On This Foundation (27 page)

“What's the second?” someone asked.

“We're going to pray. All of our efforts will be worthless if God isn't on our side. But I have faith that He is on our side and that He will fight for us. Therefore we have nothing to fear. Our enemies will not prevail. If your workers are fearful and ready to quit, remind them of the God we serve, the God who forgave us and restored us and promised never to forsake us if we're faithful to Him. One of the reasons we're rebuilding this wall is to bring glory to the Almighty One and show our enemies that He's with us. The way to replace fear with faith is to pray.”

As soon as he dismissed the meeting, Nehemiah and Hanani opened the armory and distributed weapons, appointing a leader over each guard post. Nehemiah chose a sword for himself, then went in search of Jehohanan and found him with his brother Ephraim at the field office near the Valley Gate. Nehemiah took a stance in front of the young man, his hand resting casually on the hilt of his sword.

“You didn't tell me that you're the son of Tobiah the Ammonite, Jehohanan.”

“I didn't think it mattered. My father and I worship the same God you do.”

“Of course it matters. And if you believe that it doesn't, you're either very naïve or a very clever imposter.”

“You're being misled about Tobiah's loyalties, my lord. He isn't your enemy. He would gladly work by your side. He supports what you're doing.”

“Then why did he come here with Sanballat and Geshem to mock us?”

“Things aren't always as they appear, Governor.”

“That's true,” Nehemiah replied. He was aware that Jehohanan's statement could be interpreted several ways. “That's why I'm sending you home. You no longer have a job in my administration.”

He expected an angry response, an argument, but Jehohanan simply met his gaze and said, “It's been a pleasure to serve you, Governor.” There was no sarcasm or bitterness in his tone. Then he walked away.

“What did you make of that?” Nehemiah asked his brother. “Am I wrong to be suspicious? Are Tobiah and his son our allies or our enemies?”

“I don't know,” Ephraim replied, scratching his beard. “Tobiah came with Sanballat and Geshem as part of their delegation, remember? He mocked us just like they did.”

“True. But is he in league with them? What motive would Tobiah have to want to halt our work?”

“I don't know. But we need to find out.”

Later, Nehemiah told his other two aides that they were no longer needed, either. “Rehum, I know you're supervising construction on a section of the eastern wall. That work is important enough to give it your full attention from now on. Levi, you would be of more help to me by working on the wall, as well.”

Nehemiah would need to post guards at all the entrances to
his residence. He would interview all of his servants himself, checking into the backgrounds of the people closest to him, people he had blindly trusted until now. He should have done it a long time ago. He watched Rehum and Levi walk away and realized that aside from Ephraim and Hanani, he no longer knew whom he could trust.

J
ERUSALEM

M
alkijah's parting question from the other day still haunted Chana.
“
What
is
it
going
to
take
to
get
you
to
trust
me
?”
She didn't know the answer. She sighed as she bent to help Yudit fill the leather sling with fist-sized stones, then waited for the workmen to haul it to the top. The wall was slowly growing higher, but the rubble-strewn embankment where she and Yudit worked looked unchanged. Did these rocks multiply overnight?

“This stone is ready to go into place,” Sarah called up to the foreman. She stood beside a huge building block, twice as big as she was, that the workers had shaped. Abba had been reluctant to send them to work alone while he rushed off to a meeting with the governor at dawn, but Chana had assured him they would be fine. Her work was what sustained her; at the end of each day she could stand back and see how much she had accomplished. But when the wall was finished, she would have to marry Malkijah.

Malkijah
. How could she marry him when she still had so many doubts? Was he truly motivated by greed, or had he told the truth about why he hadn't freed his servants?
“What is it
going to take
to get you to trust me?”
At least he'd admitted that he was marrying her for Abba's power, wanting to control Jerusalem as well as Beth Hakkerem. Unlike Yitzhak, he had been honest about that much. Chana's thoughts circled around and around in her head like carrion birds, her emotions changing from anger to sorrow to grief—the same heart-numbing grief she'd felt after Yitzhak had died—and then back to anger again.

“Why haven't you been singing these past few days, Chana?” Yudit asked as they waited for the sling to be emptied and tossed down to them again.

“I don't know . . . I just don't feel like it.”

