I looked up, not daring to meet my image, but she pointed me to look. Slowly, reluctantly I lowered my eyes to look into the mirror. I was startled at the hugeness, the bigness and the blackness of my eyes in such a small face! Yet they were not dull or fixed as I knew they must have been a few days before. I felt the blood mounting and saw the roses bloom in my cheeks that were not pinched. They were already rounding into shape. I let my startled eyes focus on my mouth. It was full and round and almost soft, although a certain dryness remained from the fever. It was not a pretty face, neither was it witch-like or haggard. There was even a flashing resemblance to my mother. Certainly she was and always had been lovely. Perhaps it was the aging that had brought a certain maturity and character into my face. It was not the face of a child, nor of a girl of sixteen. I had seen so much of life in those few years that I could scarcely expect not to have it show in my face.
I lifted my hands to touch my hair. It was not stringy, but then it was shorn too short to be stringy. What a sight I must have been a few days earlier with my newly shaven head! I laughed in spite of myself. Only a few hours before I had learned to weep again. Now I was learning to laugh! My mother’s eyes twinkled, although she did not know the cause of my merriment. It was enough for her that I could laugh. She laughed when I asked her what I had looked like when first I had come aboard the ship.
“You were not funny to me. But looking back I can laugh, too. Yes, your hair was such stubborn, black stubble! You were stubborn, too. How you fought and scratched and bit! But, like the hair that has become soft and silken, you have become gentle and womanly, again. So be it. There are no ghosts in the past if one finds laughter. There is always beauty in features that smile, not at others but at oneself. That is what you wished to learn from the mirror. Well, did you like what you saw? Or, are you still afraid to face those who are waiting for you outside the door?”
“I am not afraid, my mother. I saw enough of your face in the mirror to know that outwardly, at least, I am not uncomely. If you will teach me perhaps I can have some of your inward beauty, too.” I spoke humbly and fervently. Suddenly I had learned, what I might have learned years before if disaster had not intervened, that Rachel’s beauty came from within, a gift denied no one who honestly seeks it. My mother had seen trouble, had had heartbreak and sorrow, yet she had kept her sweetness, her hope, and her faith. “Let me sit at your feet, my mother, and learn beauty from you and wisdom and faith!”
If I faltered as we went into the corridor it was not from doubt or fear, but from weakness that had not all left me. It still seemed incredible that I was indeed on a ship and far at sea. True, I could feel the ship rolling so that I could not be sure if weakness or its moving made me stagger. Even the embarking had vanished in the mists and the nightmares—I could remember only the silhouette against the setting sun.
Once on deck and out in the open I hesitated, still timid for I could see the rows of chairs and feared to be the cynosure of many eyes. I need not have worried for not one glance held pity, only smiling and sincere greeting. After all, there were so many on the ship that I held no interest for them, except the interest of sharing one common cause for rejoicing.
Simon and Paul awaited our coming in a big room on the quiet side of the ship. An officer, from whom I unaccountably did not cringe, bowed us in and made us know that we would have no audience. I tried to hold my head high against disappointment, but a sudden rush of fear and prayerful humility made me lower my eyes and stop just inside the door. My mother’s hand encouraged me forward, but I could not move.
“O my mother, I cannot! Please, please take me back—” there was the gentle reassuring pressure, then she was gone.
“Too late for returning, Tanya! Go forward, not back!” Her words were lightly spoken, yet they echoed in my ears and gave me courage at last. So that when he spoke, I slowly lifted my head and looked into the face of the one who had promised to be my only passport into a new life ahead.
“Do not be afraid, little one. Come, sit here. We have much to talk over.” There was matter-of-factness in his voice after the first kind admonition.
I had looked at him, yet I had not really seen him for my head was awhirl. Seated opposite him, in the unaccustomed luxury of a big, easy chair I stole another glance his way. My heart leaped within me for he was strongly handsome, surpassing my most cherished dreams. At the moment his eyes were lowered to his hands. It was in that moment I knew that he, too, felt the embarrassment and strangeness of the situation. It gave me boldness so that I did not flinch when his eyes were lifted to mine. His every feature was decidedly Jewish in a lean, strong way, but surprisingly his eyes were the deepest blue I had ever seen. I forgot to listen as I wondered and was glad for their blueness.
Presently I became aware of his silence, of a sparkling light in his eyes. I knew then that I had not been listening, that I had been staring with frank appraisal at him all the time.
“I—I’m sorry! But your eyes—they are so blue!”
“So they are, aren’t they? I hope you don’t mind.” He could be merry, too, yet he would not laugh if it made me uncomfortable. I sat back more relaxed and I wished I could let laughter come to cover my confusion.
“Oh, no, I like them—I mean blue eyes. I—you were talking. I am sorry that I did not hear.”
