The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [141]
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