On This Foundation (18 page)

Nehemiah felt euphoric as he turned to his brothers and his three aides for the uphill walk to the temple. Then he froze when he saw a look of concern on Ephraim's face. “What's wrong? Did I forget something?”

“You'd better read this. It arrived this morning from Samaria. One of your servants brought it here while you were speaking.” Judging from Ephraim's expression, it wasn't good news.

“Tell me what it says. Did you read it?”

Ephraim nodded. “Governor Sanballat will arrive for an official state visit in two days, along with Tobiah the Ammonite leader and Geshem the Arab.”

“Well.” Nehemiah exhaled. “That certainly didn't take long. The Samaritan governor has obviously heard about our building project. I wonder if we have a spy among us. . . . In any event, let's go,” he said as he started walking uphill with the others toward the temple. “We're going to need the Almighty One's help now more than ever.”

“How shall I instruct your servants to prepare for their visit?” Ephraim asked.

“Tell them to do the bare minimum. I can't afford the time or the expense of entertaining these men. If they're going to barge in uninvited when I have work to do, then they can hardly expect royal treatment.”

“Won't they be insulted?” Hanani asked.

“I really don't care. Our work on the wall is much more important. We're off to a good start in spite of this latest dis
traction. Every section of wall and every gate has a capable overseer. Some men may have bitten off too big of a piece, and a few, like the nobles of Tekoa, have disappointed me by not volunteering at all, but I believe this work will be accomplished quickly. I'm very pleased.”

“Do you think Governor Sanballat and the others will try to stop us from rebuilding the wall?” Hanani asked.

“No doubt. But they won't succeed. Rebuilding Jerusalem's wall is God's work, and from now on, those who try to halt its progress are opposing the Almighty One. They will become His enemies as well as ours.”

J
ERUSALEM

N
ava stopped every few yards as she climbed the stairs to the temple mount, taking time to scan all the faces for a familiar one. She had attended the morning sacrifice every day for the past week and recognized many of the same people, such as the old woman with the tattered head scarf who wept when she prayed; the group of young Torah students who followed their rebbe like a string of chicks behind a hen; and the new governor, Nehemiah, who never missed a day of worship. But Nava was losing hope of ever finding Dan or her father and brothers among the crowd of worshipers.

Thanks to her master's housekeeper, Nava had moved to Jerusalem to work in Malkijah's city house. The city's population had swelled in size, as it did during the annual pilgrimage festivals, with hundreds of men from every corner of the province flocking to rebuild Jerusalem's wall. The sounds and sights of construction were everywhere, and the noise even drifted into her master's kitchen where Nava worked during the day. From sunup until sundown, the activity on the wall halted only during the daily sacrifices and on the Sabbath.

Nava felt certain that Dan would volunteer to help. Maybe
Abba and her brothers had, too. Her master supervised repairs to the Dung Gate using volunteers from his district of Beth Hakkerem, but she doubted that Dan or Abba would work for him. So where were they working?

She paused to catch her breath and look around when she reached the top of the stairs. The early morning air already felt warm. Then she hurried over to a group of young laborers who were standing together, talking. “Excuse me,” she said. “Where are you from?”

“Beth Zur,” one of them told her.

“Have any of you seen a young man named Dan ben Yonah from Beth Hakkerem?” The men shook their heads and Nava moved on. The people she had questioned this past week had come from all over the province of Judah, and she had met workers from places like Mizpah and Tekoa and Gibeon. Whenever her master's cook needed spices or fresh fish or something else from the marketplace, Nava had offered to go, taking a different route each time, hoping to run into Dan. Instead of eating breakfast, she spent the time every morning at the temple, searching for her family and for Dan and his family, desperate to let them know she was here and could visit with them once in a while.

Nava continued searching the crowd as the priests sacrificed the lamb and laid it on the altar. Sometimes the Levite choir sang, but even they had volunteered to repair sections of the wall. She watched another priest take a glowing coal from the altar using special tongs and a fire pan, then carry it into the sanctuary where only they were allowed to go. This was the time when she was supposed to pray, while the fragrant aroma of the burning incense ascended to heaven. Nava still wasn't convinced that the Almighty One listened to her prayers, but with nothing to lose, she closed her eyes and whispered the words that she prayed every morning.
Please help
me find Dan and my family
.

