The Dovekeepers

by Alice Hoffman

  “She’ll be back,” I offered hopefully.

  Shirah stared into the empty plaza. She shook her head. She’d seen love a thousand times before. She had fashioned charms to induce it and amulets to sever its ties; she had recited spells to bind lovers together and others to break them apart. She was sufficiently practiced in love’s ways to recognize its web, even in the dim light of the dovecote.

  “Unfortunately, you’re wrong,” she said to me, her soft voice breaking with regret. “She’s already gone. And if he knew who she truly was he would never want her.”

  I could feel a sudden chill in the blistering air. I thought this was what we had wanted, for there had been daily gatherings so that we might all pray for rain. Now a light rain had begun, unexpected fortune at this arid time of year. But the rain was strange, falling in bleak bands of white from the slate-colored sky. I licked my lips and realized it was laden with salt. It was a rain from the Salt Sea, a strange occurrence that sometimes took place when the wind arose and carried a cloud of dust. The furious, hot blasts had also picked up water and salt, and dumped those elements upon us. It was a bad omen, for what appeared to be rain was only seawater. A salt rain could poison orchards and contaminate cisterns. Men with wounds would weep in pain tonight; women would be unable to light fires and cook their families’ evening meals. The goatherds would find the fresh milk we called halab turned to salty curds in the milking pails.

  It would have been better to have no rain at all than to have this.

  Shirah had begun to recite a spell as we ducked back inside to elude the downpour. She stunned us all when she grabbed one of the doves. She took up the knife we used for our meals. As though possessed, she made a gash across the dove’s throat, then turned the bird so that its blood dripped onto the stone floor. The murder of a dove was a crime punishable by law. Certainly none were to be taken for the darker uses of keshaphim.

  Aziza turned away when she understood what her mother intended, to come between Nahara and the Essene she had chosen. The Man from the North averted his eyes as well, so that he would not witness a deed that seemed far too intimate for him to behold. As for Yael, she alone stood rapt, drawn to the feathers falling, the blood on the floor. I noticed she was quick to murmur the words of the chant along with Shirah, as though she hoped her voice might give strength to the spell.

  As they chanted, the rain from the Salt Sea splashed over the doorway and washed away the blood. In time I came to believe this was what dissolved the spell, turning it worthless before it was begun. Aziza and the slave tried to quiet the doves, who were flapping toward the ceiling, frightened by the rain pelting like stones rattling above us, and even more disturbed by the sudden murder of one of their own kind. I spied Shirah’s grave expression as she tried to sweep away the salt, to no avail. My heart went out to her. Even the witch people so feared, one who knew magic better than most learned men, could not stop a girl who was utterly determined to have her way.

  I hurried home to see to my grandsons, stepping widely to avoid the shifting piles of salt that had gathered on the mountain from this wicked rain. Across the field, I spied Nahara walking with the Essene boy. Their women had presented her with one of their fine white shawls, now draped over her hair. Seeing her beside Malachi, sheltered by a length of the purest linen on earth, I knew before Nahara herself did.

  She had become one of them.

  AS THE RED MOON of Av pulsed, a new life ripened, pushing out the water inside Yael with the heat of his imminent arrival. She was kneeling at the fire where we cooked our meals when her skirts were suddenly drenched. I saw terror flare in her eyes. I hastily sent my grandchildren to Shirah, so she would know Yael’s time had come. Her son, Adir, could watch over the younger boys while we gathered to welcome the newborn child.

  Yael and I began to make our way to the storerooms, stopping when she needed to yield and draw a breath. Her father had not once called for her during the last days of her pregnancy, when she’d been confined to our chamber, too heavy and uncomfortable to move. But her brother had visited. He had murmured an apology for disturbing our household, then had gone to kneel beside Yael, still in his silver armor, so that he shimmered in the half-light. I had heard them speaking of Jerusalem, occasionally bursting into laughter as they remembered the house in which they’d grown up, the flame tree that had stood in the marketplace. He came frequently after that, growing comfortable in our household, allowing my grandsons to climb over him and play at being warriors. Yael often teased her brother about Aziza, calling him a lamb who followed blindly after his beloved.

