But Belessunu did not appear in danger or pain. She was kneeling, face pointed to the ceiling, smiling beatifically. “The Lord speaks,” she breathed. Her conviction startled him. She had always been devout, but he had never seen her this way or heard her say such a thing.
“He speaks?”
She nodded, apparently overcome. “Directly to my heart.”
Terah wanted to mock her, to ridicule her prayers the way she had his. But she was so—earnest. Whether she had conjured this or was just imagining it, clearly it was real to her. He couldn’t help himself. “What is he saying?”
Belessunu lowered her gaze, shut her eyes, and bowed her head. Silent for several moments, when she spoke she emitted something less than a whisper and Terah had to lean forward to hear.
“Gaze throughout the cities and be amazed! For I the Lord your God shall act. I will exalt the faithful who worship the one true God.
“The Babylonians are a vicious people who walk through the nations to occupy cities they do not own. Their appalling pride emanates from within themselves alone.
“They come for violence, faces set, gathering captives, mocking every stronghold. Then, on a whim their despot changes his mind and ascribes his power to idols.”
Belessunu paused, but Terah dared not interrupt. Her head remained bowed, and she appeared transfixed. She raised a hand toward her husband, as if signaling him to remain silent. “But only I, the Lord your God, am from everlasting to everlasting. Only I am the Holy One. I have appointed the ruler for judgment, marked him for correction. I am of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on wickedness. I will not look on the treacherous and hold my tongue when the evil one devours.
“Shall he continue to slay nations without compassion? Make plain the vision that the just man shall live by his faith. But the proud man is like death and cannot be satisfied. He gathers to himself all peoples. Woe to him who plunders many nations, who covets evil gain that he may set his nest on high.
“Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed, who establishes a city by sin! For the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
Terah felt locked in place. “These are the words of the one true God?”
Belessunu lifted her face and nodded.
“He speaks of Nimrod?”
“There’s more,” she said.
Terah shuddered. “More?”
“He speaks of you.”
“Me? No! I do not know Him!”
“He knows you.”
“No! You must not let Him speak of me!”
Terah scrambled to the entrance of their dwelling and cowered by the doorframe, trembling.
Belessunu bowed her head once more, speaking no louder than before, forcing Terah to creep back near her in order to hear.
“What profit is an image its maker can carve? Should that maker trust in mute idols? Woe to the one who commands stone to awake, wood to arise and counsel! Alas, even formed of silver and gold, in it dwells no life.
“But I, the living God, reside in My holy temple. Let the whole earth fall silent in My presence.”
CHAPTER 13
Manhattan
Dr. Thorn left Nicole and Julia Martinez in the hall outside the Recovery room and headed for the elevator. The uniformed policemen on either side of the door peered straight ahead, as if not listening. Nicole knew better.
“You’re not going to keep me from seeing her now, are you, Officer?”
“Long as you know I gotta record everything from here on,” Martinez said. “And I gotta let the boss know what she said—about you hating her.”
“I’m telling you, she’s confusing something from twenty years ago. I was a stupid, independent teenager, but even then I never said I hated her.”
“C’mon,” Martinez said. “Not even in anger like we all do? Just sayin’ stuff to push our parents’ buttons? I did that more than once. My mother was old-school, man. She said I could go out with my friends, long as my room was clean, ya know? When I got home she was waiting in my messed-up room, and she was mad. I told her I didn’t know she meant it had to be done before I went out. She called me a liar, which I was, and I said the worst thing I could think of—that I hated her. And after that I never got to go anywhere till my room was cleaned up.”
“And you grew up to be a cop …”
“Yeah, see? Sayin’ stupid stuff as a kid don’t make you a bad person. You never did that, ever?”
“Say I hated her?” Nicole said. “No. That was a line I would never cross, because it was so far from the truth. Mom and Dad were exasperating back then, and I did a lot of huffing and storming off and slamming doors. And, yes, I went out with an older guy neither of them liked and stayed out later than I was supposed to. But down deep I knew they were right and were only worried about me. Maybe I acted like I hated them, but I never said it.”
