Wings of Refuge

by Lynn Austin

  The temptation was too great to resist. Laying her broom beside the door, Leah looked around again, then slipped inside. Careful not to touch anything, she bent over the opened scroll and began to read. And you present to the Lord offerings made by fire, from the herd or the flock, as . . . She paused, not recognizing the next word, then continued. . . . pleasing to the Lord—whether burnt offerings or sacrifices, for special vows or freewill offerings or . . . Again she skipped an unfamiliar word. . . . offerings—then the one who brings his offering shall present to the Lord a grain offering of a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a something of a hin of oil . . .

  She could read! Not every word, but enough of them to feel a surge of triumph that made her want to shout! She hugged herself in joy.

  Suddenly the door from the street opened. Leah dropped to the floor like a stone dropping into water and hid beneath the table. She heard the door close, then footsteps crossing the room. She crouched into a tiny ball as Master Reuben glided past her. She saw his sandaled feet and recognized the fragrance of the scented lotion he always used. He was nearly through the door to the courtyard when he stopped.

  Her broom! She had left it lying outside the door. He whirled around and saw her.

  “Stand up!” he said angrily. She obeyed, trying to bow to him at the same time. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Reading, my lord.”

  “What? Hold out your hands. What did you take?”

  “N-nothing, my lord.” She spread her hands, palms up, to show that they were empty.

  “Untie your belt. Take off your robe.”

  Terrified, Leah did as she was told until she stood before him in only her undertunic. He gave her robe a shake so that anything she had hidden in it would fall to the floor. His face was very angry, not kind as it had been the last time.

  “Tell me what you were doing in here,” he said again.

  “My brother has been teaching me to read words . . . on the writing tablet you gave me. I wanted to see if I could read them if they were all written out on a scroll. I only looked at this one, my lord. I’m sorry.” She trembled all over, certain that she had earned a beating.

  “And could you?” he asked after a moment. She looked up at him, not understanding. “Could you read it?” he asked again, picking up the scroll, then tossing it down.

  “Yes, my lord . . . most of the words.”

  “Show me.” The scroll rattled as she held it in shaking hands. Leah began reading where she had started before and stopped when he said, “That’s enough.”

  She quickly set the scroll down and stared at her feet, afraid to look at him. The silence between them stretched and lengthened like the spinning of a very long thread. And like that long thread, Leah’s nerves stretched thinner and thinner until she was certain they would snap. Tears filled her eyes. The room was warm but she stood shivering in her under-tunic.

  Suddenly Master Reuben crossed to the other side of the room. She heard him rummaging for something and wondered if he was looking for a stick to beat her. Then he came back to stand in front of her again. She saw only his feet, not daring to looking up.

  “Leah.”

  “Yes, my lord?”

  “Take this to your quarters and see if you can read it.” She lifted her head and was astounded to see that he held out a scroll to her. She couldn’t speak. “The physicians have confined my wife to her bed until our child is born. It would help her pass the time if you could read to her.”

  He thrust the scroll into her hands before she could reply, then strode from the room.

  * * *

  Leah was both excited and terrified as she followed Miriam into their mistress’s bedchamber the following afternoon, clutching Master Reuben’s scroll. She had practiced reading it the night before until it was too dark to see, guessing at the words she didn’t know, recalling the plot from hearing it read in the synagogue. It was the beautiful story of Ruth, King David’s ancestress.

  Leah’s mistress, also named Ruth, reclined on an ornate sleeping couch before an open window. Beyond it, water splashed in a small flower-filled courtyard. The scent of the mistress’s perfume permeated the room until Leah could taste it on her tongue.

  Confined to the kitchen, Leah had never seen Ruth up close before, and she was startled by how very beautiful she was. She wore cosmetics on her eyes, and her chestnut hair was piled on her head in the elaborate style of the Gentiles. But Mistress Ruth was painfully thin, even thinner than Leah, who had gone hungry most of her life. Her womb made a small bulge beneath her embroidered linen robe.

