The Dovekeepers (17 page)

I kept watch and saw that he was clever; he had begun a new method of cleaning the dovecotes with a rake he had devised. The slave had found rusted nails on the floor and had used them to attach twigs to a twisted branch of the olive tree that had grown in through a space in the roof. Every time he realized I was studying him, he seemed abashed, cautious. He made me think of a Syrian bear I had seen once in Jerusalem, set in irons to perform tricks for his Roman owner. The bear had kept his eyes lowered, but once, when he could no longer restrain himself, he had bared his teeth, only to be slapped down. He had held his paws over his head, as though he were a man being beaten. Although others in the crowd laughed, I had recoiled and run away, my heart pounding.

“Do you have enough food?” I asked the slave at the end of one day.

I mimicked eating so he might understand. He shook his head, shrugged. I knew he slept in the fetid loft above the dovecote, where he was chained at night, that he was given grain and crackers as his ration and little more. I began to leave him piles of twigs,
so that he might have a fire and warm himself when the nights were chill.

“Are you deaf?” I wondered aloud.

He looked up then. He was a stranger from a land covered with snow, something I had seen only once in my life, when I was a young girl and it fell in Jerusalem dusting the hills, sent by Shalgiel, the angel of snow. Some children had mistaken it for manna and eaten handfuls of it, freezing their lips.

The slave understood me. I was sure of it.

I knew what it was to yearn for a life so distant it seemed that it had never been anything more than a dream. Did he dream of snow and wild blue goats, or of his comrade, taken in chains across the Salt Sea?

I urged one of the doves out of its niche, held it until it quieted, then quickly broke its neck. I nearly laughed to see how startled the slave was. Perhaps watching me the way he did, he did not expect such an abrupt and deadly action. But I was not afraid of cruelty; I knew it was inside me, as it was inside the leopard who must catch his supper to survive. The slave was grateful enough when I handed the bird to him to cook for his dinner; he hid it away in the corner, where he might reach it when he was chained at night.

When Revka, always sour and ready to place blame, noticed a bird missing the following morning, I declared that I’d seen a hawk earlier that day. Such things happened often enough; a dove would arise through the narrow opening in the roof and be struck in midair. Then there would be feathers floating down, and if you narrowed your eyes, a thin rain of blood.

WHEN I WENT
to the wall to look out at the far reaches beyond our settlement, I was often stunned by how set apart we were from
the rest of the world. The wilderness appeared endless, the earth so distant it seemed impossible we might ever walk upon it again. If this was what it was to be an angel, to be Raphael or Michael or one of the
sheydim
who peered down upon mankind, then it was a lonely and terrible place to be. We were a city and a world unto ourselves, with more people arriving all the time. The desperate, the devout, the beaten, the lost. That was why there was so much gossip; it was difficult to keep secrets in such a crowded, unforgiving world. Families shared their lives, with only thin walls of rough fabric made of goat hair strung from ropes to separate us.

We heard what should have been private, lovemaking and arguments alike. We knew whose children wouldn’t behave and were scolded and whose wife muttered curses as soon her husband left their chamber. The baths were always teeming, with talk as well as with bodies. Shops were filled with those desiring flour and oil. So many had traveled here from Jerusalem there was not enough for all; we were forced to share everything, to wait in lines for food and provisions doled out carefully from the dwindling storehouses, to toil far into the evening hours. I understood why the men went out raiding. I was only a woman, not privy to the knowledge of men at the synagogue or in the barracks, but even I understood what awaited if God failed to favor us. Although the fields were green now, it was impossible to know what storms might come, whether there would be clouds of locusts, how we might go hungry in the month of
Av,
when the world was burning once more.

For the time being, we were in the mild season. We could pick wild radishes and greens that grew between the rocks on the other side of the Snake Gate, appearing in places where it seemed impossible that anything could ever grow. Still, we knew that times of plenty didn’t last. That was why Herod had stocked his storeroom with enough provisions to last a hundred years, a time we had entered and passed. The jars of oil and wine were emptying. We
tapped on the sides, and when the clay echoed we knew there was nothing inside.

There were now so many of us that wood was rationed for our fires. I wondered what would happen if our crops failed and we were left with our wits and nothing more. One night when I went to fetch some kindling kept at our door, it was gone. My father said goats had eaten it, but the goats were locked in their pen. He said I was a fool who couldn’t even count sticks. But I knew that one of our neighbors had stolen from us. That was what happened in lean times. The truth about people surfaced just as surely as tiny silver fish arose from the sand in the desert when there was flooding, miraculously appearing in the ravines amid the sudden rushing streams. It was said such fish could bury themselves in the sand for seven years, their flesh so dry it would seem to be nothing but dust. At the first hint of rain they would show their true selves, exactly as people did whenever they were given time enough and cause.

MY FATHER
was happy to have nothing to do with me. He let me clean and cook for him but ignored me at all other times. I heard him offer his opinion to some men who asked after me, eyeing my red hair. “She’s nothing,” he said. “Only trouble.”

My father sat outside our chamber on a bench he had built as the dark sifted down, his cloak draped around his shoulders. In the half-light he disappeared, quickly becoming the wall, the darkness, the night itself, as he had done when he lurked outside the Temple, practicing invisibility. I wondered if I alone could see him there against the stones, facing toward Jerusalem, yearning, as I did, for a life that had past. I had compassion for this man, despite all he had done. I alone was his partner in crime.

