The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [212]
My daughter came at dawn, after many hours, and much blood. Too much, pouring out of me, but it was the price to be paid for her birth. Although she was early, she wasn’t weak. She cried out and my heart opened. Her eyes were gray, as her father’s were. Her hair was pale, much like the feathers of the dove. We took her into the field, so that we might bury the afterbirth, though the last of the almond trees had been chopped down for wood to build the wall. We thanked Ashtoreth and Adonai. I removed my cloak to stand naked before them, though I was exhausted, and seven days had not passed. We did not know how many days were left to us, and because of this I could not wait to name her.
I called her Yonah, for she had come into the world because of a message brought by a dove.
My wife, my beloved, my daughter, my world.
ALL THROUGH the night our people reinforced the second wall, our only defense against the abyss. They lashed together the boughs of the almond trees that had been hewn so hastily, chinking the open spaces with mud so that the new wall would be pliant, moving with the thrusts of the battering ram. The Feast of Unleavened Bread would be celebrated the following day. On all other such festivals, our people would have gathered together to give thanks for our freedom from Egypt. Now we did not have time for anything except the prayers we carried inside us.
But the wall that could not be broken could be burned. The scent of almonds rose in a bitter cloud. The Romans lit our wall on fire, and there was a ring of flame around us.
In my doorway, I gazed upon my daughter in my arms as I heard the men chanting, for the chants had lifted above the sound of warfare. I heard women crying. As I gazed upon our sorrow, I turned to take note of a shadow in my garden, a raven crouched down among the rows of vegetables I had grown, all burned to ash now, the mint and rue, the coriander and the hyssop mere twigs. I went into the garden that was no more.
Channa had come to see the child. She was gaunt, as we all were, but her face lit up when she spied the infant in my arms. She vowed that she had told no one about the birth, not even our leader, so as not to distract him. She whispered that the doves I had released had returned to tell her of the birth, the ones in the cage behind her house who had visited me in the land of Moab.
I signaled to her, and she came as a dog might, trotting over, head down. She was captivated instantly, her face eager as I lifted up the child for her to see. I watched as my enemy stood there weeping, not with sorrow but with joy.
She had sent me into the wilderness, but I did not remember how my bare feet had burned on the stones. She had disparaged me and ruined me, but I did not recall the words that had been used against me or remember the years I had spent in Moab. The garden was burning, the air sparked with specks of flame as they say it will be in the World-to-Come when we walk beside the angels and have no fear of their illumination or of their might.
I let her hold our daughter. We rejoiced together over the beauty of our husband’s child, for she was like a pool of water, still and beautiful. We were submerged, our thirst quenched, though there were fires and bursts of flame everywhere, on leaves and rooftops, falling upon us like rain. We sat there, our heads close, as others hid in their chambers or worked furiously to put out the flames. We were no longer thirsty, and no longer had any need of fury or revenge, for we were enemies no more.
HOURS LATER, the entire wall caught fire. It encircled us as a snake would, meant to devour us. We believed our time had come, but then God sent us the wind from the north, and the blaze blew back to the Romans. It burned their soldiers alive and caught their battering rams aflame. Our people came to watch and sank to their knees in gratitude.
But what we are given is taken as well, so that we know God’s glory comes to us from