  “Who are you?” she said when she saw Leah. “I didn’t ask for another chambermaid.”

  “This is Leah, Mistress Ruth,” Miriam replied. “Master Reuben sent her here to help you pass the time. She is going to read to you, my lady.”

  “Read! This slip of a girl can read? Why, who ever heard of such a thing!”

  Her smile was radiant, briefly lighting her elegant face like a shooting star blazing across the darkened heavens. Leah couldn’t help staring. No wonder Master Reuben didn’t take a concubine. No other woman could compare with his wife. Leah was so mesmerized, it took her a moment to realize that her mistress had asked her a question.

  “Um . . . where did I learn to read, my lady? My brother taught me, my lady. He learned at the synagogue school, my lady.” She felt bumbling and crude beside her mistress, scarcely able to think or speak.

  “Well, I can’t wait to hear this for myself. Sit down, Leah. Tell me what you brought to read.” Miriam shoved a small cushioned stool beneath Leah and she sank onto it gratefully.

  “It’s the story of a Moabite woman named Ruth. She was the ancestress of King David. . . . It’s a love story.” Leah nervously opened the scroll, discovered she was holding it upside down, then blushed as she turned it over. She cleared her throat. “‘In the days when the judges ruled,’” she began, “‘there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab . . .’”

  Leah put her whole heart into it, trying not to read in a boring monotone as Rabbi Eliezer always did, but adding life and drama to the words. When she glanced up from time to time, both Ruth and Miriam sat listening to her as if in a trance. The afternoon flew, until she found herself reading the final words:

  “‘And the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.”’”

  Mistress Ruth had tears in her eyes when Leah finished.

  “What a beautiful story. I had forgotten. . . . It’s been so long since I’ve heard it.”

  “Why don’t you take a little nap now,” Miriam said, tucking a shawl around her mistress. “I’m sure that Leah would be happy to return another day and read again, mmm?” Miriam’s love for Ruth showed in the gentle touch of her hands as she smoothed the blanket.

  “Does Mistress Ruth ever go out of the house?” Leah asked as she and Miriam returned to the kitchen. “I’ve never seen her in the village or in the synagogue.”

  “She goes to Caesarea or Sepphoris with Master Reuben sometimes, but she wouldn’t be caught dead in Degania.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of the Pharisees. She’s taken more than her share of abuse from them, so I don’t blame her in the least. Imagine, men who claim to be godly, spitting on that poor woman!”

  “But why?”

  “Partly because she doesn’t believe in following all their picky rules about baths and things . . . but mostly because she’s the wife of the tax collector.”

  Leah was still thinking about the Pharisees’ cruelty when she returned to Mistress Ruth’s room a few days later to read the Book o
f Esther. As she closed the scroll, satisfied that Queen Esther’s enemy had received the punishment he deserved, all of Leah’s own frustrations with the Pharisees came bubbling to the surface like a pot of soup on a hot fire. Without thinking she said, “Have you ever noticed how all of the Pharisees in Degania resemble farm animals, Mistress Ruth?”

  Ruth looked startled. “Farm animals?”

  “Oh yes. The village is a regular barnyard! Take Rabbi Eliezer, for example—he’s the very image of a billy goat with his long, thin face and that ratty gray beard of his. He’s always butting into everybody’s business, too, just like an old he-goat.”

  Ruth laughed out loud, and the sound reminded Leah of beautiful music, the notes ascending and descending in a rich, melodic sound.

  “Reb Nahum is an old speckled hen with a fat breast,” she continued. “He pecks all around the village with his sharp beak, examining every little particle of dirt or bug that he imagines he sees. He even has one of those chicken wattles beneath his chin that wiggles back and forth when he squawks.”

  “Leah, you’re outrageous!” Ruth said, laughing helplessly. Her joy spurred Leah on. She stood to pantomime her victims as she described them.

