The Dovekeepers

by Alice Hoffman

  When I called his name, Yoav narrowed his eyes as though I had uttered a curse. But I gestured to him, and he recognized me and approached. He stood beneath the dry leaves of the mulberry tree, half-dressed in his silver armor. I wondered if he slept in it, if he dreamed of battles and blood or of my daughter’s beautiful face.

  “It’s the day of sorrow,” I reminded him, thinking we might pray together or light a lamp in memory of Zara.

  He snorted. I thought of the blindfolded horses of the king, set upon a path they could not see. Some must have protested; they must have reared up, furious to be sightless in the brutal grasp of the serpent that led up the mountainside.

  “Every day is that,” said the Man from the Valley, who was still my son-in-law even though I had no daughter. “What should I pray for?”

  He seemed both ashamed and furious; there was scorn in his voice at the mention of prayer. Of course he knew the day. He had counted every moment since he’d found her beneath the heavy rocks I’d placed over her so that she might be protected from any other creatures of prey.

  “You have two sons,” I reminded him. “They have your wife’s dark eyes.”

  Yoav stunned me with a roar of grief. I drew back, uncertain of who was before me, this Man from the Valley who confided in no one and slept with his back to the wall, ax in hand, ready to fight while he was dreaming. “I told you not to speak of her,” he admonished me.

  “Or of the boys?”

  He faced me, defiant. “This world is nothing to me. Why would you think I care about such things?”

  “I came to you because you carry her with you,” I said, reminding him that I had offered him her last breath. He had taken it and now she belonged to him. In exchange for this great gift, he needed to respect me still, no matter how bitter he had become. He nodded, recognizing the bond between us and the sacrifice I’d made. He restrained his temper and listened to reason. The man who was still my son-in-law came to sit beside me under the black mulberry tree. He had never asked how I’d managed to kill those beasts, how I’d lured them to their deaths with bread. Perhaps he resented me, for I had performed the deed of vengeance he was likely ashamed not to have committed himself. But back then he was a man who knew only prayer, while I had already become a torrent of fury.

  “There must be something here for you still,” I insisted, trying to speak to the man he’d been, not this violent warrior intent on torturing himself. “The air you breathe, the water you drink, waking each day to see the sun. There must be something you still want from this world.” There was so little that remained of him, but when I looked down into the dust, his shadow seemed the same.

  Yoav laughed and shook his head. “You’re asking what I want?”

  For a moment I saw the scholar who had come to the Baker to ask for our daughter’s hand, the young bridegroom so overwhelmed on his marriage day that even after the legal contract, the ketubah, had been drawn up and agreed upon, he seemed stunned to realize that Zara was indeed his. When he caught sight of the beauty of his bride, he was speechless, and his friends teased him, vowing he’d been mesmerized.

  “Their voices,” he said.

  We could hear the warriors who had gone in to their evening meal, breaking their fast, the raucous conversation of young men, some too young to know the horrors they would encounter when they ventured into the desert to defend us. Most of those young warriors looked away when they saw the Man from the Valley, with his scars and his bands of metal, easily convinced they would never become like him, a death-giver maddened by war.

  “Can you give me that?” Yoav asked. “I want my boys to speak like any others. Can your God do that?”

  It was my wish as well, one I had prayed for to no avail. We were so alike it was painful, two people who had drowned in the same pool. We observed the night and the stars above us in silence. I could not promise him that God’s grace would prevail.

  Yoav shrugged when I had no answer. “Exactly,” he said. “Come back to me when they can speak. When the innocent aren’t burdened by a curse, then find me. Until that time, I have no faith. If there ever was a God, He has forsaken us and is no more.”

  We sat together with that terrible and reckless thought. The chill light of the falling moon filtered down.

  “I’ll fight until there is no one left for me to go up against. Then I’ll lie down knowing I had no God.”

