Forty-One Paces from God
Catch-up service:
Long Odds - A sinister story set in an other-worldly bookmakers
“This is the closest any modern person can get to the Holy of Holies. Forty-one paces that way. Bullseye.” Shoshana indicated a pathway through impassable rock. “Walk through there and you’re in God’s heartbeat. The centre of it all. In there,” another flourish as she revelled in her self-appointed role as both tour guide and biblical scholar" “you’re as close to angelic as any human can get.”
Rivkah gawped. Her eyes and mouth formed three cavernous ‘O’ shapes, prised open by each new revelation.
“Let’s get closer to God.”
“What? How?”
Shoshana reached inside the deep pocket of her navy blue dress and pulled out a wooden mallet and a chisel.
“You can’t…you won’t manage…”
Shoshana had already begun hammering at the face of the limestone rock.
“Why not? Why did the excavators stop here?”
A flinty hunger sparkled in her eyes. The picollo chirrup of chisel against stone bounced around the nook where the two girls hid. Rivkah crouched, her head swivelling east and west to watch out for intruders. Shoshana thumped at the rock, each blow struck with the righteousness of adolescence.
“Stop,” Rivkah whispered. The metronomic beats of the mallet persisted. “Stop,” her hand rested on Shoshanah’s as it sprang back, primed for another blow. “Please. This is not right.”
“What’s right is that we’re told about this Holy of Holies, told that it’s close to us and that no one is brave enough to look for it.” She stuck out her jaw. “Except me.”
Rivkah grasped the other girl’s wrist. “This isn’t right. You brought me down here…we came down here…I wanted to explore with you.”
“This is exploration.”
“It’s vandalism.”
The mallet rose.
“Please.” Rivkah moved her hand from Shoshana’s wrist to her chin, pivoting the taller girl’s head towards her. “I don’t like it. Can we just enjoy the silence and the dark?”
“You’re a little cave bat aren’t you? Nestle into your belfrey and stay put.”
“Forty-one paces from God is close enough for me.”
“It shouldn’t be. We’re the Divine Feminine,” Shoshana wielded the phrase with naive brutality, enjoying its powerful effect on her friend “so it follows that we should have access to the divine.”
“Was it not enough when we broke into shul to look at the Torah scrolls in the aron hakodesh?”
“No. That was a preparatory mission. I’m reclaiming what’s ours.” She began hammering again. “If Hashem wants to hide away behind some rock or doesn’t think He’s good enough for a pair of girls He can stop us.”
Rivkah thumbed one of the buttons on her cardigan, flicking it back and forth at many times the speed of Shoshana’s strokes. Her thumb stoppped.
“No, I can’t let you do this.”
She pushed Shoshana out of the way and stood in front of the rock.
“Rivkah, what are you doing?”
“Getting in your way.”
“Stop it. Move.”
“You’ll have to hammer through me.”
“Quite the little martyr now.” The words were melodramatic, but Shoshana moved her strokes to the side of Rivkah’s head. “Do you not want to get closer? We daven. We light candles. We’re obedient daughters and one day will be…will be…none of it feels divine. It feels human. Earthly. We both agreed.”
“We both agreed that exploring together is fun. I don’t want to be blasphemous.”
“Is it blasphemy to want to discover God?”
“It is when the path to him is faith. This is Babel.”
Shoshana laughed.
“They didn’t use tunnels at Babel.”
“No foundations. That’s why it fell down.”
“It fell down because Hashem didn’t want to be discovered.”
“It fell down because it was built by humans.”
The mallet clattered to the ground.
“I want to touch the divine.” Shoshana’s voice was small.
“Arguing with your friend isn’t going to take you there.” Rivkah sought Shoshana’s gaze. “I like coming down here with you. Hiding. Sharing gossip and stories. But that’s all it is, a little secret hidey hole.”
“You shouldn’t have come with.”
“I wanted to see.”
“To see what?”
“What my father and brother get so worked up about.”
“Can you feel anything?”
“It’s cold. A bit damp.”
Shoshana struck the mallet flat against the rock. It made a slapping, rubbery sound.
“Not that. There’s nothing here. Cold stone underneath cold stone.”
"That’s not true.” Rivkah struggled to pluck the correct words. “It’s not…” She moved aside, palms open in a pose of surrender.
Shoshana weighed the mallet. It was large in her slender, pale hands and seemed to hum with a daring sense of purpose. Positioning the chisel back on her favoured spot she found her rhythm, polite taps escalating to workmanlike thwacks of wood upon metal. Renewed hammering reverberated around the chamber, spreading a nullifying blanket over the other sounds, sharpening the girls’ focus towards the point of the chisel and away from their anxieties and disagreement. Had they been more aware they would have noticed the broadening null of silence, the cold dulled, the thrum of the outside world dampened. Their whole universe condensed into rock, mallet and chisel.
“Shoshana. Look. The rock is…”
“Bleeding.”
Snaking from the tip of the chisel, a vermillion streak flowed, browning as it thinned towards the end of the trail. Shoshana could not resist the compulsion to keep hammering, the chisel biting into the wounded stone. Twizzeling the tool up and down she was able to manoeuvre a portion of the stone away. Still the blood flowed. Flashing a zealous grin at her friend, she placed a thumb over the spot. She could not staunch the flow. Blood oozed around it. A river undammed.
Shoashana peeled her thumb away and examined her fingerprint, the whorls on the finger pad stained red. It look irresistible. She placed her thumb in her mouth and sucked.
“Honey. Metal. And honey…”
Rivkah’s lips trembled, a warbling noise flew from her lips. Shoshana tasted another thumbful. Then four fingers swiped across the wound, pawing the sweet blood into her mouth. She placed her lips to the cold limestone, suckling like a newborn lamb. Eventually she turned to her friend, lips and teeth stained like a predator, canines tipped with crimson.
“Rivkah. Drink.”
The smaller girl felt the gyre of indecision skirling inside her. She was a follower. She had followed Shoshana here. Followed her into thieving the tools. She would do as instructed. Her lips met the rock. Syrupy crimson ambrosia lit up her throat. Her belly glowed. Peeping out of the side of her vision she saw Shoshana alongside her. She was beautiful. Perfect. Angelic.
Rivkah took a step back and tipped Shoshana’s chin with her finger, this time inclining it towards her. There was resistance - not from modesty or disapproval, just a desire to resolve the feeling of lacking that came from not drinking more of the blood on offer - until Shoshana bent down to let herself be kissed on the lips, warmed by Rivkah’s internal flame. Overwhelmed, they found solace, understanding, tenderness and forgiveness in each other. The embrace ended, both girls falling away as though a force of magnetism had been terminated.
The sounds of the world rushed back. Rivkah picked up the mallet and the chisel, handing them back to Shoshana, waiting for her to continue. The taller girl made to strike at the stone, but stopped as she saw that it remained without blemish. Cocking her head she ran her fingers over the stippled surface of the stone to find her mark. It was untouched. Rivkah’s eyes met hers, unable to form the questioning words.
Their silence was answered by an earnest nod and questing eyes. Rivkah cupped Shoshana’s cheek, placed the tips of her fingers on her lips and made a curtsey. Taking her hand she led her friend out of the cave, past snoring rebbes, late night devotees and soldliers in khaki standing guard with assault rifles. They ran from the Wall, clasped together, Shoshana with a mallet in one hand, Rivkah holding a chisel, both stained with a speck of blood.