The Anointed

by Michael Arditti

  They keened through the day only to rest at night, when, lying awake in a silence as deep as Sheol, I would have welcomed the occasional wail. On the third sleepless night, when the absence of news had become unendurable, I quit my chamber to consult Nathan who, as a prophet, had no need of messengers. I had expected him to take flight, preserving the scrolls that David valued almost as highly as the Ark itself. Indeed, there could be no surer sign of his vanity than his appointing Nathan to document his life, rather than trusting the elders to transmit the story as they had done those of all our leaders since Abraham. Hearing that Nathan had transcribed the accounts of David's brothers in Bethlehem; the priests at Nob and Hebron; Joab, Abishai and other generals who had fought alongside him, I proposed that he talk to me, the sole surviving witness to events in Gibeah, but he declined, declaring that a woman's testimony was invalid.

  Stung by Nathan's contempt, I had avoided him ever since, and I still feared that he would refuse to help, but the darkness emboldened me and, after hurrying through the bleak courtyard, I knocked firmly on his door to show that I had no qualms about intruding. When bidden, I entered a small, drab chamber, smelling of camphor and old skin. Nathan sat in bed, an oil lamp casting a faint glow on his heavy brows, sharp nose and the thick beard that put me in mind of the bush in which the Lord had appeared to Moses.

  ‘It's very late, my lady,’ he said, rising and throwing a mantle over his bony shoulders.

  ‘Forgive me. I couldn’t sleep. I’m desperate to have news of the king.’

  ‘Which king? The one to whom you’re married or the one to whom you’re bound: King Absalom?’

  ‘Have you transferred your allegiance?’ I asked, both astonished and hopeful.

  ‘Not I. But I saw you being led into the tent.’

  ‘But did you see me inside it?’ He fell silent. ‘I thought not. Absalom afforded me the courtesy of dousing the torches.’

  ‘Was that his only courtesy?’

  ‘No. I almost wish that it were. The rape of ten thousand concubines would not have shamed David so much as the rape of his first – his true – wife.’

  ‘So what stopped him? I doubt that it was compassion.’

  ‘He felt the force of my argument. I told him: “I am your father's discarded wife. Would you disgrace yourself by lying with a woman your father scorned?”’

  Nathan studied me intently, and I realised that equivocation might be a stronger weapon than truth. ‘If you say so,’ he replied at last. ‘We must hope that King David believes you.’

  ‘If he wins the battle.’

  ‘He has won the battle.’

  ‘The Lord has told you?’

  ‘The Lord has willed it. I don’t know if it has happened or is yet to come. All I know is that it is.’

  Once again I was confronted with the Lord's perversity. All my life I had been told that he viewed things differently from us. Now I knew that it was not because he was clearer-sighted but because he was blind. How else could he favour David: a man who had lied, cheated, betrayed and murdered his way to the throne; a man so steeped in blood that he had devised new forms of butchery? ‘The Lord you serve is an unjust god.’

  ‘Take care what you say! He hears everything.’

  ‘No, he is deaf to my cries, my pleas, my prayers! As a child, I could never understand why he rejected Cain's sacrifice and commended Abel's. Of course I was only a girl and so, unlike my brothers, I didn’t have Samuel to explain the story. But when I grew up, I found that there was nothing to explain. The Lord is as cruel and capricious as Pharaoh.’

  ‘Enough! You come to my chamber in this unseemly manner. You speak sacrilege – ’

  ‘Unseemly? You flatter yourself or you mock me or both. The only unseemly manner is the Lord's. As with Cain and Abel, so with Saul and David. You know better than anyone how the Lord forgave David his transgression with Bathsheba. You brought him his pardon.’

  ‘And his punishment.’

  ‘Wasn’t my father punished? Tormented by an evil spirit, like a hornet trapped inside his head. And was he pardoned? No, he was tormented still further when the Lord turned against him and, in his confusion – in his pain, in his terror and his despair – he became the tyrant that the Lord – or, at any rate, your predecessor – accused him of being. Samuel did, however, speak one truth, when he declared that the Lord would replace him with a man after his own heart. A heart that's as hard as iron and as cold as stone.’

