by Mary Burns
There was a rumble of thunder, low and long, although the sky above the garden was clear. It set my heart beating fast. The child stirred in my womb again, and gave me a sharp kick which made me cry out. Alaya, who was that moment entering the room with cool water and towels, hastened to my side.
“Are you all right, my dear?” Although she was only a few years older than I, Alaya seemed to me older than my mother. Perhaps it was her plain face and thin hair, which was already turning gray.
“Yes, yes,” I said with some impatience, though not at her. “This child is going to be a dancer, I swear,” and cringed again at another kick. I peered at the sky through the window.
“Did you hear that thunder just now?” I said. “I don’t see any clouds.”
She shook her head as she wrung out a cloth in the cool water, and began bathing my face and neck. It felt very good. “I didn’t hear any thunder,” she said.
Another rumble, louder and more insistent, sounded in my ears, and I felt the house shake with its force.
“There!” I cried. “Surely you heard that! It shook the house.”
Alaya stood back from me and looked down, worried. “No, Janaia, I didn’t hear anything.” She felt my forehead, as for a fever.
I stared at her, open-mouthed. What was going on?
Struggling to rise from the couch, I fought down the panic rising in my breast. Something is wrong, something is wrong drummed in my head. Alaya helped me stand up, and without knowing what I did, I walked across the room and through the door into Nathan’s study. All was neat and orderly, as he had left it. I moved closer to the table, and picked up a scroll left lying there. I saw it was one I had written, about three years ago, a composition based on a song my father used to sing when I was much younger, and the times were bleak.
The scroll dropped from my hand, and I sat heavily in the chair. There was a shallow bowl of water on the table, used for cleaning writing instruments. In its slightly rippling surface, I saw what had just happened: Nathan was dead, killed by a huge block of cold, heartless stone being set in place for building the tomb of my father. I saw Abiathar, along with all the other men, frantically digging around the stone to free my husband’s body. The images blurred, and I could not clearly see anyone’s face. A low moaning sound began to fill the room; I wasn’t sure if it was my own voice or the spirit of the dead one come to take me with him. The child in my womb wrenched itself and turned over, and I cried out loudly at the sharp pain. Alaya came running, and that was the last thing I remember.
* * *
Flickering lights, rain and damp, a rush of water. Voices filled the air, crying, screaming, murmuring, protesting. I floated in ice and fire, high above mountains, deep under the earth. Beasts of every kind, wild and tamed, came and knelt before me, then tore my flesh until I was nothing but bones in a pool of blood. I wandered the earth, a mere voice in rags, and people ran to me, begging to be healed. Then they shunned me, drove me from the villages with stones and shouts. “Nathan!” I called out. “Father!” Women’s hands and voices soothed me, and all was very, very dark, the essence of dark, for a time as long as a life.
* * *
I awoke at last, many weeks later, weakened and dulled with drugs. My child was dead, strangled by the birth cord before he left the womb, delivered in my delirium and a choking cloud of grief. Nathan was dead, crushed under a slab of rock, just as I had perceived it in the bowl of water.
I couldn’t bear to see the sympathetic faces crowded around my bed, so I kept my eyes closed much of the time. I prayed for death. I asked God to strike me on the spot, and cursed His Name for not doing my bidding. My mother, Ahinoam and Alaya were the only ones I would not shrink from when they touched me, or persisted in making me swallow spoonfuls of broth with strengthening herbs.
My body refused to die, and stubbornly fought my attempts to abandon it as I sought the depths of sorrow and despair.
Summer turned to autumn, and the winter rains could be seen in the thick, dark clouds on the horizon before I took my first tentative steps back into life. Alaya, tireless and patient, coaxed me, day after day, to move from my bed to a chair by the window, where I would sit for hours, blank-faced and mute, staring into the garden or out across the city. I was thin to gauntness, and the rich gold-red color of my hair was dull and dry. At first, my breasts had ached with the milk meant for my dead boy, but Ahinoam and my mother soothed my skin with creams and eased the swelling with herbs and unguents. Now I sat, breathing but lifeless, hoping only for annihilation.
In the darkness of my despair, I hated and blamed God for daring to punish me, for so I saw this fatal turn in my life. I had denied His will for me, and He wreaked His vengeance by showing me I could not, would not, be a wife or a mother. He wanted me for something else, but I swore I would never do it now. How unjust, how cruel, how lacking in compassion and love was this Yahweh of ours! There, I’d said it, and I said it out loud again and again, Yahweh! Now, strike me down, if You dare, if You call yourself a god!
But still I lived, and inexorably, day by day, my young body strengthened again, and with it, my spirit grew less hopeless, less despairing. And Ahinoam, bless her loving heart, did the one thing that put my feet back on the path of life: she brought me little Tamar, Absalom’s sister, my own little half-sister, to fill my days with her curiosity and laughter and love, and to soothe the sorest spots in my heart.
