by Lynn Austin
“They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this, your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name—”
He turned when he heard a sound behind him. His brother stood in the doorway, already dressed. “Nehemiah, what’s wrong?” he asked. Nehemiah hadn’t had time to wipe the tears from his eyes. He scrubbed both hands down his face as he turned toward the window again.
“Remember the night Mama and Abba died?”
“Of course. How could I ever forget?” Hanani came to the window to stand beside him. “I also remember that you never cried, Nehemiah. Not even once. And I couldn’t stop crying.”
“You were so young. Much too young to see the things we saw and hear what we were forced to hear.”
“Is that why you’re upset? Did celebrating Purim two weeks ago remind you of that night?”
“Only indirectly. . . . Listen, you know I’ve always felt responsible for protecting you and Ephraim—”
“You saved our lives. I don’t know how you thought to hide so quickly. Or how you knew to make sure we stayed quiet.” Nehemiah remembered how Hanani had struggled in his arms as he’d held his hand tightly over his mouth. He would never forget the smell of wood from the chest they’d hidden behind, the damp odor of the plastered wall as they’d huddled in the corner. Nehemiah brushed away another tear, impatient with himself.
“All this time, I’ve been imagining that you and Ephraim were safe and happy in Jerusalem. That I’d finished my job and—”
“Nehemiah, we’re grown men with families of our own. You don’t need to take care of us anymore.”
He shook his head, unable to shake off the weight of responsibility he felt for them. “Ever since you told me about the conditions in Judah and how your friend Yitzhak was murdered in his home, I haven’t been able to get Jerusalem out of my mind. I’ve been fasting and praying about the situation, asking the Almighty One what I can do, how I can help.”
“In that case, I’m sorry I told you. I’m sorry for upsetting you, especially since there isn’t anything you can do.”
“There has to be. I earn a living by keeping the king and his household safe. I know everything there is to know about security.”
“Nehemiah, you have a wonderful career here. Find a nice wife. Have children.”
“I would probably go insane worrying about their safety. . . . No, now that I know what the situation is like in Jerusalem, I can no longer look at all the splendor here in Susa without seeing it differently and grieving. I can’t get over the fact that nearly thirty years after Purim, our people are still being murdered by our enemies in the middle of the night. I believe we both feel the same way about that.”
Hanani rested his hand on his shoulder. “I can see that time hasn’t healed those wounds. Listen, my brother—”
“Most of all, Hanani,” he said, raising his voice to drown out his brother’s attempts to comfort him. “Most of all, Jerusalem is God’s city. His dwelling place. It shouldn’t be a shame and a disgrace to Him. You’ve seen the splendor of this Persian king’s house. Shouldn’t the heavenly King’s dwelling place evoke awe and respect, not ridicule? Our enemies should tremble at the thought of robbing or murdering His people. The restoration of our land, promised by all the prophets, isn’t complete if we still live in fear.”
“You’re right, you’re right. But there’s nothing you or I can do about it.”
“What if there is? What if the Holy One does want me to do something about it? Maybe God made me the Persian king’s cupbearer for a reason.”
“You mean, the same way He made Esther the queen?”
“I stand in King Artaxerxes’ presence every time I serve his wine.”
“But do you dare risk your life and petition him unbidden, like she did?”
“No. I’m not a courtier. I’d never be allowed to present a formal petition. Look how unsuccessful your delegation was in presenting yours. I’m not allowed to speak a word in the king’s presence unless spoken to. But if the Almighty One were to make a way for me . . .”
“I see what you mean. In that case, I’ll pray that He will provide a way.”
The sky grew lighter outside, the stars faded. Nehemiah heard the familiar morning sounds as the king’s household began to stir. “I need to go,” Hanani said. “The other men in my caravan plan to eat a quick breakfast and leave as soon as it’s light.”