  ‘You forget that I am King David's chronicler! Who was it who enabled him to escape Saul's wrath?’ he asked, tearing my insides like a fisherman tugging a hook that had previously tickled.

  ‘That's the one wrong for which I shall never forgive myself: the one for which I shall pay all the rest of my life, and in death it will weigh heavier on me than the rock in which I lie entombed.’

  He fixed me with a look, which, had he not been bound to David, I might have taken for sympathy. ‘My lady, it's time to cast off your bitterness and find peace.’

  ‘Bitterness is my peace! It's the one thing that comforts and sustains me. And the best part is to know that David will never find it. Even this victory that the Lord has granted him will be a defeat. He will no longer trust his sons nor his counsellors nor his generals nor even his women. He’ll yearn to speak to the Lord, but all he will hear is the clamour of his own entreaties. He can sacrifice every ox, every sheep and goat and dove in the kingdom but he’ll know that the only blood that can atone for his sins is his own. He can – ’

  My prediction was cut short by a loud knock. A servant entered and I was amused at how swiftly Nathan drew away from me, wrapping his mantle around himself as if he feared that my visit might be misconstrued. The servant whispered in his ear and Nathan nodded, first to acknowledge his report and then to dismiss him.

  ‘News from the battlefield?’ I asked, as the servant left.

  ‘Nearer to hand. Meribaal has tried to kill himself.’

  ‘He's dead?’

  ‘Tried!’

  ‘I must go to him. Where? How? Are you sure?’ I asked, keen to exonerate my one remaining kinsman. ‘He's unsteady on his feet. He might have tripped on a sword.’

  ‘He used a rope,’ Nathan replied drily. ‘He threw it around a beam, but he must have slipped from the stool when he reached for it. The servant found him flailing about on the floor. He helped him up and put him to bed.’

  ‘I must go to him.’

  I walked back through the palace, newly aware of the tangle of beams overhead. My anger at Meribaal's cravenness melted when the first thing I saw in his chamber was the noose quivering in a draught, and the second was his two sticks propped in a corner, confining him to bed. Unabashed, he greeted me with a bleary smile. ‘My aunt!’ he exclaimed, waving his cup, as if introducing me to a group of strangers.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ I asked, more coldly than I had intended.

  ‘Just here,’ he said, placing the cup on his heart and spilling wine on his tunic, as if to lend credence to his words.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ I asked, staring pointedly at the noose.

  ‘What do you care?’ he replied, with a sharpness that seemed to sober him.

  ‘Of course I care. You’re my brother's son. The last of our house.’

  ‘The house, yes! You care that I’m not worthy of my father and my grandfather. But what about me? I care that I’m not worthy of myself. Myself! When Absalom's troops rounded up all the men left in the palace, they didn’t spare me a second glance. Even the eunuch fought back.’

  ‘He was killed.’

  ‘He died honourably, defending the harem. But I could do nothing. I sat here while Absalom took you up to the roof; I sat here while he defiled you.’

  I gazed at him in amazement, in guilt and in gratitude. ‘You tried to end your life because you failed to protect me?’

  ‘Do you remember how Absalom taunted me as a boy?’ he asked, deflecting my question with his own. ‘I could see how he was teach
ing his sons to do the same. He summoned me to do him obeisance. I crawled the length of the chamber to the throne and kissed his foot, which was as leathery as a sandal. He lifted it and rubbed it on my cheek – it wasn’t painful, at least not to the cheek – and his sons laughed. Then he lifted me up and pulled me by the ear so that I stumbled forward, more stooped than ever, my whole weight resting on my sticks. “Look, boys,” he said, “is he a man or a sheep? A sheep with two human legs and two wooden ones?” “A sheep,” the eldest boy shouted. He must be six or seven, the same age as Absalom when I came here. And I saw it happening all over again.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ I said, as ashamed of my failure to protect him as he of his to protect me. Absalom may already be defeated. As for his sons, who knows what will happen to them if... when David wins?’ For the first time I considered the effect of David's victory on somebody other than myself. ‘David has always been kind to you.’