  “Does she feed you hay?” Yael asked, and laughed. “Does she lock you in a pen at night?”

  “Are you trying to anger me, Yaya?” Amram said with a grin, using her childhood name.

  Yael brought out a scrap of blue, the bit of scarf he had given her that still remained. She waved the token to remind him that she kept it for luck, tucked beneath her sleeping mat. I’d seen it there myself. She failed to mention, however, that the swatch of cloth from the slave’s garment was hidden there as well.

  During Amram’s visits, they didn’t discuss the baby to come, but the warrior once brought a rattle he had carved, with plum pits inside that clacked together when the toy was shaken. Yael was pleased, relieved that her brother had accepted her situation, whoever the father of her child might be.

  “I blame myself,” I overheard him say to Yael one day. I imagined then that the father had been a comrade to him. “Never give something precious into the hands of another.”

  “What I am about to bring into the world is precious,” Yael assured him. “So if you are to blame, then you are the one to whom I offer my gratitude.”

  NOW THAT the time for the baby’s arrival had come, we walked through the evening light to the abandoned storeroom where we would meet Shirah. My arms were looped around Yael for support, allowing her to lean against me when the pains burst upon her. We paused on the stairs, where she doubled over, gasping, astonished by the force of the child within her.

  “This is what he’ll do to you for the rest of his life, so be prepared,” I warned.

  Yael tried to smile, but her pangs were too strong to allow it. She began to ramble in a low voice about a lion she had lost in the desert, a man she had loved, the price she must pay for her sins. I did my best to hush her. Her face was flushed with discomfort and heat. “I gave him back,” she murmured. “Isn’t that enough?”

  I had no idea if she was speaking about the man or the beast or the child who was about to come. She seemed in the grip of a delirium. I was relieved to see Shirah hurrying across the field. She had called for Nahara, who had agreed to accompany her despite their falling-out. Nahara was barefoot, the white shawl of gauzy linen draped over her head. Her hair was braided in a single plait, in the fashion of the Essenes. Nahara and Shirah did not speak as they walked side by side, their faces dark and serious, their differences obvious in the distance they kept between them. When they reached us on the steps, Shirah quickly felt Yael’s middle. She nodded, satisfied, then urged us inside, where we could build a fire and boil a pail of water, making certain to drive out any demons who might have fallen into our cisterns.

  Before she would agree to go any farther, Yael gestured to Shirah, her upturned face a tangle of emotion. I heard her whisper. “If there’s a choice, make sure to take the child. Let me go.”

  “Yes, yes,” Shirah agreed. She threw me a look to let me know this was the time to agree to anything. We helped Yael into the storerooms, then down a long hall, pausing when the pangs became overwhelming, continuing again each time they eased.

  “This is where the demon rolled on the floor,” Yael murmured warily.

  “She was a housemaid, not a demon, and her child is large and healthy,” Shirah said to assure her that all was well.

  Soon enough the fire was lit and the water boiled, all done quickly and in silence. Nahara and Shirah worked together as if their intimacy had not bee
n severed. I noticed that Nahara was praying while Yael began to labor and that she glanced, disapproving, at the figure of Ashtoreth that Shirah had placed on a stone shelf so there could be an offering made of the blood of childbirth.

  The baby was nearly ready before we were; it seemed he couldn’t wait to enter our world. Yael sobbed and asked us to make a single vow: we would make certain she would see his face. She spoke as though she were on her deathbed and would have only a single opportunity to witness the life she was about to bring forth. She continued to plead, insisting she would be willing to walk into the World-to-Come if she could but once see her child, unlike her own mother, who had given birth with closed, unseeing eyes.