“Perhaps what I was saying was of little importance, but there is so little time that we must have a few things settled today. I think the little mother has told you what arrangements were made. I am deeply sorry that they had to be made without your knowledge or consent—” My heart skipped a beat. Could it be that he was sorry that the arrangements had been made at all? “You were ill and unable to understand or acquiesce one way or another even if there had been time to acquaint you with the details. Even now there is barely time to outline briefly just what the arrangements were and why. As you already know, I think, there can be only a limited number of emigrants to the new land. It is a land of promise, but there is much work to be done to make its promise ours. So only those who are strong and who have professions or talents along needful lines can be admitted. It is up to us who are chosen to prepare the way for the others. It will not be an easy life. There will be many hardships and disappointments, perhaps even heartbreak.”
I nodded my understanding while shrugging off the hardships because no hardship could equal the hopeless drudgery of the past years.
“My uncle has always wanted to return to our land. He had foreseen or read rightly our danger and if we had listened many might have been saved the misery and awfulness—” Could that then be the answer, not God who was willful, but the people refusing to heed when God called them? I shook myself free of such thinking. Paul had not mentioned God, only Simon. Whence had come that fleeting thought of God?
“He has worked out plans for re-making the land. Many have tried them and his plans have been good. So it was only natural that he be allowed to go in. You probably remember he was your father’s cousin and felt responsible for his kinsman’s widow. Not only that but a man needs a woman when he carves out a new life. A man can build a house, but only a woman can build a home. There is no dream of a family to perpetuate his name. However, I bear his name and so he asked me to join him. I have spent many years in the United States studying and practicing medicine. While there I have learned many things and have lost some things, too. It made me hesitate, but Uncle Simon still urged me to come, even after I explained some of my new doubts and desires. But that is beside the point.” He smiled wryly. “I came, and we were preparing to depart when word come that his wife’s daughter had been found. Naturally there could be no thought of going without her. There were difficulties. She was not Simon’s daughter and therefore could not claim dependency. Nor was she strong enough to merit a passport as a regular emigrant.”
“My mother told me about—about your kindness.” I wanted to stop his recital. It was bad enough to know how much I owed him even if he refuted his offer. Even if t
hey sent me back, I had had rest and nourishment enough to give me new hope, and a new lease on life. I was sure that he was reviewing the story in order to more easily break the news that he would not, after all, go through with the plans. I lifted my hand, touching my hair which was as soft as a baby’s hair. Perhaps he guessed my thoughts, perhaps he was remembering the way I had looked when first I came on board. At any rate his eyes twinkled and he chuckled.
“You certainly don’t look old enough to be a bride. Your short hair and big eyes make you look like an elf or a child. I am going to find it hard getting used to thinking of you as an adult, I’m afraid.”
All my pent-up fears and emotions burst through at his words. I did not mind his finding me funny. I wept because, in spite of my funniness, he still intended giving me the right to enter the Promised Land.
“You mean you—you really mean to—you still want to keep the bargain? Now that you’ve seen me, you are still willing to—to—” I blubbered into his astonished ears.
“But of course, little one! Have you had that to worry about, too? It is so strange that knowing your mother I should wish to marry her daughter?” he jibed gently. My tears continued to flow as he laughed. “I mean, I expected to marry her, but at this rate it looks as if she intended to drown herself rather than marry me!”
Then I felt his hand soft and gentle, but with a certain firmness behind it, resting on my head. I knew that he was not laughing now. I could not see his face, had seen it for such a short time, but there was that in the quiet hand that made me know that he understood and would wait for the storm to pass—might even wait for the time of growth to pass and oh, how I needed to grow, learn and forget.
The happenings of the next few hours were misted over, scarcely noticed. After he had taken his hand from my head and the others had come in I continued to feel its weight comforting me. I knew, but vaguely, that we were going through the age-old marriage ceremonies. I heard my mother’s soft promptings and I must have heeded them. I could not have spoken of my own volition for the stress of the moment had been too great, my weakness too great. Yet, even the mental confusion and turmoil possessed for me a certain sweetness and peace. I knew that at last I was safe, that the uncertainty was over. Perhaps that knowledge made me relax so utterly and so completely.
They slipped me through back ways and into the seclusion of our corridor. They had seen my relapse and they knew that I would not be able to face the congratulations and joyous well-wishing of an exuberant people. Never are they more joyous than over a wedding, unless, indeed, it be over a birth! But the weakness that had taken hold of me, with Paul’s quiet reassurance, did not at once leave me. I sank deep into the bed and into a dreamless stupor. There were no nightmares or hideous memories, not even dreams of wishes or hopes. When I awakened suddenly, I heard my mother’s soft voice again.
“She has slept so long, Paul. Are you sure she is all right?’” I heard the anxious questioning note, but before I could speak I heard Paul’s quiet answer.
“Of course, little mother. She was weak and overwrought—the excitement and relief were too much for her, that is all. The sleep will do wonders for her. She had been carrying a load of worries. The burdened mind cannot recuperate easily. We should have guessed that she might have doubts and fears since she has known nothing but uncertainty and terror for so long. Once the fears were dissolved she relaxed, and relaxing she slept. You will see when she awakens that she will be strong and well—and there will be no more relapses, I am sure.”
