The Dovekeepers (4 page)

The demons, my brother pledged, must never win. That was the mission of the
Sicarii,
and they could not fail. He opened his heart, and when he spoke, I believed in him. Amram had a way of convincing a listener to accept the world with his vision, making it possible to see through his eyes. When I gazed upon my brother, all that was before me was the kingdom of Zion and our people free at last.

In very little time, my brother surpassed my father at their dark task. He was the best not by chance but by choice. He learned the ways of the assassin from my father and also from a man named Jachim ben Simon, who had become his teacher. Ben Simon was said to know death better than most and was revered for his use of a double-edged knife made of silver. Under his tutelage, Amram was determined to go forward with his skill, to rise above all others. My brother was devoted, practicing with the intensity of a master craftsman. But as he did so, his moods and tempers changed before my eyes. I watched the boy I knew disappear and a cold, fearless assassin take his place. From our father he learned to slip through the night unseen and climb towers using a single strand of rope wound around his waist. He practiced silence, not speaking for days on end, becoming so still that even the mice in our garden failed to notice him. He went barefoot to ensure there
was no sound when he approached, only the suddenness of the blade, taught by Ben Simon, taken even further by Amram’s own natural grace.

Before long, my brother was called upon for the most dangerous assignments, all of which carried the chill of death. Although he hadn’t the cloak that was said to grant invisibility, his great gift was his ability to disguise himself. He dressed as a priest or as a poor man, hiding himself in borrowed garments, gaining access to whomever was considered to be a traitor. He could make himself appear ancient, his face transformed by etched lines of charcoal, or seem a mere boy, eyes shining. People whispered that he was invincible, and it was soon rumored that the amulet of Solomon around his neck protected him from evil. His friends adored him and called him Hol, the name of the phoenix. They vowed that he resembled this mystical bird that arose from fire and ash; he escaped from every attempt the officials made to catch and murder him.

Because of my father and brother, other men were afraid to speak to me. The
Sicariis’
deeds were mysterious, but there were some secrets everyone knew, especially in Jerusalem. The men of my family were pointed to in the street, whispered about, both revered and despised. No wonder no one would have me as his wife, not even the brute who drove donkeys to the market. I was a young woman, but I was treated like a beggar, scorned, my reputation tarnished. It was only when men saw the unusual color of my hair that I noticed their curiosity and, often, their desire. Their gazes were disconcertingly sexual, obvious even to one as inexperienced as I. I knew I would enter their dreams when they couldn’t control what they yearned for. But a dream is worthless in the world. What good did their desire do for me? In the light of the day, they walked right by. I wanted to shout out
Take me
to every man who passed by.
Rescue me from what has happened, from the pillar of bitter salt I have become, from the crime I committed before I was born, from the
men of my house, who lurk outside the Temple seeking only revenge. Take me to your bed, your house, your city.

I removed my veils in public places. I did not bother to braid my hair but let it shine, seeking salvation from my loneliness.

Still they all turned away, unable to see me, for I was no more than red air swirling past them, invisible to their eyes.

BEFORE LONG
there were posters with my brother’s likeness set upon the walls. The Romans would pay for information, more if he was captured, even more if he was found guilty of his crimes and crucified. Amram no longer came home and instead was resigned to moving around the city in the dark; he belonged to dreams rather than to the routine of our daily lives. My father and I were the only occupants in our house. Though we didn’t speak to each other, we both looked out into the darkness as it began to fall. We knew that was where Amram was. Once again we shared something. We could not hear of a capture without wincing. We showed each other flashes of raw emotion every time the door rattled. But it was never him, only the wind.

One terrible night it was not the wind but rather a troop of soldiers at the door. My father shrugged when Amram’s name was brought up; he insisted he had no son. It was his bad fortune to have only one child, a worthless daughter.

When even Amram’s friends, those who had praised him as the unconquerable phoenix, dared not help him, my brother knew his life in Jerusalem was over. He had no choice but to escape. There were fortresses in the desert our people had commandeered. If he could reach one, he might be safe. Before he left, he took the risk to come and say good-bye. After he and my father embraced, Amram motioned me aside. He had brought a farewell gift. A blue scarf. It was far too beautiful for me, more than I deserved, yet he insisted I take it.

