The Dovekeepers: A Novel

by Alice Hoffman

  In Jerusalem he might have gone unnoticed in a crowd. He was not a man who stood out because of his appearance. He was not tall or handsome, merely broad-shouldered with a plain, straightforward expression. There were several scars marking him, and his arms were huge, capable of throwing an ax across the battlefield. He dominated all other men and had a fluid energy that made it impossible not to respond to him. He shone because others followed, because they adored him and deferred to him and trusted him. He was dark, but there was a light inside him, a brightness that was unexplainable. Even when he stood motionless our eyes went to him, and in that way he commanded us all.

  The returning band of warriors had brought back donkeys loaded down with weapons—arrows and bows of many sizes, along with dozens of shields gathered from the defeated. Another band from the Roman garrison had fallen before them, and what had belonged to them was now ours. Some of the bronze armor would be melted down so that our fortress could have its coins—on one side vine leaves would be printed, on the other the words For the Freedom of Zion. Two men in chains tramped behind the donkeys, humiliated, their heads bloodied; their eyes flickered over the crowd. They were Roman soldiers conscripted by the legion from a land so far away no one had ever seen anyone as colorless as they, with milky white skin. Although they wore Roman helmets, their tunics were from the land of their birth and were woven into odd patterns of slate, blue, and red. It was sobering to see them before us; we always thought of ourselves as the victims of an unjust war, yet here were these two conscripts, in irons.

  There were slaves among us, brought by those escaping Jerusalem, but they were treated as housekeepers and fieldworkers and often given their freedom after their years of service. They were not bloodied and in chains. Now people applauded the capture of our enemies, who stooped their heads, waiting, most likely, to be slaughtered. But soon enough the crowd forgot them. They were more interested in our hero, shouting out Eleazar ben Ya’ir’s name as thirsty men call for water. I overheard some women say that Ben Ya’ir’s eyes changed color; they were a cool gray, like the still water in a well, but occasionally his gaze turned to the clear green of a stream that falls into a pool. As a man, he was as complicated as the color of his eyes. He would stride away if you disagreed with him, but after some thought he would search you out and ask you to further explain your opinion. He was a man to whom arguments came naturally, but he was tender as well. When one of his men fell in battle and was too wounded to live, Ben Ya’ir did not send a warrior to execute the horrid deed of mercy. He completed the task himself, then spoke the prayers for the dead, an act of charity that can never be repaid. He was open in a way that made people respond to him on a deep, essential level; they revered him and feared his anger, yet loved him as well as they would a brother or a son.

  On the day the slaves were brought to us, Ben Ya’ir had a fresh scar down his neck and chest. He wore his hair long and braided as our warriors did, but he always kept his shawl wrapped around him, ready to pray at all times. It was quite possible that what people whispered was true and he did indeed know more than other men, and was made even more fierce by the power of prophecy. He could divine the righteous from the wicked, and when he gazed upon his enemies, he could see beyond their garments and their flesh to look upon their spirits.

  When the crowd moved toward him, excited, stamping their feet, I shrank away, afraid he might see me for who I was. The seething drive forward might easily crush those who didn’t move quickly enough with the pulsing throng. Above us there came a flock of wild doves, but if that was a sign, I hadn’t the ability to read the prophecy, and the doves quickly turned away, flying east and then north, toward Jerusalem. I saw Shirah watching them, and it seemed her face flushed with despair. I wondered if she had understood something I had failed to notice, and why she carried a branch of myrtle with her, as brides were said to do on their wedding nights.

  Ben Ya’ir had the crowd enthralled. He told of the Romans that had been defeated in this most recent battle, soldiers dressed in helmets and mail, their shields nearly impenetrable when they huddled into a formation that resembled a turtle. Only the bravest warriors could combat them, entering into the fray with drawn daggers. Ben Ya’ir lauded his warriors for their courage, singling out my brother for praise. Amram lowered his head so that he would not appear prideful, but he was clearly honored by the recognition. I spied the silver disk of Solomon around his neck, still providing protection.

  Ben Ya’ir went on to recount the treasures sacked from the Roman camp—a gold breastplate decorated with precious stones, gold signet rings, jars of wine, coins to be melted down. He proclaimed that our victory was due to our God, and that our hearts must be strong to honor Him.

  “If this life seems difficult now, it will only become more so,” Ben Ya’ir announced, his expression grim, the light fading from within him. But this sobering statement hadn’t the power to stop the rising tide of triumph. I had never seen a crowd become one in this manner, one flesh, one spirit, swaying from side to side. The warriors in particular seemed under a spell; they were to a man entranced and absorbed, or so I believed until I happened to glance across the plaza. There was Amram, among his brethren, many who had been wounded in the battle they’d fought. I would have expected my brother to be intent on Ben Ya’ir’s every word, enthralled by his beloved leader, as his brothers-in-arms were. Instead he was staring at a girl on the edge of the crowd.

  It was Aziza, her eyes lowered, her sleek hair pulled back beneath her veil.

