The Tenth Song (36 page)

“Ready?” It was Seth. He wore jeans now, and a warm jacket, a backpack thrown over his shoulder.

Slowly, they joined the human stream, floating out into the unknown.

29

They walked slowly at first, like water slowly spreading out on the ground from an overturned bucket. There didn’t seem to be any urgency, and were an observer to have come upon them unawares, he would have judged them a group of strangers who had paid an indifferent guide from the Society for the Protection of Nature for a night excursion to explore exotic desert flora and fauna. The moonlight cut a swathe like a magical yellow-brick road through the dark shadows of high mountains, the water-cut wadis, the flinty ground. They wandered through a dreamy moonscape punctuated by dark tufts of flora, and even, surprisingly, an occasional tree. The hard, jutting rocks hurt their soles, tripping them up, and small, painful gravel wedged inside the sandals of those who had been foolish enough to wear them. But the cool night air smelled like it had been washed clean with ice water, scented by night-flowering plants. Tiny creatures scuttled frantically across their paths, burrowing into the earth. A mountain goat stood still, waiting.

“I somehow thought the desert would be sandy, like the beach,” Seth said.

“The little rainfall we do get here goes a long way,” Daniel replied.

“You are… an archaeologist?” Seth turned, studying him.

“No… that’s just a job…”

“Did you go to college?”

Daniel nodded, offering nothing more.

“What did you study?”

“Many things, some more useful than others.”

“I see.” Seth shrugged, too weary to pull the information out of him with any more polite questions. “So you’re an unskilled laborer?”

Daniel smiled. “I’d agree with that. ‘Unskilled.’ A good word.”

“Well, in America, we don’t think much of that word or the people it describes. Mostly high-school dropouts, illegal immigrants. Americans are very big on education, professions. You know that Kayla has almost finished her law degree at Harvard?”

“She told me all about it. All about you, too.”

Seth stiffened. “Is that so? And what did she say?”

“Oh, I think you’d better ask her that yourself. It was a private conversation. I don’t think she’d appreciate my gossiping like an old lady. I’m not big on gossip.”

“Well, I’m very big on gossip. You learn the most interesting and useful things from the casual way people shoot their mouths off. But I suppose you’re right. It is between me and
my fiancée.
”

“So, you still want to marry her, even though she is doing unskilled labor?” Daniel smiled.

Seth straightened. “She’s a bit confused right now, but she has a brilliant future ahead of her as soon as I can extract her from all of
this.
” He waved his arms, his voice heavy with disgust.

“And what if you were to find out that she isn’t confused, Seth? That she knows exactly what it is she wants? What if you were to find out that you are the one who is confused?” He spoke softly, with no anger, in a tone that was respectful and mildly amused.

It was that tone, more than the words, that infuriated Seth. “Now you listen to me, Mr. Mud-Digger. I have known Kayla Samuels for a long time. She is still wearing my engagement ring. I don’t know what kind of brainwashing has gone on here for the past few months, but make no mistake, I’m a man who gets what he wants, and I’m not leaving here without her.”

“I’m so glad life has smiled on you that way, Seth. Not many of us get what
we want most of the time. But—and I mean no disrespect—I don’t think that decision is up to you, Seth. I think that decision is up to Kayla. And, by the way, the last time I looked, she wasn’t wearing any rings at all.”

Seth’s face turned red, matching his bloodshot eyes. He looked around for Kayla. She was walking ahead of him, talking softly to a woman in a bright orange dress.

He grabbed her elbow. “Kayla, can I just talk to you for a moment?” He steered her to a private spot behind a rock. Then he reached out and took both her hands, staring at them in the moonlight. The nails were chipped and the skin coarse and tanned. She wore no rings.

“Kayla, your ring!”

“Don’t worry, Seth. I didn’t lose it, and it wasn’t stolen.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about! Why have you taken it off?”

