Alice Hoffman - The Dovekeepers

“Let our story bear witness that we perished out of choice, a choice we made at the beginning, to chose death rather than slavery.”

Warriors were sent to set fire to the storerooms. The heat was worsened so that it became an inferno. We seemed to have fallen headfirst into the month of Av, that time when the sorrows of our people blaze, when God tests our faith and our duty and our belief in His greatness.

* * *

WE LISTENED to Eleazar as we might listen to a dream, one we could not stop, one from which there was no waking. I felt my love for him so deeply I thought I might break as the boughs of the almonds had, my ardor the knife that pierced me. People began to run to their houses, not to escape but to gather their worldly goods so they might be destroyed rather than fall into the hands of the Romans. A great bonfire was begun, and all we owned was heaped upon it, garments and sandals and wooden bowls and yards of wool. The goats and sheep that were left had their throats slit, and their bodies were placed upon the fire as burnt offerings sacrificed to God, for there would be no need of meat or milk, only of God’s grace. There was no Temple standing and this would be our last sacrifice.

Eleazar’s men, his favorites, warriors who had fought beside him, men scarred by battle who had journeyed from Jerusalem to become hawks in this desert, came to him to encircle him. Some of them sobbed and were consumed by grief; others no longer felt the pains of the world, for they were in a state of sacrifice, as warriors were before they entered into battle. There were fifty or more, Amram among them, and these men brought broken pottery pieces, ostraca, upon which their names or initials were written. The weeping grew more furious as the lottery was begun. The priest and his learned men began to pray and chant, rocking back and forth with the passion of their prayers.

Ten men among them would be chosen. They would do the deed and dispatch with the rest of us. They would bear the burden as death-givers so that we did not have to carry the sin of harming ourselves, which was forbidden. When the time came they would slay each other, until only one was left. That man would hold the weight of all our sins, and would be commanded to enter through the three gates of Gehennom, the valley of hell, where he would suffer the torments of demons for all eternity.

“Why should we fear death when we do not fear sleep?” Eleazar cried out, in a frenzy, in such a pure rapture that none could look away. I saw him as he was at the well, furious with all of men’s wrongdoings, assured he could set things right in the name of God. “Death allows freedom to our souls. It takes true courage to find true freedom and to be called to God’s side. It would have been better if we had died before seeing Jerusalem destroyed. Now our hope has fled, but we can avenge the enemies of the holy city, and show kindness to those we love, and not see them led away in slavery and be witness to the torture and violence that awaits our wives and our children and our dearest friends.”

Husbands and wives were embracing, mothers had taken up their children, sons ran to search out their fathers so they might die side by side. The ten men were chosen, our saviors and our executioners. Ben Ya’ir took his sword to make his pledge upon the weapon he had used to fight for God, and for his nation, and for us.

“We were born to die, as are all who are brought into the world. This even the most fortunate among us must face. This is our fate, and our fate is now upon us.”

My fate was upon me as well.

I quickly signaled to Yael and Revka. We made our way back to my chamber, pulling Revka’s younger grandson, Levi, along, lest he be taken up by the crowd, with Noah following behind. Revka herself all but fainted in the crush.

Yehuda was in my chamber, wrapped in his white garment, reciting the prayer for the souls of the dead. Adir was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is he?” I was so distraught I caught the poor Essene boy by his prayer shawl. Revka, who had come to consider Yehuda as her own, came to coax the frightened boy into speaking.

“He was worried for Aziza. He said she was in his place, and he would find her and bring her back here.”

I ran to my cabinet for my mother’s book of spells, my two hearts stirring inside me. There were screams echoing from the plaza, for the death-givers had begun their work and some of the dying could not bear to see their families slaughtered, even at the hands of our own men, angels of mercy, the messengers of our fate. My hands were shaking. Perhaps it had been written that I would be redeemed. Perhaps love would not be my undoing but my salvation.

I cast my mother’s book into Yael’s hands and insisted that she must keep it safe. I noticed that she wore the collar of the lion twisted around her arm, and then I knew I had been right to choose her, for she was as fierce as she was loyal.

Revka was huddled with her grandsons, keeping Arieh on her lap. He was little more than a baby, but he was sensitive and knew when silence was needed. When Revka held a finger to her lips, he hushed and leaned against her. She then patted Yehuda’s shoulders as he wept, guilt-ridden for having allowed Adir to leave. He was only a boy, and his mother had left him in our care so that he might be safe from harm. They all huddled together on the tiled floor fashioned for a king’s kitchen, a room that had turned fetid, burning hot, like a grave in the sand.

The child who was my heart cried. I took her from beneath my cloak and gave her into Yael’s hands as I had given her the book of spells. I went to my ironwood box, which had come with me from Egypt, the one my mother had locked with a key in the shape of a snake, a snake I’d thought came alive to inch across my palm when I was only a girl. Inside the unlocked box were ingredients I had been storing for the worst of times: snakeskin for the black viper that sleeps between the rocks, ash from the fire of a sacrificed dove, crushed lapis from the stone that is stronger than all others, strings tied in precise knots, all of these meant to weave a web of protection. I took what I needed. I was going to find my children in the plaza, then I would go to Eleazar. Panic was beating inside me, for I knew, no matter what I did, I would indeed drown on this day. That was the fate that had been cast by the bones in the tower.

Yael put her hand on my arm, attempting to stop me as I went to the door, insisting it was too late for me to go.

“What would you not have done for the one you loved?” I asked her.

“I am doing that now,” she answered, as if she were indeed my daughter. “Don’t go to him.”

She had promised me once that she would do as I asked. I reminded her of this as I gave her the last piece of fruit I had saved, a pomegranate, the same fruit I had given her at our last farewell. She knew me then as the girl who had cared for her in Jerusalem. She threw her arms around me, and we might have wept if there had been time. Instead, I drew away and told her what she must do. I hoped she would obey me as she had when she was a child. If she saw a sign from the doves, she was to ask Revka where she first saw me as I am. She was to go there without hesitation.

THERE WAS chaos everywhere. I did my best to make my way. Those who say you cannot see Mal’ach ha-Mavet could not be more wrong. I have seen him standing right in front of me, his twelve wings blackened by fire, his thousand eyes seeing all that we are and all that we do. I was grasped in the grip of his darkness, a violation of God’s radiance and His glory. We must suffer in his presence, we must stand before him, but I was not ready to face him until I found my children.