Lilah (24 page)

We concluded that our determination intimidated them. The priests sang Ezra's praises, for Yahweh's hand was still upon him.

Thus, for a brief time, one moon perhaps, we were carefree again, intoxicated with the joy of our mission.

Then, one morning, we awoke to the sound of lamentation. Sogdiam told me that the time had come, and that Ezra was beginning the fast for the purification of the Temple.

The priests, the Levites and all those who answered his call gathered before the ruins of the sacrificial altar. There, with much wailing, they again tore their garments and covered themselves with ashes. After another day of prayer, Ezra gave the order to clear the refuse from the Temple courtyard.

For nine days, from dawn to dusk, they lifted the soiled stones one by one – a colossal task – carried them outside the city, and dumped them in an unclean place that the old priests had designated for the purpose.

They demolished the sacrificial altar and built a
new one, according to the Law, with raw stones from the hills.

Then the old men who had been there in Nehemiah's time came to see Ezra. ‘We need the
nephta
fire!'

They led Ezra to a well no one had noticed, hidden beneath a heap of irreparable ruins. Once the rubble had been cleared, they lifted the undamaged lid of the well. At the bottom, instead of water, lay a stinking black substance, like pitch. The old men explained to Ezra that he had to coat the floor of the Temple with it before the rest could be rebuilt.

‘But how can I rebuild cleanly once this stuff is everywhere?' Ezra objected.

The old men laughed. ‘Let Yahweh do His work,' they said. ‘Let the sun do its work!'

So they spread bucketfuls of the foul-smelling pitch on what remained of the old wood and the loose marble flagstones.

The air stank for leagues around the Temple, and many of us worried that soon we would not be able to breathe it. But when the sun struck the Temple in the morning, the pitch melted, smoked a little, and finally turned as glossy as black gold. For a moment, everything shone. Then, with a deafening whoosh, a blue flame sprang up.

‘
Nephta!
' the old men yelled, dancing about. ‘
Nephta
, the cry of Yahweh!'

A moment later, the fire had gone out, leaving the flagstones dry and no hotter than if the sun alone had touched them.

It had been such a wonderful and surprising spectacle that for days children ran in the streets of the city imitating the cry of Yahweh.

Ezra and his people resumed their toil. They made new sacred objects to replace those they had not brought. The Levites put the seven-branched candlestick in the holy of holies, set up a new table on which they burned incense, and made new lamps to light the Temple. The carpenters, working under their orders, finished the doors, the porticoes, the gilded coronas and the escutcheons that decorated the front of the building. At last, one day in the month of Av, Ezra declared the Temple clean and ready to welcome our chants. For three days and three nights, we sang at the tops of our voices, tears streaming down the most hardened cheeks. The streets rang with the sound of lyres, citharas and cymbals.

There was a huge offering, like the one that had preceded our departure from Babylon. The smoke rose and covered the newly built roofs of Jerusalem.

That night the fire still glowed so brightly that, when other cries and other flames sprang up on the other side of the city, we did not immediately realize what was happening.

Outside the walls, a troop of Gershem's men were galloping towards the city, screaming at the tops of their voices, five or six hundred of them, a snake of fire in the fields and hills. All at once, they launched a rain of burning arrows into the sky.

At first, it was strangely beautiful, as if the sky were full of shooting stars. But their orbit brought them down onto our thatched roofs.

New flames rose. New cries and screams rang out.

By the morning, more than half of the restored houses were in ashes.

Yahezya had been right. Blood, fire, tears: that, for us, was Jerusalem.

Ezra wet my tunic with his tears. He could not show them in public so he came running to me like a lost child.

I was astonished by the body I held in my arms. Ezra had become so frail, I could have lifted him. Did he think that his mind and his passionate love for Yahweh were enough to keep him alive?

Perhaps.

But he was angry too, even – although he would not have dared admit it – with Yahweh. He struck his brow with the leather case containing Moses' scroll and asked, ‘Why is Yahweh inflicting this on us, Lilah? Where is our sin? Hasn't the Temple been
purified? Don't we respect every Law? Why has He left us so defenceless? Lilah, what is our sin?'