“I’ll walk there with you.” Nehemiah led the way out of the citadel, through the King’s Gate and over the bridge to the lower city, ignoring the people and carts and pack animals he passed along the way. Hanani’s caravan was loaded and ready to leave. All too soon, it was time for him and his brother to part. “I think it’s harder to see you go now than it was the last time,” Nehemiah said. They embraced, then he stood and watched until the last camel was out of sight.
Throughout the morning, Nehemiah battled tears of anger and frustration and loss as he performed his security duties in the kitchen and inner rooms of the palace. Hanani was right; the palace’s vast spaces and towering pillars did make him feel dwarfed. He was powerless, an insignificant man, unable to change a thing in Jerusalem a thousand miles away. Was it really the Almighty One who had put this burden for Jerusalem on his heart? Could he really dare to ask the king for permission to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls? If so, then God would have to give him the courage to speak . . . and give King Artaxerxes a heart that would listen.
Chapter
5
JERUSALEM
MAY
Chana glanced in the small bronze mirror, then handed it to her sister. She was ready to go. The reflection she’d seen was of a young woman whose dark eyes looked tired and sad. But what difference did it make? The yearly festivities for Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, weren’t going to be very festive this year. “I don’t understand why we’re even bothering to celebrate,” she had told her father earlier. “Everyone is saying there isn’t much grain to harvest because of the drought.”
“We keep the feast because God’s Torah commands us to,” he had replied. “In the words of God’s prophet, ‘Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food . . . yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.’ And so we will go up to the temple and rejoice. Grain or no grain, the Almighty One is still our God. We must have faith that He knows what’s best for us.”
So Chana had crowded into the tiny bedroom she shared with her sisters, bumping elbows and stepping over one another as they’d bathed and changed into their finest robes. Now she was ready. She was about to open the door and go out to the courtyard to wait with their father when Yudit stopped her. “Chana, please help me do something to tame this horrible mass of hair!”
“Why? It looks beautiful that way—like a lion’s mane.”
“I don’t want to look like a lion. I want my curls to behave so I’ll look pretty.”
Chana was taken aback. This was new. Her nineteen-year-old sister had never bothered to tame her unruly hair before, in spite of Chana’s pleas to let her comb it. “Since when did you start worrying about your hair? Or caring if you look pretty?”
“She wants to look nice in case she sees Alon ben Harim,” Sarah said, passing the mirror to Yudit.
“Sarah! Hush!” A blush like ripening grapes spread across Yudit’s cheeks as she gave Sarah a swat. “You weren’t supposed to tell!”
“Oh, stop fussing. Chana won’t say anything, will you, Chana. Besides, she’s not blind. She’s certain to see you and Alon staring at each other with eyes like baby calves.” Sarah struck a lovesick pose, imitating a lover in a swoon. Yudit swatted her again.
Chana shook her head at their foolishness. “I won’t tell your secret, Yudit. I think it’s nice that you and Alon have noticed each other. Come here, and I’ll see what I can do with your hair.” Yudit dragged a low stool across the room and sank
down on it. Chana gently pulled the wooden comb through her curls to try to tame them. “I think it’s wonderful that my carefree, independent middle sister has fallen for someone. And I’m not surprised. It is springtime, after all. The time when ‘Flowers appear on the earth and the season of singing has come.’”
“Are you girls nearly ready?” their father called from outside their closed door. “We don’t want to be late.” Chana detected a note of exasperation in his voice.
“Yes, Abba. Another moment,” Yudit called back. A year ago, Abba would have gone on ahead of them and let them walk up the hill to the temple mount alone. Now he and the other fathers and husbands no longer allowed women to walk alone in Jerusalem, especially at night.
Sarah flopped down cross-legged on the rug to watch. “What about you, Chana? Have you decided if you’re going to let Abba’s friend court you? You know, that nice man who brought us the wine?”
“His name is Malkijah ben Recab,” Yudit mocked in a deep voice. “He likes to be called Malkijah ben Recab.”
“I haven’t decided anything,” Chana replied, tugging on a snarled curl.