  THAT NIGHT I went to the mikvah. It was a place of renewal and hope, what I felt now that my brother had returned. Oil lamps burned in the niches along the stone walls illuminating the darkened chamber. I’d hoped to be alone—although my condition did not announce itself, it was evident to one who might look closely. When I arrived the women from the field were there. If I turned to leave I would offend them, therefore I undressed in the dark, removing my tunic and scarves, hoping to conceal my rounded shape. I hid Ben Simon’s dagger, which I always carried with me, beneath my folded garments, then quickly took the stairs and slipped into the water before anyone had time to study my form.

  “You finally decided to be one of us,” they teased. “Why so shy?”

  I let them think I was mild in my temperament. I hung my head and said the specks on my skin had always embarrassed me. There was no harm in allowing them to see me as they wished to, a girl who chose to keep herself hidden out of timidity. I knew when to join in the teasing. I remembered how to smile, whether or not I meant it. Women were freer to speak in the bath; they shared secrets as they formed a circle in the water. The field women questioned me about my brother, which came as no surprise. Wherever Amram walked, women threw themselves at him. Many of the women in the bath found him handsome, but I had few answers for them. I said I rarely saw my brother, and they accepted my reserve. They set to discussing Shirah. If she had not been a distant cousin of Ben Ya’ir’s, a young woman named Naomi whispered, surely she would have been cast into the desert. Shirah was a practitioner of keshaphim, initiated into the secrets of magic. Our people believed that any item with a sun and a moon upon it must be taken to the Salt Sea and thrown into the water, but several women claimed to have seen gold amulets with such figures worn at the witch’s throat. It was rumored that in her kitchen there was a box kept locked with a key shaped like a serpent, Deraqon, another figure from Egypt that had been outlawed. Inside there was said to be a myriad of sins that would become your burden if you dared to open the lid and set them free; they would swarm around you, like wasps, stinging and biting, never leaving your side. One young woman claimed to have already been stung when she dared to call Shirah a witch.

  I took note of a quiet woman with plaits of honey-colored hair who stayed at the edge of the group. She was the servant girl from the wall where the binding spell had been cast, the one whose arms were stained with the brown tint of pistachios. I knew that she recognized me as well, for she couldn’t meet m
y glance. I hadn’t realized just how young she was, not much more than a child. I felt a pang of sorrow for whatever she had lost on this mountain.

  The other women kept on with their gossip. A witch was only a woman, they whispered, but the daughter Aziza was something even worse. She was one of the sheydim. Half human, half angel, a combination that formed a demon. The women in the bath vowed that Aziza’s father was an angel sent to earth to teach sorcery to those evil women who yearned to know such secrets. Creatures like Aziza were born of these unions. It was difficult to measure who they were, for they could eat and drink as we could. They could have sexual relations and make men long for them; they could even die like mortals, but they were nothing like us. They could see the future in a cup of water and turn the pages of the Book of Life to view the names that were inscribed within. They flew from one end of the world to the other in the time it took for us to rise from our beds. They practiced patience, but they took what they wanted, entitled to all we had in this world; in that way they were the same as all messengers from heaven, a puzzlement to those of us who had no choice but to be bound by our human needs and desires.

  I listened to such claims without comment or expression, but there was a shiver of unease along my spine. Everything I’d done since leaving Jerusalem was surely a sin in someone’s eyes. If the women from the field knew I had called to a lion and brought him to me and had never once turned him away, even during the time of the month when I was a niddah, what would they have said of me? What might they have thought had they caught sight of me in the desert, waiting on the cliff, wanting him more than I wanted purity or obedience or duty?

  I turned away when they spoke badly of Aziza. I had seen her shoveling out the nests in the dovecotes until her hands were bleeding. It was hardly suitable work for an angel, any more than it was a calling for a witch.

  “Watch her,” the women insisted. “She will never come to the baths. She won’t remove her tunic or scarves when anyone can see her body. There’s a reason for her modesty.”

  They were jealous, envious that wherever Aziza walked men gazed at her, that her hair was the color of night, that her smile was sweet, that she would not have thought to speak about them with rancor as they now defamed her. Perhaps they, too, had seen her blush at the mention of my brother’s name. Several of the women clearly wanted my favor only because I was Amram’s sister. The one called Naomi drifted up beside me, so close I could feel the heat of her body in the cool water. Jealousy burned like that. I knew this only too well.

  “Be careful around the witch’s daughter,” Naomi warned me. Clearly, she believed I was a woman who wanted a friend. “And never try to catch her. The sheydim have wings.”

  Aziza’s wings were black, she went on, like those of a raven, and like a raven, it was said, she sang to announce the arrival of the Angel of Death. She perched on Herod’s wall each time our warriors went out, gazing over the landscape through silver-colored eyes.

  “You’re mistaken,” I said humbly, not wishing to press the issue.

  I knew that the Angel of Death was never announced. He came in silence and left in sorrow. He arrived when you imagined you were safe, as he had when we were following the path of blue flags through the desert, a cure for Ben Simon in hand.

  Walking back to my chamber from the mikvah, my hair dripping wet, I felt cool and superior to those foolish women in the bath. But as I crossed the plaza, I saw a figure in the dark that seemed to resemble an angel, moving the way angels are said to do, in the corners of our sight.