“Maybe you just don’t remember.”
“I’d remember that.”
“Then why’d she say it, Dr. Berman?”
Nicole shook her head. “I’ve told you. In fact, the nurse and the doctor told us both. She’s not aware of what she’s saying. You said yourself she wasn’t making sense.”
“Yeah, but you know why I’m here and what I’m supposed to do. I can’t ignore it when a woman who was attacked says her daughter hates her.”
“If I hated her, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Just sayin’.”
“If you must tell Detective Wojciechowski, at least say she was just out of surgery when she said that.”
Nicole found her mother asleep again, despite the nurse in the room and the bright overhead light. Martinez again sat out of the patient’s field of vision and began texting. Nicole wished she could approve whatever Julia was writing. Martinez looked up. “Don’t worry, Dr. Berman. You’re innocent till proven guilty, remember?”
The nurse writing on the patient chart, said, “Doctor always wants them to rouse fully after surgery …”
“I’m okay with letting her sleep,” Nicole said, pulling up a chair and taking her mother’s hand.
“I’m not,” Officer Martinez said, eyes on her phone. “We gotta know what she remembers.”
“Well,” Nicole said, “so far she’s living in the past and misremembering. I’m not about to wake her.”
The nurse turned off the light, leaving the room dark except for the monitors and a small night-light over the sink. “I’ll be at the nurses’ station down the hall, and we monitor all these machines from there, so I’ll know if there’s a crisis.”
Julia Martinez slipped her phone in her pocket and folded her arms. “You’re not gonna rat me out if I get a little snooze then, are ya?”
“Feel free,” Nicole said, finding it ironic that Martinez asked for that consideration while apparently not minding that her report would make Nicole look bad. Her mother squeezed her hand, and Nicole studied her face. Had to have been involuntary. What must she be dreaming about?
“Just don’t let me miss anything,” Martinez said.
CHAPTER 14
Ur
“You must rest, Belessunu,” Terah said, his voice quavery. “You look spent.”
His wife nodded, the long day having engraved weariness on her countenance. She reached for his hand, but he hesitated. “Will you not help me rise?” she said. “The wife of your youth who carries your child?”
He helped her up and led her to their sleeping mat beyond another drape that hung in the narrow doorway at the other side of the great room. She lay on her back in the darkness, hands clasped above her protruding torso. “Are you laboring to breathe?” he said, sitting next to her.
“I’ll be fine now.”
“Belessunu, do you believe that was your god speaking through you?”
“You believed it. I could tell.”
Terah held his head in his hands. “I fear it, that’s all I know.”
She put a hand on his arm. “That’s not all you
know. You know truth when you hear it.”
“I will test my gods,” he said.
She sighed. “The ones you carved yourself?”
“They led me in the carving! I know they are just images, but they embody real gods.”
“And you will prove this how?”
“I will ask them for wisdom, a plan, in the event we are cursed with a manchild.”
“No child will be a curse, Terah. If God gives us a son, He will also show us how to protect him.”
Terah rose. “Sleep, wife. One of us must.”
“We both must. I will sleep the sleep of the blessed.”
“I dare not,” he said, “until I devise a plan.”
As evening gave way to the wee hours, the night finally cooled and a light breeze wafted through the window, reaching Terah as he knelt miserably before his array of idols. He stretched forward and pressed his cheek against the cold clay floor. From the other room, Belessunu’s breathing came rhythmic and deep. How he envied her! Had his gods spoken to him as hers apparently had to her, he would not have been able to sleep for days.
“Why do you not speak?” he whined, voice low so as not to disturb Belessunu. “I serve you as loyally as I serve my king, and this is how you respond? I need help, a sign, a plan. Nimrod has betrayed my trust. Will you do the same? Must I pray to my wife’s god, the god of my forefathers? At least he is not silent.”
