The Anointed

by Michael Arditti

  On the fourth day he gives his son a name, but I shut my ears to it, since it betrays the fear that he won’t survive until his circumcision. Sometimes when my mind strays, I think him already dead, only for the faintest of breaths to offer a reprieve. My breasts ache with the milk he doesn’t drink; my loins sting where he has ripped them. Nevertheless, I resist Abigail's exhortation to rest, convinced that, if I close my eyes for an instant, he will close his forever. I lose every sense but touch and become one with him as if he were back inside me. Then, after minutes or hours or even days, sight returns and I glimpse Nathan hovering by the bed. I scream and Eglah and Matred rush over.

  ‘What is it?’ Eglah asks. ‘You were sleeping so peacefully.’

  I look round and Nathan has disappeared. I look down and the child is dead.

  All at once the chamber is bustling. Abigail snatches my baby from me before I have a chance to protest. David stands and calls for food, water and fresh linen.

  ‘Surely you require sackcloth and ash, my lord?’ Grandfather says pointedly.

  ‘You understand so little, Ahitophel,’ he replies. ‘So far I’ve clung to the hope that the Lord would accept my penitence and spare the child. Now that he's dead, I can do no more for him. I have neglected my duties long enough.’ Through cloudy eyes, I watch him head for the door.

  ‘Bathsheba, my lord!’ Abigail calls, stopping him short. He walks back to the foot of the bed.

  ‘Take heart,’ he says, as if to a dying soldier. ‘The Lord's will has been done.’ Then, with ominous reserve, he lifts my hand to his lips and leaves.

  I return to the harem, where the women's kindness compounds my pain. Eglah makes me cakes, which taste of the sweetness I have lost; Tamar brings me flowers, which bloom with the beauty that has withered; Nechama plays me tunes, whose plaintive chords echo my sobs. Only Matred gives me comfort, draining my curdled breasts and singing as if to a child who suckles them.

  I resist repeated entreaties to quit my chamber. My fear of seclusion fades since all the life I either want or need can be found within these walls. Then one night, while Matred lies on the floor beside me, the door opens and a figure enters, silvered by moonlight. Although we have never met, I recognise her at once and hasten to kiss her hand, which is weightless and cold.

  ‘My lady,’ I say, ‘how have you left your chamber?’

  ‘It's only my body that's confined,’ she replies. ‘My mind is free to wander.’

  ‘My body is free to wander,’ I say, ‘it's my mind that's immured here.’

  ‘Then you’ll let David and his god win.’

  ‘They have won. My child is dead.’

  ‘I have no child. I had children who were dearer to me than my own flesh, although they weren’t of my flesh. But you will have more sons.’

  ‘Will the king lie with me again?’

  ‘The thing that David most abhors is failure – his own, that is; he thrives on other people's. No, I’m wrong; there's something else: that another man should possess what once was his.’ She blenches. ‘Unless you wish to spend the rest of your life in here, while the maidservant's son becomes king, you must find a way to win back his trust.’ She turns to go.

  ‘Wait!’ I grab her robe and am gripped by a sense of unease. ‘Why are you telling me this? Why do you care about me? We’ve never even spoken.’

  ‘But I’ve listened. I know that on your account the Lord has finally turned against David. And if he can do so once, he can do so again.’

  She goes out and I return to bed, my blood racing for the first time since the birthing stool. The next morning I ask Matred if she saw my visitor. She insists that there was no one, her voice choked with dread that grief has unhinged me. I reassure her. Whether she came to me in person or just in a dream, Princess Michal has revived me. Her words remain with me as I bathe and dress and ask Matred to brush and scent my hair. I venture into the courtyard, where Tamar runs up as if she has been keeping watch, flings her arms around my neck and, tender to a fault, bursts into tears. Abigail scolds her, but I hug her close. I realise that I am strong enough to console those who seek to console me. She takes my hand and leads me to a group of the younger children, who are building a tower of sticks. As I watch them laugh and play, quarrel and make peace, without wishing them dead, I know that I am healed.

