The Hadassah Covenant Read online

  But I did not have long to wait. On our very first morning, after a surprisingly restful night’s sleep (for the trip from Susa had exhausted me), I awoke to Mordecai poking me in the ribs, as he had so frequently done to roust me from bed during my indolent teenage years.

  “Come here! Look!” he said, pointing behind him, to the outside.

  I scrambled out and followed the gazes of countless fellow bleary-eyed risers. There on the bank came a crowd of men. More than two hundred fifty, if I recall the count. All of them were either Levites or Temple servants—exactly the number David had once established as necessary to assist in the Temple worship.

  Convinced that we would leave then, I promptly broke down our tent for an impending departure.

  I definitely did not yet know Ezra. Soon his voice could be heard shouting over the noises of hurried preparations, asking everyone to gather before him once more. Mordecai and I walked back to the encampment’s center.

  “My friends, I proclaim a three-day fast,” he called, “that we might humble ourselves before G-d and ask Him for a safe journey through perilous climes. I have been ashamed to ask the King for soldiers and horsemen to accompany us, although he is quite willing, for we have told him, ‘the gracious hand of G-d is upon everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.’ So let us cast our safety instead upon His mercy.”

  I glanced downward and exhaled impatiently. But Mordecai caught my eye and shook his head.

  “This is a man who knows where his strengths lie,” he whispered. “Heed his instincts and honor his commands, my dear. There is enormous earthly treasure among these people, intended for the Temple. But its existence places you all at risk. Listen to Ezra. I am convinced that G-d will honor his careful intercession.”

  And, of course, Mordecai was right.

  The three days we spent in quiet prayer and meditation were among the most “magical”—if I may use that word in its most innocent sense—and healing, of my whole life. It was then, walking with my Poppa or by myself along the tranquil waters, that the absolute magnitude of the coming enterprise unfurled itself in all its majesty and historic proportions.

  And now, even though I had no king upon which to cast my intentions, I began to recall the lessons of my “One Night” preparations. I prayed more intensely and earnestly than I had in many years, not as much for safety or success as for a clear understanding of the Covenant between our G-d and us. And I can honestly tell you that He answered, as He always does such prayers. He came alongside me and made himself my companion. Soon I found myself turning around and pausing at odd times, like someone with that strange sensation of being secretly watched.

  It was as if I sensed the presence of the Almighty, abiding with me. I had felt the same awesome thrill years before while I prepared for my night with the King.

  Finally the day of departure came. Mordecai helped me pack, a welcome diversion that allowed me to focus on a physical task rather than the pain of leaving him. Yet at last even that chore was accomplished, and I stood beside the camel he had chosen to carry me across the wilderness. I walked up to this man I love so much and saw his features twist with emotions that I had not seen since being carried off by Xerxes’ soldiers on a Susa street.

  I climbed onto the camel, hung on as it rose, and heard a cry from just up ahead. It was time to move. At once I was seized with an impulse to jump down and bury myself in Mordecai’s arms. Thankfully, the urge dissipated just as quickly. But I continued to weep and wave at Mordecai’s dwindling figure, even as the camel stepped into the Ahava River’s swirling waters and the unknown ahead rose to embrace my senses.

  I must tell you—I have had few emotions more stirring than during those first few cubits of forward movement away from all I had known, toward my heritage, my past, and my literal future. I remember every aspect: the smell of the Ahava’s mud as we treaded across, the fishy aroma of the water currents, the impatient whinnies of the horses, the cries of the children, the latent harshness of the sun just beginning to climb in the sky.

  Yet most of all, what I remember was a familiar return of that sensation I had felt only once before: the feeling of being at the center of G-d’s will for me, last truly felt on the day of my being escorted to the King’s bedroom.

  If there is one overarching observation I can make about the whole of our journey, it is that our world is so much more vast and forbidding and awesome than I had ever imagined. Remember, of course, that I am essentially a citizen of Susa, with only a residual memory of Babylon until now, mixed in with the occasional royal excursion to other palaces. My understanding of the Persian Empire was quite limited, and probably still is, in spite of its declining borders.