  “Reb Moshe is an ox—fat, slow, and dumb. He doesn’t read the Scriptures. He plods over the words, trampling them beneath his heavy feet. I walked behind him in the street once, and his buttocks swayed back and forth exactly like an ox’s hindquarters when he walked. Reb Joseph is a donkey—can’t you tell by those huge ears? He uses them to listen to every word that’s whispered in Degania. And have you ever heard him laugh? He sounds just like a donkey braying!” Ruth was laughing so hard she was in tears. “And Reb—”

  Leah stopped when she looked up and saw Master Reuben. He was watching Ruth from the doorway. He saw no one else in the room but her, and when she stretched out her hand to him, he went straight to her side, kneeling beside her couch. Leah knew he had been drawn by the magical sound of her laughter. His eyes shone with love for her.

  As Leah quietly slipped from the room, she heard Ruth say, “Thank you, darling, for sending Leah to me. She’s so much fun!”

  Leah read to Ruth nearly every day until her baby was born four months later. Ruth’s labor was long and very difficult, and Leah was glad that Master Reuben had gone to Caesarea for a few days on business and didn’t have to hear his wife’s screams.

  “Mistress Ruth had a little daughter,” Miriam told Leah when it was finally over. “She named her Elizabeth. They’re both resting now, but the mistress wants you to come and see her later on.”

  Leah fixed her mistress a supper tray that evening and took it to her. Ruth was holding Elizabeth, trying to soothe her, but the baby was fussing. “She just ate . . . I don’t know what is bothering her,” Ruth said. Miriam scooped the baby from her arms.

  “I’ll take her, Mistress Ruth,” Miriam said. “You go ahead and eat some of that nice dinner Leah brought you.” She bounced and jostled and cooed, but the baby only grew fussier.

  “May I try?” Leah said at last. She took Elizabeth into her arms and began talking softly to her. Much to Leah’s own surprise, the baby stopped crying and soon fell asleep.

  “It’s your voice, Leah,” Ruth said. “She recognizes your voice from all the reading you did.”

  Leah was in Ruth’s room, rocking Elizabeth, when Master Reuben arrived home. He went straight to his wife’s side, still dressed in his traveling clothes.

  “Ruth, thank God you’re all right!”

  Leah was surprised when Ruth suddenly burst into tears. “I’m sorry, Reuben. I’m so sorry . . . I didn’t give you a son.” He sat beside her on the bed and pulled her into his arms.

  “Oh, Ruth . . . can’t you see it doesn’t matter? The child is healthy and strong, isn’t she? Once you get well I’ll be the happiest man alive.”

  Leah felt like an intruder. In her entire life, she had never heard a man speak to a woman as tenderly as the master spoke to his wife. Embarrassed to be eavesdropping, she tried to lay Elizabeth down as quickly as she could without waking her so she could slip from the room.

  “No, bring her here, Leah,” Master Reuben said. “I’d like to see my new daughter.”

  Leah carried Elizabeth to the bedside, folding back the blanket so he could see her tiny face. But it was Master Reuben’s face that Leah watched. His eyes glowed with happiness as he studied his child, cupping the baby’s cheek in his large hand.

  “She’s lovely, Ruth . . . nearly as lovely as you are.”

  Leah bent and laid the child in Mistress Ruth’s arms, then tiptoed to the door. “When Elizabeth is older,” she heard Ruth say, “maybe Leah can teach her to read, like a boy.”

  “Anything, Ruth. Anything you want. Just get well, my love.”

  While Miriam took care of Mistress Ruth, it became Leah’s full-time job to take care of baby Elizabeth. With the help of a wet nurse, Elizabeth grew into a plump, happy baby with a sweet cherub face and her mother’s chestnut hair. But Ruth was not getting well. Master Reuben hired legions of physicians who tried all manner of remedies and poultices in the months that followed. He even took Ruth to the Roman hot baths for a course of treatment. Nothing helped.

  Leah now slept in the baby’s room, next door to Ruth’s, and she overheard Master Reuben shouting at the physicians one morning. “I don’t care what it takes! I don’t care what it costs! Make her well, do you hear me?”

