Ishtar: Love and War

Chapter 1: The Loudest Sound I Ever Knew
The first time I walked into the central market of Kashargan, I was so overwhelmed I went numb. Hundreds of people crammed together, pulsing and jostling and crashing against one another, their clothes shimmering with fake jewels and dyed in lurid colors. I couldn’t tell if the sweat slick on my skin was my own or a stranger’s. And the noise! Shouts and yells from one separated companion to another filled the air, along with the long, high notes of advertising merchants, wails of overwhelmed babies, and steady beat of religious drums.

All along the sides of that dusty, rocky road were stalls of merchants selling their clothing, fruits, vegetables, spices, animals, slaves, and prostitutes. Beggars lay in groups wherever they could fit--in front of stalls, among piles of trash, next to tall camels. I averted my gaze, but still in the corner of my eye were their shrunken limbs, white spots of leprosy, gaping mouths, and clawing fingers that reached out and grabbed the shoes of whoever passed close enough.

And I stood in the middle of everything. Well, to be fair, I tried to stand still, but the crowd was stronger than a river’s current after Monsoon, and I found myself crashing into this woman, and that man, and another child. I can remember it so well--the way the sun crept beneath my shawl, making my face burn and soaking my hair with sweat. The way that I dared not remove it from my face, in case the pimps--one there, and yes, one over there, staring at me with her fat face and ravenous eyes--would see my round eyes, long eyelashes, and full red lips. Surely then I would feel an unbreakable grip around my arm yank me from the bustle of the street and into the confinement of a tent. My mother had warned me to never, ever remove the shawl.

How overwhelmed I felt the first time I walked the central market! How my heart pounded a terror-stricken marathon in my chest, and my nose burnt with the smell of spices and urine and animal dung, and how my entire body weakened from the beatings of the sun! Yet that is nothing compared to now.

I am standing in the widest part of the market road. All I can see is people, people, people, and the red sandstone walls of the city reaching proudly into the azure blue sky. It feels like a dream to stand in this place, which has never been quiet for the five years I walked its streets, but is utterly silent now. I cannot even hear a single cough or sigh. Nobody is breathing.

Waiting.

The war horn sounds, long and low and deafeningly loud. From where it sounded, or who sounded it, I do not know. The gods themselves could have blown that sacred horn. It fills my ears, my lungs, my eyes, the entire market--and then we explode. Everyone shouts, yells, screams at the top of their lungs:

“Death to Orus! Death to Orus! Death to Orus!”

Three loud chants, which then dissolve into everyone shouting what is most on their hearts. Pledges of allegiance to Kashargan, barrages of anger against Orus, or death threats to Orus’ king. It is louder than anything I have ever heard before, and the crowd pumps against the road, against the stalls, against the sky.

We are a nation at war.

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I grasp my cool porcelain cup and take a long draught of water. Servants surround the dining table, setting down bowls of rice and mutton curry. It smells delicious, even more so after a day of fasting. In the quiet of our own home, the sandstone walls dampening the usual sounds of the busy street outside, my ears still ring with the furious shouts of the entire city.

Finally, the servants finish setting the table. My younger sisters to my left, my mother, grave and composed as always, to my right. My four brothers--seated in front of me--are eyeing the delicious treats with hungry eyes. It makes my stomach twist to see that expression on their faces, for I know it as the one they stare at Nurval, my youngest sister, with.

“Let us pray.”

The deep voice of Father interuppts my thoughts, and I am thankful. Shame on me to think of my brothers in such a way! Ignoring my father’s incantations, I bow my head and silently utter a prayer of repentance, one my mother made me memorize when I told her what I thought about my brother’s animal stares.

I wait to eat until all my brothers have taken their food. Meanwhile, my father congratulates Abieshu, my eldest brother, on his performance today. As the son of the renowned High Priest of the Temple of Shukohr, Abieshu helped give the Divine Blessing to our army’s general. Abieshu’s sharp face glows with pride with every encouragement from father, and I see a cruel glint enter his eye as he casts his gaze on all his other siblings. When that eye passes over me, I stare at the grains of rice floating in the pools of my mutton curry.

