Sunrise on the Mediterranean (48 page)

“The second condition is this: Our custom offers protection to the widows and”—Dadua stumbled here, since there were no orphans—“
ach
, those who dwell among us. Should a man of our tribes approach you, wishing to take you as wife or concubine, you must know
what is right. He is obliged to provide for you for a full month. During this time you are to observe mourning for your family,
your losses.

“Shear your hair, allow your nails to grow, know you have the security of a month’s protection to honor that which was lost.
If at the end of this time, if he wants you still, he may take you to wife by knowing you. He will give you children, which
you will not destroy.”

I looked out over the women. We really are the stronger sex, I thought. Men have the easier task of falling bravely in battle.
Women have to start over, join the enemy in bed, give him children, forsake old ways and adopt new.

Had it been worth it? Were they exchanging old shackles for new? My gaze moved over the male merchants, the farmers whose
lives had been granted. Did they appreciate what their women had done? Would they honor the new regime?

“If after that time, that month, he no longer wishes to marry with you, he is obligated to let you go free. He cannot sell
you, for he does not own you.” Thank you, God, I thought. No slavery, no
hal
, no
herim.
I breathed a sigh of relief as his words sank in. “You and your possessions are free and may leave.”

But he gets to keep your house, I thought. Sneaky, Dadua. Really sneaky.

“Should he persist and take you to wife, because you are taken under duress, he may never divorce you. You are protected by
the laws of the land, by the honor of these tribes. You will worship our God; walk in our ways and be our people. Your children
will be reared in the ways of Y’srael, they will worship Shaday, they will marry within us.”

Dadua looked at the masses, then raised his glance to his men. In unison they said, “Thy will be done.”

He bowed his head, acknowledging their acquiescence, then spoke to Yoav: “As you will.”

Zorak went directly to Waqi, pulling her into his embrace, kissing her. He was tender and sweet, the expression I’d seen in
his face when he delivered her child only intensified now.

The women were picked like fruit, gently, carefully. There were no bawdy comments, no groping. The women whose husbands were
still alive stayed close to their spouses, ignored by the tribesmen. It was silent, efficient, and strangely impersonal. I
made sure to stay in the shadows.—I didn’t want to be mistaken even if someone was willing to overlook my painted complexion.
Then I touched my face, realizing that my paint, the protection of looking as though I had extreme acne, was gone.

As dusk fell, the gates were closed. Dadua had taken possession of his gift city, and he would sleep in his new palace tonight.
Qiryat Dadua—my head was spinning.

In Egypt, walking through the temples during the day, I’d sworn I could hear the voices of the dead. They were telling me
their stories, of how beautiful it had been. They pushed my pen to draw it, but I’d been unable to.

Then in Kallistae, with the wonders of the Aztlan empire, the sense of magic in the air had been nearly tangible. It was no
wonder that our stories of gods and legends were born here. The hills were raised by mysticism.

Here, however, I sensed what I’d never felt in either of those two places. With the night wind blowing my sweat-damp hair,
the stars scattered above, tonight for the first time I felt holiness.

Was it that the air was that much clearer? Was it because I was so highly elevated?

Or was it because Jerusalem, under any name, really was the footstool of God?

I
N LESS THAN THREE DAYS
Dadua, his multiple wives, and his perpetually-in-motion children were moved into the city. The traveling men returned two
weeks later, on the hottest day we’d had yet.

We didn’t see them first; we smelled them.

For a moment I thought I’d returned to the time when this was a city of Molekh, because the burning of human flesh and the
carrying around of dead and rotting goat have a similarly pervasive, nauseating odor, which wafts across miles, up hills,
and through stone.

We women were sitting innocently in the courtyard, fanning ourselves, drinking lukewarm cucumber-and-yogurt drinks, and gossiping.
Apparently some young thing had caught the eye of
haNasi.
But who was it?

A slave? Someone’s daughter? Shaday knew that from nowhere princes and their eligible daughters were showing up. The compacted
city had become a glorified bed-and-breakfast of royal rejects. Had they been lurking in the hills, just waiting for the outcome
of the battle? Not two days after Dadua moved into the city, some desert king and his beveiled daughter had shown up with
ingratiating smiles and laden donkeys.

However, between Mik’el, Avgay’el, Hag’it, and Ahino’am, did Dadua need other wives? Mik’el and Avgay’el wouldn’t stay in
the same room together; Ahino’am forbade anyone else to wear the deep red she favored; I was convinced Hag’it was bisexual;
and the children fought with each other when they weren’t running.

So who was the young maid? The speculation was all-consuming.

To this end, Mik’el was paying the guardsmen at Dadua’s door for information on who came and went; Avgay’el was paying the
mushroom to see which slaves entered his private quarters and how long they stayed; Hag’it was paying the kitchen help to
count the cups and plates used, to learn if he were eating enough for two; and Ahino’am was eating enough for two, because
she was still nursing.

Since Gerber’s wasn’t yet invented, three or more years of breast-feeding was common.

It was
Yom Rishon
dinner, and each of Dadua’s wives had prepared her specialty dish. The afternoon before, since we couldn’t work on the Sabbath,
clothes had been selected and discarded, jewelry had been traded, hands were hennaed. I had longed for the simplicity of the
millstone, of grinding flour to make bread. Though I wasn’t a slave, I was in the harem, so refusing was awkward.

Waqi had invited me to stay with her, but Zorak and his mother were there for the month of her “mourning” before Waqi and
Zorak made their relationship official. Just seeing them together, their longing glances, accidental touches, made me yearn
for Cheftu. Then again, most everything did.