“Yes, she had fears. My foolish baby! She was afraid that you—that she—” for once my mother’s voice faltered.
“I know,” he said softly. “She is very much a woman, little mother, in spite of her child’s body and baby face. We must help her to know that ‘the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell—’” I heard my mother finishing softly through her tears,
“‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away—Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.’”
I heard the door close quietly behind them. He had not spoken the last words but perhaps, perhaps the time might yet come when he would. He had been right—I was all woman, all Rebekah, for surely it was not mere gratitude and weakness that stirred within me in answer to that ageless song of love!
3
TOWARD THE RISING SUN
UNTIL THE DAY BREAK and the shadows flee away,’” I whispered the words while standing on the deck and looked across at the nearing shore. I was glad for the rising sun, for swiftly I felt Paul’s eyes turn toward me and I knew how his mind had gone back to the words that came before in the song, “My beloved is mine, and I am his.”
“I am glad that the shadows have flown away, little Tanya. Don’t let them come back. There will always be a sunrise—keep your mind and your heart on it and there will never need to be shadows again.”
I loved the quiet way that he had directed my thoughts. Yet I could not help wondering if he had guessed the reason for my lips speaking those words. Could he have guessed that I had overheard when my mother added the words and I had wished that they might have come from his lips, instead? Mother had been right indeed when she had called me foolish. I could not still the beating of my heart or subdue the attraction that I was beginning to feel for this man who had offered me life, peace, and security when he had given me his name that I, too, might enter the Promised Land.
He had been right when he had said that with care, rest, and food I would be strong again. When I awakened from the relaxing sleep after the ceremony I had been filled with a new and wonderful strength. I marveled that I had even been so weak or so filled with fears. Nightmares and horror of the years of war and oppression had become less of reality and more the dreams of the fever that had raged within me. Thus quickly can a mind which is given hope and security escape its prison and become free again. Or, is that given only to my people with their exuberant spirits to so readily accept the now and forget the past?
Yet we do not forget easily, either. For out of the past had come the traditions that made Simon feel a kinsman’s responsibility toward my mother. And it was out of the past, too, that had come the pattern for Paul to follow in that he chose me whom he had not seen and did not refuse me when he did see me. Like Rebekah I could not resist the wonder and the strangeness of being chosen. I owed Paul my love. If he asked for it, I would not withhold it.
So we stood, feasting our eyes on the city that rose up out of the sea. There were no serpent mists about it. It lay like a jewel, a pearl under a cloudless sky; a fairy city, so beautiful and strange were its lines. I had become so used to broken and battered buildings, to heaps of piled-up rubble, to jagged holes and hideous scars of war-torn cities that this city, with its tall, clean buildings, seemed a part of a dream. The soft flush of the morning added to that feeling of unreality. Blue were the shadows beneath the pink lights touching the white, cream and gray of the stucco and cement. So might a huge, uneven pearl glow with hidden fire.
“It’s like a beautiful pearl.” I breathed my thoughts aloud.
“Yes, very like a pearl, Tanya. In more ways than one. Out of irritation and discomfort the pearl is formed—out of oppression and bitter experience this city has been born and many like it. If we had never been hurt or abused we might never have built cities and homes in this, our own land.”
“But why?” Surely anyone would be glad to come to a city like that and to live in a land so full of promise. More than that it was good to look on the city and on the land and feel that it belonged to oneself and to one’s own.
“It is a strange question. I have no answer, my Tanya.” My ears seemed to catch and to be more interested in the one word that he used before my name than in what else he would
say. I clung to the possessive sweetness of the personal pronoun, scarely hearing his words. “God gave the land to our fathers—but He gave other things to them, too. Perhaps we have not been the good stewards He wanted or gave us talent to be. We have a strange yearning for the fleshpots, the wealth, the position, the power and the knowledge out there in the world. Perhaps it is because we know that we have the ability to acquire so much of all of them that makes us not content with using those abilities to build our own land.”
“You have been out where you could use your talents, yet you have come here.”
“I know. I sometimes wonder if I shall be satisfied and not wish for those other things. You see Uncle Simon has coached me well on what to expect. I love my people, and believe that this is their land—but I wonder if I love it enough to labor and to sacrifice, as we shall have to do, if we are to bring it into blossom again. It has lain long without hands to till and help it. This city is only one in a land where there could be many. Beyond it there are deserts and wild places and ruins. No, I have not seen it, but I have read and studied enough to make me know that it will not be easy.”
“But, at least, there will be no ‘monsters’ to trample and stop us; the wildness and the ruins will not be of man’s making, not with guns and shells and bombs and killing!” I could not see the desert which he painted, not with that city of pearl lying across the narrow strip of water.
“Let us hope you are right, little Tanya. Perhaps we will be allowed to return to our land, to fulfill its promises unmolested, but there are others who claim the land for their own, you know.”
“Oh, you mean Ishmael—but he was not the son of the promise! He had no right to the land. Surely you do not mean that his claim is going to bother us?”
The Lost City Page 3