"Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement.
Properly understood and applied,
it is the most potent instrument of action. "
-Mahatma Gandhi *

Rudheseim, Germany
1547 AD

1:25 AM
Her lips mumbled a she recited the verses from the Torah. Her head humbly rocked back and forth. A grey scarf covering her head symbolized her modesty. If you looked closely at her lips, you'd notice that they were shivering. She gasped with a start as the door to the house slammed open. The man standing at the door wiped his nose. "Fucking rain." he said. He had a dark bottle on his hand. He staggered into the room and slammed the rum bottle on the table. Her shivering became worse as he started walking towards her. The book shivered with her. The man grabbed the book from her hands. "You reading this again? Huh." He threw the book back at her. "When you find God in there, tell him to give us some money. We're poor." She stuttered: "M... Maybe if you didn't spend all our food money on your drinking, maybe we'll have money."

He laughed then pointed a finger at her: "Woman. If I didn't get drunk to forget your ugly face, I would've left you a long time ago. So be thankful that I drink." A tear trickled down her face. But it wasn't because she was hurt over what he said, but it was because she couldn't understand how a human being could be born without any feelings.

As she stood up she heard a child's laugh outside. She gasped as she turned around. Her battered black eyes looked outside towards the darkness of the night (one of her eyes was permanently purple from so much beating). "I... Isaac?" she reached her hands towards the wooden window to open it. "What did you say?" The man said angrily. "Nothing! I didn't say anything!" She insisted. He stood up and started walking towards her: "Haven't I TOLD you to NEVER EVER say that name in this house again?" He walked towards her then swung his hand in the air. The fact that he was drunk impaired his aim so he only merely hit her head lightly as she crouched in fear. She whimpered. "I'm sorry, please don't beat me again."

He grabbed her face then looked deep into her eyes: "You know, the only reason I married you is because your father was rich. If I knew that old bastard (God rest his soul) was going to go bankrupt I wouldn't have even THOUGHT of marrying you. You ugly whore." he let go of her and walked away, leaving her alone to cry in the corner.

How a person like her could take so much suffering in those five long years was in itself a miracle. She cried and started remembering her wedding. Remembered how Moshe said he loved her and how he wanted to make them have many children and become the best Jewish family in Germany. She remembered how the merchant ship burned between Greece to Italy, and how the thousands of Deutschemarks were lost and the family business went under. And it didn't help that Moshe worked for her father either. That was the same year that Isaac was born, and Moshe became an alcoholic. Four years later, while in a drunken fight with her over giving the son up for adoption, he beat her unconscious. When she came to, that's when her son had disappeared. She asked him where their son was, he said that he ran away when he saw her unconscious and thought she was dead. He said that he tried to run after him but couldn't catch up. But he told her not to worry. "He'll be back." So she believed, and still does. And every time she hears a child's voice. She thinks it's Isaac's. And every time she called out his name, for some reason Moshe would get furious and he'll go into a fit. But that doesn't stop her from hoping. If only she knew that her absolution would never be.

3:00 AM
"Ammah!" The woman heard as she woke up. She didn't realize she had cried herself to sleep. She looked up and slowly got to her feet. She may be stripped off all of her humanity, but at least she still had her mother's instincts. And it told her that whoever had called out to her was her son. "Ammah!" She heard again. A tear trickled down her face as she unconsciously said Isaac's name again. She turned around in fear, expecting a fist to punch her face. But Moshe's snoring relaxed her.

She opened the wooden window and looked out. The rain was pouring hard. It made it really hard to see, as if the darkness wasn't bad enough in itself. She looked on and saw a child smiling at her. The child waved his hand and he giggled. Her tear ducts gave in and the tears started flowing at will. "Isaac" she said, each letter came out shaken; this time it was different, they were shaken with happiness. She smiled. The boy motioned for her to come out. She tiptoed to the door. She didn't want to wake Moshe up, as hard as it was for her to believe, she knew he wouldn't. She was going to go bring him home; maybe then Moshe will feel better. She thought to herself quietly as she secured her veil. She put her shoes on, grabbed an umbrella and opened the door. "Wait, I'm coming baby." she whispered, hoping little Isaac would hear.

She slowly closed the door then ran outside, not minding the downpour. She went to the spot where he was standing. "Isaac? Where did you go?" She smiled, thinking he was playing hide and seek; his favorite game. "Isaac, don't hide from Amma." She stood there and waited. "Isaac?" her smile turned to a frown. Did she lose him again? "Isaac. Please come to me. Please." she didn't know what to do or where to go. She just waited. Maybe he'll come back.