“Is something wrong?” Yudit asked. “When we first started building the wall you seemed so happy, but these past few days you've been sad again.”

“Nothing's wrong.” Chana turned and walked toward the scaffold, pretending she had work to do. She should apologize to Yudit, but she didn't feel like it. Her lingering doubts about Malkijah and even about Yitzhak made her feel angry at everyone. Yet she knew it was her own fault for being so blind and naïve.

Her only reason for getting up in the morning was to work on the wall. Each time she dropped her plumb line and strung her level line, she felt confident and self-assured. The massive wall rose from the ruins, solid and unmoving, one of the only things straight and true in her life. She knew she was doing a good job and thought she'd earned the other workers' respect. Now she wondered if it was only because she was Shallum's daughter.

Chana was halfway up the scaffolding when Abba returned from his meeting in the council chamber. She saw him emerge through the gate, walking briskly, and his usually jovial face looked worried. He beckoned for her to come down, calling to Sarah and Yudit, too. “Stop what you're doing, my angels. We're going home.”

“Right now? It isn't even noon,” Yudit said, stuffing strands
of her wild hair beneath her scarf. “We have plenty more hours of daylight ahead of us.”

Chana climbed down partway and stood on one of the wide boards, her arms folded. “Did the governor tell you to make us stop? Because we don't have to do what he says, Abba. You're in charge of this section, not—”

“Hush, Chana. We'll talk about it when we get home, not out here where everyone can hear us.” He spoke softly, and his voice had an unaccustomed urgency to it. “Sarah, Yudit . . . let's go.”

Chana had to scramble the rest of the way down, then hurry to catch up as her father strode toward the gate with her sisters in tow. The governor had interfered again, Chana was certain of it. She held her temper as they walked up the Street of the Bakers toward home, but the moment they reached the courtyard gate, her fury boiled over. “You don't have to listen to the governor, Abba. I'm betrothed to Malkijah, and he said—”

“Just be quiet and listen.” It was so unlike him to bark orders that she suddenly felt afraid.

Sarah linked her arm through his, standing close. “What's wrong, Abba?”

His mouth was set in a firm, hard line that Chana recognized as determination, not anger. “A group of laborers were ambushed last night on their way home from working on the wall. Two of them were killed. Now rumors are circulating around the city and the province that our enemies are about to attack again in order to force us to stop building. That's why the governor called the meeting today. The other district leaders have heard the same warnings, coming from some of our trusted Gentile neighbors and trading partners.”

The news sent a shiver of fear through Chana. “Is work on the wall going to stop?” she asked.

“No. That's exactly what our enemies want. But from now on, half of the men will work while the rest stand guard. Those
who work will also be armed with swords. I'm going back to the armory in a few minutes to get weapons for all my workers.”

“And then what?” Yudit asked.

“The governor is posting guards at the unfinished gates and all the exposed areas, but the workers are spread out along miles and miles of wall. An attack could come anywhere, anytime. If one does, Governor Nehemiah will signal with a trumpet, and we'll all rush there to help. Needless to say, the situation is much too dangerous for the three of you to continue working with me. I'm sorry.”

“You're not going to fight, too, Abba, are you?” Sarah asked, still clinging to his arm.

“Of course I am. Why not?”

“Abba, I'm scared!” Sarah wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. He stroked her raven-black hair to soothe her.

“Our trust is in the Almighty One. We must all pray for His protection and help.”

The threats unnerved Chana. But in spite of the danger, her only thought was that the one thing left to her—building the wall—was being taken away. She couldn't let that happen. “Abba, I know we can't work outside the wall anymore, but I could still measure and use a plumb line from the inside, couldn't I?”

“How would you climb up, Chana? We can't move the scaffolding to the inside.”

Sarah's eyes went wide. “All that scaffolding! What if the enemy uses it to climb up and get inside?”

“There are easier ways for them to get inside,” Chana said. “The gates aren't even finished yet. The enemy could walk right through the gaps.”

“Why are you scaring her, Chana?” Yudit asked. “Don't be so mean.”

“From now on,” Abba said, “you will all stay inside the house where it's safe until the danger is past.”

