The Dovekeepers

I was glad to be a boy in this world of men and to be granted a great honor when your father allowed me to ride beside him. I burst into each day, my black hair braided, my cloak the indigo blue of your father’s people. But our brother had been born, and as he grew everything changed. It was Adir our father looked upon with pride. Perhaps he really had forgotten who I was for all those many years, and only now recalled it was a girl child my mother had refused to leave behind on the first night of their marriage, before we reached the land of Moab and changed who I was meant to be.

IN THE RAINY SEASON, when there were no caravans, the men journeyed back to other villages, other wives. Your father and his kinsmen never stayed in one place but instead rolled down their tents and set off across the land, leaving their families on the Iron Mountain, visiting other wives and children far from our camp. They rode so far their shadows could hardly be seen by humankind. We stayed behind with the goats and the white-fleeced sheep. There were hundreds in the flock, all adding to your father’s wealth, and they needed tending. The acacia trees were abloom with yellow flowers, and the fields of grass were so tall we could disappear and never be seen when we ran across the meadow. At night the bats flew together in one dark cloud, dropping down to the trees to drink the juice of the figs. The air was mild, and the rain turned the air the same shade of blue as the cloaks your people wore.

Our mother did not complain that we stayed behind on the Iron Mountain when your father went off. She had other attachments. When our mother was cast out of Jerusalem, I was not her only pet. She had also brought along two doves, and she was devoted to them. They perched inside a wooden cage and were fed grain and dates. When they drank water, they lifted up their heads as though praising God. Our mother sent them out one at a time, slipping messages into bronze tubes attached to their legs. The doves lifted into the western sky as she tossed them upward, vanishing in a blink. They always returned to her. In time their children and grandchildren did so as well, following the same mysterious route.

Our mother would wait for their return as dusk fell across the mountains in blue bands. She said the color of the sky reminded her of water, and of the land where she had been a child, before she was sent to Jerusalem. She yearned for the city of Alexandria, a place where the rivers were filled with miraculous creatures and monsters alike, where her mother had sung her to sleep with the same songs she offered us now. Throughout the years we were in Moab, she remained solitary. Perhaps she was thinking of the city of her birth. Perhaps that was why I often saw her weeping.

When one of the doves reappeared, our mother would become utterly absorbed. If you called to her, she would not hear your voice. If a bee lit upon her hand, she wouldn’t take notice. Unlike your father, who was satisfied, I understood that our mother yearned for something more. Still I couldn’t quite fathom her expression, not while I stood there barefoot, dressed as a boy. Only now do I understand. She was a woman in love.

Throughout the years we lived with your father, she was sending messages to another man, the one who was my father. Once I found a missive he sent back to her, written on a tiny scrap of parchment, smaller than a thumbnail. I knew then that an angel was not involved in the matter of my birth, for angels come to us in dreams and visions, not upon parchment. Our mother thought she had folded the note into her book of spells, but instead the message had dropped into my path. Perhaps the angels did indeed set it there, so I would know the truth about my origins, or perhaps a demon plucked it from between the pages. My true wife had been written. My mother had taught me the language of scholars, and because I could read Hebrew, I knew of her betrayal of your father, the man who taught me everything I knew, how to ride and how to hunt and how to be loyal to those I loved.

I tossed the parchment into the bonfire that night. As I did, it flew up like a wasp to sting me. There is a mark, beneath my left eye, that remains from that time. Because of this I can never forget what I found. Sometimes people imagine I am crying, they believe they’ve spied a tear, but they’re wrong. I spent the first part of my life without tears, as any boy would. The mark beneath my eye is made of fire. It’s the single element that can overwhelm iron.

WE STAYED until the summer when I turned fourteen. I knew that I bled even though the boys I ran with did not, but that did not change who I was, the fiercest among them, the rider with wings, Aziza, who carried both compassion and power within. I merely had to keep my blood secret, as I was to keep my body from view. The women here were not considered niddah when they bled, so I was not committing any true sin when I keep my secret and stayed among people during that time of the month. On hunting trips I insisted I was a restless sleeper and needed to make camp alone. When the others relieved themselves, I joked that I was a camel and could hold my water for days, waiting until I could sneak off on my own.