Minutes passed like hours. No, it was an hour, that's how long she just stood there; her mind was too numb to think anything. In a way she felt stupid. What if it was true what Moshe always told her, that she was born stupid? She looked back at her house and hesitated to walk back; Moshe was the least of her worries at the moment. Her son meant the world to her. And she wanted him back so bad. No matter what it takes.

She gasped as she heard an angry German voice: "It's MINE! I FOUND IT!". There was a push and a scuffle. She strained to look and saw two German thieves fighting. One of them held a large brown disc. The other man punched the first and the disc flew out of his hand. It rolled towards her. The two men stopped and looked at her. The disc rolled and came to a stop at her feet. The rain stopped.

She looked at the disc. It was a large round dirty-copper dish with two intertwining triangles engraved on it; a hexagram symbol. One of the Germans hit the other. "Hey look, a Jew." They started walking towards her. "What, you're going to steal our... Round thing?" She shook her head: "No. I am out here to look for..." The door to her house slammed open: "RAHAB! WHERE DID YOU GO?!" She relaxed as she heard his voice; the wife beater was now her savior. He started walking towards her "What the hell?" he shouted as he noticed the two men with her.

She stepped back as one of them jumped towards the disc and pulled it. "Damn.. It's stuck." he struggled with it as his fingers tried to grip the edges but it wouldn't budge. "What are you doing?" Moshe shouted as he started running towards the two men. "Just leave it, man, just LEAVE IT!" the thieves took off. She smiled at him. "What are you doing out here woman? Explain yourself." She stuttered as the words came out too fast: "I saw him... I saw him! He called out to me! I know his voice!"

"Who?" her husband asked. "Isaac!!" She said; a big smile removed the plastered ugliness that was imposed on her face. He grinded his teeth and clenched his fists.
"That name again. You'll never learn will you?" He punched her. She didn't feel the fall and didn't know what side of her body she fell on. All she knew was that one moment she had hopes high up, the next they were on the ground with her. A line of blood trickled from her lip and swam in the shallow pool of rain water. The man's eyebrows twitched.

"I killed him." he said suddenly as Rahab tried to sit up.
Rahab's eyes widened in horror. She stopped breathing, or at least she couldn't feel herself breathing. "When I beat you until you fainted, he ran towards you crying and the four year old child told me that I was going to go to hell. That's when I lost it. I beat him. But his little body couldn't take it. I killed him, Rahab. Your drunken fool of a husband... Killed our son." Rahab couldn't believe this. She's been waiting for a dead child to come back for one whole year. "When I realized what I had done..." Moshe was wheezing, he was having an asthmatic attack but he didn't bother to do anything about it, let alone relax. "I took the boy, placed him in a garbage bag then walked to the Rhine and dumped him into the river. I didn't know what else to do... I was... Too scared." He said.

She wept. "No......." Her eyes shut so tightly she thought she was going to go blind. "NNOOO!!!" Her shout rattled a sign that hung on top of the inn next to where she lay. Moshe stepped back. She took one deep teary breath and clutched her shirt. "Beni!!!" she screamed as she called out to a person that ceased to exist a long time ago. "And my prayers?" she thought. "All those prayers to God asking him to bring my son back to me."

She said aloud as she grinded her teeth: "For what? To find out I was praying for nothing? God, right now, there's nothing I hate more than you." Moshe shuddered: "Calm yourself... Rahab? Rahab?" She turned around and gazed at Moshe. To him, her piercing eyes felt like a spear that struck straight through his heart. He gulped. "And You... You killed the only thing I've ever loved in my whole life." She looked at him with a witch's frown.

The only thing that registered in her mind now was: "KILL! KILL!" Suddenly she looked at the disc and quickly crawled towards it. As she grabbed it, Moshe stepped back: "Wh... What are you doing?" She stood up with the disc, intending to beat him with it, but instead, it slipped out of her hands and slashed through Moshe's neck. His eyes widened. She stood there perplexed. It happened too fast for her to comprehend. She looked at her hands with her teary eyes and mouth wide open. He drooped his hands as his eyes slowly shut. He fell on his knees and the head detached from the body. Rahab screamed.

(Continued....)

* (From The Book of Positive Quotations by John Cook)