The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [59]
My brother came to eat and drink with us, but he did not lift his eyes. There were streaks of dark blood on the shawl around his shoulders. My father was so happy to have his son returned to him, he didn’t notice the difference that had been stamped upon Amram, his grim expression, his fixed gaze. He saw only a strong man who could lift a sword so heavy he could slay any rival, but I saw something entirely different. My brother had taken a step away from the living. He had walked too close to the World-to-Come when it claimed those around him. The demons had reached out to him and tainted him, clutching at his spirit, attempting to snatch him over to the other side, the side of despair and seething misery. The Angel of Death saw all with his thousand eyes; his touch was said to be tender should he choose for it to be so. If you allowed him to embrace you, you might sink into his arms and never rise again. I saw the way my brother gazed at the cliffs below. He was seeing what he believed had been written for him, the fate he had eluded when his friend took his place.
When my father remarked that Jonathan had died a warrior’s death, as every man should, I saw Amram shudder and turn away. We went to stand outside at the end of our meal, after our father had gone to pray and offer thanks for his son’s safe return.
“It should have been me,” my brother remarked, unable to escape the gloom of his bereavement.
Poor Aziza, I thought, her spell had not protected Amram as she had intended. Jonathan had stepped in front of my brother intentionally, taking the blow meant for Amram in the name of their love and friendship. I insisted this could not have been a mistake. God had a design for our lives, and Amram’s return must have already been written, whether or not he thought he deserved it. My brother still wore the amulet I had given him. I reminded him that he was in God’s favor, as Solomon had been. “We cannot know or understand God’s plan,” I said.
I took my brother’s hand and placed it over my middle so that he could feel the life within me. It had quickened, and had formed itself fully, as a fish in a lake. My brother shot me a look. He was quick to guess I had been in the arms of a lion.
“He was meant to protect you,” he said of Ben Simon, who had been his teacher, a man he had revered and put his faith in. “If this is anyone’s burden, it’s mine, for sending you to him.”
“Can I question the Angel of Life any more than you can question the Angel of Death? This was meant to be.”
My brother looked at me and understood: what I shared with him was not my burden but my joy.
PERHAPS it is possible to discover more in silence than in speech. Or perhaps it is only that those who are silent among us learn to listen. The Man from the North who was our slave had no choice but to be among our chattering all through the day. I pitied him, as I pitied all men in chains, but perhaps there was more that we held in common. We were both outcasts here, each in possession of a past no one could imagine. It was sometimes easier to be with a stranger from whom nothing was expected and to whom nothing was granted in return. I had become accustomed to this man. We all had. His hands were callused from work, but he never complained. He ate what little we gave to him. He lowered his eyes when we gossiped, although once or twice I had seen him smile. It was a strange sight, one I turned away from. For his expression made it seem he was not a slave, but a man. I knew it was an error to think of him that way.
Once, when he was carrying a heavy basket for me into the fields, some unruly children threw stones at him, laughing, until I chased them away. Still they shouted out, dubbing the slave Leviathan, the name of a huge sea monster, because of his great height and strong arms. Maybe that was where my compassion