The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [30]
As we journeyed, we looked back in order to see the ever-changing colors of the Salt Sea. We could spy the sails of the flat-boats that traveled across the sea to the country of Moab, ruled now by a fierce people called Nabateans. In this fertile land Moses was said to be buried, yet no one had ever discovered where that holy place might be, though many had searched. Perhaps this was best, for Moses held the key to secrets that were too immense for men to absorb, a gift and a burden too heavy for our people to bear.
One day, after we had climbed the tallest cliffs, the sea disappeared from view, sinking into the earth as though it had been swallowed. Waves of blistering heat rose above the spot where it had been, for its waters were even hotter than the air. Soon even that disappeared. We trudged on. I did not think about the fact that I was a young woman in the desert, alone and on fire. I refused to let my thoughts dwell on roaming beasts or robbers. Most of all, I did not allow myself to imagine what might have occurred at our camp in our absence, how a fever can burn like a flame until there is nothing left but ash, how it spreads the way fire does, leaping from one victim to the next.
We had Abba’s blessing and his medicine. We needed only to find our way. I hurried my father along, collecting scraps of blue as we followed the map they made, grateful to my brother for his gift. The fabric was tattered. Some of the squares had been carried off by hyenas or by the wind, so all that remained were the threads cast from silkworms that had turned into butterflies. One day there was a heavy rain. My father wanted to wait out the rain, taking refuge in a limestone cave, but I insisted we walk on, though our skins glistened with water and our garments were sodden. My father had little choice. He would be lost without me, for I alone knew the direction we must head toward. As we walked on, my father raved and complained, but the rain ended, a little at a time, so that we walked through the drops and then through the fresh, cool air.
The campsite was empty when we arrived. There was the fire pit and the basket I used to collect mint and greens. There were the bowls for our meals, and the ax which had cut the thorns from our path. A fine layer of grit covered everything, and I thought of the two girl-brides Ben Simon had showed me and how he had cried and how I had fallen under his spell. We had stolen our time together, time that had seemed endless in the dark. I felt something sharp in my throat. I didn’t know it was the beginning of my grief until my father silenced me. I had been wailing, the way the leopard does, suddenly and without regard for any other living creature.
We discovered them in the dank cave, searching for comfort and shelter in their final hours. They were together, as they deserved to be. All had the red marks of illness pocking their skin, all had wasted away so that bones showed through their flesh. Ben Simon had set his wife and children onto a stone ledge before he lay down beside them. The veins in his arms were still blue, but they were fading, and his skin had grown cold. I fell to my knees and clutched at him, desperate for any last warmth. I put my mouth upon his, but there was no breath, no life. I could taste the World-to-Come.
I would not move when my father shouted at me, or when he raised his hand to me. In the end my father had to bury them. It was a woman’s place to ready bodies for the Angel of Death and chant lamentations, then to set herself aside until the specter of death was no longer with her, but I refused. Welts rose across my back and shoulders when my father beat me, but I would not be his dog on this day. My father shouted out