Alice Hoffman - The Dovekeepers

Revka had confided that on the day of her beloved daughter’s death, her son-in-law vowed two things: As long as he was in the world he would not take another woman into his bed, and he would never again cut his hair. But one night when he came for his meal, Revka groaned when she saw him, then hurried away. She stood with her back to us, shaken. Her son-in-law had cut his hair, then shaved his head. I followed Revka and took her hand in mine as she wept. It was over, she told me, this life of ours on earth. Her son-in-law had shorn his hair because the time had come for him to leave this world behind.

That same night I saw my daughter embrace this warrior in our garden. He seemed a brutal being, covered with scars, metal strands embedded in his flesh, his only clothes made of metal scales. Yet in that single embrace I saw what I had never seen between my daughter and Amram. I saw that love had led her not to ruin but to her own destiny. I could never have hoped to stop the path she was meant to be on. The Man from the Valley had vowed not to love a woman, but he had never sworn such an oath about another warrior. In becoming a boy, Aziza had allowed him to love her.

This was why so many had believed my daughter was a shedah, for when she cast her arms around this man who bound himself with strips of sharp metal, it was as though she was one of the thousand messengers who watch over us, sent to take him in her wings. I turned away when I saw him weep, for I knew what Revka said was true. This world was vanishing.

It had already been written.

* * *

WHO CAN SAY at what hour Herod’s wall was breached, the wretched moment when the first stone fell? It had been raining, but as the rain cleared, there continued to be thunder. Then, all at once, we understood it wasn’t thunder, but the battering ram continuously crashing against the wall. We stood and watched as God abandoned us, and then we did the best we could. There was chaos as the men raced to the plaza to build another wall, quickly, with mad fury. My cousin wanted a wall that would stand behind the stone wall the legion had broken through, one made of mud and grass so that it might sway with the battering ram rather than break apart. In a storm a blade of grass can withstand the fury of winds that bring the palaces of kings to ruin. There wasn’t a person who didn’t assist in building this second wall, for terror stirred in us all. Even Yehuda, the Essene boy, and my son, Adir, on his crutch were there, eager to help.

It was God’s will that we should have rainfall, and therefore there would be mud, pools of it, quickly hardening once the sun came forth, forming the second wall. The children all were covered with mud, toiling among us despite the arrows set aflame that landed to singe our cloaks and set fire to our roofs and gardens.

Our every action seemed to occur in a dream that had descended. I saw a child catch on fire and die in his own mother’s arms, and men give up their lives without complaint. I saw the legion leap up like a beast made of metal, with no heart or spirit as the wall of mud was shaken, yet it did not fall, for it was stronger than Herod’s wall though it had been built by old men and children. I saw the Angel of Death perched beside my daughter as she lifted her bow, running his hand over her radiant flesh. I saw the ghosts of those who had been murdered in the Essene cave walking the paths of the cliffs like black goats, their souls rising before them. My cousin broke away from the crowd when he realized how many had died and must be laid out in the field. When I followed him, I found him sobbing in my garden.

In that moment I saw the prophecy that had come to me when I threw the bones in the tower. They had recounted that I would drown, exactly as the priest had warned I would when I was a child and had leapt into the fountain of my mother’s garden. Not in water but in my own blood.

* * *

FOR NIGHTS ON END I had dreamed of the child I carried. In my dream she was immersed in water, her eyes open, for water was her element, as it had been mine. If we were all to be slaughtered, and if I was to be among the dead, I wanted to make certain this child came forth before she entered the World-to-Come. That was the only way I could ensure she carried a name, which would allow God to call her to Him, unlike the unborn, unnamed souls who must wander without direction for the rest of time.

I knew it was time for my daughter to come into the world, for soon enough there would be no time left at all.

I boiled a tea of rue, meant to cause miscarriage, and quickly drank a cupful. This mixture would bring my child before her time. I walked the floor of my chamber while Adir and Yehuda and everyone with any strength worked feverishly to restore the damages to the second wall. I called Yael to me, for she had promised to help me in my time of need. She left Arieh in Revka’s care and brought me a basket of leavings from the dovecote to lay upon the fire. As I had taught her how to attend a birth, so she would now bring my daughter to life.

I stood over the smoke so that it might open my womb. Yael crouched down on her haunches, singing the infinite one’s name backward and forward until it formed a single letter in her mouth, rising and falling, a sound so ancient no man could understand its meaning. I focused on the image of Ashtoreth on the altar. I had brought her from my mother’s chambers, wrapped in linen along with her book of magical recipes, hidden in the doves’ cage beneath a handful of straw.

All that I needed I had been given by my mother. All that I knew, I knew because of her. But all that I sacrificed was for my daughter.

I had poured an offering of olive oil before Ashtoreth and covered myself with pomegranate oil and the perfume of the lily in her honor. It was the last of that fragrance in my possession. I knew there would be no more. I imagined the lilies beside the fountain in my mother’s garden. They appeared to grow up between the black and white mosaics that tiled my chamber’s floor. I concentrated upon them until I saw only those invisible blooms and the rest of the world fell away. I labored hard and did my best to make no noise, so that no one would be called to us. I bit down on my arm and drew blood. Despite the hour and the circumstances, I was alive, still able to give life.

As time went on and the child did not appear, I was afraid that the daughter I was about to bring forth would be weak because she was so early. There was a drum of panic beating at my throat. The council might decide to set her outside the wall to perish before she was named. I vowed this would never happen. There would be no wilderness for this child, no ravens, no unburied bones, no soldiers of the legion, no jackals appraising her with hunger. Her spirit would not be trapped in a cave or wander through the valley but would instead remain in God’s hands and under His careful watch. This was why I would bring her into this world before her time, so that she might know more than sorrow and bask in the Almighty’s radiance, in His favor and His wisdom, even if it was for only an hour or a day.

My daughter came at dawn, after many hours, and much blood. Too much, pouring out of me, but it was the price to be paid for her birth. Although she was early, she wasn’t weak. She cried out and my heart opened. Her eyes were gray, as her father’s were. Her hair was pale, much like the feathers of the dove. We took her into the field, so that we might bury the afterbirth, though the last of the almond trees had been chopped down for wood to build the wall. We thanked Ashtoreth and Adonai. I removed my cloak to stand naked before them, though I was exhausted, and seven days had not passed. We did not know how many days were left to us, and because of this I could not wait to name her.