I’m not sure how long it’s been now. I lost track, sleeping in the first cell. There, I curled up in a ball near ten or twelve other women held there, in the dark, small chamber suited for four or at most five. I won’t tell you of the indignity and humiliation afforded us just to use the one toilet, or of the guards who leered at us and made obscene comments and gestures. If any of us dared to even whisper, the guards came in and hit her, sometimes a slap on the face, sometimes a fist to the belly. When they came in, they managed also to touch us on our breasts or bottoms, as many as they could on their way to the offender. We learned quickly to keep silent.

And so, we never learned each other’s names. I am Hannah! I want to scream, but the threat of these brutish men guarding us prevent me from even whispering my name when I am with these sisters of mine. I think it was on the third night that the guards, smelling of sweat and lust, came in and pulled two women out. They screamed as the guards grabbed them, but shut up when punched in the mouth—both of them, as if the guards decided beforehand that this is what they would do. Later we heard screaming from down the hall, and tears, then, again, silence. The women did not return.

The next day, three official-looking men dressed in clerical garb, one like a Christian priest, one like a Muslim Imam, one like an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi. They spoke in quiet voices to the guards. They entered our cell, with two of the guards protecting them, and looked around. Each spoke one name, and a woman stepped forward, answering to each name when the guards gestured that they should respond. The women followed the men out meekly, without even glancing back to those of us remaining in the cell. I noticed that all of my sister inmates gazed at their toes, and seeing the guards begin to survey us, I, too, glued my eyes to my feet.


That night, three of us, including me, were taken out by the guards. I don’t know what happened to the others, but I was taken to an interrogation room. It smelled of blood, I swear. They handcuffed me to the arms of a battered chair, facing a grimy table. There were no windows, not even a peephole on the door. Across from me sat the man who had come earlier, dressed as a Rabbi. He sat on a chair with a sheet spread over it, to protect his clothes from the layers of human filth on it.

“Daughter, if you renounce your so-called husband and agree to live by the Law of G-d, I will be in a position to welcome you back to your Faith. With your making Tshuva, after a year of observing the Law and living with a Halakhic family, I will arrange a marriage for you with an appropriate Jewish husband.”

“Why should I give up the marriage I have, when my husband has been good to me and loving?”

“He is not one of us, daughter. Listen, you must come to realize that HaShem’s plan unfolds. In our time we may even see the Meshiac. This is the truth that Jack Goodfellow and Gentle Robin have led us to see, as the Faiths of Abraham join together in True Belief.”

“Who are Jack and Jill to me,” I responded disrespectfully.

I had heard of this Jack and Robin, man and wife it was said, who had gone on a mission to show the Fabulous Fools that the Fundamentalist Faiths had more in common with each other than they did with secular society, and that they could gain political and social power by banding together. Islamic Revolutionaries, Christian Missionaries, and Jewish Haredis all joined this movement with surprising speed.

“I understand that your experience here in these past weeks has made you bitter,” the Rabbi pronounced with a deep look meant to convey empathy. Weeks? I thought. No, days. It could only have been long, horrible days, not weeks. “Still, you must learn to see the truth the King places before your eyes. If you do not renounce your relationship of the past, there will be no redemption for you. If you do, and show your faith by following the Law of the King of the Heavens, then All of Creation could be yours.”

“And why do you care?”

The Rabbi looked up, as though seeking guidance from G-d above. After gathering the strands of his web, he continued his story for me: “HaShem cares, dear daughter, for all of his Chosen People. You are Chosen, but also given Free Will. You turned away from the King, but in His Mercy, He provides you a chance to return.”

I was about to spit in his face, when he continued, “And this is a unique chance for you to find not only Grace in the World that is Coming, but also grace in this world. Jack Goodfellow and Gentle Robin will visit our little country soon. They wish to celebrate with us the Divine Wonder of the rise of The Federation of Theocratic Governments here, and the embrace of our people of the Justice of HaShem, the One G-d of Abraham.”

“Your Jack and Jill will fetch a pail of water, but we all know what happens next.”

“Daughter, your bitterness saddens me,” said the Rabbi, putting on his sad and empathic faces together. “This is an opportunity for you. They want to show the Benevolence of Our Creator by embracing the Return of Lost Sheep. I have reviewed the cases of each of the women held here. The others are not as deserving of you of this Grace of the Lord. Please, daughter, take this opportunity, for the sake of Jacob our Patriarch, and for the sake of Jacob your father, whom I knew.”

“Who are you to broach my father’s name?” I spit out, startled.

“Your father, although he did not observe Halakha as it should be observed, was still a good man and a Jew. He helped me out once, and now I seek to repay the favor. I can help you.”

“If you seek to help me, then allow me to stay with  my husband.”

“That is not possible. I have not wanted to say this,” he paused a moment, looking pained at the revelation he’d clearly been savoring as his ace up his sleeve. “It is not at all clear that your husband will be allowed to live. He is most recalcitrant, and argues endlessly with all who would talk sense to him. He fights, and spits, and blasphemes the Name while denigrating the Holy Men who would help him. I’m afraid the Evil Urge has taken over his soul, no doubt with the Evil One fanning the flames of rage. I  cannot intervene in his case, even if it were possible. He is without a faith, a product of interfaith marriage, and so without a place in this world or the World that is Coming. Do not insist on living his life, for then yours, too, would be painfully short.”

Despite his mask of sympathy and support, his eyes sparked with an indignity I could feel piercing into me. No veil covered his threat.

“You would have me say that, rather than acknowledge living in a loving relationship, sanctified by our families and community, I should confess to having lived a lie, a sin, and ask to return to…what? You?”

“Daughter, I’m offering you my protection. That is all I can do.” He looked up at the guard standing inside the door. “I will return to hear her answer.” They exchanged a look that left me frozen inside, paralyzed, recalling the screams of women taken from our cell over time.

However, I was not beaten or even touched intimately by the guard. He took my arm, almost gently, although with enough of a grasp to make his strength clear, and led me down the hall away from the cell. He put me here, in this room, where I sit on my bed. My knees hit the wall opposite the one that the bed is along. The door opens out from the foot of the bed. The wall at the head of the bed has a small window, barred, high up. The room is only long enough for the bed, a bit wider. There is a chamber pot under the bed, which another prisoner comes to empty every so often.


I don’t know how long I’ve been here—the light of a day in the window flashes by, while the dark night takes an eternity. Perhaps I have been here a week. Perhaps a month, as there has been blood in the chamber pot. Not two months, though. Not yet. A crow sometimes pokes its curious head through the bars, its brown body barely visible behind its black head, covered in part as it is by its black wings. I have asked it for news, but it does not answer. What is the world outside of this cell like, I wonder? What is coming to the world now?

To be cont’d...

 Part One   |   Part Two   |   Part Three