Wrapped in a long, flowing fabric that creates countless folds around her curves, she loosens just the top of it and lets it slide off her head—only to reveal a blush, and mischievous glint, shining in her eye. It is over that sparkle that I catch a sudden reflection, coming from the back window, of a full moon.
Looking left, right, and down the staircase, to make sure no one is lurking outside my chamber door, I let her in. Then I lock it behind her, so no one may intrude upon us.
In a manner of greeting I raise my goblet. It is a gift from my supplier, Hiram king of Tyre, and unlike the other goblets I have in my possession, this one is made of fine glass, with minute air bubbles floating in it. With a big splash I fill it up to the rim with red, aromatic wine. In it I dip a glistening, ruddy cherry, and offer it to her, with a flowery toast.
“For you,” I say. “With my everlasting love!”
Bathsheba takes the goblet from my hand, and raises it to her lips. “Love, everlasting?” she says, raising an eyebrow. “What does that mean, in this place?”
I hesitate to ask, “What place is that?”
“This court,” she says, with a slight curtsy, “where the signature feature is a harem, which is as big as the king is endowed with glory.”
“Glory is a good thing,” say I, lowering my voice. “But sometimes it is better to meet in the shadows.”
“Especially,” she says, matching her voice to mine, “when there are so many others.”
“Here we are,” say I. “It’s just us.”
“Really,” says Bathsheba, sipping her wine and ever so delightfully, licking her lips. “It must be a special night, then! Just you and me, and no one else, no one else at all.”
Yet I cannot avoid feeling the presence of someone other than me in her thoughts, perhaps her husband, Uriah, who is one of my mighty soldiers and the most trusty of them. Earlier today he must have received his transfer orders to join the cavalry in the eastern hills, where he would be stationed outside the city of Rabbah.
I have a catch in my throat as I tell her, “I’m so glad you came.”
Bathsheba lifts her eyes and looks straight at me.
“Really,” she says, in her most velvety tone. “You mean, I had a choice in this matter?”
Her question stumps me at first, because how can I admit that she is right, so right in asking it? Instead I just shrug.
“You do have a choice,” I say at last. “And I hope you’ll make it.”
“I’m so glad to hear that,” says Bathsheba. “With that ape, I mean, that bodyguard of yours knocking so loudly, so rudely, and for such a long time at my door, I had my doubts about it.”
“You can go, if you wish,” I stress, with a reluctant tone. “But I wish you wouldn’t. Stay with me, tonight.”
Bathsheba picks the stem of the red cherry, and takes little bites out of it. In her pleasure she hums, and smacks her lips. Then she raises the goblet to my lips, letting me take in the aroma. I do, and then I take a long gulp.
With a slight sway of her hips Bathsheba walks past me, knowing I cannot take my eyes off of her. She wanders about my chamber as if she were the one owning it.
“You’ve been brought here by my order,” I whisper to her, across the space. “But I am the one held captive.”
Bonus Excerpt: A Favorite Son
You may have heard those rumors about me: how I escaped by moonlight, how I hid inside each one of the seven wells of Beersheba, with nothing in my possession but the shirt on my back, how I eluded my enemy, my brother, and then, how frightened I was, how alone. I’m afraid you have been, at best, misinformed—or, more probably, mislead by some romantic foolery, some fiction and lies, the kind of which can easily be found, and in abundance I might add, in the holy scriptures.
I insist: it was not moonlight but rather, high noon. I was wearing no shirt whatsoever—nothing, really, but a goatskin sleeve. There was only one well in which I could hide, not seven. And most importantly, I was hardly alone, for the entire camp—all the maidservants, the shepherds, the guards—stood aghast all around me. So now, you must see that I could not, despite my best intentions, escape stealthily out of there, nor could I elude anyone.
Instead I was flung out, kicking and screaming, with tugs and pulls loosening the remaining shreds of my clothes, and whacks and smacks coming at my bare back from all directions. My left eye swelled up to such a degree that out of necessity, I resorted to use the right one—only to discover, once I raised my head from the dirt, that my brother was standing right over me. His foot could be seen coming straight at me, at an easygoing, unhurried pace, until it turned into a full blown kick.
I managed to roll away, mainly by flailing my arms wildly over my head. With a great sense of urgency I crawled on all four through the crowd, and hid inside the closest well. Luckily it was bone dry, thanks to a yearlong drought. And so for a second, I could hang there by my fingernails and pant, and catch my breath. Then I tiptoed behind the corner, right into the shade of my mother’s tent.
From there I took a plunge and hurled myself downhill—where, to my utter disappointment, I found out that my brother had already caught up to where I was headed, and was waiting there for me with open arms. He made a point of letting me know that his hate for me would, by no means, stand in the way of our closeness.
“Come, Yankle,” said Esav. “I promise not to hurt you.”
