Esther

by Rebecca Kanner

  All night I waited to open it. I felt it in the sleeve of my robe and imagined what it might say. He had told me more than once to be strong. That was how he said I love you. But surely he knew I no longer needed to be told to be strong.

  The dancing, singing, and drinking went into the morning. When I left with my escort Erez had been replaced by another guard. I hurried back to my chambers, dismissed all my servants, and opened the scroll.

  I had assumed Erez could not read or write. As I looked at the sureness of the handwriting, and read what was written, I knew I had been wrong. I was not lying when I said I would have fallen on my own sword rather than raise it against any of your kin. By ending Haman’s mission you have saved my life. I await the chance to return the favor.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  * * *

  LEAVE-TAKINGS

  Ruti died a few years after our peoples’ victory. “I thought that if a woman could not bear a child she was of little use in the world,” she said. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed, her hand in mine. “But you taught me otherwise, my queen. You have made me more proud than a woman like me has a right to be, and now I can die at peace with the world.”

  Not long after Ruti died I summoned Hegai. I had never longed so desperately for a comforting embrace, but he was so formal I could not imagine calling him closer and putting my arms around him. I bid him to rise from where he bowed low before me. “The king told me once that he had foreseen the hour of his death,” I told Hegai. “He said someone would betray him, but he did not know who.”

  “He doubts his judgment of character, as he should. You must keep your ear to the ground.”

  Artabanus, one of Xerxes’ officials, had placed his seven sons in high positions and would surely not be satisfied until one of them, or he himself, sat upon the throne. Xerxes could not remove him from his post without losing the support of some of the most powerful people in Persia. Whenever I saw Mordecai, his brow was so deeply creased with worry that I had the urge to reach out and smooth it with my hand.

  “Do you know something?” I asked Hegai.

  “Nothing for certain, except that if Xerxes is assassinated, you must flee. If you do not, you will be killed, or worse. A queen’s story ends with her son’s, unless she has no son, and then it ends with her king’s.”

  I did not argue aloud. The life I would make for myself would be argument enough. “Hegai, you are now my most trusted friend. We will flee together.” And Erez will be our guide.

  He laughed. “How I would love that, if I were not . . . as I am.” I did not blush or look away as I once would have, and after a moment he sighed and continued. “My queen, I cannot leave. There is nothing for me outside these walls. I would not be satisfied to be merely a servant to a wealthy noble, and that is the most I could hope for if I fled. I am suited only to palace life. And, if you will forgive my lack of humility, I think, perhaps I could even come through a coup with my position intact.”

  What I had told him years ago was still true: I did not want to leave him. But if the king was assassinated, I would. “I do not doubt you, my friend. Thank you for all you have done for me.”

  He bowed to me, and I bowed back.

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  465 BCE

  For eight years, Erez and I continued to pass little scrolls back and forth on Purim without speaking or looking at each other directly. In the morning, after I read the scroll he gave me, I forced myself to hold it over a flame. I kept the ashes in a tiny gold case I wore near my heart. Though we only saw each other once a year, and I was never able to ask him any of my questions—did he still have the king’s favor, was there anything I could do to help him—somehow I still felt as though Erez and I were always together, getting older, wiser in each other’s company. I felt closer to him than I had when he guarded me each day.

  On the ninth year, Erez did not press anything into my hand as I passed him on my way to the Purim celebration. I tried not to look disappointed. It would appear strange for me to be sad on such a happy occasion. After I had gone a few more steps, Erez called out, “Your Majesty, you dropped this.”

  I turned around and walked past my escort so I could take the scroll directly from him. I had not looked openly at him since the last time he had walked me to the king’s chambers nine years before. I was startled to see how much older he had gotten. Some of the hair near his temples was starting to turn silver and deep lines cupped his mouth on either side. But this was not as startling as seeing that he was looking at me directly. I tried to hide the pleasure I felt at having his dark eyes on mine. I knew from the intensity with which he gazed at me that something big was coming and that he was not afraid. I gazed back with equal force. I am not afraid either.

  He pressed not only a scroll into my palm but something solid and sharp as well. I did not have to look at it to know what it was. It was as familiar as though I had just torn it from my neck and dropped it upon the banquet hall floor yesterday. He had gotten the Faravahar back. My heart swelled and I had the urge to press myself against him.

  Perhaps my desire was written too plainly across my face. He bowed abruptly, but not before I noticed his smile.

  “Thank you,” I said, and forced myself to walk away.

  I was surprised to see that Mordecai was at the Purim celebration. He had been so busy for the last few months that I had hardly seen him at all, and when I had, he could spare little time to talk. He approached with a brow even more tangled than usual. “What is it, cousin?”

  “I have come to see you,” he said quietly, “perhaps for the last time.” Before I could protest, he went on. “I do not know if Artabanus will succeed in taking the crown, but I do not want you around while he tries. You will be welcome in any Jewish quarter in the empire.”

  “As will you. We will go together.”

  “For the sake of our people, I must try to retain my position here.”

  He was the one person I had known all my life. I had already lost Ruti, and when I fled I would lose Hegai. I did not want to lose Mordecai too. “Will you visit?”

  “If doing so will not put you in any danger.” He squeezed my left hand in his, then turned it over and kissed my palm. “May the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob, Rachael and Leah watch over you on your travels.”

  When I returned to my chambers in the morning, I did not go more than two steps before dismissing my servants and opening the scroll Erez had pressed into my palm.

