Deborah Calling

by Avraham Azrieli

  “I don’t deserve any praise,” she said. “I killed a man—a young Hebrew soldier, who was there only because of his duty, whereas I was there because of my foolish error.”

  “It’s irrelevant why each of you arrived at Ein Gedi. It was a deadly confrontation, and you won.”

  “Yahweh commanded us: ‘Do not kill!’ And I did.”

  Sallan shook his head and sighed. “You achieved the unthinkable—turned a deadly ambush into a victory. If your god is a true god, as you believe, then He must have helped you win this victory. He wanted you to win, because you’re special, and you should accept it.”

  Deborah tried to find flaws in his description of the events. Was she special? In her heart, she knew he was right. Her father had foreseen it even before she was born, dreaming that she would one day deliver Yahweh’s message to the Hebrews.

  “That’s why,” Sallan continued, “we beg for your forgiveness—not only for our cowardice at Ein Gedi, but for our absolute selfishness in all our dealings with you.”

  “Selfishness?”

  “It’s a harsh term, I admit.” Sallan shrugged. “But it fits. You see, I noticed you in the basket factory, recognized that you’re unlike the others, and saw an opportunity. It goes to show you that being gifted with unique capabilities is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because you can achieve extraordinary goals, and a curse because others might try to use you to achieve their goals.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “Yes. On the morning of your sister’s execution, I told your friend Barac the story of the Elixirist in the hope that he would tell it to you, which he did. From that day on, my efforts—and Kassite’s, later on—have been focused on using you to unshackle ourselves from slavery and get back home to Edom, even when it required causing you to risk your life repeatedly. For all that, we ask for your forgiveness.”

  The disclosure left Deborah bewildered more than angry. It didn’t matter. Had she stayed in Emanuel to become Seesya’s wife, he would have gotten her executed too. Whatever selfishness had driven Sallan and Kassite, Deborah was driven by her own selfish goal of transformation, unshackling her own version of slavery—womanhood!

  “I forgive both of you,” she said, “on the condition that you tell me about Kassite’s demons.”

  For a long moment, Sallan looked toward Kassite. “Ah, it’s very complicated. He’ll have to tell you—when he can speak again.”

  Deborah realized she hadn’t heard Kassite say a single word since before the battle in Ein Gedi.

  “The shock of the attack,” Sallan said, getting up, “has rendered him mute. Please pray to your Yahweh for Kassite.”

  Deborah watched him limp away, illuminated by the glow from the fire. He spread his blanket and lay down next to Kassite. She wondered how shock could take away a grown man’s ability to speak—especially as great a man as the Elixirist. Sallan had said, “The fear of being enslaved again is worse than death.” She thought about their amputated feet and mutilated ears, and the eighteen years each had spent in slavery—more years than she had been alive. Their escape from Ein Gedi had been an act of cowardice, but did she have the right to judge them?

  Lying down on her back, her fingers interwoven behind her head, Deborah looked up at the sky. It had a faint blue hue and countless glistening stars.

  Part Seven

  The Enchantment

  Chapter 28

  They spent the next day on the road hugging the southwest shore of the Sea of Salt and made camp near the Zered River, which was a river in name only, its flow down to a mere trickle.

  Before sunset, all the men stripped down and went into the sea. They floated on their backs, their feet poking out of the water. Deborah waited until darkness had settled, pulled the tiger tail from her sack and walked along the shoreline a good distance away from camp. She stripped down, placed the tiger tail on top of her clothes, and went in.

  Unlike her traumatic near-drowning experience in Ein Gedi, this time she moved slowly, careful not to splash. It felt odd to relax and lounge back in the warm water, which supported her weight like a hammock. The wounds on her back and arm burned sharply at first, but not for long. She thought of the lepers and their insistence that the regimen of olive oil, garlic paste, and a daily dip in the Sea of Salt had countered the curse of leprosy. Seeing how quickly her own wounds were healing since her misguided plunge into the Dead Sea the previous day, Deborah began to believe them.