  My forty days of impurity pass, and Eglah and Abital take me to cleanse myself at the Gihon spring. So much has changed in a single year that I scarcely recognise the Bathsheba who refused to make the journey for fear that the women would smile and the men mock when they discerned my purpose. Three days later, the king summons me to his private chamber.

  ‘I am glad to see you well again,’ he says distantly.

  ‘A11 that has ailed me has been my absence from my lord.’

  ‘I’ve been considering your future. I have spoken to your grandfather and decided to release you from the harem and return you to his house.’

  ‘My lord is most gracious,’ I say, struggling to quell my panic, ‘but this is my house now.’

  ‘Not in the city, of course,’ he adds, ‘his house in Ephraim.’

  ‘No, my lord, please!’ I see myself dwindling into my grandmother, and at the age of eighteen, not forty. I shall be trapped as if I were in my tomb. ‘How can I ever be happy away from the king?’

  ‘Thousands of people are.’

  ‘But they haven’t known you as I have. I beg you: don’t send me away! Give me another son, one who’ll find favour with the Lord and bless our union.’

  ‘When I look at you, I see death: Eliada's death – ’ I start. He has spoken his name, which can never now be unspoken – ‘Uriah's death, and a hundred unidentified corpses at the gates of Rabbah.’

  ‘Then don’t look at me. Close your eyes and pretend that it's night.’ I move to him and, before he can protest, slip first my hand and then my head under his robe. I take him in my mouth; I use my fingers and tongue in ways that delight him as much as they did the Edomite gods. I swallow the salty-sweetness and, although not even the finest wine will banish the taste, I am content.

  His passion sated, I thank him as if he had pleasured me and ask whether he would like me to return later. He nods, as though afraid that speech will betray him. To the surprise of my fellow wives – except perhaps for one, but, since her door remains locked, I can’t be sure – I find myself summoned back to his chamber night after night. To achieve my ends, I engage in acts ostensibly at odds with them, until he is powerless to resist and I slide him inside me to spill his seed. Then one night, I put his hand to my belly and he realises that it's not the prelude to a new enticement. He leans over and replaces his hand with his ear. I don’t know whether he is being sincere or mocking his own sentiment, nevertheless the gesture charms me.

  ‘Do you dream for our baby, Bathsheba?’

  ‘A11 the time. That one day he will be as great a king as his father.’

  ‘Indeed he will,’ he says, supposing that he is humouring me.

  FIVE

  Abigail

  We live in peace. For the first time since Moses led the people back to the land that the Lord promised us, we are safe within its borders. In the north, David has driven back the Arameans and, in the south, the Edomites. In the west, he has driven back the Philistines beyond the shores of the Great Sea and, in the east, the Ammonites behind the Jabbok river. To the south east, he has driven back the Moabites deep into the Arnon valley. Their fate was particularly grim, since he refused to ransom the captives, instead, ordering his captains to lay them on the ground in three lines of equal length, even providing them with a measuring cord. He put two of the lines to death, while keeping the third alive to pay him tribute.

  Joab described the scene to me, his relish of the details almost as hard to comprehend as David's ruthlessness. Is it just that after so many years at war, the pleasure of killing men has palled and the pleasure of shocking women is all that remains? Or am I right to detect his growing disillusion
with David, which, after a lifetime devoted to his service, he is unable to acknowledge? It's as if he has finally developed scruples and is as ashamed of them as other men are of carbuncles. Yet he cannot ignore them. After all, he saw his grandparents flee to Moab and, although they may be long dead, the memory of their welcome remains, rendering David's vengeance all the more brutal. Meanwhile, I too have an interest in keeping faith with the man to whom I have given my heart.

  We live in peace. Across the land, people have built houses, dug wells, cut paths and ploughed meadows. In his own city, David has extended and embellished his palace with treasures abandoned by the Philistines when they set sail. Yet nothing consoles him for his failure to erect the building closest to his heart: a temple to house the Ark. Ever since he brought it here, it has stood in the tabernacle as if it were still with Moses in the desert. It grieves him that his throne is in a palace while the Lord's is in a tent. But Nathan has warned him that the Lord will never consent to live in a temple built by a man with bloodstained hands. And even though he promised that his successor will build the temple and his house endure forever, David is filled with despair.