We finish eating, and the servants take away our dishes. Now is the time for Mother and all the children to retire, except Abieshu. Since the fifth month, he has become an adult, worthy to spend time with Father. My legs and arms ache with exhaustion--after the war horn sounding, I'd had to kneel at the temple gates for hours while Abieshu conducted his ceremony--and I long to rest in my bed. Except I know from my sisters' excited that they expect me to tell another story before bedtime. Inwardly I sigh, and start thinking about which story to tell them, or if I should continue--

“Tabni-Ishtar, my daughter, come play the harp for me.”

I turn around, surprised. Father’s dark eyes stop my legs from moving and my heart from beating. Abieshu doesn’t look my way, but there is a queer smile on his face, that makes me want to grimace. I incline my head silently, and a servant hands me the harp. I sit down in a nest of colorful cushions, and--fingers shaking slightly--start to pluck the notes. Father closes his eyes and leans his head back against the richly embroidered tapestry, and I catch glances of him as I play.

Father seems less of a priest and more of a general. He is large and muscular, his skin tanned and dark, and his entire body boasts of quiet strength. His chin, wide and defined, his thick lips, his tall nose and heavy eyebrows, and the thick, oily hair twisted into a bun on his head all carry a dignified weight, silently demanding onlookers to notice him. I am glad his eyes are closed, for when he opens them, his gaze is steady as the midday sun, pinning its pitiful subject down with a paralyzing grip; you can neither look away nor look back at him. Yet even with his eyes closed, I feel as if he is watching every pluck of my finger, waiting to hear a note too short or too long or resonated wrongly.

Abieshu stays on Father’s right. When I play the harp, his presence is usually so overshadowed by Father’s that I can forget he’s there, but today that smile playing around his lips makes me feel terribly uneasy. His eyes slide from servant girl to servant girl, from cushion to cushion, and he smiles as if his lips are covered in snake oil, and then he looks at me. I look at the well-worn strings of the harp. I’m just reaching the middle of the song when Father raises a single finger.

I stop playing.

Hands folded in lap. Back straight. Legs underneath me. Gaze, downward. Perfect posture, don’t get it wrong, Ishtar.

Father opens his eyes, and smiles benevolently at me. “What a beautiful song, my daughter. The skill of your playing certainly exceeds that of many minstrels in the temple.” His soft, almost gentle voice takes on the note of a command as he says, “Stand up.”

I stand up. Behind the hems of my skirt, my calves cramp up, bringing tears to my eyes. Of course, I’ve been kneeling on them for hours today. But I can’t show my pain to Father--it would be an insolence. I blink the tears back furiously, hoping he won’t notice.

I glance up for only a moment, and see that Abieshu and Father are surveying me thoroughly. Goosebumps rise on my skin. I look down at the floor again, hoping they didn’t notice that I lifted my eyes.

“Sit down.”

I sit down.

“My daughter, you have pleased me. You’ve grown into a beautiful woman, you have musical skills, and I know that you are doing well in housework.”

Why is he praising me? Where is he going with this? I stare at the bright designs woven into the carpet.

“I have found a husband for you.”

My eyes snap up. I stare at him. For a moment, I see that he was smiling while he said that he found me a husband. It was one of his self-satisfied smiles, lit up with the realization of more power, but it disappears from his lips as soon as his eyes meet mine. He slaps my face, I fall. A small cry escapes my mouth, but I shut it and blink back the tears.

Father continues seamlessly, “His name is Bulludhu. He is a very wealthy merchant from the West. You will meet him once tomorrow, and marry him the day after that. Your mother will help you to prepare. Now leave.”

I want to say something. I must say something--must defend myself. My eyes burn.

