My husband, Ilan, was sixteen when we were married, and I was almost fourteen. My father had promised me to him since we were little children. Even as a boy he was handsome, but as he become older, he grew to be even more so, as well as tall and strong and kind. Like his father, who gave me the customary blessings on our wedding day, my husband was a weaver. I knew a girl whose husband was nothing like Ilan, cold and distant from the day they were wed.
That was never the case with Ilan and me. We had grown up around each other, even though he was a little older, and we loved each other. I didn’t want anything more than to be a good wife to him, to bear him many children, and to live happily with him forever in our home.
But then my sickness put an end to all the dreams we had shared.
I tried to stay out of his way that night, while he prepared to leave me. To Ilan’s credit, he had tried so hard not to give me that letter of divorce. It isn’t easy to leave someone you’ve loved and lived with for years. During all that time I hadn’t been able to conceive, which may have been my first sign that something was wrong. It didn’t matter to us; we were patient. We just believed God would eventually give us children. In the meantime, life went on. We were still very much in love and we wanted to be together.
Then I began to bleed. My condition wasn’t as bad in the beginning. It kept me from going out, and of course I was considered to be unclean. I’d believed, rightfully so, that what was going on was only temporary. There were months that passed when it seemed that that was the case.
We thought that, Ilan and I, until the flow of blood became more frequent.
Then, sometime after my nineteenth year of life, it became almost uncontrollable at times. There were days when it seemed to me that I was getting better. My husband and I would take heart in believing the worst was behind us. One particular time was after Ilan had taken me to see that first doctor, who’d had me drink something bitter from a cup. It almost sickened me, but I was able to swallow it and keep it down.
Whatever it was, I was fine for a handful of months. Normal, just like anyone else. Maybe, I thought, I could return to a normal life. Maybe I could even finally give my husband a child.
Except the flux of blood returned.
“I left you some money on the table.”
I was drawing fresh water at the well when I heard my husband coming out of our home. His steps were heavy behind me, as heavy as my heart and his. Well—he was now my soon-to-be former husband. I’d made sure no one was nearby, no one that would see me, or I would be accused of defiling the well. It was still early in the course of my condition, but I’d already become well acquainted with the shame of being called “unclean.”
“Thank you, Ilan.” I kept my tone level and my chin lifted a bit higher than normal.
He came and stood at my side, nodding. He didn’t seem to know what to say. What a strange situation for us to find ourselves in! Never before had we trouble speaking with one another before. He swallowed over the lump in his throat; he appeared to be reluctant to look directly into my eyes.
“I will—I will make sure that—that you have enough money,” he stammered. “Because you…you should see another physician.”
“Hmmmm.” I sniffed and scratched my head.
Truly, I wasn’t angry with him. I knew he’d been patient. Another man may have given up and left me much sooner than he had.
But what was I supposed to do? Beg him to stay? I was his wife. Had he been sick, I couldn’t have divorced him. I would have had to stay with him, to take care of him until the end of his life or mine, and I would have done it gladly.
Be reasonable, I insisted to myself. You’re unclean. You can’t even take a sacrifice for your sins to the temple. Not until the blood stops.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
“Yes, I do!” He seemed to realize he’d spoken too gruffly and softened his voice. “I don’t want to leave.”
“I do want you to leave. You will only be defiled if you stay with me. Go, find yourself another wife.”
One who won’t be “unclean.” One who will give you children. One who’s not under this bloody curse.
I was trying to be almost businesslike with him. Ilan took my chin in his hand, guiding my face so that I had to look at him.
“I don’t want another wife,” he claimed. “It’s not—I don’t have a choice, woman. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Does it matter? What I understand or don’t understand?” My voice cracked. I quickly took hold of the jug and brushed past him. “Go!”
“Woman, I don’t want to do this!”
His words stopped me and made me turn to face him. My husband used only his words, spoken in a voice strained by pain and what I knew sounded like frustration.
He didn’t use his hands to stop me. He didn’t catch me by the arm and tug me back. That would have required touching me. He’d done that when he took my chin, but naturally, he couldn’t do keep doing that. Ilan couldn’t touch his own wife, nor could I touch him.
To do so would have been to defile him.
“If you’re going to leave, then just leave,” I told him softly.
Ilan stared back at me, a look of regret mixed with longing that lingered for some moments. Then he tossed the sack with his belongings over his shoulder and walked away from me.
From me, and the home we had made together.
I walked into that same home and set the jug of water onto the table. The water that was now unclean, since I’d touched its container. Everything my hands touched was vile and filthy because of my body. My dirty body that couldn’t—or wouldn’t—stop its flow of blood.
For what felt like a long time, I stood at that table, shaking. Then I pushed the jug violently off the table, and water went everywhere.
I fell to the floor, and like an insult I felt the warmth of a gush of hot blood flowing out of me. I cried and wished that I could be like the rest of the water, seeping into the ground and disappearing.
****