Lilah (25 page)

But Ezra held firm. ‘Let us get to work,' he said. ‘On the first day of the seventh month, the whole city, men and women, husbands and wives, will gather at the Water Gate. And everyone will read with one voice the Law that Yahweh taught Moses.'

Sometimes, after you have had one calamity, and you are sure that another is coming, happiness appears unexpectedly, at least for a time. It came now to Jerusalem, moving from alley to alley, from house to house, where people bowed their heads over letters and words. A song of joy rippled
through the city, as hands guided other hands to move a stylus over a scroll. A song of joy throbbed in the houses, when, after learning the alphabet, fathers and mothers amused themselves reciting it at night to their children so that it might feed their dreams.

There was no longer any distinction between the great and the small, the learned and the untutored. All that remained was the will of a whole people to be strong in its knowledge and its words, including the great Word the Everlasting had given it, a nation that had the whisper of memory always on its lips, as a lover has his beloved's name.

Oh, Antinoes, my husband, you would have liked that time!

A time of milk and honey, a time of abundance in the land of Judaea! We were together, united in a single cause. All of us, men and women, young and old, were deciphering the same letters, uttering the same words, each and every one of us with the same desire for justice.

There were no more complaints, no more quarrels.

And perhaps the hand of Yahweh was upon us, for we no longer heard anything of Toviyyah, Gershem and the Horonites, or the harm they wished to do us.

I started to hope again. My doubts vanished. We
had been right to urge Ezra to leave for Jerusalem. Our separation, Antinoes, was a good price to pay for his reward. In my heart, this was compensation for my humiliation at the hands of Parysatis.

For the first time since my arrival in Jerusalem, I felt at peace. I gloried in this madness called happiness and hope.

Yes, I thought, I could keep my promise after all. Soon, everyone would know Yahweh's Law, everyone would live according to His justice. Soon the Everlasting would renew His Covenant with His people, and the houses of Jerusalem would ring with peace and joy as now they hummed with thousands of voices reading.

Then my duty would be done, and I could set off for Susa, Karkemish or the other side of the world to rejoin you.

According to Ezra's wishes, on the first day of the seventh month of the year, rams' horns blew on the square in front of the Temple. Others echoed across the land, from Galilee to the Negev. Thirty or forty thousand people gathered by the Water Gate. There were so many of us, so tightly packed together, that the earth looked like a carpet of human flowers.

Ezra and the priests climbed the steps to the ramparts. The sun was not yet high and the air was
cool. Swallows sang as they gorged themselves on insects.

And then there was silence. True silence. Over Jerusalem, and all Judaea. Those who were there will swear it to the end of time. A silence such as belongs only to the Everlasting fell on His nation at that moment.

Ezra took Moses' scroll from its container. In the silence, everyone heard the rustle of the papyrus against the leather. He spread the scroll, put one end between the fingers of an old priest, then unrolled it in its entirety. It stretched for perhaps five or six cubits.

Again in the silence, the forty thousand heard the crackle of the papyrus, which had once been touched by the finger of Aaron, heard Ezra's sandals scrape against the stones of the rampart.

The swallows were gone. There was only the blue sky, and the white stones of Jerusalem the beautiful.

Ezra placed his finger on the papyrus.

My throat was dry. Doubt took my breath from me.

What if this was madness?

What if Ezra's desire to turn a whole nation's heart into the heart of a word was again nothing but a mad dream?

Was it possible that these thousands of people
could become the nation of the Book, the nation that made the Word of Yahweh its Temple?

Then Ezra looked at us. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged. In its place, a single voice, made up of thousands of women's voices, thousands of men's voices, old and young, launched the first words into the sky.

The voices trembled. Perhaps the blue sky trembled, too, and the white stones, and Ezra's finger.

Then his hand glided over the papyrus, and pointed to the following words: ‘Yahweh named the light.' And the forty thousand, with one voice, continued the reading.

All Jerusalem trembled. All Judaea trembled.

