Harvest - 02 - Harvest of Gold

by Tessa Afshar

  Something squeezed Darius’s heart as he saw the little family working side by side throughout the morning. They were openly affectionate with one another, often sharing laughter over inconsequential moments. Hanun helped his boy with a delicate wisdom that built his confidence without allowing him to do too much. The interplay between father and son moved Darius in ways he had not experienced before. He wondered if one day he would have the same tender relationship with the child that his wife carried. Would they laugh and play together with the same freedom? Would he know, with the ease and wisdom of Hanun, how to use everyday moments to plant lasting lessons in the heart of his child?

  Hanun was no less loving with his Tirzah than he was with his son. Their open affection moved Darius with a power he found disconcerting. He felt a rush of longing that he could not squelch. Annoyed with himself, he tried to ignore the couple and the feelings they roused in him. Unbidden, he wondered if a day would come when he’d hold Sarah in the same high regard. Would they ever be able to draw that near to each other?

  Up until then, he had blamed Sarah for the distance that had come between them. For the first time, he had the uncomfortable feeling that the gap in their relationship was as much of his making as hers. He found it easy to blame her for her failures. But watching Hanun with his wife, he had to confess that he had never allowed Sarah that level of access to his heart. He had never been as open as Hanun.

  He was relieved when Pari, accompanied by Meres, brought him lunch. The interruption helped to stop his intruding thoughts.

  “My lady sends you this, with her compliments. She packed it herself,” Pari said.

  He had forbidden Sarah from coming near the construction site, worried that she might stumble and fall over the rubble. Somehow, she always managed to find his whereabouts and send someone with food and fresh water. He thanked Pari and opened the bundle she had brought. Sarah had sent enough food to satisfy five large men. There was no Shushan to prepare mouthwatering feasts for them. The fare was simple—vegetarian lentil stew, cheese, barley bread, and dates. But after a day in the hot sun, he could make do with anything.

  He approached the little family who were busy at their task. Hanun had started work before sunrise and, except for a few short breaks, he and his family had worked straight through the day. It was now past the noonday hour.

  “My wife has sent me enough food to feed the Egyptian army. I wondered if you would like to share my repast?”

  Hanun sent him an uncomfortable glance and made a nervous sound in his throat. Darius said, “My wife is a Jew. She would not send food that does not meet with your regulations. Not in Jerusalem.”

  Hanun relaxed. “We would be honored to join you, my lord.”

  They could not take a long pause from their work. Meres took over the watch while Darius and the little family ate in haste.

  “Tasty lentils!” Hanun said and dipped his bread into the bowl for another mouthful before he had swallowed the first.

  “Slow down, husband, or Lord Darius is going to think we are an ill-mannered family who haven’t seen the sight of food in a week.” Tirzah put a small bite in her mouth and took her time chewing.

  “Well, he would be right to think it. I don’t know the last time I ate such a hearty meal. We’re eating like kings, and I aim to enjoy it.”

  Darius felt a slow flush rising up. He thought of how he had criticized the fare for being too simple. To Hanun, the same food constituted a royal feast. Without making it obvious, he slowed down eating to leave more for the family who were his guests.

  Hanun put a hand on Tirzah’s cheek. “It may be delicious, but it’s nothing to your cooking, love.” Darius could not miss the melting adoration in the man’s gaze as he looked at his wife.

  She laughed. “If our ancestor Jacob had been half as talented as you are at flattery, both his wives would have been happy.”

  Darius chewed on a mouthful of barley bread, his mind in turmoil. When had he last praised Sarah? When had he told her he appreciated her company? When had he given her glances that were hot not merely with desire, but with plain affection? He swallowed, his throat dry.

  Sarah could not find a comfortable position. Her baby had grown at an amazing pace over the past month, and with it, her girth. At this rate, three months from now when her time came, she would be as big as Jerusalem itself. Perhaps she should tell cousin Nehemiah to expand the perimeter of the walls to ensure she could fit inside them. Sighing, she set aside the roll of parchment she had been working on, which kept track of Nehemiah’s professional expenses. Running Judah was not cheap.

  The door to her chamber opened and Darius walked in. He must have come straight from his watch. She rose and came to greet him. To her surprise, he wrapped his arm around her waist—or where her waist used to be—and drew her to him. He cradled her as if she were something fragile and precious. Sarah lifted up her face to try and read his expression; he raised his palm and cradled her cheek. Her breath caught. His hand, warm, and rough from years of archery, caressed her skin, making shivers run through her. Unable to resist, she turned her head and rested her lips against his palm.

  He moved his hand from her cheek and trailed it down her shoulder. His kiss, when it came, was excruciating in its slow gentleness. He was kissing her as if his whole heart was in it. As if he wanted to swallow her up and take her inside himself. As if she were the best thing the whole world had to offer. She kissed him back with desperation, her arms wrapped about his neck.

  Love for him welled up inside her. She thought she might burst if she did not put her feelings into words. The last time she had declared her love for him, he had told her he didn’t care. Whatever he felt for her now, his anger had not disappeared. It lingered, under the surface of his passion and this new tenderness. Would he reject her again if she expressed her love in this fragile moment? What could he do to her? Rebuke her? Would that hurt worse than this separation?