That challenge seemed to work, as something stirred within Terah and he pushed himself up to his knees. The answer was in the wilderness! But what could it be? And was this from the gods? Or from his ancestors’ God? Regardless, he must know and know soon. Now.
Alive with purpose, he stood. After a peek around the bedroom curtain to be sure Belessunu was fast asleep, he grabbed his cloak and ventured into the night, quietly closing the door. A hundred yards from his house, Terah passed the pen where two of his young servants tended sheep, goats, and cattle.
Wedum and Mutuum sat poking a small fire, but as he approached they stood, eyes wary, long staffs at the ready.
“It is only me, men,” Terah said. “As you were.”
“Master,” they said and squatted again.
The pungent smoke swirled, making Terah cough despite the pleasant aroma that dulled the sting of the odor of livestock dung. “The animals are not settled?”
“Dogs are too close,” Wedum, the taller of the two, said. “We had to chase away a pack.”
“Good lads.”
“Can we help you with anything, master?”
“Just walking,” he said. “Carry on.”
“Mind the dogs, sir,” Mutuum said. “Hear them now?”
Terah held his breath and closed his eyes. “I do. How many?”
“Five or six, if it’s the same pack.”
“And you can handle them if they return?”
“They didn’t put up a fight,” Wedum said. “But they had to smell the fear in the livestock. They may approach quietly next time, if the fire doesn’t keep them away. If you go much farther, you should take a stick.”
“No, the gods are with me tonight, men.”
“Glory to the gods,” they said in unison.
“But should they fail me, you will hear my cry and save me, will you not?”
“Without question, sir,” Mutuum said. “Absolutely.”
“I’m joking! The gods will not fail me.”
“Glory to the gods.”
CHAPTER 15
Manhattan
Puffs from her lips with each exhale told Nicole that Officer Julia Martinez was deep asleep. The dark recovery room felt warm, and the humming, whirring, blinking, and wheezing of the oxygen supply lulled Nicole too. She monitored her mother’s pulse, blood pressure, and respiration at a glance. Everything read normal, and her more than half full IV bag dripped steadily into the tube.
Nicole enfolded her mother’s free hand in her own, lowered her own chin to her chest, and tried to doze. But her mind still purred. Surely the New York PD would find some evidence her mother had surprised a burglar. Who else had reason to attack her?
Yet the housekeeper—Bulgarian Teodora Petrova—had found her. Teodora was too new to be entrusted with a key, meaning Nicole’s mother had to have let her in. Admittedly, the Bermans enjoyed a ridiculously expansive place, but how could someone have brutalized her mother without Teodora seeing them, let alone hearing something? Had one of them let the perpetrator in, or had he overpowered one of them? Thank God for a doorman, front-desk personnel, and closed-circuit TV. The culprit should be easy to identify.
Was Teodora herself a suspect? Nicole’s mother had described her as heavyset, a recent emigrant with a thick accent. “About my age,” her mother had said. “I could barely understand her. But she had a very professionally prepared résumé and lots of experience. She wore a bulky overcoat, much too warm for the weather, and she refused to take it off. I could not get her to smile, but I just assumed she was not fluent enough to understand American humor.”
She’d worked two weeks—Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings from nine to eleven. Nicole’s mother had had no complaints. “In fact,” Mom had told her, “she’s a workhorse. Tireless and fast.”
“And you’re not missing any cash or jewelry?”
“Thankfully.”
Her parents had fired the previous maid when it became clear she could not be trusted. She’d been solid for three years before they started to notice things missing. She never admitted to taking anything.
What about her? Was she strong enough, athletic enough, to exact revenge? Maybe she had co-opted a boyfriend … Nicole would have to remember to suggest that to Wojciechowski. At least her father had changed the locks.
Nicole peeked at the monitors every so often, but soon her eyelids grew heavy and she began drifting. Her breathing matched the cadence of the clicks and hisses of the oxygen generator.
