The Dovekeepers

by Alice Hoffman

  The slave understood me. I was sure of it.

  I knew what it was to yearn for a life so distant it seemed that it had never been anything more than a dream. Did he dream of snow and wild blue goats, or of his comrade, taken in chains across the Salt Sea?

  I urged one of the doves out of its niche, held it until it quieted, then quickly broke its neck. I nearly laughed to see how startled the slave was. Perhaps watching me the way he did, he did not expect such an abrupt and deadly action. But I was not afraid of cruelty; I knew it was inside me, as it was inside the leopard who must catch his supper to survive. The slave was grateful enough when I handed the bird to him to cook for his dinner; he hid it away in the corner, where he might reach it when he was chained at night.

  When Revka, always sour and ready to place blame, noticed a bird missing the following morning, I declared that I’d seen a hawk earlier that day. Such things happened often enough; a dove would arise through the narrow opening in the roof and be struck in midair. Then there would be feathers floating down, and if you narrowed your eyes, a thin rain of blood.

  WHEN I WENT to the wall to look out at the far reaches beyond our settlement, I was often stunned by how set apart we were from the rest of the world. The wilderness appeared endless, the earth so distant it seemed impossible we might ever walk upon it again. If this was what it was to be an angel, to be Raphael or Michael or one of the sheydim who peered down upon mankind, then it was a lonely and terrible place to be. We were a city and a world unto ourselves, with more people arriving all the time. The desperate, the devout, the beaten, the lost. That was why there was so much gossip; it was difficult to keep secrets in such a crowded, unforgiving world. Families shared their lives, with only thin walls of rough fabric made of goat hair strung from ropes to separate us.

  We heard what should have been private, lovemaking and arguments alike. We knew whose children wouldn’t behave and were scolded and whose wife muttered curses as soon her husband left their chamber. The baths were always teeming, with talk as well as with bodies. Shops were filled with those desiring flour and oil. So many had traveled here from Jerusalem there was not enough for all; we were forced to share everything, to wait in lines for food and provisions doled out carefully from the dwindling storehouses, to toil far into the evening hours. I understood why the men went out raiding. I was only a woman, not privy to the knowledge of men at the synagogue or in the barracks, but even I understood what awaited if God failed to favor us. Although the fields were green now, it was impossible to know what storms might come, whether there would be clouds of locusts, how we might go hungry in the month of Av, when the world was burning once more.

  For the time being, we were in the mild season. We could pick wild radishes and greens that grew between the rocks on the other side of the Snake Gate, appearing in places where it seemed impossible that anything could ever grow. Still, we knew that times of plenty didn’t last. That was why Herod had stocked his storeroom with enough provisions to last a hundred years, a time we had entered and passed. The jars of oil and wine were emptying. We tapped on the sides, and when the clay echoed we knew there was nothing inside.

  There were now so many of us that wood was rationed for our fires. I wondered what would happen if our crops failed and we were left with our wits and nothing more. One night when I went to fetch some kindling kept at our door, it was gone. My father said goats had eaten it, but the goats were locked in their pen. He said I was a fool who couldn’t even count sticks. But I knew that one of our neighbors had stolen from us. That was what happened in lean times. The truth about people surfaced just as surely as tiny silver fish arose from the sand in the desert when there was flooding, miraculously appearing in the ravines amid the sudden rushing streams. It was said such fish could bury themselves in the sand for seven years, their flesh so dry it would seem to be nothing but dust. At the first hint of rain they would show their true selves, exactly as people did whenever they were given time enough and cause.

  MY FATHER was happy to have nothing to do with me. He let me clean and cook for him but ignored me at all other times. I heard him offer his opinion to some men who asked after me, eyeing my red hair. “She’s nothing,” he said. “Only trouble.”

  My father sat outside our chamber on a bench he had built as the dark sifted down, his cloak draped around his shoulders. In the half-light he disappeared, quickly becoming the wall, the darkness, the night itself, as he had done when he lurked outside the Temple, practicing invisibility. I wondered if I alone could see him there against the stones, facing toward Jerusalem, yearning, as I did, for a life that had past. I had compassion for this man, despite all he had done. I alone was his partner in crime.