“It wouldn’t have been too smart to keep it on during all this digging,” she tried, smiling. “It’s in a safe place. Don’t worry.”

He held her hands, caressing them. “Was there any other reason, Kayla?”

She didn’t want to lie. She didn’t want to tell the truth. She wanted to walk toward the unknown in this strange place with peace of mind, readying herself for the future, however difficult or shocking it might be. She wanted to gather her resources, not dissipate them by fighting random battles on all fronts. She had decisions to make, and did not want to be forced into them before she was ready.

“Seth, I’m not ready to talk about this now. You are also exhausted. Let’s talk after we’ve both had a few hours’ sleep.”

“I think the answer shouldn’t require that much thinking,” Seth pressed, realizing it was unwise yet unable to stop himself.

“Well, if you must know right this minute, I took it off because I’d decided to send it back to you,” Kayla blurted out. “That’s the truth. I wanted some time to reconsider before I told you now, but since you insist on knowing, there it is!” She was upset with him, and with herself, her feelings raw.

He had had no experience with this kind of rejection. All his life he had been a winner, used to people choosing him. He felt demeaned, insulted, humbled. But was it his heart that was hurt, he asked himself, or his vanity?

“Is it because of him, that Daniel? That unskilled laborer?” he spit out, furious.

“Daniel, unskilled?” she repeated, confused.

“Yes, your Israeli mud-digger… !”

“Who told you this about him?”

“He did, himself!”

Her response was the very last thing he expected: She laughed.

“Yes, I suppose it is pretty ludicrous: a Harvard Law School student and an unskilled Israeli workman. But if you are planning to throw your life away on him, I don’t see the humor in it.”

“Not that it matters Seth, but he’s a doctor. A surgeon.”

“But, he said…”

“He’s got a strange sense of humor, and no ego.”

“I suggest you check out his diplomas first and not accept everything he tells you blindly since he seems to change his story depending on his audience. Besides, if it’s true, then what is he doing out here with a shovel?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Right. I bet,” he sneered. Why would someone hide his accomplishments? Especially in a debate with a rival? It was incomprehensible to Seth.

“Is there a problem?” It was Daniel. He put his arm around Kayla.

“Yes, she wants to see your medical diplomas!” Seth seethed. “And take your hands off her!” He lifted Daniel’s arm roughly off Kayla’s shoulder, flinging it backward.

“Seth, stop! What’s the matter with you? Daniel, it’s not true! I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me!” But even as she said it, she wondered what the truth really was. Would it matter to her if she discovered Daniel really was just an unskilled laborer? Yes, because it would mean that he’d lied to her. But what if he had never told her about his medical degrees? Would she still feel the same way about him? Or was she still stuck in the status consciousness of her upbringing? Was she still the same old Kayla, simply trading in a lawyer for a doctor?

Slowly, deliberately, Daniel once again put his arm around Kayla. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, patting his hand and lifting it gently off her shoulder. “I just don’t want any trouble. I just want to get through this, Daniel.”

He nodded, putting his hands into his pockets and strolling away. He began to whistle slowly under his breath. The people in front of him heard it, and they too began to whistle. Suddenly someone broke out in song:

Ashira l’Hashem b’chayai

Azamra
’Elokai b’yodi

Ye’erav alav sichi

Anochi esmach b’Hashem

Through the vast silence of the dark wilderness the sound began to roll, the way rare rainfall thunders and rolls through parched desert wadis, gathering strength as it storms through the arid stretches of uninhabited wilderness where moisture is a rare blessing. Their voices, too, blessed this place, rising with joy, invigorating their tired footsteps along the rocky pathways as they walked toward the unknown, following their leader, and each other. Their song voiced their connectedness to each other, to the world, and to their place in it at this moment in time, the sound echoing at the bottom of the deep canyons, bouncing back from the mountaintops, until they felt as if they were walking through it, suspended in it, wafting upward with the notes. Above them, a billion stars blinked, staring, as if the curious eyes of the entire universe had decided to focus on this one strange and wonderful scrap of human activity.

