The Dovekeepers

When I sit in the darkness, the birds come to me. They still know me for who I am.

I am the girl in the desert, even though I am so far away.

I am the woman who was saved by doves, for when I saw them rise up in a cloud above Masada at the hour when darkness reigned, I knew that we must escape.

We were in the kitchen of the palace, waiting for Mal’ach ha-Mavet to walk through the door in the form of one of the ten death-givers who would come to us to slit our throats. Revka and the children were huddled together, listless, as dumbfounded as the sheep who edge toward the butcher when called and herded by bells. I paced the black and white mosaic floor, then went to the door, eagerly scanning the crowd. I was hopeful that Shirah would soon appear, returning to us with Aziza and Adir safely retrieved from the mayhem. But the more I watched the more I trembled, for bodies were piled up in the plaza and the blood was like a river, a tide that fed the olive trees and the date palms and the garden that had turned to ash. There was incessant wailing, but soon the echoing cries gave way to an uncanny silence. Shirah had once told me that silence was the only thing we had to fear. It was our true enemy, signifying that, like the footprints that were swept away in a storm, we had disappeared from God’s sight.

Yonah cried suddenly, breaking the silence with the sweet voice of one who demands to be fed. I still nursed Arieh, and when the newborn cried, I felt my milk come in. In that instant I knew that, despite the death that encircled us, I was still alive.

The fortress was burning from the inside out, ravaged by our own people. Every home had been lit aflame, every possession cast upon a bonfire that flared up with the wind and was quickly burning out of control, the sparks smoldering on rooftops and in the leaves of the few trees that had not been cut down to build the inner wall. Many bodies had already burned to ash, and those ashes rose up to bring about a night that was the darkest we had ever known. It was the eve of Passover, but there was no manna as our people had known in their escape from slavery in Egypt, only the black sky and a scrim of smoke. We breathed in the bones of our people—their desires, their petty differences, their faith—all martyred, vanishing into the dusky, murderous air.

There were no stars, and darkness reigned, as it did before the first day of creation. But then the doves lifted upward through the smoke, as though they themselves were stars. I wondered if manna had appeared in this way as our people wandered in the desert for forty years, if it had floated above the earth as a dove might, a message to let us know we were meant to survive.

Because birds do not fly at night, I knew the doves in flight were the sign Shirah had vowed she would send to me. She, who had cared for me when I was a motherless child in Jerusalem, once again watched over me. She had opened the doors of the dovecotes, as we were now to open the doors for ourselves.

I took Shirah’s daughter in my arms and held her along with my son. To me, they might have been twins, the one newly born, the other twenty months in this world, one no dearer to me than the other. I instructed Revka to stop weeping, for we must flee. We had no time for death, I told her, surprised by my fierce certainty.

Revka stared at me, thinking I had gone mad, for we were the captives of the Romans and of our own people and of fate. We had been told to be indifferent to the world we had no choice but to lose and to embrace death. But the children in my arms were squirming, alive, destined for something more.

We had been commanded to sacrifice rather than surrender, and I might have complied, if not for the children. Once I explained myself, Revka was quick to agree. We would do anything to save those in our care. Revka had done so at the waterfall when death stalked her grandsons. As for me, I was not about to lose another lion. I could not yield to our leader’s commands. If this was treachery, then I was a traitor indeed.

But I had broken laws before, and God, who had witnessed my sins, had forgiven me.

I hurried Revka and the children. Yehuda hesitated, for he had been taught not to combat violence but to accept it and was troubled to think he might disrespect his people. I spurred him on by reminding him that his mother had entrusted him to us so that he might live; that was her intention and he must honor her will above all other motives.

I raised a small rug to reveal a door that had been fashioned in the floor of the kitchen, meant for the escape of the king. Aziza had once confided to me that she’d used this exit in order to meet Amram. No one knew of this doorway but the king who had been gone for a hundred years.

We entered the space below the floor, hushed, slinking into the shadows. I pulled the door closed behind us, shutting out every glimmer of light. We took the stairs into the cellar. Holding hands, we moved in the dark, swiftly and in silence, as the rats do. Noah and Levi were used to silence, for it had become part of their nature. Yehuda was diligent and hushed. Even Yonah and Arieh seemed to sense that without their silence we would be caught up in death’s net. They did not whimper or cry but instead clung to me without complaint.