A little less than a year slipped by this way, and the Babylonians didn’t show any signs of giving up. The water in the city reservoirs began to dry up, and it was no longer possible to prevent the king from noticing what was going on. The minister of water knocked on his door and said: My king, happy holidays. I’ll begin with some news of little consequence, really nothing to concern yourself with, but, um … there’s a bit of a siege going on. And Zedekiah said, How simple it would be if you’d just come in and told me, There’s no siege. The minister of water didn’t know what to say, and the conversation ended right there, and so the minister bowed and left. The next morning, he tried again: My king, my king, there’s a siege out there. And Zedekiah stared at him as though he’d never laid eyes on him before and cordially corrected him, saying, There’s no siege. And the minister of water bowed and left, and the following day he knocked again and said, Your Majesty, I’m afraid we’re in something of a siege situation, and Zedekiah stared at him as if seeing him for the first time and said, There’s no siege, and the minister left without a word. And the next day he returned and said, My king, there’s no siege, and the king felt trapped, since the minister had stolen his line, so he opened the window and beheld the green and peaceful prospect of Jerusalem, and he said to the minister of water: See? See? Everything’s fine! And the minister of water came over and grabbed the switchblade on the king’s table and sliced down the length of the skies and the mountains, which were nothing more than a pretty painting, and with his own hands tore down the view from every window. And Zedekiah passed from window to window, saying: Why are the cactuses dying? Couldn’t someone sprinkle them with a few drops of water?! And the minister of water said: My king, there’s scarcely any water left. People are dying, winter is dying, summer is approaching, and the cisterns are empty—the Chaldeans clogged our pipes. And Zedekiah drew near the honorable minister and roared: That’s an outright lie, an outright lie. I took a bath today, didn’t I? So where did all that nice hot water come from, Mr. Smarty-Pants? And the minister was suddenly filled with pity for this strapping young creature, and told him, Ah, well, undoubtedly the king witnessed a miracle when his bath was filled with nice hot water. And the minister saw how clean the king was, though Zedekiah didn’t notice that the minister of water’s shoes were torn at their toecaps.
* * *
THAT SAME NIGHT, it started to rain in Jerusalem. It was now the month of Adar, so a full calendar year had elapsed under siege, and the cisterns filled up, and many basins and household receptacles were set under the skies like gaping mouths. And Zedekiah, who by then had decided to surrender and head out alone to whoever might be out on the other side of the siege—figuring that whatever would happen would happen—hardened his heart. One doesn’t argue with an obvious miracle, he said, surprised, and in the morning he beheld all his people drinking, and he was encouraged. It was the last rain of the season, but he didn’t know that.
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JEREMIAH KEPT OUT OF SIGHT in his parents’ home in Anatot during the siege. He’d been living there ever since Esther and Hilkiah went into Babylonian exile a decade ago. He ate vegetables from his mother’s patch and harvested olives from the tree and sometimes opened a can of preserves. When he saw the reports on the latest siege, it was as though he were reading about the defeat of some soccer team or another, in, say, Australia, and it touched him about as much as seeing a scrap of paper being swept down the street by a gust of wind. The last year went by for him in complete silence. He’d fall asleep early and wake at sunrise; he kept to a strict daily routine, mornings writing in a notebook without paying any attention to what he was writing and without reviewing what he’d jotted down, after which he’d cook the most meager of meals and sit for hours in silence facing the hillside, and maybe read a bit from the first prophets, merely living and drawing breath.
One night, more than a year after the siege began, when to his delight it abruptly started raining on the vegetable patch and olive tree, four policemen arrived and took hold of the four legs of his bed while he was in a deep, blank sleep, and sneaked him into the city in a Red Cross van (the Babylonians still allowed these to cross the siege line, for propaganda purposes). And they led Jeremiah to the court of the guards within the king’s palatial residence, an ancient and fine home inside the walls of the palace, surrounded by fruit trees, adjacent to a pond, close by the Cotton Merchants Gate. Zedekiah stood before the sleeping Jeremiah, holding half a glass of water, and Jeremiah, who hadn’t woken once while being transported, at last opened his eyes, still lying on his bed, albeit far from home. The stars above the king’s palace came into view, the teeming Milky Way—but at this stage in his life, nothing could surprise him anymore. And he stared keenly at Zedekiah and at the stars that seemed to crown his head. Ever since the disastrous summit with the regional kings at the rabbinate, the King of Judah covered his body in long black garments in order not to flaunt his cuneiform tattoos in public, for in his heart he’d already pinned his hopes on the Egyptians—he had a feeling, no question about it, he had a feeling that the days of Babylon were over, and he’d also dreamed a dream in which a large river that emptied into the sea ran out of all its water, and someone in the dream told him, The Euphrates has dried up.