The reading became a chant. Until the middle of the day, until we were sitting in our own shadows, we read. And everyone knew the words of the text.

At the end, our joy overflowed. We danced and laughed and wept, all at the same time.

‘Today is the day of Yahweh, our God,' Ezra cried, ‘not a day of tears! Go! Eat your fill, drink sweet wine and eat meat, for today is Yahweh's day! The joy of Yahweh is now on your fortress and no one can drive you from it! Open your eyes, open the scrolls of the teaching, and there you will find your Temple, for ever. Your Temple will be the Word and the teaching of the Everlasting: the Book. Tomorrow, go to the hills and gather branches. Tomorrow, build tabernacles in your houses, and in the public squares. Build them everywhere. Sit in your tabernacles and read the teaching of Yahweh. You will see that there is no need of walls to read the Law of our Covenant with the Everlasting. In the Book, you will be safer than anywhere else. And no one will drive you away. The Word of Yahweh is a fortress.'

And, like my forty thousand companions, I laughed and danced. In the evening, I danced in the arms of Yahezya, in the arms of Baruch, Gershom and Jonathan, Ackaz, Manasseh and Amos . . . There were so many names, so many arms in which a young girl, a young wife, a young widow named Lilah could dance.

We were no longer alone. We drank wine, ate meat, swayed our hips and swelled our chests, we, the thousands of wives.

We had read like the men, all united. Daughters
of Israel, wives of the sons of Israel. All united, without distinction. All wives and mothers.

That was the last time.

Ezra was right: the joy of Yahweh is a fortress.

This is how it happened, three days after the reading and the celebration that ensued. Everyone was laughing, building their tabernacles and sitting in them to read.

The priests and Levites, those who call themselves the princes of the Temple, appeared before Ezra. ‘You proclaim that Yahweh is happy with us. You are wrong. We say to you that Yahweh is angry. We warn you that soon those who hate us will strike harder than ever. They are already here. They are in Jerusalem, they are in your tabernacles.'

‘What are you talking about?' my brother asked in surprise.

‘How can you teach the Law if the Word of Yahweh is not respected? How can the children of Israel appease the wrath of Yahweh if the first of His rules is not respected? Open your eyes, Ezra. Look at the faces, listen to the words. The peoples who surround us and live in abomination have married their daughters to our sons! That is the truth of it.'

‘Ezra, beneath the roofs of Jerusalem,' others cried, ‘the unclean mix indiscriminately with the children of Israel. The unclean are among us. Worse
still, they multiply like clouds. The Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and so many others around Jerusalem, have given their daughters to the men of Jerusalem. Their babies have been filling our beds since Nehemiah left. And this rabble walk the streets of Jerusalem as if they were the children of Israel! Soon they, too, will be of an age to mix their unclean stock with that of the people of Yahweh. Our destruction is inevitable. And you, Ezra, would like Yahweh to renew His Covenant with us? To place His hand upon you?'

I was not present at the scene. A child was being born not far from our house and I had been sent for. But I was later told all the details of what had happened.

Hearing these words, Ezra rushed onto the steps of the Temple. There, he tore his clothes to shreds. He ripped his tunic and his cloak, as if twenty hands had grabbed hold of him. He demanded a knife. Before the eyes of the priests, the Levites and the zealots, he shaved his head and his beard. Now he was bare-headed and bare-cheeked, and as pale as a leper.

After that, he sat on the steps of the Temple and would not budge. He remained like that, mouth closed, eyes vacant, hands motionless.

The priests and Levites roused the crowd. People came from everywhere to see Ezra, and cried out at
the sight of his head. They begged him to speak, to utter a word. But he remained silent. Instead, it was the priests who cried, ‘Ezra is naked before the Word of Yahweh! Ezra fears Yahweh! Ezra bears all the infidelity of the exiles on his shoulders!'

It was then that I joined the crowd.

I saw him with my own eyes, huddled on the steps, his face haggard, his eyes hardened by sadness. His mouth was like a line cut by a sword.

