The Dovekeepers

IN THE DESERT, the air burns. Breathe and it flames inside you, for it is strong as iron, as unrelenting as the swirling dust that rises in a storm. Our water comes from the rain, and from aqueducts long ago built by Herod’s slaves, wide ceramic tubes which carry the rushing waters of the nechalim to us when they fill with sudden streams in the winter months. Still, it is not enough for me. The desert is overtaking me, my strength is dwindling. In water I float, but in the dry inferno of this wilderness, I can barely catch my breath. I dream of rivers and of silver fish. There are those who say our people themselves are like the fish in the sea, nourished by the waters of knowledge that flow from the Torah, and that is why we can survive in such a harsh and brutal land.

I often wake from sleep with a gasp, drowning in the pools of white light that break through the sky each morning. Women carrying new lives within them are especially susceptible to heat. I have felt so afflicted three other times. Once in Jerusalem when I was only thirteen, barely a woman myself. Twice on the Iron Mountain, which was little more than exile to me. And now here, again, in the place where I have found my destiny.

At night I go to the cisterns, led there by the scent of water. To me, this odor is more pungent than myrrh or frankincense. The single thing that can rival it is the fragrance of the white lily that can only be found in Alexandria. People say that I can call down the rain and that water is drawn to me, but they’re wrong. It is I who am in pursuit of water, as I have always been. When I dream, I dream of the Nile on that pink morning, and of my mother, whom I have not seen in so long she would no longer recognize me, if she has not already gone on to the World-to-Come.

The stars are reflected from within the black water in the cistern. I find comfort in the omen I glean from this: light in the darkness, truth when it seems there is none. This is the only place where I can be myself, the girl who fell into the fountain, the one who was not afraid of monsters, nor of deep water, nor of drowning. I walk down the hundred stone steps, the granite cool against my feet. I know where love will take me, for on the day we traveled to the Nile, my mother told me that it would bring me to ruin and that anyone I dared to love would be drawn down with me. But even as she spoke she knew, I had no choice but to follow my destiny.

I pause on the edge of the cistern, where the stones have been covered with fine plaster. The white plaster dust clings to my flesh. I watch the shimmer of the heat over the water. It is said that the spirit of God hovers over the water, as it did on the first day of creation. I stand before the glory of what He has created. I remove my cloak, my sandals, my tunic. Other women purify themselves in the mikvah, but I need deeper waters. I dive in.

Some people say that this, the largest of the cisterns built by Herod’s stonemasons, is bottomless, and if we ever see the floor of this well, we will also see our doom. This pool is deep, but it is not endless. I know that for certain. All things end. I often dive to reach the depths, then keep myself from rising back up by holding on to the rocks piled at the foundation. They are sleek against my hand, smoothed by the endless lapping of the water against stone. I keep my eyes open even though the water is black. There are no fish, no flashes of light, but when I surface, my cousin Eleazar will be waiting.

It was he I saw in the water of the Nile when I spied the fish beside me.

From the beginning until now, that alone has never changed. He is my fate.

THE SOLDIERS of the Tenth Legion were led through the wilderness by Flavius Silva, the procurator of all Judea, the newly appointed Roman governor. The troops raised a dust storm so enormous it could surely be seen as far away as the Iron Mountain, where I spent so many years in the company of a husband who was twice my age and knew I did not love him, yet he still protected me. He never mistreated me, though he had the stony aloofness of many of the fierce people of Moab, along with a surprising tenderness with his children. His name was Sa’adallos, though I never called him that. If I had, I might have loved him in return. I might have been in Petra instead of at this fortress when the Romans arrived. I might have been walking through that red city with its miraculous carved columns of elephants and camels, enjoying its pool, rumored to be the size of a lake, and the gardens that hang from cliffs, causing men to look upon the mountainsides with awe, amazed to see date trees where in another country there would be only clouds.

Had I loved him, my children would have been safe, my future assured. Instead I brought them to be trapped on this perch from which there was no deliverance. Though the angels might hear us call to them, they could never reach us here on the periphery of the world, even if they wished to save us. I understood this when I threw the bones of the doves, for they prophesied that, just as there was no escape from what had already been written, there would be no escape from this fortress.