The Dovekeepers

by Alice Hoffman

  Still, despite her kindness to me, she had become my rival. On the brutal day when my mother was taken to the plaza in chains, accused of witchery, Yael was the one who went to her, not I. She rushed to my mother, wearing one of the gold amulets from within our family, a gift that had always been presented by a mother to her daughter. I could see them through the sheets of rain, their arms entwined. I turned away and said nothing, swallowing the bitterness of my own jealousy.

  I couldn’t help wonder what else my mother had seen on the day I was born, if there had been an omen that had caused her to cast me aside, preferring a stranger to her own daughter.

  THROUGHOUT the beautiful and mild month of Adar, Yael came to our chamber in the old palace kitchen in the evenings. She learned the spells my mother had been taught in Alexandria, along with Greek and Hebrew letters. They sat at the table, heads together, voices low so as not to wake Arieh, now nearly eight months old, who napped on the pallet where my sister had once spent her nights. I wasn’t offended when they didn’t think to include me. I had no interest in such matters. Keshaphim was nothing more than women’s work in my eyes, with its recipes and its herbal remedies, no different than cleaning up after the doves, or spinning wool, or keeping the pots simmering on the stove. I had used it to protect Amram once, when he led his first raid from this mountain. But afterward I had felt unclean and had gone to the mikvah to purify myself.

  And yet, as I watched them at their studies, I thought how much easier it would be if only I could do as my mother asked, if I could be the one to sit beside her, if it had not already been written that I was bound to disobey.

  WHEN NAHARA left us, I was convinced she would return. I was the rebel and she the good daughter, my dear and trusted sister. In time I was certain that the Essenes’ strict ways would grate upon her. Then she would remember she belonged to me.

  But the season changed, the wheat grew tall, and still there was no word. There was Yael, in Nahara’s place at the table. There was Arieh, cooing, playing with his toes or with his rattle on her bed. My sister dropped her eyes when we passed each other, as though we had not crossed the Salt Sea together and slept in each other’s arms. She seemed not to hear when I called to her in the plaza. I thought she would come to me in her own time, but I was wrong. I should have realized that a ewe does not run through the open gate when her entire world consists of the pen in which she lives. Once such a creature has memorized the fence of thorns, she will not cross that marker, not even after it’s torn down, for it still rules the boundaries of her vision and her life.

  When I spied Nahara in the field, tending to the black goats, urging them on with a bent stick, following the men of the tribe, her eyes trained on Malachi, I wondered if my mother had been mistaken in her prophecy when she said that love would bring about my undoing.

  Perhaps she had seen my sister’s fate instead.

  ON THE DAY of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when we celebrate our people’s release from slavery, the kadim arose out of Edom. No good could come of this, for once the wind began, it was said to last for weeks. There was no way to escape its brutal heat or hide from its fury. For weeks the birds would not rise into the sky, their wings beaten back by the force of the gusts and by the will of our God, reminding us that we must bow before Him and offer thanks for our life on earth. Confusion would reign when men tried to speak to one another, and women’s intentions would be misunderstood.

  In the dovecote, the birds were agitated and refused to lay. My mother drew the sign of the four winds on the earthen floor, then burned incense, a small pile of myrrh that caused the doves to quiet, though they still trembled. Yael took the birds onto her lap, and they were comforted, but the moment she went out the door, they began to worry and call.

  When the Feast of Unleavened Bread was over and the bakers were once again at work at the ovens, using what little grain they had for their loaves, the wind was still with us, just as fierce. Petals rained down from the almond trees in a blinding hail. Lines formed at the storehouses, where our neighbors waited for their share of food. People had to shout in order to be heard; in the end they often walked away from each other, shaking their heads. The kadim had brought a whirlwind; there was dust and grit where we slept and where we ate and in the seams of our garments.

