Return to Me Page 14

  “You know about astrology?”

  Yael jumped when Leyla’s grandmother interrupted them. She had forgotten that the old woman was sitting right behind her. Why had she blurted it out? Zaki said Jews would kill a sorceress and Leyla’s father was Jewish.

  The older woman came to crouch beside her. “It’s all right, Yael. We look to the stars for guidance, too.”

  Yael gave a sigh of relief. This was all too wonderful—finding a new friend and people she could share her beliefs with, without fear. “I’ll bring my star charts the next time I come,” she said. “We can study them together.”

  “And I’ll make an offering to bribe the goddess so she’ll let you come back again,” Leyla said. “We’ll be best friends.”

  Abba’s voice interrupted before Yael could reply. “Time to go, Yael.” He stood in the courtyard with Leyla’s brother, beckoning to her.

  “Can’t we stay a little longer, Abba?”

  He shook his head. “Come on.” She gave Leyla a quick hug then rose and took Abba’s hand as they left the village and started across the valley to their campsite.

  “I liked that village, Abba. Can we live there? I made a new friend.”

  “We need to live with our own people.”

  “Leyla’s father is Jewish like us.”

  “Yes, I know. He told me. I made him an offer on that piece of land I want to buy, but he says he needs a few days to consider it. But even if I buy or lease the land from him, we’re still going to live with Iddo and Dinah and the others in Jerusalem.”

  “Will I get to play with Leyla again?”

  He gave her braid a playful tug. “I have a feeling that maybe you will.”

  That afternoon Yael sat with Safta Dinah beneath the shade of their tent as the hot summer sun blazed above them. The air around their campsite felt like the inside of an oven. “Iddo says that we’ll start building our new house tomorrow,” Safta said, fanning herself with the edge of her head scarf. “A real house, not a tent.” She seemed like a different woman to Yael, as if the happy, contented woman she’d known in Babylon had stayed behind with the others while a pale, unhappy shadow of that woman traveled here.

  “You hate it here, don’t you, Safta? You wish you were back home with your family.”

  Safta glanced around as if worried that someone would overhear them. “Yael, I never said . . .”

  “You pretend that you’re happy, and you don’t let anyone see your tears, but you wish you had never left Babylon.”

  For a moment, Dinah’s fan stilled, her gaze never leaving Yael’s. “Where did you get such an idea?” she finally asked.

  Yael shrugged. “Sometimes when I look at people it’s like I’m looking through their skin. I can see what’s on the inside and not just the outside. Parthia said I had a special gift. I can tell what people are thinking and feeling even though they don’t say a single word out loud.”

  Dinah looked away. “It probably doesn’t take a special gift to see that I miss my children and grandchildren.” She stared into the distance as she slowly fanned the stifling air. “The Persian soldiers will be returning to Babylon any day, and I keep dreaming of traveling home with them.”

  “You would really walk all the way back there?” Yael asked. “After it took months and months to get here?”

  Safta didn’t reply, but Yael knew the answer was yes. She would travel twice that distance to go home. Safta didn’t seem to care at all about the Jewish God the way that Iddo and Zechariah did. Yael decided to take a chance.

  “If you want me to,” she said carefully, “I could look at your stars and see if you ever get to go home in the future.”

  “What?” Dinah stared at Yael, but her expression was one of surprise, not shock or disapproval.

  “I learned to read the stars when we lived in Babylon. And Parthia was right when she told you about your future once before, remember? She said you’d be torn away from home, and you were.” Dinah nodded and looked away, but not before Yael saw the sheen of tears in her eyes.

  “I don’t need to look at the stars to know that I won’t be going home.” She stood and went inside to begin preparing supper.

  When Yael saw Zechariah returning with Iddo later that afternoon, she left her half-finished chores and hurried to meet him, longing for someone to talk to.

  “What did you do today, Zaki?”

  “Nothing . . . We spent the day figuring out where to build our house and where the new house of assembly is going to be.” Yael sank down on the ground in the open space in front of her tent and pulled him down beside her.

