The Book of Longings(16)

Beyond the window, the smell of fire and cinder erupted in the courtyard. They came then, tears gurgling up like a springhead. I went and stood before my father. “I am but a girl, but I’ve wanted to be like you, a great scribe. I wanted you to look on me with pride. I know now I must accept my lot. I’ve disappointed you and that is worse to me than a marriage I do not want. I will go willingly to Nathaniel. I beg for only one thing.” The tears flowed and I didn’t wipe them away. “Allow me to walk outside in the hills. I will take my comfort there and pray to be delivered from my old ways. Lavi can accompany me to keep me safe.”

I waited. Mother tried to speak, but he waved his hand for silence.

“You’re a good daughter, Ana. Walk in the hills with my blessing. But only in the mornings, never on the Sabbath, and always in the company of Lavi.”

“Thank you, Father. Thank you.”

I couldn’t hide my relief and exuberance. As they left, I refused to meet my mother’s gaze.





ix.


The following morning I waited for Lavi in my room. I’d instructed him to pack goat cheese, almonds, and diluted wine so we could take our breakfast along the way, impressing upon him the importance of leaving early. One hour past sunrise, I’d told him. One hour.

He was late.

Since Father had confined my excursions to the mornings, I meant to make the most of them. I’d risen in the dark and dressed hurriedly, a plain coat. No ribbon in my braid or anklet at my foot.

I paced. What kept him? Finally, I went in search of him. His room was empty. No sign of him in the upper courtyard. I’d come halfway down the steps into the lower courtyard when I saw him on his knees scraping soot and cinder from the oven, his dark face white with ash. “What are you doing?” I cried, unable to keep the exasperation from my voice. “I’ve been waiting for you—we should have left already!”

He didn’t answer, but tensed his eyes and looked toward the doorway beneath the stairs that led to the storeroom. I descended the remaining steps slowly, knowing whom I would find there. Mother smiled with satisfaction. “Your plans will have to be postponed, I’m afraid. I discovered the oven was hazardous with grime.”

“And it couldn’t wait until the afternoon?”

“Certainly not,” she said. “Besides, I’ve arranged for you to have a visitor this morning.”

Not Nathaniel. Please, God. Not Nathaniel.

“You remember Tabitha?”

Not her either.

“Why would you invite her? I’ve not laid eyes on her in two years.”

“She has only recently been betrothed. You have much in common.”

The daughter of one of my father’s underling scribes, Tabitha had made a handful of visits to our house when we were both twelve, those, too, at my mother’s instigation. She was female and Jewish, and that was the extent of our similarities. She didn’t read or write or care to learn. She liked to steal into my mother’s room and rummage among her powders and perfumes. She performed playful dances, pretending to be Eve, sometimes Adam, and once, the serpent. She oiled and braided my hair while singing songs. Occasionally she speculated aloud on the mysteries of the marriage bed. I found all of these things profoundly boring except her musings on the marriage bed, which were not boring in the least.

I’d understood even then that bringing Tabitha into my life was Mother’s attempt to distract me from my studies and lure me from things unbefitting girls. Clearly she did not know Tabitha had rouged her nipples with henna and proudly displayed them for me.

I glared at my mother. This time she would use Tabitha to divert me from my morning walks in the hills. While she didn’t know my true motive for these excursions, her suspicion seemed aroused. Be careful, I told myself.



* * *



? ? ?

TABITHA CAST HER GAZE about my room. “When I was here last, your bed was covered with scrolls. I remember you read one of them while I wove your hair.”

“I did?”

“Even when I sang, you read. You are very serious!” She laughed, not unkindly, and I absorbed her amusement without comment. I resisted telling her that my seriousness had only worsened.

We sat on a floor mat in an awkward silence, eating the goat cheese and almonds Lavi had packed for breakfast. I glanced toward the window. The morning was seeping away.

“So, we are both betrothed now,” she said and chattered on about her betrothed, a man of twenty-one named Ephraim. I learned more about him than I cared to know. He’d been apprenticed to her father as a palace scribe and now worked penning documents for a member of Antipas’s high council. He had little wealth. He was “firm in his demeanor,” which didn’t sound encouraging, but overall he was infinitely better than who Father had come up with for me.

I listened with one ear. I did not ask questions about her wedding date or her dowry price.

“Tell me of your betrothed,” she said.

“I would rather not speak of him. I find him vile.”

“I don’t find Ephraim vile, but I do find him ugly. My wish is that he had the face and stature of the soldier who accompanies my father to and from the palace.” She giggled.

I sighed, too heavily.

She said, “I think you don’t like me very much.”