  She moved her hands slowly in the water and thought about the eagle. The last dream had granted her foolish desire to see Zariz again, only to have him reject her and rouse his whole family against her.

  Reflecting on the hurtful dream now, she was forced to think of how life would be the day after drinking the third dose of the Male Elixir. The physical manifestations of becoming a young man—the start of a beard, the hair on her arms—made her uncomfortable. Was her own mind trying to sabotage her efforts, sow doubts, and derail her from the path of her True Calling by conjuring up the eagle and the visit to Moab? On the other hand, hadn’t the eagle warned her during an earlier dream about the danger awaiting her in Ein Gedi, when it refused to fly there despite her efforts to redirect it? That warning had turned out to be truly prophetic! And earlier yet, in the tannery, hadn’t the eagle tried to warn her about returning to Emanuel by flying into a cold, dark cloud—as dark as the eventual capture by Seesya, the flogging, and the trial?

  The validation of the dreams by subsequent events contradicted the possibility that they were mere products of her sleeping mind and fertile imagination. Deborah longed to believe that the eagle was a messenger sent by Yahweh to warn her about the future—not explicitly, but with implied clues that honed her ability to interpret dreams. And how should she interpret the most recent dream? Was it a warning against her continued desire to see Zariz again, or a warning that her efforts to transform from a girl to a boy were doomed to failure, disappointment, and self-loathing?

  Deborah remembered her father’s stories about Joseph, father of Ephraim and Manasseh, whose gift for interpreting dreams had been both a curse and a blessing for him and his brothers. If Joseph’s gift had somehow passed down through the generations to his descendants, it had skipped her, for she had great difficulty interpreting her dreams.

  She bobbled in the thick, warm water, realizing how alone she was in the world. Other than the golden glow of the small campfire—a lone beacon of human presence—she was surrounded by darkness, softened only by a partial moon and the speckling canopy of stars. Was this the way an unborn baby felt, cocooned inside a mother’s womb? She recalled Obadiah of Levi’s blessing on the night she left Emanuel on her quest to find the Elixirist, concluding with: “May He illuminate your path and grant you peace.” How else could she have survived along the perilous path since the priest had given her the blessing? Who else but Yahweh could have granted her peace despite all that had happened to her on the way to Shiloh and at Shatz’s house, on the way to Aphek and at the tannery, on the way back to Emanuel and at the trial, on the way to Ein Gedi and at the deadly ambush, and to this magical place, floating in a warm, soothing sea, ensconced in complete peace?

  When she returned to the campsite, everyone was asleep. No one stood watch, but Rogez snorted and turned to her. Deborah lay down next to the horse, wrapped herself in her blanket, tucked her sack under her head, and fell asleep.

  It seemed as if only a moment had passed when she sat up with a fright, panting hard. Dawn illuminated the sky in the east, and Rogez stood nearby, looking at her. She was dreaming of the young soldier, Hashkem, mouthing Yahweh’s name underwater as his hands burst from the water and grabbed her throat, refusing to let go even after she shoved the sword into his chin and saw the steel blade glisten in the back of his open mouth, followed by an explosion of blood. Awakened by the desperate agony of suffocation, Deborah touched her throat, expecting to find it wet from Hashkem’s hands.

  Leaving the Sea of Salt behind, the
group began the journey south while the air was still cool. As the day heated up, the road at times disappeared, blurred by shifting sands, only to reappear further south. At midday, finding no shelter, they tied blankets to the horses’ saddles and sat underneath in the shade.

  In the afternoon, when the heat subsided, they set off again. The road gradually improved as the land hardened and became hilly. They kept going until evening and reached a small town. There were no defensive walls or guards, and many of the houses lay in ruins, some blackened by fire. Merchant caravans had set up camps among the trees on the side of the hill along a running stream.

