The Dovekeepers

At night I paced our chamber, wanting nothing more than to go beyond the gates. The only small joys we had were in celebrating Arieh’s many accomplishments. He was now fourteen months old. Even those who looked down on a fatherless child admitted he was unusual, handsome and large and respectful. He was so beloved among the women in the dovecote that, each time he ran on the cobblestones or spoke the name immah to his dear mother, we applauded as though he had climbed a mountain.

I sat with the women at the looms in the evenings. Though I could not weave, I helped to spin what little wool there was. Beside me, my dog put his head on my knee. Eran and I wanted the same thing, the freedom of the wilderness, but we needed patience. I yearned to be like the Man from the Valley, who slept beyond the fields. I did not see him, or search for him, but I knew he was there. Whenever we were called to go back down the mountain on raids, slipping past the Roman scouts, I made certain to walk beside him, for with him I did not have to pretend to be anyone other than who I was.

*

AMRAM had sent a girl to me to ask why I no longer met him at the fountain. He waited for me in the evenings, but I did not appear. Now he had taken a risk and engaged this child to do his bidding. The girl, not more than four or five, was the daughter of one of the warriors, a friend he trusted from his days in Jerusalem. The child’s braid was thick and black, her manner friendly. She reminded me of Nahara, with her bright, knowing eyes. I said to tell the man who’d sent her that a fever was upon me. I flushed with the burden of my lie, and perhaps I appeared aflame, truly overtaken by an ailment, for the child seemed to believe me. Quickly she backed away, then ran to deliver my message.

It was the time of Rosh Chodesh, and the priest who watched for the rising moon sounded the call of the ram’s horn for us to gather for the Blessing of the New Moon, Kiddush levanah, a prayer which grants us favor from God and invites the Shechinah, all that is compassion and wisdom, into our midst. Our people stood beneath the new moon to listen to the priests and the learned men. We rejoiced, celebrating the passage of time with dancing, our musicians taking up rattles and cymbals and bells in defiance of the Romans stationed in our valley. We prayed and danced together, but only the women would not work in the morning, for they were tied to the moon in ways men could not understand, closer to the female heart of creation.

I kept to the shadows so that Amram would not see me, for I had noticed him among his brethren. When I looked at him, I saw not his handsome features but the face of the murdered child from the village, no older in years than the girl who had brought me his message. There was no one with whom I could share the joy of the new month. I yearned for my sister and the way in which we had danced together in the country of her father, though his people did not count their days as we did. Our mother had taught us that when the moon was white, reappearing after its absence, it was showing us that what had been hidden could easily become whole again.

That night in my sleep perhaps I did become fevered, made ill by my sister’s absence. I yearned for her, the girl I had brought into this world. I dreamed that there were seven wolves on the mountain, and that each had brought forth a dove in its mouth, and that every one of the doves had seven wings and could fly farther than any others. Seven is the most powerful number of all. The first words of the Torah are seven in number, and the Sabbath is the seventh day, the most holy of all. Now my dream had come to me in sevens. This seemed to me a blessing and a calling, one I couldn’t ignore.

I went to the wall to watch for my sister.

I stood there much of the day, convinced my dream had been a pathway, a sign that God knew my sister still belonged to me and that we could never truly be parted. At twilight, the hour between worlds when one’s eyes can play tricks and it is easy to see what you wish to view rather than what is before you, I thought I spied Nahara. She was following the thin black goats as they searched in vain for tufts of grass on the sheer, rocky cliff. Below us, in their camp, the Romans would soon enough notice her as well if she went along the mountain while there was still light. Since the soldiers had made camp, the Essenes had not left their cave in daylight. But their provisions would last for only so long if no one came to their assistance. If they had no spring and no well, they would soon die of thirst.

Half of the doves had been taken from us, though my mother begged they be allowed to live. Instead, they had been used for meat. We had but a few baskets of their leavings to feed the earth, and the earth repaid us in kind for our lack of gratitude. In the orchards the leaves that unfurled were spotted; fruit came to us already withered. During our harvest, I gathered what I could for my sister. I could not look across the valley and watch her starve while we could still manage to feed ourselves, however meagerly. I packed dried beans and millet, a small jar of oil we had been allotted. I was willing to be a thief, as I had been willing to be a liar, and a pretender, and a murderer. But there was one offense I could not bring myself to commit. I, who had killed men and had tasted blood, could not bring myself to murder the doves we had tended. I went to Yael, to plead for her help, which she gave me without question.