  Each day Elizabeth grew stronger and sturdier as Ruth grew thinner and paler. Elizabeth was walking by the time she was a year old, clinging to Leah’s fingers, but Ruth had become too weak to rise from her bed. The slightest movement brought her pain, as if even her bones ached.

  “She’s dying, isn’t she?” Leah whispered to Miriam as they left her room one day.

  “Don’t say such a thing!” Miriam cried. “Don’t you even think such a thing!”

  But Leah knew that it was true.

  Swallowing his pride, Master Reuben went to the religious leaders at the synagogue. “Please . . . may I come to the Sabbath services? Would you help me, pray with me . . . for my wife?”

  “We won’t stop you from attending, but you cannot sit with the men of Israel. You and your household must sit with the Gentiles.”

  “Listen, I would like to donate some money to your synagogue or . . . or to the poor,” Reuben said, pulling a leather pouch from inside his robe. “Whatever it would take to gain the Almighty One’s blessing—”

  The Pharisees spit on his money and threw it back at him.

  Leah and Miriam also began going to the synagogue with him to pray for their beloved mistress. They were there one Sabbath when a visitor came. As custom prescribed, he was invited to read the Scripture. The prophetic passage was from the Book of Isaiah.

  “‘But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’”

  The stranger looked familiar to Leah, but it wasn’t until he mentioned sheep that she remembered why. He was the same man who had preached about the wicked shepherds in the Temple in Jerusalem a few years ago, the man who resembled a little brown-furred coney. She listened with rapt attention as he began to speak.

  “Many of you remember Rabbi Yeshua, the Nazarene—how He walked among us, teaching us about the Kingdom of God and working wonders and miracles. Yeshua was the promised Messiah that the prophet Isaiah spoke about in the passage I just read. He brought God’s promised redemption to all of us by becoming the Lamb of God, sacrificed to bear the iniquity of us all.”

  It was very clear that the man had only begun his discourse, but Leah watched in amazement as Reb Nahum rudely stood up and thanked the stranger as if he were finished. Then Nahum signaled to the rabbi to continue with the remainder of the service.

  The preacher calmly held up
his hand and said, “One more comment, if I may. The redemption Yeshua brought is not just for the Jews. It is for all people.” His gaze swept the Gentile section where Master Reuben and his household were forced to sit. Then he said no more.

  After the service, all of Degania lingered on the synagogue steps to hear more from the visitor. Leah and Miriam gathered with them, and even Master Reuben stayed instead of hurrying away as he usually did.

  “I heard Yeshua the Nazarene preach once,” Miriam whispered to Leah. “And I saw Him drive an unclean spirit from a boy. How I hoped that He was the promised Messiah, but when nothing changed . . . when we remained under Roman rule . . .” She sadly shook her head.

  Leah inched closer, listening as the Pharisees argued with the stranger beneath the synagogue pillars.

  “How could you call a man ‘righteous’ who died such a shameful death?” Reb Nahum shouted. “The Scriptures say, ‘Cursed is anyone who is hung on a tree!’”

  “You are exactly right, my friend. Yeshua became cursed by God for us. He bore the wrath of God that we deserve.”

  “The Scriptures say the Messiah will bring deliverance,” Rabbi Eliezer added. “If Yeshua was the Messiah, why are we still burdened with Roman rule?” He gestured toward Master Reuben as if he were a hated Roman.

  “Because the Messiah’s kingdom isn’t out there,” the visitor said with a sweep of his arm. “His kingdom is within us. And it has come! When God brought redemption to our ancestors through Moses, they were set free from slavery, but they still had to cross the Red Sea themselves. They still had to walk through the desert and fight to conquer the land until God’s kingdom of Israel was established. Yeshua did bring redemption He canceled our sins so that we are no longer slaves to it, but we still must conquer the giants of sin and unforgive-ness through His power in order to establish the kingdom that He died to bring.”

  As Leah looked around at the other villagers, she saw that they were listening just as attentively and as hopefully as she was. Rabbi Eliezer must have noticed, too.