In the Field of Grace

by Tessa Afshar

  “Shalom, Ruth,” she said. Ruth waited for the usual, sarcastic barb to follow. Nothing came as she waited for Ruth to braid her hair, demonstrating unusual patience. Hannah joined them on the road, and together they walked in companionable silence to the field, for once free of tension.

  Dinah went immediately to work, positioning herself behind a couple of laborers who hacked at the wheat with high speed. Ruth noticed that she made no complaint, even as the heat of the sun gained strength. She thanked one of the men, who gave her a hand with a particularly unwieldy bundle.

  “Did Dinah just express gratitude?” the man asked in a loud voice. “Is the world about to end?” The laborers around them snickered.

  Ruth grimaced. Why couldn’t they leave Dinah be? But the expected explosion of defensive speech did not come. Dinah merely smiled and continued her work. Ruth was no less astonished than everyone else. Being caught by Abel and realizing that lord Boaz knew about her indiscretion must have shaken her more than Ruth had realized.

  Over the midday repast, Dinah sat next to Ruth and handed her the bread before taking some herself.

  “You are good with a needle,” she said, pointing to Ruth’s repair of her tunic. “If I had tried to do that, it would have looked like the gap-toothed smile of a seven-year-old.”

  Ruth dipped her bread into a bowl of wine. “I get a lot of practice.”

  “All the practice in the world would not remedy my ignorance. I can outrun and outclimb any man, and I have better aim with a slingshot than most boys in Bethlehem. But I can’t sew a straight line.”

  Ruth remembered the young man, who on their journey from Moab had saved their lives with one well-aimed stone. “I have an offer to make. You teach me how to use a slingshot, and I will do your sewing as long as the lessons last.”

  “You want to learn how to sling stones? I’ve never known a grown woman to show interest in such a pastime.”

  “It can come in handy.” She told Dinah about being attacked by thieves.

  Dinah slapped the ground next to her. “I wish I had been there. That third bandit would not have escaped if I had been with you. One stone right here,” she said, pointing to the middle of her forehead. “That’s all it would take.”

  Ruth laughed. “I never realized what a bloodthirsty girl you were.”

  Just then, Boaz, who had been striding toward the group of laborers, chose to settle down in the empty spot next to Dinah. After greeting everyone, he turned to Ruth and Dinah. “I overheard a bit of your conversation as I walked by. You were attacked by lions?”

  Everyone around them stopped speaking and turned their attention on Ruth. She squirmed where she sat. “Just one, my lord. And he did not attack me. He attacked the bandit that attacked me.”

  “One seems enough,” he said with a smile and raised an eyebrow as an invitation for her to continue.

  Again Ruth recounted the story of her journey into Bethlehem and the lion’s strange role in her survival. Her listeners seemed spellbound as she described the terror the bandits had inspired. When she told of the lion, even the men gasped.

  Boaz shifted his body until he faced Ruth. “You don’t believe in living a boring life, it seems.”

  “I believe it. I just haven’t figured out a way to manage it.” Everyone laughed.

  “Do you think God sent the lion to save Ruth’s life, my lord?” Dinah asked him. “Or was it mere chance that he showed up at that moment?”

  “Chance?” Boaz dipped his bread into the wine. “Chance is God’s way of showing up without making an announcement.” He rose with fluid grace. “Here comes Abel. I need to have a word with him.”

  Adin, who had lingered in the field to finish the patch he worked on, joined them a few moments later. With a casual nod of his head, he sat in the spot left open by lord Boaz’s departure.

  “You two seem very friendly today,” he said, eyes narrowed as he studied the two women.

  Dinah smiled serenely. “I have to return to work. I need to make up for the afternoon I missed.” Without a backward glance, she ambled to the wheat field, her blue tunic swaying against her hips with every slow step.

  Adin swallowed, seeming distracted as he followed her with his gaze. Ruth shook her lap clean of crumbs and rose.

  He whipped his face around. “What did I say? Why is everyone leaving?”

  “Nothing to do with what you said. We just have to work, Adin.”

