Jerusalem Maiden (13 page)

“Tomorrow afternoon, then,” Asher said.

“I can't. It's Ruthi's wedding.” The brief ceremony was scheduled after the evening Havdalah prayer that separated the Shabbat from the coming week, so the groom wouldn't lose a day of Torah study. Esther wanted to be there early, when Ruthi first met Yossel. Over two years of engagement, they had never laid eyes on each other.

“How about immediately after the morning services?” Asher whispered back.

His neediness was infuriating. She already regretted talking to him. “I can't get away. And I'm busy now.” She increased her steps. “Stop following me.”

“It's important.” His tone begged. “Can you come to David Citadel tomorrow?”

Esther glanced around. Bilha had come out of the bakery and was watching them. “It better be really important,” Esther said, and turned on her heel. For all she knew, Bilha would show up there, too, listing this clandestine meeting as another blemish that would further plummet Esther's reputation—and therefore Hanna's marriage prospects.

E
sther checked that her father's and brothers' shirts were mended and ironed for the Shabbat morning services and gave a final glance at the table, set with Ima's silver candlesticks and hand-washing bowl. The pain of her mother's absence sent her into that walled dark place she had inhabited in the days, weeks and months after Ima's death, when fresh bread tasted stale and time was erratic. Sucking in air, she now forced herself to resurface into a numb stillness.

In the alley, the baker's Arab apprentice rolled his cart with the
cholent
pots to be distributed to their owners without exerting them on this holy day. At Esther's Arabic greeting, “
Salam Alaykum,
” he deposited her pot on the lit stove and covered it with burlap to preserve the heat. It would be three hours before Aba and his male guests sat down at the table to sing Shabbat melodies. Even Moishe, who had been matched with a lame waif last year, would be here with his in-laws. The girls, exempt from the prohibition to work on this decreed day of rest, would serve. Then they would all eat and listen to Aba deliver
Dvar Torah
. Since quitting school, the loss of her lessons gnawed at Esther. Aba's ethical elucidation and her brothers' evening studies were the only stimulating talk she'd heard.

Leaving the house, she walked as briskly as the Shabbat would allow. The autumn day was cool, and the thoroughfare quiet. Two camels, led by their driver, carried a family of Christian pilgrims and their folded tent, bedding and cooking equipment. The French ambassador's shiny new automobile chugged as it moved leisurely past Esther. Gazing about like a man out on a stroll, the ambassador drove himself, wearing gloves, a leather helmet and bug-like goggles. He stopped to crank up his automobile and removed his goggles. His blue eyes were startlingly familiar. Pierre's cerulean blue. Certain the ambassador noticed her worn dress, with the seams showing the unfaded brown that had been let out, Esther turned away as if the man would convey the spectacle of her poverty to Mlle Thibaux and her son.

No Turkish soldier guarded the stairwell to the ramparts of the Old City. Esther climbed up stone stairs chiseled thousands of years before. Reaching the top of the wide wall, she started toward the Citadel. To her left, archways that had survived invading armies and roofless rooms ravaged by time peeked through overgrown weeds and thistles. She circled the Tower of David—still intact and proud, though inked by thousands-of-years-old lichen. This high, she was suspended beneath the sky, as close to God as one could get in the holiest of all cities.

Flute music drew her to a spot overlooking the Sultan's Pool, which crouched docilely in the valley to her right, guarded by giant boulders from biblical times. On the hill above the waterless basin, the train-like houses of Yamin Moshe marked the dusty road to Bethlehem, where mule- and horse-drawn carts climbed up and disappeared behind the curve of the Khan, the ancient hostel serving desert-weary travelers.

Asher's hard-rimmed black hat lay on the stone. His head was covered only by his yarmulke, and his sidelocks again coiled around his ears like earmuffs. He looked like a modern Jew, not a Haredi. She sat down, her back propped against the stone railing, and, her eyes closed, surrendered to the flute's tones as they swept over her.

When his song ended, there was a pause, and then Asher said, “You have no idea how much I value your coming here.”

