Judges' general comments can be found at the bottom of this entry

The First to Know

By Paul A. Barra

Post Office Box 246

Reidville, SC 29375

1565 words

She rolled off, leaving him stiff and smiling. She brought her knees to her nipples and fell asleep on her side.

Phinhas was still smiling when he left for his shop the next morning. She smiled too, almost to herself, at the pleasure she had given him, but then the darkness eased back into her soul as her man swung down the lane to work. She got through the early hours cleaning house and decided to fetch water before the full heat of day struck. Most of the other women who had to get their own daily water had already been to the well. She sighed, hefted the amphora and went out.

A few people nodded to her as she walked slowly out of town, with her head up and the jug balanced on one shoulder. She was glad no one spoke to her because she didn’t really want to dispel the blue miasma that cushioned her from the outside world. As she neared her destination, however, she felt her mood lighten in spite of herself. The change was inexplicable. Jacob’s Well, a fount of gossip as well as cool water, was no favorite place of hers; she had little reason to feel somehow less burdened as she came near to it on this day. She couldn’t explain it, but the depression that sat on her most days now seemed less of a weight suddenly.

It was a pleasant enough area she entered, the ground around the actual well packed smooth from the weight of thousands of footsteps over the centuries and rimmed by a thicket of cedar trees. Women liked to talk in the fragrant shade and men stopped by on their way back from a task to quench their thirst and offer some riposte to the gathering. If it was not the center of town, it was at least a convenient place for social intercourse when the sun was low in the heavens. No one normally came near the noon hour as she did, a social outcast. Everyone needed the life-giving blessing of water. And almost everyone needed some sort of communion with others of her kind. She just wasn’t sure if the other women at the well were her kind.

They were all Samaritans, of course, God-fearing Semites with a common culture and ancestry, descended from the northern tribes of Israel. And her lineage was as blooded as any of theirs, fused to the great Joshua by a direct paternal link. But her life set her apart from the type. She liked men – there was no sense trying to dissemble, not to herself – and she liked variety. Although she admitted that she was happy in her union with Phinhas, she knew from past experiences that she would someday yearn for another. That would end their relationship, if not her life. The thought darkened her face again.

As she crested a slight rise she could see the well itself, a round hole gouged out of the ground and roughly plastered as it descended for ten meters into the hard earth. An ancient rock wall surrounded the pit. She realized as she approached that she was not going to have the place to herself after all. Someone was sitting in the shade.

She ignored the man as she slung the jar from her shoulder, grateful she didn’t have to try speaking at that moment. A frisson of anxiety had tightened her stomach when she passed close enough to see him clearly. He was a Jew. And probably a rabbi, from the look of his tunic. Lord above, she did not want to be harassed by a superiority attitude. Not just then. She had enough on her mind that morning.

“Will you be kind enough to bring me a drink of water, woman?”

His voice carried well, but it was soft and did not threaten her in its timbre. Still, she had learned the hard way what to expect from Jewish men and she was not about to take any verbal abuse from one.

“You don’t mind taking water from the hand of a Samaritan, sire?”

He smiled with a flash of white from the browned face. And he actually chuckled. “Your tongue is as sharp as your mind.”

“What do you know about my mind?”

“I know more than you think.”

She spun around to face him. Was he an agent from one of her ex-husbands, one of those bastards who kicked her out because she didn’t deliver up a son?

“Who are you?”

“Water, please.”

She banked her anger, decided to be civil in the presence of a stranger, even if he came from Judea. She brought over the ladle that she and Phinhas drank from. She knew no Jew would drink from a common Samaritan cup, but it was all she had. When he took it and drank, she was suddenly not surprised. He didn’t seem to drink hurriedly and he spilled nothing, but the ladle came back empty. A feeling was growing in her that this character was different from anyone she’d ever met. Still, he was a Jew.

“You’re welcome.”

“Thank you. But you should be asking me for water, for I am a gift from God….”

“I am no less.”

“True enough. But I would give you living water.”