“Well, I liked him,” Sarah said. “He was very charming and kind. He said we were all lovely, remember?”
“She’s right,” Yudit said. “Even you have to admit he was charming, Chana. . . . Ouch!” She grimaced as Chana combed another tangled lock.
“The two of you seem much more interested in him than I am,” Chana said. “Maybe one of you should court him.”
“We can’t,” Sarah said. “Yudit and I can’t get married until you do.”
For the third time, Yudit gave her youngest sister a swat. “Will you just be quiet?”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? Abba said it’s a tradition that the oldest sister must marry first.”
The stuffy little room suddenly felt very warm to Chana. Was she preventing her sisters from getting married? Mercifully, Abba called to them once again before the conversation could continue. “Girls . . . ? I don’t believe it’s possible to be any more beautiful than you already are.”
Sarah leaped up and went out to appease him, and a moment later Chana finished making Yudit’s corona of hair behave. But she couldn’t stop thinking about her sister’s words. By taking so long to get over Yitzhak’s death, she might be standing in Yudit’s way if she and Alon did fall in love.
Chana took Abba’s arm as they hurried from the house and made the uphill climb to the temple, letting her sisters walk ahead of them. “Abba,” she asked when she was sure they were out of earshot, “is it really true that the oldest sister must marry before the younger ones do?”
“Well . . . that is the way things usually work,” he said with a sigh. “But it’s not written in the Torah as an unbreakable law. More of a tradition, you might say.”
“So, I’m standing in the way of Yudit getting married?”
He stopped, already puffing from the effort. “You know how free-spirited Yudit is. She’ll find a way to do as she pleases. But what worries me more, my angel, is that if you wait too long, your choice of eligible men will begin to dwindle.”
“Because I’ll be considered too old?”
“You need to come to a decision, Chana. Do you want to get married and have children, or are you content to remain single and never be a mother?”
She pondered Abba’s question as they started walking again. Just this morning as she and Yudit had shopped in the marketplace she had paused to watch a young mother with her toddler. The boy wobbled on unsteady legs as if the earth kept shifting, but his delight in everything he saw had made Chana smile. “Look . . . look!” he said, stopping every few steps to point his chubby finger at something new. A year ago, Chana had anticipated having Yitzhak’s child, picturing a tiny boy with Yitzhak’s curly hair, his laughing eyes. And as she’d watched the toddler this morning, Chana had longed for a baby of her own to hold in her arms.
“Yes, I do want to get married,” she told her father.
“The sad truth is that men your age want to marry younger women, like Yudit and Sarah, who can bear them many children. I fear you’ll soon be left with very old men—widowers or men no one else wanted.”
“You’re trying to scare me, aren’t you? You want me to court your friend Malkijah from the council.”
“I’ll be honest, my angel. I do wish you would give Malkijah a chance. He is still very interested in you. What would it hurt to take time to get to know him? That’s all I ask. If you find he’s not to your liking, I won’t force you to marry him.”
Sarah was right—Malkijah had been charming and pleasant. And not bad-looking, even with his crooked nose. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try,” she said.
“That’s my girl! I’ll invite him to visit again. Perhaps for Sabbath dinner this time? In fact, how about this Sabbath?”
Chana wanted to say no, that Abba was moving too fast. But she remembered how Yudit had preened in front of the mirror, longing to look pretty for Alon ben Harim, and she relented. “Fine. This Sabbath. For dinner.”
The following Friday morning, Sarah and Yudit dove into the dinner preparations with Chana as if the two of them were the ones who needed to impress Malkijah ben Recab. Sarah set the table with their finest cloth, Yudit arranged their best dishes, and the three of them planned a menu of soup and fresh vegetables and roasted fish. There was much discussion about what each one should wear and how they should fix their hair, and Sarah was especially critical of Chana’s hair. “Don’t pull it back so tightly away from your face. It makes you look old and sad.”