  A few evenings later, Ruth came home with a particularly large bundle of gleaned wheat. After helping Ruth sort through it and eating a modest meal, Naomi hurried out of the house to deliver a clay jar of pickled capers to Miriam.

  Ruth decided to tidy up their meager belongings. As she folded her light veil and placed it in an old wooden chest, her eyes caught the old roll of parchment that Mahlon had purchased for her so long ago.

  She pulled the delicate rolls out with careful fingers. The parchment was one of the few things she had refused to sell as they left Moab. It had been a long time since she had practiced writing Hebrew. Thanks to Mahlon’s and Naomi’s tutelage, she spoke Hebrew with a fluidity that would have been uncommon for the average Moabite. She wondered at Mahlon’s insistence that she learn the particulars of his language so that she could speak it like a native. Had he always sensed that she would live in his country one day?

  She thought of how the Lord had directed her path, drawing her step by implacable step to Bethlehem. She did not comprehend His ways or why He had wanted her here. She only knew that He had never forsaken her.

  She decided with sudden determination to write her story. It was a way to practice her writing and keep from forgetting the precious knowledge Mahlon had passed to her. It was also a way of acknowledging the faithfulness of the Lord—of remembering every seemingly inconsequential act of mercy.

  Searching in the cracked, wooden box that held her few possessions, she found the stylus and ink and began to tell her story starting with the day she met Naomi. As she wrote, she wondered what Boaz would think of her journey. Would he see Jacob’s ladder touching down on her life? Touching down in the wilds of Moab, from the day of her birth?

  She stopped writing. Why, Lord? Why did You bring me here to meet him? She scratched his name on the parchment. Boaz. She thought for a moment and added: Why did You let my heart get tangled up with a man I can never have? Writing the words somehow brought a small flood of relief. It took away the sting of keeping a secret so deep no words had ever expressed it.

  She missed the sound at first, too deep in thought to be mindful of the noises around her. It wasn’t until the second time the knock came that she lifted her head and found Boaz standing at their door.

  She stood, clutching the stylus, disbelief etched on her face. “My lord?”

  “Shalom, Ruth.” He hesitated, appearing confused. “Naomi sent for me.”

  “Naomi?”

  “She sent word that I was to pick up a jar of pickles she had set aside for me. She knows I have a weakness for them. The last time I tasted them was over ten years hence, before she and Elimelech left for your country.”

  “Please come in, my lord.” Ruth could not understand why Naomi would invite Boaz and leave without telling her about it. Nor could she even comprehend the reason behind the invitation. Good manners dictated that Naomi take the pickles to Boaz’s house and leave them with a servant. It certainly made no sense to invite a man of Boaz’s standing to their home to pick up a jar of pickles. What was Naomi thinking?

  “Please forgive me, my lord. Naomi is away from home at present. She took some of the capers you mentioned for Miriam. I am sure she will be back momentarily.”

  “I hope she didn’t take my jar,” he said with a smile as he came in. “My mouth has been watering since Mahalath told me about them this afternoon.”

  “She probably saved a bigger container for you.”

  Boaz lowered his eyebrows. “Is that a stylus in your hand?”

  Ruth stared at her fingers as if
she had never seen them before. “Yes.”

  “You can read and write?”

  “I can, my lord. Mahlon taught me.”

  Boaz took a few steps toward her until they stood very close. “You have ink on your cheek. Just there.” He pointed his index finger and when she missed the spot, he reached out and touched her softly. “Here.”

  She felt something like a blaze of fire stain her skin. It wasn’t embarrassment or timidity. It was something she had never felt with Mahlon. Boaz removed his finger and stepped back. His gaze fell on the parchment and he bent to it.

  “Your work?”

  The fire turned into ice in her blood as she remembered the last words she had written. Dry-mouthed, she nodded.

  “May I?” Before she had a chance to speak, he unrolled the parchment. It fell on the beginning of her account, and missed by a few fingers, that embarrassing reference to the man himself. If he unrolled half a revolution, his eyes would fall on his own name. Ruth felt like a paralytic, unable to move a limb.

