The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [196]
Eleazar promised he would plead with the elders of his family so that I might be allowed to join their household as his second wife. Such circumstances were fairly common, especially among the wealthy or in towns where there were too few men or if a first wife was unable to bring forth a child. My beloved was an honorable man but young; he not yet dared to defy his parents. He would learn this lesson well as he joined with the Zealots who defied the priests in the Temple, but for now he was at the mercy of his family.
I assured my cousin I would wait for him to come for me, and yet I knew he would not. The marks his wife swore had tainted their marriage bed had ruined me, and no man of any worth could take me for his wife. His family would not allow it.
*
I FOUND a chamber where I could stay behind a house of keshaphim. I’d noticed the dim shack as I went through the marketplace, for my mother had gone to such places in Alexandria, and I’d kept this in mind. She had instructed me that I might find refuge in times of trial among women who practiced magic. Three old women who were sisters lived there. They were unmarried, rumored to be witches who turned into dragons at night. In truth, they were kindhearted, poor, but wise in the ways of magic. In return for being allowed to sleep there, I cooked the meals and learned to bake bread in their small clay oven, making certain to always keep aside the burnt offering to sacrifice to God so that He would not forsake me. My cousin did not return. I dreamed about him for days on end, and then he disappeared from my dreams. Now when I woke from sleep I was gasping, drowning in my dreams in the river where my mother had taken me. For the first time I realized that, although the fish had come to me, he had also swum away from me. This had been the reason I was bereft as I stood knee-deep in the Nile.
I begged the sisters for a love charm, for one cannot complete such an amulet for oneself. They fashioned an incantation bowl from white Jerusalem clay, said to be the purest on earth. Before it was fired, I was to write upon it with a sharpened reed. Holy angels, I adjure you just as this shard burns so shall the heart of Eleazar ben Ya’ir burn after me.
But in the firing, the bowl broke. We collected the pieces, though they burned our fingers. It was a bad omen, but I took the shards and wrapped them in linen and soaked them with my own tears.
When my time came to bring a life into this world, the three sisters were my midwives. My firstborn’s birth was difficult. I was young and frightened. Since that time I have seen a hundred births, but my own blood terrified me, and the tearing heat inside me nearly broke me apart. I wanted to give up, and let the Angel of Death take me, but one of the sisters leaned close to urge me on.
Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. In the name of I am what I am, the name of God, get out. You have journeyed and now you have arrived. Amen Amen Selah.
I named my child Rebekah and saw that she had her father’s eyes. That was all I would have of him. That was my punishment from God.
I WAS CALLED to stand before the elders who were to judge me in the ceremony of the sotah in their attempt to prove my guilt as an adulteress. My situation had become a legal matter, for his mother and wife had accused me of adultery and of having sexual relations with demons. They unbraided my hair and let it hang disheveled to shame me and