  “You explored the ruins? That sounds like fun.” But Zaki’s expression looked as gloomy as Safta Dinah’s had. He picked up a stick of kindling wood from the pile and drew marks in the dirt with it. “What’s wrong, Zaki?”

  “Saba is worried because we’re supposed to be building the Almighty One’s house, not our own.”

  “Oh,” she said with a shrug. “Well, I went to the Samaritan village today and made a new friend. Her name is Leyla, and I can’t wait to go back to see her again. You should come with me next time, Zaki. She has a brother your age named Rafi. Maybe we could all play together like you and I used to do, remember?”

  “I can’t. They’re building the house of assembly so they can start a yeshiva. I’ll have to go there every day to study the Torah when it’s ready.”

  “Every day? Why?”

  “Because when our ancestors stopped studying the Torah, they fell into sin.”

  “They fell . . . where?”

  “They started doing things that the Torah forbids. Their biggest sin was worshiping false gods.”

  Yael rolled her eyes. He would probably call her little carved moon goddess a false one. She was about to ask him why his grandfather had moon dreams if the goddess wasn’t real, but Zaki wasn’t finished. “Worshiping idols was one of the reasons why Jerusalem was destroyed and our ancestors were carried to Babylon. We have to be very careful to study the Torah from now on.”

  “But all day?”

  Zaki poked in the dirt so hard that the stick cracked in two. “I’m going to be a priest, and it’s the priests’ job to teach the Torah to everyone. We’re supposed to dedicate ourselves to living a holy life as an example to the people. That means I have to know all the rules and everything.”

  “It seems to me that your God of Abraham is a very gloomy god.”

  “Yael! Shh! You shouldn’t say such things!”

  “Why not? Is He going to strike me dead on the spot or something?” She looked up at the sky, shielding her head in mock fear.

  Zaki looked uneasy. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  She leaned closer to him and whispered, “Have you had any more dreams about the future?”

  “I don’t know . . . I had a crazy dream the other night about a Torah scroll flying through the air like a bird.”

  “That’s what happens when you study too much. What do you think it means?”

  “What difference does it make? It’s just a dream.”

  “Parthia said that all our dreams have meanings if you know how to interpret them.”

  “Listen, Yael, you need to forget all those things that wicked woman tried to teach you.” He stabbed at the ground again with his broken stick as if he was mad at her.

  “Zechariah?” Iddo called. “It’s time to pray.” He and Abba were getting ready to leave.

  “You’re praying again?” Yael asked in disbelief.

  Zaki stood and dropped the stick on the ground. “I have to go.”

  Yael remained seated. She probably should help Safta Dinah, but she didn’t want to. Instead, she looked up at the pale, daytime moon and thought of her new friend, Leyla. Maybe she was looking up at the very same moon. The thought made Yael smile.

  Chapter

  15

  No one could possibly expect Dinah to live here, could they? She looked at the jumble of toppled stones and weed-filled holes that I
ddo pointed to, then up at her husband in disbelief. Was he joking?

  “We chose this spot because the foundations of these houses aren’t too badly damaged,” he said. He was still short of breath after the uphill climb from their camp in the valley, and Dinah felt winded, too. “We can rebuild this house with a little work.”

  “This?” she asked, spreading her arms. “I don’t see a house, Iddo. I see huge rocks that are too big for us to move and hundreds of small stones that will take a lifetime to move, and brambles growing where you say my kitchen courtyard will be, and—”

  She was afraid she was going to cry, and she didn’t want to lose control in front of the others. Zechariah and Mattaniah rummaged among the weeds within earshot, and Yael was making a game of balancing on the foundation walls, leaping over the gaps between them, scaling the higher walls using the ragged stones for steps. “Yael, be careful!” she scolded, venting her frustration.

  “I won’t fall,” she called back. “Watch this!” She struck a pose on one leg, balanced on a teetering wall of rocks, then grinned and leaped across a void to another pile of stones, as graceful as a gazelle on a mountain slope. Dinah turned her back. Yael’s father needed to discipline her, but he wasn’t paying attention.

