Heshmat withdrew from Rebekah’s searing breath. “He’s handsome, yes, take my word. Good-looking, with silver at the temples, most distinguished.” She aimed a meaningful look at Rebekah. “And he has a respectable profession, which is more than I can say for some of us.”

Rebekah touched the glow between her breasts. “How old is he?”

“Oh, come, come, why does that matter? Don’t tell me you really believe she’s some kind of gold dust?” Heshmat hiccupped broken cackles. “Anyway, he’s a butcher, he’ll bring home not only bread, but choice meat, lamb hooves, sweetbreads….”

“How old is he, sweetlove?” Rebekah inched her way to the corner of the room. “I’ve a feeling he’ll need to consume lots of sweetbread to stiffen his own limp meat.” She rested her hands on her hips, pleased at the matchmaker’s livid cheeks.

Heshmat raised the flab of her stomach to let air circulate under the folds. “With a mother like you, what kind of a husband do you expect for your daughter?”

Behind her back, Rebekah clutched a pillow. “His age?” she demanded, all music abandoning her voice.

“He is only sixty-five,” Heshmat croaked, her eyes rounding. “If your daughter is woman enough, shell easily produce sons.”

The pillow came down on Heshmat’s head, sending dust around her startled face and filling the room with the smell of her armpits. She raised her hands to ward off the second, the third, the fourth blow.

Rebekah turned to the matchmaker’s husband. “Please remove this woman from my home!”

8

Heshmat the Matchmaker’s rumors spread in every corner of the mud houses, the fly-infested bazaar, and the humid baths: “Rebekah killed her husband with the same iron-stuffed pillow she hit me with. The blows reduced his brain to pulp. She buried his body in the stable where she houses her spitting buffoon-ass, who consumes wine instead of water.”

Calling upon others to condemn Rebekah, Heshmat went from house to house and hissed, “What do you expect of a woman who defeated the Devil and wears sprigs of mint to endure the stink of her shame?”

Old memories emerged from the labyrinths of the past, and the inhabitants of the Jewish Quarter relived the incident of Jacob’s death, which at the time, in fear of contracting the plague, they had conveniently ignored and eventually filed away.

Now, years later, in hope of absolution, and with the aid of the matchmaker, they seized the chance to prove that the true sinner was Rebekah. Heshmat had unearthed Rebekah’s secret, at last. Why would any man in his right mind wish to be buried in his own backyard? A whore who experienced no guilt and defiled young boys was certainly capable of murder.

The merchants approached Rebekah only to ask for the price she would pay for their fabrics. Her Jewish customers sneaked in through the back. To spite them, Muslims made a point of entering from the front door. Young boys came to her disguised as girls.