My father was not too proud to partake of the meals I prepared despite his contempt for me, slowly devouring a stew of lentils,
beans, and barley. In the hours when he left our chamber I had the freedom to shut myself away. I could hear other women gathered in the plaza singing as they worked on the looms; their voices sounded sweet, much like the songs of birds. I had taught myself to spin and to weave, but I never joined in. Had I gone, someone might have questioned me and then known me for who I was, nothing but trouble, exactly as my father had declared, a ruined woman whose time was growing near. Soon, I would no longer be able to hide the truth.

No one came to call; even my brother was absent, taking what little time he had away from the garrison to slink off with Aziza. My single visitor was the ghost in my dreams. She alone came to me faithfully. In time I came to know her better than anyone. I slept with her each night, and in my dreams she wept. I did not believe in tears, my own or others’, I thought they were shameful, a sign of weakness, but I had no choice but to lie silently beside her and listen as she cried. I was chained to her the way the slave from the north country was chained to the dovecote’s stone wall.

One dark night it was Nahara rather than the ghost who came for me. It was the hour my father had roused me when we fled Jerusalem, but Nahara did not shout as he had. Instead she crept onto my pallet and placed her hand over my mouth. That was the way I was awakened, to make certain I didn’t call out and rouse my father. For a moment I imagined I was in the desert and it was Ben Simon who wanted my silence, and I didn’t resist. But the hand was too small, too polite. When I opened my eyes, Nahara was there, insisting I hurry. I reached for my tunic and followed her outside so that my father would not be disturbed by our whispering. There were always watchmen posted, but we found a dark corner.

“My mother wants you to follow me.” Nahara had a sweet, no-nonsense nature. She clearly expected me to do as I was told. “She needs your help.”

“Let your sister be the one to help,” I recommended, anxious
to return to my chamber. There were so many stars in the dusky night I could see them falling as I gazed upward into the darkness. They seemed so near, like the Salt Sea in the distance, when they were so far away.

“My sister doesn’t have the nerve for what we’re about to do.” Nahara was so serious she might have been the elder sister. Unlike Aziza, she had dark eyes but hers were flecked with yellow, appearing half-shut, a subtle glance that suggested deep thoughts. “Aziza will never attend to a birth. She says she can’t bear to see the blood.”

“How is that possible? I’ve heard that your sister can do things no mortal woman can do,” I ventured to test her. “Perhaps my brother would know more about that?”

Nahara smiled. If she seemed older than her years, well, so had I when I was her age. “I doubt it. What would a warrior know about women’s ways?”

“I need my sleep,” I objected, but Nahara tugged on my sleeve, refusing to give up.

“My mother says you have to come. She says she’ll help a lioness in return for what you do tonight.”

I felt fully awake when I heard this. Was the message a veiled threat or a promise? There was nothing waiting in my chamber other than a ghost, curled up and weeping. No one in my house but an assassin who berated me when I swept his floor. When Nahara told me we were in search of a black dog, I became curious and decided to accompany her. Nahara carried a pitcher; she handed me a length of rope. There were many black dogs in the settlement if that was what Shirah wanted. I found one right away and grabbed it. Simple enough. But when I brought the stray to Nahara, she laughed, covering her mouth so no one would hear.

“Is he not good enough?” I said, annoyed. I had a strong rope around the creature’s neck, but Nahara crouched down to remove the noose. She was amused I had imagined our task would be so easy.

“That one.” She pointed to a fierce she-dog who snarled at us from a distance. “Can you manage her?”

“One black dog is not a lion,” I remarked.

I caught the she-dog as I had trapped wild birds in the desert. I sat beside her, paying no attention when she drew her lips over her teeth. I remained silent, for that was my gift and what I was best at. After a while I slipped the rope around her neck. The she-dog looked at me. As soon as she did, she belonged to me, as the birds had, as I had looked at Ben Simon and belonged to him.

Nahara came racing over, pleased with my accomplishment, her dark hair flying behind her. Yet we weren’t finished with our task.

“Now you must take the ingredient we need,” she instructed. “She may bite when you do.”

Then I understood. The she-dog’s teats were hanging; she’d recently had pups. It was her milk we were after.

“Why not you?” I countered. “You’re small and fast. I’ll keep her from biting you. Just go to her as you would approach a goat, but do so quickly.”

Nahara shook her head. “I’m not a woman yet. It has to be you.”

I kept the rope tightly hitched around the she-dog’s neck and bade her to look at me. Without speaking I told her not to move. I instructed her with my touch and with my silence, and she behaved. Her body was warm and yielded to me; surely my touch was more gentle than her pups’ sharp teeth. When I was done collecting her milk, I freed her, then followed Nahara along the oldest part of the wall. People said the stones here were made of the same limestone Herod had used for construction of the Temple in Jerusalem, his mark etched into a border around each one. I wondered if he had been certain that the stones with his mark would be everlasting, and if perhaps
Adonai
had made them fall simply to prove that a man was only a man, even if he was a king.

We crossed to an abandoned section of the palace, ruined by
fires in the years of the Romans but still useful if you wanted a place of privacy in this teeming world of ours.

“Why didn’t you get Revka to help you tonight?” Surely she was more trusted than I. “Is she afraid of a dog’s bite?” I mocked.