Seth trailed behind silently, moved and yet stubbornly resisting the temptation to feel the astonishment that was welling up inside him. He fought it with every rational tool he had. “I’m just tired, and this is just weird,” he told himself. “A bunch of crazy old hippies marching through this godforsaken pile of dirt in the middle of nowhere, toward another pile of dirt in the middle of nowhere.” His heart was bitter with resistance toward this thing he could not explain, which had no rational explanation, which could not be explored or measured by any of the criteria he was used to.

Abigail felt herself float through the sound. Bathed in moonlight, the ground beneath her seemed to soften and flatten, rising up to meet her. This
was a shared journey, she realized. But it was also a solitary road. Whatever they were experiencing together, each of them was going through a separate path. She and Kayla were each on her own journey, disconnected from anyone else’s. Each step Kayla took led her forward on her own chosen path. No one could stop her, Abigail realized, no longer afraid for her.

The road began to narrow, rising upward, until it turned into a footpath where people had to walk single file, clinging to the side of the mountain, because the other side was a sheer drop down into a wadi, hundreds of feet below. Abigail felt suddenly paralyzed with fear. What if I slip? she thought, looking down, horrified. Ariella reached for her. “Take my hand, and don’t look down. Look at me.”

She hesitated. Could she do that? Sometimes, you simply had to admit that you weren’t in charge of the universe. True, she risked falling. But if she hung back, sitting on a rock, who was to say she wouldn’t meet a yellow scorpion?

What you did or didn’t do, each thing had its own path, its own rewards, its own risks. The only way to absolutely avoid dying was to die. If you lived, you were vulnerable. Whatever happened, good or bad, it was there to teach you something. If you were so afraid of death, of pain, that it paralyzed you, then you might as well already be dead. Because nothing was more terrible than stagnation.

The time had come for her to lift up her feet and trust God to catch her.

She reached out, grasping Ariella’s strong, womanly arm. They smiled into each other’s eyes and began to inch their way along the path that led upward.

“Mom!”

“Are you coming, Kayla?” Abigail called back, reaching out for her.

“Kayla, don’t! This is crazy!” Seth, an experienced climber, shouted out. “It’s too dark to see anything, the drop is treacherous. This is insane.” He took her arm, holding her back.

“Don’t be afraid to move forward, Kayla. I won’t let anything happen to you,” Daniel said suddenly. He was in front of her, holding out his hand.

Impulsively, she reached forward, grasping it.

“I trust you, Daniel. I’m ready to move forward. But are you?”

Even before he answered, she felt his reply in the way his hand tightened around hers.

“I’m ready, Kayla.”

Kayla looked at him. “What about Seth?”

Daniel looked back. “Are you coming, Seth?” He moved to Kayla’s left, reaching out his hand generously toward his rival, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Kayla, take your mother’s hand. She’s just ahead.”

Seth turned away, looking behind him. What was more dangerous? He calculated. Trying to find his way back to the caravans, thus risking getting lost in the desert? Or taking his rival’s hand to navigate a dark, treacherous mountain pass? Cursing softly under his breath, he took the offered hand, terrified and humiliated. Who, he thought, would get the brownie points for this effort? Would Kayla view him as brave and self-sacrificing, or as the recipient of his rival’s generous good nature? Was he making himself, or his rival, look good?

He tried not to look down, expecting any moment to hear screams and the thud of falling bodies. But the only thing that met his ears was the gentle scrape of careful footfalls. Daniel held on to him firmly, supporting him at every step, whispering encouragement. This surprised him. After all, Daniel’s behavior was just between the two of them, hidden from disclosure. Kayla would never know what passed between them. Daniel could just as well have jerked him around, or ignored him. It was hard for Seth to fathom the other man’s behavior. Were the situation to be reversed, he couldn’t imagine being as generous.