He no longer saw anything, no longer looked at anything. Or perhaps he was thinking of old times, old promises from the days of our childhood, which he was now preparing to break. Yes, that was my first thought.

My other thought was that I no longer recognized him: he was not the man who had wept in my arms only a few days earlier.

My brother had disappeared, and his beautiful mouth, his eyes full of hope had disappeared, too.

Or was it the pallor of his skull and cheeks that made me think that?

At the evening offering, he stood up suddenly. The crowd around the Temple fell silent.

A terrifying silence.

As I write this, I am afraid again. My hand is heavy with the words it is about to lay down on the papyrus.

Ezra approaches the altar. He walks up to the
beautiful new basin, only recently purified. We hold our breath. Even the priests and the zealots are silent. They, too, are overcome with fear. You can see it in their eyes, the way they clench their fists in front of their mouths.

Ezra falls to his knees. He reaches out his hands to Yahweh, palms upward. Sounds come from him, not words at first, only moans. Then he cries, ‘My God, I am ashamed as I lift my head to you, for our sins are endless, our offences can be heard even in the vaults of heaven! We have been guilty since the days of our fathers, and we are still guilty. It is because of our sins that we have been delivered into the hands of foreign kings, have suffered violence and captivity, are humiliated, even now. We have abandoned your Commandments, as decreed by your servants and your prophets. “The land you are inheriting is unclean,” they said, “soiled by the surrounding nations and the horrors with which they nourished it. Your daughters must not be given to their sons. Their daughters must not be married to your sons.” Those were your rules. After all that has happened to us because of our misconduct, are we still going to disobey your orders, Yahweh? Are we going to ally ourselves with these nations and their abominations? How could you not be angry – so angry that you would destroy what is left of us? Yahweh, God of Israel, here we are before you, in
sin. And we will not be able to stand upright until that sin has been atoned for. Oh, Yahweh, we cannot stand upright before you until the clean have been separated from the unclean.'

That day, that night and the following day, the zealots ran through the streets knocking on the doors of the houses.

You are clean, you are unclean.

You are a daughter of Israel. You are not.

Your children are unclean. Leave this house – leave Jerusalem! Go, you are no longer this man's wife.

Separate, separate!

Pack your bags and go! You have soiled our streets and our land for too long!

They pushed and shoved. They took the little ones and threw them into the streets. Even babies in their cradles they put into the streets. The big ones they pulled by their hair. Go, go, we don't want to see you any more!

The women cried that they were loving wives. Why chase me away? We have loved each other for years. I have always lived in Jerusalem! I read with the others before Ezra at the Water Gate! What is my sin?

They wept that they had travelled all the way from Susa with Ezra – I led the fast, I rebuilt the
walls of the houses of Jerusalem, with my own hands I built a tabernacle in my garden to read the teachings of Yahweh. What is my sin?

The mothers cried out, and tore their babies from the hands of the zealots. My child, my child, what will become of you without a father?

The boys and girls sobbed in terror.

‘Look at us!' their mothers implored. ‘We have no other house, no other roof, no other family. Where shall we go without a husband, without a father? Why chase us away as if we were evil incarnate?' they asked. ‘We have loved a son of Israel, we have cherished and caressed him. Where is the evil? Is our love evil? Why trample on us?'

The husbands and fathers were silent. Almost all bowed their heads in shame and hid their faces in their hands. They ran to the Temple, bowed down and begged forgiveness.

It was a late-summer's day, the kind of hot day when the swallows only fly as dusk approaches, and yet an icy wind was blowing through the streets of Jerusalem.

And those husbands and fathers who wanted to defend those they loved were beaten until they fell silent and their shame grew as their blood flowed.

The wives, the betrothed, the widows, the sons and daughters were driven towards the outer walls. They were driven with sticks, street by street.

For two days.

There were endless cries, which eventually gave way to resignation. Some took one direction, others the opposite direction. No one knew where to go. They worried over their meagre bundles, the children clinging to their tunics, the older ones carrying the babies.