When the service ended, she hurried toward the stairs with all of the other worshipers, scanning the faces in the crowd once again. None of her master's other servants came to the morning sacrifice, and she didn't dare to be gone for very long. With fewer servants and many laborers to feed, Nava worked harder here than she had in Beth Hakkerem. Malkijah's house was small but still opulent, with beautifully paneled walls and exquisite rugs on the floors. Along with feeding his workers every day, he also liked to entertain important people whenever he could. Sometimes those multi-course meals lasted well into the night.

Nava was halfway across the courtyard when she suddenly glimpsed Dan's face in the crowd. Was she seeing things? After hoping and searching for so many days, had she only imagined it? She wove between the other worshipers who were moving much too slowly, craning her neck to see. It was Dan! He stood near the top of the steps leading down from the temple mount, and if he had continued walking down the stairs she would have missed him. But he had halted, stepping aside for some reason, and he turned his head in her direction.

“Dan!” Nava shouted. It was a miracle! But with the courtyard jammed with people, he didn't hear or see her. He wasn't expecting to see her. She elbowed her way through the flowing stream, calling his name, ignoring the stern looks and loud shushing from people all around her. “Dan! Dan, wait!”

He looked up when he heard his name, then froze when he saw Nava. He didn't move, didn't run to her as she'd expected him to, and for a horrible moment she wondered if he had found someone else. Maybe he'd decided not to wait six long years for her, like Master Aaron predicted. But when she reached him, she saw the love brimming in his eyes as he whispered her name, and she knew that none of what she'd imagined was true. Dan loved her. “Nava . . . is it really you?”

“Yes! I thought I'd never find you,” she said, panting to catch her breath.

“And I thought I'd never see you again.” His voice choked and it was a moment before he could speak. She could tell that he wanted to hold her and kiss her the way he had on the morning she'd left home. And she longed to fling herself into his arms, too, but she didn't dare, especially in the temple courtyard, surrounded by so many people. “Are you all right, Nava? That's all I wanted to know that night I came to Beth Hakkerem to see you. Are they treating you well?”

Nava hesitated, unsure whether or not to tell him about Aaron. There was nothing Dan could do about her master's son, and she knew he would only worry. “Yes. I'm treated well.”

“Have that man's sons touched you? I don't see how they could resist a beautiful woman like you, but—”

“His sons are in Beth Hakkerem, and I'm working here in Jerusalem. There's nothing to worry about.”

His shoulders sagged with relief. “If they ever lay their filthy hands on you, I'll murder them. It's as simple as that.”

“You don't need to worry, Dan.” She rested her hand on his arm to soothe him and again the urge to hold him tightly and feel his arms surrounding her was so powerful that she quickly pulled her hand away.

“Where are you going? Can we walk together?” Dan asked.

“I have to return to Master Malkijah's house. It's here in the city on the Hill of Ophel.” They started down the stairs, and when the crowd crushed them close together, Nava reveled in the warmth of his bare arm against hers.

“I'll be working here while Malkijah helps rebuild the wall. Did you come to Jerusalem to work on the wall, too?”

“Yes. They called for volunteers, and since there's not much to do on Abba's farm because of this drought, I decided to come.”

“Are you working at the Dung Gate with the other men from Beth Hakkerem?”

“No, I refuse to have anything to do with your master. I'm
helping on the eastern side of the city with the new wall that they're building on top of the ridge.”

“That's wonderful! Maybe we'll get to see each other more often. I'm allowed to come here to the sacrifice every morning.” They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Nava pointed to the left. “Malkijah lives down this street near the governor's house. Walk with me and I'll show you.”

Dan reached for her hand now that the crowd had thinned. His grip felt warm and calloused and wonderfully familiar. “I don't know which is worse, Nava, not seeing you at all or being with you and not being able to hold you in my arms.”

“I know. I feel the same way.” She squeezed his hand. “I'm so glad I found you.”

“Listen, the reason I came to the temple today was to pray. I haven't been to any of the sacrifices since coming to work in the city, but today I came to pray for our future. There may be a tiny sliver of hope for us.”

“I could use some hope.”

“There's an undercurrent of unrest that may work in our favor. The governor's aide, a man named Jehohanan who is very high up in the new governor's administration, came to our worksite the other day. He's been visiting other sites, too, and talking to all the poor families like ours. He says we would have a chance of being heard by Governor Nehemiah if we staged a protest at the temple. Jehohanan is on our side, Nava, and he's against all the wealthy landowners who are holding our mortgages and taking us as bondservants. He's helping us meet together after work and get organized so we can confront the governor as a group. Jehohanan says if we refuse to work on the wall unless the governor helps us, he'll have to do something about greedy men like Malkijah.”

