On This Foundation (31 page)

J
ERUSALEM

Y
ou're going up to the rooftop again?” Yudit asked when the noon meal was finished. “Why do you torture yourself by watching the men work, Chana? You know we can't help Abba anymore.”

“I know. But there's nothing else to do.” She and her sisters no longer prepared a huge evening meal since Abba worked on the wall until it was almost too dark to see. He arrived home exhausted every evening and ate a simple dinner by lamplight before going to bed. “I like to watch the progress,” she told Yudit. “You should see how far they are—almost to the Tower of the Ovens.”

“We're still helping, you know,” Sarah said. “We're doing our part like all the other women by cooking for the men. They would starve if it weren't for us.”

“The servants Abba hired can cook just as well as I can,” Chana said. “Probably better.” She took off her work apron and headed toward the outside steps.

“Watching is only going to frustrate you,” Yudit called to her. “And make you grouchy.”

“I know. But I'm going up anyway.” The view from the roof
top seemed to change a little more each day. Before Nehemiah came, Chana had been able to see over the broken-down wall and across the central valley into the deserted Mishneh. Now the wall blocked her view, towering higher than her rooftop. Abba's section from the Valley Gate to the Tower of the Ovens was three-quarters finished. He had described to Chana how his crew worked with the crew at the tower to make sure the wall joined tightly, just as they had worked with the crew at the Valley Gate. It was all so exciting. And now, in spite of their enemies' attempts to halt it, the wall was nearly finished.

She watched three men on top of the wall guide a large block into place from the swinging crane ropes. They suddenly stopped. The ropes went slack even though the block wasn't in position, and the men scrambled down the scaffolding and out of sight on the other side. Two more men who had been checking the level lines in another place also stopped and climbed down, followed by the two sentries who stood guard on top. The incessant pounding and chiseling ceased. Were they being attacked? Chana's heart sped up as she listened for the sound of the trumpet blast, ordering all of the workers to come to their neighbors' defense. But instead of the trumpet and the clash of swords, she heard a man screaming in agonizing pain on the other side of the wall.

She listened for sounds of fighting and didn't hear any. The cries continued. Had there been an accident? Was one of Abba's workmen injured?
Lord, help him, please! Help him!
She pictured a block of stone shifting, crushing someone's leg or arm beneath its weight. But the longer she listened, the more convinced she became that the voice she heard crying out in agony was her father's.

Chana ran down the stairs, through her courtyard, and out of her house without stopping. She raced down the Street of the Bakers to the Valley Gate, pushing past anyone who got in her way. The cries went on and on in the distance as she hurried
through the gate along with a growing crowd of men. They had unsheathed their swords as if fearing, as she had, that they were under attack. The screaming would die away for only a few seconds at a time before continuing.

“Abba!” she shouted as she raced toward the knot of gathered men. Convinced more than ever that it was her father's voice, she elbowed her way through the bystanders and saw her father lying on the ground, writhing in pain. She didn't see any blood or wounds, no huge blocks of stone pinning his limbs, but two workers held his shoulders, another one his legs, trying to hold him still. Was something wrong with his heart?

“Abba! Abba, what happened?” She knelt beside him, her lungs heaving. “What's wrong? What happened?”

He looked up at her, but only heart-wrenching moans poured from his mouth. Tears filled his eyes as he tossed restlessly.

“What's wrong with him?” she asked the man holding his shoulders.

“He lifted a stone from that pile over there and uncovered a nest of scorpions. They were Death Stalkers.”

This was much, much worse than she'd feared. She saw an angry red welt on Abba's hand, and all of his fingers and part of his forearm had swollen to twice their size. “No! No . . . !” she said as tears filled her eyes. The pain from the scorpion's venomous sting was said to be excruciating and, hearing Abba's pitiful cries, Chana believed it. She also knew why the scorpion was called the Death Stalker. She wanted to do something to help him, to save his life, but didn't know what. Work on the wall had stopped as the men gathered around, staring uselessly.

“Somebody fetch a litter,” she yelled. “We need to carry him home. . . . And find someone who knows what to do for him, how to save him!” It seemed to take forever for the men to bring a blanket to use for a litter. Abba screamed again as the workers lifted him onto it. Chana went alongside, holding
Abba's other hand as the men carried him home. He was biting his lip to keep from crying out, his beloved face knotted in agony. “Go slowly!” she begged as they carried him through the Valley Gate and up the street. “Don't jostle him too much!”

They finally reached the house, and Chana ran ahead to open the gate. She directed them to her father's bed, shouting for Sarah and Yudit. Her sisters came running, but there was nothing any of them could do except hover over him, listening to his terrible moans and silently pleading with God to save him. It seemed like hours passed before a white-haired woman named Miryam arrived to help. She was a healer who had dealt with the Death Stalker scorpion before. She gave Chana and her sisters a list of ingredients she would need to make a poultice and the names of certain leaves that could be ground up and given to him to drink to ease his pain. They divided up the list and Chana ran to the marketplace, grateful for the chance to finally do something. Word of the accident had spread, and people kept stopping her to ask how Shallum was and how they could help. Chana answered abruptly, telling them she had no time to talk.

By the time Chana returned with the last of the ingredients, Miryam had begun brewing the poultice. Yudit piled pillows behind Abba's shoulders and spooned the elixir into his mouth to help ease his pain. Sarah fanned him with palm leaves to cool him in the heat. The poison had traveled all the way up Abba's arm, bloating his face. When Miryam laid the finished poultice in place, draping it all the way up Abba's arm, he cried out. Chana had to leave the room, the memory of watching Yitzhak die magnifying her fear.