From his place standing over Jeremiah, Zedekiah asked him, So why did you prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord: I will give this city into the hand of the King of Babylon, and he shall take it? And Jeremiah closed his eyes and said: Mattaniah, that isn’t a prophecy, just a description of reality; can’t you see what’s going on? The siege is already in full swing. The common people have no bread; the dogs you keep in the palace are better fed than your subjects. And the king looked at Jeremiah’s rolled-back eyeballs, which he remembered from their childhood and from the club: they’d both close one eye and look through the telescope, and their eyelids quivered at the sight of the slender moon, which now, too, hung above the ramparts. And Jeremiah told Zedekiah, as he gazed up at the white light, as though talking to someone else, in the third person, all the things he’d already said in the city, and in articles that no paper would publish, and in letters he’d sent to all sorts of people holding positions of power: that the King of Judah would not escape out of the hands of the Chaldeans, but would surely be given into the hands of the King of Babylon, and speak with him face-to-face and see him eye to eye. And Zedekiah stooped over Jeremiah’s bed and shouted: No, we’ll fight. This is a war for our home; for them, it’s just another town on the way to Egypt! And Jeremiah replied: Mattaniah, listen … Though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed. And Zedekiah said: You have no mandate. What sort of prophet are you, instilling mistrust? And Jeremiah said, Let it be, Mattaniah, let it be. And Zedekiah leaned down close and grabbed the prophet by the collar of his pajamas and screamed: You’ll call me Zedekiah, you hear? Ze-de-kiah. This envy of yours is driving you crazy; instead of helping, you’re wreaking havoc. And he jerked Jeremiah back and forth, and the prophet made no effort to resist. There’s a new pharaoh in Egypt; I’ve received a couple of tip-offs from him. You have no idea about any of this—you don’t have the figures—and still you go on talking. You don’t even know that a new pharaoh has come to power, a new and good pharaoh, and he likes me, and he’ll come to our assistance. I’m already paying him. We’ve made a pact, and I’ve made other pacts, too, but you have no idea! And Jeremiah fell back on the bed and said, Thus says the Lord, I am going to give Pharaoh, King of Egypt, into the hands of his enemies, those who seek his life— And he wanted to say something else, but fell silent. His eyes shut and filled with tears. And the king stomped out of the court of the guards in a fury, and the prophet tried to go back to sleep.
The moon sank and vanished behind the walls of the city. From the direction of Sultan’s Pool, Jeremiah caught sight of a thin plume of smoke before dozing off under the vault of the sky. A row of stars trailed along in their regular circuit, dragged along their ancient path, without stops and without tick
ets and without even a locomotive. And Jeremiah glanced around and saw the court dogs appear and leap onto his bed with him, by his side and at his feet, curling up their tails and lowering their ears, and so Jeremiah also lowered his ears and bent his knees—as the king saw from afar—in order to make room for them on the bed.
Zedekiah trudged up the stairs. After several minutes, he was sound asleep; after several minutes more, he started snoring, and Noa was shouting Shhh! from the adjoining room, but he didn’t hear. Tukulti stood by the large window and stared for hours on end at the new star, which was still burning. In his huge and cold room at the end of the corridor, Eliazar read his picture book in the dark.
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THAT NIGHT, A GUEST VISITED JEREMIAH’S BED in the court of the guards, located on the palace grounds. It was his uncle, the lawyer Hananel, who had a slight speech impediment and consequently pronounced his own name Hanamel, which is what everyone called him.