At first, Tamar would simply sit by me in my room, sewing a pattern or playing with a doll, always ready to fix me some drink, or run to get something I needed. Her shyness suited my need for quiet, and gradually she came to trust me enough to tell me about the little things in her life that were important to her.
And nothing was more important than Absalom; she spoke of him more than anyone else: how beautiful he was, how funny and clever, how he could ride a horse like a grown man even though he was only twelve. I discovered that she was very skilled at baking, and had already, at the age of ten, surpassed many of the older women in making bread and rolls that were as airy and tasty as angels’ food. She regularly brought some to me, made fresh that morning, and I soon declared it was the only bread I would eat, which pleased her immensely.
So I grew stronger, and came to be reconciled with being alive again, with Tamar by my side to kiss me and throw her precious arms around my neck whenever the tears would fall anew.
“Don’t be sad, dear sister, dearest Janaia,” she would say to me, kissing the tears on my cheeks. “My mother and your baby are together now, and they are taking care of one another, just like we are here.” I marveled at the wisdom and faith of this child, and held her close, blinking back my tears.
* * *
Time passed slowly, but it did pass. I rarely saw my father, but one day, about a year after Nathan died, he sent a servant to my room to ask if he could come talk to me whenever I felt well enough to receive him. I immediately sent back the response that I was quite well and would see him at his convenience, not mine. Soon there was another knock on the door, and my father came in.
His hair was completely gray now, and his face lined with the worry and strain of ruling a great country, but he seemed to spark with fresh life and vigor at every step. His brilliant eyes, so fine and expressive, were clear green as he bent over to look in my face and give me a kiss. He motioned for me to move over a bit, and he sat next to me on the bench by the window.
“Janaia, my dearest daughter,” he said, looking at me with relief. “You are looking very well, the color is back in your face, and it is good to see you smile.” He touched my cheek and smiled at me. I saw the gleam of mischief in his eye, and almost laughed in spite of myself.
“I know that look, Father,” I said. “What are you plotting now?”
He threw his head back and laughed heartily. “I should have known I could not keep anything from you.” He took my hand. “I have a favor to ask of you.”
I felt a warmth like a bold ray of sunshine wash through me, a quick
ening of something I hadn’t felt for a very long time. I waited for him to speak again.
“I would like you to do something for me, Janaia,” he said, “for me and for the people of Israel, now and for many generations to come.” He spoke quite seriously now, and a far-away look came into his eyes, which had turned a softer, cloudier shade of green.
“You know the stories of our people, the journey we have made from the moment of our creation and the voice of the Lord heard in the Garden, down through our delivery from the land of Egypt by our father Moses of great memory. You have participated in the singing and showing of these many stories, and know how they help the people take heart in good times and in bad.” He paused, and looked directly at me.
“It is time for these stories to be collected, and written down, in the new way of these times, written on scrolls and preserved for future generations, so they will not be lost if the mouths of men are stopped from telling them.”
My spirit caught at his words with a stirring of excitement and hope. But I feared to voice what I was feeling, and so I waited again.
“I want you to undertake a journey,” he continued, “throughout our land, to the farthest reaches of my kingdom, and listen to the stories all our people tell their children on feast days, great and small. You shall have scribes to go with you, to help you write down every word, and my guards will watch you on your way so no harm will come to you.” He stopped, and smiled broadly. “There is such widespread peace and prosperity now, the highway bandits have all become farmers and merchants! No one wants for anything these days!”
My heart swelled at the promise of life and work this journey held out to me, and I was struck with humility and gratitude as I realized how wrong and how childish I had been to blame God, to hate Him for what I saw as punishment. Life is not perfect, and love is not ours to possess. We must rejoice in the love and the beauty we see every day, and be grateful for the moments we enjoy. For nothing is forever in the world of earth, but the surpassing kindness of our God.
I kissed my father’s hands in gratitude, and wept just a little as he held me to him, kissing my hair and holding me.
“I will be your greatest scribe,” I whispered to him. “The Story of the People shall be preserved.”
* * *
So I bade farewell to my two mothers, not without some tears, and kissed little Tamar and held her tight. Absalom too, I hugged, telling him he must watch out for Tamar especially, but also for all his little brothers and sisters. He promised, very solemnly, that he would. Amnon held himself aloof, too grown up now for such sentimental stuff, until the last moment came, and he let me gather him in my arms and kiss his cheek. I watched as my dear family grew smaller and farther away as my wagon rumbled out of Jerusalem, then I dried my tears and turned my face to the hope of a new start.
The Journey
Chapter 27
“Come, they said, let us build ourselves a town
and a tower with its top reaching heaven. Let us make
a name for ourselves, so that we may not be scattered
about the whole earth.” Genesis 11:4
In every town of any size, there is always an old man or elderly woman who is the storyteller, entrusted with the ancient tales of the beginnings.