Tears well up, but I refuse to let them fall. A thousand pleas rise to my throat, sobs and entreaties and indignant arguments nearly bursting out, but just the sight of his strong hands makes everything die on my tongue. I pick up the harp. My fingers tremble. My exhausted legs somehow push me up, and I exit the room. Go through the hallway, out the familiar archway, into the courtyard.

The hot night feels as if I’m breathing in burning sand. The harp slips out of my fingers and my legs fold down to the warm ground. The full moon shines brightly in the black night. A cart with horses clops by, just outside the courtyard walls. Some pitiful dog howls out into the city streets.

I will be married the day after tomorrow, married to Bulludhu, the wealthy merchant from the West.

Chapter 2: The Power of Beauty
“Tabni. Wake up.”
I open my eyes to Nurval’s round, innocent, chocolate-colored face. The sunlight throws itself onto her cheek and clings to her soft, full lips. Her eyes stare down at me worriedly, as if I am in some strange and unnerving state, as if I have transformed into something that I am not.
“Tabni, are you there?”
Her voice is soft as the cool breeze during a spring day, and it breathes just as much refreshment into my burnt soul.
“Good morning, Nurval.”
I reach up to caress her face, to tuck that curling strand of hair behind her cheek. Yet I
Can’t bring myself to break through the soft light that surrounds her like a spell, or touch her smooth skin. Instead, she moves my tangled hair out of my face, and I can finally feel the morning air cool on my forehead. Funny, I didn’t realize that I was drenched in sweat.
Nurval clasps my hands in hers and gently lifts me so I am sitting up in bed. I’d thrown the covers on the floor in the depths of the night, and they lie strewn and rumpled on the ground, next to the burnt-down candles. The memories of last night’s dreams float back to me.
I never tried to kick the blankets away, I’d only wanted to kick him away. One moment handsome and young, with lips that tasted of elaichi nectar, one moment repulsively old with wrinkles gathering all over his body, one moment silent and unfeeling, one moment screaming with anger. Yet always, Bulludhu was on top of me, and I was naked, and my wedding dress was on the ground next to the bed.
I look over the other side of Nurval, and behind her, but there is no wedding dress. Only blankets.
Perhaps for the first time that morning, I breathe. But then Nurval tells me,
“You should hurry, Tabni. Today your hus--” her voice catches, her eyes shine, her hand grips mine harder. “Today Bulludhu will come to meet you. You should prepare yourself.”
Any servant passing by, or even Mylitta and Omarosa, would have thought that Nurval meant I should prepare myself to look beautiful. Yet when our eyes met, I knew that she meant that I needed to prepare myself for war. I gripped her hands just as hard as she held mine, and for a moment, we stayed like that. Nurval, perched on the bed, me, lying among the pillows, the blankets and candles and morning sun all jumbled together. Her eyes and mine.
“Prepare yourself.”
And that’s what I did all morning. I soaked in luxurious milk baths filled with rose petals. The marble tub was in a closed courtyard, so jasmine flowers spilled over the walls while vines crept along the ground, filling the air with their heavy intoxicating scent. Our servants massaged almond oil onto every inch of my body, until my skin was firm and shining. They soaked my hands in rose water, they braided my hair, they rubbed my neck and wrists with amber musk perfume. Finally, they wrapped me in a graceful blue dress that shimmered as the midday sun danced along its surface. And now, as the sun has just taken the first steps down from its throne in the sky, I am alone for the first time today.
Back in my room. The servant have relit the candles. The sun throws strangely-shaped shadows across my bed and dressing table and tapestries. I shut my eyes, and breathe. All I can control is the steady in-and-out, in-and-out, keep-it-slow, not-too-fast, breaths.
I remember something I read in Abieshu’s scrolls, a jewel of knowledge that I had risked too much for. Abieshu is not careless with his things like my other brothers, and I had to sneak into his room while he was drunk with guests to catch a glimpse of his endless stacks of creamy scrolls. If he found me, I don’t know what would have happened. But I can still remember the delicious sound of the paper rolling open, the way it crinkled beneath my careful fingers. It said that when one is anxious, the best thing to do is take long, deep breaths.