Esther opened her eyes, wishing he would continue the pure and haunting music. But she couldn't bring herself to tell him how beautifully he played; it would only encourage his audacity. “How come you're speaking Hebrew?” she asked.

“Hashem spoke Hebrew to the angels before He created the world—and before the rabbis set out to interpret His will any way that suited them.”

The blasphemous criticism leveled at the rabbis stunned her. She hugged her knees. Any minute he'd lash out at her for telling Aba his secret. “What is it that you wanted to talk to me about?”

He blinked. The glistening she had seen in his eyes two years earlier returned. His delicate fingers fidgeted over the flute in a silent musical combination.

“Well? A goat's bit off your tongue?”

“My mother has taken the matter of your match into her own hands.”

Esther stared at him. Last year, one of Tova's daughters had died in childbirth at thirteen.

Asher went on, “She has a match for Hanna, an orphaned yeshiva
boocher
who dines at our table. She can't proceed until you're set, too. She's pleaded with the rabbi to marry you off.”

Dread clutched Esther's throat. She couldn't speak.

“I have an idea.” Asher's voice was barely audible. “Marry me.”

“What??”

“If we get married, we can escape together and pursue what we really want to do.” Asher spoke fast, as if to hurry the words out.

“We're first cousins!”

“I saw your painting. You're really good. And I want to study music in Budapest—”

“I don't paint.”

“But I saw you.”

Her hope that no one knew about her sin evaporated. “I hadn't reached my mitzvah age then. I will never paint again.”

“You should. And in Europe, we'll both be able to develop as artists.”

“Are you forgetting that there's a war raging there?”

“It will end soon.” Asher's blinking eyes contradicted the brightness in his voice. “My monk friend has arranged a music scholarship for me. We'll have the Christians' patronage—”

“Live in a monastery? You've sold your soul to missionaries! Aren't you concerned about the Almighty's wrath?”

“My mentor's only interested in teaching me music. I can now play any instrument he puts in my hands—even the violin.”

“This
goy
need not be obvious about his goal to convert you. He's introduced you to his blasphemous church to entice you away from the Holy City where you are privileged to live.”

“Such privilege. Rich Diaspora Jews pay us to die for them.”

“No. Hashem has given us that honor.” Esther flung her braid over her shoulder. Even if Asher's music wasn't a sin as her drawing had been, having conquered her urge gave her the moral superiority. “We're the chosen among the Chosen. Hashem designated us to live a sanctified way of life. You're just failing the test.”

When Asher didn't respond, she added, “Why do you need to drag me along into the arms of Christians? Are you afraid to do it alone?”

“Don't you understand? I'm an only son. It will kill my mother if I don't get married.”

“It will kill her twice over when she hears what you've done and where you're heading.”

“It will cushion her disappointment if I marry you.” Quickly, he added, “Cousins can marry. It's in the Bible, and sometimes in families of great rabbis and
eeluys
.”

“We're neither. Certainly your father has no lineage of scholars.”

A hoopoe pranced by, picking at insects. On the bird's head, a semicircular crest rose like a flag. Esther watched as its wings flashed in black-and-white stripes when it took flight. Her glance shifted to her cousin's small frame. “You're still a baby clinging to his mother's apron,” she said.

“I know my own mind.” His flat tone defused her insult. His hand touched her sleeve, but recoiled as if it were a sizzling ember. “You're also smart. You can think like a man.”

Her back straightened. No one but Aba had ever praised her wits. “I won't get married. Not to you and not to anyone else.”

“That's impossible. Might as well marry me, and we'll help each other now and forever.”

“The whole idea is foolish.”

“No, it isn't. We don't have to lead the life dictated to us by the rabbis. I am different from everyone else around here—and so are you.” In its urgency, Asher's voice jumped to a child's pitch. “I must walk in my own path or I'll die.”

“Remember what happened to Jonah when he thought he could escape Hashem? He found Jonah in the belly of the leviathan!”

“Hashem gave me the gift of music. I'm as sure of it as I'm sure of the stone I'm touching. And Hashem has revealed Himself to you with the gift of art.”