The dogs were startled awake and barked, and Hanamel, whom Jeremiah hadn’t seen since the death of his sister, entered the courtyard and offered the dogs snacks drawn out of nowhere or from behind their ears, like a magician, just as he did years ago, when he’d return from some deal he had completed in Assyria, loaded down with gifts and promises of future treats. Once, Hanamel concealed Jeremiah’s sister in a cardboard box and then drew her out laughing from the laundry basket, and another time he bore Jeremiah on his shoulders as they walked the length of the walls of Jerusalem, his uncle telling him about the city and its gates and for that matter why a city needs to have a wall. At the time, all the words he was using seemed so strange and distant—Assyria, siege, destruction, ramparts—as though it were all a sort of children’s fable.
Hanamel sat on the edge of the bed where Jeremiah was sleeping in the courtyard, and said, Jeremiah, Jeremiah, get up, it’s urgent. And Jeremiah said, What, what’s going on, who is it? And Hanamel said, It’s me, Uncle Hanamel, you don’t know me anymore? Jeremiah, barely opening his eyes, said: What? What are you doing here? How’d you get in? And the uncle said, I told them I’m defending you in court, I showed them my notary certificate—they bought it hook, line, and sinker. I need to talk to you. And Jeremiah said: What? Another trial? Again? Go ahead, talk, but I’m keeping my eyes shut, I’m beat, and his uncle was close to boiling over by now and said, But how will I know that you’re listening, that you haven’t dozed off? And Jeremiah didn’t answer. Having no other choice, the uncle continued: You remember my field, next to your parents’ place in Anatot, Jeremiah? I’m off to Babylon tomorrow. See, I’ve reached an understanding with them. I dropped in on them, as the saying goes … So, listen, I want … I need to sell you my field. You remember what a nice field it is? Right next to your folks’ place. You can plant okra, corn—what do you say? And Jeremiah said: What? Are you nuts? That’s why you’ve come here in the middle of the night? I thought you were bringing me … I don’t know what I thought … Let me sleep, I’m so tired. And Hanamel said: No, my dear Jeremiah, we’ve got to make the deal. I’m leaving tomorrow morning on the first train to Babylon; I can’t leave the field abandoned. I’ve brought the deed … And Jeremiah said, Uncle, go, go, can’t you see that I’m confined here? And yet you’re talking to me about corn … And Hanamel said: No, no, there’s got to be a deed of purchase; after all, I’m a jurist. Too bad you didn’t study law, Jeremiah. I always told Esther that you could’ve been … Well, look, the field, it’s a dunam of arable land, and I’ve got building rights. You can farm there or build—it’s good land—and I’ll let you have it for seven and ten silver shekels. What do you say? That’s a great deal, a great deal, way below the market value: a field like that should cost you at least twenty-five! That’s what I’d call an opportunity, Jeremiah, and the only reason I’m letting you have it for that little is because you’re family! And Jeremiah, still without opening his eyes, said: You know what? Whatever you say, I don’t have that much money. To tell you the truth, I don’t have any money, not even a piaster. And Hanamel said: No problem—here, take the money. I’m lending it to you without interest, and you’ll give it back when you’ve got some. And Jeremiah was confused: So why make me pay anything, if the money’s coming from you? And Hanamel said, There’s got to be an exchange; otherwise the deal won’t be registered at the land registry bureau as a business transaction. And the uncle took out a scale and weighed the money that Jeremiah gave him—that is, the money he himself gave Jeremiah so that he could officially pay for the field. A dog and its trainer were watching, and Hanamel said, There, you’re witnesses that the deal was signed; everything’s kosher, everything’s on the level. When you get out of here, Jeremiah, the uncle whispered, go and harvest and eat the olives in your new field, and press oil from them, and at night light a candle with the oil. And Jeremiah stared at his uncle as though he were some sort of lunatic who’d leaped onstage in the middle of a play and started reciting the lines assigned to a king in an altogether different play. But he signed a copy of the deed, and Hanamel took the signed deed of purchase and told Jeremiah, You’ll see, homes and fields and vineyards will be bought and sold again in this land. He got up, and Jeremiah told him, Don’t worry, Uncle Hanamel, I’ll water your olive tree, I’ll send you olives. His uncle licked and glued the appropriate revenue stamps.
