The World That We Knew(76)

Lea curled up and slept through most of the storm, but Ava was more restless than usual. She looked out the window to see the darkening sky. She was thinking about running away. She had been thinking about it ever since they’d come to the farm.

Erase the e and turn emet into met, truth into death.

But what would happen then? Would she melt into clay or water, or would she die with all of the pain and agony of a mortal death? She should be satisfied merely to obey her maker’s will, but that had changed. She had awoken to her life, and she didn’t wish to give it up. She had become attached to this world, to fields and trees, to the heron and the sky, to feeling her heart beat, for she had one, she was sure of it now, even if it had begun as clay. She could hear the birds in the trees, telling her to run as far as she could from the world of men. Creatures such as herself were not made to have a soul, they were made to do the bidding of their makers, but she had already lived for too long, just as the rabbis warned, she was stronger now, uncontrollable, making her own decisions, defying what she had been told to do.

In the morning, the storm was over and the air was heavy and still. Ava went out into the yard. She began to walk. She thought about the moment when she opened her eyes, and the first time she felt sunlight on her skin, and of Paris when they got off the train, and the Seine at night, and the heron dancing in the garden. She was walking faster by now. She was thinking for herself. The world, however cruel it might be, was too glorious to give up. She had no rights to it, she wasn’t human, but neither was the heron, and he had rights no human had, the rights of flight and sight. She stopped at the crest of a hill and turned to gaze back at the farm. There were the fields, and the barn, and in the distance the neighbor’s cow pastures and orchards. Lea came through the door still in her nightgown, her feet bare. Ava felt a catch in her throat to think of how the girl might feel when she realized she was alone. But she was no longer a child, and when Julien arrived they could make their way to the border.

Ava might have walked over the mountain and vanished, but when she turned she saw that Lea had left the house. As the girl proceeded toward the barn, Ava spied Azriel in the tree beside the beehives, glimmering in the leaves. The wooden hives had smashed open when the wind threw them over and now honey was leaking into the ground. Azriel had been reading from his book of names, but as soon as Lea came near, he gazed up.

Ava was stricken as the angel moved from branch to branch. It was only at that moment that she realized she could gasp, like any ordinary woman. Her breath came out hot and fevered, burning her throat. Lea was headed toward the barn, a pan of crusts for the goat in her hands. Was it possible that Lea saw the angel? She put one hand over her eyes and stared into the tree, confused. You could not see him unless he came for you, unless he was ready to take you in his embrace, and then you could see him so clearly the rest of the world disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Ava ran down the hill through the pine forest, her head pounding.

By then Lea had gone into the barn to let the goat off her rope. Bluebell, intoxicated with freedom after the terror of the storm, dashed out before she could be caught, racing through the field.

“Come here!” Lea called, chasing after the goat, regretting that she had not slipped on her shoes as she ran over the rough sunflower stalks littering the ground, near the broken beehives. She observed a strange shadow moving through the trees. It seemed to be a handsome man in a black suit. All at once she felt she’d lost her hearing. He had long dark hair and he seemed to know her. Could it be that he was saying her name? The air was alive with a deafening buzzing. The bees were maddened from the storm, in a fury ever since their hives had been destroyed. In an instant they began to swarm over Lea. They were on her arms and legs and lips and all over her scalp, in the strands of her hair. She was numb at first, and then she was on fire. She did her best to escape, running through the field to a small green stream that was cold as ice, but she was running with the buzzing cloud; they were flying together, so fast that the world was a blur. The angel was above her in the air, his long dark hair loose, his beautiful dark eyes focused on her alone. There was a light inside of him and Lea had to squint to see him, but as he came near she saw him more clearly. He was so beautiful she found she couldn’t speak.

When she collapsed she was lost inside the swarm, so hidden from sight that when Ava came upon her all she saw was a thousand bees. Ava had all but flown through the field and the uprooted sunflowers. The storm had left the air fresh and sharp, and hawks circled in the sky. The noise of the swarm was terrible and fierce, but Ava could understand it. She spoke to the bees in their language, and when they heard her voice they were comforted, and dispersed in a cloud.

There was Lea, motionless in the new grass. There was the angel, in the tree.

“You can’t have her,” Ava told Azriel.

The angel couldn’t see her. She was neither human, nor animal, nor spirit, but some oddity, and none of his concern. Lea, however, was his concern. He was God’s messenger, known to some as malakh ha-mavet. He plummeted from the trees and stood over Lea, and his light embraced her. Ava went to him and took hold of his coat. He felt her grasp and was annoyed. At last he looked at her, and it was terrifying to be held in his gaze, still she held tight. Azriel wondered why he had never seen her before, and then he knew. God had not created her.

“If you want to fight me for her, do so,” he commanded. “Otherwise step away.”