  Next time we travel together, I will take you wherever you want to go.

  I had not been outside the palace in fifteen years. Half my life. When I fled, my crown would not go with me. I unpinned it without a servant’s help and stood feeling its weight upon my head one last time. I thought of all I had done to get it, how hard I had struggled to keep it, and the many people who had helped me.

  Am I ready for another journey?

  My hands were steady as I took off the crown and set it on a table beside the bed. Yes, I am ready.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  * * *

  I’ve had a complicated relationship with the Old Testament since I was old enough to read it on my own. The one thing that always brings me back is the people God chose to carry out His tasks. He didn’t call upon perfect people. He chose people who sometimes wished He’d chosen otherwise. When Esther isn’t feeling up to the task of saving her people, Ruti tells her, “God chooses cowards to be brave, barren women to give birth to prophets, passionate men to be patient, and a man who stutters to command his people through the desert.” Conflicted people. Ruti’s line had been in the prologue to Sinners and the Sea, but I cut it before the book was published. The only way I could bring myself to cut it was to decide to use it in my next novel. I like the writers’ adages Only trouble is interesting and Hell is very story friendly. Sometimes the worst trouble is that which one finds within herself.

  Esther has a question many of us have at some point in our liv
es: Am I worthy of the task I’ve been given? This is one of the ways I sought to make her a human being, neither all-good nor all-bad. Ideals of perfection plague women and girls in a special way. We’re encouraged to be “nice girls” and people pleasers. Which brings me to another of my favorite adages: Well-behaved women seldom make history. Hegai tells Esther “do not waste time trying to convince yourself that everything you do springs from pure and selfless goodness . . . I cannot tolerate girlish silliness.” Esther must leave behind certain prized aspects of femininity to do what must be done.

  Another area I wanted to explore in writing about Esther was her intelligence. Becoming queen is no easy task. I’ve never been satisfied with the assumption that many come away with after reading the Book of Esther: the king made Esther queen because she was beautiful. With hundreds of beautiful girls for the king to choose from, a girl would have been foolish to rely solely on her beauty. Esther is smart enough to quickly win the favor of Hegai, and smart enough to listen to him. In the novel, Hegai tells her, “You will have to learn to appear fierce and submissive at the same time. That is the task of womanhood, and you must master it while you are still a girl.”

  LIBERTIES TAKEN

  Those familiar with the Book of Esther may have noticed that I combined Haman and Memukhan into one character. Scholar Ilana Goldstein Saks notes the similarities between the two men in Torah of the Mothers: Contemporary Jewish Women Read Classic Jewish Texts. Both advisers manipulate the king in similar ways, and both generalize about the effects of a transgression on an entire population.

  Another liberty I took was using the term “Immortal” to describe Xerxes’ most elite force. Use of the term is thought to originate with Herodotus some years after Xerxes’ reign. I also used Herodotus’s exaggeration about the size of Xerxes’ forces. Herodotus often blurred the line between historian and storyteller. Perhaps I was subconsciously thinking of him when I had Mordecai tell Esther, “The tale men fashion is as important as what really happened. Until many years have passed. And then it is more important.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  I’m so grateful for all the support I’ve received. Thank you to early supporters Amber McKenzie, Megan Atwood, and Heather Anastasiu, along with friends Inna Valin, Margie Newman, Alyssa Maizan, Jenny Updike, Michelle Meyers, Diane Grace, Dawn Frederick, Richard Nystrom, Tanya Pedersen-Barr, Karen Seashore, and Tom Remes. I couldn’t have done it without the tireless members of my writing group, Sandy Stefenson and Richard Thompson, and my brilliant agent, Carolyn Jenks, who can light up a room from a thousand miles away, along with her well-chosen junior agents and editors, most especially Tildy Banker-Johnson and Caroline Pallotta. I’ll be forever indebted to my unofficial and woefully underpaid local PR woman, Sue Stein. Becky Nesbitt and the other lovely folks at Howard have once again astonished me with their grace and insight; I can’t thank them enough. Many thanks to superhero Rabbi Morris Allen of Beth Jacob Congregation, my brother, Aaron Kanner, who is a champion in every way, my devoted father, Michael Kanner, and my mentor and friend Lynn Nelvik-Levitt, to whom this book is dedicated.

  © STEVEN LANG

  REBECCA KANNER’s writing has won an Associated Writing Programs Award and a Loft Mentorship Award. Her stories have been published in numerous journals, including The Kenyon Review and The Cincinnati Review. She is a freelance writer and teaches writing at The Loft in Minneapolis.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Rebecca Kanner

  Scripture quotations taken from The Five Megilloth and Jonah, a New Translation, by the Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1969.

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  First Howard Books hardcover edition November 2015

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  Design by Robert Ettlin

  Jacket Design by Gearbox Design

  Front Jacket Photograph by Susan Fox, Sandra Cunningham/Trevillion Images

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kanner, Rebecca.

  Esther : a novel / Rebecca Kanner. —First Howard Books hardcover edition.

  pages ; cm

  1. Esther, Queen of Persia—Fiction. 2. Bible. Esther—History of Biblical events—Fiction. 3. Women in the Bible—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3611.A5495E85 2015

  813'.6—dc23

  2015009650

  ISBN 978-1-5011-0866-2

  ISBN 978-1-5011-0867-9 (ebook)