  ‘Oh yes, he kept his oath to my father, but I’ve paid for it and not just in derision.’ He drained his cup, which seemed to fuel his resentment. ‘Ziba gives him the revenues from my lands – those same lands that he granted me – to cover the cost of my quarters. But, as you say, the king is kind. Who else would seat at his table a man whose crippled legs prevent him from entering the tabernacle?’

  ‘Nonsense! Who's preventing you?’

  ‘Moses... the Law. Ask Abiathar! But the king is kind. Hasn’t he kept me alive when, at the first whisper of famine, he could have slaughtered me as he did my cousins? Oh yes, the king is kind.’

  He fell back on his pillow, which was worn so thin that a reed poked through the weave. I laid my hand on his cold, clammy forehead. ‘You’re tired. You will have forgotten all this by morning.’

  ‘Perhaps. But then I’ll remember it afresh.’ He began to garble. ‘You’re right, Aunt, the king is kind. Whatever else he takes from me, he allows me my wine.’

  He slumped and I moved away. I glanced at the noose, which I longed to rip down while he slept, turning the memory into a bad dream, but the beam was too high and I didn’t trust myself on the stool. As I walked back to my chamber through the mockery of another dawn, my anger at his cowardice threatened to reignite. So he felt unmanned by his deformity, cheated by David and humiliated by Absalom: what was his grievance compared to mine? Married to a man I loved but who favoured my brother; married to a man I grew to love, from whom I was snatched away; mother to five murdered sons. How gladly I might have found comfort in death! But I lived on as a permanent reproach to David and a reminder of the Lord's malice towards our house. Why else would a prince so avid for the crown that he would have lain with his father's stable as well as his harem, have spared me?

  I reached the harem's unguarded gate and entered the courtyard, where Tamar rushed up to greet me. Meeting her feverish gaze, I had the uneasy sense that she’d sought the same release in madness that Meribaal had in wine. On taking the city, Absalom had summoned her from Baal Hazor where she lived in seclusion, neither honoured daughter, lawful wife nor respected widow. Given her condition, it was clear that he had brought her not to grace his household but to rally support. For months he had promised disaffected suppliants that, if he were king, he would grant them the justice that David neglected. What better way to win round any waverers than by parading the most notorious victim of that neglect?

  By the time of her arrival, Danatiya had moved into the harem, claiming Abigail's chamber for herself and her daughter and Ahinoam's for her three young sons. Far from welcoming Tamar, she kept her distance from her. Was she ashamed to acknowledge a madwoman as her sister-in-law? Or did she fear that a similar fate might befall her or, worse, her own Tamar, whom I noticed that she never addressed by name? Such unease must have been compounded by her daily encounters with the concubines ravished by Absalom. Poor woman! Whatever happiness she’d enjoyed with him had vanished the moment that he seized the throne. The future was fraught with uncertainty. If Absalom defeated his father, would she share her bed not only with the resident concubines but with those who returned as captives – to say nothing of all the others whom he would gain as trophies in years to come? If David defeated his son, would he seek to reassert his legitimacy by lying with his son's wife as he once had with his wife's mother?

  By petting Tamar like a child, I could avoid engaging with her as a woman. Despite the general belief that she had lost her wits, I was convinced that she had renounced them, choosing or, at the very least, allowing herself to become her rape. She no longer washed or changed her linen but exuded a thick, salty odour as if she were still trapped in Amnon's bed. She no longer spoke but grunted and groaned as if she were the embodiment of his beastliness. But Amnon was dead and the people she hurt were those who would have cherished her given the chance. I too had turned away from her until her maidservant let slip that she had borne Amnon's child. When pressed, she insisted that I had misunderstood, but her terrified stare betrayed her. The more I pondered, the more certain I grew that it was less the child itself that she was seeking to conceal than its subsequent murder. Was it a boy or a girl: a son killed in order that he would never know his mother's shame or a daughter in order that she would never know such shame herself?

  So I curbed my revulsion at her reek, her dirt and dishevelment, and led her into my chamber, which, to her mother's dismay, had been her refuge as a girl. She sat beside me on the bed and laid her head in my lap. As I stroked her straggling hair, I felt unusually close to her. For years the women of the harem had kept themselves and their children away from me as though afraid that I might infect them – with what? My sadness? My sterility? But she, who hissed and hit at anybody who approached, sought me out. I longed for one of Nathan's scrolls on which to rewrite the story of our lives. She would be not Maacah's daughter but mine. She would marry the prince of Hamath and Amnon would treat her with respect. I brushed a tear from my eye and a lock from hers and was thankful that there was no one to see.

