The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [45]
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ONE EVENING a young woman was waiting beside the largest dovecote. She was a servant, brought here from Jerusalem by her master’s family, living alongside them as their cook and housemaid. I had seen her in the fields. Now she gestured to Shirah from the shadows, urging her to come away. Shirah spoke with her daughters, sending them home to see to their younger brother and begin the evening meal.
When Shirah left with the housemaid, I followed, curious. I removed my sandals and went barefoot, as I had when I’d stalked birds. I felt something wicked in my actions, yet continued on. Shirah and the housemaid did not stop until they reached the far end of the wall. There they slipped into a dark corner. We were not far from the place where large looms had been set up for women to work on in the evenings, after their daily chores had been completed. I paused behind a column where green-tinged shadows spread along the stones. I felt as I had when I had crouched in the wilderness, waiting for my prey. There was a beating of my pulse in my throat.
Shirah drew the image of an eye on the wall with a piece of charred wood. She took a needle from the hem of her tunic, and while she recited an incantation she pierced the eye with the needle. The low, rhythmic sound of her voice drifted to where I was hidden. Although I didn’t understand the words, I guessed what she was doing. She was binding some man to be true, as I had done in the desert on the night when I drew the face of the lion in the dirt. Other men might stray, but this one would be bound to faithfulness as thread was bound to the stitches cast by a needle.
I shouldn’t have lingered. I could have easily returned the way I’d come before anyone saw me, but I was caught up in the spell. The chanting entrapped me, the singsong of Shirah’s voice winding itself around me as though it had the ability to bind me as well as the lover of the housemaid. Shirah turned to eye me as the scorpion glances at the mouse. I hurried away, yet still felt her gaze.
The following day I wore my scarf across my face when I went to work in the dovecote, hoping it would cause me to be invisible, much the way my father’s cloak hid his true nature. Shirah ushered me inside, a smile playing at her lips. I would have sworn she saw through my veil. When the others went to take their noon meal, cooking lentils and peas in an outdoor kitchen, Shirah insisted she needed my help. There was an errand we must attend to. I had no choice but to go. Like the housemaid who had come to her, I was only a servant.
We went into the fields, carrying our baskets. The sun beat down upon us.
“What I did at the wall, I was asked to do,” Shirah informed me as we passed beneath the lacy green shade of the almond trees. “It wasn’t love the girl asked for, merely decency.”
From where they sat over their lunch in the grove, the field women stared at us, whispering, save for one, the housemaid who was still gathering pistachios for her mistress. Pale petals were falling around us, half of them bitter.
“When the time comes and you want my help, I’ll listen to you as well,” Shirah said. “I’ll do as you ask.”
I blushed, confused. “Did I ask for anything?”
Shirah dumped the basket from the doves around the tallest almond tree, one that was abloom with a thousand flowers. It occurred to me that she could divine the truth even when it went unspoken.
“True enough,” she replied. “You haven’t.”
We began the walk back to the dovecote, side by side, past the mulberry bushes with their jumbles of black berries, past the pistachio tree where the housemaid was at work,