The Missing Madonna, Chapter 7 "Grief"

I’ve somehow arrived at the door of my house. I’m in a trance, a nightmare from which I wish to wake up. Everything is a blur through my tears. I’m stiff and ache, every muscle in my body is screaming, but I am silent. There is a hand on my shoulder and a push, and I’m stumbling inside into the shadow. A piece of cloth is in my hand. It is streaked with blood. My blood? Benjamin’s blood? I cannot care, I shudder.

The room is empty. Benjamin’s cradle is in the corner. It is empty.

I grab the woollen blanket from his tiny bed and bury my head in it. In wiping my eyes, the blanket is smeared with blood. There is blood on my mouth, my nose. I have a nosebleed and do nothing to stop it, I let it flow. I wish I was dead.

I keen.

I cuddle the soiled blanket.

“Benjamin, Benjamin, Ben, Ben, Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin,” I cry out in my despair. I cannot stop. His name echoes from my lips repeated over and over again.

“Oh Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin, Ben, Ben, Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin, oh Benjamin,” I scream. I howl.

I rock the blanket and cry at it, “Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin,” and my voice trails off repeating this now meaningless phrase to me for it is no more.

“Ben, Benjamin, Ben, Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin, oh Benjamin, Ben, Ben……..

My voice chokes, I can hardly speak, my mouth is going through the motions whilst my head spins, everything is blurred and suddenly I feel sick and stumble to the door and empty my entrails on the threshold. I stumble back into the darkness and fling myself on the ground. I don’t feel anything more - the hurt is already too great.

“Benjamin,” my disembodied voice slurps into the dust. Then eventually, a new sound.

“Why?”

Why? Why? What have they done with you? My lovely baby boy. Benjamin, I love you so much it hurts. Why did they ….?

I do not hear the door open or see the streak of violent light that arrows across the floor and strikes my crumpled form. I do not feel the arm on my shoulder gently shaking. I do not hear the words.

“What has happened? Ruth, for pity’s sake, tell me what has happened? Where is Benjamin? What have they done to you?”

I cannot answer. I feel his arms tightening their grip around my shoulders. He is trying to pull me up but I am limp and he lets me slip once more to the floor.

“Ruth, Ruth, you must answer me. What has happened? Why are all the women crying? What have the soldiers done to you?”

I still cannot answer. I am dumb. I shake my head and burst into tears again. He notices the blood flowing from my nose and cradles me in his arms and tries to stem the flow with a piece of his garment. I rock in his arms, fresh tears convulsing my body.

“Ruth, calm down. Tell me what is so wrong. Where is Benjamin? Please answer. Where is he?”

“You can’t.” That is all I can manage.

“Why not, Ruth? Tell me where he is and I will fetch him. Is one of the older children looking after him?”

“You can’t, you can’t, he’s dead.” I blurt it out. There is a shocked silence.

“Oh my God, my God. What did you say? It can’t be true. Tell me it’s not true. What on earth has happened?”

“He’s dead. They killed him. They killed all the children.”

“No, Ruth, I saw many children as I came here from the synagogue. Ruth, please tell me, what happened.”

I try to say words but nothing comes out. Eventually. I gasp “Nathan!” He props me up against this chest and strokes my face in anguish.

“The soldiers killed him, Nathan. They killed all the babies. All the boys. They just tore them from our arms and murdered them before our eyes. They threw him in a pit.”

He lets me howl, he does not try to soothe or stop me. I feel his muscles tighten, he is becoming angry. He wants to get up and go out in search of someone to strike, but he cannot and will not leave me like this. He rocks me in his arms. He is crying now. I do not know how long we lay here in each other’s arms weeping for all loss.

My nosebleed has stopped. I drag myself to the waterpot in the corner and splash some of the tepid liquid round my face. I realise Nathan has slipped out. He is gone. The room is empty.

Empty.

Barren.

Lost.

I still cry.

The cradle is still empty. Benjamin gone.

Nathan is still not there.

Empty.

Nothing.

I feel nothing, drained.

I cry until there are no tears left.

A long time. It’s a long time. A long time to feel empty. I hurt. I hurt all over. My arms hurt where they tore him from me, I clung to him, but the brutish soldier was so strong, Benjamin was screaming, my last memory of him is his sheer terror, his face twisted and contorted. I saw him, once he’d been wrested from my arms, being flung to another soldier who began to yank the clothes from his tiny body, then I saw nothing further of his fate because the first soldier began to struggle with me, he was pulling at my shift which in our fight had become loose. Then he knocked me to the ground and nearly smothered me, I thought he was going to kill me too. But I heard his rasping breath, felt his violent movements and realised too late that he was attempting to rape me. I suddenly lost all my strength and gave in. I felt him enter me and crush all the breath from my body. His movements were violent, I felt a searing pain between my legs, then he shouted and it was all over so suddenly and I just lay in the dust, half naked.

