The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [4]
I gave my gift of the pomegranate to my brother, having already decided to always place him first. But that was not the only reason. I was already full from my portion of sorrow.
*
AS I GREW, I was quiet and well behaved. I asked for nothing, and that was exactly what I received. If I was clever, I tried not to show it. If I was injured, I kept my wounds to myself. I turned away whenever I saw other girls with their fathers, for mine did not wish to be seen with me. He did not speak to me or take me onto his lap. He cared only for my brother, his love for Amram evident at every turn. At dinner they sat together while I was left in the hall, where I slept. There were scorpions secluded in the corners that soon grew used to me. I watched them, fearing them but also admiring how they lay in wait for their prey on the cool stones without ever revealing themselves. I kept my sense of shame deep inside, much the way the scorpion hid its craving. In that we were alike.
All the same, I was human. I longed for a lock of my mother’s hair so I might know its color. In that hallway I often wept for the comfort of her arms.
“Do you think I feel sorry for you?” my father demanded one day when he’d had enough of my wailing. “You probably killed her with your crying. You caused a flood and drowned her from the inside.”
I had never spoken back before, but I leapt up then. The thought that I might have drowned my mother with my own tears was too much to endure. My chest and throat burned hot. For that instant I didn’t care that the man before me was Yosef bar Elhanan and I was nothing.
“I wasn’t the one at fault,” I declared.
I saw a strange expression cross my father’s face. He took a step back.
“Are you saying I am the cause?” he remarked, throwing up his hands as though to protect himself from a curse.
I didn’t answer, but after he stormed out, I realized that we did indeed have something in common, more so than the scorpion and I, even if my father never spoke to me or called me by name. We had killed my mother together. And yet he wanted me to carry the blame alone. If that was what he wanted, then I would take on the mantle of guilt, for I was a dutiful daughter. But I would not weep again. Nothing could cause me to break this vow. When a wasp bit me and a red welt rose on my arm, I willed myself to be still and not feel its pain. My brother came running to make certain I hadn’t been harmed. He called me by the secret name he’d given me when we were little more than babies, Yaya. I loved to hear him call me that, for the pet name reminded me of the lullabies of my nursemaid and a time before I knew I’d brought ruin to my family.
I burned from the sting of the wasp but insisted I was fine. When I looked up, I saw the glimmer of tears in Amram’s eyes. Anyone would have thought he’d been the one who’d been wounded. He felt pain more easily than I and was far more sensitive. Sometimes I sang to him when he couldn’t fall asleep, offering the lullabies from Alexandria whose words I remembered, as if I’d once had another life.
ALL THE WHILE I was growing up I wondered what it might be like to have a father who wouldn’t turn away from the sight of me, one who told me I was beautiful, even though my hair flamed a strange red color and my skin was sprinkled with earth-toned flecks as though I’d been splattered with mud. I’d heard my father say to another man that these marks were specks of my mother’s blood. Afterward, I tried to pluck them out with my fingers, drawing blood from my own flesh, but my brother stopped me when he discovered the red-rimmed pockmarks on my arms and legs. He assured me the freckles were bits of ash that had fallen from the stars in the sky. Because