You’d find her either in her home, at the temple praying, or in front of Ervin’s grocery store, on the large square at the lower end of Steepen Road, three and half meters left of the door, with her loins leaning against the edge of the shallow ledge. Few had ever seen her at a different place and all such merry incidents happened when she was on the way to one or the other.
Rarely she accepted guests and even rarer she was heard speaking to someone. A strange trait for a professional beggar who was in the business since the untimely, unexpected and saddening loss of her husband, who didn’t die but disappeared, and whose whereabouts are to be revealed soon, she, with her bent back, not only of countless winters she saw but also of her disease, didn’t need to talk much either. Her eyes were always watching the ground — just as she didn’t talk, she didn’t ask for alms with her eyes either. It was not pride, neither it was shame. She was tired, all and simply tired of her existence. Had the priest not convinced her many years ago that committing suicide was the gravest of sins, even graver than murder, she’d have thrown herself from the city walls a hundred times already but, alas, seemed like gods would be so upset in the case.
That’s what she was praying for at the temple, which she visited on the way to and from her work, all the time. Half of her earnings, even on the least generous day, was repaid to gods. “Another wicked morn I’ve seen, may the last of ’em tis be” she prayed in the morning. “Take me and free me from this prison. I paid my bail, now is your turn” she prayed in the evening. You know how gods work: They know even what we think. “Damned gods” she said each morning as she woke up to a new day. “They surely enjoy watching me suffer”. Much she tried not to swear at them but how could she hide her feelings from herself?
Not easy to see in her deeply wrinkled face, but once she was one of the most desired women in Sval. Barely five feet tall and hardly reaching forty kilograms at the height of her beauty, how come did this rectangular faced girl charmed maybe each and every single male in the city was unknown not only to the women but also to those that fell for her. Her tricks were simple, though: She courted all but dated none, and her small breasts were always halfway “in the public” as she liked to say back then, switching the focus from anywhere to where she preferred. Now having her back bent almost ninety degrees was the penance for this far past she thought at times, yet neither am a prophet nor I know one to ask gods if this is the case.
Why did she get married? And how, then? It’s not an exciting story, and is one you’re well used to hear: She had a heart as did his lovers. She chose one when she turned seventeen, the husband, whose name is unimportant for our story had already chosen her, among four alternatives, and the two, with a not-so-modest wedding at the Temple of Erienna, the hunter goddess, united their lives.
It was an ordinary marriage. The husband was a hunter, away from not only the house but also the city half the time, and Emma, against her tiny stature and seemingly weak arms, was the butcher at times, and the cook in the others. This meaty relationship, sadly, didn’t bear any fruits. Emma believed that she was the barren one, and accepted her fate even though she could kill not only animals but also humans to have at least one of her own. Her back pains started soon after realising this, when she was twenty and it took another twenty years till she could raise her back no more.
Her husband, I said. He left home the next day when word reached him that a guy in Anassia might have been his child. The mother claimed to have slept with a hunter from the city many years ago, and this “ugly bastard” was the product of his seed. Excited, hardly he made the morning and left to meet his son, even late in life, for the first time. Indeed, the guy was his son and even better, four other children appeared out of nowhere claiming to carry his blood. A father late in life, the husband was filled with joy but, alas, this didn’t last long. “Mom suffered because of you, so did I” thought his eldest son, took him out to hunting, and the man, as he faked just two months ago, was killed, buried, and forgotten.
Rather strangely, as courting as a maiden in her youth, never did she think, even for a moment, cheating on her husband. She was as loyal as a dog, maybe even more so than their own. She wasn’t an angel, neither she was a devil with the others. She was a human, with good traits in one hand, and the bad in the other. She was liked by some, disliked by some others, secretly admired by few in her younger age and, most importantly, not cared about by a vast amount. Insignificance is a weapon most of us carry. Oft times it aids us and when it doesn’t, it’s a huge blow. Emma was an insignificant woman except her bent back, was one among the many – like the leaves on a tree: Each is beautiful, each is important, but we see the tree, not the leaves.
First the remaining game meat was sold, then the tools, in the end everything else including her clothes except two, the tables, and the chest. When nothing was left, and hunger pressed so heavily, she had to hit the street. Then, then you know what has been for over three decades: She goes to sleep hoping gods will claim her in the end, and wakes up with disappointment. Her long whitened cotton candy hair, sunburnt brown skin, and greyed out eyes remain fixture of the square, as if she always was, is, and will be.