“How are you going to give me any water? You don’t even have a bucket and this cistern is deep. Sire.”

She didn’t know why she was being so snippy. She wanted to talk more with this person, not drive him away with her vitriol. She knew intuitively that he was a holy man, by the way he looked at her and spoke. But she was provoked for some reason. Maybe because he didn’t respond to her barbs.

“Where will you get this living water you could give me? Our father Jacob took water from this very well and I’d guess he did it every day. Are you telling me you’re greater than Jacob?”

“You and your friends in Sychar….”

She sniffed.

“… drink this water every day also, but you are still thirsty. The water I give wells up from a spring of eternal life. Drink it and you will never again be thirsty.”

“Well, then, I’ll take some. I’m tired of coming to this gossip grove every day.”

“Go get your husband and come back here.”

“You know damned well I don’t have a husband,” she shouted. How would he know? He was a complete stranger. Yet he knew, she was sure of it.

“You have five husbands.”

She wanted to tell him how they threw her out, one after the other, because she couldn’t bear children and because, she felt compelled to tell him, that she enjoyed sex, even after their family dreams faded with the flat lines of her barren belly. She didn’t want to gloss over her sins. She wanted to bare her soul to this rabbi, instead of her body. She was dead certain, though, that she didn’t have to confess to him, that he already knew. What was happening to her? How could this man suck the truth from her so easily?

“Who are you?”

“Who do you think I am?”

“A prophet, surely.”

He nodded at the compliment. He didn’t deny that he was a prophet. Instead, he spoke about the animus between Samaritan and Jew, the one believing the holy place was there at Mt. Gerizim, the other in Jerusalem. In truth it didn’t matter, he said, where you worship, as long as you worship God.

“So, what do you believe?” he asked.

She knew the question, slipped softly into the conversation, was critical. She felt that her very existence was at stake. She didn’t want to trot out the litany of Samaritan beliefs. He knew those. Knew she believed. She might be poor, she might be sinful. She might even be female. But she was a believer – and he knew that.

Then, like a flash of brilliant white light, the thought struck her and she blurted out: “I believe in the Messiah, the anointed one who is to come.”

He said, quietly and calmly: “I am he, the one speaking to you.”

It was an outrageous statement. This man, without a donkey to ride or a bucket to draw water, violating all norms of conduct by speaking with a lone woman in private, was telling her, the person even lower in status than the blind boy in town, that he was the Messiah. Outrageous. Ludicrous. Laughable.

But why wasn’t she laughing? Why wasn’t she outraged? Why, in God’s name, did she want to believe him?

She could smell the tang of cedar resin on the hot, still air. But the day had gone almost hazy; she was somewhere else. She was in a place where this gentle creature spoke the simple truth, in a place where hope surged in her chest. In a place where her sins, her shortcomings, didn’t matter so much any more. She was literally spellbound.

She blinked her eyes and fought to recover some semblance of reality. Her mind returned from where it had been, and with it her sarcasm.

“You’re a nice man, rabbi, but you’re going to end up in the sheriff’s cellar if you go around telling people you’re God.”

“I have told no one else. You are the first to know.”

Judges' general comments:

This is a lovely piece. The perspective is new and fresh—thought provoking—as we get a feel for this popular Biblical story from a woman’s point of view.

Nice ingenuity!

Paul's strengths are definitely his crisp visuals created by playing up on sensory details, his creative slant, and his ability to bring your character to life. Very nice.

Our suggestions for improving the piece further still include combing this piece for words not appropriate to the time period (i.e. masma, snippy, vitriol, agent, sheriff, etc.). These words are either too new for the time period of the story or they would not have been used in Israel at that time period. (This is always the trickiest part in making historical fiction really work—getting the vernacular to be as true as possible).

We would also like to see more character development earlier so we can understand why she feels so angry/anti-social towards the local woman (the men we understand—you explain that well, but the women, why???).

All in all, though, Paul has really captured the heart of a classic tale, and he's twisted it in such a way to make it a very exciting read.

Very nice work!