The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [142]
Yael gazed at me, surprised, then backed away. “Of course.”
I chased my mother across the plaza, my heart hitting against my chest. I heard the clatter of her footfalls on the stones. She was quick, but I caught up with her at the edge of the orchard. Our breath rasped as we stood there. The wind had returned. It shook branches and threw up dust devils. The time of the blue light was over and darkness began to spiral down. My mother was not surprised to see me. She knew my sister belonged to me.
“She’ll come back to us,” I said.
My mother shook her head. “Her father sent this as a punishment to me. This is how he seeks his vengeance.”
I didn’t believe that the man who had taught me all I knew would be so cruel.
“He wouldn’t do such a thing,” I ventured, my bitterness at how we had betrayed him rising with the gusts of the Ruach Kadim. “Unlike you, his love was true.”
My mother glared. She wound her cloak more closely around herself. “If it’s not a man who is responsible, then it is God’s will. If that is so, we cannot unwrite what is meant to be. So pray that it was her father’s curse.”
Beyond the field, there was a lamp burning on the Essenes’ rough-hewn table, illuminating the ragtag group that had gathered for their shared evening meal. Instead of the scrolls that were usually rolled out for the men to work upon, we spied a marriage feast of dates and wine, curds and sycamore figs. A tent had been set over the table as protection against the whirling dust.
My mother’s gaze was fixed on the leader of the Essene people.
“We’ll see if this is God’s hand at work or simply the greed of men,” she told me. “If they knew who her father was, they wouldn’t even consider her to be of our faith.”
She made her way toward Abba, the holy man who could no longer walk. Even nonbelievers bowed down to him to honor his great age and his favor from the Almighty, but my mother was not there to offer her respect. I noticed she had something in her hand, clutched tightly in her fist. The Essene men had taken note as well, and they stood blocking my mother, to prevent her from causing Abba any harm. I thought of how she had gone alone to the Iron Mountain, waiting for the doves. I understood why the women in Moab had been too frightened to look at her. As I had been on the shore of the Salt Sea, I found I was afraid of her as well.
“Elohim will protect me,” Abba assured his followers.
“Will he?” My mother raised her eyes to Abba. Her head was uncovered and she seemed dangerous. “All I want is my daughter.”
It was not a weapon my mother possessed but a handful of salt. And yet perhaps it was more fatal than a dagger, for it contained a curse she meant to set upon these people, a way to enclose evil so it could do her no harm.
The men shielded their eyes, lest they become entranced and transformed before her into monsters or goats. They murmured prayers, calling down God’s mercy. My mother paid no heed. She invoked the angels of heaven and the spirits of wrath, pleading with the Creator of the universe to bring affliction upon her enemies. I thought of the way the robbers Nahara’s father had murdered had fallen among us, like branches from the acacia tree, their blood like sap, so thick it took days for my mother to wash it away. As she did so she had cursed each one, the same curses she was uttering now.
The wind was shredding the garments the Essene women had strung on a wash line; it shook the marriage tent. As my mother raised her arms, the kadim seemed drawn to her. She called to the four directions of the universe. When she threw down her handful of salt, it rose like a pillar of smoke, there to do her bidding.
The sky turned black and we could not see a single star in the firmament, and it seemed that my mother had managed to close the curtain of heaven, hiding the Throne of Glory. I saw a look of wonderment and fear cross Abba’s face. He had realized that my mother was a learned woman, not a ewe in the field, there to be commanded. She would not be defeated by a fence