The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [29]
I wondered what our hosts would think if they knew the truth about us. My father continued to bide his time and keep our secrets. He believed these pious people to be fools, convinced that those who sat and waited for the End of Days were creating it for themselves. But of course it was inevitable that he would think so. Every man engaged in war tells himself he can alter what has been written, that it is he, not God, who is the maker of destiny, free to change what is meant to be.
ON THE MORNING we left, Tamar brought me to her house and gave me a portion of cheese, salty white haris halab, that would last several days and keep us well fed, along with some sweet pressed dates. She had four young sons, unused to strangers, their mouths agape at the sight of me until their mother shooed them away. When we were alone, she warned that we must take care on our journey. There had recently been a raid at another settlement, called Ein Gedi, an oasis where four springs met with each other to cause great waterfalls, one of which formed a pool where King David was said to have hidden from his enemies. It was here that the Moringa Peregrina grew, a bloom with magical powers that had allowed David to write his songs with such purity. There were flowering acacias growing beside the waters, and jujube trees, whose orange fruit attracted birds from Greece and Egypt, and there were groves of balsam, whose sticky gum formed the incense that was more valued than gold. Ein Gedi was a place of plenty in a time of hunger. Because of this, it had called out like a lamb to those who were starving. The attackers had come in the night. Seven hundred people had been killed or held captive by the Sicarii who had raided the settlement’s warehouses. The Essenes knew these were the culprits because the curved knife, the weapon that finds its mark, then pulls out the soul of its victim, had been used. The thieves had stolen everything, grain and wine and water, along with the lives of the innocent.
My heart dropped at the mention of the Sicarii.
“The murderers won’t find you if you’re careful,” Tamar told me. “Should anyone approach you in the wilderness, hide as best you can. Perhaps now you understand why we are certain the end is near. With such treachery on earth, the angels will surely come to us and guide us into the World-to-Come.”
I nodded, even though I knew that my father believed that daggers and not angels were the answer to betrayal. I didn’t blurt out that my brother might have been among those who had raided Ein Gedi. We made haste to leave, and as we readied ourselves one of the men came to deliver a last message from Abba. My father’s eyes were hooded, his heart closed, but he listened, for he was a guest in this settlement, and must at least pretend to have manners. I overheard what was said and quickly lowered my eyes. When the messenger had finished speaking, my father nodded a farewell, but he never offered his gratitude. That was my father’s character, silent and heartless; exactly what I expected of him. He signaled to me with the wave of a hand, and like his dog I went with him, following at a distance, my eyes cast down.
As we set off, several of the women escorted us, waving, wishing me well, calling out how pretty I looked in my new garments. They knew nothing of me, only the little I had revealed, some of which felt like a lie. My father and I were strangers to each other as well. We knew as little of each other as the Essenes knew of us. We had many days to walk, and, although my father had ceased to humiliate and berate me, we had nothing to say. I knew nothing of my father’s life before he’d taken up the dagger, though I had heard