  “I love you, Darius,” she whispered against his mouth. “You are the husband of my heart. The only man I’ll ever love.”

  His whole body went still. He searched her face, the green of his eyes looking black and inscrutable in the lamplight. With slow deliberation, he bent his head to her again. Under the flat of her palm she could feel the hard beat of his heart. He leaned against the wall and pulled her with him. She was glad for his support; her legs felt like every single bone in them had melted. He never spoke. Never said what her words meant, or if they had pleased him. But Darius didn’t leave that chamber until it was time to take up his watch again.

  Nehemiah knew he had more trouble on his hands when some of the men and their wives lined up outside his office with the rising of the sun, making certain they caught him before he left for his rounds. Now what? he wondered, as he invited them inside. But the substance of their complaint turned out to be a complete surprise. Astonished, he listened to them as they told him about the state of their lives.

  Jedaiah spoke first. He was a farmer who helped with the rebuilding. “My lord governor, we need your aid. God has blessed us with large families. But we don’t have enough food for them. Working on the wall has prevented us from putting enough effort into our land. If things don’t change, we’ll have no harvest to sustain us through the coming months, and our children will starve.”

  Nehemiah, who had known of the poverty rampant in Judah, fisted his hands in agitation. He had not realized that some of the men working on the wall were making a choice between their families’ survival and the survival of Jerusalem. He studied the faces of the people for confirmation. Men and women alike murmured their agreement.

  Another man said, “We’ve had some lean years already, you see. We had to contend with famine and bad crops. Our storehouses grew empty. To survive, we mortgaged our fields and vineyards, even our homes. It was the only way to make it through those barren years.” He stopped and drew a shaking breath, not lifting his gaze from the ground. Nehemiah could see shame eating at the man. It wa
sn’t easy for him to admit that he had failed. He must be at the end of his tether to acknowledge his circumstances openly, Nehemiah thought.

  “We are near to ruin,” the man continued. “How are we to repay these mortgages? What future is there for us? You can build a wall around this city, but what will that mean to a man who can’t provide for his family?” Some of the women wiped their wet cheeks with their scarves.

  Before Nehemiah had a chance to respond, another man came forward. “It’s even worse for some of us, my lord. Every year, the officials have been demanding taxes from us. Everyone who owns land, rich or poor, has to pay them. We’ve had to borrow money from our wealthier countrymen in order to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards.

  “But when the loans came due, we had no way of repaying them. To discharge our debt, we had to give parcels of our land to the moneylenders. We mortgaged the rest of our fields. When that wasn’t enough, we had to allow our daughters to go to these Jewish noblemen as slaves. Soon, our sons will have to join them.

  “Although we have the same heritage as these wealthy men, and our children are as good as theirs, they have to go into slavery in order that we might have enough to eat!”

  Nehemiah sank into his chair. His stomach turned into a hard knot of tension. Anger burned in him. What he had just found out did not merely jeopardize the building of the wall, though that was dire enough. It threatened the very fabric of God’s society in Judah. Not only had the rich not cared for the poor, they were in fact exploiting them at the moment of their need, stripping them of their ancestral land, of their property, of their children, and of their dignity. Shocked, he said, “I will think about what you have said and decide what to do. Leave this matter to me.”

  In his outrage, Nehemiah’s first impulse was to give the guilty parties a piece of his mind, pouring the full force of his fury on them. But venting his anger would merely cause a grievous rift. He needed resolution and healing, not the momentary relief of feelings, which would lead to further damage. The men involved in the situation came from some of the most powerful families in Judea. If they turned against him, he could forget about finishing the wall. He spent some hours thinking the matter through and praying about it.

  It seemed the enemy wasn’t always an outsider. Sometimes the people you knew best posed the hardest threat. They inflicted the deepest wounds. There was no sense in delaying what must be done, however. That same day, Nehemiah arranged to meet with the nobles and officials who had loaned money to the farmers.

  “You are hurting your own countrymen by charging them interest when, in their desperation, they come to you for loans,” Nehemiah said, his voice calm. “You’re increasing your wealth by means of their misfortune. This isn’t merely a matter of money. It’s a matter of the soul. Do you not see that you are tarnishing your hearts? You can’t separate the way you handle your finances from your standing before the Lord.”

  One of the officials came forward. “We have broken no laws, Lord Nehemiah.”

  “Not legally, that is true. But what about spiritual laws? Does not God demand that you love your neighbor as yourself? How is this callous exploitation of your brothers and sisters a demonstration of love? They are near to ruin! Do you not care? This is a sign of your lukewarm faith. Will you stay lukewarm forever? Will you love your comfort more than you love the poor?”

  The official said nothing. Nehemiah turned his gaze upon the company, giving others the opportunity to come forward with comments. None did. He gave a heavy sigh. “You are turning your own brothers and sisters into slaves! I could not believe my ears when they told me of it.”

