SINNERS

SINNERS

A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton


The woman on the hilltop held a scarf, clutched it, didn’t let it go. The wind made it flutter in the breeze. It danced, twisted and turned in the breeze of a north-eastern wind. Had anyone seen this woman, as she stood there alone, they would have taken her for a model posing for a camera shot. But here there was no camera, no photographer. There was just a woman standing on a hilltop, wind in her hair, below her a valley, above her the sky, in her eye one lonely tear dropping down her cheek and trickling down toward a lonely ground.

The scarf was black, her hair was dark and now for the first time in years she had her hair displayed openly without fabric hiding it, all against the will of her parents.

In the other hand, clutched with just as much vigour as the scarf, was the picture of a young man with a potent smile. The girl and the young man were standing on this exact hilltop on the picture. He was holding her with a firm masculine hand in the photo, caressing her waist, making her feel good, making her feel like a woman.

The memory of a shout reverberated in the proverbial ear of the young girl, the memory hammering into her brain again and again. It was the shout of a 50-year old woman that brewed up from her subconscious. It was a voice ordering her to break off the contact and never see the boy again.

Another tear trickled down from the other eye now, the pain in her heart too hard to bear.

End it all, a voice told her. End it and they will see what they have done.
She knew that the parents of the young man were equally adamant in keeping him away from the girl. All the older grown-ups seemed to claim that muslims and jews were like oil and water and that there was no way that the two families could mix. Two cultures, two lifestyles, two enemies, one holy city.

The girl took a look at the ravine under her. It was a deep ravine. All she could see was the stoney bottom of a shameless depth. When she looked down, that old familiar tingling in her crotch returned, her head spinning and her panic rising, her eyes watering, her stomach shooting out the contents of another meal. She fell to the ground, feeling the sharp stones under the palms of her hands. Her breath was short, she was dizzy, a few locks from her hair swayed to and fro and she was forced to tuck those locks behind her ear.

The girl closed her eyes gently, sighing, gathering strength, feeling the wind against her face. She dried the sweat and vomit off her mouth onto the black coat, vowing to just concentrate on her feelings. She did not want that ravine more than she wanted death. She wanted her love, she wanted the boy in the picture, she needed him.

But how could she live without him?

The wind whistled in her ear and her eyes remained closed, her stomach now aching with the empty effect of pain from hungry loathing. Her hands began to shake.

The girl opened her eyes again and saw the evening sky, the sun setting in a million colours. Did she really want to leave this world? In order to show her parents what? That she loved a Jew? What would she do if she failed to kill herself, surviving the fall? End up a basket case, hated by family, pitied by friends, rolling around Jerusalem in a wheelchair?

She tried to stand up, could not, fell, tried again and succeeded. Fumbling about, she attempted a few steps and decided to try to remain calm. Her hair for once not bound together by a scarf, she took out the tiny, guilded mirror that she had bought in an antique store last year from her coat pocket again. She looked at herself. Her lips were full and painted red, her eyes coloured in blue, her cheeks full of rouge upon nougat brown skin. If it had not been for the contents of the stomach emptied making her look haggard and worn, this was a woman that most men would be proud to call their own. But that didn’t hide her panic.

Hate, denial, sadness, desperation: all these feelings circled her soul like a vulture getting ready to eat a corpse. She needed him, she wanted him, he was the love of her life.

Please, she prayed to Allah, Jehova, God or Brahma or whoever was up there, let at least this one time the truth of human existance transcend this ludicrous middle east policy of hatred and conflict. The holy city, she thought, can at least once prove itself righteous.

A hand was gently positioned on her shoulder. The young woman gave out a shriek and turned around. A smile met her countenance, a pair of friendly eyes that spoke of tenderness, marriage and happiness. She embraced the owner of those eyes, felt his steady grip and the soft fabric of his sweater. She felt his clean skin and the smell of a kosher meal just digested. She sensed a long walk up to the hilltop and a very intense quarrel with stubborn older people.

Then she let go of the grip and they put their heads together, thinking about the future, feeling their spirits mingle. The woman opened her eyes and saw her own mother looking at her from a distance. A bit further away, the father of the boy was clutching his cap and crying.

There was a look of pain in all these eyes.

Pain in having realized that a daughter would have killed herself for her love.

Happiness in knowing that the girl had been saved.

“Come, love,” the boy said. “Let us talk.”