  Soon we drew alongside the mighty Euphrates, swollen with its spring floods, and began to follow the familiar surface of the Royal Road, which would lead us over halfway home—I was surprised at how quickly I began to think of it as such—through the old Assyrian Empire to the edges of Asia Minor, before turning south onto the King’s Road into the onetime Kingdom of David, where . . .

  ROOFTOP OF THE PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE, JERUSALEM

  With a roar, the Prime Minister’s landing pad plunged away beneath the plexiglass window and tilted sharply as the helicopter rocketed upward, blending into Jerusalem’s patchwork of roads and roofs and treetops. The Old City’s sand-colored maze sprawled into view—a ray of sunlight glinted off the Dome of the Rock and assaulted Hadassah’s eyes, causing her to squint and turn away. Through the opposite window, the Israeli landmass had already blended into a gray sheet fringed by a mirrored strip of ocean.

  It was Friday—Jacob and Hadassah couldn’t wait to leave the capital’s stresses for two days in the privacy of their family’s weekend retreat in Eilat, a desert resort crowning the Red Sea tip of the Negev Desert.

  When Jerusalem had faded from view, Jacob reached over to her helmet and touched four on her channel selector. Shin Beth had designed their headphones with scrambled and encrypted frequencies, accessible only to each other.

  “I’ve been angry with you, Hadassah” came his voice.

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Very angry.”

  “Were you trying to hide this, honey?” She had noted his use of the past tense and decided that the door was open for a hint of levity. “Because if you were—if that was your best effort at hiding it—you’d be better off avoiding a career in anything requiring discretion and a poker face. Like politics.”

  He looked down and laughed abruptly, as if her quip was a welcome respite from the subject at hand.

  “You’re right,” he said. “And if the whole affair proceeds the way it seems headed, your recommendation may come true. Politics may be the last option available to me.”

  “They wouldn’t do that,” she declared.

  “Thank you, honey. But tell that to the head of the Labor Party. And the Israeli Supreme Court. And the editor of the Post. They’re calling for my head. In case you haven’t seen the news, half my cabinet submitted their resignations to me this morning. My poll numbers have dropped by half since before the attack. To make things worse, this whole scandal is undermining the peace talks in a major way. Falani has suddenly gotten a swagger in his step and a stiffer backbone, thanks to my problems. And that’s not even the worst part of all.”

  “You’re not through—?”

  “My own party is turning against me,” Jacob said, shaking his head. “It’s not enough the other side has their knives sharpened, but my own colleagues are starting to read the tea leaves. I walked into a meeting expecting to forge a game plan to fight back, and I was asked to consider resigning. I’m on my own. On my own, sweetheart.”

  “No, you’re not.” She jerked off her headphones, then pried his off and cradled his face in her hands. “You’re not alone,” she said, exaggerating her diction to make herself understood. “You have me. And I think maybe you—we—have G-d.”

  He looked at her, and
in that moment she saw an expression she had only seen him wear once before. The tiny muscles around his eyes began to constrict rhythmically. He twisted his lips into an unnatural line. His eyebrows flexed unusually close. He breathed in and gazed above her head.

  “I need you, Hadassah. I’m probably still angry with you, but I can’t, I won’t, make it through this without you. And G-d . . .”

  She rested her head against his chest. She felt no need to look up into his eyes and establish that they were filled with tears. He was a man and did not need to be reminded of his vulnerability at that moment. Let him keep his dignity, she thought, making sure he knew she was looking away.

  “I know,” she said softly, unaware whether or not she was being heard.

  She was.

