Alice Hoffman - The Dovekeepers

“We have one enemy,” he cried out.

People turned to him, as they might turn to a prophet. He was the one who had led them here, who had believed this fortress would be their salvation. The mountain had defended Herod in the time when Cleopatra sought to take this country from him, as it would defend us now. On that point he had never wavered.

“The wall is just a wall, made of stones. But the stones are the stones of Judea. They belong to us, and our enemy only gives us what is already ours. We will not starve, for there is still enough wine and oil for us to make do. Even in a time of siege, we will have enough to eat. Our cisterns are filled with water. Our God is everywhere, on both sides of the wall.”

Those who had panicked and been set to trample one another out of fear backed down. We could no longer hear the soldiers in the valley, for like a miracle the wind had shifted and those rough voices disappeared so that we could listen to our leader. The crowd stood close so they might hear the psalm Eleazar now spoke, the words of David, our great king of the past, a warrior who, like any other man, had walked with fear, as we did now, as all men must.

“Because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked: for they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me. My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.”

I remained in the latticework of shadows falling through the boughs of the olive tree in my garden, but my heart lifted to hear my beloved’s voice. This was what I had yearned for when I was cast out of Jerusalem, for the way he spoke was a miracle. With his words, he could approach the soul where it resided, a glory to God, for words were what the Almighty first created, after the silence of the world, and they were Eleazar ben Ya’ir’s gift as well.

I closed my eyes as though we were alone and those who stood between us were no longer in our path. The world was a river, and I had been led here on its currents, not out of hope but because it was my destiny.

* * *

WHEN I first saw him in Jerusalem, I was standing at a well, with a pitcher of water in my hands. I’d been sent to my mother’s kinsmen, for I had no father and no beit avi, family from my father’s line. Though she had to plead to have me taken in, my mother wanted me safely removed from Alexandria, where the kedeshah were being cast from their houses. There were no longer to be holy women for the priests, for the ancient laws of Jerusalem had filtered into Egypt. My mother and the other women I had always known as aunts were now called prostitutes and whores, like the women on the streets who had their prices etched into the soles of their sandals so that the men who followed them knew how much they must pay for favors. All at once, what had been honored was reviled. The henna tattoos that had proclaimed them as women of worth now marked them as worthless, and the priests for whom they had sacrificed themselves were the first to accuse them of their sins.

Before I left, my mother had clasped her prized gold amulets at my throat, whispering only my daughters should receive them. She brought out her book of spells from the ironwood box, wrapped the leaves of parchment in linen to disguise it, then gave it to me, filling the box with herbs I might need: black cumin, bay leaves, myrrh. That was when I realized she might not survive the turn against who she was. She who was once exalted was now forced to move through the city in a dark cloak, hiding the swirl of markings that had once convinced me she was a queen, the tattoos which now caused people to scorn her, hissing, as if they were snakes and she a dove, there for the taking. I had already begun the painful and tedious ritual of becoming tattooed before I was sent away, fortunately only on my back and chest, not on my face or arms and legs, as my mother had been marked. No one could see who I was meant to be.

I was twelve on the last day that I saw her, when she stood before me, her eyes welling with tears. That was my age when I went to the well in Jerusalem. I was drawn there because of my need for water, and because I remembered what I had seen in the Nile. My kinsman came to me, searching me out, for I was not allowed to go to the market unaccompanied. I saw that his eyes were silver, the color of the fish. He took the pail of water from my grasp. When he brushed my hand, he assured me that it didn’t matter, for we were of the same blood and were cousins. Therefore, as a brother who touched a sister, it was not a sin.

I listened as he bewitched me, for even then he had a way with what God had created first, and his words poured over me like water. But I had bewitched him as well. He was a husband, a young man of eighteen, and I was only a girl. All the same, I felt the power I had experienced when the fish came toward me of its own accord. It had no choice, for it had been written that my cousin and I would find each other, and that our love would ruin me, and that I would not care.

NOW, as I stood and listened to him speak King David’s words on the day of madness, when our people were transformed into jackals by their fear, I was again entranced. Like anyone else on the mountain, I was swayed by the splendor of his voice. But the others did not know him as I did. When he recited David’s song, I felt he spoke directly to me, for I was his beloved, and had been all this time.

“Oh that I had wings like a dove; for then I would fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then I would wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. Selah. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.”

From this mountain there was no longer an escape into the wilderness. The six Roman camps with their high towers blocked any passage through the ravines, or down the serpent’s path, or along the treacherous southern route of the cliffs on the back of the mountain. This stronghold was the only place where we might abide. Like the lion on his chain, we had no way to run from the force of our enemy. It had been written that we would make a stand here and that we would be the last to do so. The outcome would remain unknown until it was upon us, and all we could hope to do was follow God’s path.

“As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord will save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and He shall hear my voice. He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me: for there were many with me.”

Afterward, when people had grown quiet, their faith restored, the women and children went to gather stones that they might fashion into weapons. These were then thrown down in a volley, like a hailstorm tossed upon the workers below. But the Romans seemed to worry little over the boulders that were catapulted into their midst. The building continued as they raised up their garrisons made of stone. If a slave at work on the wall should happen to die, there would be another to replace him. If a soldier should be wounded and falter, his brother would stand in his place.

In the quiet of twilight, we listened to the echo of the rocks that were lifted upon the wall, and we trembled despite King David’s words and Eleazar’s fierce confidence. This was the Romans’ method, to intimidate and terrify. That night when they fed the lion they gave him a donkey so that he might kill his own meal. We could hear the donkey’s screams above the endless clinking of shovels and picks and the raw voices of the men shouting below us. There was a great echo in the valley, and it seemed that the soldiers were speaking directly to us, as though we were the ones the lion had in its jaws.

I gazed down at the cliff to where my daughter was, hidden in the cave with the people she had chosen as her own. It seemed a cave like any other used by the wild ibex for shelter. If the Essenes’ presence remained unknown to the Romans, perhaps she would indeed be safer there. There was a bright flash; someone in the darkness of their cave had lifted a bronze bowl that glinted in the dark. I took it to be a message. I imagined it was her heart reaching out to mine. Despite everything, she was still the child I had struggled to bring forth into this world.