  Nathan was right, as I had known that he must be, and David won the battle. He set off at once for home, and a succession of messengers arrived, first from Mahanaim, then from Succoth and Abel Shittim, to inform Hushai and Abiathar of his progress. Jonadab, desperate to save himself, went to meet him in Geba, so I slipped out, unhindered, and joined the crowd at the city gate hailing his triumphant return. Grateful for his victory (or fearful of his vengeance), they cheered him more fervently than they had done in years, but David barely acknowledged them. His face was fixed and his body slumped in an expression of grief that would have delighted me had Adonijah, Shephatiah, Ithream and Ibhar not been riding behind him. I wouldn’t rest until they lay alongside Chileab, Amnon and Absalom and the tally of his dead sons exceeded mine.

  While Joab and Abishai greeted the crowd, David and his entourage headed straight for the palace. I hurried back to the harem and waited for the women to return, take off their dusty robes, wash and give me a report. For more than an hour nobody came, unnerving the concubines, who clung together, looking as lost as when they had first arrived in the city. Finally, Jonadab appeared, his smug smile a sign that he had made his peace with David, convincing him that Absalom had coerced him and his loyalty had never wavered.

  ‘You’re to put on your veils and come at once to the great chamber. Quick, quick!’ he said, clapping his hands as if we were geese.

  ‘Veils?’ I asked. ‘Within the palace?’

  ‘The king wishes to cover your shame.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since you lay with the traitor Absalom.’

  ‘And what of your shame? You who took us up to the tent and watched us with eyes like brands.’

  ‘I had no choice. Absalom forced me to bear witness.’

  ‘And did you witness him lying with me?’

  ‘It was dark. The guards put out the torches. I couldn’t see.’

  ‘But what did you see in here?’ I asked, prodding his forehead. ‘What do you still see?’

  ‘Stop!
’ he shrieked, as I repeated the gesture. ‘You have no right. I am the king's kinsman.’ He pushed me away and smoothed his hair as if that alone had been ruffled, before turning to the concubines, several of whom were smiling at his discomfiture.

  ‘Veils, now!’ he said, drawing his hand in front of his face. As they hurried to obey him, he went to collect Danatiya, who emerged dressed in sackcloth, although I wondered whether the ashes smeared on her cheeks were as much to shroud her beauty from David as to mourn Absalom. She clutched her youngest son by the hand, while ten-year-old Tamar walked behind with his two older brothers. Even I, who sought nothing more ardently than the downfall of David's house, pitied their plight and was sure that their grandfather would feel the same. Determined to mar their reconciliation, I went to fetch Tamar, my Tamar, or rather David's Tamar, whom he had not set eyes on since her rape. She was unusually docile, even allowing me to fasten her veil. Jonadab, eager to make haste, either failed to register her clinging to my arm or else presumed that, after years of keeping aloof, I was consoling a concubine.

  We entered the great chamber, where David sat in state, but, despite his victory, he looked diminished: his shoulders sagging; his belly swollen; his skin pallid against the golden throne. He was flanked by his wives, sons and counsellors, and those fortunate concubines whose sole afflictions were to be travel-stained and saddle-sore. Given no order to proceed, Danatiya and her children fell to their knees, swiftly followed by the concubines. I alone stood fast, clasping Tamar's hand. David's darting glance missed neither the reverence nor the defiance, but he ignored both, instead summoning Meribaal before him. I had visited my nephew twice since the failed hanging, but on each occasion he had been too befuddled to converse. Loath to deny him his one solace, I wished now that I had kept him sober for David's return. He staggered towards the throne where he stood, propped up by Ziba and a servant. His speech as disjointed as his legs, he spluttered and snickered until Ziba, noting David's glare, interrupted, declaring that he’d tried to persuade him to leave the city but he had remained in the hope of seizing the crown. On hearing the news of David's victory, he’d attempted to kill himself but had even bungled that.