  “Three worlds meet here,” Sallan declared as he stopped his horse at the edge of town, where several roads intersected. He pointed left at the road stretching across the valley and into the mountains. “East is the road to Arabia, Persia, and the exotic lands beyond.” He turned to the road heading down the wide valley. “South is the road to Bozra, our capital, where the kings of Edom have reigned since Esau lost his birthright to his younger brother Jacob and left Canaan. And there,” he turned right and pointed to the west, “is the road to Beersheba in the land of the Hebrew tribe of Judah. From there, caravans may turn either south to Egypt to trade with the pharaohs, east to Gaza to bargain with the Philistines, or north to barter with the other Hebrew tribes, the Canaanites, and further on, the great kingdoms of the north.”

  Deborah imagined reaching all those distant lands and trading in their exotic spices and goods—not as Zariz’s wife, but in her own right, once she became a man, leading her own caravan and enjoying a life filled with adventure, awe, and wonder.

  “Tomorrow,” Sallan said, “we continue south to Bozra. May the gods be with us.”

  They chose a campsite a good distance away from the noise and smoke of the caravans. Deborah took a spot amidst a cluster of bushes that provided natural protection. The tree overhead was as wide and as tall as a two-story house. She had never seen this type of tree in the Samariah Hills, or even in Aphek, where many different trees grew to maturity with the abundance of water and sun, but there was something familiar about this tree. Had she seen it in her dreams? She couldn’t remember.

  Sallan went to buy food while Kassite sat with his back against the tree trunk and covered his face with his hat. It saddened Deborah to see him—Master at the tannery, Prince Antipartis in Emanuel, and the mythical Elixirist of Edom—so dispirited and withdrawn.

  The men brought water from a stream at the bottom of the hill and collected firewood. They walked softly around the napping Kassite, glancing at him with concern.

  Deborah cleared the ground of rocks and dry leaves. She felt pain in her fingers and noticed the sharp edges of the leaves. As she stood up, her shoulder brushed against a branch, and she yelped as a thorn pricked her skin. Looking closely, she saw that many thorns covered the branches. The leaves were shiny green, with pronounced veins. Little yellow flowers, the size of her pinky nail, nestled in the base of the leaves. There were also fruits, small but numerous enough to weigh down the branches, ranging in color from green to dark purple. She plucked one and looked at it closely.

  “It’s good,” Antippet said, tying his horse to a nearby branch. “You can eat it.”

  “Tastes like an apple, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded, smiling. “You’ve tried one before?”

  She shook her head while placing the fruit in her mouth.

  “Careful,” he said. “There’s a—”

  “A hard pit,” she said. “I’m not sure how I know this, but I do.” The fruit interfered with her speech, which came out funny, making them both laugh.

  The flesh of the fruit was sweet and juicy. Deborah spat out the pit, finally remembering. “My mother told me about this tree! She called it juju-bah!”

  “We call it jujube.” Antippet gave his horse water.

  Deborah touched the tree carefully, pronouncing the name the way he did. “Juju-bee?”

  “Yes. Jujube. It grows all over the land of Edom, wherever there’s water. My grandmother used to send me out to collect a basket full and cooked the fruit in water over the fire until it was pasty and sweet.”

  “Like bees’ honey.” Deborah ate another one and spit out the pit. “There are no jujube trees in the land of Ephraim. My mother missed them.”

  Sallan returned with a large basket of fruit and bread, pulling along a chubby animal with short reddish fur and a flat nose, about the size of a sheep.

  “This town sends tribute to Bozra,” Sallan said. “I found out that the young king is away on the road, searching for his sister, who was abducted by Hebrew tribesmen.”

  The Edomite men converged on the animal, which protested with nasal cries that sounded almost human.

  Patrees went to Kassite and touched his shoulder. “Master, look!”

  Kassite lifted his hat, saw the animal, and smiled.

  Seeing their master smile for the first time since Ein Gedi, the Edomite men cheered. They carried the animal to a flat rock where wood had been piled for a fire.

  Deborah was embarrassed, but she asked anyway. “What is this animal?”

  “A pig.” Sallan wiped his lips. “The best meat there is. Eighteen years I’ve waited to taste it again.”

  Under the tree, Kassite nodded and covered his face with the hat.

  “That’s a pig?” Deborah was amazed. “Really?”