“There are worms that spend their lifetimes spinning such threads, and now you refuse to honor their destiny?”

“No worm made this.” I laughed to think of such heavenly fabric being spun by insects. It was the opposite of my father’s spider-made cloak, which had been woven of fabric so pale it faded into air. This blue silk announced itself with a splash of unexpected color.

Amram vowed it was true, insisting that while the worms had spun their silk in the boughs of mulberry trees, they had been devoted to me, as he was. Upon completing their task, each worm had turned into a blue butterfly, arising into the heavens once its work on earth was done.

I looped the scarf over my hair. I would think of heaven every time I wore it and of my brother, who was so steadfast in his faith. I stood at the gate of our house, remembering that he had said the freckles on my skin were like stars. Like the stars above they would lead him to find me again.

THERE WERE FEW
of us left in the city. We rummaged through ruins, cautious, in fear for our lives. At night we heard the screams of those who were taken to the Temple, captured by soldiers prowling the alleyways in search of anyone of our faith. The members of the legion drank wormwood, a dangerous, nearly lethal brew which made them vicious as well as drunk. No woman was safe. No man’s life was his own. Whoever was able had fled to Alexandria or Cyprus, but my father insisted we stay. He had more work to do, and that work was the knife that he carried. In time, Jerusalem would awake, and like a lion it would free itself from the nets of slavery.
Teeth and claws,
I heard him say,
that is what our future will bring.
But I knew what he really meant was flesh and bones.

I knew from my dreams what it meant to come face-to-face with a lion.

*

SMOKE DRIFTED
from fires set throughout the city, and the murk acted as a screen so that our people could escape from the marauding soldiers. I could smell olive wood, burning willow. Scorched remnants ignited palm-thatched roofs and haystacks. On the pallet where I slept, in our small house, I covered my head and wished I lived in another place and time. I wished I had never been born.

One afternoon while I was at the market searching the nearly empty bins of the venders for peas and beans for our meager supper, the Romans appropriated our home. I stood watching from a hidden place in my neighbors’ abandoned courtyard, for their house had been ruined months earlier. The soldiers ransacked our house before they burned it to the ground and our belongings were strewn in the chalky dirt. Sparks flew up like white moths, but when they fell down upon the earth, they smoldered bright crimson, like the petals on the flame trees.

If I had little before, I had close to nothing now. I went through the rubble and took only what could fit in my two hands, a small griddle to cook flatbread, a lamp made of white Jerusalem clay to burn oil on the Sabbath, my father’s prayer shawl, singed at the fringes on the four corners, his leather flask, a packet of salt that would taste of smoke when used in cooking. I waited for my father, hidden behind a wall. My skin was dusky, and there were ashes in my hair. If my father didn’t come back, if he had been murdered or had fled without telling me, I thought I might simply stay behind the wall, planted there like a flame tree.

Finally my father appeared, slinking through the twilight, wearing the cloak that allowed him to make his way without being detained. When he saw the prayer shawl in my hands, he knew the time to flee had come. I wondered if he would leave me there to be the beggar woman I’d always feared I might become, to scrounge through the garbage. But he motioned for me to follow as another
man might signal a dog. I resolved to do as I was told and trudged after him. Perhaps our blood relation meant something to him after all, or perhaps he took me with him because he feared how my mother in the World-to-Come might respond if he abandoned me there in the street. Or he may have simply remembered it was he who had gotten her with child, and that I’d been correct to consider him a partner in my crime. If my tears had drowned her from the inside out, he was the one who had ushered my life into hers.