  Dinah looked at the pile of rubble in front of her again. “I don’t understand why we can’t build a house down where our camp is in the Kidron Valley. Wouldn’t it be easier to build near the spring or the brook?”

  “Are we wiser than our ancestors?” Iddo asked. “King David built Jerusalem on this hill for protection.”

  “Are we in danger down there?”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say we weren’t safe.”

  But Dinah could always tell when he was avoiding a subject by the way he played with the fringes on the corners of his garment. He was twirling them now. “Tell me the truth, Iddo. I have a right to know.”

  “Some of our Samaritan neighbors are a little . . . discontented,” he said, lowering his voice. “They see us as invaders. Once they learn about King Cyrus’ decree, things will settle down and . . .” He paused as Zechariah made his way back to them.

  “Saba, are those caves over there on that hill?” he asked, pointing to a spot across the valley.

  “I haven’t seen them up close,” Iddo said, “but I’m told they’re tombs.”

  “Real tombs?” Yael asked. She jumped down from a nearby foundation wall with a graceful leap. “Do they have dead men’s bones inside them and everything? Let’s explore them sometime, Zaki. Want to?”

  Iddo replied before Zechariah could. “Our families are priests and Levites, Yael. The Torah has rules about becoming ritually unclean from dead bodies.”

  “Oh. That’s too bad,” she said with a sigh. She climbed onto the low wall again, then jumped down to the other side and crouched to pick up pieces of broken pottery. “I’m finding some really big pieces, Zaki,” she called. “Come see.”

  He went to kneel beside her, and a few minutes later Dinah heard him shouting, “Saba! Come look what I found! I think it’s an arrowhead!”

  Iddo climbed over the rocky foundation stones and took the metal object from Zechariah’s hand. “Yes, I think it is. I imagine you’ll find more of them, if you look. But listen, if you see any bones, don’t touch them. They need to be handled with respect and dignity, and buried by men who aren’t priests or Levites.”

  The talk of arrowheads and bones made Dinah shiver. “Tell me the truth about the Samaritans, Iddo,” she said when he returned to her side.

  “Mattaniah seems to think we can trust them. But our leaders decided that the sooner we move up here from the valley the better.”

  “I never felt threatened back home in Babylon,” she said.

  “Joel and your cousin Shoshanna are moving right next door to us. You’ll have family close by again and—”

  “Will this be our main room? Right here?” Dinah interrupted. She needed to stop him before he tried to tell her that it would be just like home. It wouldn’t be.

  “Yes. We’ll build on these foundations.” He traced the outline with a sweep of his hand. “One room will be enough at first, for you and me and Zechariah. As soon as we clear away these stones and repair these walls, we can put our tent covering over it for a roof and live here. I want to get settled as quickly as possible so we can start working on the temple again.” He climbed over the low wall and into the space he had indicated, then held out his hand to Dinah as if inviting her into their home.

  “It’s very small . . .” she said, stepping over the rocks.

  “I know. But it’s just for now. I’ll build you an outdoor hearth near that spot where Yael is digging. I found some blackened stones over there, so I think that’s where a hearth used to be. This second, adjoining room will be for Mattaniah and Yael. And we’ll repair this alcove back here for storage. There’s even a cistern beneath the floor, chiseled out of the bedrock. Once we clean it out and re-plaster it, it’ll be as good as new.”

  “Maybe we’ll find buried treasure inside,” Yael said. She wandered over to peer inside the cistern, and when she stood, Dinah smoothed her tangled hair away from her face and out of her eyes.

  “You need to let me braid your hair again,” she said. “You’re such a pretty girl, but your hair needs to be tamed and untangled.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, shrugging away Dinah’s hand. Dinah looked up at Iddo to see if he noticed Yael’s unruliness, but he was much too engrossed with his building plans.

  “Eventually, we can build a wooden roof over these rooms,” Iddo continued, “and channel water into the cistern when it rains. That will spare you the long walk down to the spring every day. Once we plaster the walls and the roof . . .” Don’t say it! But she couldn’t stop him in time. “It will be just like our house in Babylon.”