  For an instant I feared that Death was indeed near and the women in the bath had been right. I shivered to think his messenger had been let loose upon us. Or perhaps I had forgotten to lock the dovecote and the doves had escaped to conceal themselves in the branches of the olive trees, rustling the leaves. It was too dark to see clearly, so I stopped where I was, blinking back moonlight. I saw the glint of a girl’s shape sifting through the night.

  It was then I spied my brother beside a small pool where a hundred years earlier King Herod had kept fish, small, glimmering creatures said to be made of pure gold. When a hawk plucked up one of the king’s treasured fish, he would sink to earth immediately, weighed down by greed. I saw a girl run to Amram, flying into his arms. There was no need of a spell to bind him, he was bound in the knots of his own desire without the use of the slightest bit of sorcery. He had walked into this net of love and tied the ropes himself, not because Aziza was an angel but rather because she was flesh and blood.

  A SUDDEN cold wind surprised us all in this mild month. When it had gone, fruit fell from the trees and scattered across the stones. Some women vowed the remains of the figs dashed onto the ground formed the shape of the red hawks that circled above us, waiting to claim our fortress for their own. There was a hurry to take the scythes into the fields of emmer and wheat, and collect what could still be of use before the stalks turned brown. Our people said a prayer, led by the wise men and the members of the council. The highest of our priests, usually cloistered inside the synagogue, where he studied and gave advice, now came to stand upon the wall and lead the men in prayer. His name was Menachem ben Arrat, and he was known to be one of the five most learned men in Judea. People said he had heard God’s voice on the mountaintop. The situation was dire, so he now revealed himself, for without the orchards we would have no sustenance and without the doves there would be no orchards. I had learned to appreciate the cooing of the birds, a call so beautiful King Solomon’s great glory Song of Songs celebrated it as though it was the voice of one’s beloved. O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice; and thy countenance is comely.

  The council set forth a ruling on our behalf. The dovecotes were blessed and offerings were made for the flocks’ good health. We burned balsam and myrrh in small silver holders, for the smoke would ensure that our charges would produce eggs easily. Because of the biting wind, the doves shivered on their perches and tucked their heads beneath their wings. We were given one of the Roman soldiers from the north to do the heaviest of our work, carrying baskets into the fields, laying down hay, and raking it up when it was used and dank. The other soldier had been exchanged for two white donkeys that traders from Edom brought to us and was already gone from the fortress. That was a slave’s worth in this world. Ours wore metal cuffs on his feet that were unlocked when he came to us. He kept his eyes averted and did as he was told. He had twisted his fair hair into braids rather than allowing it to hang lank as it had when he first arrived, but despite this attempt to conceal how different he was, he still didn’t look like us in any manner.

  He seemed ashamed of his situation, yet when Revka motioned to him, he was quick to do what was demanded of him. He was tall, nearly a giant, well muscled, with long arms and legs. Inked on his strong forearm, there was a black tattooed image of a creature that looked like an ibex but with huge curled horns. The slave saw me staring and gazed back at me openly.

  “Don’t worry,” Revka remarked when she noticed his rude demeanor. “We’ll make every effort to tame him.”

  The slave threw her a dark look, then went back to work, cleaning out the nests. I quickly came to believe he knew more of our language than he let on. He shrugged and pretended he didn’t understand, but I could see the truth in the way he looked up one day when I broke an egg and murmured a prayer for the spirit of the dove who might have been.

  “Do you know what I’m saying?” I asked.

  He glanced away. His strange blue eyes were cold to look at.

  I noticed that he often scanned the plaza through the slats that covered the dovecote windows, which allowed air in but contained the birds. I thought he might be searching for the other slave.

  “Your comrade has been sent away,” I told him. “We will not see him again.”

  Although I wasn’t certain, I thought he winced to hear this news. I pitied him, perhaps bec
ause he was now the only one of his kind. I thought of the leopard I had faced in the wilderness, how the beast had run from me when I leapt upon a stone and roared. How alone he had been as he darted into the thornbushes, as I’d been alone when he’d left me.

  “Well, if you know what’s good for you, you won’t listen even if you’re able to understand us,” I cautioned our captive.

  I kept watch and saw that he was clever; he had begun a new method of cleaning the dovecotes with a rake he had devised. The slave had found rusted nails on the floor and had used them to attach twigs to a twisted branch of the olive tree that had grown in through a space in the roof. Every time he realized I was studying him, he seemed abashed, cautious. He made me think of a Syrian bear I had seen once in Jerusalem, set in irons to perform tricks for his Roman owner. The bear had kept his eyes lowered, but once, when he could no longer restrain himself, he had bared his teeth, only to be slapped down. He had held his paws over his head, as though he were a man being beaten. Although others in the crowd laughed, I had recoiled and run away, my heart pounding.

  “Do you have enough food?” I asked the slave at the end of one day.

  I mimicked eating so he might understand. He shook his head, shrugged. I knew he slept in the fetid loft above the dovecote, where he was chained at night, that he was given grain and crackers as his ration and little more. I began to leave him piles of twigs, so that he might have a fire and warm himself when the nights were chill.

  “Are you deaf?” I wondered aloud.