Long. Deep. Breathe.
A servant knocks and enters the chamber. Her eyes linger on me a moment, sparkling with wonder, and after a breath she looks down, just as I always do around my father.
“Tabni-Ishtar, the High Priest of the Temple of Sukhor summons you.”
Before I leave the room, I glance at myself in the mirror, my reflection in a pool of copper. I am beautiful. Suddenly I remember something else that my mother said to me, something she’d whispered in my ear with a smile in her voice.
“Tabni, the only power a woman has is her beauty.”
My back straight, my breaths long and deep, I follow the servant. But I can’t stop my hands from shaking as I twist them into fists behind my shimmering, starry dress.
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As the heavy oak doors open, I long to lift my head and see--how old is he? What does he look like? Is his face cruel and stony, or soft and kind? Does he look intelligent or stupid? But I know that I must not lift my eyes, especially to my future husband, until he tells me I may. None of those things matter anyway. I’ll still marry him. I’ll still have to obey him.
But--oh! What torture it is to walk across the marble floor and see nothing but our richest cushions and quilts! All I know is the thick smell of incense, the soft glow of candles nestled among marigolds, and the indigo blue cushion my servant leads me to. From what I can tell, there are only a few people in the room--Father, Abieshu, and my future husband.
Keeping my eyes fixed on a round blue jewel sewn into the hem of my dress, I murmur,
“The High Priest of the Temple of Sukhor has summoned me.”
Even without looking, I can tell Father is smiling. It makes me want to shudder. His smiles are not smiles, but mere cracks across the rock-cliff of his face, just a stretching of the lips to barely glimpse the teeth. But he approves of my appearance.
The only power a woman has is her beauty.
Without responding to me, Father says in a low voice,
“Balladhu, I present to you my daughter, Tabni-Ishtar.”
Balladhu is wearing dark purple slippers, each with a single mammoth of a pink jewel sewn securely into the top of the foot. His skin is darker than Father’s, almost black, almost melting into the purple of his shoes. His ankles look strong, and not too fat. And when he speaks, his voice is husky but not too deep, and not too high.
“Her appearance is greatly pleasing, High Priest.”
Beneath the huskiness is a tone that makes my fists want to curl up, but then they would see. His voice is a lizard that is running all over my skin, stuck in my clothes, I can’t get it out. I can feel his eyes on me, and my heart beats faster, my throat shuts, and suddenly, I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to see the expression he has on his face, as he stares at my body.
“If it is not too impertinent to ask, High Priest, what talents does she have?”
I can see that Father shifts his posture, his legs moving out and in my peripheral vision. Is he sitting up straighter? Does he seem proud of me?
“Tabni-Ishtar is a wonderful seamstress and cook. She sings and plays the lyre, flute, and harp beautifully. We have given her the finest education.”
The finest education? Finer than Abieshu’s? Finer than any of my brothers? Father would be shocked if he knew how much I knew about science, math, history, geography, grammar. Things that I’ve read in glimpses and glances of rejected scrolls. He’d be even more shocked if he knew how much I know is still left for me to discover, if he realized that he failed at tricking me into being satisfied with who I am now.
“In fact, why doesn’t she play something now?”
I slowly incline my head, and the action pushes my eyes down even further so that I can’t even see Balladhu’s dark ankles. My hair falls in front of my face, and I push it away as a servant hands me the harp. I already knew that Father would ask this of me, but my fingers tremble as they clasp around the warm, smooth wood. You can do it, it’s saying to me, whispering to me through its worn, dark surface.
I get into position and pluck at the taut strings. The first sounds scratch my ears, my nervousness slapping me across the face.
Deep breaths.
Eventually my fingers lull into the same old routine, plucking here, and then there, and then I don’t even have to think about it. The familiar music notes hug me close, hold my hand, tell me that somehow, Balladhu will be a kind man. A good man.
