Ryanne Molinari

I come here every day, at noon, when the sun hits its peak so that it scalds my skin. The heat of it throbs in the bruises on my legs. The light knows what lies hidden beneath my robes. If I could come during the early hours, when the all-seeing sun does not pry at my wounds, my shame, then I would, but that is when every other woman comes.

It is ironic. They, these women who have nothing to hide, are given the right to draw their water in the shade whereas I, I who walk in that well-rumored darkness, am forced to make my journey in the broad, unmerciful, revealing light of noontide.

I lower my lashes against the light as my sandals mark the well-worn dirt. They know the way. My mind, however, strays.

When I was a girl, the well was the most exciting place within walking distance. It was the most interesting place within my small sphere of living. My mother would wake me just before dawn and take me with her to draw water for our family. I remember how, as we walked, she would tell me stories.

“I met your father at this well,” she would tell me. She never tired of the story, of recounting how he had helped her carry her burden back, full of cool water, without spilling a single drop. She would tell me how strong he had been, and how gentle, and how the moment they met it was as if they’d known each other their whole lives. Indeed, it turned out that they had, that their families had saved them for each other. Their meeting had simply been the seal on what had been promised long before.

I walk on. Not even the ghost of my mother can walk beside me now. The sunlight has banished all shade, including hers.

Other women, too, met their husbands at wells. This became something of a joke between my childhood friends and I. The same women I now avoid used to skip alongside me when we were young, gossiping merrily about the men they knew and hoped to know, the boys their families had their eyes on and the hopes we shared of catching their eyes in return. We took hope in the tales of Rebekah, Rachel, and Tzipporah.

Faithful Rebekah, drawing water for her family only to be found by the servant of Abraham and taken to meet her husband, Isaac. Beautiful Rachel, aided by Jacob, who rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and labored for her seven and seven years. Strong-willed Tzipporah, protected by Moses and sent by her father to bring him into their home.

We would dream about the husbands who surely would find us at the well. More often than not, though, it was only us young women, brimming with hopes as our buckets were with water.

I was married first. It was an honorable thing. I was the chosen daughter, the beloved. My companions followed, each finding her spouse and beginning her family. Each, eventually, fading from my life as I fell deeper and deeper…

The one man became five, each more fleeting than the last. As others multiplied their children and were called blessed, I multiplied my misfortune and became a curse.

My foot strikes against the stone of the well. It startles me, forcing my attention back to the task at hand. It is odd to me how such daily tasks continue, whether or not they are at the proper time or performed by a proper woman. I must still live. I must still draw water.

I prepare my vessel, moving as quickly as I can in the simmering heat, but when I attempt to lower it, I nearly drop it in fright: I am not alone. Have I ever been alone? Or has he been watching me this entire time?

The man was speaking. I force myself to listen, wrestling my rapidly beating heart into stillness. I am used to this frightened tussle, but it still takes a moment for me to win the battle.

“Give me a drink,” the man says.

Quickly, I note his features before averting my gaze. I feel my face burn beneath the sun and what remains of my sense of decorum.

“How is it,” I ask in a low voice, “that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?”

Jews have no dealings with us. Surely he knows this. Why does he mock me? My heart may be stilled, but my mind is racing.

He answers. “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

He must be mad. That is the only reason he would speak to me of such nothings. He has nothing to draw with and I tell him so. Besides, the well is deep and, although the water is clean and cool, it is quick to spill or evaporate.

“Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”

I have proven my point, I think. If even the greatest of men who drank of this well have died, what can this man mean by ‘living water’?

Still, he answers. His voice is level, without the agitation I would expect from someone delirious with the heat and hunger he must surely feel.

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,” he says, “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

It is too good to be true. And yet, what have I to lose? To never thirst, to never suffer the dusty parched death of the desert, would be an endless relief. Better, though, would be to never again approach the well in the heat of day, alone and exposed.

“Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty and have to come here to draw water.”

“Go, call your husband, and come here.”

My hopes are dashed in this single command. I have no husband. Not anymore. I wonder whether I ever really did. I must have spoken, for he replies.

“You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’, for you have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

Like the sunlight, he has cut through my coverings, unveiled and scorched my inmost shame. I can feel again the bruises I seek to hide and the life I wish to keep unknown flashes before me, dancing luridly against the undersides of my eyelids with each blink.

Clumsily, I change the subject. “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but your people say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

“Woman, believe me,” he answers, “the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

“I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” As I speak, I realize that, while I tried to divert attention to talk of the Messiah, he turned it back upon me as deftly and piercingly as a swordsman. I am describing the one who will tell all things to a man who spoke to me as if he knew me—

And then, like a flash of sunlight on the uncovered surface of water, it dawns upon me.

“I who speak to you am he.”

The scuffle of footsteps and the low hum of men’s voices cover the sharp intake of my breath. A sensation like that of cool water rushes over my burning conscience. I stumble backwards and, before I know it, am running back into the city. My water jug sits, abandoned, but I do not turn back. I have never run this fast before, not even to tell the news of my first betrothal.

I cannot help but tell everyone I meet. As usual, they back away from me as though afraid that infidelity is catching. Today, though, I am undeterred. Bold, I approach them.

“You must listen! If not to me, then come and hear for yourself! Come and see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” My dry throat no longer bothers me, for my cracking lips only thirst to proclaim what has happened:

At last, I have been found and known and rescued, by Love himself, at the well.