  My father was not too proud to partake of the meals I prepared despite his contempt for me, slowly devouring a stew of lentils, beans, and barley. In the hours when he left our chamber I had the freedom to shut myself away. I could hear other women gathered in the plaza singing as they worked on the looms; their voices sounded sweet, much like the songs of birds. I had taught myself to spin and to weave, but I never joined in. Had I gone, someone might have questioned me and then known me for who I was, nothing but trouble, exactly as my father had declared, a ruined woman whose time was growing near. Soon, I would no longer be able to hide the truth.

  No one came to call; even my brother was absent, taking what little time he had away from the garrison to slink off with Aziza. My single visitor was the ghost in my dreams. She alone came to me faithfully. In time I came to know her better than anyone. I slept with her each night, and in my dreams she wept. I did not believe in tears, my own or others’, I thought they were shameful, a sign of weakness, but I had no choice but to lie silently beside her and listen as she cried. I was chained to her the way the slave from the north country was chained to the dovecote’s stone wall.

  One dark night it was Nahara rather than the ghost who came for me. It was the hour my father had roused me when we fled Jerusalem, but Nahara did not shout as he had. Instead she crept onto my pallet and placed her hand over my mouth. That was the way I was awakened, to make certain I didn’t call out and rouse my father. For a moment I imagined I was in the desert and it was Ben Simon who wanted my silence, and I didn’t resist. But the hand was too small, too polite. When I opened my eyes, Nahara was there, insisting I hurry. I reached for my tunic and followed her outside so that my father would not be disturbed by our whispering. There were always watchmen posted, but we found a dark corner.

  “My mother wants you to follow me.” Nahara had a sweet, no-nonsense nature. She clearly expected me to do as I was told. “She needs your help.”

  “Let your sister be the one to help,” I recommended, anxious to return to my chamber. There were so many stars in the dusky night I could see them falling as I gazed upward into the darkness. They seemed so near, like the Salt Sea in the distance, when they were so far away.

  “My sister doesn’t have the nerve for what we’re about to do.” Nahara was so serious she might have been the elder sister. Unlike Aziza, she had dark eyes but hers were flecked with yellow, appearing half-shut, a subtle glance that suggested deep thoughts. “Aziza will never attend to a birth. She says she can’t bear to see the blood.”

  “How is that possible? I’ve heard that your sister can do things no mortal woman can do,” I ventured to test her. “Perhaps my brother would know more about that?”

  Nahara smiled. If she seemed older than her years, well, so had I when I was her age. “I doubt it. What would a warrior know about women’s ways?”

  “I need my sleep,” I objected, but Nahara tugged on my sleeve, refusing to give up.

  “My mother says you have to come. She says she’ll help a lioness in return for what you do tonight.”

  I felt fully awake when I heard this. Was the message a veiled threat or a promise? There was nothing waiting in my chamber other than a ghost, curled up and weeping. No one in my house but an assassin who berated me when I swe
pt his floor. When Nahara told me we were in search of a black dog, I became curious and decided to accompany her. Nahara carried a pitcher; she handed me a length of rope. There were many black dogs in the settlement if that was what Shirah wanted. I found one right away and grabbed it. Simple enough. But when I brought the stray to Nahara, she laughed, covering her mouth so no one would hear.

  “Is he not good enough?” I said, annoyed. I had a strong rope around the creature’s neck, but Nahara crouched down to remove the noose. She was amused I had imagined our task would be so easy.

  “That one.” She pointed to a fierce she-dog who snarled at us from a distance. “Can you manage her?”

  “One black dog is not a lion,” I remarked.

  I caught the she-dog as I had trapped wild birds in the desert. I sat beside her, paying no attention when she drew her lips over her teeth. I remained silent, for that was my gift and what I was best at. After a while I slipped the rope around her neck. The she-dog looked at me. As soon as she did, she belonged to me, as the birds had, as I had looked at Ben Simon and belonged to him.