  Fortunately there was a single hour when the wind eased and brought a stillness for which we were all grateful. It came to us when the blue light of evening began to fall. The color of the horizon was so wondrous even the blind vowed they could see it. It was beyn ha’arbayim, a time that is neither day nor night, when the veil of illusion is thinner and we can see things in the lilac-tinged light that cannot be spied at any other hour. It was the time when demons or angels could appear, when the sheydim had first come into existence.

  One evening Yael did not come to our chamber alone for her visit with my mother. She brought her Essene friend to us during the hour when the kadim wind grew quiet. Tamar’s white robe appeared blue as it fell around her. The women approached us, eyes downcast. I shivered in the light and the wind. As for my mother, her face was haggard. She had seen a scorpion in a corner that morning. Ever since, she had been waiting for disaster to come to our door.

  “Don’t blame Tamar for what she’s about to tell you,” Yael advised my mother, her voice filling with concern. Her hair shone scarlet in the fading light. “She came to me, as she now does to you, to offer the truth, not to cause you any hurt.”

  Tamar’s boy, Yehuda, had become a friend to my brother. We had thought perhaps she had come in search of him, as was often the case. But Tamar wasn’t there for her son. It was my mother she wanted, yet oddly she came no closer. We were standing on one side of the doorway with Yael, who had joined us, while Tamar remained on the other side, as if to cross the threshold might bring a curse upon her.

  It was a bad omen, to stand divided, yet no one moved.

  “Once the Sabbath has come, there is no way to go backward to another day,” Tamar remarked, her eyes downcast. She was a gentle woman, one who had suffered greatly, and it clearly pained her to say more. Yael urged her to go on, so at last she told us. “They went to Abba for his blessing.”

  My mother let out a sob upon hearing the news. She knew the Sabbath was often spoken of as a bride, for it was the seventh day of creation, and most beautiful of all. The bride in question was my sister, who had only just become a woman. She had married without my mother’s knowledge or permission.

  “There was nothing you could have done,” Yael offered. “They were wed this morning.”

  Tamar was murmuring an apology for the manner in which her people had disrespected us. Because we had no man of our family, Abba had given his approval with the grace of God. My mother was no longer listening. She had rushed to the cabinet where she stored talismans and herbs, desperate for a spell that would set things right. The oil of the lily, that holy, precious scent, spilled upon the altar as she did so. For an instant it seemed that we had returned to the fields of Moab, and it was summer, and every flower was red. I saw that my mother was crying. That alone was terrifying. I could not recall seeing her weep before, not even on the night when the robbers came to our tent, when she changed my name and thereby changed my fate.

  I wished I were still a boy, gone to raid caravans alongside the men, sent with the warriors to search for provisions, leaving heartbreak such as this for the women to deal with. I stood there mutely, unable to cope with my mother’s grief. It was Yael who went to embrace her. Anyone might have imagined she was the daughter and I was no more than a guest, too awkward to do any more than watch as my mother mourned my sister’s rash decision.

  “It’s done,” Yael soothed. “She belongs to them.”

  My mother shook her head, indignant. Her black hair spilled down her back.

  “You know as well as I do. What’s done can be undone.”

  My mother hurriedly left our chamber. I clasped Yael’s arm when she went to follow. For once, I would be my
mother’s daughter.

  “Nahara is my sister,” I said coldly. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  Yael gazed at me, surprised, then backed away. “Of course.”

  I chased my mother across the plaza, my heart hitting against my chest. I heard the clatter of her footfalls on the stones. She was quick, but I caught up with her at the edge of the orchard. Our breath rasped as we stood there. The wind had returned. It shook branches and threw up dust devils. The time of the blue light was over and darkness began to spiral down. My mother was not surprised to see me. She knew my sister belonged to me.

  “She’ll come back to us,” I said.

  My mother shook her head. “Her father sent this as a punishment to me. This is how he seeks his vengeance.”

  I didn’t believe that the man who had taught me all I knew would be so cruel.