  “Nonsense. You’ll see him every morning and night,” Shirah promised, advising the mother-to-be to attend to the task at hand.

  “I want to know the color of his hair, and if his eyes are dark or light,” Yael went on.

  “Yes, yes,” we all were quick to agree, for the air had shifted; it was dense and thick. The time had come. Blood brimmed where Yael had bitten down on her lips, and her face was ashen.

  There was a birthing stool to crouch upon, but Yael could not focus on it, nor would she do as she was told. She begged Shirah to raise the child as her own if need be, making certain he would not be turned out the way motherless infants sometimes were in times of strife, left in the wilderness for the jackals. Shirah managed to calm the panicked creature with a torrent of promises. Nahara brought water to soothe her fevered forehead and lips.

  Once begun, it was a surprisingly easy birth. Yael now bore down when she was commanded to do so; she was fierce, all the more so when Shirah urged her on. “A woman who wails, labors well. It’s only silence we must fear. So go on, roar,” Shirah instructed.

  Yael did so. She was indeed well spoken in fury, and it seemed this wordless rage was her true language. She pushed with all her might, her face straining and flushing. Once, twice, and then the baby’s head appeared. Yael was exhausted and said she could do no more. Shirah and Nahara set to work with oil and hot water and entreaties. At last, the mother-to-be gathered her strength and bore down a third time. The child entered this world, falling into Nahara’s hands as though he wished to be no woman’s burden. He was a large, handsome, dark-skinned boy. We quickly wrapped him in linen and placed him in his mother’s arms.

  I went to take in some fresh air after the child had safely arrived, exhausted by the labor I had witnessed and by the sheer emotion of the night. I had been thinking of my own child, that beautiful girl I had lost, how it seemed only moments had passed from the first breath she had drawn to her last. To my surprise I found the Man from the North on the steps. Like a ghost he’d unclasped his manacles, then slipped from the dovecote to climb over the living hedge of thorns that kept the goats and sheep secure in their dusty pastures. If anyone had seen him, he would have been killed, taken for an escapee and a threat to us all. He shrank into the shadows as I drew near. When he recognized me, he instantly approached to ask after Yael.

  “You really are a fool,” I said, “to come here and pace as if you were the father.”

  “I’m no one’s father,” he said regretfully. He gazed at me, his face transformed by worry. “I’m not here for that. I’ve come because of her.”

  “Double the fool,” I said, “since she’s not your wife.”

  Despite my words, I was moved by his determination. I assured him that Yael was well and already mending. Still, he pleaded to see her, unsettled until the sight of her face could convince him that she was safe and well. He swore she had called to him, insisting that her voice had brought him here. He’d heard its fevered pitch and the agony she’d been burdened with, even though she’d been in a dungeon of a chamber, surrounded by stone, and he’d been locked in the dovecote. He was so sincere I led him inside, urging him to be quiet. No man was to see the workings of a birth, but he was a slave, and hardly a man. I had taken pity on him, unusual for me. Perhaps we had grown close as we worked side by side in the dovecote. Perhaps it was the manner in which his eyes shone when he spoke of the child’s arrival.

  As we ventured forward, I could hear his steady breathing behind me. We stopped at the threshold to the chamber. From here we could view the flickering lamp Shirah had lit before the figure of the outlawed Ashtoreth, Queen of Heaven, giver of life.

  The baby was in his mother’s arms. The Man from the North nodded, relieved to see for himself that Yael had indeed journeyed into childbirth and passed through unharmed. She appeared to be entranced by the infant in her arms, her eyes vivid and glimmering, her complexion glowing with sweat. When she laughed, enchanted by the child’s expression, I saw the slave grin as well, proudly, as if the boy was indeed his.

  The Man from the North gripped my arm and gave me thanks, then left us to our business. Nahara was pouring boiling water on the stones to cleanse them. She seemed an outsider already, unwilling to speak with us, present only for the time she was needed, and now ready to retreat. She kept her eyes lowered. She was on her hands and knees, scrubbing at the blood. When I offered help, she smiled lightly.