  Chapter

  Seventeen

  When you walk through the fire you shall not be burned,

  And the flame shall not consume you.

  ISAIAH 43:2

  You have neat handwriting,” he said, and she realized that he had not read her words but given them a cursory glance that protected her privacy. He let the parchment close. She took a deep breath, dizzy with relief.

  “I had not expected you to know how to read. You have many startling talents.”

  Ruth pulled a trembling hand through the dangling end of her sash. “But I can’t make Naomi’s pickled capers.”

  Boaz laughed. “I am deeply disappointed.”

  Ruth swallowed through a dry mouth. The idea of being alone with Boaz was both agonizing and delightful. She fidgeted with her linen sash, unable to think of anything to say.

  His laughter dried up, forgotten as a serious note crept into his voice. “You have one quality that makes up for your lack of skill with capers.”

  “What quality?”

  “You love the Lord. Moses taught us that we must love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength. You love God like that. It’s rare in our day, when everyone does what is right in his own eyes, and many pay little heed to the commands of God. You are from Moab, and yet you follow the Living God with all your heart. What made you turn to Him?”

  His question knocked her sideways. She had not expected him to see her in such a light. He waited expectantly, not put off by her silence.

  “I lost almost everything,” she said when she could form sensible words. “My husband, my dreams, my family, my future. Shattered in the course of a week. At my extremity, I became forcibly aware that I could not depend on my own strength or wisdom. But there was One on whom I could rely. If I seem faithful to you, it’s because I have no choice. I need the sheer goodness and power of the Lord to make it through every hour.”

  “That’s a good reason.” Warm approval colored Boaz’s voice. He had a way of giving simple statements a kind of gravity that made them more meaningful.

  Flustered, Ruth glanced toward the door. “I can’t imagine what is keeping Naomi.”

  He crossed his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall. “I refuse to leave until I have my pickles.”

  The sound of steps made Ruth jump.

  “I do beg your pardon, my lord,” Naomi cried from the door. “It took me longer than I expected to walk from Miriam’s house. These old legs of mine don’t move as fast as they used to.”

  Boaz straightened. “I thought you forgot about me.”

  Naomi went into the back of the chamber near the fire pit, where she did most of her indoor cooking, her feet moving with rapid agility, which belied her earlier assertion that age had slowed her down. She grabbed a stocky clay vessel and lifted it up for Boaz to see.

  “I would never forget about you, my lord.”

  “You are very kind, Naomi. You know my weakness for these.”

  “You haven’t tasted my honey cakes.”

  Boaz groaned. “Remind me to send you honey. Bushels of it.”

  Naomi laughed and accompanied him outside, waiting for him to mount his horse.

  “Why did you not warn me of his coming?” Ruth asked when she returned.

  “Didn’t I? How forgetful of me.”

  “I almost swallowed my tongue when lord Boaz arrived. How odd that you should have invited him to fetch his own jar of pickles. I could have taken it to Mahalath while you went to visit Miriam.”

  Naomi waved in the air, a vague expression on her face. “It’s good for him to see how ordinary people live. Tell me, what did you speak about?”

  “Your capers, mostly.”

  “Oh.” Naomi sounded disappointed. “That’s all?”

  Ruth set her jaw. “What did you want us to talk about, Mother?”

  “Me? What have I to do with it? You can talk about anything you please. Or you can act as mute as one of his sheep. Why would I be bothered by such a thing?”

  The next morning, Ruth and Dinah drifted to an abandoned corner of the field after Dinah noticed that the women gatherers had overlooked the sheaves of wheat that lay there, uncollected.

  “I thought Adin would fall on his head when you behaved with such dignity and ignored his jibe last week.” Ruth stopped to retie her veil more securely around her head.

  Dinah stooped, concentrating on her task. “Adin falling on his head might be an improvement.”

  With deft movements, Ruth gathered the abandoned wheat stalks that Dinah left behind. “The less attention you pay him, the more he seems to notice you.”