  His mouth had turned as dry as the wilderness. He stopped for a moment to take a small sip of water. “Have they not suffered enough? Over the years, have not many of our Jewish relatives been sold to foreigners as slaves? Since my arrival, I have set aside a public budget for the recovery of such slaves. Now I find that some of you are selling Jewish people to our neighboring lands, while I am doing my best to free them. Others, you enslave for yourself, forcing them into unpaid labor. Have you no fear of God?”

  No one said a word in his own defense. What could they say? Nehemiah had stripped every justification from them. What had seemed acceptable in the privacy of their minds now seemed unpardonable.

  Nehemiah pressed his point home. “What you are doing is wrong. Will not the enemies of Judea mock you as you destroy your own people? Why should our enemies bother to rise up against us, when we do their job for them?”

  Not one man could look him in the eye. Nehemiah bent his head. “My brothers and I have also been lending the people money and grain. But now let us stop exacting usury. You must restore these people’s fields. Give back their vineyards and homes. Do not wait another day; do it immediately. And return the interest you have charged when you have loaned them money and food.”

  Heavy silence met his speech. Tension writhed in Nehemiah as the men refused to respond. To his inexpressible relief an influential leader stepped forward. “You have shamed me with your words, my lord. As for me and my house, we will restore everything we have taken.” He looked around him and raised his voice. “I feel certain my colleagues will join me.”

  Several nodded. One said, “And we will not demand anything more from the people when we help them. We will do as you bid.” At first, the agreements came halfheartedly. Mumbled words of resignation. As time passed and they discussed the outcome of such a decision—the increased prosperity of their homeland and the benefits of living in a more affluent nation—their agreements became earnest.

  They took a short break to eat. Because to Nehemiah this was as much a spiritual matter as a practical one, he summoned the priests. He had two reasons for this. First, he wanted the officials to take an oath and to recognize that pledge as an act before God. Second, he had been annoyed with the priests for not stepping in sooner and correcting the officials’ mistake. In this manner, both parties would learn to be accountable to one another.

  After the officials made their oath before the priests, Nehemiah shook out the folds of his robe and said, “If you fail to keep your promise, may God shake you like this out of your homes and your property!”

  The whole assembly agreed with him and cried out, “Amen!” There was no grumbling that day, though the men present stood to lose a great deal of property. Instead, they praised God as one man, and great joy filled them so that the sound of laughter filled the chamber. Nehemiah, feeling lighter than he had for a long time, observed with a wry smile that it was not often men lost so much wealth and rejoiced over it.

  Benjamin chattered while Darius listened with half an ear. He kept his eye trained on the perimeter, fulfilling his guard duty while his mind insisted on reliving memories from the night before. Instead of diminishing his longing for Sarah, the hours he had held her in his arms had made him burn hotter. The thought half annoyed him and half invigorated him. He felt like he was on the edge of a monumental discovery. Which was a ridiculous thought. He was acting like a callow youth around his own wife.

  He shifted his position behind the wall to have a better view of the territory beyond. A fan-tailed raven flew overhead. From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a flash of color in the distance. His focus shifted, became sharp, and converged on a point behind a series of hills just beyond the wall. He sensed danger, though he could see nothing unusual. The hair stood on the back of his neck. Holding up his hand, he motioned Benjamin to be quiet as he walked a few steps farther. With unexpected speed, he saw a lone figure rise. Too late, Darius realized that he held a sling. It took less than a moment for the man to flick his wrist and release the stone. Darius saw the trajectory of the fast hurling object. It was coming straight at Benjamin.

  He threw himself against the child, covering him with his own body. There was no time to pull them both out of harm’s way. The whirling stone, smooth and rounded, found Darius’s temple and collided with sharp pain. He was already squatting on one knee w
hen the stone hit him; dizzy at the impact, he fell back. A trickle of blood ran into his cheek and eye, blurring his vision.

  Hanun and Tirzah were running toward them. The frightened parents enveloped their son into their arms, ensuring that he remained unharmed. Darius breathed through his mouth, trying to control the onslaught of nausea. He forced himself to his feet, not liking how unsteady he felt. It was just a little stone, he thought with annoyance, wiping the blood from his face.

  “My lord! You’re hurt. Come and sit down.” He had not noticed Hanun’s approach. Glad of the man’s support, he allowed himself to be led to a large piece of masonry and sat down.

  “Fetch another guard,” he said through stiff lips. “Tell him to investigate beyond those hills. I am certain this was the work of a lone man trying to foster panic. He was aiming at Benjamin. He knew if he hurt a child, the workers would be especially disheartened. I doubt we’ll be able to catch up with him now. But we should try.”

  “Tirzah has already gone to fetch a guard. And find help for you.”

  “I don’t need help,” Darius said, exasperated by his own weakness. “He used a sling. A boy’s toy.”

  Hanun’s voice held the trace of a smile. “I would not underestimate the power of a sling, my lord. David brought Goliath down with one.”

  Darius knew the story. “How reassuring.”

  Tirzah knelt at his feet. “You saved my boy. I saw you. If not for your quick actions, Benjamin would …” She could not finish the sentence. “Your courage saved him. I don’t know how to thank you.” He heard the hint of tears in her voice.