I am old and sad, she wanted to say. Malkijah may as well know the truth. “How should I wear it, then?” she asked instead. Her sister took over, pulling a few tendrils free to curl around her face. Chana didn’t even bother to look in the mirror at the result.
Malkijah arrived just before sunset with wine for Abba and a present for each of the sisters. “Just a little something for going to all the bother of cooking for me,” he said. Chana’s present was a beautifully woven basket of fresh figs; Yudit’s a lovely pottery jar filled with honey; for Sarah, a plate of sweet pastries made from dates; and for Abba, a sample of some of his best wines. Chana wondered if her father would feel obligated to Malkijah after so much kindness. Would she be unable to refuse a marriage proposal?
They sat down to eat the leisurely dinner in the courtyard beneath a starry sky. Malkijah was an attentive dinner guest, never letting the conversation falter and making sure that everyone seated around the table had a chance to speak and to be heard. When the dinner ended hours later, he led Chana outside the courtyard gate and stood beside her as they gazed up at the star-studded sky together. Her home was built close to the wall that had once encircled Jerusalem, but they could easily peer over the stubby remnant of it and see the rubble of demolished homes on the western hill. “I often wonder what that section of the city looked like before it was destroyed,” she said. “It always looks so eerie in the moonlight, the haunt of jackals.” And thieves and criminals, she added to herself. Evil men like the ones who had murdered Yitzhak.
“I want you to know how sorry I am about what happened to Yitzhak,” Malkijah said, as if reading her thoughts. “He was a fine man. I didn’t know him as well as I would have liked, but I never heard a bad word spoken about him, and that says a lot. You must miss him very much.”
“Yes . . . I do.” Chana blinked away unwanted tears.
“I won’t talk about him if it’s too painful, but I know from experience that sometimes it helps to talk about the loved ones we’ve lost. If everyone tiptoes around, afraid to mention their names, it can sometimes seem like they never existed or like they no longer matter. But of course they do.”
Chana nodded, respecting him for his insight. “You’re right. That’s very true. And sometimes it does seem as if everyone is afraid to talk about him. . . . I understand that you lost your wife, as well.”
“Yes. Rebecca died of a fever more than five years
ago.” Chana thought she heard a catch in his voice.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Ours was a love match, not an arranged marriage. She was my best friend, my companion. I understand that you loved Yitzhak the same way.”
“Yes. But we never had a chance to marry.”
“I wonder sometimes if we only experience that kind of love once in a lifetime. Or if the Holy One can surprise us and bless us with a loving companion a second time. I don’t know. But I do know that I miss sharing my thoughts and disappointments with my wife. I miss seeing her warm smile at the end of the day and holding her in my arms at night. The reason I decided to marry again is because I don’t think I’ll ever find the happiness I once felt unless I do. And because Rebecca would want me to remarry and be happy.”
Chana couldn’t reply, moved by his touching words. She knew in her heart that Yitzhak also would want her to be happy.
“I’ve had inquiries from plenty of hopeful fathers,” Malkijah continued. “And I’ve met many of their daughters. But I’m a wealthy man, and to be honest, it’s difficult to tell if they’re seeing me as a real person or as a wealthy husband with servants and a lavish home. I’m sure you must wonder the same thing since you’re such a lovely woman. I’m sure I’m not the only suitor who has approached your father.”
Was it true? Had other suitors asked Abba about her?
“Anyway,” Malkijah said with a sigh, “as much as I hate to leave, it’s late, and I must head home now. Thank you for such a wonderful evening, Chana. I enjoyed every minute and every bite of food.”
“You’re returning to Beth Hakkerem now? In the dark?”
“No,” he said, laughing. “The trip takes nearly an hour in daylight when my donkey can see where she’s going. She’d never manage all those stony hills in the dark. Besides, it really isn’t safe to be out at night. I have a home here in Jerusalem. I use it during the holidays or when the council meetings last until very late.”
