, and unlocked the door. She told the shocked servants to clean the blood from her room. She didn’t care what they thought. She was the priestess now.