  When I left that place, Yoav was still there, beneath the sun-bleached boughs of the ancient tree. All the while we’d made our way to this mountain, he’d possessed the unrelenting brooding of a man stalked by sorrow. Now he was searching for death, wanting to confront it and be done with this world. I knew what he dreamed about, and it was not my daughter. Such a dream would have broken him in a thousand ways. A vision of Zara would have been endlessly more painful than the sharp strands he strung around himself in self-punishment.

  I did not look back as I made my way from the garrison, or pay attention to the owls who glided across the sky at this hour. I had an errand and didn’t dare delay. I made a vow to get this man the one thing in the world he still wanted, the sound of his children’s voices, a reason to believe.

  I WENT to the synagogue to beg for an amulet that might cure my grandsons. I humbled myself, my eyes on the ground, my voice pleading. But the great man, Menachem ben Arrat, only shook his head. He reminded me that he had the fate of our people to pray over and therefore could not be concerned with the troubles of two small boys. He dismissed me as if their plight was meaningless, as perhaps it was for him, and had me escorted out.

  Despite the priest’s denial, one of the scholars gave me an amulet in which there was a rolled prayer for forgiveness. I buried it beside the temple, as was the custom, but as I wiped the dirt from my hands, I wasn’t convinced that a scholar’s charm was strong enough for my needs. I was already headed in another direction.

  Evening was falling, and the women were at work on the looms set up in the plaza. The men were coming to prayer, called by the blast of the ram’s horn which was sounded from the ramparts on the wall, passing me by as I went to the opposite end of the fortress. I neared the barracks, where I spied Aziza acting as a willing audience for her brother while he practiced with a bow, showing off all he’d learned. Adir had become the pet of some of the younger warriors. Although he was a decent student, he had no idea that his sister was the one who had revealed herself to be an expert marksman. We had not told him because such things were forbidden; Adir might not understand if he learned we had ignored the law. Any weapon touched by a woman, even by accident, must be cleansed with both water and prayer so that her essence would not linger, diverting the warrior who might use it next, for even the faintest touch could bring lust to that man’s heart. Perhaps that meant a woman who was well trained in arms would be the superior warrior, her attention never wavering from her task. Aziza’s shoulders and face were sunburned from her hours of practice behind the dovecote under the guidance of the slave, her lean body finely muscled from the effort of working the bow. Still she applauded her brother as his arrows rose, then fell with a clatter upon the stones.

  *

  I WENT on across the Western Plaza in search of Shirah, relieved to think I might find her alone. When I came to her door, however, there was no answer. I peered inside to see that the chamber was dim. A scrim of smoke lingered, for incense had been burned before the altar. On the table there was a jar of eye paint made of crushed lapis stone, a palette for mixing paints and rouge that was made of a flat, opalescent white shell, brought from the Red Sea. A small ceramic vial of oil scented with lilies was opened, as though someone had left with great urgency. Lilies were associated with the Shechinah, what some called the Dwelling. It was the feminine aspect of God, that which was hidden and touched only by the truest of believers in a veil of knowledge and ecstasy. It was God’s compassion, and those who died in the Shechinah’s embrace were said to be favored by the angels.

  I myself had heard only wh
ispers of such things; still, I recognized the odor of the divine, extremely female in its essence, a mixture of purity and defilement, sweet and sour drawn in one breath. I slipped out of Shirah’s chamber, for the scent led me on, through the plaza. I crossed toward the western wall. I peered over to the palace beneath me. At this hour, under the darkening sky, the ruined Northern Palace yoked to the cliffs was surrounded by a haze of lilac light. The fragrance of perfume was faint, yet it was stronger than the bitter odor of the barren valley below us.

  The shops were closed, the tannery and winery shuttered, the bakery dark. Several strong men worked in the bakery, feeding the huge ovens first with cut wood, and, now that we were running out of logs, planks torn from the floors of the inner chambers of the palace were used to feed the flames. I had avoided these ovens ever since I’d walked past one morning to see the men at work, bare-chested, covered by their white aprons, sweltering in the heat the ovens cast. I was fainthearted at the sight of the bakers. For a moment I imagined I saw my husband among them.