  Chapter Forty-five

  . . . There certainly was monotony on this journey back to the Jewish homeland—perched high atop a camel for the better part of every day with nothing but riverbank and sandstone bluffs for a view—but was there terror? Occasionally—such as when my camel stumbled in sand pockets a few times and nearly pitched me forward, or when bristling silhouettes on the horizon seemed to betray the watching eyes of marauding bandits. But truly, the Lord was with us. A sense of destiny, of eternal purpose, seemed to flow through my veins and animate every motion I made. Every breath seemed to fill my lungs with a fresh tide of hope.

  Nor can I describe to you the liberating experience of those desert nights. They seemed almost like a reward for the day’s privations. Fires waved in the cool breeze and crackled under the slow roasting of aromatic meats. Songs from long ago carried lustily through the night air, and old stories of our homeland were recited again and again. Better still, there reigned such a warm spirit of love and family, even of blissful optimism, among those traveling. It felt as if a large, extended family had been forced apart for a long period and finally reunited at last. Even the sleeping was often a thrill, as I would occasionally forego the sturdy canopy with which Mordecai had equipped me, to retire under the dazzling carpet of desert stars. With naught but a blanket or two and the softness of sand beneath me, I could feel the cool night winds tug at my hair. I am certain that a year or so fell from me within every passing night.

  But do you know whom I thought of during those days of reawakening? Oh, the hour is late as I write this, and I fear my courage to say it will wane if I wait longer.

  I thought of my dear Jesse.

  I thought of how it felt for me to leave Mordecai’s roof for the first time, to follow Jesse through the incredible sights and sounds and smells of that market outside the Royal Gate, to climb upon the gryphon statue and see him smile that engaging grin of his and feel the love of another person in a way I had never even imagined, let alone experienced.

  Perhaps it all came back so vividly because of how strictly my life had been structured since that first adventure with him. But I also relived the terror that engulfed not only my heart but his dear grandmother Rachel’s and Mordecai’s when we realized Jesse had been one of those taken to the palace by the royal guards. And the horrible helplessness of learning exactly what would be done to him there. Being propelled back onto the streets by the despair and rage and defiance that seemed to fill my legs and force them to take me back to that royal gate, to the shadow of that now-empty gryphon.

  I realized under the desert stars that I still love him. Yes, I gave myself to another man and deeply loved him after Jesse, but the deepest part of me never stopped loving that boy of my youth.

  It is true that you never forget your first love—or your last.

  I’ve thought about it. Oh, I spent so many hours of that journey thinking, trying to understand why the deepest gnawing of my stomach was my missing him above all else. I tried to fit my feelings for him into some kind of context, some framework that made sense to me and somehow fit with all that was to follow. After all, I have been a queen. I kindled and then spent a great passion upon a man who loved me in return, so much so that history was made in the process. Where does that leave Jesse—a cherished memory of my youth? What room does that leave for the untouched inner shrine where I had carefully hidden away my love all these years? Does G-d honor, let alone bless, long-delayed rebirths of love?

  Then I realized: Jerusalem awaited me at the end of this exhausting though thrilling journey, patiently waiting for centuries as a pathetic and derided ruin, just as the embers of my love had waited, dim indeed compared to the glow of my grand royal marriage . . . but waiting. Oh, so patiently . . .

  How agonizing it must have been for Jesse to see me muster my deepest youthful love and offer it so freely to a man whom, I know now, so humanly betrayed me. It must have eaten Jesse alive, for he had tasted the first flowering of that capacity for love before anyone else. And yet he not only endured it, but loyally and faithfully stood by me the whole time.

  I had never thought of it in those terms. But in those silent moments in the desert—the long and plodding afternoons and peaceful, lonely evenings—I realized it all in a whole new way.

  Yes, I believe G-d honors the dormant loves of nearly forgotten passions, for we have nearly forgotten Him more often than we can possibly confess. And yet no one welcomes us back into His arms with more unsullied, unreserved joy than He.