  Dinah sighed and closed her eyes. This would never be like their house in Babylon, overflowing with children and grandchildren. Why did Iddo talk as if it would?

  “Good morning, Joel,” Iddo called out. She looked up to see her cousin Shoshanna and her husband walking toward them.

  “This view is beautiful!” Shoshanna said. “Just think—we’ll get to wake up to this incredible sight every morning.” She halted beside Dinah, linking her arm through hers. “And there’s a nice cool breeze up here, too. Won’t it be wonderful to live in a real house again, side by side? It will be just like back home.”

  Dinah gritted her teeth. Not Shoshanna, too!

  They cleared stones and weeds all morning, piling rocks on top of the foundations to make the walls higher. The hardest things to clear away were the thick thatches of brambles with roots that seemed to go all the way to the base of the mountain. Dinah heaped the pulled weeds into a pile to dry out and use for kindling. When she lifted a medium-sized building stone, the ground beneath it squirmed and writhed with snakes. Dinah cried out and dropped the stone, nearly falling as she quickly backed away. Some of the eggs in the nest were still intact, some half-open, and some had already hatched, sending innumerable small snakes slithering over and under the rocks. Everyone came running, even Shoshanna and her husband. “What is it, Safta?” Zaki asked.

  “There’s a nest of snakes under that stone. Be careful!” Dinah stood at a respectful distance, but Yael crouched close to see.

  “Can I pick one up?” she asked.

  “No, don’t!”

  Iddo hefted a sizeable rock and began crushing the living snakes and the eggs. So many of them slithered around that Zaki and Yael had to help him. Dinah looked away with a shiver.

  They worked all afternoon until it was time to return to their camp. “We’ve made good progress on our house,” Iddo told her as they ate together that evening. “Tonight will be the last night we’ll sleep down here beside the cart. Tomorrow we’ll carry our goods up the hill and live there from now on. We’ll be settled in our house in time to celebrate Shabbat in two days.”

  Dinah closed her eyes. She
couldn’t imagine celebrating the Sabbath in a pile of rubble. The caravan had rested on the Sabbath all the way here, and it had been good to stop for a day and not have to pack everything up. But as badly as she needed the day of rest, Dinah knew it wouldn’t be a proper Sabbath without her family gathered around her, laughing and eating and celebrating life.

  The first night she spent in their half-finished house, Dinah felt so weary and discouraged that she couldn’t stop her tears. Her blistered hands were scraped and sore, her muscles so tired from moving rocks all day, that she didn’t know how she would carry a water jug to the brook and back. Her body ached from bending and lifting stone after stone, and there were still so many of them left to move. Did the earth grow new ones while she slept?

  The men had stretched the tent covering over the foundations to form a roof, weighing it down with rocks. Dinah had to crawl inside on her hands and knees since the walls were barely three feet high—and she couldn’t forget the snakes.

  She had known the splendor of Babylon, and even though her neighborhood of mud-brick houses hadn’t been much, it had been home, the place where her children had been born and where they’d grown. Iddo noticed her tears as he watched her unroll their sleeping mat for the night.

  “What’s wrong, Dinah?”

  “We gave up our home, our family, for this?”

  “We’re doing this for our children’s sakes. We sacrificed what we had so that they can have a better future. So they can worship the Almighty One in His temple.”

  “But our children aren’t here. And to tell you the truth, I don’t think they’ll ever come.” She brushed away a tear and shook out their blanket. “I keep thinking of Rachel and wondering if she’s expecting a baby yet. Deborah’s baby must have been born by now, and Shoshanna and I weren’t there to help her. I’ll probably have a dozen more grandchildren someday, babies that I’ll never see, never hold, children whose first steps I’ll never watch—”

  “Don’t, Dinah.” He took the blanket from her and gripped her hands in his. “You told me to forget the past, remember? Now you must do the same.”

  “I can’t forget our children and grandchildren, Iddo! You can’t ask me to forget them.”