  Before I swooned, I realized it was someone else entirely, someone who didn’t resemble my husband at all. The man working at the bakery waved at me when he noticed me staring. I hurried away. Ever since that time, I had cooked my own flatbread, flavored with the last of my husband’s coriander. I did not wish to come to this place and stand in line with the other women, waiting for the fresh loaves, or be reminded of the scent of my own household in the Valley of the Cypresses.

  Now, in the dark, I saw a shadow cross the bakery floor. A rat.

  I went on to search for Shirah, coming to the entranceway that led into the earth. I continued, though I was made dizzy by the way the path careened down hundreds of tilted steps, many crumbling in decay. Members of the king’s court had glided down these stairs, and not long after, Roman soldiers had patrolled here before our warriors overtook them to claim this fortress as their own. I went so deeply into the earth I seemed to be entering another world entirely, one that was dark and damp despite the arid landscape up above.

  Although we’d had no rain for several months and the world around us was parched and aching, I heard water. At first the promise of water was like a dream, as it had been when we’d come to the oasis. I felt stunned by the lilting sound of its echo, by the very idea, as though I’d long forgotten what water was like, how it could be so cold and sweet, with white petals floating on the surface, how it could easily drown someone, taking the unsuspecting bather into the circle of its pale, unrelenting arms.

  I continued on, drawn to the unexpected promise of water as rats are drawn to grain in the bakery, my hand set against the cool stone wall to help me keep my balance on the twisting stairs. The steps became smaller as I ventured down, each more tiny than the one before. I had to turn sideways so as not to fall. At last I realized where I was. I’d come to the largest cistern, a well so enormous fifty men could stand across it shoulder to shoulder and still have room to stretch. In winter this well filled from Herod’s aqueducts to become a lake used to supply our baths and water vats. Now, however, the level was dangerously low. There was only a small, concentrated green pool collected in the center of the well, rimmed by sharp rocks. A single lamp had been set upon a stone, and the melting oil floated like liquid amber. I squinted through what was shadow and flickering light in equal measure. I felt so strong a chill I might have drifted into the land of ice the Man from the North so often spoke of, a place where a warrior could freeze through to his bones in moments.

  There was the glitter of flesh in the water and the roiling movements of sexual frenzy. I shivered and thought of monsters, for who but crocodiles would slip into the water to take their pleasure? But surely monsters did not embrace each other with such passion, nor kiss one another on the mouth, nor wear the flesh of men and women. The two in the water were both dark, their darkness joining as they became one. When they pulled apart from each other, I could only observe the man’s back and broad shoulders, but I could see that the woman wore a gold amulet around her throat and that her eyes, so dark in the water, were streaked with the powder of the lapis stone, a shade some people vowed was the color of heaven.

  I stood against the wall and tried not to draw breath. I had stumbled into something it was best to leave be. Now I stumbled even farther as I edged toward the stairs in an attempt to flee. A rock fell and splashed into the water. The ripples went out in a shimmering circle as the falling rock was devoured by the pool. The woman in the cistern drew her beloved to her. As she did, I saw her throat and breasts. She was marked by henna-colored tattoos, a practice our people were not allowed, unless a woman was a kedeshah, one who was anointed, willing to offer her body as a sacrifice and as a blessing to her priests.

  The swimmer turned and glared in my direction, seeing through the shadows. We caught each other’s glance, as a gazelle might gaze into the eyes of a hunter, although which was the prey and which the hunter I could not say. Quickly, I backed deeper into the corner. My grandsons had taught me the language of silence. I didn’t need words to tell me that the Witch of Moab was just like any other woman. She embraced her lover closely, her arms cast around him protectively to ensure I wouldn’t see his face. It didn’t matter. I knew who he was from the way the light fell across his back, as though it had been drawn to the light inside of him, that which shone and made men follow him as if they had no other choice.