AT NIGHT
we went from house to house, pleading to be let in. There were fewer and fewer of our people in the city every day—they had fled or were in hiding—and it became difficult for us to find those willing to help. I was a dog and nothing more, asking no questions, unable to think for myself. I hovered in the shadows as people turned us away. Even those who believed in my father’s politics were wary, unwilling to leave themselves at risk. Only a few left their doors open, and even they made sure to look the other way and not greet us with an embrace. Often we slept on straw pallets, grateful for a shelter meant for goats. We shared the animals’ chamber and slept restlessly with the sound of beasts breathing beside us. I had the same dream again and again. In my dream there was a lion sleeping in the sun, one I dared not wake. One night I dreamed that the lion was eaten whole by a snake that devoured everything in its path. I stood barefoot in my dream, on a stretch of rocky earth that was so blindingly white I couldn’t open my eyes. I felt compassion for this wild beast, the king of the desert, for in my dreams he had given in to the snake without a fight. He had looked at me, beseeching me, staring into my eyes.

That night my father shook me awake. My feet were bleeding on the rocks in my dream. Before me there was the coiling black viper of the desert that wraps itself around its prey and refuses to let go. He had devoured the lion and now had come for me. In my
dream I offered the scaled beast almonds and grapes, but it had a taste for human flesh. I begged for it to release me as I mourned for the lion. I yearned for that beast in the way that a person yearns for her own destiny. What happens is already written, and the lion had been written beside my name.

“We must go and not look back,” my father said when he woke me.

If I wasn’t quick enough, my father would doubtless leave me behind. I didn’t argue, though I felt a tide of dread in that dark chamber. There was blood on the assassin’s robe, and his eyes were shining. Something had happened, but I dared not ask what it was. I rose from my pallet on the floor, ready in an instant. I gathered the belongings I had carried with me from house to house. The blue scarf my brother had given to me, the griddle and lamp I had found in the rubble of our home. We left with another family, that of the assassin Jachim ben Simon, the man who had apprenticed my brother and taught him how to kill with the curved, double-edged knife. This assassin was known to be terrifying when he struck his enemy, a whirlwind who sought only vengeance. He had been a priest once, the oldest son of a family of priests, and had spent his youth in study and prayer. But he’d seen how gold lined the pockets of only a few, how the poor were trod upon and used and enslaved. He’d seen his own father agree to make offerings and sacrifices on behalf of the Romans in our Temple on the Day of Atonement, insisting that Roman sins could be laid upon our altars and be forgiven by our God.

He’d taken up the knife of the
Sicarii
and excelled at his work. He was a truly dangerous man, all sinew and muscle. I saw his big, distinctive head and cast my eyes down, not wanting to glimpse a man who was so feared. His wife was named Sia, his young sons Nehimiah and Oren. I heard the wife crying as she clutched her sons. Their family had little more than we did, but they did have a donkey, which Ben Simon’s wife and sons rode upon. I walked
behind them, like a woman in disgrace. In truth, I was used to being an outcast, more comfortable on my own. Jachim ben Simon looked over his shoulder once and seemed startled, as if he’d forgotten about me and now spied a wraith.

As we made our way out of Jerusalem, I was already trying to decipher who among us would die and who would live, for surely we would not all survive. Without brute strength, even our escape would be difficult. The streets were mayhem. All Jews had been expelled from the city, and any found would be instantly murdered. That was the new edict and therefore the law. Many of the priests had plunged into the sewers, hoping to escape the city undetected. But their collusion could not help them now; they were in the realm of the rats, struggling for their lives along with the rest of us.

We could hear what sounded like a roar as the Temple was torn down. It was
Tisha B’Av,
the ninth day of the month, the day on which I’d been born. In the years to come, people would swear that six angels descended from heaven to protect the walls of the Temple so that it would not be entirely destroyed; they vowed those angels sat there and wept and are weeping there still. The Romans used battering rams that weighed one hundred tons, and more than a thousand men were needed to swing them so that they might loosen, then pull down the huge stones upon which King Herod’s mark had been etched. Ropes were hoisted by hundreds of men, some of them ours, enslaved, cursing themselves for their fate and for the wretchedness of their own deeds. Stone should last forever, but on that night I came to understand that a stone was only another form of dust. Streams of holy dust loomed in the air, and every breath included remnants of the Temple, so that we inhaled that which was meant to stand throughout eternity.