  “God’s help is everything I need,” she murmured, devout and beautiful and pure, but no longer the girl she had been.

  Shirah was crouched beside Yael. Their heads were close together. When Nahara gazed up, I saw her take note of this. Shirah had slipped off one of the gold amulets she wore for protection. She presented it to Yael, promising it would bring good fortune and keep her safe from harm. One side of the disk honored our true king, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, I am who I am, the nameless One with a thousand names. Ha-nora ha-gibbor, the mighty One, the hero. On the other side, Hebrew letters were mixed with Greek. Chayei ‘olam le-‘olam. Eternal life, forever.

  These golden amulets had come from Egypt, for there was the form of the moon and the sun stamped upon the one she granted Yael, signifying the power of the Queen of Heaven. Our people were not allowed such images, but Yael strung the amulet around her throat, pleased. It was a gift from one mother to another, accepted with gratitude. The women kissed each other to celebrate the new life. A son cannot be named until he is circumcised, and so Yael simply called him boy as she held him to her breast, the word as loving as any name might be.

  Nahara gathered the afterbirth in a cloth. She would bury it in the orchard, as was our custom, beneath the drooping trees, allowing the essence of this new life to refresh the blighted earth. She stopped beside me, her white tunic splashed with blood. She had always seemed older than her years, now she seemed a full-grown woman. She coolly assessed the amulet her mother had fastened at Yael’s throat.

  “That’s a gift for a daughter,” she said to me of the necklace, her tone cold. “She’s letting me know she’s not saving it for me.” There was a good measure of hurt in her voice along with her scorn.

  Nahara was unadorned, as Essene women were, her feet bare upon the cold, flat stones. The bracelets and charms she’d once worn had been given away. I’d seen children playing with them in the dusty garden beside the stone house, as though they were toys.

  “Would you have taken such a gift if she’d offered it?” I ventured to ask, for Nahara had been the one to turn her back on her mother’s ways.

  Nahara shrugged, knowing I was right. You cannot give a gift to someone who is bound to deny it. Nahara now spent her days caring for the Essenes’ goats, idly feeding them weeds as though she had been a goatherd all her life. I had spied her with the pious women, dabbing water on her head before a meal, swaying in prayer, eyes closed in the ecstasy of the Almighty’s grace. We who worked in the dovecotes did not discuss what was evident: she would not be returning to us.

  “What would you do with gold?” I went on, for I’d heard that the people she’d aligned herself with believed possessions were worthless, meant for this world alone. “I thought what belonged to one Essene belonged to all.”

  Tonight Nahara been an equal partner to Shirah in bringing forth Yael’s child, yet she s
eemed consumed by a child’s jealousy as she gazed at Yael. “That shouldn’t include sharing one’s mother,” she remarked in a hurt tone, so that anyone might think she’d been the one who had been cast away when she alone had made her choice on the day of the salt rain.

  EIGHT DAYS LATER, I went with Yael when she brought her son to the synagogue to ask for the ritual every boy child must endure for his faith in our God. From the time of Abraham it had been this way, and so it continued, with many believing our male children were considered tamim, perfected, by this ritual. It was said that Domah, the angel of the grave, cannot burn or harass any man who has been circumcised when he enters the World-to-Come; the suffering in the here and now is said to prevent suffering for all eternity.

  We stepped inside the doors of the synagogue but were allowed no farther. It was not for the elders to perform the ritual. The child’s father must make this covenant between his son and God, and if there was no father, that was not their concern. Yael clutched the baby to her, frightened that no man would stand up for her child because of the circumstances of his birth and that perhaps she, like Moses’ wife, Zipporah, would have to complete the deed. I knew Yael carried a knife, but she shied away from the very idea of cutting her own son, vowing that her hand would be made unsteady by her devotion and her love.