  Nahara came racing over, pleased with my accomplishment, her dark hair flying behind her. Yet we weren’t finished with our task.

  “Now you must take the ingredient we need,” she instructed. “She may bite when you do.”

  Then I understood. The she-dog’s teats were hanging; she’d recently had pups. It was her milk we were after.

  “Why not you?” I countered. “You’re small and fast. I’ll keep her from biting you. Just go to her as you would approach a goat, but do so quickly.”

  Nahara shook her head. “I’m not a woman yet. It has to be you.”

  I kept the rope tightly hitched around the she-dog’s neck and bade her to look at me. Without speaking I told her not to move. I instructed her with my touch and with my silence, and she behaved. Her body was warm and yielded to me; surely my touch was more gentle than her pups’ sharp teeth. When I was done collecting her milk, I freed her, then followed Nahara along the oldest part of the wall. People said the stones here were made of the same limestone Herod had used for construction of the Temple in Jerusalem, his mark etched into a border around each one. I wondered if he had been certain that the stones with his mark would be everlasting, and if perhaps Adonai had made them fall simply to prove that a man was only a man, even if he was a king.

  We crossed to an abandoned section of the palace, ruined by fires in the years of the Romans but still useful if you wanted a place of privacy in this teeming world of ours.

  “Why didn’t you get Revka to help you tonight?” Surely she was more trusted than I. “Is she afraid of a dog’s bite?” I mocked.

  “She has the two little boys to care for, and this may take all night.”

  “Revka?” I was surprised. She was so bitter, barely speaking. “She’s too old for little children.”

  “Her grandchildren. She takes care of them and they sleep beside her. You’re all alone. No one will miss you.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “My mother wanted you.” Nahara looked at me with a respect that surprised me. “She told me you’d be able to catch the black dog, and you did. You should be flattered.”

  We entered through an iron gate, then together used our strength to push open an ancient door of carved acacia wood that brought us into a corridor leading to the oldest of the storerooms. These chambers had once been so filled with treasure there was said to still be gold dust between the stones. We went down a hundred steps that twisted underground, and true enough, there was a faint shimmer on the stairs. The air felt damp and cool, murky, the shadows a dim slate color. The hallway grew more narrow as we went on. At last, we were forced to walk single file. Nahara carried a lamp filled with olive oil. I had the pitcher of milk. We came to an empty room made of crumbling stone.

  There was an echo as we went on, though we were barefoot. Someone was calling out, but the sound was muffled. I recognized the plaintive bursts of pain. Sia had cried in this manner when she fell ill, her hand covering her mouth so that she might hush her sobs, hiding her frailty from the rest of us.

  When I peered through the long furrows of shadows cast on the wall, I half-believed there was a demon flung onto the ground, much like the one imprinted upon my brother’s amulet, the female monster Solomon is said to have killed on the Temple floor. As we came near, I could make out the form of a woman rolling back and forth in agony. She was the young housemaid who had begged Shirah for a spell, the one who’d stayed on the edges of the bath the night when I was told Aziza belonged to the world of angels and demons. She had traveled to this place as a servant but had recently been cast out by the family who had rights to her when her situation became evident. Now she was no longer considered worthy to pick mulberries or pistachios, or to carry her mistress’s baskets. She had been lurking near the storerooms, stealing food from the goat barns. Her current state of misery affected me deeply. I felt fainthearted at the sight of her as she tore at her abdomen, panting, riddled with pains.

  Shirah was urging her to sit up, but the young woman refused. There was a child about to enter our world, one who had no father and no family. If it became known that the father of this child was a married man, this young woman’s fate would be impossible to escape. The council might well recommend she be cast out onto the mountain. This birth must be a secret, and as I would soon understand, secrets were Shirah’s greatest gift.

  Shirah signaled to me, but I stood motionless, stung by panic as I had once been stung by a wasp. I, who’d been born of a dead woman, had no right to tend to anyone bringing forth life.