“Dan, please don't do anything to get in trouble. What if Jehohanan is wrong about the governor being sympathetic?”

“Rich men like your master need to be stopped. Our two
families aren't the only ones who are suffering. The same thing is happening all over the province, with other rich landowners taking farms and crops and enslaving children.”

“Shh! Someone will hear you.” They were close to her master's house, and she pulled him to a halt, lowering her voice. “I know how poor our people are. Most of the women I work with are bondservants for the same reason that I am. My friend Rachel had to leave her husband and two small children behind, and she can't even visit them. But what good can come from a protest?”

“We'll get the governor's attention if we all stop building the wall. Besides, we can't possibly make the situation any worse than it already is, can we? Maybe the governor really will listen to us and do something about it.”

“Please be careful, Dan. Malkijah is a very powerful man. You already made him angry once before when you broke into his house. I don't think he'll be as forgiving the next time.”

“I don't care. I hate him. And I'm not afraid of him.”

“I need to go. Malkijah's house is the last one on this street, so you'd better turn back. You can't take a chance that anyone will see you or recognize you.”

“Can we meet again tomorrow in the same place? Before the sacrifice?”

“Yes. I'll be there. But, Dan, promise me that you'll be careful.”

“I will. I love you, Nava.”

“I love you, too.” She pulled her hand free from his and ran the rest of the way home, knowing that if she was near him one moment longer, she wouldn't be able to resist the urge to throw herself into his arms and cover his beloved face with kisses.

J
ERUSALEM

C
hana finished packing the bread she had just baked into one of the carrying baskets and covered it with a clean cloth. “Are you ready to go?” she asked her sisters.

“I think so,” Yudit said. “We can always run back home if we forgot something.”

Chana's nerves twitched with excitement. Today she would finally start rebuilding Jerusalem's wall. She had barely been able to sit still beside the hearth all morning, waiting for each round of flatbread to slowly turn brown on the stone griddle. She and her sisters had been giddy with anticipation as they'd prepared this midday meal for Abba and his workers. Chana hoped he hadn't changed his mind about allowing them to stay and work afterward.

“That's everything,” Sarah said. She lifted one of the water jars they had filled at the spring this morning and balanced it on her head. “Lead the way, Chana.”

“Do you think the workers will appreciate how hard it was for us to cook all this food and bake bread on such a blistering day?” Yudit asked. “The paving stones are almost as hot as the hearthstones.”

“I'm sure the workers already know how hot it is,” Sarah said. “It must be terrible to work out there without any shade, moving all those heavy stones.”

“We'll find out how hard it is soon enough,” Chana said. “The two of you can leave after we deliver the food if you want to, but I'm planning to stay and work this afternoon.”

“I'm staying, too,” Yudit said. “Unless Abba goes back on his promise.”

“He wouldn't dare!”

Chana's arms ached as she walked down the Street of the Bakers from their house carrying the heavy load. A few minutes later she passed the governor's headquarters near the Valley Gate, where a knot of men stood around a worktable, conferring beneath a roof made of rushes. Even before she left the city through the gate, she could hear shouts and grunts and the clang of tools in the distance, the in-and-out whooshing sound of a saw, like breathing, as someone cut wood. The road led immediately downhill into the steep valley from the gate, and Chana and her sisters had to turn around to see their assigned section. It began to the left of the gate and continued north all the way up the hill to the Tower of Ovens. The jagged remnants of the wall weren't even half their original height, and a jumbled blanket of fallen stones littered the slope below it. But what stopped Chana in her tracks were the laborers. They had removed their tunics in the broiling heat to work in nothing but their under breeches. Their bare chests glistened with sweat. She whirled around to face the other way at the same time that her sisters did.

“Maybe we shouldn't be here,” Sarah said. “Those men are . . . indecent!”

Chana wondered if her cheeks were as red as Sarah's. “No, come on,” she said, turning around again. “We've all seen a man's bare chest before, haven't we?”

“Not that many at once!” Yudit said. She had turned around again, too, and she stared at them, wide-eyed.

“Just find Abba, and don't look at the men,” Chana said. “And quit staring, Yudit! It's always indecent to stare at people no matter how many clothes they have on.”

“Or off,” Sarah said.