  I wished I could erase what I had seen. I had only wanted to ask Shirah’s favor, and I’d discovered far more than I’d bargained for. I took the stairs as quickly as I could. Though I was no longer young, I fled as a young woman would have. It crossed my mind to run all the way home, but our eyes had met; there was no hiding from one another after our encounter. If you do not face something, it will follow you anyway. If I had learned anything from my time in the desert it was that once you ran, you could never stop.

  I waited at her door, anxious as to what would happen next. Enemies had been formed for far less reason than knowledge such as mine, and a woman who practiced keshaphim was not an easy enemy to face. I knew too much, yet I knew nothing. Perhaps that made me the more dangerous of the two of us at this moment. If I had any gift at all, it was my ability to see shadows. I spied one now crossing the plaza; if I half-closed my eyes, I saw a raven, one who wished to fly but who was trapped, earthbound.

  Her long black hair was hanging down her back, wet and loose, the scent of lilies clinging to her. We stood in the half-light cast by the moon. I noticed that even a witch could blush, especially one who’d been discovered in the depths of a well. A flicker passed across Shirah’s dark face, not shame exactly but surrender.

  “What is it you want from me?” she asked, resigned.

  I thought of the doves, how they never met your gaze and always cast their glance downward. Unlike these shy creatures, Shirah was staring at me, eyes blazing, convinced, it seemed, that I might use my newfound knowledge against her.

  “What you do is your business,” I assured her. “I won’t even remember tonight.”

  I had come for a favor, and that was what I asked for. I bowed my head and took in the scent of lilies as I pleaded for the only thing my son-in-law wanted in this world. My grandsons’ voices returned to them.

  “What makes you think I can do the work of God?”

  Shirah was fearless even now when I knew enough to destroy her reputation and her life. Women who committed adultery were often cast out, their hair was shorn to the skull, their possessions confiscated, their children torn from them. Wasn’t her bravery proof enough of her strength? She was the reason the council left Yael alone. They had approached once, with questions concerning Arieh’s birth. Shirah had closed the door to the dovecote and she sang a prayer until they went away. If she could bring children into the world, fighting Lilith when she tried to claim them, then surely she could help two small boys find their voices. To convince her I would have to open my own silence. I did so, bowing my head as I told my story, keeping in mind the image
of the Man from the Valley wrapped in thin strips of metal and marked by his own blood. As I spoke the past was drawn around us the way dark gathers at the corners of the world. There was the jasmine that grew beside the pool and the burn marks on my daughter’s skin. There rose the angel who’d whispered to me in the bakery, the demon who’d sifted inside me when I took up the soldier’s knife against my own dearest flesh and blood, the ghost of my husband, who’d assured me that every loaf of bread fed us in the way we needed to be fed.

  Shirah sank back, her face ashen. Now only she and God knew the manner in which I’d killed the beasts who had fallen upon us, the delight I’d taken in watching them drink themselves to death, the terrible pleasure there had been in cutting their throats. I threw off my cloak, the better for her to see me and know what I had become. I was not a baker’s wife or a grandmother or a woman who cared for doves, feeding the ailing birds spoonfuls of barley water, tending to them through the night. I was a murderess. I held the lamp to my palm to let Shirah see exactly what was before her. The mark of death.

  I was spent and exhausted. Words had done that to me, twisted my heart as they poured out, clattered like stones onto the cobbled ground. Perhaps my grandsons were lucky to be mute, protected against the stories of their own lives. Shirah drew me close, and in her embrace it seemed that I was the child who had seen too much, peering through the waterfall at the horror of what a beast could do to a human being and what a human being could then become.

  “For every evil there is a cure,” Shirah said softly. “Any mother would defend her daughter. It would be a sin not to do so, a crime beyond any that are written. What you did, you did for love.”