  “He wouldn’t do such a thing,” I ventured, my bitterness at how we had betrayed him rising with the gusts of the Ruach Kadim. “Unlike you, his love was true.”

  My mother glared. She wound her cloak more closely around herself. “If it’s not a man who is responsible, then it is God’s will. If that is so, we cannot unwrite what is meant to be. So pray that it was her father’s curse.”

  Beyond the field, there was a lamp burning on the Essenes’ rough-hewn table, illuminating the ragtag group that had gathered for their shared evening meal. Instead of the scrolls that were usually rolled out for the men to work upon, we spied a marriage feast of dates and wine, curds and sycamore figs. A tent had been set over the table as protection against the whirling dust.

  My mother’s gaze was fixed on the leader of the Essene people.

  “We’ll see if this is God’s hand at work or simply the greed of men,” she told me. “If they knew who her father was, they wouldn’t even consider her to be of our faith.”

  She made her way toward Abba, the holy man who could no longer walk. Even nonbelievers bowed down to him to honor his great age and his favor from the Almighty, but my mother was not there to offer her respect. I noticed she had something in her hand, clutched tightly in her fist. The Essene men had taken note as well, and they stood blocking my mother, to prevent her from causing Abba any harm. I thought of how she had gone alone to the Iron Mountain, waiting for the doves. I understood why the women in Moab had been too frightened to look at her. As I had been on the shore of the Salt Sea, I found I was afraid of her as well.

  “Elohim will protect me,” Abba assured his followers.

  “Will he?” My mother raised her eyes to Abba. Her head was uncovered and she seemed dangerous. “All I want is my daughter.”

  It was not a weapon my mother possessed but a handful of salt. And yet perhaps it was more fatal than a dagger, for it contained a curse she meant to set upon these people, a way to enclose evil so it could do her no harm.

  The men shielded their eyes, lest they become entranced and transformed before her into monsters or goats. They murmured prayers, calling down God’s mercy. My mother paid no heed. She invoked the angels of heaven and the spirits of wrath, pleading with the Creator of the universe to bring affliction upon her enemies. I thought of the way the robbers Nahara’s father had murdered had fallen among us, like branches from the acacia tree, their blood like sap, so thick it took days for my mother to wash it away. As she did so she had cursed each one, the same curses she was uttering now.

  The wind was shredding the garments the Essene women had strung on a wash line; it shook the marriage tent. As my mother raised her arms, the kadim seemed drawn to her. She called to the four directions of the universe. When she threw down her handful of salt, it rose like a pillar of smoke, there to do her bidding.

  The sky turned black and we could not see a single star in the firmament, and it seemed that my mother had managed to close the curtain of heaven, hiding the Throne of Glory. I saw a look of wonderment and fear cross Abba’s face. He had realized that my mother was a learned woman, not a ewe in the field, there to be commanded. She would not be defeated by a fence of thorns or the indignation of a righteous man.

  The Essenes were immobilized, as a mouse stands motionless before a black viper. One of their women, an old grandmother, thought to run for a pail of dirty wash water to pour over the salt my mother had cast at Abba’s feet. But there wasn’t enough water to wash it all away, and what remained settled in a pattern that resembled a snake, turning black as it filtered into the sand.

  Abba, who could barely walk, now stood away from his chair. He recognized signs, but he read them to his own advantage. He believed that his people had been chosen by God and that peace was the only true way to honor the Almighty. The end of our world was upon us, and what had been written could not be unwritten or undone.

  “You cannot fight what is meant to be with weapons or with curses.” As he spoke, his followers circled around for protection.

  “I want her now,” my mother told him. “You cannot take what belongs to another.”

  “She’s not your daughter,” Abba told my mother. “She’s the daughter of God.”

  “Is that what you think?” my mother said.

  Malachi came out of the house that had once been a goat barn, where his people dwelled together, eating from the same dishes, pouring water over their heads before each meal, living a life of prayer and of giving glory to God.