  No, Jesse and I cannot enjoy the kind of physical union I had with Xerxes, not since Persia stole his manhood from him and changed his name from a proud Jewish one to that of a palace servant, Hathach. But that’s one of the most remarkable things about the time I spend with him—I feel wrapped and warmed by Jesse’s pure, unselfish affection every time I see him, even without physical touch. A flame still lights in his eyes every time he sees me. And his love and regard for me seem to glow from every word he says to me, with that smile on his face.

  Therefore, this realization did not make me long to turn around right away and run back to leap into his arms—an act that might have caused us both great injury at this point in our lives! But it did make me realize that I am incomplete without him. And that even though a great purpose lay at hand in this return to Jerusalem, I would come back. I know it in my bones, now as I write. I will return.

  So now, you ask, did my life-changing rediscovery of Jerusalem cause me to forget these thoughts? Did it confirm them? Alter them? Destroy them?

  Let me tell you, my dear, for you will be amazed.

  It was late in the morning of our forty-fourth day when we reached the outer approaches to Jerusalem. An early fog had cleared away under a warming wind and the sun brought out a dry smell of sap and pine. The bare hills grew steeper and began to sport outcroppings of crumbled limestone, crowned with tufts of olive, myrtle, and cypress trees. I could tell we had climbed and our environment had changed.

  At first, our only signs of approaching the city were increased indications of population. The road grew wider and more deeply worn. We passed a small flock of sheep tended by a boy whose Jewish features sent a thrill down my spine. An old spice vendor leading a donkey passed us on the trail and gave our escorts such a frightened glance that it seemed he might turn and run for his life. I smiled at two young women gracefully balancing amphoras of water atop their heads.

  We had been traveling long enough for me to recognize the signs of an approaching city, and my heart began to race. I wish I could tell you all the emotions that charged through my being. The truth is, I can hardly remember them all myself. I recall only a few: eagerness, trepidation, awe, and not a small measure of fear.

  Then, almost before we could prepare our hearts for the sight, we crested a hilltop of sorts and looked across a broad, grassy valley. At first, I did not even know what I was looking at, so inauspicious was the sight. My eyes settled on a grove of trees, and a faint trail cutting diagonally across a path of bare earth several hundred cubits away.

  And then I heard a murmur from one of the men.

  “There it is. Jerusalem.”

  I squinted and peered forward.

  All I could see, ri
nging the top of the hillside, was a pile of stones I had taken for mere outcroppings. Now, staring closely, I could see that some of them bore the sharp angles and smooth façades of masonry. Yet it was a ruin. A desolate hulk like a hundred we had passed along the journey here.

  I looked ahead to Ezra’s figure for support and direction. But he was staring also, looking as though someone had struck his head broadside.

  I think I heard a moan wrench from my lungs before I voiced any other reaction. Had I been on my feet, I know I would have fallen to my knees—not out of awe or adoration but the impact of shock upon my body.

  I remember reaching up and covering my eyes and feeling tears trickle through my fingers.

  Chapter Forty-six

  I am so relieved that Mordecai was not there to see this with me. Oh, Leah—the shame, the disgrace, of our beloved home! At that moment my mind raced back to all the hours he had once spent telling me of Jerusalem, his eyes shining with pride, voice bursting with joy and mirth, as he assured me that we were more than dispossessed exiles in an indifferent kingdom. We were the Chosen People, and one of the grandest outward proofs was the Temple of the very Creator himself, nestled amidst the most beautiful and ancient city on earth.

  Even as a girl, I remember knowing from his very countenance that this was no fairy tale. It was so unlike all the other stories he had ever told me. I could be proud to be a Hebrew, I walked away reminding myself. I had a homeland, a capital city just waiting for me and my fellow Jews to return someday.

  It was G-d’s will.

  Oh, Mordecai! I lamented. Where was G-d? I cried the moment I laid eyes on the hulk of His supposed city. Surely He had no abode amidst the carelessly tossed rocks and ruined battlements of this insulting mass. And yet I knew that a rebuilt temple had arisen somewhere inside that clutter.