  She had always imagined the forbidden animal as something of a giant rat, with large teeth and beady, mean eyes, as well as pointy ears, a fat belly, and a long, snakelike tail that ended with a red plume, the same red as the robes worn by condemned or impure women.

  “Once it’s cooked,” Sallan said, “you’ll taste it and see how good it is.”

  “Yahweh forbids us to eat pigs.”

  “No one will know. It’ll be our secret. There are no Hebrews left here, I’m told, except for a crazy old woman, a healer, who never leaves her house anymore.”

  “She lives here alone, with no other Hebrews?”

  He shrugged. “That’s what I heard.”

  Deborah’s curiosity was aroused. Why would an old Hebrew woman live alone in an Edomite town? “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “In one of the ruins on the other side of town.” He pointed. “You can’t miss it—walls are still black from the fire, but there’s a good roof over it.”

  Deborah walked across the hilly town, passing between the ruins, and found the house Sallan had described. The stone walls were singed black, like many of the ruins, but the roof had been rebuilt and the windows were covered with fabric. The door was open. On the right-side doorjamb, about two-thirds of the way up, a small scroll rested in a fitting cavity. She touched the mezuzah and kissed her fingers.

  “Come in,” a hoarse voice said from inside.

  Pulling off her leather helmet, Deborah entered a dark room that smelled of incense.

  “Don’t be afraid, child.”

  “I’m not a child,” Deborah said.

  “To me, you’re still a child.” The woman was sitting on floor cushions. “Come, sit with me.”

  Deborah unbuckled the heavy sword, put it aside, and sat down. Her eyes adjusted to the dark, and she saw that the woman was wrinkled and without teeth, but her eyes were large and watchful. Glancing around the room, Deborah saw long shelves with many jars and small baskets, but no effigies of false gods.

  The woman grinned with bare gums and took Deborah’s hand in hers, which was gaunt, the fingers crooked with age, the nails long, but clean. “You came back, child.”

  The words made no sense, and Deborah tried to pull her hand back.

  The woman held on firmly. “You dressed up like a soldier,” she said. “Clever. Did it fool the Edomites?”

  “Most of them.”

  “Didn’t fool me,” the woman said. “I always knew that one of you would come back one day to calm my worries and give me peace, but I didn’t expect it to be you.”

  Going along with the
woman’s rambling, Deborah asked, “Why not me?”

  Her gums showed again. “Pretty girls are married off early and have children, or die giving birth. I expected one of the ugly ones to come back.”

  Obviously, the woman was delusional.

  “I’m not ugly enough?”

  The woman clicked her tongue and reached over to caress Deborah’s head. “Did the Edomites cut your hair? At least not your neck, as they did to our men and boys.”

  An idea came to Deborah, and she asked, “Do you remember my name?”

  “How could I forget the most beautiful girl in Tamar?” She laughed, for a moment sounding like a young woman. “Silly question.”

  “What’s my name?”

  “You are Raquellah.”

  Inhaling sharply, Deborah covered her mouth.

  “What’s wrong, child?”

  Unable to speak, Deborah got up, went to the window, and pulled aside the fabric. It all made sense now—the burned ruins, the jujube trees, Sallan’s words, “There are no Hebrews left here, except for a crazy old woman, a healer.”

  “This town,” Deborah said, “is it called Tamar?”

  The woman cackled. “I still call it Tamar, but the Edomites have another name for it.”

  The realization was both devastating and exhilarating. This was Tamar, the Hebrew village, the frontier of the land of Judah, where her late mother, Raquellah, had grown up until it was captured by Edom!

  “Tell me, child, did you make it to Shiloh?”

  Again, Deborah was shocked. How did the old healer know about Shiloh? “Yes,” she said. “I did. How do you know?”

  “As a little girl, you heard travelers from Ephraim describe the Dance of the Maidens, and an idea was planted in your pretty little head to go to Shiloh and dance in the vineyards on the fifteenth of the month of Av.” The woman smiled toothlessly. “So? Did a good man pick you for a wife?”

  Deborah nodded. “A very good man. Harutz of Ephraim.”