Along the delta where the two great rivers meet, (the ones that flowed from the Garden, so they say), I heard the most ancient of all stories: how we were created by the Lord God at the beginning of time. I remembered vividly the vision Nathan and I had seen of the birth of adamah, the first human, and I tried to incorporate that vision into the best of the tales that I heard. Although the stories were similar, there were variations I found intriguing, such as the one about Lilith, the first woman who was made from the earth, as was Adam, not from his side (as in the later story of Eve, the one I was familiar with). Apparently this Lilith was a bit too independent of her husband’s command, so this story fell into disfavor over the generations. I could not help but smile, and shake my head, though the old woman who told me this story warned me that telling this tale could bring me trouble. Lilith had lived on in legend as a despoiler of men, a succubus who tormented them in the night, and a jealous demon who snatched babies away at the moment of childbirth.
* * *
I trod the ground where Noah and his wife, their sons and daughters, lived alone upon the earth after the destruction of the great flood. High above the town, in a great cleft between two pointed rocks, I saw the outline of what looked like the hull of a great ship, as if carved in the rock where it came to rest. The guide who took us there, from a village at the foot of the mountain, insisted that this was the resting-place of the Ark, and his village was the spot where the race of mankind began its life anew. I felt a trembling in the air as I gazed at the grooves in the rock, and thought that I could hear the faint cries of birds and beasts, and the small, frightened family with them, tossed about in the overwhelming storm that destroyed all the world but themselves.
In the late evenings, and often far into the night, after hearing these tales and seeing the holy places, I rejoiced with deep gratitude at my ability to write them down for future generations to hear and perhaps, read for themselves. If I, a woman, could learn these skills and arts, though I had to keep it secret, I could not help but believe that others would come after me, in more tolerant times, and some day, every person would know how to read and write.
* * *
When I came to the crumbled stones of the Tower of Babel, I sat at the hearth of an ancient storyteller, a man so old his eyes were shrunken in his head, and his finger bones were barely covered by his parched skin. In a whispery, ghostlike voice, he chanted this story to me:
The Tower of Bavel
Listen, now: at one time, all earth spoke the same tongue, the same words. After the flood, they lived in the valley of Sumer, here.
Let us build ourselves into a city and a tower, one that touches the sky. Our name will not know any boundaries, the whole earth will be ours, and the sky.
HaShem God listens, his lips tight across his teeth. They think of doing this, he says, and will achieve it because of their common tongue. They will rise to our very throne, and compete with us as gods. Come, let us go down, baffle their tongues so no words make sense in their brains.
And see, the city unbound, the tower fallen, named Bavel, because HaShem baffled their tongues, and scattered them to the ends of the earth.
I marveled at the insights of our ancient ones. This was an exquisite explanation for the different languages of the world, not because of mere time and distance and isolation, but because the power of the combined commonality and purpose of all mankind would make them like gods! Could not people see that that was what we should strive for, and not be satisfied with the story of Babel as only a punishment for arrogance and over-reaching?
* * *
In about five years’ time, my traveling troupe and I found ourselves at Beer-sheba, where our Father Abraham of blessed memory had lived with Sarah and their son Isaac. We had been gone a very long time, although we were always in touch with Jerusalem through messengers and letters. Beer-sheba was to be our last stopping place before returning to Jerusalem, although whenever I thought about that, I wondered if I could bear it. The distraction and occupation of travelling and collecting stories had been a restorative to my body and my spirit, but I feared what would happen if I went back to those rooms in my father’s house where Nathan and I had lived in such love and hope. I felt more tranquil and at peace than I had for a long time, but I feared the reminders of the past.
I was invited to stay in the house of the headman, Esau, and his wife Tilith. He claimed unbroken descendancy from the first Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, who was tricked out of his rightful blessing from their father Isaac, only son of Abraham. The original Esau, the story went, had departed the place with most of his family when Jacob (renamed Israel) returned, and went north to found a great city of warriors and engineers. But a son or two remained
in Beer-sheba, and intermarried with the local women, staying behind when Jacob and his twelve sons moved to Egypt during the great famine. The number of the generations between the current Esau and his illustrious ancestor was more than could be counted, he said, but his grandfather, still living, was able to recite the names of all the fathers and sons of the tribe. Esau grieved that his own ability to memorize the names was very poor.
It occurred to me that my scribes might be of service to these good people, to help keep their lineage remembered; but I decided to wait a while before making the offer. They were unaware of my identity, as had been the case in all my travels; I didn’t want people telling me stories just because I was the daughter of the King. I wanted to hear the real tales, and that often meant becoming accepted as an ordinary person.
It was odd enough that I was a woman traveling by myself, although with Alaya, two scribes, and six guards who doubled as hunters, cooks and tent assemblers, I was hardly alone. If most people decided on their own, and many of them did, that I was a wealthy, childless merchant’s widow indulging a desire for travel, that was fine with me. I was liberal with both my gifts and my attention to their stories—attributes of about equal value— and after a while, I realized that word about the “strange woman who listened to stories” was spreading, and in some villages, my coming was anticipated. I frequently stayed for three or four months in a particular area, and the more I became acquainted with the local people and ways, the more details I would learn about their versions of the Story, their beliefs and ideas. It was always fascinating.