“Really,” I said. “Can I trust you?”
“Aha,” said he. “I will just kill you.”
His bulging, bloodshot eyes were full of vigor, and so, unfortunately, was his fist. It met my chin once, then again, attempting to drive the point home, but on the third try, he missed—which was the sole reason why I still had my wits about me.
I staggered away, aided in my movement by the quaking of my knees. A desire to live made me, somehow, light on my feet. I turned and ran, leaving my brother behind, way back in the dust. I could no longer see him. He may have given up the chase—but still, knowing his skill as a hunter, I had to keep on going, opening a measure of distance between us. An hour later I found myself crossing the dry river bed, which was such a long distance from camp, so far from where I used to feel safe, that it was, for me, an unknown, dangerous zone.
The sun scorched overhead, beating upon the steep, rocky slopes. I hesitated. I looked back. The peaks of the tents had shrunk away. A short time later, they disappeared completely from view.
The notion of asking my brother—no, begging him—to forgive me, crossed my mind. I thought of retracing my footprints and perhaps, finding my way back home, only to realize, by nightfall, that those footprints had led me astray.
I must have been walking around in circles that entire day, which made me feel helpless. I thought that in the future, if I was lucky enough to have one, I could never become more helpless than this. How wrong was I then!
Bonus Excerpt: Apart From Love
“Stop right there,” I tell him. “It makes no sense to me! Why would she want to leave you right then, at the turning point of her life, when you could be there, by her side, fighting to hold her back, away from the brink?”
“This,” says my father, “is something I, too, do not understand. Up to that point Natasha has changed, quietly, and grown so much stronger than me, to the point that, no matter how hard I tried, there was no pleasing her. Then she got word, somehow, about my moment of weakness: my fling, this little, one-night thing—that was all it was, back then—with Anita.”
I look at him as if to say, Who cares about your moment of weakness? So far it has lasted ten years.
He looks away, saying, “Your mom, she was mad at me. She flared up in anger. It was painful. More painful than I had expected. Was she too proud to forgive me? Did she expect me to fight harder for her, so that she may take me back someday? There was no way to know. My God, she let me feel I was done, I was no longer needed.”
“But, dad,” I say, “did she believe she could face it alone, whatever it
was? Was she willing to risk everything, and for what? For no better reason than pride?”
“God,” he says. “I wish I knew.”
“Enough,” I say. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“That’s just the thing, Ben. Natasha kept quiet, all these years, and so did I, for her sake. Gradually, her memory problems got worse and yet, no one knew: not our friends, not even her students, because she was so afraid, afraid to lose them. Teaching, for her, became more than a livelihood: it was the last token of her independence.”
“You should have told me, dad.”
“Well, how could I? There was no one here to whom I could talk.”
“So, since then, has mom been diagnosed?”
“Well, son, it took a long time,” he says, in a tired tone of voice, “Four years after she had left me, that was when they found out, at long last. And you, Ben, you were in Europe then, off to your medical studies, or something, with a light suitcase, and a heart heavy with anger, who knows why.”
I want to say, Because I had to go, to be some place else. Because I had no family, with you cheating and mom throwing her wedding ring away. That’s why. But without waiting for an explanation, my father moves on to say, “I just could not do it, could not bring myself to open up, to tell you about it.”
Suddenly his voice trembles, and he wraps his arms around me, which makes me unsure if this is to lean on me—or perhaps, to protect me.
“Ben,” he says, “this disease, unfortunately, it can strike in the prime of life. Natasha was forty-six when, after years of knowing that something was going terribly wrong, and not being able to put a finger on it, they finally diagnosed her.”
“And,” I hesitate to ask, “does it have a name?”
There is a sound by the entrance door, then a knock, once, twice, three times—but neither one of us moves. There is a somber expression on his face. His gaze is locked into mine, and something passes between us which I cannot express in words.
Meanwhile, between one knock and another there is a smaller sound: the click of the clock. Under the glass crystal, the black hand moves around the dial, from one minute mark to the next. It advances with a measured beat, the beat of loss, life, fear—until at long last, my father takes a long breath, and allows himself to say, “The doctors, they call it Early onset Familial Alzheimer’s disease.”
Then he passes by me on his way to open the door; which gives me a moment to think of mom.
I picture her staring at the black-and-white image of her brain, not quite understanding what they are telling her.
The doctors, they point out the overall loss of brain tissue, the enlargement of the ventricles, the abnormal clusters between nerve cells, some of which are already dying, shrouded eerily by a net of frayed, twisted strands. They tell her about the shriveling of the cortex, which controls brain functions such as remembering and planning.
And that is the moment when in a flash, mom can see clearly, in all shades of gray blooming there, on that image, how it happens, how her past and her future are slowly, irreversibly being wiped away—until she is a woman, forgotten.
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