I do not know how long I stayed there, numb and scared. One of the other women helped me to my feet and drew the shift around me to attempt to make me decent. Then Benjamin’s absence overwhelmed me, I called him, but everyone was shouting the names of their children, I could not make my voice loud enough above the tumult. I ran in all directions, in circles, looking for my boy, in vain. I saw the soldiers in a huddle and I shouted at them, ‘What have you done with my boy?’ but they wouldn’t answer. I tried to pass through their lines to see what they were guarding, but they repulsed me and wouldn’t let me through. One said:

“Lady, I shouldn’t look there. It is no sight for a woman.”

Then I saw that several of the soldiers were smeared with blood, and glimpsed bloody daggers in belts of some of Herod’s troops and realised the brutal truth. At first I did not accept it, my mind revolted at the reality of the deed, I kept shouting ‘No, it can’t be.’ Other women were screaming the same, there was a collective anger. Some soldiers shrank from our abuse. Others began to hit us, to drive us away from the scene. One man struck me in the face, that must have caused my nosebleed. Then we turned and rushed at the soldiers and took them by surprise, enough to create a gap and we saw. We saw the pit and bare flesh, butchered red, piled in the red earth. We screamed again, then the ranks of soldiers closed and the gruesome sight was shielded once more. Hideous sobs shook our bodies, I could see nothing through the avalanche of tears, and we felt arms, gentle at first, then more insistent, guiding us back towards the village.

One woman was shouting.

“Why have you done this dreadful thing? What have we done to earn such retribution? Is this Herod’s doing?”

But the soldiers would say nothing, just pressed us to walk back to the village.

“What have you done to the other children and our men? Have you murdered them too?”

The hysterical voice struck panic in us all, but we soon came across the older children in a huddle, frightened, confused, and when they saw our state, the blood, some began to cry. A couple of older children realised that many of the babies and toddlers were missing and started asking the obvious questions and soon the truth was admitted and many children began to scream and wail. At least some women have other children, even if they are distressed. I have no-one, I am childless, empty. I cannot remember re-entering my house, whether I found it myself or whether someone led me here.

What can I do here? Where has Nathan gone? Why is he so long? I begin to imagine further horrors; that he has pursued the soldiers and struck at them and been cut down and that even now his body is lying in the dirt beside the road. I want to stir myself and get up and run out of the house and search for him, but my body is too shocked, too weary, and I remain slumped on the floor. Have I ceased to care? I worry that my feelings for my own husband are so dead. Why did he leave me so soon, why is he not here to comfort me?

I stumble out of the room into the blinding sunlight. There are other movements, sounds of distress all round me, but I am only vaguely aware of this. I am being drawn up the dusty slope towards the refuse tip where the outrage was carried out. I cannot help myself, that is where I am going. I trip over stones and rocks as I cannot see where I am putting my feet, blood flecks appear on my toes but I cannot care, I’m still smeared with blood from the multiple violations. I find myself at the stinking site and see men frantically scrabbling at the loose soil with their bare hands. I join a gaggle of other weeping women and watch through misted eyes. Nathan is there. There are about a dozen men digging, throwing up clods of soil wildly in all directions.

Eventually the men draw back from their labour and stare unbelieving into the void they have created. We women surge forward and push alongside them. They do not seek to restrain us, it is useless. There are tiny limbs poking through the disturbed earth. The men are exhausted and are no match for the frantic women who break through their ranks and start pulling the bloody corpses from the ground. I am staring at this horror, I cannot move. Nathan sees me at last and comes over laying his hand on my shoulder. He cannot speak. There is nothing he can say to console or comfort me. We just watch in anguish as, one by one, the bodies of the children are lifted from their murdered graves, limp flesh is passed from man to woman as each family claims its own. Someone has a nameless child in their arms, is looking round for someone to claim the lifeless body.

Nathan exclaims,

“That’s Benjamin, my son. Give him to me.”

He tries to hand the soiled child to me but I recoil. Then his head lolls towards me and through the streaks of blood, I see it is indeed my Ben. I burst into tears again as I clutch at him, trying so hard not to drop him in my anxiety that he should not be hurt. I do not realise that it doesn’t matter now. I am so gentle, I cuddle him close to my breast and realise I can hold him against my bare flesh for I have not bothered to cover up after a soldier’s assault ripped all pretence at modesty from my frame. His tiny body is still warm. His eyes are open but they are glazed in terror. I cannot look at them, I close them gently and kiss his eyelids and wash them with my tears.

Somehow we’ve got home. I do not remember how. I still cling to the tiny body as though I’m expecting him to wake and cry at any moment. I feel Nathan gently wresting him from my arms and bathing him, and wringing out the pink water at our doorway. I feel Nathan bathing me, lifting my torn tunic from my body, and laying me down on my bedroll beside my recumbent son. He makes me drink and closes my eyes. I am weeping inside now, I don’t know if tears are still coming.

Then he is gone.