How was I to answer? The whole city was weeping, as he was, but no one understood. Some put out the fires, others tended the wounded. Everywhere, the dead were mourned.

I was in no mood to look for an explanation.

While everyone wondered what sin we had committed, I was beginning to fear that I had made a mistake in urging Ezra to come to Judaea. It seemed to me that, of the two of us, I was the one who had to bear the responsibility for what had happened.

But it was a terrible thought, so I dismissed it.

Like everyone there, anger made me defiant. I still hoped to find in Ezra the strength and justice we lacked, so that Yahweh might finally reward us.

All I could do now was support my brother to the best of my ability.

He was exhausted by constant fasting. His hands were scarred from pulling and carrying stones. His skin was infected, due to a combination of wood splinters and the ash with which he had covered himself during the fast. There were purulent swellings on his shoulders, and his feet were torn and bloody.

But the wounds on his body were nothing
compared with the agitation in his mind: he had been under enormous pressure during the purification of the Temple. The new priests, those who had come with us, the Levites and the zealots were all trying to win him over and influence his decisions. They all had strong but divergent opinions, and could argue from dusk to dawn, tangling you in a labyrinth of words until you no longer had any idea what they were talking about.

They all considered themselves scholars, and cleverer than other people. They constantly cited the lessons of the patriarchs and prophets. Some time before the purification of the Temple, the old priests who had stayed in Jerusalem after the death of Nehemiah had reluctantly but proudly revealed a hidden cellar on the other side of the city. There, in spite of all the pillaging, they had preserved hundreds of papyrus scrolls and even a few tablets from long ago. According to them, no decision could be taken without consulting the wise men of the past . . . So the exhausting debates began again, more convoluted than ever.

No one person was any longer in a position to impose decisions that could guide and regulate our lives. On that day of mourning, I was sure of only one thing: that we had come to Jerusalem looking for light, and now we were groping in darkness. And the darkness would only increase unless Ezra
recovered the power of his mind and was once again in a state to decide things undisturbed.

I ordered Axatria and Sogdiam to bolt the door of our house, and to prepare herb tea and food.

It took a great deal of persuasion before Ezra agreed to eat. Axatria's herb teas worked miracles. He fell asleep, and did not wake for two days.

While he slept, I had to defend myself against the zealots and the priests. They were angry that I had taken Ezra away from them. They screamed and shouted, rousing anyone who would listen to them.

The priests wanted to pray continuously in the purified Temple, and for some reason they felt they could not do so without Ezra. The Levites wanted my brother to give them specific tasks and appoint them to particular positions and ranks, according to the Law and the writings of David. Our house was surrounded but, fortunately, Ezra did not wake.

Since I would not yield, they concluded that I was plotting against them. I let them talk. But their anger had reached fever pitch, and the fear that Gershem's warriors would return merely increased it. ‘Just wait until tomorrow,' I said to them. ‘Let him rest! You're killing him with work. Do you want to march behind his coffin? Can't you understand how patient Yahweh is?'

My words aroused protests, as the wind raises sparks from a fire.

‘What business is it of yours, woman?' they replied. ‘Ezra should be in the Temple assuaging the wrath of Yahweh, and you stand in our way! Who has given you that right? It isn't our demands that exhaust Ezra, it's the stupidity of those like you who cannot hear the wrath of Yahweh. Don't you realize you're playing Toviyyah's game, and Gershem's? You're paving the way for all those who hate Israel! You're going to kill Ezra, and us with him!'

The stronger their words, the more aggressive they became. Sogdiam was powerless to protect me. Those he had fed devotedly for weeks now jostled him and called him a cripple, a good for nothing, a
nokhri
– a stranger. It was not until Yahezya and his friends came and stood in front of my door, armed, that we were left in peace for another night.

At last, after a good meal, after Axatria had rubbed his pitiful body with ointments and oils and massaged his tired shoulders, Ezra seemed in better condition. But when I told him, laughing, how we had had to defend his sleep, and had been insulted for our pains, he was not amused. At first, he wanted to rush out, as if he were at fault, but I held him back: that could wait awhile. I begged him to reflect before he was caught up again in the clash of incompatible demands and desires.