Chana knew she shouldn't have frightened Sarah. Why was she taking out her frustration on the people she loved? After Abba left, she stood at the gate that led from her courtyard to the street, feeling trapped. Her life was no longer under her own control—but had it ever been? And what about her future? Would she feel this endless cycle of anger and grief for the rest of her life?

She was still standing at the gate a while later, watching the carts and donkeys and foot traffic on the Street of the Bakers, when she realized that the man walking up the hill toward her was Malkijah. She recognized his brisk, confident stride, his dark, neatly-cut beard and scarlet-banded tunic. She wanted to run inside and hide and pretend she wasn't home after the way she had treated him the other day, but he smiled and lifted his hand to wave, and she knew he had seen her.

Malkijah was breathing hard from the uphill climb when he halted in front of her. She noticed the sword hanging from his belt. “I just talked to your father. He told me you were upset about not being able to help with the wall.”

Chana blinked back sudden tears. “I enjoyed my work. And I was good at it.”

“So I heard.”

She nearly blurted out,
“That was the only thing that brought me joy!”
but realized how insulting that would sound to the man she was betrothed to. In that moment she also realized that Malkijah was her legal husband and could override her father's wishes if he chose to. “Will you let me work alongside you at the Dung Gate from now on?” she asked. “I promise I'll stay on the inside of the wall.”

He took a moment to consider her request before replying, and his thoughtfulness impressed her. “I would like to say yes, Chana, I really would. But it's even more dangerous where I am than at your father's section. An unfinished gate is an easy target. And we're at the very southern tip of the city. It would take a long time for reinforcements to arrive if we were attacked.”

“You said you wouldn't make me stop building after we were betrothed.”

“I know. But the work has become much too dangerous. We'll be camping beside the wall day and night from now on and do our work with a sword in one hand.” He pulled the one strapped to his side from its scabbard and handed it to her. It was so heavy she needed two hands to hang on to it. “Can you do your work with one of these?” he asked. Chastened, she passed it back to him without replying. “I agree with your father,” Malkijah said. “The attacks could come at any moment, without warning. I lost my first wife, as you know, and there was nothing I could do to save her. If something happened to you, I would never forgive myself for putting you in danger. Please, Chana, you know what it's like to lose your fiancé so close to the wedding day.”

She looked away, ashamed to realize that she'd shown no concern for his safety, even after he'd told her that the Dung Gate would make an obvious target. “Isn't it dangerous for you, too?” she finally asked.

“It's dangerous for all of us right now.”

He could be killed, like Yitzhak had been. In spite of all her changing, conflicting, confusing feelings about Malkijah, Chana realized that she didn't want him to die. She was about to tell him so when he said, “Listen, I didn't come here to talk about all of this. I wanted to see you because I was upset about the way things ended the last time we talked. There were issues between us that weren't resolved. And I'm concerned that you may have second thoughts about marrying me.” She stared at the ground without replying. “I came here to offer you an annulment. A way out of our betrothal.”

“Is that what you want?” she asked. She was barely able to speak, her heart pounding at his offer. She remembered the terrible accusations she had made the other day, yet he was responding as a gentleman, not in anger.

“No, Chana,” he said gently. “No. It isn't what I want at all. I want to marry you.”

For a moment she saw herself as he must surely see her, and how Yudit and Sarah had seen her earlier today: ugly and deformed with self-pity and stubbornness, spewing her anger at the people who loved her. She had accused Malkijah of greed, of exacting usury, of having no compassion for the poor—and without any proof to back up those accusations. Even so, this was her chance to be free. He offered her a way out of their marriage contract. Did she want to take it?

Chana finally looked up at him, and his face blurred through her tears. He was a good man, and he'd been unfailingly patient with her even when her emotions and attitudes toward him had changed from day to day. She needed to find stability and peace in her own heart, acceptance and certainty about her future.

“Malkijah, I'm sorry I said all those things to you. Please forgive me.” She paused, swallowing. “If you'll still have me . . . I still want to marry you.”

He smiled his handsome, crooked smile. “I was hoping you would say that.”

A few hours ago, Chana had felt panic and dread as she saw the day of her marriage approaching. Each stone that she'd set in place brought it one day closer. Now she could no longer rebuild the wall. But maybe there were other tasks she could do for the rest of her life, such as working alongside this man who said he needed and wanted her.