  “I’ve decided that I’m not going to torment myself with thoughts of Adin anymore. If he wants me for a wife, he knows where I live. In the meantime, I am going to do what lord Boaz suggested. I am going to enjoy a lot of pomegranates and spit out the seeds. And if Adin is one of them, so be it.”

  “That seems a wise …” Ruth stopped, forgetting what she meant to say. An acrid, unfamiliar stench made her straighten up with slow movements. “Do you smell that?”

  Dinah looked up, distracted. She sniffed the air and dropped the bundle she had been wrapping. “Smells like smoke.”

  Ruth narrowed her eyes against the sun and turned in a circle. Sweat broke out on her brow when she saw a column of smoke not far from them, rising out of a section of land where the wheat had yet to be harvested. She pointed her arm. “Over there. Fire!”

  Dinah sprang to her feet. “Lord, give us aid,” she said under her breath. “This could spread in the blink of an eye and destroy the crop.”

  Ruth ran toward the fire, screaming as loud as her lungs allowed, “Fire! Help! Fire!” No one turned to pay them heed. “It’s no good. They can’t hear us from here.” She ran faster.

  “What are you doing?” Dinah grabbed a handful of Ruth’s tunic and pulled her back. “Get away! You want to get killed? We’ll fetch help.”

  “There is no time,” Ruth called over her shoulder and pulled free from Dinah’s restraining hold to sprint toward the rising smoke again. “By the time we fetch the others, it might spread too far.”

  Dinah pursued her. Within moments she overtook Ruth, running like a gazelle. Before they could see the flame, their eyes began to water from the pungent smoke. It wrapped its way down their throats and irritated every patch of flesh it touched. Ruth bent over, coughing so hard, she had to fight not to wretch, then pushed on, one unsteady step after another. She came to a sudden stop at the sight of flames leaping up from the ground, reaching up as high as her hip. To her relief, she realized that the fire was not as large as they had feared in spite of the billows of smoke it produced.

  “We have no water!” Ruth said, and coughed again.

  Dinah pulled off her veil and began to beat at the flames. Ruth followed next to her, beating until with a sudden flare, her veil caught and she had to abandon it, releasing it with a gasp. Dinah’
s veil suffered the same fate.

  “It’s too strong. We can’t beat it,” Dinah said, her face streaming with tears from the smoke.

  Ruth pointed behind her. “See that?” There was a wide swathe where the laborers had cut the wheat almost to the ground. “Nothing to burn there. It will slow down the fire. If we contain it on this side, we can keep it from spreading.”

  She unwound the spare veil she wore at her waist, emptying the precious wheat she had gleaned during the morning hours. Untying her sash, she said, “Quick, give me yours. Then go and fetch the men. I’ll try to slow it down until they come.”

  “No, Ruth. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Run! You are much faster than I.” Ruth began to beat at the fire again, her eyes burning with soot, her lashes sticking together.

  Dinah did not move.

  “Go!” Ruth shouted. Throwing her sash and extra veil at Ruth’s feet, the girl began to run.

  Time stretched endlessly for Ruth. The fire hissed and crackled in front of her, and she beat and beat and beat at the flames until her arms ached, and still she went on beating. Sparks landed on her tunic. She extinguished them with hurried strokes of trembling fingers. Once, she missed a spark that had landed on the fabric resting against her thigh, and it caught, growing to the size of a scorpion before she became aware of it. She scrubbed at it with urgent horror and relief flooded through her as it died, leaving a round hole and a red blotch on her exposed skin. For a small wound, it hurt with a viciousness that made her head swim. She ignored the pain and sent up a prayer of thanks, of desperation, of need, all wrapped in one.

  Her second veil was reduced to cinders. She picked up Dinah’s spare one. Deep, agonizing coughs throbbed through her body, and at one point she bent over and vomited, unable to control the need. She didn’t even take the time to wipe her mouth before she went back to the fire. She forced herself to keep going, gasping for air with every move. Light-headed and weak, she stumbled and almost pitched forward into the fire, barely regaining her balance in time. Without warning, Dinah’s spare veil went up in flames and now there were only two sashes left, and still the men did not come.