A gush of wind filled her nostrils with dust. “Don't you get it? It's Satan speaking. I created idols,” Esther cried. “Do you know why the Second Commandment—‘
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
'—comes even before ‘
Thou shalt not kill
'? Because not creating images is a stronger principle than not killing. I've paid for my transgression with my mother's life. Now my page in His book is clean, and I will never again tarnish it! Never!”

Asher examined her face with no respect for her modesty. “Esther, who are you to second-guess Hashem's divine intentions?”

“And who are you to question them?” She rose to her feet and batted the dust off the back of her skirt. Her mind raced. It had been simpler to think of Asher as a boy, to dismiss him, than it was to fight his ironclad logic. Yet—“How will you atone on Yom Kippur for all the lying to your mother?” she asked.

“I give her what she wants so she can show me off and tell tales about my Talmudic scholarship. ‘Asher is an
eeluy
,' ‘Asher is the rabbi's favorite.' ” He imitated Tova's voice so well that Esther couldn't help but smile. He went on, “You give your father the same respect, although he need not make up fables about what a capable daughter you are.” Asher shook his head so vigorously that his sidelocks released. “In the process of pleasing everyone, you're ignoring the unique way Hashem has made you. I can't do that.”

Esther started walking south, her gaze taking in the jumble of valleys and hills. Her people had always lived here. They had toiled the fields, fought battles, studied the Torah, suffered pestilence and plagues, and procreated as God had decreed them to do. She was bonded to the Jews' past and future. She was the link in the chain of history.

Asher's quick, soft footfalls caught up with her as she stopped and leaned on the rampart's railing. How she missed the time when she could believe her art was God's special gift. Asher was offering her that time back—except that it wasn't his to give.

Clinging to the hills on the far side of the Kidron Valley, houses in the Arab villages were washed in pale blue or green to fend off evil spirits. There was the spot below, where she and Ruthi had crossed the Hezekiah's water tunnel from end to end, and Esther had shown Ruthi Yossel's picture. Tonight, Ruthi's dreadful nuptials would take place. Esther had failed to convince her friend then, and she was failing to convince Asher now. Instead, he was the one presenting her with a new way of questioning—not God's wisdom, but rather the rabbis' authority. She felt herself drawn into the logic of his arguments.

Yet she loved her religious life—the assuredness of routine rituals and the adherence to everyday mitzvahs. She wouldn't give up the tasty Shabbat meal awaiting her at home now, filled with the men's
nigunim
and with Aba's mind-stimulating
Dvar Torah
.

She turned to Asher. “Hashem has made me a Jerusalem maiden, and I must obey Him. I will stay in the City of David. I can't—I will not—stray.”

T
aking the decreed Shabbat rest after the meal, Aba dozed in his upholstered chair, half facing the front room window. Esther sat across from him, pondering her cousin's proposal despite herself. The not-yet-man couldn't possibly be the groom she would have considered had she been inclined to get married. But she couldn't ignore the underpinning question his offer forced her to face: How could she be an obedient Jerusalem maiden if she was unwilling to oblige the single duty required for hastening the Messiah's arrival? The only thing Esther wanted to do was create beauty with her hands. The only permissible way to do that was to be useful as a seamstress.

Her Bible lay on the table. She had reread the story of Jephthah's daughter, who, upon her father's victorious return from war with the sons of Ammon, greeted him dancing with tambourines. Unfortunately, Jephthah had vowed to God to sacrifice as “
a burnt offering whatever came out of the door upon his return in peace.
” Esther recalled the passage praising Jephthah's faith, stronger than his love for his child. But how did the nameless daughter feel about her father's vow? Had she quietly acquiesced, or bitten and scratched as she was tied down to be burned alive? Or had she been killed first?

Aba's newspaper slipped to the floor. Careful that the rustle not awaken him, Esther picked it up. In Russia, Czar Nicholas II had taken control of the army. In America, Ford had produced one million new automobiles called the Model T. Asher's suggestion offered a concrete glimpse into these remote worlds—except that it meant to sin with the collusion of Christian monks. Who would be punished this time for her transgression—would Avram be knifed by an Arab, Naftali be struck with leprosy, Miriam be stung to death by bees?