Alice Hoffman - The Dovekeepers

The shouts of the warriors who led us roused me. Groggy, I pulled myself from the tangle of my sleep. I stood and rubbed the salt from my eyes. All at once I saw a miracle before me. If a thousand blue butterflies had risen from the ground it would have been no more of a marvel. Herod’s fortress was suspended in air, jutting out from the edge of a white cliff, exactly as the warriors had promised, a wonder of the world.

There was the path that led to Masada, winding up the sheerest cliff imaginable. One misstep, one moment of doubt, and anyone who made his way here could easily careen to his death in the valley below. The wilderness had made me a disbeliever, but as I climbed what was called the serpent’s path, which wound like a snake up the side of the mountain, I felt something open inside me. This was where the snake in my dream had led us. I recognized it as surely as though it was a path I had walked a hundred times before: the small willows and clusters of bent olive trees, the chalky white earth beneath the limestone rocks. It had been written in the Book of Life that we would come to this path, and so it was meant to be.

Above us there were birds of prey, falcons and hawks. I knew they would be upon me if I were to stumble. They would take their revenge for all the birds I had killed in the desert, all the feathers I’d plucked, some with my fingers, some, when I was starving, with my teeth. I had wished for another’s death and taken a man who didn’t belong to me. I had given myself to the desert to become what I now was, a woman possessed by a ghost, mourning an existence that would never be again, carrying a secret that would ripen and expose me for the thief I had become.

I paid attention to the path and did my best not to think about the way I might appear to others, a barbarian, my skin powdered white with rock dust, my garments filthy, my hair turned to straw and salt, white at the edges but scarlet at the roots, my eyes empty except for the reflection of the desert. I was a lioness without claws or teeth, bent over like an old woman as I maneuvered along the rocks, so far from the girl I had been I could barely recall my own name. I thought of how I had given Ben Simon my promise to be silent. Now silence was all I had. The wind was howling as we rose higher on the cliff; that was the single voice we heard.

The serpent’s path appeared endless. Stones fell and echoed when they hit the ground below. The world looked smoky and distant from this vantage point. I took the rope from around my waist and said I wanted to make my own way. I walked on without assistance, even at the steepest part of the path. I could hear the rattle of my breathing, sharp, like a dagger. The fortress before me was like a dream, and like a dreamer I went forth, marveling at the sight of what I beheld. It was everything they said, all the more brilliant for the desolation around us.

We had been found and brought to this place so near to the sky we could hear the voice of the King of Creation. The Lord had saved us and delivered us, as the Torah vowed He would. I would have been willing to do anything for the glory of God as I walked through the gate, except forgive Him for what I had lost.

BENEATH HIS CLOAK, my brother wore armor to protect him on those occasions when he went out in the night. A dagger would not suffice. He needed heavier weapons now: a bow, arrows, an ax, a lance of wood and brass. He resembled a dragon with scales or a silver snake, creatures feared by men, known to God alone. There were indeed three hundred warriors, but I instantly recognized my brother across the field beneath the pink bower of almond trees, planted high on this plateau above the rest of the world. I knew the swagger of his walk, the shining light that came from deep within him. Even armor couldn’t hide that. My father had been brought to him right away, but I met with Amram after I was cleansed. I was taken to one of the mikvahs, of which there were several, for women and for men. In the largest bath, there was a line down the stairs for the clean and the unclean. The water pooled black where I was, and the other women left the bath lest they become unclean once more. I was not surprised. What I had done could never be washed away.

I dressed in the torn tunic and scarves Tamar had given me, then ran to meet my brother in the field. If I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of almonds, I could imagine I had entered into another life. Perhaps we might one day return to Jerusalem and find the world that had been stolen from us. Perhaps all these months had been a dream, like my dream of the lion. Then I heard my brother shout to me, and it was quite clear there was no way to go back. He called me Yaya, my childhood name. I knew that girl was gone.

“It took long enough for you to come here,” Amram said, embracing me, then letting me go so he could have a look.

Only months had passed since our last meeting, yet it seemed ten summers had gone by. Before this day Amram had always seemed younger than I — now he seemed a true warrior, fierce, sure of himself. For once I felt myself to be the little sister. My brother made me think of steel, metal that has been transformed through flame. I didn’t want to know how many men he’d killed or what cruel deeds he had accomplished. I was appalled to think he might have been one of the warriors who had taken Ein Gedi and slaughtered people of our own faith.

“I’m here now,” I said.

My hair was clean and oiled, plaited atop my head. I could tell from my brother’s gaze how different I appeared to him. He studied me, searching my expression, not quite seeing what had happened but aware that something had changed. I’d been bitten by a lion, but you had to look inside me to see the scar.

“I thought I would find you long before this. You must have been hidden, Yaya,” Amram teased.

I thought of the caves where we had camped and what I had done there and of that last sorrowful place where Ben Simon had died. If he had gone with me to the Essenes, he might have lived. I had come to think that he knew what would befall him if he chose to remain behind, and still he had stayed. I should have seen it in the manner in which he glanced away from me, as if we had already been separated while I stood before him to say farewell. I should have known when he gave me his knife.

I didn’t want my brother to see my shame. I sank onto the grass, beneath a canopy of pink almond blossoms, so that I might avert my face and be unreadable beneath Amram’s curious glance. It was said that the almonds of pink trees were bitter, whereas those on trees where the blossoms were white would always be sweet. I lowered my eyes so I might seem like any other young unmarried woman.

“We did as best we could,” I said simply.

“The others were unlucky,” he replied. “I was sorry to hear of their passing. I thought Jachim ben Simon would take care of you. That was why I left you in his hands.”

“It was their fate to enter the World-to-Come,” I told him. That and nothing more.

My brother came to sit beside me joyfully, for a moment a boy once more rather than a warrior. He had scars I hadn’t seen before, including a deep gash on his neck where he’d been pierced by an arrow. When he unclasped his armor, I noticed the constant pressure of the bow he carried had etched itself into his skin; there was now a crescent on his back and chest even when he did not shoulder his weapon.

He had grown his hair long and braided it tightly as warriors did. His face was still beautiful, but burned by the sun, thin. The openness of his youth was gone. He was no longer a boy learning rebellion in the dappled red shade of the flame tree.

“We are among the last holdouts in all of Judea,” he told me. “Fortress after fortress has fallen. We haven’t run and we never will.”