  Abba gestured to him as he approached. “She belongs to this man.”

  The boy my mother had sent away from the dovecote had heard the rising conflict and turmoil in the field and had left his marriage bed. There he stood. The bridegroom.

  My mother faced him, chanting the curses from the book of spells her mother had bequeathed to her, the book that had come from Alexandria, and had traveled to the Iron Mountain and across the Salt Sea. If what had come to pass could be undone, it would unwind at this moment. The wind shifted in the direction of this settlement, throwing up leaves and rattling branches. The bridegroom knew what my mother was trying to do, attempting to unstitch fate.

  “She’s already my wife,” he told her.

  “We’ll see if she’s your wife or my daughter.”

  No one dared interfere as my mother stalked past Malachi. Her cloak grazed him, and he flinched, fearful of the sin of touching a woman other than his wife. When I followed, I kept my eyes lowered even though Malachi beseeched me for help.

  Nahara did her best to hold the door shut, but she was no match for us. At last she backed away. For an instant, as the door fell open, I imagined that my mother and I had become like the robbers in Moab, attempting to claim what belonged to another. I had a burning in my throat; every breath flared like fire. It was much like when I drew the hot liquid from my sister’s mouth on the day she was born so that she might take her first breath. Perhaps my mistake was to spit the watery blood on the floor rather than swallow the essence of her soul. Perhaps she had never belonged to me, and I had unwound us from each other at that moment.

  My sister wore her simple white robe. Her hair, usually braided and covered by a shawl, was unplaited and loose, black as my mother’s hair, as long as mine. I had saved her, only to have her marry Malachi and live in this goat house. But wherever she went, however distant, she would be my sister.

  “Come with us now,” our mother pleaded. “Before you belong to him.”

  “Before?” Nahara raised her chin defiantly.

  The room was hot, the scent of sweat and of sex lingering. There was blood on the pallet where the women of this sect had unrolled a sheet of white linen to capture the proof of my sister’s purity.

  “If he knew your father was not of our people, he wouldn’t want you,” I said.

  “But she won’t tell him.” Nahara nodded at my mother. “It’s too late. He’s had me and I belong to him.” Nahara seemed overcome with her power to hurt us. Her hands were on her hips, as if she were the queen of this stench-filled goat house. “If you want to save someone, save her.”

  She nodded at me, my sister whom I lov
ed like no other, who had now become my betrayer. I thought of how tenderly I had cared for her when we lived in the tent on the Iron Mountain. Whenever our mother was called to her husband, I had sung my sister to sleep. She’d always slept well, her thumb in her mouth, drowsing as soon as I began the first phrases of a song which told her that the stars were above her, watching over her. I promised to take tamarisk leaves and use them as a broom to sweep the night away so that morning could come again.

  “You’re blind to all she does,” Nahara now said of me. She faced my mother without any attempt at respect. “She has been with Amram a hundred times and you haven’t seen a thing. Open your eyes now.”

  My mother turned to me.

  “What did you expect?” my sister went on. “A whore learns her business from the one who knows it best of all.”

  When our mother reached out, I imagined she would grab Nahara and force her to leave with us. Instead, she slapped her. Our mother, who had never done anything but embrace us, had been driven to this.

  I heard Nahara’s sharp intake of air. She raised her hand to her reddened cheek, but she didn’t cry. She smiled, more composed than before, more certain of what she wanted, her father’s daughter in this if nothing more, fierce and single-minded.

  “You may try to silence me, but you don’t deny it,” she said to the one who had brought her to life.

  Outside the desert wind had risen once more; the door of the goat house was thrown open with such force that the wood split apart. It was too late, just as Yael had warned. The wind would be with us for days, forcing us to cover our heads, to eat grit with our food, to listen to its wailing far into the night. I, who knew only iron, felt tears burning my eyes. Though she stood before me, my sister was no longer mine.