  “Hurry,” Shirah insisted. There was a second pitcher beside her. “Mix the milk with water.”

  I did so, then watched, caught up in a dream as Shirah and Nahara held the woman up and urged her to drink the mixture of she-dog’s milk. The housemaid spat some of it on the ground and made a terrible sound, the cry of a woman who was drowning. She held on to her belly as the pain tore at her. Shirah and Nahara lifted her up and did their best to make her walk, but even this made no difference. The baby would not come.

  Shirah now commanded the housemaid to crouch upon the birthing stool she had brought along, and to bear down. Still there was nothing. The housemaid was so young she seemed little more than a child at this moment. She cursed not the man who was the father but herself. I felt something rise in my chest and throat as I surveyed a birth that would not come to pass. I had Ben Simon’s knife in my tunic, cold against my skin. I thought of the knife that had been used to take me from my mother, and her great echoing cries, and the silence of her last breath.

  Shirah came to me and shook me. “Stop dreaming! Go to the dovecote and get me a basket of droppings.”

  It was broiling hot inside the storeroom, and Shirah was drenched. Her black hair streamed down her back. The kohl around her eyes was melting so that her eyes seemed to stare out from behind a veil. I thought I had never seen anyone as beautiful or as fierce. Her tunic had been flung open, and I was shocked to see a swirl of red tattoos on her shoulders, a practice that was forbidden to our people. Those who had been marked so were said to belong to the kedeshah, holy women who were loyal to religious groups with practices so secret and controversial they had been outlawed long before Jerusalem fell.

  “Go on!” Shirah demanded. “If this woman had anyone else to turn to, do you think she’d be here? She has no one, only a man who wants nothing to do with her and a baby who refuses to leave her womb.”

  The faster I did as Shirah said, the faster I would be back in my own chamber, away from this mad scene. I went recklessly through the hallways, which seemed a series of dungeons, black as pitch, for I had no lamp. At last I reached the doorway that led me into the night. There was a pale moon, and the lemon-tinged light was nearly blinding after the dim air of the storehouse. Still, no one noticed as I ran to the dovecote, my footsteps silent on the granite stones. I unlocked the door, then made my way among the
birds as they fluttered about, surprised to have been disturbed at such a late hour. I began to fill the basket, frantic, my blood racing.

  It was then I saw the slave. His chain reached from the loft where he slept down to the floor. He had been awakened when the door to the dovecote was thrown open, ready to defend himself if our warriors had come to mutilate him, or murder him, or trade him to nomads. I had completely forgotten about him. I could hear my own panicked, raspy breathing. Tears that did not fall were burning behind my vision. Our eyes caught. We looked at each other much as two animals who had met at a pool might have, both thirsty and mistrustful, both perfectly capable of violence. After a moment, the slave nodded for me to continue what it was I’d come for. He sank down and lowered his eyes, so they seemed like slits. He pretended to be sleeping, his back against the stones. I was grateful and told him so. Whether or not he could speak our language did not matter. He gazed up, and I could tell he understood.

  I finished my gathering, then locked the dovecote and ran back the way I had come. There were almond blossoms falling from the trees, and the ground looked white. I thought of snow, and of manna, and of Jerusalem. I thought of the slave crouched down among the doves. My breath hit against my bones.

  Shirah was waiting for me, pacing the floor. She had piled her long, sleek hair atop her head and had thrown off her veils. With a fine-edged pen made from a hawk’s feather, using blood rather than ink, she had written the name of our Lord on her arms, the letters reading upward, leading to heaven. She had concocted pharmaka from the precious leaves of the rue, an herb most women with child avoid, for it brings on cramping. Many refused to touch rue, for it burned the flesh. Often it was removed from the ground by tying it to a dog, which allowed the curse of pulling out the root to fall upon the animal. Some women used the herb when they wished to miscarry, but rue could also be depended upon when a full-term baby needed to be hurried along, both for his sake and for the mother-to-be.