Dirt ramps were steadily rising against the walls of the city, to make room for battering rams and allow soldiers to ascend. It was possible to hear every drop of sweat dripping from the foreign construction workers outside as they set up the siege, and to smell their breath as they toiled and sang strange songs. Buckets and more buckets of dirt, and every now and then they’d find and pocket an ancient coin or a shell buried in the earth; if they ever made it home to Babylon, they’d give these to their children. Jeremiah, from his place in the sunken courtyard, couldn’t see any of this, but there were moments when it seemed to him that he was hovering beyond the palace and observing everything from above. He heard the trucks unloading earth, and the soldiers on the ramps looking at the walls in boredom and casting dice on backgammon boards, and the tanks and cannons maneuvering before opening fire, and the Aramean and Edomite mercenaries calculating their earnings in advance by estimating the number of people they’d kill, and, back inside the city, the ever-increasing hunger, the growling bellies of children, the lips of women gummed over with thirst, the diseases that were starting to break out—a case here and a case there, the first sparks appearing at the tip of a huge heap of straw—and then the flies catching on that the city was about to be theirs, and the first diseased dogs, and then the first dog that sunk his teeth into human flesh. And Jeremiah stared at the walls like someone staring at a movie screen, and he saw and heard and smelled everything, and in his pocket was the copy of the deed of purchase. He saw his sister projected there on the wall as if she were entangled in the dense growth of olive branches, and when he drew up close to her, her eyes themselves were big black olives. Lying on his back, he spoke to the Milky Way: See, the ramps have been cast up against the city to take it, and the city, faced with sword, famine, and pestilence, has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans, who are fighting against it … The heavens opened above him, scores of lights without end, and they listened closely to him, patiently, as he went on: And you told me, Buy the field for money and get witnesses, though the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans, Jeremiah said. What’s the point, what’s the point, what’s the point of all these charades? The theater is empty, no one is watching; it doesn’t interest anyone apart from me, and no one gives a damn what I have or don’t have to say. The field I bought I’ll never see, and the olive tree will wither, and the property will be occupied, and squatters will take over the house. This city is already lost, Jeremiah said to the open expanse of the nocturnal sky. And the voice, to his astonishment, answered him, that ancient voice that had been revealed to him nearly twenty years before, and even earlier in his youth, which had shown him the swollen pot and the almond, and Jere
miah was amazed that it had really and truly answered him—it took his breath away. And what the voice said was: This city has aroused my anger and wrath, from the day it was built until this day, so that I will remove it from my sight. And Jeremiah drew his cotton blanket over his head and curled up.
* * *
A SHORT WHILE LATER, powerful hands shook him vigorously, and he was surprised to see Pashhur standing next to his bed—the one named Terror-All-Around—as well as the priest Zephaniah. Pashhur was silent, but Zephaniah said, The king sent us to you. Jeremiah didn’t answer, and Pashhur looked in the direction of the palace behind them and said, King Zedekiah … And Jeremiah couldn’t bring himself to look at Pashhur, so he looked at Zephaniah, who said, The king said to us: Inquire … Please inquire of the Lord for us, for Nebuchadrezzar King of Babylon is waging war against us … Perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all his wondrous works … that he may go up from us … that is to say, Nebuchadrezzar … And Pashhur wanted to say something, make some sort of apology, but he really couldn’t find the words, so instead he said, The army is assembled, armed with all weapons of war—as though Jeremiah were his commanding officer. And Jeremiah shut his eyes and said: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I am going to turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands and with which you are fighting against the King of Babylon and against the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the walls, and I will bring them together into the center of the city. I myself will fight with you with outstretched hand and mighty arm, in anger, in fury, and in great wrath. And Pashhur was relieved and said, Thank you, thank you, and Zephaniah the priest whispered, Thank you. And Jeremiah realized that there must have been some misunderstanding, and then he realized what had been misunderstood, and he said, No, you’re not getting it, it’s “I will fight with you,” not “with you” … that is, he’s saying, “I will fight against you,” I will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beasts … they will die of a great pestilence …
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