Alice Hoffman - The Dovekeepers

We stood under the darkening sky at the hour when the earth turns deep blue. It was the time when those who wander often see mirages, swearing the rocks they walk upon have become the sea. Perhaps the two child-wives had thought themselves rescued by the sea of the dead, preferring it to the lives that they led, in which they were kept like beasts, traded like pieces of silver. I suddenly understood that Ben Simon was telling me he would never drive me to such an end. He would protect me and care for me. My fate was revealed as he tenderly buried those two sister-wives as surely as if the Book of Life had fallen open before me.

I would never want to run away from him.

EVERY NIGHT I curled up in the cave, awake long after the others had fallen asleep. I was not the only one who kept my eyes open. Jachim ben Simon came to me late one night. He lay down beside me, his arms around me. I had been waiting for him, but now I was too stunned to move or cry out. He looked at me even more deeply than he had at the well where there’d been no water or at the grave of the two wives. I knew that he truly saw me. He saw that I was accustomed to doing whatever a man told me to do, that I had followed my father out of Jerusalem without a single question. But there was more inside me, and he saw that, too. He saw that I was burning, and that I was alone, that I was trapped by the lion in my dreams, and the angel I was waiting for, and the burden of my birth.

We would probably die before long. Our bones would be white upon the white rocks. We would be clawed at by eagles, taken by jackals. We would rise into the wind and become ashes. But not now. Not yet. We were still alive. Ben Simon slid his hand inside my tunic. There were deep blue veins in his arms that I could see through the dark. I could feel his sex against me, aroused. I was terrified that he might tear me in two. All the same, I didn’t try to stop him. I was burning the way the leaves of the pomegranates burn in the month of Av. They’re green one instant, in flames the next. Sia had been right. I was like the flame tree: the more I burned the more alive I became. If she’d leaned closer to me, she would have noticed the scent of fire and been forewarned, instead she took me to be her friend.

Ben Simon moved his hand between my legs. I heard myself gasp. He quickly covered my mouth with his free hand. The others were on the far side of the cave; they must not hear. He whispered that silence was the only thing he would ever ask me for. I nodded, and he moved his hand away from my mouth. My lips were hot from his touch. I wanted to know one thing before my vow of secrecy, before my words were swallowed and my promise kept. I could feel the spell of silence claiming me, but before it was complete I had only one question. I wanted to know how he had come to have a scar on his face. It seemed a secret to me, and if I knew his secret, I might know him, and then he might belong to me even though he was Sia’s husband.

He said it was the mark of a lion. He flinched when he spoke of the memory. The Romans had captured him outside the Temple when he was young and unmarried. He was tall and well muscled, with strong arms, exactly the sort of man they wanted. They were searching for gladiators and had therefore devised a test. They locked ten men in a room with a lion. Whoever survived would be sent to Rome. The first nine were killed, but when it came to this man who lay beside me, the lion had cut him once across his face, then fallen at his feet. The creature had died a sudden death, collapsing all at once, splayed out upon the tiled floor. Perhaps the lion had been wounded in his other encounters, but Ben Simon announced to the soldiers that he had slain his foe with one look. It was such a strange sight that the Romans, now puzzled and confused, took to discussing the possible causes of this odd circumstance. It was then Ben Simon managed to escape, though his wound still bled.

He was appalled that he had killed such a beautiful beast, when he would have much preferred to murder the soldiers, for one of the nine who might have been gladiators and had died before him was his brother.

“The truth is, I was bitter,” he confided, whispering in my ear, in order to explain why the lion had collapsed at his feet. “The lion didn’t like my taste.”

I ran my hand over his features in the dark, wondering what it might be like to come face-to-face with a lion. Perhaps the creature had sensed something in him, a lion of a man. I would have cried over Ben Simon’s humiliation and suffering at the hands of the Romans, but the desert had taken away my tears. Perhaps I was bitter, too.

He took his time with me that first night. He did things to me I didn’t know even existed. He kissed me everywhere and bade me to do the same to him. After a while my pleasure was in hearing his, in making him hold me tighter and want me more. When he entered me, my eyes were open. I saw the scar the lion had left and knew my dreams had been telling me the story of my own life all along, both what had happened and what would come to pass. He was someone’s husband, but on that night he was mine, the lion I had always known would find me. I was meant to save myself for my own husband, but I already knew there would never be a young bridegroom whose family would want to see my first blood after our marriage. Instead, there was only this man who told me I was beautiful. He told me in such a way, I believed him.

* * *

WE BECAME PEOPLE of the desert as the month of Elul passed, wrapped in cloaks to hide from the sun, searching through the day for sustenance. We forgot feast days. Even the Sabbath was a day like any other, though it was beautiful and holy and should have been remembered with joy and with praise. All hours were white, all flared alike. Soon enough my father was the only one who prayed three times a day, and before long he joined Ben Simon in simply praying daily at dawn, facing toward Jerusalem.

One fortunate afternoon Ben Simon caught a young, wild she-goat. Because the beast walked right to me when he brought her into our camp, he gave her to me as a gift. The goat seemed devoted to me from the start, begging to be petted, following at my heels. I was so flattered, I couldn’t bring myself to relinquish her to the one to whom she rightfully should have belonged. Sia was Ben Simon’s wife, the elder of the two of us, yet when she called the goat to her, waving and beckoning, the she-goat refused to come, shying and darting away.

I kept my pet tied with rope so we could drink her milk and make the yogurt we call lebben and others call homes, using my scarf to strain the curds, skimming off some of the buttery chem’ah we often ate plain before it was turned into cheese, for in our current circumstances we found this simple dish to be a feast. I dug in the shade where there was a single ancient olive, stunted from the wind. There I found mud that I strained for some dark, salty water. I could then make cheese, haris halab, wrapping the mixture in cloth until it was hard and ready to eat. The more dishes we had for our meals because of the goat’s milk, the more Sia seemed to suffer and burn with envy. One day I saw her lean down to speak to the goat, trying her best to convince this wild creature to change its allegiance, but the goat merely scampered to my side. Afterward I wondered if this was the moment when Sia knew. Although she masked her eyes, I could later hear her sobbing. Somehow in this desert where there was not enough moisture for tears, she still could cry.

BY THEN I had too many cuts to count, they crossed each other, moths floating along the surface of my skin. We now saw a few stray travelers on our journey, and we traded whenever we could. Whatever we had that might be considered precious — my father’s fine leather water flask, Sia’s marriage bracelets — was exchanged for salt and cumin. Once we procured several scrawny chickens and we feasted like kings, but when we were done we were left with only the feet and the bones. Such a meager dish would have to serve us for a long time. We went hungry, and in our hunger, we grew careless, as people who are lost often do. We had so little we seemed to have no tie to this world, had we not been tied to one another.