Abba called for a lunch break when he saw Chana and her sisters coming, and the men quickly gathered around, grateful for the food and water. They sat down on the ground in a circle and passed around the basket of bread, putting the bowls of cooked lentils, spiced chickpeas, chopped cucumber salad, and roasted eggplant in the middle where everyone could use their bread to scoop into them. While they ate, Chana explored the site, unable to sit still. The long stretch of wall was difficult to get close to because of the steepness of the slope and the scree of toppled stones. She could see where some of the men had labored all morning to clear an area directly in front of the wall, and judging by the orderly piles of rocks, other workers had sorted stones according to size. Nearby was a pile of logs and the saws the men were using to cut them. She hoped the laborers would eat quickly and return to work so she could join them.

“Thank you for the food, my angels,” Abba said when the men finished and the baskets and bowls lay empty on the ground. He placed one hand on Chana's back and the other on Yudit's and tried to gently herd them back toward the gate. “You deserve a long nap this afternoon after all that cooking.”

Chana wiggled away from his guiding hand. “I have no intention of resting, Abba. I'm staying here to work.”

“So am I,” Yudit said.

“You promised we could, remember? Now give us jobs to do.”

“I . . . but . . . you . . .” He was so flustered that Chana wanted to laugh. He was ruler of the half-district of Jerusalem, yet he couldn't speak. She would have felt sorry for him under any other circumstances, but she was not backing down.

“A promise is a promise.”

“How did I ever let you talk me into this?” he asked, tugging his beard.

“It doesn't matter, Abba. But you gave us your word. Tell us what everyone is doing, and we'll see what we can do to help.”

“Well . . . as soon as we finish clearing some of those blocks away from the wall, we'll erect the scaffolding. They're cutting the wood for it over there. As you can see, we're fighting the slope of the hill, so both the stones and the scaffolding could easily shift. It's dangerous work, which is why I wish you would go home and—”

“We won't stand where it's dangerous,” Chana said. “What else needs to be done?”

He hesitated, then said, “We need to build a crane and anchor it in place, then outfit it with ropes to hoist the larger blocks to the top of the wall. Again, it's very dangerous work because if one of the ropes should happen to break—”

“You can't discourage us, Abba. What are all those tools for?”

She could see he was losing patience, but, being Abba, he answered just the same. “We use the levers to pry up the blocks so we can fasten ropes around them and lift them with the crane. The barrows are for moving the lighter stones. The chisels and cutting tools are used to smooth off the rough, broken edges so the stones will fit together better.”

“And how will they actually build the wall? They can't just pile up all these rocks, can they?” Chana hoped that if she kept her father talking, he would get used to having her and her sisters here.

“No, there is a system to it. We set the largest stones in place first, width-wise, then wedge the smaller ones in between along with mortar until it's a solid layer. We'll make plumb lines and level lines from those cords and clay weights over there. Each course of stones must be straight vertically and level horizontally in order for the wall to stand. If it isn't, the wall will topple.”

“It sounds important to get that right,” Chana said.

“It's very important. We're fortunate that the foundations are solid in our section. We won't have to dig trenches for new foundations like they do on the northeast corner.”

Abba had called it “our” section. Chana smiled to herself. He was softening. She had been looking around while he talked to see which task she and Yudit and Sarah could handle, and she decided that the simplest job would be to sort stones, picking up the ones they could easily lift and piling them to one side. She retied her scarf around her hair so it hung down her back like a horse's tail, and as soon as Abba was distracted by a question from one of the workers, she made her way up the hill through the debris to where the men sorted rocks. She knew better than to ask Abba's permission. Why give him a chance to stop her? Yudit and Sarah hurried up the hill to join her.

“Be careful, my angels!” he said when he discovered what they were doing.

“This isn't hard at all, Abba,” she called down to him as she threw another rock onto the pile she was making.

“We're stronger than you think, Abba,” Yudit told him.

“You girls better watch out for snakes,” one of the workers warned as Chana bent to lift another stone. She dropped it in surprise, barely missing her foot. But she wouldn't let a snake or the other workers discourage her. “Thanks for the warning,” she said, smiling at the man.

Everything about the work should have made Chana run home—the intense heat, her aching back from bending all afternoon, the way the rough stones scraped and cut her hands. The worker had been right about snakes, and she shrieked when she spotted one slithering between the stones near her feet. Yet Chana felt happier than she had in a long time and knew that working on Jerusalem's wall was having a healing effect. She was fighting back against Yitzhak's murderers. They would
never sneak inside the city again. No other woman would have to suffer the senseless grief that she had suffered.

“Hey, Chana!”

She looked up to see why Yudit had called to her. Her sister's hair looked like a glowing halo around her beaming face. “What, Yudit?”

“You're singing again!”

It was true, Chana realized. She had begun to sing as she worked.