The Girl from the Garden Read Online Free

of an old woman, and snatches newborns from their mothers’ breasts. Inside the womb, she takes the form of a fish,swims in your belly, and eats the baby before it even has a heartbeat.”
    “Can you help me?” Rakhel said. “Can you get her out of me?”
    “I’ll see what I can do, child.” Naneh Adeh stared at the mosaic on the wall for a few moments, nodding her head. Then she turned to Rakhel and said, “Meet me in three days after the noon azan, by the women’s entrance to the synagogue. Go, now, cleanse your body in the rainwater below, and empty your heart, too, of its longing, so that you can begin your month in a state of purity.”
    Rakhel clasped the old woman’s hands in her own.
    “The want of the heart is a powerful force, child,” the old woman said and patted Rakhel’s hand before motioning with her head for Rakhel to go.
    Rakhel turned to descend the stone steps to the dark waters of the pool beneath the ground. Naneh Adeh reached out and touched Rakhel’s shoulder. “Though sometimes, daughter, no amount of desire, no potions or prayers or amulets, however strong, can change one’s qesmat . I will try to help you, but the rest is the will of G-d.”
    The stone steps were cold and damp. Rakhel placed one foot down, searched with her toes for the ledge, then brought down the other foot, stood firmly with both feet beside each other, her hands clutching the walls on either side of the stairwell, before her foot ventured out again in search of the next step down. The miqveh was dimly lit, and the farther she descended, the harder she strained her eyes tomake out the shape of the hole in the earth filled with dark rainwater. There are no djinns in a holy place, she reminded herself. No djinns waiting in the shadows to pull me under the water and hold me down . When she reached the pool’s edge, she hesitated. Her skin became her eyes, the tiny hairs of her thin arms and back rose, she felt the air for motion, for a slight change in the temperature, she listened to the drip, drip of water, her own heart pounding in her ears. Then, she lifted her foot and touched the dark surface of the pool with her toe as she whispered the prayer for purification, Baruch atah Hashem, allowed her foot to find the submerged step, placed one foot down firmly, there were no more walls to hold on to, her arms stretched out for balance, Elokeinu Melech Ha’Olam, she brought down her other foot and her ankles now below the surface asher kidshanu , her knees now below the surface b’mitzvotav, her thighs, her slender hips v’tzivanu, she folded in her arms to hold her small breasts, her nipples taut, the water to her neck al ha-tevila and then, darkness, no breath.
    She emerged with a gasp, water streaming from her face and hair. She hurried out of the pool, knelt beside it, the skin of her knees against the smooth stone. “Lord, grant me a child,” she whispered to the dark water. “Please, grant me a child. A son, Lord. If only a son, so that my husband will be pleased with me. So that I, too, can have a place in his home. Please, Lord, I must have a baby.” Rakhel sat on the ground, clutched her knees to her chest, and raised her eyes to the darkness above. “If You are there, if You can hear me . . .”Her voice a hoarse whisper, commanding now rather than pleading, she rose to her knees again, her body erect, moving back and forth. “Grant me a son. Like the miracles they say You perform. It is all I ask. It is all I will ever ask of You.”
    “Rakhel Khanum, who are you speaking with down there?” Naneh Adeh’s voice rang down the stairwell and filled the empty space between the walls. “Hurry, there are other women waiting for their turn.”
    “No one, Naneh Adah, I’m just praying. I’m on my way up.” She cupped water in her hands, splashed her face, and quickly clamored up the stairs toward the light.
    Three nights passed after her meeting with Naneh Adeh and each of those nights, Rakhel lay