What face is he making as he hears me? My neck burns to straighten. My eyes scream to see what features punctuate the darkness of his skin, what lies above his glimmering silver robe, what kind of person lives underneath his husky voice. Father murmurs something to Balladhu, Balladhu murmurs back, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Their words wrap into the notes of my harp, and they wrap all around my oiled, perfumed body. The heat of the candles on my face is oppressive, the sound of their low voices suffocating.
At some point, I finish playing the song. Should I continue on to the next one? Or is it time for me to stop? I look back at the pink jewels in Balladhu's shoes, and realize that he and Father are now silent. Perhaps I should continue playing--but no. Father rises, so I move to rise as well, but he presses me down on the cushion.
“You stay here, Tabni-Ishtar. I will give you and Balladhu some time to be alone together.”
He leaves, the doors shutting with a thud behind him, leaving me alone. No, not alone: with Balladhu.
All I can hear is the beat of my heart. Is it pounding to be set free from my chest? Can Balladhu hear it? My fingers, shaking so hard before, do not move. If only I could sew myself into the tapestries as an embroidered jasmine flower, just to be looked at. But I am flesh, my blood is being pumped from my heart to my toes, and I am frozen.
“My dear Tabni-Ishtar, come here.”
I hate to move closer to him, but I hate to imagine what will happen if I do not. But I can’t even make the choice, because my muscles have stopped working.
A pause, a silence. Only the sound of crickets outside, of the servants hushed at the door, listening.
“Tabni-Ishtar, why do you disobey me?”
I want to sound elegant, composed, like my mother. But when I speak, my voice is nothing more than a slip of shivering wind.
“I do not wish to disobey you.”
“Then tell me why you do not come to me.”
His voice was husky before, now it sounds soft. As if cold fingers are caressing my cheek and chin. And I must speak again.
“My legs will not move.”
Space, time stretches out. He must think I’m afraid. I can’t have him think that.
“I suppose I have been sitting in the same place too long.”
No, no, no. Now he will think I am complaining. The pink jewels in his shoes catch the flicker of a candle and blind me.
“Then I will come to you.”
And then--where his blinding pink jewels were, there is only a richly carpeted floor. The warmth of another body to my right, his weight sinking into my cushion, the touch of his breath on the tip of my ear. And I wish I could breathe, but the warm air does not want to come inside my lungs. My vision darkens.
“You are beautiful, Tabni-Ishtar.”
Hope skitters into my ribcage, wondering if my beauty can be used as a power. Perhaps--but suddenly, fingers, warm and thick, grip onto my jaw without warning, and jerk me towards him, and I suddenly can see his face--round, dark--and then his wet lips are pressed to mine. His eyes are open, staring deeply and hungrily into mine, and the depths of a crevice in the earth open up in the blackness of his eyes, and his hot fingers convulse to pull me down, down, down.
And I am down, my back pressed awkwardly into different lumps of cushions, and I can’t rip my eyes away from the spiraling chasm cracking inside of his. I can feel a thousand things, but all I can think of is the click of his teeth on mine, the pain of his weight borne on my wrists, pinning me down. And my nightmare is happening, and I want to wake up.
But my toes can move. Focus on your toes, don’t focus on your mouth, don’t think about his saliva dripping onto your lips. Then--they touch something searingly hot, and I would leap back and cry for pain but I can’t. Then--I realize it was a candle.
Without thinking, my toes seek the candle out again, and tip it over. Another one, close by--tip it over. Please catch fire. Please catch fire. Heat sears the soles of my feet, and this time I can cry out in pain because he breaks away from me to cry out, too. He rolls off me, and I scramble back, both of us staring at the licking flames.
Servants push open the doors and flood into the room. Cries of surprise, running out for water, arms wrapping around me. Somebody sees the blisters already forming on the bottoms of my feet and I’m lifted up, to be carried out of the room. Just as I am at the edge of the door, my cursed wandering eyes catch Balladhu’s.
His stare bites at my soul harder than his teeth ever could. He knows that I did it on purpose.
Shudders control my body, and then I faint.