Whether she fell asleep, or for how long, Nicole couldn’t say, but she was jarred alert when her mother squeezed her hand and pulled. “Nikki, is that you?”
Had she heard correctly? Her mother hadn’t called her anything but Nicole or occasionally her father’s pet name for her, Nic, since she was a teenager.
“Yes, Mama,” she said. “Let’s whisper.”
“Why?”
“So we don’t wake my friend. You okay? Need anything?”
“I need to know where I am and why I feel so awful.”
“Are you in pain?”
“Not exactly. Stiff. Uncomfortable.” She seemed to be getting her bearings. “Was I in an accident?”
“You broke your hip, Mom.”
“How?”
“You don’t remember?”
Her mother fell silent. Finally, she said, “I don’t even know what day it is.”
“Friday. Well, Saturday now.”
“Fridays I walk my mile-and-a-half route, stop at Schnell’s, and bring a bagel home. Have to be there before Teodora arrives.”
“Did that happen today, uh, I mean yesterday?”
When her mother repeated the question, this time as if in slow motion, Nicole’s heart sank. The woman had morphed from articulate—albeit puzzled—to slurring again. She pulled desperately at Nicole’s hand. “Hap—happen today? Nikki. Make Daddy. Make him. Tell you the truth before I die.”
“You’re not going to die, Mom. You’re going to be fine.”
“Make him … truth.”
“About what? What do you want me to ask him?”
Her mother’s eyes were wide in the dim light now, her grip fierce, as if trying to pull herself up.
“Careful, Mama. You’re not to be moving.”
Loud beeping made Nicole scan the monitors. Her mother’s pulse and blood pressure had skyrocketed. Officer Martinez leapt to her feet. “What’s happening? Do I need to get somebody?”
The nurse rushed in, flipping on the light. Nicole had to shield her eyes.
“Clear, Officer, please! Dr. Berman, give me access! S
he just waking up, is that it?”
“She’s been trying to talk,” Nicole said. “Still confused.”
“Mrs. Berman! I need you to lie fully back. There you go. Deep breaths. I’m adjusting your oxy—”
“She was talking?” Julia Martinez said. “What’d she say?”
“Not much,” Nicole said. “Still out of it.”
“Officer!” the nursed said. “Dr. Berman! In the hall, please.”
“Officer?” Nicole’s mother cried. “Where am I?”
CHAPTER 16
Ur
Terah wandered out into the wilderness, far from his home and far beyond the livestock pen. He moved past rock outcroppings that blocked his view of the fire Mutuum and Wedum had lit to keep themselves warm and repel the wild dogs. The cool air and the silence refreshed him, and he prayed to Nanna, god of the moon. Indeed, Nanna was the creator, the god of all gods, father of Utu, god of the sun, and his twin sister, Inanna. Utu had become King Nimrod’s—and the Babylonian Empire’s—favorite deity.
Terah for years had prayed also to Nimrod when he knelt before his idols. But the king, who also called himself Amraphel, never mentioned even being aware of Terah’s petitions. Well, no more would he pray to that deceiver. Belessunu was right about him, at least. Clearly Nimrod was only a self-proclaimed deity.
The other gods were often silent, and when they did answer, it was often in ways Terah did not understand. But to his knowledge, they certainly had never deceived him.
Fear washed over Terah so quickly it nearly drove him to the ground. What was this? What vexed him? The silence! Invigorating as it was, the breeze was too gentle to emit sound, and none of the vegetation in this arid expanse bore anything resembling leaves that would so much as rattle in the wind. All noise had ceased. Even the yipping of the wild dogs so far away, sounds that carried long distances here.
Had the dogs circled back to attack his animals, Terah would have heard from far off the commotion of Wedum and Mutuum engaging them. So what was he to make of the silence? Had the gods not coaxed him out here? And to what end? Had the wild dogs caught his scent and begun to furtively track him? Should he have taken tall Wedum up on that offer of a stick? He tried to tell himself his imagination had merely gotten the better of him.
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