  Despite that promise, David has yet to announce which of his sons is to succeed him. He has sixteen and Bathsheba is pregnant again (sons may be a blessing, but I doubt that I am alone in hoping for a girl). He indulges them all, the older ones whom he neglected during his lengthy campaigns when they were young and the younger ones who are the solace of his old age. He appointed the three eldest, Amnon, Absalom and Adonijah, to his council at twenty and, presumably, the two nineteen-year-olds, Shephatiah and Ithream, will soon join them. It is said that he heeds their callow opinions as much as the guidance of Ahitophel and Hushai, his chief advisers. He has given both Amnon and Absalom their own households, and Adonijah is currently pressing for the same. Whereas Absalom is lavish in his expenditure but restrained in his habits, Amnon and his followers lead a life of riot, sparking rumour and resentment throughout the city. Nevertheless, David refuses to reproach him, maintaining that he himself was prone to youthful excess – which is quite unlike the disciplined, dedicated warrior I recall.

  As a boy, he must have seen young rams locking horns even when there were no ewes for them to tup. Yet, when his sons quarrel and vie for position, creating discord that threatens the stability of the kingdom, he makes no attempt to intervene. For the first time I fail in my duty towards him, neglecting to point out his inadequacies as a father for fear that he will regard it as the bitterness of a woman whose only child died in infancy. I sometimes wonder if he even remembers him. When Meribaal tottered into the courtyard, I thought that I perceived a flicker of recognition, tinged with relief. But does that extend to his name? Nathan showed me the scroll in which he had recorded David's reign in Hebron. Among the list of his sons was Daniel. ‘It's Chileab,’ I said, as dismayed as if thieves had ransacked his tomb. He promised to correct the mistake, but who could have prompted it if not David?

  I sat at the birthing stool for two days, while Chileab hung back as if he knew what life held in store for him. The women rubbed my belly with rose water and oil and gave me potions of fenugreek and cinnamon, to no avail. The pain was so acute that I longed as much for my own death as for his birth. However grave Eve's sin, the punishment was disproportionate. In Carmel, my sisters-in-law both claimed that they forgot their travail the moment they put their babies to the breast. That may have been true when the babies were sound, but, with his shell-like shoulders and a head that emerged straight from his chest, Chileab looked more like a turtle than a boy. Reflecting on the transgression that had caused his deformity, I decided that it must have been my murderous hatred of Nabal. All that bitterness and loathing had festered in my womb and I had nourished my baby on gall.

  David held him only once, at his circumcision. After performing the rite, he tucked the foreskin in his loincloth as he had done Amnon's a month earlier, but it was obvious to anyone who saw the mewling, misshapen baby that his strength would scarcely sustain himself, let alone his father. He confounded us all by living to the age of three, finally succumbing to a fever caught from Amnon, who had shaken it off within days. Ahinoam was distraught, blaming herself for failing to keep the boys apart. She mourned him more tearfully than I, who had wept for him every day since his birth. I reassured her that it was the death he would have chosen since he idolised his elder brother, who treated him with surprising tenderness, which I try to remember now that his customary mode is contempt. Absalom, on the other hand, used to taunt him. An uncommonly pretty child, he viewed anything ugly as a personal affront, an attitude that he maintained years later when he led his brothers in their mockery of Meribaal. Yet such is his charm that the slightest hint of contrition secures his pardon, whereas Amnon could sacrifice a drove of bullocks and still appear impenitent.