The roof was decked out, and the temperature had dropped finally so that a wonderful, perfumed coolness permeated the dining
area, lit with a perfect sphere moon. I stood with most of the other women while the men ate. Rarely, if ever, did the family
eat together. For the men it was a huge social outlet, for the women it was a massive drain on time and energy. Consequently
we would eat later, after they did.

It was while we stood there that the hideous smell blew over us. Then away.

In some ways the Middle Eastern culture is similar to that of the American South; I think this was why my father was so at
ease in both societies. Mimi taught me that the ultimate role of southern hospitality was to keep your guest feeling comfortable
and wanted. Nothing was to interfere with that, hence the lack of confrontations in my family.

Saudi customs were the same. Nothing was to make the guest feel ill at ease. Nothing negative was mentioned; no sore spots
were prodded. “Ignore the unpleasant,” was the motto.

As the horrific odor blanketed us, that mentality held. No one said a word, though we all reacted by choking, gasping for
breath, wheezing. It was awful. Then the wind shifted and the air cleared.

The hodgepodge of foreign kings, princes, and nobles all pretended they hadn’t smelled a thing. Dadua’s eyes were watering,
but he said nothing. Silence settled uneasily on the tables, so the
gibori
Abishi passed him the
kinor.
“Sing us a song,
adoni.”

Dadua didn’t look up; he plucked a few strings, testing them. Around him the air filled with unspoken hope as we watched.

The breeze changed again, flattening us with the smell. There was nothing, polite or not, that could be said. It was unignorable.
“By Shaday, what is that?” a woman asked, tears streaming from her face.

“They return!” we heard shouted from the gate. “N’tan returns!” The
shofar
sounded. In chaos we left the palace and raced to the heavily guarded gate. The stench was awful. It was the men; it had
to be. Darkness was fully on the land, so we each held a torch, stretching down the road so they would have a path to walk
up into the city.

I tried to squint through the night, to see my husband. But I couldn’t; I felt as though I were going to hurl. “Is that the
men?” someone else asked.

“What have they done?” Avgay’el asked, her nose buried in her hands, tears streaking her perfect oval face.

Abiathar, the high priest, stepped forward. Though he wasn’t in his uniform, he was impressive. “N’tan?” he called out.

“Ken?”
We heard the voice from the night. “You must be purified before you step into the city,” he shouted. “You stink!”

I couldn’t believe all the rigmarole the men had to go through before they were allowed in the city. Washings and shavings,
prayers and debriefings … I was going nuts, pacing throughout the night, waiting. Finally I climbed up on the gate, looking
out over the valley, waiting for my husband to be released to me.

At midnight Dadua went out to the men. The acoustics weren’t very good, so I had no idea what was going on. I finally sat
down on the walkway between the towers, huddled against the wall from the wind, and slept. On the edges of my consciousness
I heard sandals against stone, time and again. “Chloe?” I finally heard.

I woke up from a dream, opening my eyes to see the face I loved best. “You’re back,” I whispered, holding my arms open for
Cheftu. As sleep faded and the reality of the day penetrated, I reacquainted myself with his scent, with the feel of his body
against mine. “You’re back,” I said again, almost crying with wonder that he was here with me. “How are you?” I asked, but
didn’t move because I didn’t want to lose contact with his flesh.

“Perfect, now,” he said. “Did you get it?” I asked. “The gold?”

“
Ken, chérie.
Enough gold to sate a pharaoh.”

I opened my eyes to see that the sky was brightening. “How come we didn’t see this gold when we were with the Apiru?” I asked.
“We were part of the Exodus!”

“It was carried alone, gathered from everyone before we left. The grieving Egyptians were more than willing to pay the Apiru
to leave by then.”

I pulled back to see his face. For a moment I just wallowed in his beauty. Thick brows met over a knife-blade nose, his jaw
was squared, his lips full and sensual. “What do you look at?” he asked, his eyes crinkling at the corners with laughter.

I reached out, touching his clean-shaven cheek, and saw the humor fade from his expression. “It’s been—”

“Too long,” he said as he pulled me into his arms, then pressed me against the stone wall, his mouth against mine, devouring
me with kisses. He gripped my jaw, opening me wider to him. Raising my thigh around his leg, his hand running from my ankle,
he hiked up my skirt. With some fumbling, a few stifled giggles, he dropped his kilt.

There, in the morning sunlight, he held me in his palms, my legs wrapped around his, as he slowly lowered my body onto his.
My eyes closed as all I felt, all I knew, was Cheftu. The sun poured light onto us already, as though an oven door were opened
while preheating.

I felt his shoulders flex and move beneath my palms, his palms beneath my bottom holding me carefully, powerfully, our legs
linked together and the fullness of him within me. He was my universe, the only reality for this space in time. Slowly, steadily,
he stoked the flame higher and higher. I asked for more, I begged for speed, but he tortured me, making my skin burn from
the inside out. Sunspots filled my vision, burning me, enflaming me, until I combusted, sagging in his arms, the two of us
collapsing, trembling, against the wall.

“What was that all about?” I asked a moment later, still breathless.

“
Ach
, well, you want to have children,” he said. “I refused to do it as a slave, but now”—he shrugged—“my freedom is real.” He
turned his head, smiled at me though his eyes were closed against the sunlight.

It took a moment for his words to sink in, then I sat bolt upright. “You’re free!”

The holes were still in his ears, but they were bare. He smiled, his eyes still closed, but his whole demeanor eased. “
Oui, chérie.
We have a home, I have employment, we are in the beginning of the rise of the people Israel … I thought we should start our
family.”

I swallowed the tears in my throat. “Didn’t want to waste time, didya?” I teased.

He pressed my face against his chest, hugging me tightly in total protection. I sighed, listening to him. His voice was serious
as he answered me in English. “Never do I want to waste a moment with you,
ma
Chloe.”