He yielded with a sigh. ‘They're right to be angry, Lilah. Something is wrong with the way I handle
things. We've only just purified the Temple and already our houses are destroyed. We've not long arrived in Jerusalem, and already the troubles are starting – just as they did in the time of Nehemiah. Tomorrow we'll rebuild the houses destroyed yesterday, but the following night Gershem or the Horonites will attack the Temple, smash the ramparts, destroy our crops in the fields . . . They'll attack anything, as long as it is ours, and they'll keep on doing it, endlessly, because Yahweh is not with us. I thought He was, but He isn't. The Covenant is still broken and these are the consequences.'

As he spoke, he fingered the leather case that hung round his neck. His eyes sought mine for consolation, which I was incapable of giving him. His heart was heavy, and I was powerless to lift it. The words he had spoken expressed exactly what I was thinking.

‘Lilah, my beloved sister,' he said, with tears in his eyes, ‘what must I do that Yahweh will judge us pure and good enough to grant us His strength?'

I could find nothing to say.

He froze.

He grimaced strangely and stared at me, unseeing. The muscles of his neck tensed. I expected him to run from one room to the next, as he did when he was angry or excited. Violently he tore the leather case from round his neck and pressed it to my breast.
‘Everything we need to know is in this scroll!' he roared, shaking like a tree in the wind. ‘What good are these walls? Yahweh doesn't care about walls! We're wasting time building houses that disappear in fires or fall down on our heads! Yahweh is mocking us. He doesn't expect us to become masons! He's testing us, and he'll go on testing us until we hear His Word. We must obey His Law, that is His will. And we go around asking, “Why? Why?” It's a question I answered in Susa, and my answer is still the same: because we're not living according to the Law!'

I smiled. I understood.

I took hold of his wrists and said calmly, ‘Master Baruch used to say, “The word of Yahweh is in the Word of Yahweh. Nowhere else.” He loved to repeat Isaiah's words. “Hear the Word of Yahweh! What is the point of offering rams and fatted calves? I want no more of the blood of bulls and goats. Stop bringing me these hollow offerings.” You're right. Building the walls was Nehemiah's task. Establishing justice, teaching the Word of Yahweh, is Ezra's.'

He smiled. His frail body shook with joy as it had shaken with fever not long before. ‘Yes, yes! What is the point of these walls of gold, this incense, if the Word of Yahweh falls on deaf ears and blind eyes?'

I tied the leather case back round his neck. ‘Teach everyone what is written in the scroll,' I said. ‘You
alone can do it. If Ezra commands it, everyone will agree.'

His dark mood returned as quickly as it had previously vanished. ‘How can I? More than half of those who've come with us from Susa and Babylon can't even read or write. As for those who were living in Jerusalem before we arrived, they're worse still.'

‘Anyone can learn to read and write.'

‘Don't dream, Lilah,' he said, in a harsh, mocking tone. ‘In Jerusalem, dreams lead to bloodshed.'

‘I'm not dreaming. Let all who can read and write teach the others. Let them each copy part of Moses' scroll. They'll learn the Word of Yahweh by writing it.'

For a while, he said nothing. Then he closed his eyes, with a radiant smile that I could not remember having seen for many moons.

‘The Temple of the Word of Yahweh will enter their hearts,' he said at last. ‘No one will be able to set fire to it or reduce it to ruins. The joy of Yahweh will be a fortress for His people. And the people of Yahweh will be the people of the Book until the end of time.'

And that is how things were done.

It was not easy, and there was a great deal of reluctance.

Many of the priests considered it unclean for
Moses' scroll to be copied by hands not designated for the task in King David's tablets. The Levites, too, greeted the idea with horror. How could Ezra think of abandoning the Temple, even if only for a short time?

The idea soon gained ground that this was proof of my malevolent influence. This was why I had taken advantage of Ezra's weakness and kept him away from the Temple. And when Ezra quoted Isaiah, they quoted Jeremiah: ‘Now the days are coming when I will make the cry of battle to be heard among the sons of Ammon. His cities and his daughters will be burned, and Israel will inherit the land from his heirs.' According to them, we had to make war on Toviyyah. Such was the will of Yahweh.