An hour later, whether it was the poultice or the elixir or the Death Stalker claiming its prey, Abba finally closed his eyes and fell asleep. Chana drew Miryam aside where her sisters couldn't overhear. “Is it a good thing that he's finally resting or are we losing him?” she asked. “His breathing sounds so labored.”

“The drink we gave him put him to sleep. But it's the Death Stalker's venom that's closing his airways.”

“What else can I do? I need to do something.”

“We've made him as comfortable as we can. Now we can only wait and pray.”

“Is he going to die?” Sarah asked, coming over to where they whispered. “We can't let him die.”

“Your father is a strong man. He stands a good chance of pulling through. The Death Stalker's sting does its worst on the very young and the very old.”

“It could have been any of us,” Yudit said, joining the huddle. “We all handled those stones every day.” No one replied, knowing she spoke the truth.

As time passed, Chana grew restless again, driven by the urge to do something besides sit and wring her hands. When she heard a knock outside at their gate, she jumped to her feet and hurried out to answer it. To her surprise, Governor Nehemiah stood there, along with the man with the signal trumpet who followed the governor like a shadow everywhere he went, ready to sound the alarm. Nehemiah's exhaustion shocked Chana, his gestures and speech slowed as if he moved underwater. His clothes looked as though he had worked and slept in them for several days. They smelled like it, too.

“I heard what happened to your father,” Nehemiah said. “How is he?”

“Abba's pain seems to have eased a bit. Now we can only wait and see.”

“I'm so sorry this happened. We've all been braced for another enemy attack this past week, and I don't think any of us expected something like this. Tell Shallum I was asking about him, and let me know if there is anything I can do besides pray.”

“I will. Thank you for your kindness, Governor.”

After he was gone Chana could no longer fight the urge to do something. The activity on the wall alongside her house
seemed unusually quiet, and she remembered how the construction had halted, the men standing around as if afraid to return to work. Would they have sense enough to continue without Abba there to direct them? Or were they all too afraid to lift another stone? A few hours still remained before the evening sacrifice and there would be an hour or two of daylight after that in which work could be done. The more Chana thought about the construction coming to a halt, the more convinced she became that she needed to take her father's place. The men needed a supervisor and no one knew the work better than she did. She motioned for her sisters to come out where they could talk and told them her plan.

“Chana, no! You can't! It's too dangerous!” Sarah said.

“I can't just sit here and watch Abba suffer. I can't bear it. I need to do something, so I'm going to take over for him. Send for me if there's any change.”

When Chana arrived outside the wall, the men still milled around halfheartedly, just as she'd feared, even though at least three hours had passed since the accident. They quickly gathered around her to ask about her father. “He's resting. Time will tell.” With anger fueling her courage, she faced the waiting men, all of them older, stronger, and more experienced than she was. “Listen, I'll be taking over for my father until he recovers. You may not like taking orders from a woman—believe me, I don't enjoy giving them. But Abba trusts me, and I know what has to be done here. My father made a commitment to rebuild the wall from the Valley Gate to the Tower of the Ovens, and as his firstborn heir, it's my job to help him keep that commitment.”

The men seemed too subdued by her surprising announcement and their lingering horror from the accident to reply. Chana took advantage of their shock and surprise to start issuing orders. “Show me where you left off and what remains to be done. I see that stone block up there is still attached to
the crane, but it isn't in the right place. And we can't let this mortar dry out and go to waste. Let's get busy.”

The wall looked wonderfully familiar from this side even if the armed guards standing rigidly on duty were an uneasy reminder that an attack could come at any moment. Chana strode down the length of her section all the way to the Tower of the Ovens to talk to Hasshub ben Pahath, who was in charge of rebuilding that tower.

He stopped what he was doing when he saw her and hurried over. “How is Shallum? He was in such horrible pain.”

“We're doing everything we can for him at home. But the work on his section mustn't stop. I just came to tell you that I'll be taking over for him until he's well.” She turned away before he could sputter his protests. Hasshub had made it clear from the start that he disapproved of Shallum's daughters working beside him. He would think even less of her working alone.

Shortly before the evening sacrifice, Chana saw Governor Nehemiah making his usual rounds, inspecting the wall and his security forces. She could have hidden from him but decided not to. He would hear about what she was doing soon enough. She saw his surprise and concern when he spotted her. “Chana, what are you doing out here? You need to get back inside the walls at once!”

“I can't do that, Governor. I'm supervising the work for my father until he's well.”

His concern quickly transformed into anger. “Oh no, you're not! It's much too dangerous, for a whole host of reasons. I came here to assign a new foreman—”

“You don't need to do that. I know the work better than anyone. My father gave his word that he would rebuild this section, and I'm going to help him keep it.”

“I will not allow you to put yourself in danger.” He reached for her shoulder as if to steer her back toward the gate, but she eluded his grasp.

“Why not? Because I'm a woman?”

“Yes, of course because you're a woman! If that scorpion had bitten you, you'd be dead! You can't carry a sword, you're barely half the size of these men, and we have unseen enemies out there who could attack any minute!”

“It may surprise you to know that women can be every bit as courageous as men.”

“I'm not questioning your courage, I'm questioning your common sense!” Nehemiah glanced around as if aware they were attracting attention. He lowered his voice, speaking through his clenched jaw. “If you don't leave voluntarily, I'll order my men to carry you home.”