  Like the acrobats in Gath, who spun across the palace courtyard, first one and then the other to the fore, so Amnon and Absalom are interlinked as they compete for their father's favour and, although it remains unspoken, for his crown. They grew up together, sometimes the closest of friends and sometimes the fiercest of rivals. No stranger would take them for brothers: Absalom has inherited his mother's fair skin and his father's reddish-gold hair, which he grows to his shoulders, to the envy of half the harem; Amnon is dark, in both complexion and manner. Whereas Absalom courts the people, Amnon cows them. He has yet to learn that humility befits those of high rank as much as those of low. His conduct is so overbearing that David permits only Judahites to serve him, fearful of the resentment he might stir up in the Jebusites or the other Israelite tribes. Yet, in spite of his contention with her brother, he holds Tamar in the highest esteem. She was born a month after Chileab died and, while it may be fanciful, I like to think that something of his gentle spirit passed to her. For years, she was not only the mediator between Amnon and Absalom but at the heart of all their games. Then childhood ended, and nature and propriety drove them apart.

  Although Absalom's charm has won the hearts of the harem, I favour Amnon. Regardless of my friendship with his mother and his kindness to my son, I trust him more. His failings are all too apparent, whereas Absalom's are like the errors in a sealed scroll. So when Jonadab sends word to Ahinoam that Amnon is ill, I am happy to accompany her to his bedside. She claims to want my support in case the sight of his suffering disturbs her, but it's clear that, as ever, she is afraid of him. It's as if Absalom's jibes about his superior ancestry have stung him and he blames her that her father wasn’t a king. At least if I am with her, he’ll bridle his tongue. I can’t vouch for his sincerity, but he treats me with respect, even calling me his second mother. I remind myself that it's merely a phrase.

  Having obtained permission from Ahitophel and wearing the heavy veils that David has ordained for all his women outside the palace, we cross the city to Amnon's house. Jonadab's muted greeting shows that his banishment from the harem is still raw. While thankful that his singular blend of subservience and presumption has been replaced by the chary reserve of Hiempsal, the eunuch presented to David by Hiram of Tyre, I would have preferred his departure to have been instigated by anyone other than Bathsheba. She has never forgiven him for his part in procuring her for David, which is harsh given that it's the bedrock of her power. Although the worst offence with which she could charge him was laxity, she persuaded David to dismiss him. Like all his brothers, Amnon scorned him, but he saw the benefit of employing his father's former go-between, the keeper of his darkest secrets. Just how Jonadab, a man with no small opinion of his worth, truckles to his cousin, twenty years his junior and inferior to him in every respect but birth, is a mystery. But then Amnon, like his father, parades his passions and, having no passions of his own – or at least none that he sees fit to disclose – Jonadab feeds on those of others.

  ‘I’m deeply concerned for the prince,’ he says. ‘For days he has neither slept nor eaten.’

  ‘Nor washed,’ I say, as we enter the chamber where
Amnon lies in bed. He turns his flushed and clammy face towards us.

  ‘What are you doing here? Go away and leave me in peace.’

  ‘What is it, my dear. You can tell your mother,’ Ahinoam says, approaching him warily.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ Amnon buries his head in the pillow.

  ‘I’ve brought your favourite honey cakes.’ She waves the dish over his chest in a manner guaranteed to infuriate him and, without looking up, he knocks it to the ground.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ Ahinoam asks, kneeling to pick them up. She blows the dust off one. ‘Don’t worry, they’re not spoilt.’

  ‘Useless! You’re absolutely useless!’ Ahinoam moans, but when Amnon raises his head, he turns out to be addressing Jonadab. ‘I told you to bring Tamar. Her cakes are the only ones I can stomach.’

  ‘But I taught her to make them,’ Ahinoam says. ‘The way we used to in Carmel.’

  ‘Who cares?’ He grabs a cake from the dish she has placed on his pillow and flings it across the chamber. ‘I wouldn’t feed that to my mule.’

  As Ahinoam moves to mop his forehead, he pushes her away so hard that she trips and falls. ‘Stop this nonsense now, Amnon!’ I say, finally intervening. ‘Show some consideration for your mother.’

  ‘Don’t pretend that you never hit her when she was your maidservant!’

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ I reply, struggling to help her up.

  ‘Maybe you should have. It might have knocked some sense into her. Why won’t anyone listen to me?’ he asks, as querulous as three-year-old Nathan. ‘I want Tamar.’